Download - Werne Hamacher- The Relation
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 142
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 242
29
The Relation
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r
Goethe Universitaumlt Frankfurt am Main
Translated by Roland Veacutegsouml
What relation
e one that allows to ask which relation is being talked aboutmdashin what
sense and if it is a ldquorelationrdquo at all erefore the one that allows to ques-
tion and to speak Clearly the question ldquoWhat relationrdquo is not asked
primarily because we are speaking of a relation that is still unknown and
is therefore astonishing but because there is something being spoken at
all something addressed and addressing touching and entering into a
relation
Does this mean that the question concerning the relation is in truth
no question at all but an answer And then does this mean that the
answer is not an answer to a question but an answer to something that
[is excerpt from a longer text entitled ldquoDas Verhaumlltnisrdquo in German is in some passages among other things a response
to Rodolphe Gascheacutersquos essays ldquoOn the Nonadequate Traitrdquo ( Of Minimal ings Stanford 983089983097983097983097) and ldquoe Eclipse of Differencerdquo
( Inventions of Difference Harvard 983089983097983097983092)]
CR The New Centennial Review Vol 8 No 3 2009 pp 29ndash69 983145983155983155983150 1532-687xcopy 2009 Michigan State University Board of Trustees All rights reserved
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 342
T h e R e l a t i o n30
we cannot call either a question or an answer yet something that speaks
with and accompanies every question and every answer
ldquoSpeaks withrdquo and ldquoremains silent withrdquo and who knows maybe even
remains mute or becomes muted in every question and answer In any
case the difficulty of the relation that we are speaking about lies in that
we must already speak from it when we speak about it We can call what
we call a ldquorelationrdquo only because another ldquorelationrdquo already precedes it
that remains unnamed
We may also say that this other ldquorelationrdquo always accompanies the nameor the notion of the ldquorelationrdquo whenever we use it and allow the syn-
tax of our statements (of our ldquorelationsrdquo [Verhaumlltnisse] and ldquobehaviorsrdquo
[Verhalten] with each other) to be determined by this name or notion
Regardless of whether this other ldquorelationrdquo precedes or accompanies its
naming evidently there must be a particular relation between the lin-
guistic expression ldquorelationrdquo and the ldquorelationrdquo that makes this expression
possible in the first place But the relation between the one and the other
relation whether that of a ldquobeforerdquo or a ldquowithrdquo cannot be defined by the
concept that we form of it since the latter is first rendered possible by
the other relation
erefore we will have to assume first that there is a ldquorelationrdquo beyond
the one that we designate with that name Furthermore we will also
have to assume that this further relation allows the so-called ldquorelationrdquo
in the first place And third we must assume that this relation beyondthe named and nameable relations on its part does not speak in that it
allows speech and rather holds itself back with speech withholds speech
and only this way withholding it preserves it as speech
e other the further relation of which and from which we are speaking
would not be then a simple relation ( Relation) nor a relation of relations
( Relation von Relationen) It would be a relation (Verhaumlltnis ) that we could
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 442
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 542
T h e R e l a t i o n32
holds all other relations but not because it preserves the fullness of a
capability and releases from it all imaginable possibilities and realities
rather because it is itself a ldquonotrdquo of a capability and thereby makes it
possible to miss its capabilities
So what about this ldquoholdingrdquomdasha holding which is supposed to be at the
same time a carrying and as such this holding and carrying should be
something steady durable enduring yet without being capable of being
So far we have always thought language from amdashrarely clearly definedmdash
capability But since this clearly fails to grasp the structure of language
we might not be able to continue to think it from what corresponds tothis capability this potentia or essentia as substance or carrying hold We
may not continue to think it as a thing or as something as a being even
as the highest that grounds everything Such a relation the other and
further relation of which we are speaking such a mis-relation must offer
a completely other ldquoholdrdquo that offers nothing but a ldquohaltrdquo
erefore this hold is notmdashit is not a beingmdashbut a not mdasha not to beings
and so that which first releases beings as such
What we call language must be thought from this holding of the ldquonotrdquo
from this holding back without a hold and this hold without hold We
could then describe it if it is possible to do so at all without the risk of
misunderstanding or self-misunderstanding as the relationmdashdas Verhaumllt-
nis mdashand more precisely the relation of all relations mdashdas Verhaumlltnis aller
Verhaumlltnisse
We are approaching Heidegger and his ldquolanguagerdquo As far as I know
he was the only one who spoke of Verhaumlltnis in the sense of this emphatic
polysemy the only one who did not use this wordmdashthis word of wordsmdash
in the usual meaning of the German concept the only one who used
it always also in the sense of the Greek epocheacute and the Latin retentio
and thereby turned it into a neologism that could hardly be any less
ldquoGermanicrdquo In ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo he spoke of the ldquoepocheacute of Beingrdquo
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 33
as the ldquoholding to itself with the truth of its essencerdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) In the
ldquoLetter on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo to the question how Being relates to ek-sistence
he gave the answer ldquoBeing itself is the relation [das Verhaumlltnis ] to the
extent that It holds to itself [an sich haumllt ] ek-sistencerdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983093983091)
And in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo the essence of languagemdashin modern high
German language as happeningmdashis written as Ver-haumlltnis and is thought
from what he calls the event of appropriation ( Ereignis ) which is defined
along with language in the following way ldquoFor that event appropriating
holding self-retaining is the relation of all relationsrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093)
All this quite frankly is so awkwardly formulated that one longs for aHeideggerian Dialect Dictionary to translate it into at least a usable if
not a usual language
Dictionaries list meanings but not relations of tension not the paths and
movements between them which can only be presented in sentences and
even there not without losses and additions To approach this Verhaumllt-
nis mdashthis relation this retention abstention and holding to itselfmdashand
thereby approach language and if we try to do so by the detour of some
of Heideggerrsquos texts we need to strike another path We could describe
this path tentatively and reservedly as that of a ldquocritical variationrdquo and
start it at the point that we have already touched
At the ldquonotrdquo
In the ldquoLetter on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo Heidegger summed up in a few sentenceshis observations on ldquonothingrdquo from Being and Time and from his inaugu-
ral lecture in Freiburg ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo and thereby specifically
rejected the assumption that the ldquonotrdquo could be derived from the ldquonordquo
of an already constituted language ldquoWhat annuls makes itself clear as
something that is not is can be addressed by the lsquonorsquo e lsquonotrsquo in no way
arises from the no-saying of negation Every lsquonorsquo answers to the claim of
the annulment that has become clear Every lsquonorsquo is simply the affirmation
of the lsquonotrsquordquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) First of all this apodictic explanation emphasizes
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 742
T h e R e l a t i o n34
that no-saying can only posit a ldquonotrdquo thatmdashas something said posited
and signifiedmdashis at the same time ldquosomethingrdquo and is not the ldquonotrdquo that
is at stake here Before any no-saying in the sense of a negation through
an act of positing there must have been a ldquonotrdquo that as an address must
have already directed itself to a possible speech if this speech is to be able
to address not only an existing ldquosomethingrdquo but precisely the ldquonotrdquomdashand
especially the ldquonotrdquo in its happening as annulment Although within the
medium of language the ldquonordquo can be said every such ldquonordquo as a statement
can refer only to ldquosomethingrdquo that is already given and contained in the
form of representation Furthermore as an instrument of language this
ldquonordquo itself must be a given for representation erefore this ldquonordquo wouldbe an exemplary word for a commercium among present-at-hand beings
which can only count with what is sayable but has no access to what it
no longer or not yet is and thus has no access to the factum that it is and
to the way it is not With the derivation of the ldquonotrdquo from the word of a
constituted language something represented is derived from another
representation e ldquonotrdquo is converted into a being and thereby misses
the point that it is precisely not this namely a being
ldquoNotrdquo is underivable But it is not solely the ldquonotrdquo that cannot be said
by any language and its ldquonotrdquo It is also the ldquonotrdquo that must inexplicitly
speak withmdashremain silent with and fall mute withmdashin every language as
the not-sayable e ldquonot rdquo is sensu strictu a not-word It is the counter-
linguistic the counter-word as such through which every language can
become language If it is a language it is the language from this ldquonotrdquo that
is missing from it and resists it
Language is the ldquonordquo to the ldquonotrdquo that precedes it and must precede it
in itself as its own proper ldquonotrdquo if it is to speak as language at all and
speaking is to be in the movement from its not -yet to its not -anymore
is is why Heidegger says of language that it is the answer to the move-
ment of the ldquonotrdquo that it can only speak in response to the address of the
ldquonotrdquo and in its turn address its not-ness But if it is an answer it is not
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 35
so as the existing acknowledgement of an existing object or a content of
representation but only in the way that as language it itself corresponds
to the ldquonihilationrdquo or ldquoannulmentrdquo that addresses it
Language cannot speak but by letting the ldquonotrdquo that addresses it happen
in languagersquos own happening e residuum of correspondence theory
that persists in this explanation demands however that we conceive of
language as the answer and correspondence to the counter-linguistic
ldquonotrdquo and understand every ldquonordquo as only the affirmation of the ldquonotrdquo and at
the same time understand the happening of language itself and in general
as a ldquonordquo as the affirmation of the ldquonotrdquo and of nihilation Language how-ever corresponds to the nihilationmdashand the correspondence dissolves
itself in itmdashonly in such a way that it ent-spricht it corresponds to itself
as language as not-saying It loses its linguistic nature (ent-sprachlicht )
as it evacuates its contents as well as its forms and it allows its being to
become a not-saying and with this not-saying the naked ldquothatrdquo of saying
Saying ldquonordquo to itself as a being in all its moments language speaks and it
speaks beyond itself and the totality of beings transcendence of language
in its being as the movement of ldquonotrdquo
is is why Heidegger can write describing the movement of Being and
along with Being also that of language ldquoBeing annulsmdashas Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096
983090983095983091) It annuls as language in as much as it departs from itself as an exist-
ing correlation to other beings and it is evicted from what it can be as an
instrumental structure of reference ek-sistence of language into a Being
without beings
is movement that language never performs through acts of positing by
its speakers this movement that occurs not only occasionally and never
intentionally or caused by motives this movement that defines language
as the language expelled from language was defined by Heidegger in his
Freiburg lecture as the language of anxiety as the angst-ridden language
At the end of a short description of an experience of anxiety this reduc-
tion of language to its most properly own is characterized in the following
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 942
T h e R e l a t i o n36
terms ldquoNot a hold remains [ Es bleibt kein Halt ] In the slipping away of
beings only this lsquonotrsquo [kein] remains and comes over usrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983096983096)983089 e
ldquoessential impossibility of determiningrdquo beings as a whole (983096983096) that we
experience in anxiety leaves nothing enduring nothing that speech or
action could offer to hold on to no hold apart from this ldquonotrdquo of the hold
the hold without hold ldquoNotrdquo is the word for the language no longer of be-
ings but for language as it happens as a partingmdashparting from everything
that can be defined represented and held It speaks only by saying that
nothing remains to be said and therefore it corresponds to its own ldquonotrdquo
still speaks speaks for the first time and speaks as language even beyond
what in and through it is definable ldquoNonerdquo ( Kein) is not a word nor isit a mark it is the counter-word and the counter-mark to all that could
be merely stated and signified But as this anti-word ( Anti-Wort ) it is the
answer ( Antwort ) of bare speech to the merely speakable It is the primary
Ur-word the word-word as such the only word of language language
itself as this single word as it exactly says its Sein its ldquordquoBeingrdquo
ldquoNot a hold remains In the slipping away of beings only this lsquonotrsquo remains
and comes over usrdquo ldquoNotrdquo does not say anything about Being It speaks
itself as Being Being happens in the ldquonotrdquo and nowhere else It is the
hold without hold the up- and with-holding dwelling ( Auf-ent-halt ) that
language is as the house of Being the only ethos Language speaks only
when it becomes this house of the ldquonot rdquo in all its idioms in every word
and every silence and thereby gains its Being as that which is not a being
ldquo Not rdquo contracts the individual appearances in their nihilation into the
whole of a ldquothererdquo It allows to step back from the world assembled underthe deletion mark of the ldquonotrdquo it is the word of the epocheacute of every word
and every world Still precisely as speaking beyond all merely real and
possible words it speaks as one that does not represent anything does
not declare signify or does anything but simply happens it is the ldquothatrdquo
of its self and as this ldquothatrdquo it is the horizon of Being within which every
being can first be what it is It is the word of apocalypse the revelation
of the possibility of all worlds and words Epocheacute and revelation the re-
turn of beings into their ldquonotrdquo and the rise of Being In the ldquo not rdquo beings
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 37
and Being separate and (d)emerge as different ldquo Not rdquo is the word of the
ontological difference
A theory of the origin of language and at the same time of the origin of
Being and beings with language ldquo Nonerdquo or not would be then the fiat the
finite not the originating but the witnessing the Dasein-opening fiat of
the homo humanus of whose humanitas Heidegger speaks in the ldquoLetter
on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo Although here the connection between the origin of
language and the ldquonotrdquo remains only a suggestion it defines the gesture
that carries Heideggerrsquos thought in general namely that something
emerges as something first in its slippage For example the hammer inthe becoming useless of the ldquoequipmentrdquo the ldquoworldrdquo in the loss of reason
in anxiety the possible wholeness of Dasein in ldquobeing-toward-deathrdquo the
work of art in the rejection of the usual coherence of the world the Being
of the word in its ldquoapartnessrdquo and its ldquoinfirmityrdquo
e ldquonot rdquo reveals nothing and it is as this revelation a historical moment
in which nothing will be seen apart from the ldquonotrdquo of seeing ldquoBeing is
more in being than any beingsrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
However the ldquonot rdquo can reveal the nothing only because as a citationmdash
Heidegger puts it between quotation marksmdashfrom the inner- worldly
discourse of Dasein it opens up the distance that allows Dasein to relate
to the world as a whole as its ldquothererdquo (983089983097983097983096 983089983088983097) e ldquonordquo as the word of
transcendence is at the same time that of the difference between Being
and the beings of the world It can be both transcendence and differenceonly as exposed from every determinable meaning And yet this ldquonot rdquo
does mean But it does not mean what ldquosomethingrdquo or ldquoonerdquo ldquocoverrdquo or
ldquoLazarusrdquo means but rather always their and its own ldquonotrdquo Heideggerrsquos
ldquonotrdquo however does not remain only a residue of innerworldliness and
meaningfulness It also follows a direction in which it approaches Dasein
relates to its language allows its affirmation and even its recognition
and allows Dasein to be bound to the ldquonotrdquo in its ldquoyesrdquo and ldquonordquo ldquoEvery
lsquonorsquo is simply the affirmation of the lsquonotrsquo Every affirmation consists in
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1142
T h e R e l a t i o n38
recognition Recognition lets that toward which it goes come toward itrdquo
(983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) Just as in Hegel in the ldquoLetter on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo the ldquonotrdquo is
the ldquonotrdquo of something But even when in an ek-sistential conversion it
turns itself into the something of a nihilation this nihilation remains
as counter-phenomenon oriented toward something and remains ca-
pable of being grasped in an answer which even though a citation a
remainder a residue and a trace remains still the determined trace of
a determined being and not the ldquoessential impossibility of determiningrdquo
beings as a whole (983089983097983097983096 983096983096) In contradistinction to his claim Heidegger
does not describe the ldquonotrdquo itself but the ldquonotrdquo of a self Even though the
ldquonot rdquomdashldquoonly this lsquonotrsquordquo (983096983096)mdashis supposed to be the ldquonot rdquo of the hold ona determinable meaning and a determinable direction it moves toward
the transcendental ldquonordquo of language and toward the dwelling in its house
it remains a directional ldquonotrdquo
And the other way around if the ldquonordquo of language is the ldquothe affirmation of
the lsquonotrsquordquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) then this ldquonotrdquo can be affirmed only as the one that
language moves toward e spoken ldquonordquo according to Heideggerrsquos words
is an already addressed ldquonordquo in which only the ldquonotrdquo as an intentional
object will be affirmed language retains for Heidegger an intentional
structure even in its epocheacute Accordinglymdashand in fact in the sense of
a correspondence in a relational pairmdashthe ldquonotrdquo in Heideggerrsquos ldquoLetterrdquo
is attuned to the affirmation of its affirmation It is an intentionally
disposed and moreover affirmative ldquonotrdquo Only this way can the whole
domain of meaningfulness be thought in it as simultaneously suspended
and founded
Furthermore if the recognition of the ldquonotrdquo as Heidegger writes ldquolets
that toward which it goes come toward itrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) the recognition
becomes the place of the advent of the ldquonotrdquo and the intentional ldquonotrdquo
becomes not only linguistically affirmable but moreover recognizable
and locatable in its recognition In all these structures the ldquonotrdquo appears
to be reduced to something less than what as the ldquoannulmentrdquo should
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 39
refuse every recognition and remain placeless wordless and non-inten-
tional Since ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091) the
ldquonotrdquo should be more nihilating than any nihilation within the horizon of
intentional acknowledgement It should remain irreducible to relational
pairs and it should withdraw itself from such alternatives as speaking to
and turning away from presence to and absence from Since it is ldquonotrdquo
it should not remain restricted to pressure constriction and anxiety It
should each time happen as that which in these relations releases from
them and makes them possible in the first place
ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquomdashHeideggerrsquos catchy formulaemploys a comparative to describe the relation between Being and beings
and thus the relation as such It compares the two that should remain
absolutely incomparable It speaks of Being in the language of beings
and says that it is a Being of enhanced intensity e formula however
remains ambiguous It says on the one hand that being is in being and
even more in being than beings On the other hand however it says that
it is in being only in such a way that it transgresses the measure and
range of beings releases itself from all beings and gives up every hold on
them e relation that this formula speaks of is therefore the relation of
the dissolution of every relation of transcendence into the relationless
and of not only quantitative and merely relative but of the ontological
difference between Being and beings Catchy as it is it speaks only the
slippage of Being out of every form of every existing languagemdashand
hyperbolically speaks beyond its own speech Language in difference to
language language of difference language out of it
e syntagm ldquobeing more in being than any beingsrdquo is at the same time
a hypertagm It offers a proposition and steps outside everymdasheven its
ownmdashproposition
Horrifying (entzetzliche) language Every language is displacing (en-
tzetzlich)
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1342
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 41
of the structure of intentionality which is too strongly emphasized in his
thoughts on the ldquonotrdquo to have merely slipped into them For Heidegger
it is important that the ldquonotrdquo is not a nihil negativum or absolutum not
an empty ldquonotrdquo merely posited by a ldquosubjectrdquo or an ldquoIrdquomdasheven if posited
like in Fichte and Hegel through a not-positing For if it were a positum
it would not only be a logicized ldquonotrdquo but also a something (ens rationis )
and so precisely what it is not At the same time it is also important for
Heidegger that the happening of the ldquonotrdquomdashwhich albeit always pos-
sible still ldquorarely enoughrdquo really is (983089983097983097983096 983096983096)mdashdoes not disappear in an
annihilation once again in such a case the ldquonothingrdquo would not be a
ldquonotrdquo it would not be ldquothererdquo it could not be experienced as a happeningor the happening of the withdrawal from happening Joined together the
two observations can be understood in such a way that the ldquonotrdquo cannot
be either a ldquosomethingrdquo or the fait accompli of a mere absence It opens
itself as the zone of separation between beings and empty nothing and
it can be the ldquonotrdquo only as that which emerges in the experience of the
departure or slipping away of all beings e experience of this ldquonotrdquo and
the ldquonotrdquo of this experiencemdashand an abyss opens up in the reversibility
or irreversibility of these expressions and their double genitivesmdashis the
decisive pre-predicative synthesis It is not an archeacute an in itself unified
principle It is structurally an-archic (and in this sense originary) since it
is a synthesis only because of the split that crosses it Heidegger describes
this bifurcation as a ldquorepelling reference toward beings [abweisende
Verweisung ]rdquo983090 (983089983097983097983096 983097983088) as a reference to beings through which they are
brought together and at the same time repelled as a whole At the same
time as this ldquonotrdquo that formulates itself as a ldquonordquo and in Heideggerrsquosdefinition as reference carries an emphatically linguistic trait the experi-
ence of Being itself emerges as the happening of this repelling reference
e ldquonotrdquo is the in itself differentiated archi-disjunction
e separation therefore takes place between beings as a whole and
Being and not between the ldquonotrdquo and beingmdashthis separation is accom-
plished or is (or ldquoexistsrdquo) in the ldquonotrdquo ldquoe nothing itself annulsrdquo (983089983097983097983096
983097983088) it is what happens in the repelling reference and it is that it happens
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1542
T h e R e l a t i o n42
as this reference Since the ldquonotrdquo would not be without its happening
(without its nihilation) the previous phrase can be made more precise
ldquoBeing nihilatesmdashas beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
is is to say Being is always already not-anymore and always not-yet It
is in that it is the ldquonotrdquo of itself As difference from itself it is at the same
time the difference from everything and in everything that exists
e title of ldquoBeingrdquo in Heideggerrsquos thinking belongs only to the movement
of the ldquonotrdquo to the separation the difference as inter-rift (Unter-Schied )
the ontological difference is is why we find in the preface to ldquoOn theEssence of Groundrdquo the following ambiguous formulation ldquoe onto-
logical difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is
programmatic formula can be misunderstood because it places the ldquonotrdquo
between beings and Being as if they were two beings of different nature
or intensity But this ldquonotrdquo is to be thought as the ldquobetweenrdquo with which
Being emerges as differentiated from all even the highest of all beings
Being is what is resulting from and in the separation that happens in the
ldquonotrdquo and thus itself is the ldquobetweenrdquo the difference erefore Heide-
gger can write ldquonothing and Being the samerdquo ldquoHolding itself out into the
nothing Dasein is in each case already beyond beings as a whole Such
being beyond beings we call transcendence if [Dasein] were not in
advance holding itself out into the nothing then it could never adopt a
stance toward beings nor even toward itself rdquo (983097983089)
For Heidegger to transcend means above all to transcend into a ldquonotrdquoand therefore to transcend into a ldquonotrdquo of even this transcending It does
not mean indication and relation ldquotordquo but repelling and repelling reference
ldquofromrdquo as well as repelling of all reference in-predication ir-relation
dis-intention Transcendingmdashif it is not already connected through
a continuous movement with a homogenous other and thereby in no
need of transcendingmdashmust transcend into a nec trans and can only be
a transcending into the un-enterable it must be attranscendence
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 43
ldquoLe pas au-delagraverdquo writes Blanchot step beyond not beyond step beyond
to the not of the step
Only as transition into the not-going can it reach the zone of difference in
its own movement where first a possible toward of this movement opens
up as a relation to something and an intentional attitude to beings as
beings becomes possible us intentions are grounded in a structure of
transcendence that in its turn is defined by a ldquonotrdquo a halt a putting on
hold or a suspension Only this arrest offers the possibility of a relation
to something only in this suspension happens not something but only
the that of it happening
e ldquonotrdquo of this in-transcendence therefore can happen in two ways
the retreating reference to something and the experience that the hap-
pening of this reference is other than and different from the reference
conceptualized as a relation and its correlates
is arresting of the ldquonotrdquo in in-transcendence clearly defines the mini-
mal structure of language Whenever and in whatever way language is
spoken there is reference that distances But beyond this something else
also happens that cannot be reduced to this (repelling) reference and the
agents emerging from it the referents and their relations to each other
Whether absolutely novel or older than old it is incommensurable with
them e intentional attitude only exists as crossed out by the event of
its own epocheacute
erefore it appears to be insufficient and even erroneous to speak of
ldquothe claim of nihilation that has come to the clearingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) and
to say that ldquonihilation first requires the lsquonorsquo as what is to be said in the
letting-be of beingsrdquo (983090983095983091) is phrase attributes a linguistic structure
to the ldquonotrdquo that is at the same time also denied Language is defined as
something claimedmdashnot claimed by a pre-linguistic ldquoexistentiell rdquo beyond
of language but by its own exterior limits and thus by what cannot raise
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1742
T h e R e l a t i o n44
claims Heidegger therefore goes around in circlesmdasheven if we consider
all the complications of going going over and inaccessibility He goes
against himself and he might be going that way because he thinks lan-
guage as a response
e commentary on the structure of transcending (namely that it must
be that of in-transcending) and intentionality (that it must be suspended
in dis-intending) made it clear that these movements for Heidegger
always emerge first in their ldquonotrdquo and their suspension In very much
the same way we could clarify the structure of the claim as Anspruch
as Heidegger understands it not by reading this word according to themeasure of its dictionary meaning but by reading it based on its context
with an emphatically stressed An speaking onto
en the claim raised by the ldquonotrdquomdashfrom nowhere by nobody and mind
you nevermdashwould be a ldquospeakingrdquo onto and in the proximity of language
and its words and particles of negation which persisting in the onto
would never make it out of this proximity to reach language e claim
would be a speaking onto because it would never be a speech in the sense
of a statement or a performative act It would always be en route or on
the way to language An-spruch would be toward language what language
itself is not and that it itself is not presentmdashit would be the irruption of
language its start
In fact according to Heideggerrsquos text ldquothe claim of nihilationrdquo cannot be
more than this cannot be language For he says of this claim that it callsfor the ldquonordquo as what is to be said but never as something already said
never already given in or by language rather as a ldquonordquo that remains still
and always yet to be said and as what is to be said remains forever im-
minent in every possible future Speaking onto and speaking its ldquonot rdquo onto
language the claim would be the retentive relation in which language is
kept away from itself but at the same time held to and held back from
itself and sustained and held in this holding onto and holding back But
unlike what an obvious misunderstanding would suggest this sustaining
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 45
does not hold in potentia as something always merely ldquopossiblerdquo but
never ldquorealrdquo Rather it holds on this side of all modal categories in statu
nascendi et moriendi (as Celan writes in an explicit reference to Heidegger
in a letter to Werner Weber) held out into the happening of language as
perpetual beginning (983089983097983097983095 983091983097983096)
is understanding of the speaking-onto of the ldquonotrdquo also clarifies the
structure of intention It would not be some already given relation of an
already constituted consciousness to a content of consciousness but the
irruption of these relations in their pre-withholding and therefore inten-
tion only arising out of the freedom from such a relation and the opennessto it us every An- that Heidegger writes is to be read not merely as a
ldquoclose tordquo or ldquoontordquo in the sense of a given extension but always also as
the echo the Greek ana- as a privative in- or un- In words like Anspruch
(claim) or Anruf (call) or Answesen (presence) Angehen (approach) and
Ankunft (arrival) with every ldquoclose tordquo and ldquoontordquo at the same time a ldquonotrdquo
and a ldquonordquo is also said that relates relation to irrelation reference to ir-
reference direction to indirection An- is the prefix of differencemdashbut
not only of an intra-linguistic difference between different meanings of
one and the same morpheme but before meanings can appear at all the
difference between language speaking its ldquonotrdquo and language speaking
onto something An- not unlike vor- zu- hin- and aus- is the prefix of
ontological difference Whoever uses ldquospeaking ontordquo in this sense in fact
is saying something insufficient and erroneous but is also saying that this
insufficiency and erroneousness belongs to the structure of language
Language itself is the speaking onto language and therefore a speakingonto another language or something other than language
Understood as ldquospeaking ontordquo ( An-spruch) language is its othering ( An-
derung )
e An- is therefore the word and the fore-word of the madness of lan-
guage In the essay ldquoLanguage in the Poemrdquo Heidegger writes as a com-
mentary on the line ldquoe madman [Wahnsinnige] has diedrdquo from Georg
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1942
T h e R e l a t i o n46
Traklrsquos ldquoPsalmrdquo ldquoe word Wahn comes from Old High German wana
which means lsquowithoutrsquo e madman sensesmdashsenses in fact as no one
else does But he remains without the sense of others He is of another
sense Sinnan originally means to travel to strive for to strike a direc-
tion e Indo-Germanic root sent and set means lsquopathrsquo e departed is
the madman because he is on his way somewhere elserdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983091)983091 e
other way that the madman follows is the way into de-parture into a dif-
ference that departs from every possible distinction and discrimination
So Heidegger can write about the stranger who is the madman without
the sense of the other ldquois stranger unfolds the essence of the human
into the beginning of what has not yet come to bearing [Tragen] (OldHigh German giberan) is quieter and hence more stilling element
in the nature of mortals that has not been borne out is what the poet
calls the unbornrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983093)983092 But if the other waymdashthis without-path the
aporiamdashleads into what has not been borne out how do we stand with
what is defined as ldquogesturerdquo in ldquoA Dialogue on Languagerdquo ldquothe originary
gathering of bearing against and bearing tordquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983097) And how does the
thought of the not-yet-born and the unborn relate to the thought of being
as difference which is described in ldquoe Onto-eo-Logical Constitu-
tion of Metaphysicsrdquo in the following way ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ]
alone grants and holds apart the lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming
and the arrival are held toward one another are borne away from and
toward each other e difference of Being and beings as the inter-rift of
overwhelming and arrival is the bearing out [ Austrag ] of the two in un-
concealing keeping in concealment Within this bearing out there prevails
a clearing of what veils and closes itself offmdashand this prevalence bestowsthe being apart and the being toward each other of overwhelming and
arrivalrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)983093
In these sentences it becomes clear that the words ldquoheldrdquo and ldquobornerdquo
are used in the same sense being held in relation (Ver-halten) is being
borne out ( Austrag ) Both describe the movement of differentiation that
Heidegger writes as Unter-Schied (literally inter -rift ) to separate it from
rational distinctions as well as from differences in perception and to
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 47
emphasize the ldquobetweenrdquo that corresponds to the inter of the unter in
the concept of Unterschied (difference) e German word Austrag is the
literal translation of the Latin differentia which in turn is a translation
of the decisive Greek term diaphoraacute In a definition provided in the first
essay on Trakl ldquoLanguagerdquo (in 983089983097983093983088) diaphoraacute difference and bearing
out are juxtaposed with the following commentary ldquoe intimacy of
dif-ference [Unter-Schied ] is the unifying element of the diaphora the
carrying out [ Austrag ] that carries through e dif-ference carries out
world in its worlding carries out things in their thinging us carrying
them out it carries them toward one anotherrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) And a few
sentences later the series of synonymous concepts is extended to includeEreignis the appropriating event gesture as bearing and granting ldquoe
dif-ference for world and thing disclosingly appropriates things into bear-
ing a world it disclosingly appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo
(983090983088983088) In accordance with these connections in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo
relation (Verhaumlltnis ) is thought out of the appropriating event and more
precisely as the appropriative happening of the essence of language ldquoFor
that appropriating holding self-retaining is the relation of all relations
us our sayingmdashalways an answeringmdashremains forever relational Rela-
tion [Ver-haumlltnis as holding to itself] is thought of here always in terms
of the event and no longer conceived in the form of a mere referencerdquo
(983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093) But if relation means appropriation if appropriation means
difference difference means differentia and diaphora and the latter two
mean the carrying out that carries through while carrying out means
bearing the question unavoidable emerges How do the concepts from
the Trakl commentary the unborn and what is not borne out relate to thisseries And how can this series be unified with the other the without-
path and the aporia of madness ese questions are not yet answered
by the remark that Heidegger understood human Dasein in the sense of
ek-sistence as the ecstatic being outside of itself of madness is only
makes the question more urgent of whether this being-in-madness can
be thought with the concepts of difference and ldquobearing outrdquo Or whether
this madness overburdens ldquothe carrying out that carries throughrdquo and the
ldquobearing outrdquo and is therefore thrown away evacuated and forgotten
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2142
T h e R e l a t i o n48
e question therefore is once again whether the madness of ek-sis-
tence of the ldquonotrdquo of Being and of language can still be articulated in a
languagemdasheven if it as outreacute as Heideggerrsquos
Or Is it possible to think the not-borne-out as the not-borne-out More
precisely Does the not-borne-out allow itself to be thought only as a not
yet or beyond that does it allow itself to be thought as a never borne
out
Hence Can the ldquonotrdquo as a ldquoneverrdquomdashas a never of the sayablemdashdefine the
horizon of language And can this ldquoneverrdquo then also provide the tran-scendental horizon of the possibility of what is sayable Is the ldquoneverrdquo
the condition of the happening of language and the horizon of being
Or Can the ldquoneverrdquo be thought But How could it be other than never be
thought Consequently If the ldquoneverrdquo were the pre- and proto-predicative
happening that is called ldquoBeingrdquo and later more precisely coming-over
(Uumlberkommnis ) because it is what ldquoovercomesrdquo sur-prises overwhelms
more than just comes andmdashoverburdens erefore Can the unbearable
be borne and borne out
Otherwise How could Beingmdashwhether as happening history destiny
or coming-overmdashas the unbearable not be borne Because Can the un-
bearable be found at all otherwise unbearable than as always still and
nevertheless borne And then still not erefore Is there not in Being
itself such a still and nevertheless a but that keeps Being at a distancefrom Being and keeps Being out of Being and in this out and apart brings
it together
However What does the ldquooutrdquo mean in ldquoout of each otherrdquo and in ldquobearing
outrdquo if it still contains a ldquotogetherrdquo Does it refer to an originary synthesis
before every predicative synthesis Is not such a reference misleading if it
suggests a ldquotogetherrdquo there where we can encounter only an ldquoout of each
otherrdquomdasheven if we encounter it in the impossibility of its encounter
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 49
In his seminar in Le or in September 983089983097983094983094 Heidegger cites a paragraph
from the chapter ldquoOn the impossibility of a cosmological proof of Godrsquos
existencerdquo from Kantrsquos First Critique ese stunning sentencesmdashwhich
with their evocation of sinking floating without stop and the abyss
may well have contributed to the descriptions of anxiety in Being and
Time (983089983097983094983090) and ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo (983089983097983097983096)mdashspeak explicitly not only
about the groundless but also about the unbearable Kant writes
e unconditioned necessity which we need so indispensably as the ultimate
sustainer of all things is for human reason the true abyss Even eternitymdash
however awful the sublimity with which a Haller might portray itmdashdoes not
make such a dizzying impression on the mind for eternity only measures the
duration of things but it does not sustain that duration One cannot resist the
thought of it but one also cannot bear it that a being might as it were say
to itself ldquoI am from eternity to eternity outside me is nothing except what is
something merely through my will but whence then am Irdquo Here everything
caves in beneath us and the greatest perfection as well as the smallest hover
without hold before speculative reason for which it would cost nothing to
let the one as much as the other disappear without the least obstacle (Kant
983089983097983097983097 983093983095983092 Heidegger 983090983088983088983091 983089983095) God the highest ground of what is appears in
its monologue as an abyss that does not carry it but lets it collapse And Kant
says of this thought of a God that does not carry itself that ldquoone cannot resist
the thought of it but one also cannot bear itrdquo
With this the primal scene of critical transcendental philosophy and
speculative idealism is described an ens realissimum et nesessarium that does not contain the guarantee of its own being a God that is not
a causa sui and sinks in the abyss of its own question after a ground
cannot offer beings any more hold and must therefore pull down in
its own fall the categories that render it thinkable necessary and real
What remains is the scene of the sinking away of the totality of beings
ldquothe greatest perfection as well as the smallestrdquo and with this scene the
form of representation the mere idea of reason in which beings as a
whole together with the categorial structures of their knowability survive
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2342
T h e R e l a t i o n50
under the condition of their transcendentality For the ldquotranscendental
objectrdquomdashthat Kant can only speak of after the sinking away of a world
and its transcendental groundmdashis not an empirical object and not even
an object at all is object as Kant writes ldquotherefore cannot be further
intuited by us and that may therefore be called the non-empirical ie
transcendental object = Xrdquo (983089983097983097983097 983090983091983091) In his Kant book Heidegger calls
this transcendental X ldquoa Nothingrdquo that is at the same time ldquoSomethingrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983096983094) and describes the X as ldquothe horizon of a standing-against is
horizon is indeed not object but rather a Nothing if by object we mean
a being which is apprehended thematicallyrdquo (983096983095) Furthermore ldquoOnly if
the letting-stand-against of is a holding oneself in the nothing canthe representing allow a not-nothing ie something like a being rdquo (983093983089)
In the Kant commentary the ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo ismdashlike
the anxiety scenes in Being and Time in the Freiburg lecture and more
abstractly in the ldquoLetterrdquo in different waysmdashthe gesture of the horizontal-
transcendental constitution of the domain of objectivity and with that
at the same time of no longer onto-theologically founded beings held
in the mere form of representation not a creatio but still a constitutio ex
nihilo e fact that ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo as Kant examines
it in his critical philosophy stops at the form of representation (Vorstel-
lung ) and the idea of reason makes these gestures into a regulatio nihili
and prevents the further analysis of the transcendental form of being
represented and posited
Heidegger took on this further analysis starting with the exposition of
Dasein in Being and Time is analysis must show that the sinking of theens necessarium and with it that of mere being (which does not hold and
bear itself) remain irreducible to the beings of representation the idea
or the concept It must expose the fact that transcendental representa-
tion merely displaces the ldquonotrdquo that it encounters in the sinking of the
highest being instead of engaging it as the decisive content of being To
do justice to the implications of the anxiety-scene and the unbearable
question of God for his ground the classical analytical concept of differ-
ence between ground and the grounded positing and the posited must
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 242
29
The Relation
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r
Goethe Universitaumlt Frankfurt am Main
Translated by Roland Veacutegsouml
What relation
e one that allows to ask which relation is being talked aboutmdashin what
sense and if it is a ldquorelationrdquo at all erefore the one that allows to ques-
tion and to speak Clearly the question ldquoWhat relationrdquo is not asked
primarily because we are speaking of a relation that is still unknown and
is therefore astonishing but because there is something being spoken at
all something addressed and addressing touching and entering into a
relation
Does this mean that the question concerning the relation is in truth
no question at all but an answer And then does this mean that the
answer is not an answer to a question but an answer to something that
[is excerpt from a longer text entitled ldquoDas Verhaumlltnisrdquo in German is in some passages among other things a response
to Rodolphe Gascheacutersquos essays ldquoOn the Nonadequate Traitrdquo ( Of Minimal ings Stanford 983089983097983097983097) and ldquoe Eclipse of Differencerdquo
( Inventions of Difference Harvard 983089983097983097983092)]
CR The New Centennial Review Vol 8 No 3 2009 pp 29ndash69 983145983155983155983150 1532-687xcopy 2009 Michigan State University Board of Trustees All rights reserved
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 342
T h e R e l a t i o n30
we cannot call either a question or an answer yet something that speaks
with and accompanies every question and every answer
ldquoSpeaks withrdquo and ldquoremains silent withrdquo and who knows maybe even
remains mute or becomes muted in every question and answer In any
case the difficulty of the relation that we are speaking about lies in that
we must already speak from it when we speak about it We can call what
we call a ldquorelationrdquo only because another ldquorelationrdquo already precedes it
that remains unnamed
We may also say that this other ldquorelationrdquo always accompanies the nameor the notion of the ldquorelationrdquo whenever we use it and allow the syn-
tax of our statements (of our ldquorelationsrdquo [Verhaumlltnisse] and ldquobehaviorsrdquo
[Verhalten] with each other) to be determined by this name or notion
Regardless of whether this other ldquorelationrdquo precedes or accompanies its
naming evidently there must be a particular relation between the lin-
guistic expression ldquorelationrdquo and the ldquorelationrdquo that makes this expression
possible in the first place But the relation between the one and the other
relation whether that of a ldquobeforerdquo or a ldquowithrdquo cannot be defined by the
concept that we form of it since the latter is first rendered possible by
the other relation
erefore we will have to assume first that there is a ldquorelationrdquo beyond
the one that we designate with that name Furthermore we will also
have to assume that this further relation allows the so-called ldquorelationrdquo
in the first place And third we must assume that this relation beyondthe named and nameable relations on its part does not speak in that it
allows speech and rather holds itself back with speech withholds speech
and only this way withholding it preserves it as speech
e other the further relation of which and from which we are speaking
would not be then a simple relation ( Relation) nor a relation of relations
( Relation von Relationen) It would be a relation (Verhaumlltnis ) that we could
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 442
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 542
T h e R e l a t i o n32
holds all other relations but not because it preserves the fullness of a
capability and releases from it all imaginable possibilities and realities
rather because it is itself a ldquonotrdquo of a capability and thereby makes it
possible to miss its capabilities
So what about this ldquoholdingrdquomdasha holding which is supposed to be at the
same time a carrying and as such this holding and carrying should be
something steady durable enduring yet without being capable of being
So far we have always thought language from amdashrarely clearly definedmdash
capability But since this clearly fails to grasp the structure of language
we might not be able to continue to think it from what corresponds tothis capability this potentia or essentia as substance or carrying hold We
may not continue to think it as a thing or as something as a being even
as the highest that grounds everything Such a relation the other and
further relation of which we are speaking such a mis-relation must offer
a completely other ldquoholdrdquo that offers nothing but a ldquohaltrdquo
erefore this hold is notmdashit is not a beingmdashbut a not mdasha not to beings
and so that which first releases beings as such
What we call language must be thought from this holding of the ldquonotrdquo
from this holding back without a hold and this hold without hold We
could then describe it if it is possible to do so at all without the risk of
misunderstanding or self-misunderstanding as the relationmdashdas Verhaumllt-
nis mdashand more precisely the relation of all relations mdashdas Verhaumlltnis aller
Verhaumlltnisse
We are approaching Heidegger and his ldquolanguagerdquo As far as I know
he was the only one who spoke of Verhaumlltnis in the sense of this emphatic
polysemy the only one who did not use this wordmdashthis word of wordsmdash
in the usual meaning of the German concept the only one who used
it always also in the sense of the Greek epocheacute and the Latin retentio
and thereby turned it into a neologism that could hardly be any less
ldquoGermanicrdquo In ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo he spoke of the ldquoepocheacute of Beingrdquo
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 33
as the ldquoholding to itself with the truth of its essencerdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) In the
ldquoLetter on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo to the question how Being relates to ek-sistence
he gave the answer ldquoBeing itself is the relation [das Verhaumlltnis ] to the
extent that It holds to itself [an sich haumllt ] ek-sistencerdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983093983091)
And in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo the essence of languagemdashin modern high
German language as happeningmdashis written as Ver-haumlltnis and is thought
from what he calls the event of appropriation ( Ereignis ) which is defined
along with language in the following way ldquoFor that event appropriating
holding self-retaining is the relation of all relationsrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093)
All this quite frankly is so awkwardly formulated that one longs for aHeideggerian Dialect Dictionary to translate it into at least a usable if
not a usual language
Dictionaries list meanings but not relations of tension not the paths and
movements between them which can only be presented in sentences and
even there not without losses and additions To approach this Verhaumllt-
nis mdashthis relation this retention abstention and holding to itselfmdashand
thereby approach language and if we try to do so by the detour of some
of Heideggerrsquos texts we need to strike another path We could describe
this path tentatively and reservedly as that of a ldquocritical variationrdquo and
start it at the point that we have already touched
At the ldquonotrdquo
In the ldquoLetter on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo Heidegger summed up in a few sentenceshis observations on ldquonothingrdquo from Being and Time and from his inaugu-
ral lecture in Freiburg ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo and thereby specifically
rejected the assumption that the ldquonotrdquo could be derived from the ldquonordquo
of an already constituted language ldquoWhat annuls makes itself clear as
something that is not is can be addressed by the lsquonorsquo e lsquonotrsquo in no way
arises from the no-saying of negation Every lsquonorsquo answers to the claim of
the annulment that has become clear Every lsquonorsquo is simply the affirmation
of the lsquonotrsquordquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) First of all this apodictic explanation emphasizes
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 742
T h e R e l a t i o n34
that no-saying can only posit a ldquonotrdquo thatmdashas something said posited
and signifiedmdashis at the same time ldquosomethingrdquo and is not the ldquonotrdquo that
is at stake here Before any no-saying in the sense of a negation through
an act of positing there must have been a ldquonotrdquo that as an address must
have already directed itself to a possible speech if this speech is to be able
to address not only an existing ldquosomethingrdquo but precisely the ldquonotrdquomdashand
especially the ldquonotrdquo in its happening as annulment Although within the
medium of language the ldquonordquo can be said every such ldquonordquo as a statement
can refer only to ldquosomethingrdquo that is already given and contained in the
form of representation Furthermore as an instrument of language this
ldquonordquo itself must be a given for representation erefore this ldquonordquo wouldbe an exemplary word for a commercium among present-at-hand beings
which can only count with what is sayable but has no access to what it
no longer or not yet is and thus has no access to the factum that it is and
to the way it is not With the derivation of the ldquonotrdquo from the word of a
constituted language something represented is derived from another
representation e ldquonotrdquo is converted into a being and thereby misses
the point that it is precisely not this namely a being
ldquoNotrdquo is underivable But it is not solely the ldquonotrdquo that cannot be said
by any language and its ldquonotrdquo It is also the ldquonotrdquo that must inexplicitly
speak withmdashremain silent with and fall mute withmdashin every language as
the not-sayable e ldquonot rdquo is sensu strictu a not-word It is the counter-
linguistic the counter-word as such through which every language can
become language If it is a language it is the language from this ldquonotrdquo that
is missing from it and resists it
Language is the ldquonordquo to the ldquonotrdquo that precedes it and must precede it
in itself as its own proper ldquonotrdquo if it is to speak as language at all and
speaking is to be in the movement from its not -yet to its not -anymore
is is why Heidegger says of language that it is the answer to the move-
ment of the ldquonotrdquo that it can only speak in response to the address of the
ldquonotrdquo and in its turn address its not-ness But if it is an answer it is not
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 35
so as the existing acknowledgement of an existing object or a content of
representation but only in the way that as language it itself corresponds
to the ldquonihilationrdquo or ldquoannulmentrdquo that addresses it
Language cannot speak but by letting the ldquonotrdquo that addresses it happen
in languagersquos own happening e residuum of correspondence theory
that persists in this explanation demands however that we conceive of
language as the answer and correspondence to the counter-linguistic
ldquonotrdquo and understand every ldquonordquo as only the affirmation of the ldquonotrdquo and at
the same time understand the happening of language itself and in general
as a ldquonordquo as the affirmation of the ldquonotrdquo and of nihilation Language how-ever corresponds to the nihilationmdashand the correspondence dissolves
itself in itmdashonly in such a way that it ent-spricht it corresponds to itself
as language as not-saying It loses its linguistic nature (ent-sprachlicht )
as it evacuates its contents as well as its forms and it allows its being to
become a not-saying and with this not-saying the naked ldquothatrdquo of saying
Saying ldquonordquo to itself as a being in all its moments language speaks and it
speaks beyond itself and the totality of beings transcendence of language
in its being as the movement of ldquonotrdquo
is is why Heidegger can write describing the movement of Being and
along with Being also that of language ldquoBeing annulsmdashas Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096
983090983095983091) It annuls as language in as much as it departs from itself as an exist-
ing correlation to other beings and it is evicted from what it can be as an
instrumental structure of reference ek-sistence of language into a Being
without beings
is movement that language never performs through acts of positing by
its speakers this movement that occurs not only occasionally and never
intentionally or caused by motives this movement that defines language
as the language expelled from language was defined by Heidegger in his
Freiburg lecture as the language of anxiety as the angst-ridden language
At the end of a short description of an experience of anxiety this reduc-
tion of language to its most properly own is characterized in the following
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 942
T h e R e l a t i o n36
terms ldquoNot a hold remains [ Es bleibt kein Halt ] In the slipping away of
beings only this lsquonotrsquo [kein] remains and comes over usrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983096983096)983089 e
ldquoessential impossibility of determiningrdquo beings as a whole (983096983096) that we
experience in anxiety leaves nothing enduring nothing that speech or
action could offer to hold on to no hold apart from this ldquonotrdquo of the hold
the hold without hold ldquoNotrdquo is the word for the language no longer of be-
ings but for language as it happens as a partingmdashparting from everything
that can be defined represented and held It speaks only by saying that
nothing remains to be said and therefore it corresponds to its own ldquonotrdquo
still speaks speaks for the first time and speaks as language even beyond
what in and through it is definable ldquoNonerdquo ( Kein) is not a word nor isit a mark it is the counter-word and the counter-mark to all that could
be merely stated and signified But as this anti-word ( Anti-Wort ) it is the
answer ( Antwort ) of bare speech to the merely speakable It is the primary
Ur-word the word-word as such the only word of language language
itself as this single word as it exactly says its Sein its ldquordquoBeingrdquo
ldquoNot a hold remains In the slipping away of beings only this lsquonotrsquo remains
and comes over usrdquo ldquoNotrdquo does not say anything about Being It speaks
itself as Being Being happens in the ldquonotrdquo and nowhere else It is the
hold without hold the up- and with-holding dwelling ( Auf-ent-halt ) that
language is as the house of Being the only ethos Language speaks only
when it becomes this house of the ldquonot rdquo in all its idioms in every word
and every silence and thereby gains its Being as that which is not a being
ldquo Not rdquo contracts the individual appearances in their nihilation into the
whole of a ldquothererdquo It allows to step back from the world assembled underthe deletion mark of the ldquonotrdquo it is the word of the epocheacute of every word
and every world Still precisely as speaking beyond all merely real and
possible words it speaks as one that does not represent anything does
not declare signify or does anything but simply happens it is the ldquothatrdquo
of its self and as this ldquothatrdquo it is the horizon of Being within which every
being can first be what it is It is the word of apocalypse the revelation
of the possibility of all worlds and words Epocheacute and revelation the re-
turn of beings into their ldquonotrdquo and the rise of Being In the ldquo not rdquo beings
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 37
and Being separate and (d)emerge as different ldquo Not rdquo is the word of the
ontological difference
A theory of the origin of language and at the same time of the origin of
Being and beings with language ldquo Nonerdquo or not would be then the fiat the
finite not the originating but the witnessing the Dasein-opening fiat of
the homo humanus of whose humanitas Heidegger speaks in the ldquoLetter
on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo Although here the connection between the origin of
language and the ldquonotrdquo remains only a suggestion it defines the gesture
that carries Heideggerrsquos thought in general namely that something
emerges as something first in its slippage For example the hammer inthe becoming useless of the ldquoequipmentrdquo the ldquoworldrdquo in the loss of reason
in anxiety the possible wholeness of Dasein in ldquobeing-toward-deathrdquo the
work of art in the rejection of the usual coherence of the world the Being
of the word in its ldquoapartnessrdquo and its ldquoinfirmityrdquo
e ldquonot rdquo reveals nothing and it is as this revelation a historical moment
in which nothing will be seen apart from the ldquonotrdquo of seeing ldquoBeing is
more in being than any beingsrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
However the ldquonot rdquo can reveal the nothing only because as a citationmdash
Heidegger puts it between quotation marksmdashfrom the inner- worldly
discourse of Dasein it opens up the distance that allows Dasein to relate
to the world as a whole as its ldquothererdquo (983089983097983097983096 983089983088983097) e ldquonordquo as the word of
transcendence is at the same time that of the difference between Being
and the beings of the world It can be both transcendence and differenceonly as exposed from every determinable meaning And yet this ldquonot rdquo
does mean But it does not mean what ldquosomethingrdquo or ldquoonerdquo ldquocoverrdquo or
ldquoLazarusrdquo means but rather always their and its own ldquonotrdquo Heideggerrsquos
ldquonotrdquo however does not remain only a residue of innerworldliness and
meaningfulness It also follows a direction in which it approaches Dasein
relates to its language allows its affirmation and even its recognition
and allows Dasein to be bound to the ldquonotrdquo in its ldquoyesrdquo and ldquonordquo ldquoEvery
lsquonorsquo is simply the affirmation of the lsquonotrsquo Every affirmation consists in
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1142
T h e R e l a t i o n38
recognition Recognition lets that toward which it goes come toward itrdquo
(983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) Just as in Hegel in the ldquoLetter on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo the ldquonotrdquo is
the ldquonotrdquo of something But even when in an ek-sistential conversion it
turns itself into the something of a nihilation this nihilation remains
as counter-phenomenon oriented toward something and remains ca-
pable of being grasped in an answer which even though a citation a
remainder a residue and a trace remains still the determined trace of
a determined being and not the ldquoessential impossibility of determiningrdquo
beings as a whole (983089983097983097983096 983096983096) In contradistinction to his claim Heidegger
does not describe the ldquonotrdquo itself but the ldquonotrdquo of a self Even though the
ldquonot rdquomdashldquoonly this lsquonotrsquordquo (983096983096)mdashis supposed to be the ldquonot rdquo of the hold ona determinable meaning and a determinable direction it moves toward
the transcendental ldquonordquo of language and toward the dwelling in its house
it remains a directional ldquonotrdquo
And the other way around if the ldquonordquo of language is the ldquothe affirmation of
the lsquonotrsquordquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) then this ldquonotrdquo can be affirmed only as the one that
language moves toward e spoken ldquonordquo according to Heideggerrsquos words
is an already addressed ldquonordquo in which only the ldquonotrdquo as an intentional
object will be affirmed language retains for Heidegger an intentional
structure even in its epocheacute Accordinglymdashand in fact in the sense of
a correspondence in a relational pairmdashthe ldquonotrdquo in Heideggerrsquos ldquoLetterrdquo
is attuned to the affirmation of its affirmation It is an intentionally
disposed and moreover affirmative ldquonotrdquo Only this way can the whole
domain of meaningfulness be thought in it as simultaneously suspended
and founded
Furthermore if the recognition of the ldquonotrdquo as Heidegger writes ldquolets
that toward which it goes come toward itrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) the recognition
becomes the place of the advent of the ldquonotrdquo and the intentional ldquonotrdquo
becomes not only linguistically affirmable but moreover recognizable
and locatable in its recognition In all these structures the ldquonotrdquo appears
to be reduced to something less than what as the ldquoannulmentrdquo should
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 39
refuse every recognition and remain placeless wordless and non-inten-
tional Since ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091) the
ldquonotrdquo should be more nihilating than any nihilation within the horizon of
intentional acknowledgement It should remain irreducible to relational
pairs and it should withdraw itself from such alternatives as speaking to
and turning away from presence to and absence from Since it is ldquonotrdquo
it should not remain restricted to pressure constriction and anxiety It
should each time happen as that which in these relations releases from
them and makes them possible in the first place
ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquomdashHeideggerrsquos catchy formulaemploys a comparative to describe the relation between Being and beings
and thus the relation as such It compares the two that should remain
absolutely incomparable It speaks of Being in the language of beings
and says that it is a Being of enhanced intensity e formula however
remains ambiguous It says on the one hand that being is in being and
even more in being than beings On the other hand however it says that
it is in being only in such a way that it transgresses the measure and
range of beings releases itself from all beings and gives up every hold on
them e relation that this formula speaks of is therefore the relation of
the dissolution of every relation of transcendence into the relationless
and of not only quantitative and merely relative but of the ontological
difference between Being and beings Catchy as it is it speaks only the
slippage of Being out of every form of every existing languagemdashand
hyperbolically speaks beyond its own speech Language in difference to
language language of difference language out of it
e syntagm ldquobeing more in being than any beingsrdquo is at the same time
a hypertagm It offers a proposition and steps outside everymdasheven its
ownmdashproposition
Horrifying (entzetzliche) language Every language is displacing (en-
tzetzlich)
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1342
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 41
of the structure of intentionality which is too strongly emphasized in his
thoughts on the ldquonotrdquo to have merely slipped into them For Heidegger
it is important that the ldquonotrdquo is not a nihil negativum or absolutum not
an empty ldquonotrdquo merely posited by a ldquosubjectrdquo or an ldquoIrdquomdasheven if posited
like in Fichte and Hegel through a not-positing For if it were a positum
it would not only be a logicized ldquonotrdquo but also a something (ens rationis )
and so precisely what it is not At the same time it is also important for
Heidegger that the happening of the ldquonotrdquomdashwhich albeit always pos-
sible still ldquorarely enoughrdquo really is (983089983097983097983096 983096983096)mdashdoes not disappear in an
annihilation once again in such a case the ldquonothingrdquo would not be a
ldquonotrdquo it would not be ldquothererdquo it could not be experienced as a happeningor the happening of the withdrawal from happening Joined together the
two observations can be understood in such a way that the ldquonotrdquo cannot
be either a ldquosomethingrdquo or the fait accompli of a mere absence It opens
itself as the zone of separation between beings and empty nothing and
it can be the ldquonotrdquo only as that which emerges in the experience of the
departure or slipping away of all beings e experience of this ldquonotrdquo and
the ldquonotrdquo of this experiencemdashand an abyss opens up in the reversibility
or irreversibility of these expressions and their double genitivesmdashis the
decisive pre-predicative synthesis It is not an archeacute an in itself unified
principle It is structurally an-archic (and in this sense originary) since it
is a synthesis only because of the split that crosses it Heidegger describes
this bifurcation as a ldquorepelling reference toward beings [abweisende
Verweisung ]rdquo983090 (983089983097983097983096 983097983088) as a reference to beings through which they are
brought together and at the same time repelled as a whole At the same
time as this ldquonotrdquo that formulates itself as a ldquonordquo and in Heideggerrsquosdefinition as reference carries an emphatically linguistic trait the experi-
ence of Being itself emerges as the happening of this repelling reference
e ldquonotrdquo is the in itself differentiated archi-disjunction
e separation therefore takes place between beings as a whole and
Being and not between the ldquonotrdquo and beingmdashthis separation is accom-
plished or is (or ldquoexistsrdquo) in the ldquonotrdquo ldquoe nothing itself annulsrdquo (983089983097983097983096
983097983088) it is what happens in the repelling reference and it is that it happens
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1542
T h e R e l a t i o n42
as this reference Since the ldquonotrdquo would not be without its happening
(without its nihilation) the previous phrase can be made more precise
ldquoBeing nihilatesmdashas beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
is is to say Being is always already not-anymore and always not-yet It
is in that it is the ldquonotrdquo of itself As difference from itself it is at the same
time the difference from everything and in everything that exists
e title of ldquoBeingrdquo in Heideggerrsquos thinking belongs only to the movement
of the ldquonotrdquo to the separation the difference as inter-rift (Unter-Schied )
the ontological difference is is why we find in the preface to ldquoOn theEssence of Groundrdquo the following ambiguous formulation ldquoe onto-
logical difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is
programmatic formula can be misunderstood because it places the ldquonotrdquo
between beings and Being as if they were two beings of different nature
or intensity But this ldquonotrdquo is to be thought as the ldquobetweenrdquo with which
Being emerges as differentiated from all even the highest of all beings
Being is what is resulting from and in the separation that happens in the
ldquonotrdquo and thus itself is the ldquobetweenrdquo the difference erefore Heide-
gger can write ldquonothing and Being the samerdquo ldquoHolding itself out into the
nothing Dasein is in each case already beyond beings as a whole Such
being beyond beings we call transcendence if [Dasein] were not in
advance holding itself out into the nothing then it could never adopt a
stance toward beings nor even toward itself rdquo (983097983089)
For Heidegger to transcend means above all to transcend into a ldquonotrdquoand therefore to transcend into a ldquonotrdquo of even this transcending It does
not mean indication and relation ldquotordquo but repelling and repelling reference
ldquofromrdquo as well as repelling of all reference in-predication ir-relation
dis-intention Transcendingmdashif it is not already connected through
a continuous movement with a homogenous other and thereby in no
need of transcendingmdashmust transcend into a nec trans and can only be
a transcending into the un-enterable it must be attranscendence
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 43
ldquoLe pas au-delagraverdquo writes Blanchot step beyond not beyond step beyond
to the not of the step
Only as transition into the not-going can it reach the zone of difference in
its own movement where first a possible toward of this movement opens
up as a relation to something and an intentional attitude to beings as
beings becomes possible us intentions are grounded in a structure of
transcendence that in its turn is defined by a ldquonotrdquo a halt a putting on
hold or a suspension Only this arrest offers the possibility of a relation
to something only in this suspension happens not something but only
the that of it happening
e ldquonotrdquo of this in-transcendence therefore can happen in two ways
the retreating reference to something and the experience that the hap-
pening of this reference is other than and different from the reference
conceptualized as a relation and its correlates
is arresting of the ldquonotrdquo in in-transcendence clearly defines the mini-
mal structure of language Whenever and in whatever way language is
spoken there is reference that distances But beyond this something else
also happens that cannot be reduced to this (repelling) reference and the
agents emerging from it the referents and their relations to each other
Whether absolutely novel or older than old it is incommensurable with
them e intentional attitude only exists as crossed out by the event of
its own epocheacute
erefore it appears to be insufficient and even erroneous to speak of
ldquothe claim of nihilation that has come to the clearingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) and
to say that ldquonihilation first requires the lsquonorsquo as what is to be said in the
letting-be of beingsrdquo (983090983095983091) is phrase attributes a linguistic structure
to the ldquonotrdquo that is at the same time also denied Language is defined as
something claimedmdashnot claimed by a pre-linguistic ldquoexistentiell rdquo beyond
of language but by its own exterior limits and thus by what cannot raise
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1742
T h e R e l a t i o n44
claims Heidegger therefore goes around in circlesmdasheven if we consider
all the complications of going going over and inaccessibility He goes
against himself and he might be going that way because he thinks lan-
guage as a response
e commentary on the structure of transcending (namely that it must
be that of in-transcending) and intentionality (that it must be suspended
in dis-intending) made it clear that these movements for Heidegger
always emerge first in their ldquonotrdquo and their suspension In very much
the same way we could clarify the structure of the claim as Anspruch
as Heidegger understands it not by reading this word according to themeasure of its dictionary meaning but by reading it based on its context
with an emphatically stressed An speaking onto
en the claim raised by the ldquonotrdquomdashfrom nowhere by nobody and mind
you nevermdashwould be a ldquospeakingrdquo onto and in the proximity of language
and its words and particles of negation which persisting in the onto
would never make it out of this proximity to reach language e claim
would be a speaking onto because it would never be a speech in the sense
of a statement or a performative act It would always be en route or on
the way to language An-spruch would be toward language what language
itself is not and that it itself is not presentmdashit would be the irruption of
language its start
In fact according to Heideggerrsquos text ldquothe claim of nihilationrdquo cannot be
more than this cannot be language For he says of this claim that it callsfor the ldquonordquo as what is to be said but never as something already said
never already given in or by language rather as a ldquonordquo that remains still
and always yet to be said and as what is to be said remains forever im-
minent in every possible future Speaking onto and speaking its ldquonot rdquo onto
language the claim would be the retentive relation in which language is
kept away from itself but at the same time held to and held back from
itself and sustained and held in this holding onto and holding back But
unlike what an obvious misunderstanding would suggest this sustaining
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 45
does not hold in potentia as something always merely ldquopossiblerdquo but
never ldquorealrdquo Rather it holds on this side of all modal categories in statu
nascendi et moriendi (as Celan writes in an explicit reference to Heidegger
in a letter to Werner Weber) held out into the happening of language as
perpetual beginning (983089983097983097983095 983091983097983096)
is understanding of the speaking-onto of the ldquonotrdquo also clarifies the
structure of intention It would not be some already given relation of an
already constituted consciousness to a content of consciousness but the
irruption of these relations in their pre-withholding and therefore inten-
tion only arising out of the freedom from such a relation and the opennessto it us every An- that Heidegger writes is to be read not merely as a
ldquoclose tordquo or ldquoontordquo in the sense of a given extension but always also as
the echo the Greek ana- as a privative in- or un- In words like Anspruch
(claim) or Anruf (call) or Answesen (presence) Angehen (approach) and
Ankunft (arrival) with every ldquoclose tordquo and ldquoontordquo at the same time a ldquonotrdquo
and a ldquonordquo is also said that relates relation to irrelation reference to ir-
reference direction to indirection An- is the prefix of differencemdashbut
not only of an intra-linguistic difference between different meanings of
one and the same morpheme but before meanings can appear at all the
difference between language speaking its ldquonotrdquo and language speaking
onto something An- not unlike vor- zu- hin- and aus- is the prefix of
ontological difference Whoever uses ldquospeaking ontordquo in this sense in fact
is saying something insufficient and erroneous but is also saying that this
insufficiency and erroneousness belongs to the structure of language
Language itself is the speaking onto language and therefore a speakingonto another language or something other than language
Understood as ldquospeaking ontordquo ( An-spruch) language is its othering ( An-
derung )
e An- is therefore the word and the fore-word of the madness of lan-
guage In the essay ldquoLanguage in the Poemrdquo Heidegger writes as a com-
mentary on the line ldquoe madman [Wahnsinnige] has diedrdquo from Georg
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1942
T h e R e l a t i o n46
Traklrsquos ldquoPsalmrdquo ldquoe word Wahn comes from Old High German wana
which means lsquowithoutrsquo e madman sensesmdashsenses in fact as no one
else does But he remains without the sense of others He is of another
sense Sinnan originally means to travel to strive for to strike a direc-
tion e Indo-Germanic root sent and set means lsquopathrsquo e departed is
the madman because he is on his way somewhere elserdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983091)983091 e
other way that the madman follows is the way into de-parture into a dif-
ference that departs from every possible distinction and discrimination
So Heidegger can write about the stranger who is the madman without
the sense of the other ldquois stranger unfolds the essence of the human
into the beginning of what has not yet come to bearing [Tragen] (OldHigh German giberan) is quieter and hence more stilling element
in the nature of mortals that has not been borne out is what the poet
calls the unbornrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983093)983092 But if the other waymdashthis without-path the
aporiamdashleads into what has not been borne out how do we stand with
what is defined as ldquogesturerdquo in ldquoA Dialogue on Languagerdquo ldquothe originary
gathering of bearing against and bearing tordquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983097) And how does the
thought of the not-yet-born and the unborn relate to the thought of being
as difference which is described in ldquoe Onto-eo-Logical Constitu-
tion of Metaphysicsrdquo in the following way ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ]
alone grants and holds apart the lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming
and the arrival are held toward one another are borne away from and
toward each other e difference of Being and beings as the inter-rift of
overwhelming and arrival is the bearing out [ Austrag ] of the two in un-
concealing keeping in concealment Within this bearing out there prevails
a clearing of what veils and closes itself offmdashand this prevalence bestowsthe being apart and the being toward each other of overwhelming and
arrivalrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)983093
In these sentences it becomes clear that the words ldquoheldrdquo and ldquobornerdquo
are used in the same sense being held in relation (Ver-halten) is being
borne out ( Austrag ) Both describe the movement of differentiation that
Heidegger writes as Unter-Schied (literally inter -rift ) to separate it from
rational distinctions as well as from differences in perception and to
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 47
emphasize the ldquobetweenrdquo that corresponds to the inter of the unter in
the concept of Unterschied (difference) e German word Austrag is the
literal translation of the Latin differentia which in turn is a translation
of the decisive Greek term diaphoraacute In a definition provided in the first
essay on Trakl ldquoLanguagerdquo (in 983089983097983093983088) diaphoraacute difference and bearing
out are juxtaposed with the following commentary ldquoe intimacy of
dif-ference [Unter-Schied ] is the unifying element of the diaphora the
carrying out [ Austrag ] that carries through e dif-ference carries out
world in its worlding carries out things in their thinging us carrying
them out it carries them toward one anotherrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) And a few
sentences later the series of synonymous concepts is extended to includeEreignis the appropriating event gesture as bearing and granting ldquoe
dif-ference for world and thing disclosingly appropriates things into bear-
ing a world it disclosingly appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo
(983090983088983088) In accordance with these connections in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo
relation (Verhaumlltnis ) is thought out of the appropriating event and more
precisely as the appropriative happening of the essence of language ldquoFor
that appropriating holding self-retaining is the relation of all relations
us our sayingmdashalways an answeringmdashremains forever relational Rela-
tion [Ver-haumlltnis as holding to itself] is thought of here always in terms
of the event and no longer conceived in the form of a mere referencerdquo
(983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093) But if relation means appropriation if appropriation means
difference difference means differentia and diaphora and the latter two
mean the carrying out that carries through while carrying out means
bearing the question unavoidable emerges How do the concepts from
the Trakl commentary the unborn and what is not borne out relate to thisseries And how can this series be unified with the other the without-
path and the aporia of madness ese questions are not yet answered
by the remark that Heidegger understood human Dasein in the sense of
ek-sistence as the ecstatic being outside of itself of madness is only
makes the question more urgent of whether this being-in-madness can
be thought with the concepts of difference and ldquobearing outrdquo Or whether
this madness overburdens ldquothe carrying out that carries throughrdquo and the
ldquobearing outrdquo and is therefore thrown away evacuated and forgotten
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2142
T h e R e l a t i o n48
e question therefore is once again whether the madness of ek-sis-
tence of the ldquonotrdquo of Being and of language can still be articulated in a
languagemdasheven if it as outreacute as Heideggerrsquos
Or Is it possible to think the not-borne-out as the not-borne-out More
precisely Does the not-borne-out allow itself to be thought only as a not
yet or beyond that does it allow itself to be thought as a never borne
out
Hence Can the ldquonotrdquo as a ldquoneverrdquomdashas a never of the sayablemdashdefine the
horizon of language And can this ldquoneverrdquo then also provide the tran-scendental horizon of the possibility of what is sayable Is the ldquoneverrdquo
the condition of the happening of language and the horizon of being
Or Can the ldquoneverrdquo be thought But How could it be other than never be
thought Consequently If the ldquoneverrdquo were the pre- and proto-predicative
happening that is called ldquoBeingrdquo and later more precisely coming-over
(Uumlberkommnis ) because it is what ldquoovercomesrdquo sur-prises overwhelms
more than just comes andmdashoverburdens erefore Can the unbearable
be borne and borne out
Otherwise How could Beingmdashwhether as happening history destiny
or coming-overmdashas the unbearable not be borne Because Can the un-
bearable be found at all otherwise unbearable than as always still and
nevertheless borne And then still not erefore Is there not in Being
itself such a still and nevertheless a but that keeps Being at a distancefrom Being and keeps Being out of Being and in this out and apart brings
it together
However What does the ldquooutrdquo mean in ldquoout of each otherrdquo and in ldquobearing
outrdquo if it still contains a ldquotogetherrdquo Does it refer to an originary synthesis
before every predicative synthesis Is not such a reference misleading if it
suggests a ldquotogetherrdquo there where we can encounter only an ldquoout of each
otherrdquomdasheven if we encounter it in the impossibility of its encounter
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 49
In his seminar in Le or in September 983089983097983094983094 Heidegger cites a paragraph
from the chapter ldquoOn the impossibility of a cosmological proof of Godrsquos
existencerdquo from Kantrsquos First Critique ese stunning sentencesmdashwhich
with their evocation of sinking floating without stop and the abyss
may well have contributed to the descriptions of anxiety in Being and
Time (983089983097983094983090) and ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo (983089983097983097983096)mdashspeak explicitly not only
about the groundless but also about the unbearable Kant writes
e unconditioned necessity which we need so indispensably as the ultimate
sustainer of all things is for human reason the true abyss Even eternitymdash
however awful the sublimity with which a Haller might portray itmdashdoes not
make such a dizzying impression on the mind for eternity only measures the
duration of things but it does not sustain that duration One cannot resist the
thought of it but one also cannot bear it that a being might as it were say
to itself ldquoI am from eternity to eternity outside me is nothing except what is
something merely through my will but whence then am Irdquo Here everything
caves in beneath us and the greatest perfection as well as the smallest hover
without hold before speculative reason for which it would cost nothing to
let the one as much as the other disappear without the least obstacle (Kant
983089983097983097983097 983093983095983092 Heidegger 983090983088983088983091 983089983095) God the highest ground of what is appears in
its monologue as an abyss that does not carry it but lets it collapse And Kant
says of this thought of a God that does not carry itself that ldquoone cannot resist
the thought of it but one also cannot bear itrdquo
With this the primal scene of critical transcendental philosophy and
speculative idealism is described an ens realissimum et nesessarium that does not contain the guarantee of its own being a God that is not
a causa sui and sinks in the abyss of its own question after a ground
cannot offer beings any more hold and must therefore pull down in
its own fall the categories that render it thinkable necessary and real
What remains is the scene of the sinking away of the totality of beings
ldquothe greatest perfection as well as the smallestrdquo and with this scene the
form of representation the mere idea of reason in which beings as a
whole together with the categorial structures of their knowability survive
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2342
T h e R e l a t i o n50
under the condition of their transcendentality For the ldquotranscendental
objectrdquomdashthat Kant can only speak of after the sinking away of a world
and its transcendental groundmdashis not an empirical object and not even
an object at all is object as Kant writes ldquotherefore cannot be further
intuited by us and that may therefore be called the non-empirical ie
transcendental object = Xrdquo (983089983097983097983097 983090983091983091) In his Kant book Heidegger calls
this transcendental X ldquoa Nothingrdquo that is at the same time ldquoSomethingrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983096983094) and describes the X as ldquothe horizon of a standing-against is
horizon is indeed not object but rather a Nothing if by object we mean
a being which is apprehended thematicallyrdquo (983096983095) Furthermore ldquoOnly if
the letting-stand-against of is a holding oneself in the nothing canthe representing allow a not-nothing ie something like a being rdquo (983093983089)
In the Kant commentary the ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo ismdashlike
the anxiety scenes in Being and Time in the Freiburg lecture and more
abstractly in the ldquoLetterrdquo in different waysmdashthe gesture of the horizontal-
transcendental constitution of the domain of objectivity and with that
at the same time of no longer onto-theologically founded beings held
in the mere form of representation not a creatio but still a constitutio ex
nihilo e fact that ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo as Kant examines
it in his critical philosophy stops at the form of representation (Vorstel-
lung ) and the idea of reason makes these gestures into a regulatio nihili
and prevents the further analysis of the transcendental form of being
represented and posited
Heidegger took on this further analysis starting with the exposition of
Dasein in Being and Time is analysis must show that the sinking of theens necessarium and with it that of mere being (which does not hold and
bear itself) remain irreducible to the beings of representation the idea
or the concept It must expose the fact that transcendental representa-
tion merely displaces the ldquonotrdquo that it encounters in the sinking of the
highest being instead of engaging it as the decisive content of being To
do justice to the implications of the anxiety-scene and the unbearable
question of God for his ground the classical analytical concept of differ-
ence between ground and the grounded positing and the posited must
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 342
T h e R e l a t i o n30
we cannot call either a question or an answer yet something that speaks
with and accompanies every question and every answer
ldquoSpeaks withrdquo and ldquoremains silent withrdquo and who knows maybe even
remains mute or becomes muted in every question and answer In any
case the difficulty of the relation that we are speaking about lies in that
we must already speak from it when we speak about it We can call what
we call a ldquorelationrdquo only because another ldquorelationrdquo already precedes it
that remains unnamed
We may also say that this other ldquorelationrdquo always accompanies the nameor the notion of the ldquorelationrdquo whenever we use it and allow the syn-
tax of our statements (of our ldquorelationsrdquo [Verhaumlltnisse] and ldquobehaviorsrdquo
[Verhalten] with each other) to be determined by this name or notion
Regardless of whether this other ldquorelationrdquo precedes or accompanies its
naming evidently there must be a particular relation between the lin-
guistic expression ldquorelationrdquo and the ldquorelationrdquo that makes this expression
possible in the first place But the relation between the one and the other
relation whether that of a ldquobeforerdquo or a ldquowithrdquo cannot be defined by the
concept that we form of it since the latter is first rendered possible by
the other relation
erefore we will have to assume first that there is a ldquorelationrdquo beyond
the one that we designate with that name Furthermore we will also
have to assume that this further relation allows the so-called ldquorelationrdquo
in the first place And third we must assume that this relation beyondthe named and nameable relations on its part does not speak in that it
allows speech and rather holds itself back with speech withholds speech
and only this way withholding it preserves it as speech
e other the further relation of which and from which we are speaking
would not be then a simple relation ( Relation) nor a relation of relations
( Relation von Relationen) It would be a relation (Verhaumlltnis ) that we could
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 442
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 542
T h e R e l a t i o n32
holds all other relations but not because it preserves the fullness of a
capability and releases from it all imaginable possibilities and realities
rather because it is itself a ldquonotrdquo of a capability and thereby makes it
possible to miss its capabilities
So what about this ldquoholdingrdquomdasha holding which is supposed to be at the
same time a carrying and as such this holding and carrying should be
something steady durable enduring yet without being capable of being
So far we have always thought language from amdashrarely clearly definedmdash
capability But since this clearly fails to grasp the structure of language
we might not be able to continue to think it from what corresponds tothis capability this potentia or essentia as substance or carrying hold We
may not continue to think it as a thing or as something as a being even
as the highest that grounds everything Such a relation the other and
further relation of which we are speaking such a mis-relation must offer
a completely other ldquoholdrdquo that offers nothing but a ldquohaltrdquo
erefore this hold is notmdashit is not a beingmdashbut a not mdasha not to beings
and so that which first releases beings as such
What we call language must be thought from this holding of the ldquonotrdquo
from this holding back without a hold and this hold without hold We
could then describe it if it is possible to do so at all without the risk of
misunderstanding or self-misunderstanding as the relationmdashdas Verhaumllt-
nis mdashand more precisely the relation of all relations mdashdas Verhaumlltnis aller
Verhaumlltnisse
We are approaching Heidegger and his ldquolanguagerdquo As far as I know
he was the only one who spoke of Verhaumlltnis in the sense of this emphatic
polysemy the only one who did not use this wordmdashthis word of wordsmdash
in the usual meaning of the German concept the only one who used
it always also in the sense of the Greek epocheacute and the Latin retentio
and thereby turned it into a neologism that could hardly be any less
ldquoGermanicrdquo In ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo he spoke of the ldquoepocheacute of Beingrdquo
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 33
as the ldquoholding to itself with the truth of its essencerdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) In the
ldquoLetter on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo to the question how Being relates to ek-sistence
he gave the answer ldquoBeing itself is the relation [das Verhaumlltnis ] to the
extent that It holds to itself [an sich haumllt ] ek-sistencerdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983093983091)
And in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo the essence of languagemdashin modern high
German language as happeningmdashis written as Ver-haumlltnis and is thought
from what he calls the event of appropriation ( Ereignis ) which is defined
along with language in the following way ldquoFor that event appropriating
holding self-retaining is the relation of all relationsrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093)
All this quite frankly is so awkwardly formulated that one longs for aHeideggerian Dialect Dictionary to translate it into at least a usable if
not a usual language
Dictionaries list meanings but not relations of tension not the paths and
movements between them which can only be presented in sentences and
even there not without losses and additions To approach this Verhaumllt-
nis mdashthis relation this retention abstention and holding to itselfmdashand
thereby approach language and if we try to do so by the detour of some
of Heideggerrsquos texts we need to strike another path We could describe
this path tentatively and reservedly as that of a ldquocritical variationrdquo and
start it at the point that we have already touched
At the ldquonotrdquo
In the ldquoLetter on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo Heidegger summed up in a few sentenceshis observations on ldquonothingrdquo from Being and Time and from his inaugu-
ral lecture in Freiburg ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo and thereby specifically
rejected the assumption that the ldquonotrdquo could be derived from the ldquonordquo
of an already constituted language ldquoWhat annuls makes itself clear as
something that is not is can be addressed by the lsquonorsquo e lsquonotrsquo in no way
arises from the no-saying of negation Every lsquonorsquo answers to the claim of
the annulment that has become clear Every lsquonorsquo is simply the affirmation
of the lsquonotrsquordquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) First of all this apodictic explanation emphasizes
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 742
T h e R e l a t i o n34
that no-saying can only posit a ldquonotrdquo thatmdashas something said posited
and signifiedmdashis at the same time ldquosomethingrdquo and is not the ldquonotrdquo that
is at stake here Before any no-saying in the sense of a negation through
an act of positing there must have been a ldquonotrdquo that as an address must
have already directed itself to a possible speech if this speech is to be able
to address not only an existing ldquosomethingrdquo but precisely the ldquonotrdquomdashand
especially the ldquonotrdquo in its happening as annulment Although within the
medium of language the ldquonordquo can be said every such ldquonordquo as a statement
can refer only to ldquosomethingrdquo that is already given and contained in the
form of representation Furthermore as an instrument of language this
ldquonordquo itself must be a given for representation erefore this ldquonordquo wouldbe an exemplary word for a commercium among present-at-hand beings
which can only count with what is sayable but has no access to what it
no longer or not yet is and thus has no access to the factum that it is and
to the way it is not With the derivation of the ldquonotrdquo from the word of a
constituted language something represented is derived from another
representation e ldquonotrdquo is converted into a being and thereby misses
the point that it is precisely not this namely a being
ldquoNotrdquo is underivable But it is not solely the ldquonotrdquo that cannot be said
by any language and its ldquonotrdquo It is also the ldquonotrdquo that must inexplicitly
speak withmdashremain silent with and fall mute withmdashin every language as
the not-sayable e ldquonot rdquo is sensu strictu a not-word It is the counter-
linguistic the counter-word as such through which every language can
become language If it is a language it is the language from this ldquonotrdquo that
is missing from it and resists it
Language is the ldquonordquo to the ldquonotrdquo that precedes it and must precede it
in itself as its own proper ldquonotrdquo if it is to speak as language at all and
speaking is to be in the movement from its not -yet to its not -anymore
is is why Heidegger says of language that it is the answer to the move-
ment of the ldquonotrdquo that it can only speak in response to the address of the
ldquonotrdquo and in its turn address its not-ness But if it is an answer it is not
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 35
so as the existing acknowledgement of an existing object or a content of
representation but only in the way that as language it itself corresponds
to the ldquonihilationrdquo or ldquoannulmentrdquo that addresses it
Language cannot speak but by letting the ldquonotrdquo that addresses it happen
in languagersquos own happening e residuum of correspondence theory
that persists in this explanation demands however that we conceive of
language as the answer and correspondence to the counter-linguistic
ldquonotrdquo and understand every ldquonordquo as only the affirmation of the ldquonotrdquo and at
the same time understand the happening of language itself and in general
as a ldquonordquo as the affirmation of the ldquonotrdquo and of nihilation Language how-ever corresponds to the nihilationmdashand the correspondence dissolves
itself in itmdashonly in such a way that it ent-spricht it corresponds to itself
as language as not-saying It loses its linguistic nature (ent-sprachlicht )
as it evacuates its contents as well as its forms and it allows its being to
become a not-saying and with this not-saying the naked ldquothatrdquo of saying
Saying ldquonordquo to itself as a being in all its moments language speaks and it
speaks beyond itself and the totality of beings transcendence of language
in its being as the movement of ldquonotrdquo
is is why Heidegger can write describing the movement of Being and
along with Being also that of language ldquoBeing annulsmdashas Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096
983090983095983091) It annuls as language in as much as it departs from itself as an exist-
ing correlation to other beings and it is evicted from what it can be as an
instrumental structure of reference ek-sistence of language into a Being
without beings
is movement that language never performs through acts of positing by
its speakers this movement that occurs not only occasionally and never
intentionally or caused by motives this movement that defines language
as the language expelled from language was defined by Heidegger in his
Freiburg lecture as the language of anxiety as the angst-ridden language
At the end of a short description of an experience of anxiety this reduc-
tion of language to its most properly own is characterized in the following
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 942
T h e R e l a t i o n36
terms ldquoNot a hold remains [ Es bleibt kein Halt ] In the slipping away of
beings only this lsquonotrsquo [kein] remains and comes over usrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983096983096)983089 e
ldquoessential impossibility of determiningrdquo beings as a whole (983096983096) that we
experience in anxiety leaves nothing enduring nothing that speech or
action could offer to hold on to no hold apart from this ldquonotrdquo of the hold
the hold without hold ldquoNotrdquo is the word for the language no longer of be-
ings but for language as it happens as a partingmdashparting from everything
that can be defined represented and held It speaks only by saying that
nothing remains to be said and therefore it corresponds to its own ldquonotrdquo
still speaks speaks for the first time and speaks as language even beyond
what in and through it is definable ldquoNonerdquo ( Kein) is not a word nor isit a mark it is the counter-word and the counter-mark to all that could
be merely stated and signified But as this anti-word ( Anti-Wort ) it is the
answer ( Antwort ) of bare speech to the merely speakable It is the primary
Ur-word the word-word as such the only word of language language
itself as this single word as it exactly says its Sein its ldquordquoBeingrdquo
ldquoNot a hold remains In the slipping away of beings only this lsquonotrsquo remains
and comes over usrdquo ldquoNotrdquo does not say anything about Being It speaks
itself as Being Being happens in the ldquonotrdquo and nowhere else It is the
hold without hold the up- and with-holding dwelling ( Auf-ent-halt ) that
language is as the house of Being the only ethos Language speaks only
when it becomes this house of the ldquonot rdquo in all its idioms in every word
and every silence and thereby gains its Being as that which is not a being
ldquo Not rdquo contracts the individual appearances in their nihilation into the
whole of a ldquothererdquo It allows to step back from the world assembled underthe deletion mark of the ldquonotrdquo it is the word of the epocheacute of every word
and every world Still precisely as speaking beyond all merely real and
possible words it speaks as one that does not represent anything does
not declare signify or does anything but simply happens it is the ldquothatrdquo
of its self and as this ldquothatrdquo it is the horizon of Being within which every
being can first be what it is It is the word of apocalypse the revelation
of the possibility of all worlds and words Epocheacute and revelation the re-
turn of beings into their ldquonotrdquo and the rise of Being In the ldquo not rdquo beings
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 37
and Being separate and (d)emerge as different ldquo Not rdquo is the word of the
ontological difference
A theory of the origin of language and at the same time of the origin of
Being and beings with language ldquo Nonerdquo or not would be then the fiat the
finite not the originating but the witnessing the Dasein-opening fiat of
the homo humanus of whose humanitas Heidegger speaks in the ldquoLetter
on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo Although here the connection between the origin of
language and the ldquonotrdquo remains only a suggestion it defines the gesture
that carries Heideggerrsquos thought in general namely that something
emerges as something first in its slippage For example the hammer inthe becoming useless of the ldquoequipmentrdquo the ldquoworldrdquo in the loss of reason
in anxiety the possible wholeness of Dasein in ldquobeing-toward-deathrdquo the
work of art in the rejection of the usual coherence of the world the Being
of the word in its ldquoapartnessrdquo and its ldquoinfirmityrdquo
e ldquonot rdquo reveals nothing and it is as this revelation a historical moment
in which nothing will be seen apart from the ldquonotrdquo of seeing ldquoBeing is
more in being than any beingsrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
However the ldquonot rdquo can reveal the nothing only because as a citationmdash
Heidegger puts it between quotation marksmdashfrom the inner- worldly
discourse of Dasein it opens up the distance that allows Dasein to relate
to the world as a whole as its ldquothererdquo (983089983097983097983096 983089983088983097) e ldquonordquo as the word of
transcendence is at the same time that of the difference between Being
and the beings of the world It can be both transcendence and differenceonly as exposed from every determinable meaning And yet this ldquonot rdquo
does mean But it does not mean what ldquosomethingrdquo or ldquoonerdquo ldquocoverrdquo or
ldquoLazarusrdquo means but rather always their and its own ldquonotrdquo Heideggerrsquos
ldquonotrdquo however does not remain only a residue of innerworldliness and
meaningfulness It also follows a direction in which it approaches Dasein
relates to its language allows its affirmation and even its recognition
and allows Dasein to be bound to the ldquonotrdquo in its ldquoyesrdquo and ldquonordquo ldquoEvery
lsquonorsquo is simply the affirmation of the lsquonotrsquo Every affirmation consists in
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1142
T h e R e l a t i o n38
recognition Recognition lets that toward which it goes come toward itrdquo
(983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) Just as in Hegel in the ldquoLetter on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo the ldquonotrdquo is
the ldquonotrdquo of something But even when in an ek-sistential conversion it
turns itself into the something of a nihilation this nihilation remains
as counter-phenomenon oriented toward something and remains ca-
pable of being grasped in an answer which even though a citation a
remainder a residue and a trace remains still the determined trace of
a determined being and not the ldquoessential impossibility of determiningrdquo
beings as a whole (983089983097983097983096 983096983096) In contradistinction to his claim Heidegger
does not describe the ldquonotrdquo itself but the ldquonotrdquo of a self Even though the
ldquonot rdquomdashldquoonly this lsquonotrsquordquo (983096983096)mdashis supposed to be the ldquonot rdquo of the hold ona determinable meaning and a determinable direction it moves toward
the transcendental ldquonordquo of language and toward the dwelling in its house
it remains a directional ldquonotrdquo
And the other way around if the ldquonordquo of language is the ldquothe affirmation of
the lsquonotrsquordquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) then this ldquonotrdquo can be affirmed only as the one that
language moves toward e spoken ldquonordquo according to Heideggerrsquos words
is an already addressed ldquonordquo in which only the ldquonotrdquo as an intentional
object will be affirmed language retains for Heidegger an intentional
structure even in its epocheacute Accordinglymdashand in fact in the sense of
a correspondence in a relational pairmdashthe ldquonotrdquo in Heideggerrsquos ldquoLetterrdquo
is attuned to the affirmation of its affirmation It is an intentionally
disposed and moreover affirmative ldquonotrdquo Only this way can the whole
domain of meaningfulness be thought in it as simultaneously suspended
and founded
Furthermore if the recognition of the ldquonotrdquo as Heidegger writes ldquolets
that toward which it goes come toward itrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) the recognition
becomes the place of the advent of the ldquonotrdquo and the intentional ldquonotrdquo
becomes not only linguistically affirmable but moreover recognizable
and locatable in its recognition In all these structures the ldquonotrdquo appears
to be reduced to something less than what as the ldquoannulmentrdquo should
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 39
refuse every recognition and remain placeless wordless and non-inten-
tional Since ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091) the
ldquonotrdquo should be more nihilating than any nihilation within the horizon of
intentional acknowledgement It should remain irreducible to relational
pairs and it should withdraw itself from such alternatives as speaking to
and turning away from presence to and absence from Since it is ldquonotrdquo
it should not remain restricted to pressure constriction and anxiety It
should each time happen as that which in these relations releases from
them and makes them possible in the first place
ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquomdashHeideggerrsquos catchy formulaemploys a comparative to describe the relation between Being and beings
and thus the relation as such It compares the two that should remain
absolutely incomparable It speaks of Being in the language of beings
and says that it is a Being of enhanced intensity e formula however
remains ambiguous It says on the one hand that being is in being and
even more in being than beings On the other hand however it says that
it is in being only in such a way that it transgresses the measure and
range of beings releases itself from all beings and gives up every hold on
them e relation that this formula speaks of is therefore the relation of
the dissolution of every relation of transcendence into the relationless
and of not only quantitative and merely relative but of the ontological
difference between Being and beings Catchy as it is it speaks only the
slippage of Being out of every form of every existing languagemdashand
hyperbolically speaks beyond its own speech Language in difference to
language language of difference language out of it
e syntagm ldquobeing more in being than any beingsrdquo is at the same time
a hypertagm It offers a proposition and steps outside everymdasheven its
ownmdashproposition
Horrifying (entzetzliche) language Every language is displacing (en-
tzetzlich)
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1342
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 41
of the structure of intentionality which is too strongly emphasized in his
thoughts on the ldquonotrdquo to have merely slipped into them For Heidegger
it is important that the ldquonotrdquo is not a nihil negativum or absolutum not
an empty ldquonotrdquo merely posited by a ldquosubjectrdquo or an ldquoIrdquomdasheven if posited
like in Fichte and Hegel through a not-positing For if it were a positum
it would not only be a logicized ldquonotrdquo but also a something (ens rationis )
and so precisely what it is not At the same time it is also important for
Heidegger that the happening of the ldquonotrdquomdashwhich albeit always pos-
sible still ldquorarely enoughrdquo really is (983089983097983097983096 983096983096)mdashdoes not disappear in an
annihilation once again in such a case the ldquonothingrdquo would not be a
ldquonotrdquo it would not be ldquothererdquo it could not be experienced as a happeningor the happening of the withdrawal from happening Joined together the
two observations can be understood in such a way that the ldquonotrdquo cannot
be either a ldquosomethingrdquo or the fait accompli of a mere absence It opens
itself as the zone of separation between beings and empty nothing and
it can be the ldquonotrdquo only as that which emerges in the experience of the
departure or slipping away of all beings e experience of this ldquonotrdquo and
the ldquonotrdquo of this experiencemdashand an abyss opens up in the reversibility
or irreversibility of these expressions and their double genitivesmdashis the
decisive pre-predicative synthesis It is not an archeacute an in itself unified
principle It is structurally an-archic (and in this sense originary) since it
is a synthesis only because of the split that crosses it Heidegger describes
this bifurcation as a ldquorepelling reference toward beings [abweisende
Verweisung ]rdquo983090 (983089983097983097983096 983097983088) as a reference to beings through which they are
brought together and at the same time repelled as a whole At the same
time as this ldquonotrdquo that formulates itself as a ldquonordquo and in Heideggerrsquosdefinition as reference carries an emphatically linguistic trait the experi-
ence of Being itself emerges as the happening of this repelling reference
e ldquonotrdquo is the in itself differentiated archi-disjunction
e separation therefore takes place between beings as a whole and
Being and not between the ldquonotrdquo and beingmdashthis separation is accom-
plished or is (or ldquoexistsrdquo) in the ldquonotrdquo ldquoe nothing itself annulsrdquo (983089983097983097983096
983097983088) it is what happens in the repelling reference and it is that it happens
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1542
T h e R e l a t i o n42
as this reference Since the ldquonotrdquo would not be without its happening
(without its nihilation) the previous phrase can be made more precise
ldquoBeing nihilatesmdashas beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
is is to say Being is always already not-anymore and always not-yet It
is in that it is the ldquonotrdquo of itself As difference from itself it is at the same
time the difference from everything and in everything that exists
e title of ldquoBeingrdquo in Heideggerrsquos thinking belongs only to the movement
of the ldquonotrdquo to the separation the difference as inter-rift (Unter-Schied )
the ontological difference is is why we find in the preface to ldquoOn theEssence of Groundrdquo the following ambiguous formulation ldquoe onto-
logical difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is
programmatic formula can be misunderstood because it places the ldquonotrdquo
between beings and Being as if they were two beings of different nature
or intensity But this ldquonotrdquo is to be thought as the ldquobetweenrdquo with which
Being emerges as differentiated from all even the highest of all beings
Being is what is resulting from and in the separation that happens in the
ldquonotrdquo and thus itself is the ldquobetweenrdquo the difference erefore Heide-
gger can write ldquonothing and Being the samerdquo ldquoHolding itself out into the
nothing Dasein is in each case already beyond beings as a whole Such
being beyond beings we call transcendence if [Dasein] were not in
advance holding itself out into the nothing then it could never adopt a
stance toward beings nor even toward itself rdquo (983097983089)
For Heidegger to transcend means above all to transcend into a ldquonotrdquoand therefore to transcend into a ldquonotrdquo of even this transcending It does
not mean indication and relation ldquotordquo but repelling and repelling reference
ldquofromrdquo as well as repelling of all reference in-predication ir-relation
dis-intention Transcendingmdashif it is not already connected through
a continuous movement with a homogenous other and thereby in no
need of transcendingmdashmust transcend into a nec trans and can only be
a transcending into the un-enterable it must be attranscendence
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 43
ldquoLe pas au-delagraverdquo writes Blanchot step beyond not beyond step beyond
to the not of the step
Only as transition into the not-going can it reach the zone of difference in
its own movement where first a possible toward of this movement opens
up as a relation to something and an intentional attitude to beings as
beings becomes possible us intentions are grounded in a structure of
transcendence that in its turn is defined by a ldquonotrdquo a halt a putting on
hold or a suspension Only this arrest offers the possibility of a relation
to something only in this suspension happens not something but only
the that of it happening
e ldquonotrdquo of this in-transcendence therefore can happen in two ways
the retreating reference to something and the experience that the hap-
pening of this reference is other than and different from the reference
conceptualized as a relation and its correlates
is arresting of the ldquonotrdquo in in-transcendence clearly defines the mini-
mal structure of language Whenever and in whatever way language is
spoken there is reference that distances But beyond this something else
also happens that cannot be reduced to this (repelling) reference and the
agents emerging from it the referents and their relations to each other
Whether absolutely novel or older than old it is incommensurable with
them e intentional attitude only exists as crossed out by the event of
its own epocheacute
erefore it appears to be insufficient and even erroneous to speak of
ldquothe claim of nihilation that has come to the clearingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) and
to say that ldquonihilation first requires the lsquonorsquo as what is to be said in the
letting-be of beingsrdquo (983090983095983091) is phrase attributes a linguistic structure
to the ldquonotrdquo that is at the same time also denied Language is defined as
something claimedmdashnot claimed by a pre-linguistic ldquoexistentiell rdquo beyond
of language but by its own exterior limits and thus by what cannot raise
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1742
T h e R e l a t i o n44
claims Heidegger therefore goes around in circlesmdasheven if we consider
all the complications of going going over and inaccessibility He goes
against himself and he might be going that way because he thinks lan-
guage as a response
e commentary on the structure of transcending (namely that it must
be that of in-transcending) and intentionality (that it must be suspended
in dis-intending) made it clear that these movements for Heidegger
always emerge first in their ldquonotrdquo and their suspension In very much
the same way we could clarify the structure of the claim as Anspruch
as Heidegger understands it not by reading this word according to themeasure of its dictionary meaning but by reading it based on its context
with an emphatically stressed An speaking onto
en the claim raised by the ldquonotrdquomdashfrom nowhere by nobody and mind
you nevermdashwould be a ldquospeakingrdquo onto and in the proximity of language
and its words and particles of negation which persisting in the onto
would never make it out of this proximity to reach language e claim
would be a speaking onto because it would never be a speech in the sense
of a statement or a performative act It would always be en route or on
the way to language An-spruch would be toward language what language
itself is not and that it itself is not presentmdashit would be the irruption of
language its start
In fact according to Heideggerrsquos text ldquothe claim of nihilationrdquo cannot be
more than this cannot be language For he says of this claim that it callsfor the ldquonordquo as what is to be said but never as something already said
never already given in or by language rather as a ldquonordquo that remains still
and always yet to be said and as what is to be said remains forever im-
minent in every possible future Speaking onto and speaking its ldquonot rdquo onto
language the claim would be the retentive relation in which language is
kept away from itself but at the same time held to and held back from
itself and sustained and held in this holding onto and holding back But
unlike what an obvious misunderstanding would suggest this sustaining
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 45
does not hold in potentia as something always merely ldquopossiblerdquo but
never ldquorealrdquo Rather it holds on this side of all modal categories in statu
nascendi et moriendi (as Celan writes in an explicit reference to Heidegger
in a letter to Werner Weber) held out into the happening of language as
perpetual beginning (983089983097983097983095 983091983097983096)
is understanding of the speaking-onto of the ldquonotrdquo also clarifies the
structure of intention It would not be some already given relation of an
already constituted consciousness to a content of consciousness but the
irruption of these relations in their pre-withholding and therefore inten-
tion only arising out of the freedom from such a relation and the opennessto it us every An- that Heidegger writes is to be read not merely as a
ldquoclose tordquo or ldquoontordquo in the sense of a given extension but always also as
the echo the Greek ana- as a privative in- or un- In words like Anspruch
(claim) or Anruf (call) or Answesen (presence) Angehen (approach) and
Ankunft (arrival) with every ldquoclose tordquo and ldquoontordquo at the same time a ldquonotrdquo
and a ldquonordquo is also said that relates relation to irrelation reference to ir-
reference direction to indirection An- is the prefix of differencemdashbut
not only of an intra-linguistic difference between different meanings of
one and the same morpheme but before meanings can appear at all the
difference between language speaking its ldquonotrdquo and language speaking
onto something An- not unlike vor- zu- hin- and aus- is the prefix of
ontological difference Whoever uses ldquospeaking ontordquo in this sense in fact
is saying something insufficient and erroneous but is also saying that this
insufficiency and erroneousness belongs to the structure of language
Language itself is the speaking onto language and therefore a speakingonto another language or something other than language
Understood as ldquospeaking ontordquo ( An-spruch) language is its othering ( An-
derung )
e An- is therefore the word and the fore-word of the madness of lan-
guage In the essay ldquoLanguage in the Poemrdquo Heidegger writes as a com-
mentary on the line ldquoe madman [Wahnsinnige] has diedrdquo from Georg
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1942
T h e R e l a t i o n46
Traklrsquos ldquoPsalmrdquo ldquoe word Wahn comes from Old High German wana
which means lsquowithoutrsquo e madman sensesmdashsenses in fact as no one
else does But he remains without the sense of others He is of another
sense Sinnan originally means to travel to strive for to strike a direc-
tion e Indo-Germanic root sent and set means lsquopathrsquo e departed is
the madman because he is on his way somewhere elserdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983091)983091 e
other way that the madman follows is the way into de-parture into a dif-
ference that departs from every possible distinction and discrimination
So Heidegger can write about the stranger who is the madman without
the sense of the other ldquois stranger unfolds the essence of the human
into the beginning of what has not yet come to bearing [Tragen] (OldHigh German giberan) is quieter and hence more stilling element
in the nature of mortals that has not been borne out is what the poet
calls the unbornrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983093)983092 But if the other waymdashthis without-path the
aporiamdashleads into what has not been borne out how do we stand with
what is defined as ldquogesturerdquo in ldquoA Dialogue on Languagerdquo ldquothe originary
gathering of bearing against and bearing tordquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983097) And how does the
thought of the not-yet-born and the unborn relate to the thought of being
as difference which is described in ldquoe Onto-eo-Logical Constitu-
tion of Metaphysicsrdquo in the following way ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ]
alone grants and holds apart the lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming
and the arrival are held toward one another are borne away from and
toward each other e difference of Being and beings as the inter-rift of
overwhelming and arrival is the bearing out [ Austrag ] of the two in un-
concealing keeping in concealment Within this bearing out there prevails
a clearing of what veils and closes itself offmdashand this prevalence bestowsthe being apart and the being toward each other of overwhelming and
arrivalrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)983093
In these sentences it becomes clear that the words ldquoheldrdquo and ldquobornerdquo
are used in the same sense being held in relation (Ver-halten) is being
borne out ( Austrag ) Both describe the movement of differentiation that
Heidegger writes as Unter-Schied (literally inter -rift ) to separate it from
rational distinctions as well as from differences in perception and to
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 47
emphasize the ldquobetweenrdquo that corresponds to the inter of the unter in
the concept of Unterschied (difference) e German word Austrag is the
literal translation of the Latin differentia which in turn is a translation
of the decisive Greek term diaphoraacute In a definition provided in the first
essay on Trakl ldquoLanguagerdquo (in 983089983097983093983088) diaphoraacute difference and bearing
out are juxtaposed with the following commentary ldquoe intimacy of
dif-ference [Unter-Schied ] is the unifying element of the diaphora the
carrying out [ Austrag ] that carries through e dif-ference carries out
world in its worlding carries out things in their thinging us carrying
them out it carries them toward one anotherrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) And a few
sentences later the series of synonymous concepts is extended to includeEreignis the appropriating event gesture as bearing and granting ldquoe
dif-ference for world and thing disclosingly appropriates things into bear-
ing a world it disclosingly appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo
(983090983088983088) In accordance with these connections in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo
relation (Verhaumlltnis ) is thought out of the appropriating event and more
precisely as the appropriative happening of the essence of language ldquoFor
that appropriating holding self-retaining is the relation of all relations
us our sayingmdashalways an answeringmdashremains forever relational Rela-
tion [Ver-haumlltnis as holding to itself] is thought of here always in terms
of the event and no longer conceived in the form of a mere referencerdquo
(983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093) But if relation means appropriation if appropriation means
difference difference means differentia and diaphora and the latter two
mean the carrying out that carries through while carrying out means
bearing the question unavoidable emerges How do the concepts from
the Trakl commentary the unborn and what is not borne out relate to thisseries And how can this series be unified with the other the without-
path and the aporia of madness ese questions are not yet answered
by the remark that Heidegger understood human Dasein in the sense of
ek-sistence as the ecstatic being outside of itself of madness is only
makes the question more urgent of whether this being-in-madness can
be thought with the concepts of difference and ldquobearing outrdquo Or whether
this madness overburdens ldquothe carrying out that carries throughrdquo and the
ldquobearing outrdquo and is therefore thrown away evacuated and forgotten
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2142
T h e R e l a t i o n48
e question therefore is once again whether the madness of ek-sis-
tence of the ldquonotrdquo of Being and of language can still be articulated in a
languagemdasheven if it as outreacute as Heideggerrsquos
Or Is it possible to think the not-borne-out as the not-borne-out More
precisely Does the not-borne-out allow itself to be thought only as a not
yet or beyond that does it allow itself to be thought as a never borne
out
Hence Can the ldquonotrdquo as a ldquoneverrdquomdashas a never of the sayablemdashdefine the
horizon of language And can this ldquoneverrdquo then also provide the tran-scendental horizon of the possibility of what is sayable Is the ldquoneverrdquo
the condition of the happening of language and the horizon of being
Or Can the ldquoneverrdquo be thought But How could it be other than never be
thought Consequently If the ldquoneverrdquo were the pre- and proto-predicative
happening that is called ldquoBeingrdquo and later more precisely coming-over
(Uumlberkommnis ) because it is what ldquoovercomesrdquo sur-prises overwhelms
more than just comes andmdashoverburdens erefore Can the unbearable
be borne and borne out
Otherwise How could Beingmdashwhether as happening history destiny
or coming-overmdashas the unbearable not be borne Because Can the un-
bearable be found at all otherwise unbearable than as always still and
nevertheless borne And then still not erefore Is there not in Being
itself such a still and nevertheless a but that keeps Being at a distancefrom Being and keeps Being out of Being and in this out and apart brings
it together
However What does the ldquooutrdquo mean in ldquoout of each otherrdquo and in ldquobearing
outrdquo if it still contains a ldquotogetherrdquo Does it refer to an originary synthesis
before every predicative synthesis Is not such a reference misleading if it
suggests a ldquotogetherrdquo there where we can encounter only an ldquoout of each
otherrdquomdasheven if we encounter it in the impossibility of its encounter
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 49
In his seminar in Le or in September 983089983097983094983094 Heidegger cites a paragraph
from the chapter ldquoOn the impossibility of a cosmological proof of Godrsquos
existencerdquo from Kantrsquos First Critique ese stunning sentencesmdashwhich
with their evocation of sinking floating without stop and the abyss
may well have contributed to the descriptions of anxiety in Being and
Time (983089983097983094983090) and ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo (983089983097983097983096)mdashspeak explicitly not only
about the groundless but also about the unbearable Kant writes
e unconditioned necessity which we need so indispensably as the ultimate
sustainer of all things is for human reason the true abyss Even eternitymdash
however awful the sublimity with which a Haller might portray itmdashdoes not
make such a dizzying impression on the mind for eternity only measures the
duration of things but it does not sustain that duration One cannot resist the
thought of it but one also cannot bear it that a being might as it were say
to itself ldquoI am from eternity to eternity outside me is nothing except what is
something merely through my will but whence then am Irdquo Here everything
caves in beneath us and the greatest perfection as well as the smallest hover
without hold before speculative reason for which it would cost nothing to
let the one as much as the other disappear without the least obstacle (Kant
983089983097983097983097 983093983095983092 Heidegger 983090983088983088983091 983089983095) God the highest ground of what is appears in
its monologue as an abyss that does not carry it but lets it collapse And Kant
says of this thought of a God that does not carry itself that ldquoone cannot resist
the thought of it but one also cannot bear itrdquo
With this the primal scene of critical transcendental philosophy and
speculative idealism is described an ens realissimum et nesessarium that does not contain the guarantee of its own being a God that is not
a causa sui and sinks in the abyss of its own question after a ground
cannot offer beings any more hold and must therefore pull down in
its own fall the categories that render it thinkable necessary and real
What remains is the scene of the sinking away of the totality of beings
ldquothe greatest perfection as well as the smallestrdquo and with this scene the
form of representation the mere idea of reason in which beings as a
whole together with the categorial structures of their knowability survive
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2342
T h e R e l a t i o n50
under the condition of their transcendentality For the ldquotranscendental
objectrdquomdashthat Kant can only speak of after the sinking away of a world
and its transcendental groundmdashis not an empirical object and not even
an object at all is object as Kant writes ldquotherefore cannot be further
intuited by us and that may therefore be called the non-empirical ie
transcendental object = Xrdquo (983089983097983097983097 983090983091983091) In his Kant book Heidegger calls
this transcendental X ldquoa Nothingrdquo that is at the same time ldquoSomethingrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983096983094) and describes the X as ldquothe horizon of a standing-against is
horizon is indeed not object but rather a Nothing if by object we mean
a being which is apprehended thematicallyrdquo (983096983095) Furthermore ldquoOnly if
the letting-stand-against of is a holding oneself in the nothing canthe representing allow a not-nothing ie something like a being rdquo (983093983089)
In the Kant commentary the ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo ismdashlike
the anxiety scenes in Being and Time in the Freiburg lecture and more
abstractly in the ldquoLetterrdquo in different waysmdashthe gesture of the horizontal-
transcendental constitution of the domain of objectivity and with that
at the same time of no longer onto-theologically founded beings held
in the mere form of representation not a creatio but still a constitutio ex
nihilo e fact that ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo as Kant examines
it in his critical philosophy stops at the form of representation (Vorstel-
lung ) and the idea of reason makes these gestures into a regulatio nihili
and prevents the further analysis of the transcendental form of being
represented and posited
Heidegger took on this further analysis starting with the exposition of
Dasein in Being and Time is analysis must show that the sinking of theens necessarium and with it that of mere being (which does not hold and
bear itself) remain irreducible to the beings of representation the idea
or the concept It must expose the fact that transcendental representa-
tion merely displaces the ldquonotrdquo that it encounters in the sinking of the
highest being instead of engaging it as the decisive content of being To
do justice to the implications of the anxiety-scene and the unbearable
question of God for his ground the classical analytical concept of differ-
ence between ground and the grounded positing and the posited must
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 442
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 542
T h e R e l a t i o n32
holds all other relations but not because it preserves the fullness of a
capability and releases from it all imaginable possibilities and realities
rather because it is itself a ldquonotrdquo of a capability and thereby makes it
possible to miss its capabilities
So what about this ldquoholdingrdquomdasha holding which is supposed to be at the
same time a carrying and as such this holding and carrying should be
something steady durable enduring yet without being capable of being
So far we have always thought language from amdashrarely clearly definedmdash
capability But since this clearly fails to grasp the structure of language
we might not be able to continue to think it from what corresponds tothis capability this potentia or essentia as substance or carrying hold We
may not continue to think it as a thing or as something as a being even
as the highest that grounds everything Such a relation the other and
further relation of which we are speaking such a mis-relation must offer
a completely other ldquoholdrdquo that offers nothing but a ldquohaltrdquo
erefore this hold is notmdashit is not a beingmdashbut a not mdasha not to beings
and so that which first releases beings as such
What we call language must be thought from this holding of the ldquonotrdquo
from this holding back without a hold and this hold without hold We
could then describe it if it is possible to do so at all without the risk of
misunderstanding or self-misunderstanding as the relationmdashdas Verhaumllt-
nis mdashand more precisely the relation of all relations mdashdas Verhaumlltnis aller
Verhaumlltnisse
We are approaching Heidegger and his ldquolanguagerdquo As far as I know
he was the only one who spoke of Verhaumlltnis in the sense of this emphatic
polysemy the only one who did not use this wordmdashthis word of wordsmdash
in the usual meaning of the German concept the only one who used
it always also in the sense of the Greek epocheacute and the Latin retentio
and thereby turned it into a neologism that could hardly be any less
ldquoGermanicrdquo In ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo he spoke of the ldquoepocheacute of Beingrdquo
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 33
as the ldquoholding to itself with the truth of its essencerdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) In the
ldquoLetter on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo to the question how Being relates to ek-sistence
he gave the answer ldquoBeing itself is the relation [das Verhaumlltnis ] to the
extent that It holds to itself [an sich haumllt ] ek-sistencerdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983093983091)
And in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo the essence of languagemdashin modern high
German language as happeningmdashis written as Ver-haumlltnis and is thought
from what he calls the event of appropriation ( Ereignis ) which is defined
along with language in the following way ldquoFor that event appropriating
holding self-retaining is the relation of all relationsrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093)
All this quite frankly is so awkwardly formulated that one longs for aHeideggerian Dialect Dictionary to translate it into at least a usable if
not a usual language
Dictionaries list meanings but not relations of tension not the paths and
movements between them which can only be presented in sentences and
even there not without losses and additions To approach this Verhaumllt-
nis mdashthis relation this retention abstention and holding to itselfmdashand
thereby approach language and if we try to do so by the detour of some
of Heideggerrsquos texts we need to strike another path We could describe
this path tentatively and reservedly as that of a ldquocritical variationrdquo and
start it at the point that we have already touched
At the ldquonotrdquo
In the ldquoLetter on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo Heidegger summed up in a few sentenceshis observations on ldquonothingrdquo from Being and Time and from his inaugu-
ral lecture in Freiburg ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo and thereby specifically
rejected the assumption that the ldquonotrdquo could be derived from the ldquonordquo
of an already constituted language ldquoWhat annuls makes itself clear as
something that is not is can be addressed by the lsquonorsquo e lsquonotrsquo in no way
arises from the no-saying of negation Every lsquonorsquo answers to the claim of
the annulment that has become clear Every lsquonorsquo is simply the affirmation
of the lsquonotrsquordquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) First of all this apodictic explanation emphasizes
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 742
T h e R e l a t i o n34
that no-saying can only posit a ldquonotrdquo thatmdashas something said posited
and signifiedmdashis at the same time ldquosomethingrdquo and is not the ldquonotrdquo that
is at stake here Before any no-saying in the sense of a negation through
an act of positing there must have been a ldquonotrdquo that as an address must
have already directed itself to a possible speech if this speech is to be able
to address not only an existing ldquosomethingrdquo but precisely the ldquonotrdquomdashand
especially the ldquonotrdquo in its happening as annulment Although within the
medium of language the ldquonordquo can be said every such ldquonordquo as a statement
can refer only to ldquosomethingrdquo that is already given and contained in the
form of representation Furthermore as an instrument of language this
ldquonordquo itself must be a given for representation erefore this ldquonordquo wouldbe an exemplary word for a commercium among present-at-hand beings
which can only count with what is sayable but has no access to what it
no longer or not yet is and thus has no access to the factum that it is and
to the way it is not With the derivation of the ldquonotrdquo from the word of a
constituted language something represented is derived from another
representation e ldquonotrdquo is converted into a being and thereby misses
the point that it is precisely not this namely a being
ldquoNotrdquo is underivable But it is not solely the ldquonotrdquo that cannot be said
by any language and its ldquonotrdquo It is also the ldquonotrdquo that must inexplicitly
speak withmdashremain silent with and fall mute withmdashin every language as
the not-sayable e ldquonot rdquo is sensu strictu a not-word It is the counter-
linguistic the counter-word as such through which every language can
become language If it is a language it is the language from this ldquonotrdquo that
is missing from it and resists it
Language is the ldquonordquo to the ldquonotrdquo that precedes it and must precede it
in itself as its own proper ldquonotrdquo if it is to speak as language at all and
speaking is to be in the movement from its not -yet to its not -anymore
is is why Heidegger says of language that it is the answer to the move-
ment of the ldquonotrdquo that it can only speak in response to the address of the
ldquonotrdquo and in its turn address its not-ness But if it is an answer it is not
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 35
so as the existing acknowledgement of an existing object or a content of
representation but only in the way that as language it itself corresponds
to the ldquonihilationrdquo or ldquoannulmentrdquo that addresses it
Language cannot speak but by letting the ldquonotrdquo that addresses it happen
in languagersquos own happening e residuum of correspondence theory
that persists in this explanation demands however that we conceive of
language as the answer and correspondence to the counter-linguistic
ldquonotrdquo and understand every ldquonordquo as only the affirmation of the ldquonotrdquo and at
the same time understand the happening of language itself and in general
as a ldquonordquo as the affirmation of the ldquonotrdquo and of nihilation Language how-ever corresponds to the nihilationmdashand the correspondence dissolves
itself in itmdashonly in such a way that it ent-spricht it corresponds to itself
as language as not-saying It loses its linguistic nature (ent-sprachlicht )
as it evacuates its contents as well as its forms and it allows its being to
become a not-saying and with this not-saying the naked ldquothatrdquo of saying
Saying ldquonordquo to itself as a being in all its moments language speaks and it
speaks beyond itself and the totality of beings transcendence of language
in its being as the movement of ldquonotrdquo
is is why Heidegger can write describing the movement of Being and
along with Being also that of language ldquoBeing annulsmdashas Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096
983090983095983091) It annuls as language in as much as it departs from itself as an exist-
ing correlation to other beings and it is evicted from what it can be as an
instrumental structure of reference ek-sistence of language into a Being
without beings
is movement that language never performs through acts of positing by
its speakers this movement that occurs not only occasionally and never
intentionally or caused by motives this movement that defines language
as the language expelled from language was defined by Heidegger in his
Freiburg lecture as the language of anxiety as the angst-ridden language
At the end of a short description of an experience of anxiety this reduc-
tion of language to its most properly own is characterized in the following
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 942
T h e R e l a t i o n36
terms ldquoNot a hold remains [ Es bleibt kein Halt ] In the slipping away of
beings only this lsquonotrsquo [kein] remains and comes over usrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983096983096)983089 e
ldquoessential impossibility of determiningrdquo beings as a whole (983096983096) that we
experience in anxiety leaves nothing enduring nothing that speech or
action could offer to hold on to no hold apart from this ldquonotrdquo of the hold
the hold without hold ldquoNotrdquo is the word for the language no longer of be-
ings but for language as it happens as a partingmdashparting from everything
that can be defined represented and held It speaks only by saying that
nothing remains to be said and therefore it corresponds to its own ldquonotrdquo
still speaks speaks for the first time and speaks as language even beyond
what in and through it is definable ldquoNonerdquo ( Kein) is not a word nor isit a mark it is the counter-word and the counter-mark to all that could
be merely stated and signified But as this anti-word ( Anti-Wort ) it is the
answer ( Antwort ) of bare speech to the merely speakable It is the primary
Ur-word the word-word as such the only word of language language
itself as this single word as it exactly says its Sein its ldquordquoBeingrdquo
ldquoNot a hold remains In the slipping away of beings only this lsquonotrsquo remains
and comes over usrdquo ldquoNotrdquo does not say anything about Being It speaks
itself as Being Being happens in the ldquonotrdquo and nowhere else It is the
hold without hold the up- and with-holding dwelling ( Auf-ent-halt ) that
language is as the house of Being the only ethos Language speaks only
when it becomes this house of the ldquonot rdquo in all its idioms in every word
and every silence and thereby gains its Being as that which is not a being
ldquo Not rdquo contracts the individual appearances in their nihilation into the
whole of a ldquothererdquo It allows to step back from the world assembled underthe deletion mark of the ldquonotrdquo it is the word of the epocheacute of every word
and every world Still precisely as speaking beyond all merely real and
possible words it speaks as one that does not represent anything does
not declare signify or does anything but simply happens it is the ldquothatrdquo
of its self and as this ldquothatrdquo it is the horizon of Being within which every
being can first be what it is It is the word of apocalypse the revelation
of the possibility of all worlds and words Epocheacute and revelation the re-
turn of beings into their ldquonotrdquo and the rise of Being In the ldquo not rdquo beings
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 37
and Being separate and (d)emerge as different ldquo Not rdquo is the word of the
ontological difference
A theory of the origin of language and at the same time of the origin of
Being and beings with language ldquo Nonerdquo or not would be then the fiat the
finite not the originating but the witnessing the Dasein-opening fiat of
the homo humanus of whose humanitas Heidegger speaks in the ldquoLetter
on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo Although here the connection between the origin of
language and the ldquonotrdquo remains only a suggestion it defines the gesture
that carries Heideggerrsquos thought in general namely that something
emerges as something first in its slippage For example the hammer inthe becoming useless of the ldquoequipmentrdquo the ldquoworldrdquo in the loss of reason
in anxiety the possible wholeness of Dasein in ldquobeing-toward-deathrdquo the
work of art in the rejection of the usual coherence of the world the Being
of the word in its ldquoapartnessrdquo and its ldquoinfirmityrdquo
e ldquonot rdquo reveals nothing and it is as this revelation a historical moment
in which nothing will be seen apart from the ldquonotrdquo of seeing ldquoBeing is
more in being than any beingsrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
However the ldquonot rdquo can reveal the nothing only because as a citationmdash
Heidegger puts it between quotation marksmdashfrom the inner- worldly
discourse of Dasein it opens up the distance that allows Dasein to relate
to the world as a whole as its ldquothererdquo (983089983097983097983096 983089983088983097) e ldquonordquo as the word of
transcendence is at the same time that of the difference between Being
and the beings of the world It can be both transcendence and differenceonly as exposed from every determinable meaning And yet this ldquonot rdquo
does mean But it does not mean what ldquosomethingrdquo or ldquoonerdquo ldquocoverrdquo or
ldquoLazarusrdquo means but rather always their and its own ldquonotrdquo Heideggerrsquos
ldquonotrdquo however does not remain only a residue of innerworldliness and
meaningfulness It also follows a direction in which it approaches Dasein
relates to its language allows its affirmation and even its recognition
and allows Dasein to be bound to the ldquonotrdquo in its ldquoyesrdquo and ldquonordquo ldquoEvery
lsquonorsquo is simply the affirmation of the lsquonotrsquo Every affirmation consists in
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1142
T h e R e l a t i o n38
recognition Recognition lets that toward which it goes come toward itrdquo
(983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) Just as in Hegel in the ldquoLetter on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo the ldquonotrdquo is
the ldquonotrdquo of something But even when in an ek-sistential conversion it
turns itself into the something of a nihilation this nihilation remains
as counter-phenomenon oriented toward something and remains ca-
pable of being grasped in an answer which even though a citation a
remainder a residue and a trace remains still the determined trace of
a determined being and not the ldquoessential impossibility of determiningrdquo
beings as a whole (983089983097983097983096 983096983096) In contradistinction to his claim Heidegger
does not describe the ldquonotrdquo itself but the ldquonotrdquo of a self Even though the
ldquonot rdquomdashldquoonly this lsquonotrsquordquo (983096983096)mdashis supposed to be the ldquonot rdquo of the hold ona determinable meaning and a determinable direction it moves toward
the transcendental ldquonordquo of language and toward the dwelling in its house
it remains a directional ldquonotrdquo
And the other way around if the ldquonordquo of language is the ldquothe affirmation of
the lsquonotrsquordquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) then this ldquonotrdquo can be affirmed only as the one that
language moves toward e spoken ldquonordquo according to Heideggerrsquos words
is an already addressed ldquonordquo in which only the ldquonotrdquo as an intentional
object will be affirmed language retains for Heidegger an intentional
structure even in its epocheacute Accordinglymdashand in fact in the sense of
a correspondence in a relational pairmdashthe ldquonotrdquo in Heideggerrsquos ldquoLetterrdquo
is attuned to the affirmation of its affirmation It is an intentionally
disposed and moreover affirmative ldquonotrdquo Only this way can the whole
domain of meaningfulness be thought in it as simultaneously suspended
and founded
Furthermore if the recognition of the ldquonotrdquo as Heidegger writes ldquolets
that toward which it goes come toward itrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) the recognition
becomes the place of the advent of the ldquonotrdquo and the intentional ldquonotrdquo
becomes not only linguistically affirmable but moreover recognizable
and locatable in its recognition In all these structures the ldquonotrdquo appears
to be reduced to something less than what as the ldquoannulmentrdquo should
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 39
refuse every recognition and remain placeless wordless and non-inten-
tional Since ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091) the
ldquonotrdquo should be more nihilating than any nihilation within the horizon of
intentional acknowledgement It should remain irreducible to relational
pairs and it should withdraw itself from such alternatives as speaking to
and turning away from presence to and absence from Since it is ldquonotrdquo
it should not remain restricted to pressure constriction and anxiety It
should each time happen as that which in these relations releases from
them and makes them possible in the first place
ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquomdashHeideggerrsquos catchy formulaemploys a comparative to describe the relation between Being and beings
and thus the relation as such It compares the two that should remain
absolutely incomparable It speaks of Being in the language of beings
and says that it is a Being of enhanced intensity e formula however
remains ambiguous It says on the one hand that being is in being and
even more in being than beings On the other hand however it says that
it is in being only in such a way that it transgresses the measure and
range of beings releases itself from all beings and gives up every hold on
them e relation that this formula speaks of is therefore the relation of
the dissolution of every relation of transcendence into the relationless
and of not only quantitative and merely relative but of the ontological
difference between Being and beings Catchy as it is it speaks only the
slippage of Being out of every form of every existing languagemdashand
hyperbolically speaks beyond its own speech Language in difference to
language language of difference language out of it
e syntagm ldquobeing more in being than any beingsrdquo is at the same time
a hypertagm It offers a proposition and steps outside everymdasheven its
ownmdashproposition
Horrifying (entzetzliche) language Every language is displacing (en-
tzetzlich)
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1342
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 41
of the structure of intentionality which is too strongly emphasized in his
thoughts on the ldquonotrdquo to have merely slipped into them For Heidegger
it is important that the ldquonotrdquo is not a nihil negativum or absolutum not
an empty ldquonotrdquo merely posited by a ldquosubjectrdquo or an ldquoIrdquomdasheven if posited
like in Fichte and Hegel through a not-positing For if it were a positum
it would not only be a logicized ldquonotrdquo but also a something (ens rationis )
and so precisely what it is not At the same time it is also important for
Heidegger that the happening of the ldquonotrdquomdashwhich albeit always pos-
sible still ldquorarely enoughrdquo really is (983089983097983097983096 983096983096)mdashdoes not disappear in an
annihilation once again in such a case the ldquonothingrdquo would not be a
ldquonotrdquo it would not be ldquothererdquo it could not be experienced as a happeningor the happening of the withdrawal from happening Joined together the
two observations can be understood in such a way that the ldquonotrdquo cannot
be either a ldquosomethingrdquo or the fait accompli of a mere absence It opens
itself as the zone of separation between beings and empty nothing and
it can be the ldquonotrdquo only as that which emerges in the experience of the
departure or slipping away of all beings e experience of this ldquonotrdquo and
the ldquonotrdquo of this experiencemdashand an abyss opens up in the reversibility
or irreversibility of these expressions and their double genitivesmdashis the
decisive pre-predicative synthesis It is not an archeacute an in itself unified
principle It is structurally an-archic (and in this sense originary) since it
is a synthesis only because of the split that crosses it Heidegger describes
this bifurcation as a ldquorepelling reference toward beings [abweisende
Verweisung ]rdquo983090 (983089983097983097983096 983097983088) as a reference to beings through which they are
brought together and at the same time repelled as a whole At the same
time as this ldquonotrdquo that formulates itself as a ldquonordquo and in Heideggerrsquosdefinition as reference carries an emphatically linguistic trait the experi-
ence of Being itself emerges as the happening of this repelling reference
e ldquonotrdquo is the in itself differentiated archi-disjunction
e separation therefore takes place between beings as a whole and
Being and not between the ldquonotrdquo and beingmdashthis separation is accom-
plished or is (or ldquoexistsrdquo) in the ldquonotrdquo ldquoe nothing itself annulsrdquo (983089983097983097983096
983097983088) it is what happens in the repelling reference and it is that it happens
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1542
T h e R e l a t i o n42
as this reference Since the ldquonotrdquo would not be without its happening
(without its nihilation) the previous phrase can be made more precise
ldquoBeing nihilatesmdashas beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
is is to say Being is always already not-anymore and always not-yet It
is in that it is the ldquonotrdquo of itself As difference from itself it is at the same
time the difference from everything and in everything that exists
e title of ldquoBeingrdquo in Heideggerrsquos thinking belongs only to the movement
of the ldquonotrdquo to the separation the difference as inter-rift (Unter-Schied )
the ontological difference is is why we find in the preface to ldquoOn theEssence of Groundrdquo the following ambiguous formulation ldquoe onto-
logical difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is
programmatic formula can be misunderstood because it places the ldquonotrdquo
between beings and Being as if they were two beings of different nature
or intensity But this ldquonotrdquo is to be thought as the ldquobetweenrdquo with which
Being emerges as differentiated from all even the highest of all beings
Being is what is resulting from and in the separation that happens in the
ldquonotrdquo and thus itself is the ldquobetweenrdquo the difference erefore Heide-
gger can write ldquonothing and Being the samerdquo ldquoHolding itself out into the
nothing Dasein is in each case already beyond beings as a whole Such
being beyond beings we call transcendence if [Dasein] were not in
advance holding itself out into the nothing then it could never adopt a
stance toward beings nor even toward itself rdquo (983097983089)
For Heidegger to transcend means above all to transcend into a ldquonotrdquoand therefore to transcend into a ldquonotrdquo of even this transcending It does
not mean indication and relation ldquotordquo but repelling and repelling reference
ldquofromrdquo as well as repelling of all reference in-predication ir-relation
dis-intention Transcendingmdashif it is not already connected through
a continuous movement with a homogenous other and thereby in no
need of transcendingmdashmust transcend into a nec trans and can only be
a transcending into the un-enterable it must be attranscendence
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 43
ldquoLe pas au-delagraverdquo writes Blanchot step beyond not beyond step beyond
to the not of the step
Only as transition into the not-going can it reach the zone of difference in
its own movement where first a possible toward of this movement opens
up as a relation to something and an intentional attitude to beings as
beings becomes possible us intentions are grounded in a structure of
transcendence that in its turn is defined by a ldquonotrdquo a halt a putting on
hold or a suspension Only this arrest offers the possibility of a relation
to something only in this suspension happens not something but only
the that of it happening
e ldquonotrdquo of this in-transcendence therefore can happen in two ways
the retreating reference to something and the experience that the hap-
pening of this reference is other than and different from the reference
conceptualized as a relation and its correlates
is arresting of the ldquonotrdquo in in-transcendence clearly defines the mini-
mal structure of language Whenever and in whatever way language is
spoken there is reference that distances But beyond this something else
also happens that cannot be reduced to this (repelling) reference and the
agents emerging from it the referents and their relations to each other
Whether absolutely novel or older than old it is incommensurable with
them e intentional attitude only exists as crossed out by the event of
its own epocheacute
erefore it appears to be insufficient and even erroneous to speak of
ldquothe claim of nihilation that has come to the clearingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) and
to say that ldquonihilation first requires the lsquonorsquo as what is to be said in the
letting-be of beingsrdquo (983090983095983091) is phrase attributes a linguistic structure
to the ldquonotrdquo that is at the same time also denied Language is defined as
something claimedmdashnot claimed by a pre-linguistic ldquoexistentiell rdquo beyond
of language but by its own exterior limits and thus by what cannot raise
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1742
T h e R e l a t i o n44
claims Heidegger therefore goes around in circlesmdasheven if we consider
all the complications of going going over and inaccessibility He goes
against himself and he might be going that way because he thinks lan-
guage as a response
e commentary on the structure of transcending (namely that it must
be that of in-transcending) and intentionality (that it must be suspended
in dis-intending) made it clear that these movements for Heidegger
always emerge first in their ldquonotrdquo and their suspension In very much
the same way we could clarify the structure of the claim as Anspruch
as Heidegger understands it not by reading this word according to themeasure of its dictionary meaning but by reading it based on its context
with an emphatically stressed An speaking onto
en the claim raised by the ldquonotrdquomdashfrom nowhere by nobody and mind
you nevermdashwould be a ldquospeakingrdquo onto and in the proximity of language
and its words and particles of negation which persisting in the onto
would never make it out of this proximity to reach language e claim
would be a speaking onto because it would never be a speech in the sense
of a statement or a performative act It would always be en route or on
the way to language An-spruch would be toward language what language
itself is not and that it itself is not presentmdashit would be the irruption of
language its start
In fact according to Heideggerrsquos text ldquothe claim of nihilationrdquo cannot be
more than this cannot be language For he says of this claim that it callsfor the ldquonordquo as what is to be said but never as something already said
never already given in or by language rather as a ldquonordquo that remains still
and always yet to be said and as what is to be said remains forever im-
minent in every possible future Speaking onto and speaking its ldquonot rdquo onto
language the claim would be the retentive relation in which language is
kept away from itself but at the same time held to and held back from
itself and sustained and held in this holding onto and holding back But
unlike what an obvious misunderstanding would suggest this sustaining
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 45
does not hold in potentia as something always merely ldquopossiblerdquo but
never ldquorealrdquo Rather it holds on this side of all modal categories in statu
nascendi et moriendi (as Celan writes in an explicit reference to Heidegger
in a letter to Werner Weber) held out into the happening of language as
perpetual beginning (983089983097983097983095 983091983097983096)
is understanding of the speaking-onto of the ldquonotrdquo also clarifies the
structure of intention It would not be some already given relation of an
already constituted consciousness to a content of consciousness but the
irruption of these relations in their pre-withholding and therefore inten-
tion only arising out of the freedom from such a relation and the opennessto it us every An- that Heidegger writes is to be read not merely as a
ldquoclose tordquo or ldquoontordquo in the sense of a given extension but always also as
the echo the Greek ana- as a privative in- or un- In words like Anspruch
(claim) or Anruf (call) or Answesen (presence) Angehen (approach) and
Ankunft (arrival) with every ldquoclose tordquo and ldquoontordquo at the same time a ldquonotrdquo
and a ldquonordquo is also said that relates relation to irrelation reference to ir-
reference direction to indirection An- is the prefix of differencemdashbut
not only of an intra-linguistic difference between different meanings of
one and the same morpheme but before meanings can appear at all the
difference between language speaking its ldquonotrdquo and language speaking
onto something An- not unlike vor- zu- hin- and aus- is the prefix of
ontological difference Whoever uses ldquospeaking ontordquo in this sense in fact
is saying something insufficient and erroneous but is also saying that this
insufficiency and erroneousness belongs to the structure of language
Language itself is the speaking onto language and therefore a speakingonto another language or something other than language
Understood as ldquospeaking ontordquo ( An-spruch) language is its othering ( An-
derung )
e An- is therefore the word and the fore-word of the madness of lan-
guage In the essay ldquoLanguage in the Poemrdquo Heidegger writes as a com-
mentary on the line ldquoe madman [Wahnsinnige] has diedrdquo from Georg
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1942
T h e R e l a t i o n46
Traklrsquos ldquoPsalmrdquo ldquoe word Wahn comes from Old High German wana
which means lsquowithoutrsquo e madman sensesmdashsenses in fact as no one
else does But he remains without the sense of others He is of another
sense Sinnan originally means to travel to strive for to strike a direc-
tion e Indo-Germanic root sent and set means lsquopathrsquo e departed is
the madman because he is on his way somewhere elserdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983091)983091 e
other way that the madman follows is the way into de-parture into a dif-
ference that departs from every possible distinction and discrimination
So Heidegger can write about the stranger who is the madman without
the sense of the other ldquois stranger unfolds the essence of the human
into the beginning of what has not yet come to bearing [Tragen] (OldHigh German giberan) is quieter and hence more stilling element
in the nature of mortals that has not been borne out is what the poet
calls the unbornrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983093)983092 But if the other waymdashthis without-path the
aporiamdashleads into what has not been borne out how do we stand with
what is defined as ldquogesturerdquo in ldquoA Dialogue on Languagerdquo ldquothe originary
gathering of bearing against and bearing tordquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983097) And how does the
thought of the not-yet-born and the unborn relate to the thought of being
as difference which is described in ldquoe Onto-eo-Logical Constitu-
tion of Metaphysicsrdquo in the following way ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ]
alone grants and holds apart the lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming
and the arrival are held toward one another are borne away from and
toward each other e difference of Being and beings as the inter-rift of
overwhelming and arrival is the bearing out [ Austrag ] of the two in un-
concealing keeping in concealment Within this bearing out there prevails
a clearing of what veils and closes itself offmdashand this prevalence bestowsthe being apart and the being toward each other of overwhelming and
arrivalrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)983093
In these sentences it becomes clear that the words ldquoheldrdquo and ldquobornerdquo
are used in the same sense being held in relation (Ver-halten) is being
borne out ( Austrag ) Both describe the movement of differentiation that
Heidegger writes as Unter-Schied (literally inter -rift ) to separate it from
rational distinctions as well as from differences in perception and to
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 47
emphasize the ldquobetweenrdquo that corresponds to the inter of the unter in
the concept of Unterschied (difference) e German word Austrag is the
literal translation of the Latin differentia which in turn is a translation
of the decisive Greek term diaphoraacute In a definition provided in the first
essay on Trakl ldquoLanguagerdquo (in 983089983097983093983088) diaphoraacute difference and bearing
out are juxtaposed with the following commentary ldquoe intimacy of
dif-ference [Unter-Schied ] is the unifying element of the diaphora the
carrying out [ Austrag ] that carries through e dif-ference carries out
world in its worlding carries out things in their thinging us carrying
them out it carries them toward one anotherrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) And a few
sentences later the series of synonymous concepts is extended to includeEreignis the appropriating event gesture as bearing and granting ldquoe
dif-ference for world and thing disclosingly appropriates things into bear-
ing a world it disclosingly appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo
(983090983088983088) In accordance with these connections in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo
relation (Verhaumlltnis ) is thought out of the appropriating event and more
precisely as the appropriative happening of the essence of language ldquoFor
that appropriating holding self-retaining is the relation of all relations
us our sayingmdashalways an answeringmdashremains forever relational Rela-
tion [Ver-haumlltnis as holding to itself] is thought of here always in terms
of the event and no longer conceived in the form of a mere referencerdquo
(983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093) But if relation means appropriation if appropriation means
difference difference means differentia and diaphora and the latter two
mean the carrying out that carries through while carrying out means
bearing the question unavoidable emerges How do the concepts from
the Trakl commentary the unborn and what is not borne out relate to thisseries And how can this series be unified with the other the without-
path and the aporia of madness ese questions are not yet answered
by the remark that Heidegger understood human Dasein in the sense of
ek-sistence as the ecstatic being outside of itself of madness is only
makes the question more urgent of whether this being-in-madness can
be thought with the concepts of difference and ldquobearing outrdquo Or whether
this madness overburdens ldquothe carrying out that carries throughrdquo and the
ldquobearing outrdquo and is therefore thrown away evacuated and forgotten
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2142
T h e R e l a t i o n48
e question therefore is once again whether the madness of ek-sis-
tence of the ldquonotrdquo of Being and of language can still be articulated in a
languagemdasheven if it as outreacute as Heideggerrsquos
Or Is it possible to think the not-borne-out as the not-borne-out More
precisely Does the not-borne-out allow itself to be thought only as a not
yet or beyond that does it allow itself to be thought as a never borne
out
Hence Can the ldquonotrdquo as a ldquoneverrdquomdashas a never of the sayablemdashdefine the
horizon of language And can this ldquoneverrdquo then also provide the tran-scendental horizon of the possibility of what is sayable Is the ldquoneverrdquo
the condition of the happening of language and the horizon of being
Or Can the ldquoneverrdquo be thought But How could it be other than never be
thought Consequently If the ldquoneverrdquo were the pre- and proto-predicative
happening that is called ldquoBeingrdquo and later more precisely coming-over
(Uumlberkommnis ) because it is what ldquoovercomesrdquo sur-prises overwhelms
more than just comes andmdashoverburdens erefore Can the unbearable
be borne and borne out
Otherwise How could Beingmdashwhether as happening history destiny
or coming-overmdashas the unbearable not be borne Because Can the un-
bearable be found at all otherwise unbearable than as always still and
nevertheless borne And then still not erefore Is there not in Being
itself such a still and nevertheless a but that keeps Being at a distancefrom Being and keeps Being out of Being and in this out and apart brings
it together
However What does the ldquooutrdquo mean in ldquoout of each otherrdquo and in ldquobearing
outrdquo if it still contains a ldquotogetherrdquo Does it refer to an originary synthesis
before every predicative synthesis Is not such a reference misleading if it
suggests a ldquotogetherrdquo there where we can encounter only an ldquoout of each
otherrdquomdasheven if we encounter it in the impossibility of its encounter
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 49
In his seminar in Le or in September 983089983097983094983094 Heidegger cites a paragraph
from the chapter ldquoOn the impossibility of a cosmological proof of Godrsquos
existencerdquo from Kantrsquos First Critique ese stunning sentencesmdashwhich
with their evocation of sinking floating without stop and the abyss
may well have contributed to the descriptions of anxiety in Being and
Time (983089983097983094983090) and ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo (983089983097983097983096)mdashspeak explicitly not only
about the groundless but also about the unbearable Kant writes
e unconditioned necessity which we need so indispensably as the ultimate
sustainer of all things is for human reason the true abyss Even eternitymdash
however awful the sublimity with which a Haller might portray itmdashdoes not
make such a dizzying impression on the mind for eternity only measures the
duration of things but it does not sustain that duration One cannot resist the
thought of it but one also cannot bear it that a being might as it were say
to itself ldquoI am from eternity to eternity outside me is nothing except what is
something merely through my will but whence then am Irdquo Here everything
caves in beneath us and the greatest perfection as well as the smallest hover
without hold before speculative reason for which it would cost nothing to
let the one as much as the other disappear without the least obstacle (Kant
983089983097983097983097 983093983095983092 Heidegger 983090983088983088983091 983089983095) God the highest ground of what is appears in
its monologue as an abyss that does not carry it but lets it collapse And Kant
says of this thought of a God that does not carry itself that ldquoone cannot resist
the thought of it but one also cannot bear itrdquo
With this the primal scene of critical transcendental philosophy and
speculative idealism is described an ens realissimum et nesessarium that does not contain the guarantee of its own being a God that is not
a causa sui and sinks in the abyss of its own question after a ground
cannot offer beings any more hold and must therefore pull down in
its own fall the categories that render it thinkable necessary and real
What remains is the scene of the sinking away of the totality of beings
ldquothe greatest perfection as well as the smallestrdquo and with this scene the
form of representation the mere idea of reason in which beings as a
whole together with the categorial structures of their knowability survive
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2342
T h e R e l a t i o n50
under the condition of their transcendentality For the ldquotranscendental
objectrdquomdashthat Kant can only speak of after the sinking away of a world
and its transcendental groundmdashis not an empirical object and not even
an object at all is object as Kant writes ldquotherefore cannot be further
intuited by us and that may therefore be called the non-empirical ie
transcendental object = Xrdquo (983089983097983097983097 983090983091983091) In his Kant book Heidegger calls
this transcendental X ldquoa Nothingrdquo that is at the same time ldquoSomethingrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983096983094) and describes the X as ldquothe horizon of a standing-against is
horizon is indeed not object but rather a Nothing if by object we mean
a being which is apprehended thematicallyrdquo (983096983095) Furthermore ldquoOnly if
the letting-stand-against of is a holding oneself in the nothing canthe representing allow a not-nothing ie something like a being rdquo (983093983089)
In the Kant commentary the ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo ismdashlike
the anxiety scenes in Being and Time in the Freiburg lecture and more
abstractly in the ldquoLetterrdquo in different waysmdashthe gesture of the horizontal-
transcendental constitution of the domain of objectivity and with that
at the same time of no longer onto-theologically founded beings held
in the mere form of representation not a creatio but still a constitutio ex
nihilo e fact that ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo as Kant examines
it in his critical philosophy stops at the form of representation (Vorstel-
lung ) and the idea of reason makes these gestures into a regulatio nihili
and prevents the further analysis of the transcendental form of being
represented and posited
Heidegger took on this further analysis starting with the exposition of
Dasein in Being and Time is analysis must show that the sinking of theens necessarium and with it that of mere being (which does not hold and
bear itself) remain irreducible to the beings of representation the idea
or the concept It must expose the fact that transcendental representa-
tion merely displaces the ldquonotrdquo that it encounters in the sinking of the
highest being instead of engaging it as the decisive content of being To
do justice to the implications of the anxiety-scene and the unbearable
question of God for his ground the classical analytical concept of differ-
ence between ground and the grounded positing and the posited must
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 542
T h e R e l a t i o n32
holds all other relations but not because it preserves the fullness of a
capability and releases from it all imaginable possibilities and realities
rather because it is itself a ldquonotrdquo of a capability and thereby makes it
possible to miss its capabilities
So what about this ldquoholdingrdquomdasha holding which is supposed to be at the
same time a carrying and as such this holding and carrying should be
something steady durable enduring yet without being capable of being
So far we have always thought language from amdashrarely clearly definedmdash
capability But since this clearly fails to grasp the structure of language
we might not be able to continue to think it from what corresponds tothis capability this potentia or essentia as substance or carrying hold We
may not continue to think it as a thing or as something as a being even
as the highest that grounds everything Such a relation the other and
further relation of which we are speaking such a mis-relation must offer
a completely other ldquoholdrdquo that offers nothing but a ldquohaltrdquo
erefore this hold is notmdashit is not a beingmdashbut a not mdasha not to beings
and so that which first releases beings as such
What we call language must be thought from this holding of the ldquonotrdquo
from this holding back without a hold and this hold without hold We
could then describe it if it is possible to do so at all without the risk of
misunderstanding or self-misunderstanding as the relationmdashdas Verhaumllt-
nis mdashand more precisely the relation of all relations mdashdas Verhaumlltnis aller
Verhaumlltnisse
We are approaching Heidegger and his ldquolanguagerdquo As far as I know
he was the only one who spoke of Verhaumlltnis in the sense of this emphatic
polysemy the only one who did not use this wordmdashthis word of wordsmdash
in the usual meaning of the German concept the only one who used
it always also in the sense of the Greek epocheacute and the Latin retentio
and thereby turned it into a neologism that could hardly be any less
ldquoGermanicrdquo In ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo he spoke of the ldquoepocheacute of Beingrdquo
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 33
as the ldquoholding to itself with the truth of its essencerdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) In the
ldquoLetter on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo to the question how Being relates to ek-sistence
he gave the answer ldquoBeing itself is the relation [das Verhaumlltnis ] to the
extent that It holds to itself [an sich haumllt ] ek-sistencerdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983093983091)
And in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo the essence of languagemdashin modern high
German language as happeningmdashis written as Ver-haumlltnis and is thought
from what he calls the event of appropriation ( Ereignis ) which is defined
along with language in the following way ldquoFor that event appropriating
holding self-retaining is the relation of all relationsrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093)
All this quite frankly is so awkwardly formulated that one longs for aHeideggerian Dialect Dictionary to translate it into at least a usable if
not a usual language
Dictionaries list meanings but not relations of tension not the paths and
movements between them which can only be presented in sentences and
even there not without losses and additions To approach this Verhaumllt-
nis mdashthis relation this retention abstention and holding to itselfmdashand
thereby approach language and if we try to do so by the detour of some
of Heideggerrsquos texts we need to strike another path We could describe
this path tentatively and reservedly as that of a ldquocritical variationrdquo and
start it at the point that we have already touched
At the ldquonotrdquo
In the ldquoLetter on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo Heidegger summed up in a few sentenceshis observations on ldquonothingrdquo from Being and Time and from his inaugu-
ral lecture in Freiburg ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo and thereby specifically
rejected the assumption that the ldquonotrdquo could be derived from the ldquonordquo
of an already constituted language ldquoWhat annuls makes itself clear as
something that is not is can be addressed by the lsquonorsquo e lsquonotrsquo in no way
arises from the no-saying of negation Every lsquonorsquo answers to the claim of
the annulment that has become clear Every lsquonorsquo is simply the affirmation
of the lsquonotrsquordquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) First of all this apodictic explanation emphasizes
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 742
T h e R e l a t i o n34
that no-saying can only posit a ldquonotrdquo thatmdashas something said posited
and signifiedmdashis at the same time ldquosomethingrdquo and is not the ldquonotrdquo that
is at stake here Before any no-saying in the sense of a negation through
an act of positing there must have been a ldquonotrdquo that as an address must
have already directed itself to a possible speech if this speech is to be able
to address not only an existing ldquosomethingrdquo but precisely the ldquonotrdquomdashand
especially the ldquonotrdquo in its happening as annulment Although within the
medium of language the ldquonordquo can be said every such ldquonordquo as a statement
can refer only to ldquosomethingrdquo that is already given and contained in the
form of representation Furthermore as an instrument of language this
ldquonordquo itself must be a given for representation erefore this ldquonordquo wouldbe an exemplary word for a commercium among present-at-hand beings
which can only count with what is sayable but has no access to what it
no longer or not yet is and thus has no access to the factum that it is and
to the way it is not With the derivation of the ldquonotrdquo from the word of a
constituted language something represented is derived from another
representation e ldquonotrdquo is converted into a being and thereby misses
the point that it is precisely not this namely a being
ldquoNotrdquo is underivable But it is not solely the ldquonotrdquo that cannot be said
by any language and its ldquonotrdquo It is also the ldquonotrdquo that must inexplicitly
speak withmdashremain silent with and fall mute withmdashin every language as
the not-sayable e ldquonot rdquo is sensu strictu a not-word It is the counter-
linguistic the counter-word as such through which every language can
become language If it is a language it is the language from this ldquonotrdquo that
is missing from it and resists it
Language is the ldquonordquo to the ldquonotrdquo that precedes it and must precede it
in itself as its own proper ldquonotrdquo if it is to speak as language at all and
speaking is to be in the movement from its not -yet to its not -anymore
is is why Heidegger says of language that it is the answer to the move-
ment of the ldquonotrdquo that it can only speak in response to the address of the
ldquonotrdquo and in its turn address its not-ness But if it is an answer it is not
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 35
so as the existing acknowledgement of an existing object or a content of
representation but only in the way that as language it itself corresponds
to the ldquonihilationrdquo or ldquoannulmentrdquo that addresses it
Language cannot speak but by letting the ldquonotrdquo that addresses it happen
in languagersquos own happening e residuum of correspondence theory
that persists in this explanation demands however that we conceive of
language as the answer and correspondence to the counter-linguistic
ldquonotrdquo and understand every ldquonordquo as only the affirmation of the ldquonotrdquo and at
the same time understand the happening of language itself and in general
as a ldquonordquo as the affirmation of the ldquonotrdquo and of nihilation Language how-ever corresponds to the nihilationmdashand the correspondence dissolves
itself in itmdashonly in such a way that it ent-spricht it corresponds to itself
as language as not-saying It loses its linguistic nature (ent-sprachlicht )
as it evacuates its contents as well as its forms and it allows its being to
become a not-saying and with this not-saying the naked ldquothatrdquo of saying
Saying ldquonordquo to itself as a being in all its moments language speaks and it
speaks beyond itself and the totality of beings transcendence of language
in its being as the movement of ldquonotrdquo
is is why Heidegger can write describing the movement of Being and
along with Being also that of language ldquoBeing annulsmdashas Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096
983090983095983091) It annuls as language in as much as it departs from itself as an exist-
ing correlation to other beings and it is evicted from what it can be as an
instrumental structure of reference ek-sistence of language into a Being
without beings
is movement that language never performs through acts of positing by
its speakers this movement that occurs not only occasionally and never
intentionally or caused by motives this movement that defines language
as the language expelled from language was defined by Heidegger in his
Freiburg lecture as the language of anxiety as the angst-ridden language
At the end of a short description of an experience of anxiety this reduc-
tion of language to its most properly own is characterized in the following
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 942
T h e R e l a t i o n36
terms ldquoNot a hold remains [ Es bleibt kein Halt ] In the slipping away of
beings only this lsquonotrsquo [kein] remains and comes over usrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983096983096)983089 e
ldquoessential impossibility of determiningrdquo beings as a whole (983096983096) that we
experience in anxiety leaves nothing enduring nothing that speech or
action could offer to hold on to no hold apart from this ldquonotrdquo of the hold
the hold without hold ldquoNotrdquo is the word for the language no longer of be-
ings but for language as it happens as a partingmdashparting from everything
that can be defined represented and held It speaks only by saying that
nothing remains to be said and therefore it corresponds to its own ldquonotrdquo
still speaks speaks for the first time and speaks as language even beyond
what in and through it is definable ldquoNonerdquo ( Kein) is not a word nor isit a mark it is the counter-word and the counter-mark to all that could
be merely stated and signified But as this anti-word ( Anti-Wort ) it is the
answer ( Antwort ) of bare speech to the merely speakable It is the primary
Ur-word the word-word as such the only word of language language
itself as this single word as it exactly says its Sein its ldquordquoBeingrdquo
ldquoNot a hold remains In the slipping away of beings only this lsquonotrsquo remains
and comes over usrdquo ldquoNotrdquo does not say anything about Being It speaks
itself as Being Being happens in the ldquonotrdquo and nowhere else It is the
hold without hold the up- and with-holding dwelling ( Auf-ent-halt ) that
language is as the house of Being the only ethos Language speaks only
when it becomes this house of the ldquonot rdquo in all its idioms in every word
and every silence and thereby gains its Being as that which is not a being
ldquo Not rdquo contracts the individual appearances in their nihilation into the
whole of a ldquothererdquo It allows to step back from the world assembled underthe deletion mark of the ldquonotrdquo it is the word of the epocheacute of every word
and every world Still precisely as speaking beyond all merely real and
possible words it speaks as one that does not represent anything does
not declare signify or does anything but simply happens it is the ldquothatrdquo
of its self and as this ldquothatrdquo it is the horizon of Being within which every
being can first be what it is It is the word of apocalypse the revelation
of the possibility of all worlds and words Epocheacute and revelation the re-
turn of beings into their ldquonotrdquo and the rise of Being In the ldquo not rdquo beings
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 37
and Being separate and (d)emerge as different ldquo Not rdquo is the word of the
ontological difference
A theory of the origin of language and at the same time of the origin of
Being and beings with language ldquo Nonerdquo or not would be then the fiat the
finite not the originating but the witnessing the Dasein-opening fiat of
the homo humanus of whose humanitas Heidegger speaks in the ldquoLetter
on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo Although here the connection between the origin of
language and the ldquonotrdquo remains only a suggestion it defines the gesture
that carries Heideggerrsquos thought in general namely that something
emerges as something first in its slippage For example the hammer inthe becoming useless of the ldquoequipmentrdquo the ldquoworldrdquo in the loss of reason
in anxiety the possible wholeness of Dasein in ldquobeing-toward-deathrdquo the
work of art in the rejection of the usual coherence of the world the Being
of the word in its ldquoapartnessrdquo and its ldquoinfirmityrdquo
e ldquonot rdquo reveals nothing and it is as this revelation a historical moment
in which nothing will be seen apart from the ldquonotrdquo of seeing ldquoBeing is
more in being than any beingsrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
However the ldquonot rdquo can reveal the nothing only because as a citationmdash
Heidegger puts it between quotation marksmdashfrom the inner- worldly
discourse of Dasein it opens up the distance that allows Dasein to relate
to the world as a whole as its ldquothererdquo (983089983097983097983096 983089983088983097) e ldquonordquo as the word of
transcendence is at the same time that of the difference between Being
and the beings of the world It can be both transcendence and differenceonly as exposed from every determinable meaning And yet this ldquonot rdquo
does mean But it does not mean what ldquosomethingrdquo or ldquoonerdquo ldquocoverrdquo or
ldquoLazarusrdquo means but rather always their and its own ldquonotrdquo Heideggerrsquos
ldquonotrdquo however does not remain only a residue of innerworldliness and
meaningfulness It also follows a direction in which it approaches Dasein
relates to its language allows its affirmation and even its recognition
and allows Dasein to be bound to the ldquonotrdquo in its ldquoyesrdquo and ldquonordquo ldquoEvery
lsquonorsquo is simply the affirmation of the lsquonotrsquo Every affirmation consists in
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1142
T h e R e l a t i o n38
recognition Recognition lets that toward which it goes come toward itrdquo
(983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) Just as in Hegel in the ldquoLetter on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo the ldquonotrdquo is
the ldquonotrdquo of something But even when in an ek-sistential conversion it
turns itself into the something of a nihilation this nihilation remains
as counter-phenomenon oriented toward something and remains ca-
pable of being grasped in an answer which even though a citation a
remainder a residue and a trace remains still the determined trace of
a determined being and not the ldquoessential impossibility of determiningrdquo
beings as a whole (983089983097983097983096 983096983096) In contradistinction to his claim Heidegger
does not describe the ldquonotrdquo itself but the ldquonotrdquo of a self Even though the
ldquonot rdquomdashldquoonly this lsquonotrsquordquo (983096983096)mdashis supposed to be the ldquonot rdquo of the hold ona determinable meaning and a determinable direction it moves toward
the transcendental ldquonordquo of language and toward the dwelling in its house
it remains a directional ldquonotrdquo
And the other way around if the ldquonordquo of language is the ldquothe affirmation of
the lsquonotrsquordquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) then this ldquonotrdquo can be affirmed only as the one that
language moves toward e spoken ldquonordquo according to Heideggerrsquos words
is an already addressed ldquonordquo in which only the ldquonotrdquo as an intentional
object will be affirmed language retains for Heidegger an intentional
structure even in its epocheacute Accordinglymdashand in fact in the sense of
a correspondence in a relational pairmdashthe ldquonotrdquo in Heideggerrsquos ldquoLetterrdquo
is attuned to the affirmation of its affirmation It is an intentionally
disposed and moreover affirmative ldquonotrdquo Only this way can the whole
domain of meaningfulness be thought in it as simultaneously suspended
and founded
Furthermore if the recognition of the ldquonotrdquo as Heidegger writes ldquolets
that toward which it goes come toward itrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) the recognition
becomes the place of the advent of the ldquonotrdquo and the intentional ldquonotrdquo
becomes not only linguistically affirmable but moreover recognizable
and locatable in its recognition In all these structures the ldquonotrdquo appears
to be reduced to something less than what as the ldquoannulmentrdquo should
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 39
refuse every recognition and remain placeless wordless and non-inten-
tional Since ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091) the
ldquonotrdquo should be more nihilating than any nihilation within the horizon of
intentional acknowledgement It should remain irreducible to relational
pairs and it should withdraw itself from such alternatives as speaking to
and turning away from presence to and absence from Since it is ldquonotrdquo
it should not remain restricted to pressure constriction and anxiety It
should each time happen as that which in these relations releases from
them and makes them possible in the first place
ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquomdashHeideggerrsquos catchy formulaemploys a comparative to describe the relation between Being and beings
and thus the relation as such It compares the two that should remain
absolutely incomparable It speaks of Being in the language of beings
and says that it is a Being of enhanced intensity e formula however
remains ambiguous It says on the one hand that being is in being and
even more in being than beings On the other hand however it says that
it is in being only in such a way that it transgresses the measure and
range of beings releases itself from all beings and gives up every hold on
them e relation that this formula speaks of is therefore the relation of
the dissolution of every relation of transcendence into the relationless
and of not only quantitative and merely relative but of the ontological
difference between Being and beings Catchy as it is it speaks only the
slippage of Being out of every form of every existing languagemdashand
hyperbolically speaks beyond its own speech Language in difference to
language language of difference language out of it
e syntagm ldquobeing more in being than any beingsrdquo is at the same time
a hypertagm It offers a proposition and steps outside everymdasheven its
ownmdashproposition
Horrifying (entzetzliche) language Every language is displacing (en-
tzetzlich)
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1342
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 41
of the structure of intentionality which is too strongly emphasized in his
thoughts on the ldquonotrdquo to have merely slipped into them For Heidegger
it is important that the ldquonotrdquo is not a nihil negativum or absolutum not
an empty ldquonotrdquo merely posited by a ldquosubjectrdquo or an ldquoIrdquomdasheven if posited
like in Fichte and Hegel through a not-positing For if it were a positum
it would not only be a logicized ldquonotrdquo but also a something (ens rationis )
and so precisely what it is not At the same time it is also important for
Heidegger that the happening of the ldquonotrdquomdashwhich albeit always pos-
sible still ldquorarely enoughrdquo really is (983089983097983097983096 983096983096)mdashdoes not disappear in an
annihilation once again in such a case the ldquonothingrdquo would not be a
ldquonotrdquo it would not be ldquothererdquo it could not be experienced as a happeningor the happening of the withdrawal from happening Joined together the
two observations can be understood in such a way that the ldquonotrdquo cannot
be either a ldquosomethingrdquo or the fait accompli of a mere absence It opens
itself as the zone of separation between beings and empty nothing and
it can be the ldquonotrdquo only as that which emerges in the experience of the
departure or slipping away of all beings e experience of this ldquonotrdquo and
the ldquonotrdquo of this experiencemdashand an abyss opens up in the reversibility
or irreversibility of these expressions and their double genitivesmdashis the
decisive pre-predicative synthesis It is not an archeacute an in itself unified
principle It is structurally an-archic (and in this sense originary) since it
is a synthesis only because of the split that crosses it Heidegger describes
this bifurcation as a ldquorepelling reference toward beings [abweisende
Verweisung ]rdquo983090 (983089983097983097983096 983097983088) as a reference to beings through which they are
brought together and at the same time repelled as a whole At the same
time as this ldquonotrdquo that formulates itself as a ldquonordquo and in Heideggerrsquosdefinition as reference carries an emphatically linguistic trait the experi-
ence of Being itself emerges as the happening of this repelling reference
e ldquonotrdquo is the in itself differentiated archi-disjunction
e separation therefore takes place between beings as a whole and
Being and not between the ldquonotrdquo and beingmdashthis separation is accom-
plished or is (or ldquoexistsrdquo) in the ldquonotrdquo ldquoe nothing itself annulsrdquo (983089983097983097983096
983097983088) it is what happens in the repelling reference and it is that it happens
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1542
T h e R e l a t i o n42
as this reference Since the ldquonotrdquo would not be without its happening
(without its nihilation) the previous phrase can be made more precise
ldquoBeing nihilatesmdashas beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
is is to say Being is always already not-anymore and always not-yet It
is in that it is the ldquonotrdquo of itself As difference from itself it is at the same
time the difference from everything and in everything that exists
e title of ldquoBeingrdquo in Heideggerrsquos thinking belongs only to the movement
of the ldquonotrdquo to the separation the difference as inter-rift (Unter-Schied )
the ontological difference is is why we find in the preface to ldquoOn theEssence of Groundrdquo the following ambiguous formulation ldquoe onto-
logical difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is
programmatic formula can be misunderstood because it places the ldquonotrdquo
between beings and Being as if they were two beings of different nature
or intensity But this ldquonotrdquo is to be thought as the ldquobetweenrdquo with which
Being emerges as differentiated from all even the highest of all beings
Being is what is resulting from and in the separation that happens in the
ldquonotrdquo and thus itself is the ldquobetweenrdquo the difference erefore Heide-
gger can write ldquonothing and Being the samerdquo ldquoHolding itself out into the
nothing Dasein is in each case already beyond beings as a whole Such
being beyond beings we call transcendence if [Dasein] were not in
advance holding itself out into the nothing then it could never adopt a
stance toward beings nor even toward itself rdquo (983097983089)
For Heidegger to transcend means above all to transcend into a ldquonotrdquoand therefore to transcend into a ldquonotrdquo of even this transcending It does
not mean indication and relation ldquotordquo but repelling and repelling reference
ldquofromrdquo as well as repelling of all reference in-predication ir-relation
dis-intention Transcendingmdashif it is not already connected through
a continuous movement with a homogenous other and thereby in no
need of transcendingmdashmust transcend into a nec trans and can only be
a transcending into the un-enterable it must be attranscendence
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 43
ldquoLe pas au-delagraverdquo writes Blanchot step beyond not beyond step beyond
to the not of the step
Only as transition into the not-going can it reach the zone of difference in
its own movement where first a possible toward of this movement opens
up as a relation to something and an intentional attitude to beings as
beings becomes possible us intentions are grounded in a structure of
transcendence that in its turn is defined by a ldquonotrdquo a halt a putting on
hold or a suspension Only this arrest offers the possibility of a relation
to something only in this suspension happens not something but only
the that of it happening
e ldquonotrdquo of this in-transcendence therefore can happen in two ways
the retreating reference to something and the experience that the hap-
pening of this reference is other than and different from the reference
conceptualized as a relation and its correlates
is arresting of the ldquonotrdquo in in-transcendence clearly defines the mini-
mal structure of language Whenever and in whatever way language is
spoken there is reference that distances But beyond this something else
also happens that cannot be reduced to this (repelling) reference and the
agents emerging from it the referents and their relations to each other
Whether absolutely novel or older than old it is incommensurable with
them e intentional attitude only exists as crossed out by the event of
its own epocheacute
erefore it appears to be insufficient and even erroneous to speak of
ldquothe claim of nihilation that has come to the clearingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) and
to say that ldquonihilation first requires the lsquonorsquo as what is to be said in the
letting-be of beingsrdquo (983090983095983091) is phrase attributes a linguistic structure
to the ldquonotrdquo that is at the same time also denied Language is defined as
something claimedmdashnot claimed by a pre-linguistic ldquoexistentiell rdquo beyond
of language but by its own exterior limits and thus by what cannot raise
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1742
T h e R e l a t i o n44
claims Heidegger therefore goes around in circlesmdasheven if we consider
all the complications of going going over and inaccessibility He goes
against himself and he might be going that way because he thinks lan-
guage as a response
e commentary on the structure of transcending (namely that it must
be that of in-transcending) and intentionality (that it must be suspended
in dis-intending) made it clear that these movements for Heidegger
always emerge first in their ldquonotrdquo and their suspension In very much
the same way we could clarify the structure of the claim as Anspruch
as Heidegger understands it not by reading this word according to themeasure of its dictionary meaning but by reading it based on its context
with an emphatically stressed An speaking onto
en the claim raised by the ldquonotrdquomdashfrom nowhere by nobody and mind
you nevermdashwould be a ldquospeakingrdquo onto and in the proximity of language
and its words and particles of negation which persisting in the onto
would never make it out of this proximity to reach language e claim
would be a speaking onto because it would never be a speech in the sense
of a statement or a performative act It would always be en route or on
the way to language An-spruch would be toward language what language
itself is not and that it itself is not presentmdashit would be the irruption of
language its start
In fact according to Heideggerrsquos text ldquothe claim of nihilationrdquo cannot be
more than this cannot be language For he says of this claim that it callsfor the ldquonordquo as what is to be said but never as something already said
never already given in or by language rather as a ldquonordquo that remains still
and always yet to be said and as what is to be said remains forever im-
minent in every possible future Speaking onto and speaking its ldquonot rdquo onto
language the claim would be the retentive relation in which language is
kept away from itself but at the same time held to and held back from
itself and sustained and held in this holding onto and holding back But
unlike what an obvious misunderstanding would suggest this sustaining
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 45
does not hold in potentia as something always merely ldquopossiblerdquo but
never ldquorealrdquo Rather it holds on this side of all modal categories in statu
nascendi et moriendi (as Celan writes in an explicit reference to Heidegger
in a letter to Werner Weber) held out into the happening of language as
perpetual beginning (983089983097983097983095 983091983097983096)
is understanding of the speaking-onto of the ldquonotrdquo also clarifies the
structure of intention It would not be some already given relation of an
already constituted consciousness to a content of consciousness but the
irruption of these relations in their pre-withholding and therefore inten-
tion only arising out of the freedom from such a relation and the opennessto it us every An- that Heidegger writes is to be read not merely as a
ldquoclose tordquo or ldquoontordquo in the sense of a given extension but always also as
the echo the Greek ana- as a privative in- or un- In words like Anspruch
(claim) or Anruf (call) or Answesen (presence) Angehen (approach) and
Ankunft (arrival) with every ldquoclose tordquo and ldquoontordquo at the same time a ldquonotrdquo
and a ldquonordquo is also said that relates relation to irrelation reference to ir-
reference direction to indirection An- is the prefix of differencemdashbut
not only of an intra-linguistic difference between different meanings of
one and the same morpheme but before meanings can appear at all the
difference between language speaking its ldquonotrdquo and language speaking
onto something An- not unlike vor- zu- hin- and aus- is the prefix of
ontological difference Whoever uses ldquospeaking ontordquo in this sense in fact
is saying something insufficient and erroneous but is also saying that this
insufficiency and erroneousness belongs to the structure of language
Language itself is the speaking onto language and therefore a speakingonto another language or something other than language
Understood as ldquospeaking ontordquo ( An-spruch) language is its othering ( An-
derung )
e An- is therefore the word and the fore-word of the madness of lan-
guage In the essay ldquoLanguage in the Poemrdquo Heidegger writes as a com-
mentary on the line ldquoe madman [Wahnsinnige] has diedrdquo from Georg
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1942
T h e R e l a t i o n46
Traklrsquos ldquoPsalmrdquo ldquoe word Wahn comes from Old High German wana
which means lsquowithoutrsquo e madman sensesmdashsenses in fact as no one
else does But he remains without the sense of others He is of another
sense Sinnan originally means to travel to strive for to strike a direc-
tion e Indo-Germanic root sent and set means lsquopathrsquo e departed is
the madman because he is on his way somewhere elserdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983091)983091 e
other way that the madman follows is the way into de-parture into a dif-
ference that departs from every possible distinction and discrimination
So Heidegger can write about the stranger who is the madman without
the sense of the other ldquois stranger unfolds the essence of the human
into the beginning of what has not yet come to bearing [Tragen] (OldHigh German giberan) is quieter and hence more stilling element
in the nature of mortals that has not been borne out is what the poet
calls the unbornrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983093)983092 But if the other waymdashthis without-path the
aporiamdashleads into what has not been borne out how do we stand with
what is defined as ldquogesturerdquo in ldquoA Dialogue on Languagerdquo ldquothe originary
gathering of bearing against and bearing tordquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983097) And how does the
thought of the not-yet-born and the unborn relate to the thought of being
as difference which is described in ldquoe Onto-eo-Logical Constitu-
tion of Metaphysicsrdquo in the following way ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ]
alone grants and holds apart the lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming
and the arrival are held toward one another are borne away from and
toward each other e difference of Being and beings as the inter-rift of
overwhelming and arrival is the bearing out [ Austrag ] of the two in un-
concealing keeping in concealment Within this bearing out there prevails
a clearing of what veils and closes itself offmdashand this prevalence bestowsthe being apart and the being toward each other of overwhelming and
arrivalrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)983093
In these sentences it becomes clear that the words ldquoheldrdquo and ldquobornerdquo
are used in the same sense being held in relation (Ver-halten) is being
borne out ( Austrag ) Both describe the movement of differentiation that
Heidegger writes as Unter-Schied (literally inter -rift ) to separate it from
rational distinctions as well as from differences in perception and to
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 47
emphasize the ldquobetweenrdquo that corresponds to the inter of the unter in
the concept of Unterschied (difference) e German word Austrag is the
literal translation of the Latin differentia which in turn is a translation
of the decisive Greek term diaphoraacute In a definition provided in the first
essay on Trakl ldquoLanguagerdquo (in 983089983097983093983088) diaphoraacute difference and bearing
out are juxtaposed with the following commentary ldquoe intimacy of
dif-ference [Unter-Schied ] is the unifying element of the diaphora the
carrying out [ Austrag ] that carries through e dif-ference carries out
world in its worlding carries out things in their thinging us carrying
them out it carries them toward one anotherrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) And a few
sentences later the series of synonymous concepts is extended to includeEreignis the appropriating event gesture as bearing and granting ldquoe
dif-ference for world and thing disclosingly appropriates things into bear-
ing a world it disclosingly appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo
(983090983088983088) In accordance with these connections in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo
relation (Verhaumlltnis ) is thought out of the appropriating event and more
precisely as the appropriative happening of the essence of language ldquoFor
that appropriating holding self-retaining is the relation of all relations
us our sayingmdashalways an answeringmdashremains forever relational Rela-
tion [Ver-haumlltnis as holding to itself] is thought of here always in terms
of the event and no longer conceived in the form of a mere referencerdquo
(983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093) But if relation means appropriation if appropriation means
difference difference means differentia and diaphora and the latter two
mean the carrying out that carries through while carrying out means
bearing the question unavoidable emerges How do the concepts from
the Trakl commentary the unborn and what is not borne out relate to thisseries And how can this series be unified with the other the without-
path and the aporia of madness ese questions are not yet answered
by the remark that Heidegger understood human Dasein in the sense of
ek-sistence as the ecstatic being outside of itself of madness is only
makes the question more urgent of whether this being-in-madness can
be thought with the concepts of difference and ldquobearing outrdquo Or whether
this madness overburdens ldquothe carrying out that carries throughrdquo and the
ldquobearing outrdquo and is therefore thrown away evacuated and forgotten
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2142
T h e R e l a t i o n48
e question therefore is once again whether the madness of ek-sis-
tence of the ldquonotrdquo of Being and of language can still be articulated in a
languagemdasheven if it as outreacute as Heideggerrsquos
Or Is it possible to think the not-borne-out as the not-borne-out More
precisely Does the not-borne-out allow itself to be thought only as a not
yet or beyond that does it allow itself to be thought as a never borne
out
Hence Can the ldquonotrdquo as a ldquoneverrdquomdashas a never of the sayablemdashdefine the
horizon of language And can this ldquoneverrdquo then also provide the tran-scendental horizon of the possibility of what is sayable Is the ldquoneverrdquo
the condition of the happening of language and the horizon of being
Or Can the ldquoneverrdquo be thought But How could it be other than never be
thought Consequently If the ldquoneverrdquo were the pre- and proto-predicative
happening that is called ldquoBeingrdquo and later more precisely coming-over
(Uumlberkommnis ) because it is what ldquoovercomesrdquo sur-prises overwhelms
more than just comes andmdashoverburdens erefore Can the unbearable
be borne and borne out
Otherwise How could Beingmdashwhether as happening history destiny
or coming-overmdashas the unbearable not be borne Because Can the un-
bearable be found at all otherwise unbearable than as always still and
nevertheless borne And then still not erefore Is there not in Being
itself such a still and nevertheless a but that keeps Being at a distancefrom Being and keeps Being out of Being and in this out and apart brings
it together
However What does the ldquooutrdquo mean in ldquoout of each otherrdquo and in ldquobearing
outrdquo if it still contains a ldquotogetherrdquo Does it refer to an originary synthesis
before every predicative synthesis Is not such a reference misleading if it
suggests a ldquotogetherrdquo there where we can encounter only an ldquoout of each
otherrdquomdasheven if we encounter it in the impossibility of its encounter
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 49
In his seminar in Le or in September 983089983097983094983094 Heidegger cites a paragraph
from the chapter ldquoOn the impossibility of a cosmological proof of Godrsquos
existencerdquo from Kantrsquos First Critique ese stunning sentencesmdashwhich
with their evocation of sinking floating without stop and the abyss
may well have contributed to the descriptions of anxiety in Being and
Time (983089983097983094983090) and ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo (983089983097983097983096)mdashspeak explicitly not only
about the groundless but also about the unbearable Kant writes
e unconditioned necessity which we need so indispensably as the ultimate
sustainer of all things is for human reason the true abyss Even eternitymdash
however awful the sublimity with which a Haller might portray itmdashdoes not
make such a dizzying impression on the mind for eternity only measures the
duration of things but it does not sustain that duration One cannot resist the
thought of it but one also cannot bear it that a being might as it were say
to itself ldquoI am from eternity to eternity outside me is nothing except what is
something merely through my will but whence then am Irdquo Here everything
caves in beneath us and the greatest perfection as well as the smallest hover
without hold before speculative reason for which it would cost nothing to
let the one as much as the other disappear without the least obstacle (Kant
983089983097983097983097 983093983095983092 Heidegger 983090983088983088983091 983089983095) God the highest ground of what is appears in
its monologue as an abyss that does not carry it but lets it collapse And Kant
says of this thought of a God that does not carry itself that ldquoone cannot resist
the thought of it but one also cannot bear itrdquo
With this the primal scene of critical transcendental philosophy and
speculative idealism is described an ens realissimum et nesessarium that does not contain the guarantee of its own being a God that is not
a causa sui and sinks in the abyss of its own question after a ground
cannot offer beings any more hold and must therefore pull down in
its own fall the categories that render it thinkable necessary and real
What remains is the scene of the sinking away of the totality of beings
ldquothe greatest perfection as well as the smallestrdquo and with this scene the
form of representation the mere idea of reason in which beings as a
whole together with the categorial structures of their knowability survive
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2342
T h e R e l a t i o n50
under the condition of their transcendentality For the ldquotranscendental
objectrdquomdashthat Kant can only speak of after the sinking away of a world
and its transcendental groundmdashis not an empirical object and not even
an object at all is object as Kant writes ldquotherefore cannot be further
intuited by us and that may therefore be called the non-empirical ie
transcendental object = Xrdquo (983089983097983097983097 983090983091983091) In his Kant book Heidegger calls
this transcendental X ldquoa Nothingrdquo that is at the same time ldquoSomethingrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983096983094) and describes the X as ldquothe horizon of a standing-against is
horizon is indeed not object but rather a Nothing if by object we mean
a being which is apprehended thematicallyrdquo (983096983095) Furthermore ldquoOnly if
the letting-stand-against of is a holding oneself in the nothing canthe representing allow a not-nothing ie something like a being rdquo (983093983089)
In the Kant commentary the ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo ismdashlike
the anxiety scenes in Being and Time in the Freiburg lecture and more
abstractly in the ldquoLetterrdquo in different waysmdashthe gesture of the horizontal-
transcendental constitution of the domain of objectivity and with that
at the same time of no longer onto-theologically founded beings held
in the mere form of representation not a creatio but still a constitutio ex
nihilo e fact that ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo as Kant examines
it in his critical philosophy stops at the form of representation (Vorstel-
lung ) and the idea of reason makes these gestures into a regulatio nihili
and prevents the further analysis of the transcendental form of being
represented and posited
Heidegger took on this further analysis starting with the exposition of
Dasein in Being and Time is analysis must show that the sinking of theens necessarium and with it that of mere being (which does not hold and
bear itself) remain irreducible to the beings of representation the idea
or the concept It must expose the fact that transcendental representa-
tion merely displaces the ldquonotrdquo that it encounters in the sinking of the
highest being instead of engaging it as the decisive content of being To
do justice to the implications of the anxiety-scene and the unbearable
question of God for his ground the classical analytical concept of differ-
ence between ground and the grounded positing and the posited must
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 33
as the ldquoholding to itself with the truth of its essencerdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) In the
ldquoLetter on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo to the question how Being relates to ek-sistence
he gave the answer ldquoBeing itself is the relation [das Verhaumlltnis ] to the
extent that It holds to itself [an sich haumllt ] ek-sistencerdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983093983091)
And in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo the essence of languagemdashin modern high
German language as happeningmdashis written as Ver-haumlltnis and is thought
from what he calls the event of appropriation ( Ereignis ) which is defined
along with language in the following way ldquoFor that event appropriating
holding self-retaining is the relation of all relationsrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093)
All this quite frankly is so awkwardly formulated that one longs for aHeideggerian Dialect Dictionary to translate it into at least a usable if
not a usual language
Dictionaries list meanings but not relations of tension not the paths and
movements between them which can only be presented in sentences and
even there not without losses and additions To approach this Verhaumllt-
nis mdashthis relation this retention abstention and holding to itselfmdashand
thereby approach language and if we try to do so by the detour of some
of Heideggerrsquos texts we need to strike another path We could describe
this path tentatively and reservedly as that of a ldquocritical variationrdquo and
start it at the point that we have already touched
At the ldquonotrdquo
In the ldquoLetter on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo Heidegger summed up in a few sentenceshis observations on ldquonothingrdquo from Being and Time and from his inaugu-
ral lecture in Freiburg ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo and thereby specifically
rejected the assumption that the ldquonotrdquo could be derived from the ldquonordquo
of an already constituted language ldquoWhat annuls makes itself clear as
something that is not is can be addressed by the lsquonorsquo e lsquonotrsquo in no way
arises from the no-saying of negation Every lsquonorsquo answers to the claim of
the annulment that has become clear Every lsquonorsquo is simply the affirmation
of the lsquonotrsquordquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) First of all this apodictic explanation emphasizes
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 742
T h e R e l a t i o n34
that no-saying can only posit a ldquonotrdquo thatmdashas something said posited
and signifiedmdashis at the same time ldquosomethingrdquo and is not the ldquonotrdquo that
is at stake here Before any no-saying in the sense of a negation through
an act of positing there must have been a ldquonotrdquo that as an address must
have already directed itself to a possible speech if this speech is to be able
to address not only an existing ldquosomethingrdquo but precisely the ldquonotrdquomdashand
especially the ldquonotrdquo in its happening as annulment Although within the
medium of language the ldquonordquo can be said every such ldquonordquo as a statement
can refer only to ldquosomethingrdquo that is already given and contained in the
form of representation Furthermore as an instrument of language this
ldquonordquo itself must be a given for representation erefore this ldquonordquo wouldbe an exemplary word for a commercium among present-at-hand beings
which can only count with what is sayable but has no access to what it
no longer or not yet is and thus has no access to the factum that it is and
to the way it is not With the derivation of the ldquonotrdquo from the word of a
constituted language something represented is derived from another
representation e ldquonotrdquo is converted into a being and thereby misses
the point that it is precisely not this namely a being
ldquoNotrdquo is underivable But it is not solely the ldquonotrdquo that cannot be said
by any language and its ldquonotrdquo It is also the ldquonotrdquo that must inexplicitly
speak withmdashremain silent with and fall mute withmdashin every language as
the not-sayable e ldquonot rdquo is sensu strictu a not-word It is the counter-
linguistic the counter-word as such through which every language can
become language If it is a language it is the language from this ldquonotrdquo that
is missing from it and resists it
Language is the ldquonordquo to the ldquonotrdquo that precedes it and must precede it
in itself as its own proper ldquonotrdquo if it is to speak as language at all and
speaking is to be in the movement from its not -yet to its not -anymore
is is why Heidegger says of language that it is the answer to the move-
ment of the ldquonotrdquo that it can only speak in response to the address of the
ldquonotrdquo and in its turn address its not-ness But if it is an answer it is not
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 35
so as the existing acknowledgement of an existing object or a content of
representation but only in the way that as language it itself corresponds
to the ldquonihilationrdquo or ldquoannulmentrdquo that addresses it
Language cannot speak but by letting the ldquonotrdquo that addresses it happen
in languagersquos own happening e residuum of correspondence theory
that persists in this explanation demands however that we conceive of
language as the answer and correspondence to the counter-linguistic
ldquonotrdquo and understand every ldquonordquo as only the affirmation of the ldquonotrdquo and at
the same time understand the happening of language itself and in general
as a ldquonordquo as the affirmation of the ldquonotrdquo and of nihilation Language how-ever corresponds to the nihilationmdashand the correspondence dissolves
itself in itmdashonly in such a way that it ent-spricht it corresponds to itself
as language as not-saying It loses its linguistic nature (ent-sprachlicht )
as it evacuates its contents as well as its forms and it allows its being to
become a not-saying and with this not-saying the naked ldquothatrdquo of saying
Saying ldquonordquo to itself as a being in all its moments language speaks and it
speaks beyond itself and the totality of beings transcendence of language
in its being as the movement of ldquonotrdquo
is is why Heidegger can write describing the movement of Being and
along with Being also that of language ldquoBeing annulsmdashas Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096
983090983095983091) It annuls as language in as much as it departs from itself as an exist-
ing correlation to other beings and it is evicted from what it can be as an
instrumental structure of reference ek-sistence of language into a Being
without beings
is movement that language never performs through acts of positing by
its speakers this movement that occurs not only occasionally and never
intentionally or caused by motives this movement that defines language
as the language expelled from language was defined by Heidegger in his
Freiburg lecture as the language of anxiety as the angst-ridden language
At the end of a short description of an experience of anxiety this reduc-
tion of language to its most properly own is characterized in the following
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 942
T h e R e l a t i o n36
terms ldquoNot a hold remains [ Es bleibt kein Halt ] In the slipping away of
beings only this lsquonotrsquo [kein] remains and comes over usrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983096983096)983089 e
ldquoessential impossibility of determiningrdquo beings as a whole (983096983096) that we
experience in anxiety leaves nothing enduring nothing that speech or
action could offer to hold on to no hold apart from this ldquonotrdquo of the hold
the hold without hold ldquoNotrdquo is the word for the language no longer of be-
ings but for language as it happens as a partingmdashparting from everything
that can be defined represented and held It speaks only by saying that
nothing remains to be said and therefore it corresponds to its own ldquonotrdquo
still speaks speaks for the first time and speaks as language even beyond
what in and through it is definable ldquoNonerdquo ( Kein) is not a word nor isit a mark it is the counter-word and the counter-mark to all that could
be merely stated and signified But as this anti-word ( Anti-Wort ) it is the
answer ( Antwort ) of bare speech to the merely speakable It is the primary
Ur-word the word-word as such the only word of language language
itself as this single word as it exactly says its Sein its ldquordquoBeingrdquo
ldquoNot a hold remains In the slipping away of beings only this lsquonotrsquo remains
and comes over usrdquo ldquoNotrdquo does not say anything about Being It speaks
itself as Being Being happens in the ldquonotrdquo and nowhere else It is the
hold without hold the up- and with-holding dwelling ( Auf-ent-halt ) that
language is as the house of Being the only ethos Language speaks only
when it becomes this house of the ldquonot rdquo in all its idioms in every word
and every silence and thereby gains its Being as that which is not a being
ldquo Not rdquo contracts the individual appearances in their nihilation into the
whole of a ldquothererdquo It allows to step back from the world assembled underthe deletion mark of the ldquonotrdquo it is the word of the epocheacute of every word
and every world Still precisely as speaking beyond all merely real and
possible words it speaks as one that does not represent anything does
not declare signify or does anything but simply happens it is the ldquothatrdquo
of its self and as this ldquothatrdquo it is the horizon of Being within which every
being can first be what it is It is the word of apocalypse the revelation
of the possibility of all worlds and words Epocheacute and revelation the re-
turn of beings into their ldquonotrdquo and the rise of Being In the ldquo not rdquo beings
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 37
and Being separate and (d)emerge as different ldquo Not rdquo is the word of the
ontological difference
A theory of the origin of language and at the same time of the origin of
Being and beings with language ldquo Nonerdquo or not would be then the fiat the
finite not the originating but the witnessing the Dasein-opening fiat of
the homo humanus of whose humanitas Heidegger speaks in the ldquoLetter
on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo Although here the connection between the origin of
language and the ldquonotrdquo remains only a suggestion it defines the gesture
that carries Heideggerrsquos thought in general namely that something
emerges as something first in its slippage For example the hammer inthe becoming useless of the ldquoequipmentrdquo the ldquoworldrdquo in the loss of reason
in anxiety the possible wholeness of Dasein in ldquobeing-toward-deathrdquo the
work of art in the rejection of the usual coherence of the world the Being
of the word in its ldquoapartnessrdquo and its ldquoinfirmityrdquo
e ldquonot rdquo reveals nothing and it is as this revelation a historical moment
in which nothing will be seen apart from the ldquonotrdquo of seeing ldquoBeing is
more in being than any beingsrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
However the ldquonot rdquo can reveal the nothing only because as a citationmdash
Heidegger puts it between quotation marksmdashfrom the inner- worldly
discourse of Dasein it opens up the distance that allows Dasein to relate
to the world as a whole as its ldquothererdquo (983089983097983097983096 983089983088983097) e ldquonordquo as the word of
transcendence is at the same time that of the difference between Being
and the beings of the world It can be both transcendence and differenceonly as exposed from every determinable meaning And yet this ldquonot rdquo
does mean But it does not mean what ldquosomethingrdquo or ldquoonerdquo ldquocoverrdquo or
ldquoLazarusrdquo means but rather always their and its own ldquonotrdquo Heideggerrsquos
ldquonotrdquo however does not remain only a residue of innerworldliness and
meaningfulness It also follows a direction in which it approaches Dasein
relates to its language allows its affirmation and even its recognition
and allows Dasein to be bound to the ldquonotrdquo in its ldquoyesrdquo and ldquonordquo ldquoEvery
lsquonorsquo is simply the affirmation of the lsquonotrsquo Every affirmation consists in
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1142
T h e R e l a t i o n38
recognition Recognition lets that toward which it goes come toward itrdquo
(983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) Just as in Hegel in the ldquoLetter on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo the ldquonotrdquo is
the ldquonotrdquo of something But even when in an ek-sistential conversion it
turns itself into the something of a nihilation this nihilation remains
as counter-phenomenon oriented toward something and remains ca-
pable of being grasped in an answer which even though a citation a
remainder a residue and a trace remains still the determined trace of
a determined being and not the ldquoessential impossibility of determiningrdquo
beings as a whole (983089983097983097983096 983096983096) In contradistinction to his claim Heidegger
does not describe the ldquonotrdquo itself but the ldquonotrdquo of a self Even though the
ldquonot rdquomdashldquoonly this lsquonotrsquordquo (983096983096)mdashis supposed to be the ldquonot rdquo of the hold ona determinable meaning and a determinable direction it moves toward
the transcendental ldquonordquo of language and toward the dwelling in its house
it remains a directional ldquonotrdquo
And the other way around if the ldquonordquo of language is the ldquothe affirmation of
the lsquonotrsquordquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) then this ldquonotrdquo can be affirmed only as the one that
language moves toward e spoken ldquonordquo according to Heideggerrsquos words
is an already addressed ldquonordquo in which only the ldquonotrdquo as an intentional
object will be affirmed language retains for Heidegger an intentional
structure even in its epocheacute Accordinglymdashand in fact in the sense of
a correspondence in a relational pairmdashthe ldquonotrdquo in Heideggerrsquos ldquoLetterrdquo
is attuned to the affirmation of its affirmation It is an intentionally
disposed and moreover affirmative ldquonotrdquo Only this way can the whole
domain of meaningfulness be thought in it as simultaneously suspended
and founded
Furthermore if the recognition of the ldquonotrdquo as Heidegger writes ldquolets
that toward which it goes come toward itrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) the recognition
becomes the place of the advent of the ldquonotrdquo and the intentional ldquonotrdquo
becomes not only linguistically affirmable but moreover recognizable
and locatable in its recognition In all these structures the ldquonotrdquo appears
to be reduced to something less than what as the ldquoannulmentrdquo should
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 39
refuse every recognition and remain placeless wordless and non-inten-
tional Since ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091) the
ldquonotrdquo should be more nihilating than any nihilation within the horizon of
intentional acknowledgement It should remain irreducible to relational
pairs and it should withdraw itself from such alternatives as speaking to
and turning away from presence to and absence from Since it is ldquonotrdquo
it should not remain restricted to pressure constriction and anxiety It
should each time happen as that which in these relations releases from
them and makes them possible in the first place
ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquomdashHeideggerrsquos catchy formulaemploys a comparative to describe the relation between Being and beings
and thus the relation as such It compares the two that should remain
absolutely incomparable It speaks of Being in the language of beings
and says that it is a Being of enhanced intensity e formula however
remains ambiguous It says on the one hand that being is in being and
even more in being than beings On the other hand however it says that
it is in being only in such a way that it transgresses the measure and
range of beings releases itself from all beings and gives up every hold on
them e relation that this formula speaks of is therefore the relation of
the dissolution of every relation of transcendence into the relationless
and of not only quantitative and merely relative but of the ontological
difference between Being and beings Catchy as it is it speaks only the
slippage of Being out of every form of every existing languagemdashand
hyperbolically speaks beyond its own speech Language in difference to
language language of difference language out of it
e syntagm ldquobeing more in being than any beingsrdquo is at the same time
a hypertagm It offers a proposition and steps outside everymdasheven its
ownmdashproposition
Horrifying (entzetzliche) language Every language is displacing (en-
tzetzlich)
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1342
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 41
of the structure of intentionality which is too strongly emphasized in his
thoughts on the ldquonotrdquo to have merely slipped into them For Heidegger
it is important that the ldquonotrdquo is not a nihil negativum or absolutum not
an empty ldquonotrdquo merely posited by a ldquosubjectrdquo or an ldquoIrdquomdasheven if posited
like in Fichte and Hegel through a not-positing For if it were a positum
it would not only be a logicized ldquonotrdquo but also a something (ens rationis )
and so precisely what it is not At the same time it is also important for
Heidegger that the happening of the ldquonotrdquomdashwhich albeit always pos-
sible still ldquorarely enoughrdquo really is (983089983097983097983096 983096983096)mdashdoes not disappear in an
annihilation once again in such a case the ldquonothingrdquo would not be a
ldquonotrdquo it would not be ldquothererdquo it could not be experienced as a happeningor the happening of the withdrawal from happening Joined together the
two observations can be understood in such a way that the ldquonotrdquo cannot
be either a ldquosomethingrdquo or the fait accompli of a mere absence It opens
itself as the zone of separation between beings and empty nothing and
it can be the ldquonotrdquo only as that which emerges in the experience of the
departure or slipping away of all beings e experience of this ldquonotrdquo and
the ldquonotrdquo of this experiencemdashand an abyss opens up in the reversibility
or irreversibility of these expressions and their double genitivesmdashis the
decisive pre-predicative synthesis It is not an archeacute an in itself unified
principle It is structurally an-archic (and in this sense originary) since it
is a synthesis only because of the split that crosses it Heidegger describes
this bifurcation as a ldquorepelling reference toward beings [abweisende
Verweisung ]rdquo983090 (983089983097983097983096 983097983088) as a reference to beings through which they are
brought together and at the same time repelled as a whole At the same
time as this ldquonotrdquo that formulates itself as a ldquonordquo and in Heideggerrsquosdefinition as reference carries an emphatically linguistic trait the experi-
ence of Being itself emerges as the happening of this repelling reference
e ldquonotrdquo is the in itself differentiated archi-disjunction
e separation therefore takes place between beings as a whole and
Being and not between the ldquonotrdquo and beingmdashthis separation is accom-
plished or is (or ldquoexistsrdquo) in the ldquonotrdquo ldquoe nothing itself annulsrdquo (983089983097983097983096
983097983088) it is what happens in the repelling reference and it is that it happens
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1542
T h e R e l a t i o n42
as this reference Since the ldquonotrdquo would not be without its happening
(without its nihilation) the previous phrase can be made more precise
ldquoBeing nihilatesmdashas beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
is is to say Being is always already not-anymore and always not-yet It
is in that it is the ldquonotrdquo of itself As difference from itself it is at the same
time the difference from everything and in everything that exists
e title of ldquoBeingrdquo in Heideggerrsquos thinking belongs only to the movement
of the ldquonotrdquo to the separation the difference as inter-rift (Unter-Schied )
the ontological difference is is why we find in the preface to ldquoOn theEssence of Groundrdquo the following ambiguous formulation ldquoe onto-
logical difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is
programmatic formula can be misunderstood because it places the ldquonotrdquo
between beings and Being as if they were two beings of different nature
or intensity But this ldquonotrdquo is to be thought as the ldquobetweenrdquo with which
Being emerges as differentiated from all even the highest of all beings
Being is what is resulting from and in the separation that happens in the
ldquonotrdquo and thus itself is the ldquobetweenrdquo the difference erefore Heide-
gger can write ldquonothing and Being the samerdquo ldquoHolding itself out into the
nothing Dasein is in each case already beyond beings as a whole Such
being beyond beings we call transcendence if [Dasein] were not in
advance holding itself out into the nothing then it could never adopt a
stance toward beings nor even toward itself rdquo (983097983089)
For Heidegger to transcend means above all to transcend into a ldquonotrdquoand therefore to transcend into a ldquonotrdquo of even this transcending It does
not mean indication and relation ldquotordquo but repelling and repelling reference
ldquofromrdquo as well as repelling of all reference in-predication ir-relation
dis-intention Transcendingmdashif it is not already connected through
a continuous movement with a homogenous other and thereby in no
need of transcendingmdashmust transcend into a nec trans and can only be
a transcending into the un-enterable it must be attranscendence
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 43
ldquoLe pas au-delagraverdquo writes Blanchot step beyond not beyond step beyond
to the not of the step
Only as transition into the not-going can it reach the zone of difference in
its own movement where first a possible toward of this movement opens
up as a relation to something and an intentional attitude to beings as
beings becomes possible us intentions are grounded in a structure of
transcendence that in its turn is defined by a ldquonotrdquo a halt a putting on
hold or a suspension Only this arrest offers the possibility of a relation
to something only in this suspension happens not something but only
the that of it happening
e ldquonotrdquo of this in-transcendence therefore can happen in two ways
the retreating reference to something and the experience that the hap-
pening of this reference is other than and different from the reference
conceptualized as a relation and its correlates
is arresting of the ldquonotrdquo in in-transcendence clearly defines the mini-
mal structure of language Whenever and in whatever way language is
spoken there is reference that distances But beyond this something else
also happens that cannot be reduced to this (repelling) reference and the
agents emerging from it the referents and their relations to each other
Whether absolutely novel or older than old it is incommensurable with
them e intentional attitude only exists as crossed out by the event of
its own epocheacute
erefore it appears to be insufficient and even erroneous to speak of
ldquothe claim of nihilation that has come to the clearingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) and
to say that ldquonihilation first requires the lsquonorsquo as what is to be said in the
letting-be of beingsrdquo (983090983095983091) is phrase attributes a linguistic structure
to the ldquonotrdquo that is at the same time also denied Language is defined as
something claimedmdashnot claimed by a pre-linguistic ldquoexistentiell rdquo beyond
of language but by its own exterior limits and thus by what cannot raise
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1742
T h e R e l a t i o n44
claims Heidegger therefore goes around in circlesmdasheven if we consider
all the complications of going going over and inaccessibility He goes
against himself and he might be going that way because he thinks lan-
guage as a response
e commentary on the structure of transcending (namely that it must
be that of in-transcending) and intentionality (that it must be suspended
in dis-intending) made it clear that these movements for Heidegger
always emerge first in their ldquonotrdquo and their suspension In very much
the same way we could clarify the structure of the claim as Anspruch
as Heidegger understands it not by reading this word according to themeasure of its dictionary meaning but by reading it based on its context
with an emphatically stressed An speaking onto
en the claim raised by the ldquonotrdquomdashfrom nowhere by nobody and mind
you nevermdashwould be a ldquospeakingrdquo onto and in the proximity of language
and its words and particles of negation which persisting in the onto
would never make it out of this proximity to reach language e claim
would be a speaking onto because it would never be a speech in the sense
of a statement or a performative act It would always be en route or on
the way to language An-spruch would be toward language what language
itself is not and that it itself is not presentmdashit would be the irruption of
language its start
In fact according to Heideggerrsquos text ldquothe claim of nihilationrdquo cannot be
more than this cannot be language For he says of this claim that it callsfor the ldquonordquo as what is to be said but never as something already said
never already given in or by language rather as a ldquonordquo that remains still
and always yet to be said and as what is to be said remains forever im-
minent in every possible future Speaking onto and speaking its ldquonot rdquo onto
language the claim would be the retentive relation in which language is
kept away from itself but at the same time held to and held back from
itself and sustained and held in this holding onto and holding back But
unlike what an obvious misunderstanding would suggest this sustaining
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 45
does not hold in potentia as something always merely ldquopossiblerdquo but
never ldquorealrdquo Rather it holds on this side of all modal categories in statu
nascendi et moriendi (as Celan writes in an explicit reference to Heidegger
in a letter to Werner Weber) held out into the happening of language as
perpetual beginning (983089983097983097983095 983091983097983096)
is understanding of the speaking-onto of the ldquonotrdquo also clarifies the
structure of intention It would not be some already given relation of an
already constituted consciousness to a content of consciousness but the
irruption of these relations in their pre-withholding and therefore inten-
tion only arising out of the freedom from such a relation and the opennessto it us every An- that Heidegger writes is to be read not merely as a
ldquoclose tordquo or ldquoontordquo in the sense of a given extension but always also as
the echo the Greek ana- as a privative in- or un- In words like Anspruch
(claim) or Anruf (call) or Answesen (presence) Angehen (approach) and
Ankunft (arrival) with every ldquoclose tordquo and ldquoontordquo at the same time a ldquonotrdquo
and a ldquonordquo is also said that relates relation to irrelation reference to ir-
reference direction to indirection An- is the prefix of differencemdashbut
not only of an intra-linguistic difference between different meanings of
one and the same morpheme but before meanings can appear at all the
difference between language speaking its ldquonotrdquo and language speaking
onto something An- not unlike vor- zu- hin- and aus- is the prefix of
ontological difference Whoever uses ldquospeaking ontordquo in this sense in fact
is saying something insufficient and erroneous but is also saying that this
insufficiency and erroneousness belongs to the structure of language
Language itself is the speaking onto language and therefore a speakingonto another language or something other than language
Understood as ldquospeaking ontordquo ( An-spruch) language is its othering ( An-
derung )
e An- is therefore the word and the fore-word of the madness of lan-
guage In the essay ldquoLanguage in the Poemrdquo Heidegger writes as a com-
mentary on the line ldquoe madman [Wahnsinnige] has diedrdquo from Georg
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1942
T h e R e l a t i o n46
Traklrsquos ldquoPsalmrdquo ldquoe word Wahn comes from Old High German wana
which means lsquowithoutrsquo e madman sensesmdashsenses in fact as no one
else does But he remains without the sense of others He is of another
sense Sinnan originally means to travel to strive for to strike a direc-
tion e Indo-Germanic root sent and set means lsquopathrsquo e departed is
the madman because he is on his way somewhere elserdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983091)983091 e
other way that the madman follows is the way into de-parture into a dif-
ference that departs from every possible distinction and discrimination
So Heidegger can write about the stranger who is the madman without
the sense of the other ldquois stranger unfolds the essence of the human
into the beginning of what has not yet come to bearing [Tragen] (OldHigh German giberan) is quieter and hence more stilling element
in the nature of mortals that has not been borne out is what the poet
calls the unbornrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983093)983092 But if the other waymdashthis without-path the
aporiamdashleads into what has not been borne out how do we stand with
what is defined as ldquogesturerdquo in ldquoA Dialogue on Languagerdquo ldquothe originary
gathering of bearing against and bearing tordquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983097) And how does the
thought of the not-yet-born and the unborn relate to the thought of being
as difference which is described in ldquoe Onto-eo-Logical Constitu-
tion of Metaphysicsrdquo in the following way ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ]
alone grants and holds apart the lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming
and the arrival are held toward one another are borne away from and
toward each other e difference of Being and beings as the inter-rift of
overwhelming and arrival is the bearing out [ Austrag ] of the two in un-
concealing keeping in concealment Within this bearing out there prevails
a clearing of what veils and closes itself offmdashand this prevalence bestowsthe being apart and the being toward each other of overwhelming and
arrivalrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)983093
In these sentences it becomes clear that the words ldquoheldrdquo and ldquobornerdquo
are used in the same sense being held in relation (Ver-halten) is being
borne out ( Austrag ) Both describe the movement of differentiation that
Heidegger writes as Unter-Schied (literally inter -rift ) to separate it from
rational distinctions as well as from differences in perception and to
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 47
emphasize the ldquobetweenrdquo that corresponds to the inter of the unter in
the concept of Unterschied (difference) e German word Austrag is the
literal translation of the Latin differentia which in turn is a translation
of the decisive Greek term diaphoraacute In a definition provided in the first
essay on Trakl ldquoLanguagerdquo (in 983089983097983093983088) diaphoraacute difference and bearing
out are juxtaposed with the following commentary ldquoe intimacy of
dif-ference [Unter-Schied ] is the unifying element of the diaphora the
carrying out [ Austrag ] that carries through e dif-ference carries out
world in its worlding carries out things in their thinging us carrying
them out it carries them toward one anotherrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) And a few
sentences later the series of synonymous concepts is extended to includeEreignis the appropriating event gesture as bearing and granting ldquoe
dif-ference for world and thing disclosingly appropriates things into bear-
ing a world it disclosingly appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo
(983090983088983088) In accordance with these connections in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo
relation (Verhaumlltnis ) is thought out of the appropriating event and more
precisely as the appropriative happening of the essence of language ldquoFor
that appropriating holding self-retaining is the relation of all relations
us our sayingmdashalways an answeringmdashremains forever relational Rela-
tion [Ver-haumlltnis as holding to itself] is thought of here always in terms
of the event and no longer conceived in the form of a mere referencerdquo
(983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093) But if relation means appropriation if appropriation means
difference difference means differentia and diaphora and the latter two
mean the carrying out that carries through while carrying out means
bearing the question unavoidable emerges How do the concepts from
the Trakl commentary the unborn and what is not borne out relate to thisseries And how can this series be unified with the other the without-
path and the aporia of madness ese questions are not yet answered
by the remark that Heidegger understood human Dasein in the sense of
ek-sistence as the ecstatic being outside of itself of madness is only
makes the question more urgent of whether this being-in-madness can
be thought with the concepts of difference and ldquobearing outrdquo Or whether
this madness overburdens ldquothe carrying out that carries throughrdquo and the
ldquobearing outrdquo and is therefore thrown away evacuated and forgotten
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2142
T h e R e l a t i o n48
e question therefore is once again whether the madness of ek-sis-
tence of the ldquonotrdquo of Being and of language can still be articulated in a
languagemdasheven if it as outreacute as Heideggerrsquos
Or Is it possible to think the not-borne-out as the not-borne-out More
precisely Does the not-borne-out allow itself to be thought only as a not
yet or beyond that does it allow itself to be thought as a never borne
out
Hence Can the ldquonotrdquo as a ldquoneverrdquomdashas a never of the sayablemdashdefine the
horizon of language And can this ldquoneverrdquo then also provide the tran-scendental horizon of the possibility of what is sayable Is the ldquoneverrdquo
the condition of the happening of language and the horizon of being
Or Can the ldquoneverrdquo be thought But How could it be other than never be
thought Consequently If the ldquoneverrdquo were the pre- and proto-predicative
happening that is called ldquoBeingrdquo and later more precisely coming-over
(Uumlberkommnis ) because it is what ldquoovercomesrdquo sur-prises overwhelms
more than just comes andmdashoverburdens erefore Can the unbearable
be borne and borne out
Otherwise How could Beingmdashwhether as happening history destiny
or coming-overmdashas the unbearable not be borne Because Can the un-
bearable be found at all otherwise unbearable than as always still and
nevertheless borne And then still not erefore Is there not in Being
itself such a still and nevertheless a but that keeps Being at a distancefrom Being and keeps Being out of Being and in this out and apart brings
it together
However What does the ldquooutrdquo mean in ldquoout of each otherrdquo and in ldquobearing
outrdquo if it still contains a ldquotogetherrdquo Does it refer to an originary synthesis
before every predicative synthesis Is not such a reference misleading if it
suggests a ldquotogetherrdquo there where we can encounter only an ldquoout of each
otherrdquomdasheven if we encounter it in the impossibility of its encounter
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 49
In his seminar in Le or in September 983089983097983094983094 Heidegger cites a paragraph
from the chapter ldquoOn the impossibility of a cosmological proof of Godrsquos
existencerdquo from Kantrsquos First Critique ese stunning sentencesmdashwhich
with their evocation of sinking floating without stop and the abyss
may well have contributed to the descriptions of anxiety in Being and
Time (983089983097983094983090) and ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo (983089983097983097983096)mdashspeak explicitly not only
about the groundless but also about the unbearable Kant writes
e unconditioned necessity which we need so indispensably as the ultimate
sustainer of all things is for human reason the true abyss Even eternitymdash
however awful the sublimity with which a Haller might portray itmdashdoes not
make such a dizzying impression on the mind for eternity only measures the
duration of things but it does not sustain that duration One cannot resist the
thought of it but one also cannot bear it that a being might as it were say
to itself ldquoI am from eternity to eternity outside me is nothing except what is
something merely through my will but whence then am Irdquo Here everything
caves in beneath us and the greatest perfection as well as the smallest hover
without hold before speculative reason for which it would cost nothing to
let the one as much as the other disappear without the least obstacle (Kant
983089983097983097983097 983093983095983092 Heidegger 983090983088983088983091 983089983095) God the highest ground of what is appears in
its monologue as an abyss that does not carry it but lets it collapse And Kant
says of this thought of a God that does not carry itself that ldquoone cannot resist
the thought of it but one also cannot bear itrdquo
With this the primal scene of critical transcendental philosophy and
speculative idealism is described an ens realissimum et nesessarium that does not contain the guarantee of its own being a God that is not
a causa sui and sinks in the abyss of its own question after a ground
cannot offer beings any more hold and must therefore pull down in
its own fall the categories that render it thinkable necessary and real
What remains is the scene of the sinking away of the totality of beings
ldquothe greatest perfection as well as the smallestrdquo and with this scene the
form of representation the mere idea of reason in which beings as a
whole together with the categorial structures of their knowability survive
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2342
T h e R e l a t i o n50
under the condition of their transcendentality For the ldquotranscendental
objectrdquomdashthat Kant can only speak of after the sinking away of a world
and its transcendental groundmdashis not an empirical object and not even
an object at all is object as Kant writes ldquotherefore cannot be further
intuited by us and that may therefore be called the non-empirical ie
transcendental object = Xrdquo (983089983097983097983097 983090983091983091) In his Kant book Heidegger calls
this transcendental X ldquoa Nothingrdquo that is at the same time ldquoSomethingrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983096983094) and describes the X as ldquothe horizon of a standing-against is
horizon is indeed not object but rather a Nothing if by object we mean
a being which is apprehended thematicallyrdquo (983096983095) Furthermore ldquoOnly if
the letting-stand-against of is a holding oneself in the nothing canthe representing allow a not-nothing ie something like a being rdquo (983093983089)
In the Kant commentary the ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo ismdashlike
the anxiety scenes in Being and Time in the Freiburg lecture and more
abstractly in the ldquoLetterrdquo in different waysmdashthe gesture of the horizontal-
transcendental constitution of the domain of objectivity and with that
at the same time of no longer onto-theologically founded beings held
in the mere form of representation not a creatio but still a constitutio ex
nihilo e fact that ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo as Kant examines
it in his critical philosophy stops at the form of representation (Vorstel-
lung ) and the idea of reason makes these gestures into a regulatio nihili
and prevents the further analysis of the transcendental form of being
represented and posited
Heidegger took on this further analysis starting with the exposition of
Dasein in Being and Time is analysis must show that the sinking of theens necessarium and with it that of mere being (which does not hold and
bear itself) remain irreducible to the beings of representation the idea
or the concept It must expose the fact that transcendental representa-
tion merely displaces the ldquonotrdquo that it encounters in the sinking of the
highest being instead of engaging it as the decisive content of being To
do justice to the implications of the anxiety-scene and the unbearable
question of God for his ground the classical analytical concept of differ-
ence between ground and the grounded positing and the posited must
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 742
T h e R e l a t i o n34
that no-saying can only posit a ldquonotrdquo thatmdashas something said posited
and signifiedmdashis at the same time ldquosomethingrdquo and is not the ldquonotrdquo that
is at stake here Before any no-saying in the sense of a negation through
an act of positing there must have been a ldquonotrdquo that as an address must
have already directed itself to a possible speech if this speech is to be able
to address not only an existing ldquosomethingrdquo but precisely the ldquonotrdquomdashand
especially the ldquonotrdquo in its happening as annulment Although within the
medium of language the ldquonordquo can be said every such ldquonordquo as a statement
can refer only to ldquosomethingrdquo that is already given and contained in the
form of representation Furthermore as an instrument of language this
ldquonordquo itself must be a given for representation erefore this ldquonordquo wouldbe an exemplary word for a commercium among present-at-hand beings
which can only count with what is sayable but has no access to what it
no longer or not yet is and thus has no access to the factum that it is and
to the way it is not With the derivation of the ldquonotrdquo from the word of a
constituted language something represented is derived from another
representation e ldquonotrdquo is converted into a being and thereby misses
the point that it is precisely not this namely a being
ldquoNotrdquo is underivable But it is not solely the ldquonotrdquo that cannot be said
by any language and its ldquonotrdquo It is also the ldquonotrdquo that must inexplicitly
speak withmdashremain silent with and fall mute withmdashin every language as
the not-sayable e ldquonot rdquo is sensu strictu a not-word It is the counter-
linguistic the counter-word as such through which every language can
become language If it is a language it is the language from this ldquonotrdquo that
is missing from it and resists it
Language is the ldquonordquo to the ldquonotrdquo that precedes it and must precede it
in itself as its own proper ldquonotrdquo if it is to speak as language at all and
speaking is to be in the movement from its not -yet to its not -anymore
is is why Heidegger says of language that it is the answer to the move-
ment of the ldquonotrdquo that it can only speak in response to the address of the
ldquonotrdquo and in its turn address its not-ness But if it is an answer it is not
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 35
so as the existing acknowledgement of an existing object or a content of
representation but only in the way that as language it itself corresponds
to the ldquonihilationrdquo or ldquoannulmentrdquo that addresses it
Language cannot speak but by letting the ldquonotrdquo that addresses it happen
in languagersquos own happening e residuum of correspondence theory
that persists in this explanation demands however that we conceive of
language as the answer and correspondence to the counter-linguistic
ldquonotrdquo and understand every ldquonordquo as only the affirmation of the ldquonotrdquo and at
the same time understand the happening of language itself and in general
as a ldquonordquo as the affirmation of the ldquonotrdquo and of nihilation Language how-ever corresponds to the nihilationmdashand the correspondence dissolves
itself in itmdashonly in such a way that it ent-spricht it corresponds to itself
as language as not-saying It loses its linguistic nature (ent-sprachlicht )
as it evacuates its contents as well as its forms and it allows its being to
become a not-saying and with this not-saying the naked ldquothatrdquo of saying
Saying ldquonordquo to itself as a being in all its moments language speaks and it
speaks beyond itself and the totality of beings transcendence of language
in its being as the movement of ldquonotrdquo
is is why Heidegger can write describing the movement of Being and
along with Being also that of language ldquoBeing annulsmdashas Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096
983090983095983091) It annuls as language in as much as it departs from itself as an exist-
ing correlation to other beings and it is evicted from what it can be as an
instrumental structure of reference ek-sistence of language into a Being
without beings
is movement that language never performs through acts of positing by
its speakers this movement that occurs not only occasionally and never
intentionally or caused by motives this movement that defines language
as the language expelled from language was defined by Heidegger in his
Freiburg lecture as the language of anxiety as the angst-ridden language
At the end of a short description of an experience of anxiety this reduc-
tion of language to its most properly own is characterized in the following
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 942
T h e R e l a t i o n36
terms ldquoNot a hold remains [ Es bleibt kein Halt ] In the slipping away of
beings only this lsquonotrsquo [kein] remains and comes over usrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983096983096)983089 e
ldquoessential impossibility of determiningrdquo beings as a whole (983096983096) that we
experience in anxiety leaves nothing enduring nothing that speech or
action could offer to hold on to no hold apart from this ldquonotrdquo of the hold
the hold without hold ldquoNotrdquo is the word for the language no longer of be-
ings but for language as it happens as a partingmdashparting from everything
that can be defined represented and held It speaks only by saying that
nothing remains to be said and therefore it corresponds to its own ldquonotrdquo
still speaks speaks for the first time and speaks as language even beyond
what in and through it is definable ldquoNonerdquo ( Kein) is not a word nor isit a mark it is the counter-word and the counter-mark to all that could
be merely stated and signified But as this anti-word ( Anti-Wort ) it is the
answer ( Antwort ) of bare speech to the merely speakable It is the primary
Ur-word the word-word as such the only word of language language
itself as this single word as it exactly says its Sein its ldquordquoBeingrdquo
ldquoNot a hold remains In the slipping away of beings only this lsquonotrsquo remains
and comes over usrdquo ldquoNotrdquo does not say anything about Being It speaks
itself as Being Being happens in the ldquonotrdquo and nowhere else It is the
hold without hold the up- and with-holding dwelling ( Auf-ent-halt ) that
language is as the house of Being the only ethos Language speaks only
when it becomes this house of the ldquonot rdquo in all its idioms in every word
and every silence and thereby gains its Being as that which is not a being
ldquo Not rdquo contracts the individual appearances in their nihilation into the
whole of a ldquothererdquo It allows to step back from the world assembled underthe deletion mark of the ldquonotrdquo it is the word of the epocheacute of every word
and every world Still precisely as speaking beyond all merely real and
possible words it speaks as one that does not represent anything does
not declare signify or does anything but simply happens it is the ldquothatrdquo
of its self and as this ldquothatrdquo it is the horizon of Being within which every
being can first be what it is It is the word of apocalypse the revelation
of the possibility of all worlds and words Epocheacute and revelation the re-
turn of beings into their ldquonotrdquo and the rise of Being In the ldquo not rdquo beings
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 37
and Being separate and (d)emerge as different ldquo Not rdquo is the word of the
ontological difference
A theory of the origin of language and at the same time of the origin of
Being and beings with language ldquo Nonerdquo or not would be then the fiat the
finite not the originating but the witnessing the Dasein-opening fiat of
the homo humanus of whose humanitas Heidegger speaks in the ldquoLetter
on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo Although here the connection between the origin of
language and the ldquonotrdquo remains only a suggestion it defines the gesture
that carries Heideggerrsquos thought in general namely that something
emerges as something first in its slippage For example the hammer inthe becoming useless of the ldquoequipmentrdquo the ldquoworldrdquo in the loss of reason
in anxiety the possible wholeness of Dasein in ldquobeing-toward-deathrdquo the
work of art in the rejection of the usual coherence of the world the Being
of the word in its ldquoapartnessrdquo and its ldquoinfirmityrdquo
e ldquonot rdquo reveals nothing and it is as this revelation a historical moment
in which nothing will be seen apart from the ldquonotrdquo of seeing ldquoBeing is
more in being than any beingsrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
However the ldquonot rdquo can reveal the nothing only because as a citationmdash
Heidegger puts it between quotation marksmdashfrom the inner- worldly
discourse of Dasein it opens up the distance that allows Dasein to relate
to the world as a whole as its ldquothererdquo (983089983097983097983096 983089983088983097) e ldquonordquo as the word of
transcendence is at the same time that of the difference between Being
and the beings of the world It can be both transcendence and differenceonly as exposed from every determinable meaning And yet this ldquonot rdquo
does mean But it does not mean what ldquosomethingrdquo or ldquoonerdquo ldquocoverrdquo or
ldquoLazarusrdquo means but rather always their and its own ldquonotrdquo Heideggerrsquos
ldquonotrdquo however does not remain only a residue of innerworldliness and
meaningfulness It also follows a direction in which it approaches Dasein
relates to its language allows its affirmation and even its recognition
and allows Dasein to be bound to the ldquonotrdquo in its ldquoyesrdquo and ldquonordquo ldquoEvery
lsquonorsquo is simply the affirmation of the lsquonotrsquo Every affirmation consists in
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1142
T h e R e l a t i o n38
recognition Recognition lets that toward which it goes come toward itrdquo
(983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) Just as in Hegel in the ldquoLetter on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo the ldquonotrdquo is
the ldquonotrdquo of something But even when in an ek-sistential conversion it
turns itself into the something of a nihilation this nihilation remains
as counter-phenomenon oriented toward something and remains ca-
pable of being grasped in an answer which even though a citation a
remainder a residue and a trace remains still the determined trace of
a determined being and not the ldquoessential impossibility of determiningrdquo
beings as a whole (983089983097983097983096 983096983096) In contradistinction to his claim Heidegger
does not describe the ldquonotrdquo itself but the ldquonotrdquo of a self Even though the
ldquonot rdquomdashldquoonly this lsquonotrsquordquo (983096983096)mdashis supposed to be the ldquonot rdquo of the hold ona determinable meaning and a determinable direction it moves toward
the transcendental ldquonordquo of language and toward the dwelling in its house
it remains a directional ldquonotrdquo
And the other way around if the ldquonordquo of language is the ldquothe affirmation of
the lsquonotrsquordquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) then this ldquonotrdquo can be affirmed only as the one that
language moves toward e spoken ldquonordquo according to Heideggerrsquos words
is an already addressed ldquonordquo in which only the ldquonotrdquo as an intentional
object will be affirmed language retains for Heidegger an intentional
structure even in its epocheacute Accordinglymdashand in fact in the sense of
a correspondence in a relational pairmdashthe ldquonotrdquo in Heideggerrsquos ldquoLetterrdquo
is attuned to the affirmation of its affirmation It is an intentionally
disposed and moreover affirmative ldquonotrdquo Only this way can the whole
domain of meaningfulness be thought in it as simultaneously suspended
and founded
Furthermore if the recognition of the ldquonotrdquo as Heidegger writes ldquolets
that toward which it goes come toward itrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) the recognition
becomes the place of the advent of the ldquonotrdquo and the intentional ldquonotrdquo
becomes not only linguistically affirmable but moreover recognizable
and locatable in its recognition In all these structures the ldquonotrdquo appears
to be reduced to something less than what as the ldquoannulmentrdquo should
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 39
refuse every recognition and remain placeless wordless and non-inten-
tional Since ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091) the
ldquonotrdquo should be more nihilating than any nihilation within the horizon of
intentional acknowledgement It should remain irreducible to relational
pairs and it should withdraw itself from such alternatives as speaking to
and turning away from presence to and absence from Since it is ldquonotrdquo
it should not remain restricted to pressure constriction and anxiety It
should each time happen as that which in these relations releases from
them and makes them possible in the first place
ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquomdashHeideggerrsquos catchy formulaemploys a comparative to describe the relation between Being and beings
and thus the relation as such It compares the two that should remain
absolutely incomparable It speaks of Being in the language of beings
and says that it is a Being of enhanced intensity e formula however
remains ambiguous It says on the one hand that being is in being and
even more in being than beings On the other hand however it says that
it is in being only in such a way that it transgresses the measure and
range of beings releases itself from all beings and gives up every hold on
them e relation that this formula speaks of is therefore the relation of
the dissolution of every relation of transcendence into the relationless
and of not only quantitative and merely relative but of the ontological
difference between Being and beings Catchy as it is it speaks only the
slippage of Being out of every form of every existing languagemdashand
hyperbolically speaks beyond its own speech Language in difference to
language language of difference language out of it
e syntagm ldquobeing more in being than any beingsrdquo is at the same time
a hypertagm It offers a proposition and steps outside everymdasheven its
ownmdashproposition
Horrifying (entzetzliche) language Every language is displacing (en-
tzetzlich)
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1342
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 41
of the structure of intentionality which is too strongly emphasized in his
thoughts on the ldquonotrdquo to have merely slipped into them For Heidegger
it is important that the ldquonotrdquo is not a nihil negativum or absolutum not
an empty ldquonotrdquo merely posited by a ldquosubjectrdquo or an ldquoIrdquomdasheven if posited
like in Fichte and Hegel through a not-positing For if it were a positum
it would not only be a logicized ldquonotrdquo but also a something (ens rationis )
and so precisely what it is not At the same time it is also important for
Heidegger that the happening of the ldquonotrdquomdashwhich albeit always pos-
sible still ldquorarely enoughrdquo really is (983089983097983097983096 983096983096)mdashdoes not disappear in an
annihilation once again in such a case the ldquonothingrdquo would not be a
ldquonotrdquo it would not be ldquothererdquo it could not be experienced as a happeningor the happening of the withdrawal from happening Joined together the
two observations can be understood in such a way that the ldquonotrdquo cannot
be either a ldquosomethingrdquo or the fait accompli of a mere absence It opens
itself as the zone of separation between beings and empty nothing and
it can be the ldquonotrdquo only as that which emerges in the experience of the
departure or slipping away of all beings e experience of this ldquonotrdquo and
the ldquonotrdquo of this experiencemdashand an abyss opens up in the reversibility
or irreversibility of these expressions and their double genitivesmdashis the
decisive pre-predicative synthesis It is not an archeacute an in itself unified
principle It is structurally an-archic (and in this sense originary) since it
is a synthesis only because of the split that crosses it Heidegger describes
this bifurcation as a ldquorepelling reference toward beings [abweisende
Verweisung ]rdquo983090 (983089983097983097983096 983097983088) as a reference to beings through which they are
brought together and at the same time repelled as a whole At the same
time as this ldquonotrdquo that formulates itself as a ldquonordquo and in Heideggerrsquosdefinition as reference carries an emphatically linguistic trait the experi-
ence of Being itself emerges as the happening of this repelling reference
e ldquonotrdquo is the in itself differentiated archi-disjunction
e separation therefore takes place between beings as a whole and
Being and not between the ldquonotrdquo and beingmdashthis separation is accom-
plished or is (or ldquoexistsrdquo) in the ldquonotrdquo ldquoe nothing itself annulsrdquo (983089983097983097983096
983097983088) it is what happens in the repelling reference and it is that it happens
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1542
T h e R e l a t i o n42
as this reference Since the ldquonotrdquo would not be without its happening
(without its nihilation) the previous phrase can be made more precise
ldquoBeing nihilatesmdashas beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
is is to say Being is always already not-anymore and always not-yet It
is in that it is the ldquonotrdquo of itself As difference from itself it is at the same
time the difference from everything and in everything that exists
e title of ldquoBeingrdquo in Heideggerrsquos thinking belongs only to the movement
of the ldquonotrdquo to the separation the difference as inter-rift (Unter-Schied )
the ontological difference is is why we find in the preface to ldquoOn theEssence of Groundrdquo the following ambiguous formulation ldquoe onto-
logical difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is
programmatic formula can be misunderstood because it places the ldquonotrdquo
between beings and Being as if they were two beings of different nature
or intensity But this ldquonotrdquo is to be thought as the ldquobetweenrdquo with which
Being emerges as differentiated from all even the highest of all beings
Being is what is resulting from and in the separation that happens in the
ldquonotrdquo and thus itself is the ldquobetweenrdquo the difference erefore Heide-
gger can write ldquonothing and Being the samerdquo ldquoHolding itself out into the
nothing Dasein is in each case already beyond beings as a whole Such
being beyond beings we call transcendence if [Dasein] were not in
advance holding itself out into the nothing then it could never adopt a
stance toward beings nor even toward itself rdquo (983097983089)
For Heidegger to transcend means above all to transcend into a ldquonotrdquoand therefore to transcend into a ldquonotrdquo of even this transcending It does
not mean indication and relation ldquotordquo but repelling and repelling reference
ldquofromrdquo as well as repelling of all reference in-predication ir-relation
dis-intention Transcendingmdashif it is not already connected through
a continuous movement with a homogenous other and thereby in no
need of transcendingmdashmust transcend into a nec trans and can only be
a transcending into the un-enterable it must be attranscendence
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 43
ldquoLe pas au-delagraverdquo writes Blanchot step beyond not beyond step beyond
to the not of the step
Only as transition into the not-going can it reach the zone of difference in
its own movement where first a possible toward of this movement opens
up as a relation to something and an intentional attitude to beings as
beings becomes possible us intentions are grounded in a structure of
transcendence that in its turn is defined by a ldquonotrdquo a halt a putting on
hold or a suspension Only this arrest offers the possibility of a relation
to something only in this suspension happens not something but only
the that of it happening
e ldquonotrdquo of this in-transcendence therefore can happen in two ways
the retreating reference to something and the experience that the hap-
pening of this reference is other than and different from the reference
conceptualized as a relation and its correlates
is arresting of the ldquonotrdquo in in-transcendence clearly defines the mini-
mal structure of language Whenever and in whatever way language is
spoken there is reference that distances But beyond this something else
also happens that cannot be reduced to this (repelling) reference and the
agents emerging from it the referents and their relations to each other
Whether absolutely novel or older than old it is incommensurable with
them e intentional attitude only exists as crossed out by the event of
its own epocheacute
erefore it appears to be insufficient and even erroneous to speak of
ldquothe claim of nihilation that has come to the clearingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) and
to say that ldquonihilation first requires the lsquonorsquo as what is to be said in the
letting-be of beingsrdquo (983090983095983091) is phrase attributes a linguistic structure
to the ldquonotrdquo that is at the same time also denied Language is defined as
something claimedmdashnot claimed by a pre-linguistic ldquoexistentiell rdquo beyond
of language but by its own exterior limits and thus by what cannot raise
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1742
T h e R e l a t i o n44
claims Heidegger therefore goes around in circlesmdasheven if we consider
all the complications of going going over and inaccessibility He goes
against himself and he might be going that way because he thinks lan-
guage as a response
e commentary on the structure of transcending (namely that it must
be that of in-transcending) and intentionality (that it must be suspended
in dis-intending) made it clear that these movements for Heidegger
always emerge first in their ldquonotrdquo and their suspension In very much
the same way we could clarify the structure of the claim as Anspruch
as Heidegger understands it not by reading this word according to themeasure of its dictionary meaning but by reading it based on its context
with an emphatically stressed An speaking onto
en the claim raised by the ldquonotrdquomdashfrom nowhere by nobody and mind
you nevermdashwould be a ldquospeakingrdquo onto and in the proximity of language
and its words and particles of negation which persisting in the onto
would never make it out of this proximity to reach language e claim
would be a speaking onto because it would never be a speech in the sense
of a statement or a performative act It would always be en route or on
the way to language An-spruch would be toward language what language
itself is not and that it itself is not presentmdashit would be the irruption of
language its start
In fact according to Heideggerrsquos text ldquothe claim of nihilationrdquo cannot be
more than this cannot be language For he says of this claim that it callsfor the ldquonordquo as what is to be said but never as something already said
never already given in or by language rather as a ldquonordquo that remains still
and always yet to be said and as what is to be said remains forever im-
minent in every possible future Speaking onto and speaking its ldquonot rdquo onto
language the claim would be the retentive relation in which language is
kept away from itself but at the same time held to and held back from
itself and sustained and held in this holding onto and holding back But
unlike what an obvious misunderstanding would suggest this sustaining
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 45
does not hold in potentia as something always merely ldquopossiblerdquo but
never ldquorealrdquo Rather it holds on this side of all modal categories in statu
nascendi et moriendi (as Celan writes in an explicit reference to Heidegger
in a letter to Werner Weber) held out into the happening of language as
perpetual beginning (983089983097983097983095 983091983097983096)
is understanding of the speaking-onto of the ldquonotrdquo also clarifies the
structure of intention It would not be some already given relation of an
already constituted consciousness to a content of consciousness but the
irruption of these relations in their pre-withholding and therefore inten-
tion only arising out of the freedom from such a relation and the opennessto it us every An- that Heidegger writes is to be read not merely as a
ldquoclose tordquo or ldquoontordquo in the sense of a given extension but always also as
the echo the Greek ana- as a privative in- or un- In words like Anspruch
(claim) or Anruf (call) or Answesen (presence) Angehen (approach) and
Ankunft (arrival) with every ldquoclose tordquo and ldquoontordquo at the same time a ldquonotrdquo
and a ldquonordquo is also said that relates relation to irrelation reference to ir-
reference direction to indirection An- is the prefix of differencemdashbut
not only of an intra-linguistic difference between different meanings of
one and the same morpheme but before meanings can appear at all the
difference between language speaking its ldquonotrdquo and language speaking
onto something An- not unlike vor- zu- hin- and aus- is the prefix of
ontological difference Whoever uses ldquospeaking ontordquo in this sense in fact
is saying something insufficient and erroneous but is also saying that this
insufficiency and erroneousness belongs to the structure of language
Language itself is the speaking onto language and therefore a speakingonto another language or something other than language
Understood as ldquospeaking ontordquo ( An-spruch) language is its othering ( An-
derung )
e An- is therefore the word and the fore-word of the madness of lan-
guage In the essay ldquoLanguage in the Poemrdquo Heidegger writes as a com-
mentary on the line ldquoe madman [Wahnsinnige] has diedrdquo from Georg
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1942
T h e R e l a t i o n46
Traklrsquos ldquoPsalmrdquo ldquoe word Wahn comes from Old High German wana
which means lsquowithoutrsquo e madman sensesmdashsenses in fact as no one
else does But he remains without the sense of others He is of another
sense Sinnan originally means to travel to strive for to strike a direc-
tion e Indo-Germanic root sent and set means lsquopathrsquo e departed is
the madman because he is on his way somewhere elserdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983091)983091 e
other way that the madman follows is the way into de-parture into a dif-
ference that departs from every possible distinction and discrimination
So Heidegger can write about the stranger who is the madman without
the sense of the other ldquois stranger unfolds the essence of the human
into the beginning of what has not yet come to bearing [Tragen] (OldHigh German giberan) is quieter and hence more stilling element
in the nature of mortals that has not been borne out is what the poet
calls the unbornrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983093)983092 But if the other waymdashthis without-path the
aporiamdashleads into what has not been borne out how do we stand with
what is defined as ldquogesturerdquo in ldquoA Dialogue on Languagerdquo ldquothe originary
gathering of bearing against and bearing tordquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983097) And how does the
thought of the not-yet-born and the unborn relate to the thought of being
as difference which is described in ldquoe Onto-eo-Logical Constitu-
tion of Metaphysicsrdquo in the following way ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ]
alone grants and holds apart the lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming
and the arrival are held toward one another are borne away from and
toward each other e difference of Being and beings as the inter-rift of
overwhelming and arrival is the bearing out [ Austrag ] of the two in un-
concealing keeping in concealment Within this bearing out there prevails
a clearing of what veils and closes itself offmdashand this prevalence bestowsthe being apart and the being toward each other of overwhelming and
arrivalrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)983093
In these sentences it becomes clear that the words ldquoheldrdquo and ldquobornerdquo
are used in the same sense being held in relation (Ver-halten) is being
borne out ( Austrag ) Both describe the movement of differentiation that
Heidegger writes as Unter-Schied (literally inter -rift ) to separate it from
rational distinctions as well as from differences in perception and to
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 47
emphasize the ldquobetweenrdquo that corresponds to the inter of the unter in
the concept of Unterschied (difference) e German word Austrag is the
literal translation of the Latin differentia which in turn is a translation
of the decisive Greek term diaphoraacute In a definition provided in the first
essay on Trakl ldquoLanguagerdquo (in 983089983097983093983088) diaphoraacute difference and bearing
out are juxtaposed with the following commentary ldquoe intimacy of
dif-ference [Unter-Schied ] is the unifying element of the diaphora the
carrying out [ Austrag ] that carries through e dif-ference carries out
world in its worlding carries out things in their thinging us carrying
them out it carries them toward one anotherrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) And a few
sentences later the series of synonymous concepts is extended to includeEreignis the appropriating event gesture as bearing and granting ldquoe
dif-ference for world and thing disclosingly appropriates things into bear-
ing a world it disclosingly appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo
(983090983088983088) In accordance with these connections in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo
relation (Verhaumlltnis ) is thought out of the appropriating event and more
precisely as the appropriative happening of the essence of language ldquoFor
that appropriating holding self-retaining is the relation of all relations
us our sayingmdashalways an answeringmdashremains forever relational Rela-
tion [Ver-haumlltnis as holding to itself] is thought of here always in terms
of the event and no longer conceived in the form of a mere referencerdquo
(983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093) But if relation means appropriation if appropriation means
difference difference means differentia and diaphora and the latter two
mean the carrying out that carries through while carrying out means
bearing the question unavoidable emerges How do the concepts from
the Trakl commentary the unborn and what is not borne out relate to thisseries And how can this series be unified with the other the without-
path and the aporia of madness ese questions are not yet answered
by the remark that Heidegger understood human Dasein in the sense of
ek-sistence as the ecstatic being outside of itself of madness is only
makes the question more urgent of whether this being-in-madness can
be thought with the concepts of difference and ldquobearing outrdquo Or whether
this madness overburdens ldquothe carrying out that carries throughrdquo and the
ldquobearing outrdquo and is therefore thrown away evacuated and forgotten
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2142
T h e R e l a t i o n48
e question therefore is once again whether the madness of ek-sis-
tence of the ldquonotrdquo of Being and of language can still be articulated in a
languagemdasheven if it as outreacute as Heideggerrsquos
Or Is it possible to think the not-borne-out as the not-borne-out More
precisely Does the not-borne-out allow itself to be thought only as a not
yet or beyond that does it allow itself to be thought as a never borne
out
Hence Can the ldquonotrdquo as a ldquoneverrdquomdashas a never of the sayablemdashdefine the
horizon of language And can this ldquoneverrdquo then also provide the tran-scendental horizon of the possibility of what is sayable Is the ldquoneverrdquo
the condition of the happening of language and the horizon of being
Or Can the ldquoneverrdquo be thought But How could it be other than never be
thought Consequently If the ldquoneverrdquo were the pre- and proto-predicative
happening that is called ldquoBeingrdquo and later more precisely coming-over
(Uumlberkommnis ) because it is what ldquoovercomesrdquo sur-prises overwhelms
more than just comes andmdashoverburdens erefore Can the unbearable
be borne and borne out
Otherwise How could Beingmdashwhether as happening history destiny
or coming-overmdashas the unbearable not be borne Because Can the un-
bearable be found at all otherwise unbearable than as always still and
nevertheless borne And then still not erefore Is there not in Being
itself such a still and nevertheless a but that keeps Being at a distancefrom Being and keeps Being out of Being and in this out and apart brings
it together
However What does the ldquooutrdquo mean in ldquoout of each otherrdquo and in ldquobearing
outrdquo if it still contains a ldquotogetherrdquo Does it refer to an originary synthesis
before every predicative synthesis Is not such a reference misleading if it
suggests a ldquotogetherrdquo there where we can encounter only an ldquoout of each
otherrdquomdasheven if we encounter it in the impossibility of its encounter
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 49
In his seminar in Le or in September 983089983097983094983094 Heidegger cites a paragraph
from the chapter ldquoOn the impossibility of a cosmological proof of Godrsquos
existencerdquo from Kantrsquos First Critique ese stunning sentencesmdashwhich
with their evocation of sinking floating without stop and the abyss
may well have contributed to the descriptions of anxiety in Being and
Time (983089983097983094983090) and ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo (983089983097983097983096)mdashspeak explicitly not only
about the groundless but also about the unbearable Kant writes
e unconditioned necessity which we need so indispensably as the ultimate
sustainer of all things is for human reason the true abyss Even eternitymdash
however awful the sublimity with which a Haller might portray itmdashdoes not
make such a dizzying impression on the mind for eternity only measures the
duration of things but it does not sustain that duration One cannot resist the
thought of it but one also cannot bear it that a being might as it were say
to itself ldquoI am from eternity to eternity outside me is nothing except what is
something merely through my will but whence then am Irdquo Here everything
caves in beneath us and the greatest perfection as well as the smallest hover
without hold before speculative reason for which it would cost nothing to
let the one as much as the other disappear without the least obstacle (Kant
983089983097983097983097 983093983095983092 Heidegger 983090983088983088983091 983089983095) God the highest ground of what is appears in
its monologue as an abyss that does not carry it but lets it collapse And Kant
says of this thought of a God that does not carry itself that ldquoone cannot resist
the thought of it but one also cannot bear itrdquo
With this the primal scene of critical transcendental philosophy and
speculative idealism is described an ens realissimum et nesessarium that does not contain the guarantee of its own being a God that is not
a causa sui and sinks in the abyss of its own question after a ground
cannot offer beings any more hold and must therefore pull down in
its own fall the categories that render it thinkable necessary and real
What remains is the scene of the sinking away of the totality of beings
ldquothe greatest perfection as well as the smallestrdquo and with this scene the
form of representation the mere idea of reason in which beings as a
whole together with the categorial structures of their knowability survive
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2342
T h e R e l a t i o n50
under the condition of their transcendentality For the ldquotranscendental
objectrdquomdashthat Kant can only speak of after the sinking away of a world
and its transcendental groundmdashis not an empirical object and not even
an object at all is object as Kant writes ldquotherefore cannot be further
intuited by us and that may therefore be called the non-empirical ie
transcendental object = Xrdquo (983089983097983097983097 983090983091983091) In his Kant book Heidegger calls
this transcendental X ldquoa Nothingrdquo that is at the same time ldquoSomethingrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983096983094) and describes the X as ldquothe horizon of a standing-against is
horizon is indeed not object but rather a Nothing if by object we mean
a being which is apprehended thematicallyrdquo (983096983095) Furthermore ldquoOnly if
the letting-stand-against of is a holding oneself in the nothing canthe representing allow a not-nothing ie something like a being rdquo (983093983089)
In the Kant commentary the ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo ismdashlike
the anxiety scenes in Being and Time in the Freiburg lecture and more
abstractly in the ldquoLetterrdquo in different waysmdashthe gesture of the horizontal-
transcendental constitution of the domain of objectivity and with that
at the same time of no longer onto-theologically founded beings held
in the mere form of representation not a creatio but still a constitutio ex
nihilo e fact that ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo as Kant examines
it in his critical philosophy stops at the form of representation (Vorstel-
lung ) and the idea of reason makes these gestures into a regulatio nihili
and prevents the further analysis of the transcendental form of being
represented and posited
Heidegger took on this further analysis starting with the exposition of
Dasein in Being and Time is analysis must show that the sinking of theens necessarium and with it that of mere being (which does not hold and
bear itself) remain irreducible to the beings of representation the idea
or the concept It must expose the fact that transcendental representa-
tion merely displaces the ldquonotrdquo that it encounters in the sinking of the
highest being instead of engaging it as the decisive content of being To
do justice to the implications of the anxiety-scene and the unbearable
question of God for his ground the classical analytical concept of differ-
ence between ground and the grounded positing and the posited must
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 35
so as the existing acknowledgement of an existing object or a content of
representation but only in the way that as language it itself corresponds
to the ldquonihilationrdquo or ldquoannulmentrdquo that addresses it
Language cannot speak but by letting the ldquonotrdquo that addresses it happen
in languagersquos own happening e residuum of correspondence theory
that persists in this explanation demands however that we conceive of
language as the answer and correspondence to the counter-linguistic
ldquonotrdquo and understand every ldquonordquo as only the affirmation of the ldquonotrdquo and at
the same time understand the happening of language itself and in general
as a ldquonordquo as the affirmation of the ldquonotrdquo and of nihilation Language how-ever corresponds to the nihilationmdashand the correspondence dissolves
itself in itmdashonly in such a way that it ent-spricht it corresponds to itself
as language as not-saying It loses its linguistic nature (ent-sprachlicht )
as it evacuates its contents as well as its forms and it allows its being to
become a not-saying and with this not-saying the naked ldquothatrdquo of saying
Saying ldquonordquo to itself as a being in all its moments language speaks and it
speaks beyond itself and the totality of beings transcendence of language
in its being as the movement of ldquonotrdquo
is is why Heidegger can write describing the movement of Being and
along with Being also that of language ldquoBeing annulsmdashas Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096
983090983095983091) It annuls as language in as much as it departs from itself as an exist-
ing correlation to other beings and it is evicted from what it can be as an
instrumental structure of reference ek-sistence of language into a Being
without beings
is movement that language never performs through acts of positing by
its speakers this movement that occurs not only occasionally and never
intentionally or caused by motives this movement that defines language
as the language expelled from language was defined by Heidegger in his
Freiburg lecture as the language of anxiety as the angst-ridden language
At the end of a short description of an experience of anxiety this reduc-
tion of language to its most properly own is characterized in the following
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 942
T h e R e l a t i o n36
terms ldquoNot a hold remains [ Es bleibt kein Halt ] In the slipping away of
beings only this lsquonotrsquo [kein] remains and comes over usrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983096983096)983089 e
ldquoessential impossibility of determiningrdquo beings as a whole (983096983096) that we
experience in anxiety leaves nothing enduring nothing that speech or
action could offer to hold on to no hold apart from this ldquonotrdquo of the hold
the hold without hold ldquoNotrdquo is the word for the language no longer of be-
ings but for language as it happens as a partingmdashparting from everything
that can be defined represented and held It speaks only by saying that
nothing remains to be said and therefore it corresponds to its own ldquonotrdquo
still speaks speaks for the first time and speaks as language even beyond
what in and through it is definable ldquoNonerdquo ( Kein) is not a word nor isit a mark it is the counter-word and the counter-mark to all that could
be merely stated and signified But as this anti-word ( Anti-Wort ) it is the
answer ( Antwort ) of bare speech to the merely speakable It is the primary
Ur-word the word-word as such the only word of language language
itself as this single word as it exactly says its Sein its ldquordquoBeingrdquo
ldquoNot a hold remains In the slipping away of beings only this lsquonotrsquo remains
and comes over usrdquo ldquoNotrdquo does not say anything about Being It speaks
itself as Being Being happens in the ldquonotrdquo and nowhere else It is the
hold without hold the up- and with-holding dwelling ( Auf-ent-halt ) that
language is as the house of Being the only ethos Language speaks only
when it becomes this house of the ldquonot rdquo in all its idioms in every word
and every silence and thereby gains its Being as that which is not a being
ldquo Not rdquo contracts the individual appearances in their nihilation into the
whole of a ldquothererdquo It allows to step back from the world assembled underthe deletion mark of the ldquonotrdquo it is the word of the epocheacute of every word
and every world Still precisely as speaking beyond all merely real and
possible words it speaks as one that does not represent anything does
not declare signify or does anything but simply happens it is the ldquothatrdquo
of its self and as this ldquothatrdquo it is the horizon of Being within which every
being can first be what it is It is the word of apocalypse the revelation
of the possibility of all worlds and words Epocheacute and revelation the re-
turn of beings into their ldquonotrdquo and the rise of Being In the ldquo not rdquo beings
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 37
and Being separate and (d)emerge as different ldquo Not rdquo is the word of the
ontological difference
A theory of the origin of language and at the same time of the origin of
Being and beings with language ldquo Nonerdquo or not would be then the fiat the
finite not the originating but the witnessing the Dasein-opening fiat of
the homo humanus of whose humanitas Heidegger speaks in the ldquoLetter
on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo Although here the connection between the origin of
language and the ldquonotrdquo remains only a suggestion it defines the gesture
that carries Heideggerrsquos thought in general namely that something
emerges as something first in its slippage For example the hammer inthe becoming useless of the ldquoequipmentrdquo the ldquoworldrdquo in the loss of reason
in anxiety the possible wholeness of Dasein in ldquobeing-toward-deathrdquo the
work of art in the rejection of the usual coherence of the world the Being
of the word in its ldquoapartnessrdquo and its ldquoinfirmityrdquo
e ldquonot rdquo reveals nothing and it is as this revelation a historical moment
in which nothing will be seen apart from the ldquonotrdquo of seeing ldquoBeing is
more in being than any beingsrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
However the ldquonot rdquo can reveal the nothing only because as a citationmdash
Heidegger puts it between quotation marksmdashfrom the inner- worldly
discourse of Dasein it opens up the distance that allows Dasein to relate
to the world as a whole as its ldquothererdquo (983089983097983097983096 983089983088983097) e ldquonordquo as the word of
transcendence is at the same time that of the difference between Being
and the beings of the world It can be both transcendence and differenceonly as exposed from every determinable meaning And yet this ldquonot rdquo
does mean But it does not mean what ldquosomethingrdquo or ldquoonerdquo ldquocoverrdquo or
ldquoLazarusrdquo means but rather always their and its own ldquonotrdquo Heideggerrsquos
ldquonotrdquo however does not remain only a residue of innerworldliness and
meaningfulness It also follows a direction in which it approaches Dasein
relates to its language allows its affirmation and even its recognition
and allows Dasein to be bound to the ldquonotrdquo in its ldquoyesrdquo and ldquonordquo ldquoEvery
lsquonorsquo is simply the affirmation of the lsquonotrsquo Every affirmation consists in
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1142
T h e R e l a t i o n38
recognition Recognition lets that toward which it goes come toward itrdquo
(983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) Just as in Hegel in the ldquoLetter on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo the ldquonotrdquo is
the ldquonotrdquo of something But even when in an ek-sistential conversion it
turns itself into the something of a nihilation this nihilation remains
as counter-phenomenon oriented toward something and remains ca-
pable of being grasped in an answer which even though a citation a
remainder a residue and a trace remains still the determined trace of
a determined being and not the ldquoessential impossibility of determiningrdquo
beings as a whole (983089983097983097983096 983096983096) In contradistinction to his claim Heidegger
does not describe the ldquonotrdquo itself but the ldquonotrdquo of a self Even though the
ldquonot rdquomdashldquoonly this lsquonotrsquordquo (983096983096)mdashis supposed to be the ldquonot rdquo of the hold ona determinable meaning and a determinable direction it moves toward
the transcendental ldquonordquo of language and toward the dwelling in its house
it remains a directional ldquonotrdquo
And the other way around if the ldquonordquo of language is the ldquothe affirmation of
the lsquonotrsquordquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) then this ldquonotrdquo can be affirmed only as the one that
language moves toward e spoken ldquonordquo according to Heideggerrsquos words
is an already addressed ldquonordquo in which only the ldquonotrdquo as an intentional
object will be affirmed language retains for Heidegger an intentional
structure even in its epocheacute Accordinglymdashand in fact in the sense of
a correspondence in a relational pairmdashthe ldquonotrdquo in Heideggerrsquos ldquoLetterrdquo
is attuned to the affirmation of its affirmation It is an intentionally
disposed and moreover affirmative ldquonotrdquo Only this way can the whole
domain of meaningfulness be thought in it as simultaneously suspended
and founded
Furthermore if the recognition of the ldquonotrdquo as Heidegger writes ldquolets
that toward which it goes come toward itrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) the recognition
becomes the place of the advent of the ldquonotrdquo and the intentional ldquonotrdquo
becomes not only linguistically affirmable but moreover recognizable
and locatable in its recognition In all these structures the ldquonotrdquo appears
to be reduced to something less than what as the ldquoannulmentrdquo should
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 39
refuse every recognition and remain placeless wordless and non-inten-
tional Since ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091) the
ldquonotrdquo should be more nihilating than any nihilation within the horizon of
intentional acknowledgement It should remain irreducible to relational
pairs and it should withdraw itself from such alternatives as speaking to
and turning away from presence to and absence from Since it is ldquonotrdquo
it should not remain restricted to pressure constriction and anxiety It
should each time happen as that which in these relations releases from
them and makes them possible in the first place
ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquomdashHeideggerrsquos catchy formulaemploys a comparative to describe the relation between Being and beings
and thus the relation as such It compares the two that should remain
absolutely incomparable It speaks of Being in the language of beings
and says that it is a Being of enhanced intensity e formula however
remains ambiguous It says on the one hand that being is in being and
even more in being than beings On the other hand however it says that
it is in being only in such a way that it transgresses the measure and
range of beings releases itself from all beings and gives up every hold on
them e relation that this formula speaks of is therefore the relation of
the dissolution of every relation of transcendence into the relationless
and of not only quantitative and merely relative but of the ontological
difference between Being and beings Catchy as it is it speaks only the
slippage of Being out of every form of every existing languagemdashand
hyperbolically speaks beyond its own speech Language in difference to
language language of difference language out of it
e syntagm ldquobeing more in being than any beingsrdquo is at the same time
a hypertagm It offers a proposition and steps outside everymdasheven its
ownmdashproposition
Horrifying (entzetzliche) language Every language is displacing (en-
tzetzlich)
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1342
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 41
of the structure of intentionality which is too strongly emphasized in his
thoughts on the ldquonotrdquo to have merely slipped into them For Heidegger
it is important that the ldquonotrdquo is not a nihil negativum or absolutum not
an empty ldquonotrdquo merely posited by a ldquosubjectrdquo or an ldquoIrdquomdasheven if posited
like in Fichte and Hegel through a not-positing For if it were a positum
it would not only be a logicized ldquonotrdquo but also a something (ens rationis )
and so precisely what it is not At the same time it is also important for
Heidegger that the happening of the ldquonotrdquomdashwhich albeit always pos-
sible still ldquorarely enoughrdquo really is (983089983097983097983096 983096983096)mdashdoes not disappear in an
annihilation once again in such a case the ldquonothingrdquo would not be a
ldquonotrdquo it would not be ldquothererdquo it could not be experienced as a happeningor the happening of the withdrawal from happening Joined together the
two observations can be understood in such a way that the ldquonotrdquo cannot
be either a ldquosomethingrdquo or the fait accompli of a mere absence It opens
itself as the zone of separation between beings and empty nothing and
it can be the ldquonotrdquo only as that which emerges in the experience of the
departure or slipping away of all beings e experience of this ldquonotrdquo and
the ldquonotrdquo of this experiencemdashand an abyss opens up in the reversibility
or irreversibility of these expressions and their double genitivesmdashis the
decisive pre-predicative synthesis It is not an archeacute an in itself unified
principle It is structurally an-archic (and in this sense originary) since it
is a synthesis only because of the split that crosses it Heidegger describes
this bifurcation as a ldquorepelling reference toward beings [abweisende
Verweisung ]rdquo983090 (983089983097983097983096 983097983088) as a reference to beings through which they are
brought together and at the same time repelled as a whole At the same
time as this ldquonotrdquo that formulates itself as a ldquonordquo and in Heideggerrsquosdefinition as reference carries an emphatically linguistic trait the experi-
ence of Being itself emerges as the happening of this repelling reference
e ldquonotrdquo is the in itself differentiated archi-disjunction
e separation therefore takes place between beings as a whole and
Being and not between the ldquonotrdquo and beingmdashthis separation is accom-
plished or is (or ldquoexistsrdquo) in the ldquonotrdquo ldquoe nothing itself annulsrdquo (983089983097983097983096
983097983088) it is what happens in the repelling reference and it is that it happens
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1542
T h e R e l a t i o n42
as this reference Since the ldquonotrdquo would not be without its happening
(without its nihilation) the previous phrase can be made more precise
ldquoBeing nihilatesmdashas beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
is is to say Being is always already not-anymore and always not-yet It
is in that it is the ldquonotrdquo of itself As difference from itself it is at the same
time the difference from everything and in everything that exists
e title of ldquoBeingrdquo in Heideggerrsquos thinking belongs only to the movement
of the ldquonotrdquo to the separation the difference as inter-rift (Unter-Schied )
the ontological difference is is why we find in the preface to ldquoOn theEssence of Groundrdquo the following ambiguous formulation ldquoe onto-
logical difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is
programmatic formula can be misunderstood because it places the ldquonotrdquo
between beings and Being as if they were two beings of different nature
or intensity But this ldquonotrdquo is to be thought as the ldquobetweenrdquo with which
Being emerges as differentiated from all even the highest of all beings
Being is what is resulting from and in the separation that happens in the
ldquonotrdquo and thus itself is the ldquobetweenrdquo the difference erefore Heide-
gger can write ldquonothing and Being the samerdquo ldquoHolding itself out into the
nothing Dasein is in each case already beyond beings as a whole Such
being beyond beings we call transcendence if [Dasein] were not in
advance holding itself out into the nothing then it could never adopt a
stance toward beings nor even toward itself rdquo (983097983089)
For Heidegger to transcend means above all to transcend into a ldquonotrdquoand therefore to transcend into a ldquonotrdquo of even this transcending It does
not mean indication and relation ldquotordquo but repelling and repelling reference
ldquofromrdquo as well as repelling of all reference in-predication ir-relation
dis-intention Transcendingmdashif it is not already connected through
a continuous movement with a homogenous other and thereby in no
need of transcendingmdashmust transcend into a nec trans and can only be
a transcending into the un-enterable it must be attranscendence
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 43
ldquoLe pas au-delagraverdquo writes Blanchot step beyond not beyond step beyond
to the not of the step
Only as transition into the not-going can it reach the zone of difference in
its own movement where first a possible toward of this movement opens
up as a relation to something and an intentional attitude to beings as
beings becomes possible us intentions are grounded in a structure of
transcendence that in its turn is defined by a ldquonotrdquo a halt a putting on
hold or a suspension Only this arrest offers the possibility of a relation
to something only in this suspension happens not something but only
the that of it happening
e ldquonotrdquo of this in-transcendence therefore can happen in two ways
the retreating reference to something and the experience that the hap-
pening of this reference is other than and different from the reference
conceptualized as a relation and its correlates
is arresting of the ldquonotrdquo in in-transcendence clearly defines the mini-
mal structure of language Whenever and in whatever way language is
spoken there is reference that distances But beyond this something else
also happens that cannot be reduced to this (repelling) reference and the
agents emerging from it the referents and their relations to each other
Whether absolutely novel or older than old it is incommensurable with
them e intentional attitude only exists as crossed out by the event of
its own epocheacute
erefore it appears to be insufficient and even erroneous to speak of
ldquothe claim of nihilation that has come to the clearingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) and
to say that ldquonihilation first requires the lsquonorsquo as what is to be said in the
letting-be of beingsrdquo (983090983095983091) is phrase attributes a linguistic structure
to the ldquonotrdquo that is at the same time also denied Language is defined as
something claimedmdashnot claimed by a pre-linguistic ldquoexistentiell rdquo beyond
of language but by its own exterior limits and thus by what cannot raise
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1742
T h e R e l a t i o n44
claims Heidegger therefore goes around in circlesmdasheven if we consider
all the complications of going going over and inaccessibility He goes
against himself and he might be going that way because he thinks lan-
guage as a response
e commentary on the structure of transcending (namely that it must
be that of in-transcending) and intentionality (that it must be suspended
in dis-intending) made it clear that these movements for Heidegger
always emerge first in their ldquonotrdquo and their suspension In very much
the same way we could clarify the structure of the claim as Anspruch
as Heidegger understands it not by reading this word according to themeasure of its dictionary meaning but by reading it based on its context
with an emphatically stressed An speaking onto
en the claim raised by the ldquonotrdquomdashfrom nowhere by nobody and mind
you nevermdashwould be a ldquospeakingrdquo onto and in the proximity of language
and its words and particles of negation which persisting in the onto
would never make it out of this proximity to reach language e claim
would be a speaking onto because it would never be a speech in the sense
of a statement or a performative act It would always be en route or on
the way to language An-spruch would be toward language what language
itself is not and that it itself is not presentmdashit would be the irruption of
language its start
In fact according to Heideggerrsquos text ldquothe claim of nihilationrdquo cannot be
more than this cannot be language For he says of this claim that it callsfor the ldquonordquo as what is to be said but never as something already said
never already given in or by language rather as a ldquonordquo that remains still
and always yet to be said and as what is to be said remains forever im-
minent in every possible future Speaking onto and speaking its ldquonot rdquo onto
language the claim would be the retentive relation in which language is
kept away from itself but at the same time held to and held back from
itself and sustained and held in this holding onto and holding back But
unlike what an obvious misunderstanding would suggest this sustaining
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 45
does not hold in potentia as something always merely ldquopossiblerdquo but
never ldquorealrdquo Rather it holds on this side of all modal categories in statu
nascendi et moriendi (as Celan writes in an explicit reference to Heidegger
in a letter to Werner Weber) held out into the happening of language as
perpetual beginning (983089983097983097983095 983091983097983096)
is understanding of the speaking-onto of the ldquonotrdquo also clarifies the
structure of intention It would not be some already given relation of an
already constituted consciousness to a content of consciousness but the
irruption of these relations in their pre-withholding and therefore inten-
tion only arising out of the freedom from such a relation and the opennessto it us every An- that Heidegger writes is to be read not merely as a
ldquoclose tordquo or ldquoontordquo in the sense of a given extension but always also as
the echo the Greek ana- as a privative in- or un- In words like Anspruch
(claim) or Anruf (call) or Answesen (presence) Angehen (approach) and
Ankunft (arrival) with every ldquoclose tordquo and ldquoontordquo at the same time a ldquonotrdquo
and a ldquonordquo is also said that relates relation to irrelation reference to ir-
reference direction to indirection An- is the prefix of differencemdashbut
not only of an intra-linguistic difference between different meanings of
one and the same morpheme but before meanings can appear at all the
difference between language speaking its ldquonotrdquo and language speaking
onto something An- not unlike vor- zu- hin- and aus- is the prefix of
ontological difference Whoever uses ldquospeaking ontordquo in this sense in fact
is saying something insufficient and erroneous but is also saying that this
insufficiency and erroneousness belongs to the structure of language
Language itself is the speaking onto language and therefore a speakingonto another language or something other than language
Understood as ldquospeaking ontordquo ( An-spruch) language is its othering ( An-
derung )
e An- is therefore the word and the fore-word of the madness of lan-
guage In the essay ldquoLanguage in the Poemrdquo Heidegger writes as a com-
mentary on the line ldquoe madman [Wahnsinnige] has diedrdquo from Georg
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1942
T h e R e l a t i o n46
Traklrsquos ldquoPsalmrdquo ldquoe word Wahn comes from Old High German wana
which means lsquowithoutrsquo e madman sensesmdashsenses in fact as no one
else does But he remains without the sense of others He is of another
sense Sinnan originally means to travel to strive for to strike a direc-
tion e Indo-Germanic root sent and set means lsquopathrsquo e departed is
the madman because he is on his way somewhere elserdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983091)983091 e
other way that the madman follows is the way into de-parture into a dif-
ference that departs from every possible distinction and discrimination
So Heidegger can write about the stranger who is the madman without
the sense of the other ldquois stranger unfolds the essence of the human
into the beginning of what has not yet come to bearing [Tragen] (OldHigh German giberan) is quieter and hence more stilling element
in the nature of mortals that has not been borne out is what the poet
calls the unbornrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983093)983092 But if the other waymdashthis without-path the
aporiamdashleads into what has not been borne out how do we stand with
what is defined as ldquogesturerdquo in ldquoA Dialogue on Languagerdquo ldquothe originary
gathering of bearing against and bearing tordquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983097) And how does the
thought of the not-yet-born and the unborn relate to the thought of being
as difference which is described in ldquoe Onto-eo-Logical Constitu-
tion of Metaphysicsrdquo in the following way ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ]
alone grants and holds apart the lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming
and the arrival are held toward one another are borne away from and
toward each other e difference of Being and beings as the inter-rift of
overwhelming and arrival is the bearing out [ Austrag ] of the two in un-
concealing keeping in concealment Within this bearing out there prevails
a clearing of what veils and closes itself offmdashand this prevalence bestowsthe being apart and the being toward each other of overwhelming and
arrivalrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)983093
In these sentences it becomes clear that the words ldquoheldrdquo and ldquobornerdquo
are used in the same sense being held in relation (Ver-halten) is being
borne out ( Austrag ) Both describe the movement of differentiation that
Heidegger writes as Unter-Schied (literally inter -rift ) to separate it from
rational distinctions as well as from differences in perception and to
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 47
emphasize the ldquobetweenrdquo that corresponds to the inter of the unter in
the concept of Unterschied (difference) e German word Austrag is the
literal translation of the Latin differentia which in turn is a translation
of the decisive Greek term diaphoraacute In a definition provided in the first
essay on Trakl ldquoLanguagerdquo (in 983089983097983093983088) diaphoraacute difference and bearing
out are juxtaposed with the following commentary ldquoe intimacy of
dif-ference [Unter-Schied ] is the unifying element of the diaphora the
carrying out [ Austrag ] that carries through e dif-ference carries out
world in its worlding carries out things in their thinging us carrying
them out it carries them toward one anotherrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) And a few
sentences later the series of synonymous concepts is extended to includeEreignis the appropriating event gesture as bearing and granting ldquoe
dif-ference for world and thing disclosingly appropriates things into bear-
ing a world it disclosingly appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo
(983090983088983088) In accordance with these connections in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo
relation (Verhaumlltnis ) is thought out of the appropriating event and more
precisely as the appropriative happening of the essence of language ldquoFor
that appropriating holding self-retaining is the relation of all relations
us our sayingmdashalways an answeringmdashremains forever relational Rela-
tion [Ver-haumlltnis as holding to itself] is thought of here always in terms
of the event and no longer conceived in the form of a mere referencerdquo
(983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093) But if relation means appropriation if appropriation means
difference difference means differentia and diaphora and the latter two
mean the carrying out that carries through while carrying out means
bearing the question unavoidable emerges How do the concepts from
the Trakl commentary the unborn and what is not borne out relate to thisseries And how can this series be unified with the other the without-
path and the aporia of madness ese questions are not yet answered
by the remark that Heidegger understood human Dasein in the sense of
ek-sistence as the ecstatic being outside of itself of madness is only
makes the question more urgent of whether this being-in-madness can
be thought with the concepts of difference and ldquobearing outrdquo Or whether
this madness overburdens ldquothe carrying out that carries throughrdquo and the
ldquobearing outrdquo and is therefore thrown away evacuated and forgotten
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2142
T h e R e l a t i o n48
e question therefore is once again whether the madness of ek-sis-
tence of the ldquonotrdquo of Being and of language can still be articulated in a
languagemdasheven if it as outreacute as Heideggerrsquos
Or Is it possible to think the not-borne-out as the not-borne-out More
precisely Does the not-borne-out allow itself to be thought only as a not
yet or beyond that does it allow itself to be thought as a never borne
out
Hence Can the ldquonotrdquo as a ldquoneverrdquomdashas a never of the sayablemdashdefine the
horizon of language And can this ldquoneverrdquo then also provide the tran-scendental horizon of the possibility of what is sayable Is the ldquoneverrdquo
the condition of the happening of language and the horizon of being
Or Can the ldquoneverrdquo be thought But How could it be other than never be
thought Consequently If the ldquoneverrdquo were the pre- and proto-predicative
happening that is called ldquoBeingrdquo and later more precisely coming-over
(Uumlberkommnis ) because it is what ldquoovercomesrdquo sur-prises overwhelms
more than just comes andmdashoverburdens erefore Can the unbearable
be borne and borne out
Otherwise How could Beingmdashwhether as happening history destiny
or coming-overmdashas the unbearable not be borne Because Can the un-
bearable be found at all otherwise unbearable than as always still and
nevertheless borne And then still not erefore Is there not in Being
itself such a still and nevertheless a but that keeps Being at a distancefrom Being and keeps Being out of Being and in this out and apart brings
it together
However What does the ldquooutrdquo mean in ldquoout of each otherrdquo and in ldquobearing
outrdquo if it still contains a ldquotogetherrdquo Does it refer to an originary synthesis
before every predicative synthesis Is not such a reference misleading if it
suggests a ldquotogetherrdquo there where we can encounter only an ldquoout of each
otherrdquomdasheven if we encounter it in the impossibility of its encounter
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 49
In his seminar in Le or in September 983089983097983094983094 Heidegger cites a paragraph
from the chapter ldquoOn the impossibility of a cosmological proof of Godrsquos
existencerdquo from Kantrsquos First Critique ese stunning sentencesmdashwhich
with their evocation of sinking floating without stop and the abyss
may well have contributed to the descriptions of anxiety in Being and
Time (983089983097983094983090) and ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo (983089983097983097983096)mdashspeak explicitly not only
about the groundless but also about the unbearable Kant writes
e unconditioned necessity which we need so indispensably as the ultimate
sustainer of all things is for human reason the true abyss Even eternitymdash
however awful the sublimity with which a Haller might portray itmdashdoes not
make such a dizzying impression on the mind for eternity only measures the
duration of things but it does not sustain that duration One cannot resist the
thought of it but one also cannot bear it that a being might as it were say
to itself ldquoI am from eternity to eternity outside me is nothing except what is
something merely through my will but whence then am Irdquo Here everything
caves in beneath us and the greatest perfection as well as the smallest hover
without hold before speculative reason for which it would cost nothing to
let the one as much as the other disappear without the least obstacle (Kant
983089983097983097983097 983093983095983092 Heidegger 983090983088983088983091 983089983095) God the highest ground of what is appears in
its monologue as an abyss that does not carry it but lets it collapse And Kant
says of this thought of a God that does not carry itself that ldquoone cannot resist
the thought of it but one also cannot bear itrdquo
With this the primal scene of critical transcendental philosophy and
speculative idealism is described an ens realissimum et nesessarium that does not contain the guarantee of its own being a God that is not
a causa sui and sinks in the abyss of its own question after a ground
cannot offer beings any more hold and must therefore pull down in
its own fall the categories that render it thinkable necessary and real
What remains is the scene of the sinking away of the totality of beings
ldquothe greatest perfection as well as the smallestrdquo and with this scene the
form of representation the mere idea of reason in which beings as a
whole together with the categorial structures of their knowability survive
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2342
T h e R e l a t i o n50
under the condition of their transcendentality For the ldquotranscendental
objectrdquomdashthat Kant can only speak of after the sinking away of a world
and its transcendental groundmdashis not an empirical object and not even
an object at all is object as Kant writes ldquotherefore cannot be further
intuited by us and that may therefore be called the non-empirical ie
transcendental object = Xrdquo (983089983097983097983097 983090983091983091) In his Kant book Heidegger calls
this transcendental X ldquoa Nothingrdquo that is at the same time ldquoSomethingrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983096983094) and describes the X as ldquothe horizon of a standing-against is
horizon is indeed not object but rather a Nothing if by object we mean
a being which is apprehended thematicallyrdquo (983096983095) Furthermore ldquoOnly if
the letting-stand-against of is a holding oneself in the nothing canthe representing allow a not-nothing ie something like a being rdquo (983093983089)
In the Kant commentary the ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo ismdashlike
the anxiety scenes in Being and Time in the Freiburg lecture and more
abstractly in the ldquoLetterrdquo in different waysmdashthe gesture of the horizontal-
transcendental constitution of the domain of objectivity and with that
at the same time of no longer onto-theologically founded beings held
in the mere form of representation not a creatio but still a constitutio ex
nihilo e fact that ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo as Kant examines
it in his critical philosophy stops at the form of representation (Vorstel-
lung ) and the idea of reason makes these gestures into a regulatio nihili
and prevents the further analysis of the transcendental form of being
represented and posited
Heidegger took on this further analysis starting with the exposition of
Dasein in Being and Time is analysis must show that the sinking of theens necessarium and with it that of mere being (which does not hold and
bear itself) remain irreducible to the beings of representation the idea
or the concept It must expose the fact that transcendental representa-
tion merely displaces the ldquonotrdquo that it encounters in the sinking of the
highest being instead of engaging it as the decisive content of being To
do justice to the implications of the anxiety-scene and the unbearable
question of God for his ground the classical analytical concept of differ-
ence between ground and the grounded positing and the posited must
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 942
T h e R e l a t i o n36
terms ldquoNot a hold remains [ Es bleibt kein Halt ] In the slipping away of
beings only this lsquonotrsquo [kein] remains and comes over usrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983096983096)983089 e
ldquoessential impossibility of determiningrdquo beings as a whole (983096983096) that we
experience in anxiety leaves nothing enduring nothing that speech or
action could offer to hold on to no hold apart from this ldquonotrdquo of the hold
the hold without hold ldquoNotrdquo is the word for the language no longer of be-
ings but for language as it happens as a partingmdashparting from everything
that can be defined represented and held It speaks only by saying that
nothing remains to be said and therefore it corresponds to its own ldquonotrdquo
still speaks speaks for the first time and speaks as language even beyond
what in and through it is definable ldquoNonerdquo ( Kein) is not a word nor isit a mark it is the counter-word and the counter-mark to all that could
be merely stated and signified But as this anti-word ( Anti-Wort ) it is the
answer ( Antwort ) of bare speech to the merely speakable It is the primary
Ur-word the word-word as such the only word of language language
itself as this single word as it exactly says its Sein its ldquordquoBeingrdquo
ldquoNot a hold remains In the slipping away of beings only this lsquonotrsquo remains
and comes over usrdquo ldquoNotrdquo does not say anything about Being It speaks
itself as Being Being happens in the ldquonotrdquo and nowhere else It is the
hold without hold the up- and with-holding dwelling ( Auf-ent-halt ) that
language is as the house of Being the only ethos Language speaks only
when it becomes this house of the ldquonot rdquo in all its idioms in every word
and every silence and thereby gains its Being as that which is not a being
ldquo Not rdquo contracts the individual appearances in their nihilation into the
whole of a ldquothererdquo It allows to step back from the world assembled underthe deletion mark of the ldquonotrdquo it is the word of the epocheacute of every word
and every world Still precisely as speaking beyond all merely real and
possible words it speaks as one that does not represent anything does
not declare signify or does anything but simply happens it is the ldquothatrdquo
of its self and as this ldquothatrdquo it is the horizon of Being within which every
being can first be what it is It is the word of apocalypse the revelation
of the possibility of all worlds and words Epocheacute and revelation the re-
turn of beings into their ldquonotrdquo and the rise of Being In the ldquo not rdquo beings
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 37
and Being separate and (d)emerge as different ldquo Not rdquo is the word of the
ontological difference
A theory of the origin of language and at the same time of the origin of
Being and beings with language ldquo Nonerdquo or not would be then the fiat the
finite not the originating but the witnessing the Dasein-opening fiat of
the homo humanus of whose humanitas Heidegger speaks in the ldquoLetter
on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo Although here the connection between the origin of
language and the ldquonotrdquo remains only a suggestion it defines the gesture
that carries Heideggerrsquos thought in general namely that something
emerges as something first in its slippage For example the hammer inthe becoming useless of the ldquoequipmentrdquo the ldquoworldrdquo in the loss of reason
in anxiety the possible wholeness of Dasein in ldquobeing-toward-deathrdquo the
work of art in the rejection of the usual coherence of the world the Being
of the word in its ldquoapartnessrdquo and its ldquoinfirmityrdquo
e ldquonot rdquo reveals nothing and it is as this revelation a historical moment
in which nothing will be seen apart from the ldquonotrdquo of seeing ldquoBeing is
more in being than any beingsrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
However the ldquonot rdquo can reveal the nothing only because as a citationmdash
Heidegger puts it between quotation marksmdashfrom the inner- worldly
discourse of Dasein it opens up the distance that allows Dasein to relate
to the world as a whole as its ldquothererdquo (983089983097983097983096 983089983088983097) e ldquonordquo as the word of
transcendence is at the same time that of the difference between Being
and the beings of the world It can be both transcendence and differenceonly as exposed from every determinable meaning And yet this ldquonot rdquo
does mean But it does not mean what ldquosomethingrdquo or ldquoonerdquo ldquocoverrdquo or
ldquoLazarusrdquo means but rather always their and its own ldquonotrdquo Heideggerrsquos
ldquonotrdquo however does not remain only a residue of innerworldliness and
meaningfulness It also follows a direction in which it approaches Dasein
relates to its language allows its affirmation and even its recognition
and allows Dasein to be bound to the ldquonotrdquo in its ldquoyesrdquo and ldquonordquo ldquoEvery
lsquonorsquo is simply the affirmation of the lsquonotrsquo Every affirmation consists in
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1142
T h e R e l a t i o n38
recognition Recognition lets that toward which it goes come toward itrdquo
(983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) Just as in Hegel in the ldquoLetter on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo the ldquonotrdquo is
the ldquonotrdquo of something But even when in an ek-sistential conversion it
turns itself into the something of a nihilation this nihilation remains
as counter-phenomenon oriented toward something and remains ca-
pable of being grasped in an answer which even though a citation a
remainder a residue and a trace remains still the determined trace of
a determined being and not the ldquoessential impossibility of determiningrdquo
beings as a whole (983089983097983097983096 983096983096) In contradistinction to his claim Heidegger
does not describe the ldquonotrdquo itself but the ldquonotrdquo of a self Even though the
ldquonot rdquomdashldquoonly this lsquonotrsquordquo (983096983096)mdashis supposed to be the ldquonot rdquo of the hold ona determinable meaning and a determinable direction it moves toward
the transcendental ldquonordquo of language and toward the dwelling in its house
it remains a directional ldquonotrdquo
And the other way around if the ldquonordquo of language is the ldquothe affirmation of
the lsquonotrsquordquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) then this ldquonotrdquo can be affirmed only as the one that
language moves toward e spoken ldquonordquo according to Heideggerrsquos words
is an already addressed ldquonordquo in which only the ldquonotrdquo as an intentional
object will be affirmed language retains for Heidegger an intentional
structure even in its epocheacute Accordinglymdashand in fact in the sense of
a correspondence in a relational pairmdashthe ldquonotrdquo in Heideggerrsquos ldquoLetterrdquo
is attuned to the affirmation of its affirmation It is an intentionally
disposed and moreover affirmative ldquonotrdquo Only this way can the whole
domain of meaningfulness be thought in it as simultaneously suspended
and founded
Furthermore if the recognition of the ldquonotrdquo as Heidegger writes ldquolets
that toward which it goes come toward itrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) the recognition
becomes the place of the advent of the ldquonotrdquo and the intentional ldquonotrdquo
becomes not only linguistically affirmable but moreover recognizable
and locatable in its recognition In all these structures the ldquonotrdquo appears
to be reduced to something less than what as the ldquoannulmentrdquo should
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 39
refuse every recognition and remain placeless wordless and non-inten-
tional Since ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091) the
ldquonotrdquo should be more nihilating than any nihilation within the horizon of
intentional acknowledgement It should remain irreducible to relational
pairs and it should withdraw itself from such alternatives as speaking to
and turning away from presence to and absence from Since it is ldquonotrdquo
it should not remain restricted to pressure constriction and anxiety It
should each time happen as that which in these relations releases from
them and makes them possible in the first place
ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquomdashHeideggerrsquos catchy formulaemploys a comparative to describe the relation between Being and beings
and thus the relation as such It compares the two that should remain
absolutely incomparable It speaks of Being in the language of beings
and says that it is a Being of enhanced intensity e formula however
remains ambiguous It says on the one hand that being is in being and
even more in being than beings On the other hand however it says that
it is in being only in such a way that it transgresses the measure and
range of beings releases itself from all beings and gives up every hold on
them e relation that this formula speaks of is therefore the relation of
the dissolution of every relation of transcendence into the relationless
and of not only quantitative and merely relative but of the ontological
difference between Being and beings Catchy as it is it speaks only the
slippage of Being out of every form of every existing languagemdashand
hyperbolically speaks beyond its own speech Language in difference to
language language of difference language out of it
e syntagm ldquobeing more in being than any beingsrdquo is at the same time
a hypertagm It offers a proposition and steps outside everymdasheven its
ownmdashproposition
Horrifying (entzetzliche) language Every language is displacing (en-
tzetzlich)
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1342
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 41
of the structure of intentionality which is too strongly emphasized in his
thoughts on the ldquonotrdquo to have merely slipped into them For Heidegger
it is important that the ldquonotrdquo is not a nihil negativum or absolutum not
an empty ldquonotrdquo merely posited by a ldquosubjectrdquo or an ldquoIrdquomdasheven if posited
like in Fichte and Hegel through a not-positing For if it were a positum
it would not only be a logicized ldquonotrdquo but also a something (ens rationis )
and so precisely what it is not At the same time it is also important for
Heidegger that the happening of the ldquonotrdquomdashwhich albeit always pos-
sible still ldquorarely enoughrdquo really is (983089983097983097983096 983096983096)mdashdoes not disappear in an
annihilation once again in such a case the ldquonothingrdquo would not be a
ldquonotrdquo it would not be ldquothererdquo it could not be experienced as a happeningor the happening of the withdrawal from happening Joined together the
two observations can be understood in such a way that the ldquonotrdquo cannot
be either a ldquosomethingrdquo or the fait accompli of a mere absence It opens
itself as the zone of separation between beings and empty nothing and
it can be the ldquonotrdquo only as that which emerges in the experience of the
departure or slipping away of all beings e experience of this ldquonotrdquo and
the ldquonotrdquo of this experiencemdashand an abyss opens up in the reversibility
or irreversibility of these expressions and their double genitivesmdashis the
decisive pre-predicative synthesis It is not an archeacute an in itself unified
principle It is structurally an-archic (and in this sense originary) since it
is a synthesis only because of the split that crosses it Heidegger describes
this bifurcation as a ldquorepelling reference toward beings [abweisende
Verweisung ]rdquo983090 (983089983097983097983096 983097983088) as a reference to beings through which they are
brought together and at the same time repelled as a whole At the same
time as this ldquonotrdquo that formulates itself as a ldquonordquo and in Heideggerrsquosdefinition as reference carries an emphatically linguistic trait the experi-
ence of Being itself emerges as the happening of this repelling reference
e ldquonotrdquo is the in itself differentiated archi-disjunction
e separation therefore takes place between beings as a whole and
Being and not between the ldquonotrdquo and beingmdashthis separation is accom-
plished or is (or ldquoexistsrdquo) in the ldquonotrdquo ldquoe nothing itself annulsrdquo (983089983097983097983096
983097983088) it is what happens in the repelling reference and it is that it happens
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1542
T h e R e l a t i o n42
as this reference Since the ldquonotrdquo would not be without its happening
(without its nihilation) the previous phrase can be made more precise
ldquoBeing nihilatesmdashas beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
is is to say Being is always already not-anymore and always not-yet It
is in that it is the ldquonotrdquo of itself As difference from itself it is at the same
time the difference from everything and in everything that exists
e title of ldquoBeingrdquo in Heideggerrsquos thinking belongs only to the movement
of the ldquonotrdquo to the separation the difference as inter-rift (Unter-Schied )
the ontological difference is is why we find in the preface to ldquoOn theEssence of Groundrdquo the following ambiguous formulation ldquoe onto-
logical difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is
programmatic formula can be misunderstood because it places the ldquonotrdquo
between beings and Being as if they were two beings of different nature
or intensity But this ldquonotrdquo is to be thought as the ldquobetweenrdquo with which
Being emerges as differentiated from all even the highest of all beings
Being is what is resulting from and in the separation that happens in the
ldquonotrdquo and thus itself is the ldquobetweenrdquo the difference erefore Heide-
gger can write ldquonothing and Being the samerdquo ldquoHolding itself out into the
nothing Dasein is in each case already beyond beings as a whole Such
being beyond beings we call transcendence if [Dasein] were not in
advance holding itself out into the nothing then it could never adopt a
stance toward beings nor even toward itself rdquo (983097983089)
For Heidegger to transcend means above all to transcend into a ldquonotrdquoand therefore to transcend into a ldquonotrdquo of even this transcending It does
not mean indication and relation ldquotordquo but repelling and repelling reference
ldquofromrdquo as well as repelling of all reference in-predication ir-relation
dis-intention Transcendingmdashif it is not already connected through
a continuous movement with a homogenous other and thereby in no
need of transcendingmdashmust transcend into a nec trans and can only be
a transcending into the un-enterable it must be attranscendence
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 43
ldquoLe pas au-delagraverdquo writes Blanchot step beyond not beyond step beyond
to the not of the step
Only as transition into the not-going can it reach the zone of difference in
its own movement where first a possible toward of this movement opens
up as a relation to something and an intentional attitude to beings as
beings becomes possible us intentions are grounded in a structure of
transcendence that in its turn is defined by a ldquonotrdquo a halt a putting on
hold or a suspension Only this arrest offers the possibility of a relation
to something only in this suspension happens not something but only
the that of it happening
e ldquonotrdquo of this in-transcendence therefore can happen in two ways
the retreating reference to something and the experience that the hap-
pening of this reference is other than and different from the reference
conceptualized as a relation and its correlates
is arresting of the ldquonotrdquo in in-transcendence clearly defines the mini-
mal structure of language Whenever and in whatever way language is
spoken there is reference that distances But beyond this something else
also happens that cannot be reduced to this (repelling) reference and the
agents emerging from it the referents and their relations to each other
Whether absolutely novel or older than old it is incommensurable with
them e intentional attitude only exists as crossed out by the event of
its own epocheacute
erefore it appears to be insufficient and even erroneous to speak of
ldquothe claim of nihilation that has come to the clearingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) and
to say that ldquonihilation first requires the lsquonorsquo as what is to be said in the
letting-be of beingsrdquo (983090983095983091) is phrase attributes a linguistic structure
to the ldquonotrdquo that is at the same time also denied Language is defined as
something claimedmdashnot claimed by a pre-linguistic ldquoexistentiell rdquo beyond
of language but by its own exterior limits and thus by what cannot raise
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1742
T h e R e l a t i o n44
claims Heidegger therefore goes around in circlesmdasheven if we consider
all the complications of going going over and inaccessibility He goes
against himself and he might be going that way because he thinks lan-
guage as a response
e commentary on the structure of transcending (namely that it must
be that of in-transcending) and intentionality (that it must be suspended
in dis-intending) made it clear that these movements for Heidegger
always emerge first in their ldquonotrdquo and their suspension In very much
the same way we could clarify the structure of the claim as Anspruch
as Heidegger understands it not by reading this word according to themeasure of its dictionary meaning but by reading it based on its context
with an emphatically stressed An speaking onto
en the claim raised by the ldquonotrdquomdashfrom nowhere by nobody and mind
you nevermdashwould be a ldquospeakingrdquo onto and in the proximity of language
and its words and particles of negation which persisting in the onto
would never make it out of this proximity to reach language e claim
would be a speaking onto because it would never be a speech in the sense
of a statement or a performative act It would always be en route or on
the way to language An-spruch would be toward language what language
itself is not and that it itself is not presentmdashit would be the irruption of
language its start
In fact according to Heideggerrsquos text ldquothe claim of nihilationrdquo cannot be
more than this cannot be language For he says of this claim that it callsfor the ldquonordquo as what is to be said but never as something already said
never already given in or by language rather as a ldquonordquo that remains still
and always yet to be said and as what is to be said remains forever im-
minent in every possible future Speaking onto and speaking its ldquonot rdquo onto
language the claim would be the retentive relation in which language is
kept away from itself but at the same time held to and held back from
itself and sustained and held in this holding onto and holding back But
unlike what an obvious misunderstanding would suggest this sustaining
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 45
does not hold in potentia as something always merely ldquopossiblerdquo but
never ldquorealrdquo Rather it holds on this side of all modal categories in statu
nascendi et moriendi (as Celan writes in an explicit reference to Heidegger
in a letter to Werner Weber) held out into the happening of language as
perpetual beginning (983089983097983097983095 983091983097983096)
is understanding of the speaking-onto of the ldquonotrdquo also clarifies the
structure of intention It would not be some already given relation of an
already constituted consciousness to a content of consciousness but the
irruption of these relations in their pre-withholding and therefore inten-
tion only arising out of the freedom from such a relation and the opennessto it us every An- that Heidegger writes is to be read not merely as a
ldquoclose tordquo or ldquoontordquo in the sense of a given extension but always also as
the echo the Greek ana- as a privative in- or un- In words like Anspruch
(claim) or Anruf (call) or Answesen (presence) Angehen (approach) and
Ankunft (arrival) with every ldquoclose tordquo and ldquoontordquo at the same time a ldquonotrdquo
and a ldquonordquo is also said that relates relation to irrelation reference to ir-
reference direction to indirection An- is the prefix of differencemdashbut
not only of an intra-linguistic difference between different meanings of
one and the same morpheme but before meanings can appear at all the
difference between language speaking its ldquonotrdquo and language speaking
onto something An- not unlike vor- zu- hin- and aus- is the prefix of
ontological difference Whoever uses ldquospeaking ontordquo in this sense in fact
is saying something insufficient and erroneous but is also saying that this
insufficiency and erroneousness belongs to the structure of language
Language itself is the speaking onto language and therefore a speakingonto another language or something other than language
Understood as ldquospeaking ontordquo ( An-spruch) language is its othering ( An-
derung )
e An- is therefore the word and the fore-word of the madness of lan-
guage In the essay ldquoLanguage in the Poemrdquo Heidegger writes as a com-
mentary on the line ldquoe madman [Wahnsinnige] has diedrdquo from Georg
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1942
T h e R e l a t i o n46
Traklrsquos ldquoPsalmrdquo ldquoe word Wahn comes from Old High German wana
which means lsquowithoutrsquo e madman sensesmdashsenses in fact as no one
else does But he remains without the sense of others He is of another
sense Sinnan originally means to travel to strive for to strike a direc-
tion e Indo-Germanic root sent and set means lsquopathrsquo e departed is
the madman because he is on his way somewhere elserdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983091)983091 e
other way that the madman follows is the way into de-parture into a dif-
ference that departs from every possible distinction and discrimination
So Heidegger can write about the stranger who is the madman without
the sense of the other ldquois stranger unfolds the essence of the human
into the beginning of what has not yet come to bearing [Tragen] (OldHigh German giberan) is quieter and hence more stilling element
in the nature of mortals that has not been borne out is what the poet
calls the unbornrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983093)983092 But if the other waymdashthis without-path the
aporiamdashleads into what has not been borne out how do we stand with
what is defined as ldquogesturerdquo in ldquoA Dialogue on Languagerdquo ldquothe originary
gathering of bearing against and bearing tordquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983097) And how does the
thought of the not-yet-born and the unborn relate to the thought of being
as difference which is described in ldquoe Onto-eo-Logical Constitu-
tion of Metaphysicsrdquo in the following way ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ]
alone grants and holds apart the lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming
and the arrival are held toward one another are borne away from and
toward each other e difference of Being and beings as the inter-rift of
overwhelming and arrival is the bearing out [ Austrag ] of the two in un-
concealing keeping in concealment Within this bearing out there prevails
a clearing of what veils and closes itself offmdashand this prevalence bestowsthe being apart and the being toward each other of overwhelming and
arrivalrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)983093
In these sentences it becomes clear that the words ldquoheldrdquo and ldquobornerdquo
are used in the same sense being held in relation (Ver-halten) is being
borne out ( Austrag ) Both describe the movement of differentiation that
Heidegger writes as Unter-Schied (literally inter -rift ) to separate it from
rational distinctions as well as from differences in perception and to
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 47
emphasize the ldquobetweenrdquo that corresponds to the inter of the unter in
the concept of Unterschied (difference) e German word Austrag is the
literal translation of the Latin differentia which in turn is a translation
of the decisive Greek term diaphoraacute In a definition provided in the first
essay on Trakl ldquoLanguagerdquo (in 983089983097983093983088) diaphoraacute difference and bearing
out are juxtaposed with the following commentary ldquoe intimacy of
dif-ference [Unter-Schied ] is the unifying element of the diaphora the
carrying out [ Austrag ] that carries through e dif-ference carries out
world in its worlding carries out things in their thinging us carrying
them out it carries them toward one anotherrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) And a few
sentences later the series of synonymous concepts is extended to includeEreignis the appropriating event gesture as bearing and granting ldquoe
dif-ference for world and thing disclosingly appropriates things into bear-
ing a world it disclosingly appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo
(983090983088983088) In accordance with these connections in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo
relation (Verhaumlltnis ) is thought out of the appropriating event and more
precisely as the appropriative happening of the essence of language ldquoFor
that appropriating holding self-retaining is the relation of all relations
us our sayingmdashalways an answeringmdashremains forever relational Rela-
tion [Ver-haumlltnis as holding to itself] is thought of here always in terms
of the event and no longer conceived in the form of a mere referencerdquo
(983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093) But if relation means appropriation if appropriation means
difference difference means differentia and diaphora and the latter two
mean the carrying out that carries through while carrying out means
bearing the question unavoidable emerges How do the concepts from
the Trakl commentary the unborn and what is not borne out relate to thisseries And how can this series be unified with the other the without-
path and the aporia of madness ese questions are not yet answered
by the remark that Heidegger understood human Dasein in the sense of
ek-sistence as the ecstatic being outside of itself of madness is only
makes the question more urgent of whether this being-in-madness can
be thought with the concepts of difference and ldquobearing outrdquo Or whether
this madness overburdens ldquothe carrying out that carries throughrdquo and the
ldquobearing outrdquo and is therefore thrown away evacuated and forgotten
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2142
T h e R e l a t i o n48
e question therefore is once again whether the madness of ek-sis-
tence of the ldquonotrdquo of Being and of language can still be articulated in a
languagemdasheven if it as outreacute as Heideggerrsquos
Or Is it possible to think the not-borne-out as the not-borne-out More
precisely Does the not-borne-out allow itself to be thought only as a not
yet or beyond that does it allow itself to be thought as a never borne
out
Hence Can the ldquonotrdquo as a ldquoneverrdquomdashas a never of the sayablemdashdefine the
horizon of language And can this ldquoneverrdquo then also provide the tran-scendental horizon of the possibility of what is sayable Is the ldquoneverrdquo
the condition of the happening of language and the horizon of being
Or Can the ldquoneverrdquo be thought But How could it be other than never be
thought Consequently If the ldquoneverrdquo were the pre- and proto-predicative
happening that is called ldquoBeingrdquo and later more precisely coming-over
(Uumlberkommnis ) because it is what ldquoovercomesrdquo sur-prises overwhelms
more than just comes andmdashoverburdens erefore Can the unbearable
be borne and borne out
Otherwise How could Beingmdashwhether as happening history destiny
or coming-overmdashas the unbearable not be borne Because Can the un-
bearable be found at all otherwise unbearable than as always still and
nevertheless borne And then still not erefore Is there not in Being
itself such a still and nevertheless a but that keeps Being at a distancefrom Being and keeps Being out of Being and in this out and apart brings
it together
However What does the ldquooutrdquo mean in ldquoout of each otherrdquo and in ldquobearing
outrdquo if it still contains a ldquotogetherrdquo Does it refer to an originary synthesis
before every predicative synthesis Is not such a reference misleading if it
suggests a ldquotogetherrdquo there where we can encounter only an ldquoout of each
otherrdquomdasheven if we encounter it in the impossibility of its encounter
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 49
In his seminar in Le or in September 983089983097983094983094 Heidegger cites a paragraph
from the chapter ldquoOn the impossibility of a cosmological proof of Godrsquos
existencerdquo from Kantrsquos First Critique ese stunning sentencesmdashwhich
with their evocation of sinking floating without stop and the abyss
may well have contributed to the descriptions of anxiety in Being and
Time (983089983097983094983090) and ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo (983089983097983097983096)mdashspeak explicitly not only
about the groundless but also about the unbearable Kant writes
e unconditioned necessity which we need so indispensably as the ultimate
sustainer of all things is for human reason the true abyss Even eternitymdash
however awful the sublimity with which a Haller might portray itmdashdoes not
make such a dizzying impression on the mind for eternity only measures the
duration of things but it does not sustain that duration One cannot resist the
thought of it but one also cannot bear it that a being might as it were say
to itself ldquoI am from eternity to eternity outside me is nothing except what is
something merely through my will but whence then am Irdquo Here everything
caves in beneath us and the greatest perfection as well as the smallest hover
without hold before speculative reason for which it would cost nothing to
let the one as much as the other disappear without the least obstacle (Kant
983089983097983097983097 983093983095983092 Heidegger 983090983088983088983091 983089983095) God the highest ground of what is appears in
its monologue as an abyss that does not carry it but lets it collapse And Kant
says of this thought of a God that does not carry itself that ldquoone cannot resist
the thought of it but one also cannot bear itrdquo
With this the primal scene of critical transcendental philosophy and
speculative idealism is described an ens realissimum et nesessarium that does not contain the guarantee of its own being a God that is not
a causa sui and sinks in the abyss of its own question after a ground
cannot offer beings any more hold and must therefore pull down in
its own fall the categories that render it thinkable necessary and real
What remains is the scene of the sinking away of the totality of beings
ldquothe greatest perfection as well as the smallestrdquo and with this scene the
form of representation the mere idea of reason in which beings as a
whole together with the categorial structures of their knowability survive
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2342
T h e R e l a t i o n50
under the condition of their transcendentality For the ldquotranscendental
objectrdquomdashthat Kant can only speak of after the sinking away of a world
and its transcendental groundmdashis not an empirical object and not even
an object at all is object as Kant writes ldquotherefore cannot be further
intuited by us and that may therefore be called the non-empirical ie
transcendental object = Xrdquo (983089983097983097983097 983090983091983091) In his Kant book Heidegger calls
this transcendental X ldquoa Nothingrdquo that is at the same time ldquoSomethingrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983096983094) and describes the X as ldquothe horizon of a standing-against is
horizon is indeed not object but rather a Nothing if by object we mean
a being which is apprehended thematicallyrdquo (983096983095) Furthermore ldquoOnly if
the letting-stand-against of is a holding oneself in the nothing canthe representing allow a not-nothing ie something like a being rdquo (983093983089)
In the Kant commentary the ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo ismdashlike
the anxiety scenes in Being and Time in the Freiburg lecture and more
abstractly in the ldquoLetterrdquo in different waysmdashthe gesture of the horizontal-
transcendental constitution of the domain of objectivity and with that
at the same time of no longer onto-theologically founded beings held
in the mere form of representation not a creatio but still a constitutio ex
nihilo e fact that ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo as Kant examines
it in his critical philosophy stops at the form of representation (Vorstel-
lung ) and the idea of reason makes these gestures into a regulatio nihili
and prevents the further analysis of the transcendental form of being
represented and posited
Heidegger took on this further analysis starting with the exposition of
Dasein in Being and Time is analysis must show that the sinking of theens necessarium and with it that of mere being (which does not hold and
bear itself) remain irreducible to the beings of representation the idea
or the concept It must expose the fact that transcendental representa-
tion merely displaces the ldquonotrdquo that it encounters in the sinking of the
highest being instead of engaging it as the decisive content of being To
do justice to the implications of the anxiety-scene and the unbearable
question of God for his ground the classical analytical concept of differ-
ence between ground and the grounded positing and the posited must
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 37
and Being separate and (d)emerge as different ldquo Not rdquo is the word of the
ontological difference
A theory of the origin of language and at the same time of the origin of
Being and beings with language ldquo Nonerdquo or not would be then the fiat the
finite not the originating but the witnessing the Dasein-opening fiat of
the homo humanus of whose humanitas Heidegger speaks in the ldquoLetter
on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo Although here the connection between the origin of
language and the ldquonotrdquo remains only a suggestion it defines the gesture
that carries Heideggerrsquos thought in general namely that something
emerges as something first in its slippage For example the hammer inthe becoming useless of the ldquoequipmentrdquo the ldquoworldrdquo in the loss of reason
in anxiety the possible wholeness of Dasein in ldquobeing-toward-deathrdquo the
work of art in the rejection of the usual coherence of the world the Being
of the word in its ldquoapartnessrdquo and its ldquoinfirmityrdquo
e ldquonot rdquo reveals nothing and it is as this revelation a historical moment
in which nothing will be seen apart from the ldquonotrdquo of seeing ldquoBeing is
more in being than any beingsrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
However the ldquonot rdquo can reveal the nothing only because as a citationmdash
Heidegger puts it between quotation marksmdashfrom the inner- worldly
discourse of Dasein it opens up the distance that allows Dasein to relate
to the world as a whole as its ldquothererdquo (983089983097983097983096 983089983088983097) e ldquonordquo as the word of
transcendence is at the same time that of the difference between Being
and the beings of the world It can be both transcendence and differenceonly as exposed from every determinable meaning And yet this ldquonot rdquo
does mean But it does not mean what ldquosomethingrdquo or ldquoonerdquo ldquocoverrdquo or
ldquoLazarusrdquo means but rather always their and its own ldquonotrdquo Heideggerrsquos
ldquonotrdquo however does not remain only a residue of innerworldliness and
meaningfulness It also follows a direction in which it approaches Dasein
relates to its language allows its affirmation and even its recognition
and allows Dasein to be bound to the ldquonotrdquo in its ldquoyesrdquo and ldquonordquo ldquoEvery
lsquonorsquo is simply the affirmation of the lsquonotrsquo Every affirmation consists in
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1142
T h e R e l a t i o n38
recognition Recognition lets that toward which it goes come toward itrdquo
(983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) Just as in Hegel in the ldquoLetter on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo the ldquonotrdquo is
the ldquonotrdquo of something But even when in an ek-sistential conversion it
turns itself into the something of a nihilation this nihilation remains
as counter-phenomenon oriented toward something and remains ca-
pable of being grasped in an answer which even though a citation a
remainder a residue and a trace remains still the determined trace of
a determined being and not the ldquoessential impossibility of determiningrdquo
beings as a whole (983089983097983097983096 983096983096) In contradistinction to his claim Heidegger
does not describe the ldquonotrdquo itself but the ldquonotrdquo of a self Even though the
ldquonot rdquomdashldquoonly this lsquonotrsquordquo (983096983096)mdashis supposed to be the ldquonot rdquo of the hold ona determinable meaning and a determinable direction it moves toward
the transcendental ldquonordquo of language and toward the dwelling in its house
it remains a directional ldquonotrdquo
And the other way around if the ldquonordquo of language is the ldquothe affirmation of
the lsquonotrsquordquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) then this ldquonotrdquo can be affirmed only as the one that
language moves toward e spoken ldquonordquo according to Heideggerrsquos words
is an already addressed ldquonordquo in which only the ldquonotrdquo as an intentional
object will be affirmed language retains for Heidegger an intentional
structure even in its epocheacute Accordinglymdashand in fact in the sense of
a correspondence in a relational pairmdashthe ldquonotrdquo in Heideggerrsquos ldquoLetterrdquo
is attuned to the affirmation of its affirmation It is an intentionally
disposed and moreover affirmative ldquonotrdquo Only this way can the whole
domain of meaningfulness be thought in it as simultaneously suspended
and founded
Furthermore if the recognition of the ldquonotrdquo as Heidegger writes ldquolets
that toward which it goes come toward itrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) the recognition
becomes the place of the advent of the ldquonotrdquo and the intentional ldquonotrdquo
becomes not only linguistically affirmable but moreover recognizable
and locatable in its recognition In all these structures the ldquonotrdquo appears
to be reduced to something less than what as the ldquoannulmentrdquo should
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 39
refuse every recognition and remain placeless wordless and non-inten-
tional Since ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091) the
ldquonotrdquo should be more nihilating than any nihilation within the horizon of
intentional acknowledgement It should remain irreducible to relational
pairs and it should withdraw itself from such alternatives as speaking to
and turning away from presence to and absence from Since it is ldquonotrdquo
it should not remain restricted to pressure constriction and anxiety It
should each time happen as that which in these relations releases from
them and makes them possible in the first place
ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquomdashHeideggerrsquos catchy formulaemploys a comparative to describe the relation between Being and beings
and thus the relation as such It compares the two that should remain
absolutely incomparable It speaks of Being in the language of beings
and says that it is a Being of enhanced intensity e formula however
remains ambiguous It says on the one hand that being is in being and
even more in being than beings On the other hand however it says that
it is in being only in such a way that it transgresses the measure and
range of beings releases itself from all beings and gives up every hold on
them e relation that this formula speaks of is therefore the relation of
the dissolution of every relation of transcendence into the relationless
and of not only quantitative and merely relative but of the ontological
difference between Being and beings Catchy as it is it speaks only the
slippage of Being out of every form of every existing languagemdashand
hyperbolically speaks beyond its own speech Language in difference to
language language of difference language out of it
e syntagm ldquobeing more in being than any beingsrdquo is at the same time
a hypertagm It offers a proposition and steps outside everymdasheven its
ownmdashproposition
Horrifying (entzetzliche) language Every language is displacing (en-
tzetzlich)
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1342
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 41
of the structure of intentionality which is too strongly emphasized in his
thoughts on the ldquonotrdquo to have merely slipped into them For Heidegger
it is important that the ldquonotrdquo is not a nihil negativum or absolutum not
an empty ldquonotrdquo merely posited by a ldquosubjectrdquo or an ldquoIrdquomdasheven if posited
like in Fichte and Hegel through a not-positing For if it were a positum
it would not only be a logicized ldquonotrdquo but also a something (ens rationis )
and so precisely what it is not At the same time it is also important for
Heidegger that the happening of the ldquonotrdquomdashwhich albeit always pos-
sible still ldquorarely enoughrdquo really is (983089983097983097983096 983096983096)mdashdoes not disappear in an
annihilation once again in such a case the ldquonothingrdquo would not be a
ldquonotrdquo it would not be ldquothererdquo it could not be experienced as a happeningor the happening of the withdrawal from happening Joined together the
two observations can be understood in such a way that the ldquonotrdquo cannot
be either a ldquosomethingrdquo or the fait accompli of a mere absence It opens
itself as the zone of separation between beings and empty nothing and
it can be the ldquonotrdquo only as that which emerges in the experience of the
departure or slipping away of all beings e experience of this ldquonotrdquo and
the ldquonotrdquo of this experiencemdashand an abyss opens up in the reversibility
or irreversibility of these expressions and their double genitivesmdashis the
decisive pre-predicative synthesis It is not an archeacute an in itself unified
principle It is structurally an-archic (and in this sense originary) since it
is a synthesis only because of the split that crosses it Heidegger describes
this bifurcation as a ldquorepelling reference toward beings [abweisende
Verweisung ]rdquo983090 (983089983097983097983096 983097983088) as a reference to beings through which they are
brought together and at the same time repelled as a whole At the same
time as this ldquonotrdquo that formulates itself as a ldquonordquo and in Heideggerrsquosdefinition as reference carries an emphatically linguistic trait the experi-
ence of Being itself emerges as the happening of this repelling reference
e ldquonotrdquo is the in itself differentiated archi-disjunction
e separation therefore takes place between beings as a whole and
Being and not between the ldquonotrdquo and beingmdashthis separation is accom-
plished or is (or ldquoexistsrdquo) in the ldquonotrdquo ldquoe nothing itself annulsrdquo (983089983097983097983096
983097983088) it is what happens in the repelling reference and it is that it happens
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1542
T h e R e l a t i o n42
as this reference Since the ldquonotrdquo would not be without its happening
(without its nihilation) the previous phrase can be made more precise
ldquoBeing nihilatesmdashas beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
is is to say Being is always already not-anymore and always not-yet It
is in that it is the ldquonotrdquo of itself As difference from itself it is at the same
time the difference from everything and in everything that exists
e title of ldquoBeingrdquo in Heideggerrsquos thinking belongs only to the movement
of the ldquonotrdquo to the separation the difference as inter-rift (Unter-Schied )
the ontological difference is is why we find in the preface to ldquoOn theEssence of Groundrdquo the following ambiguous formulation ldquoe onto-
logical difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is
programmatic formula can be misunderstood because it places the ldquonotrdquo
between beings and Being as if they were two beings of different nature
or intensity But this ldquonotrdquo is to be thought as the ldquobetweenrdquo with which
Being emerges as differentiated from all even the highest of all beings
Being is what is resulting from and in the separation that happens in the
ldquonotrdquo and thus itself is the ldquobetweenrdquo the difference erefore Heide-
gger can write ldquonothing and Being the samerdquo ldquoHolding itself out into the
nothing Dasein is in each case already beyond beings as a whole Such
being beyond beings we call transcendence if [Dasein] were not in
advance holding itself out into the nothing then it could never adopt a
stance toward beings nor even toward itself rdquo (983097983089)
For Heidegger to transcend means above all to transcend into a ldquonotrdquoand therefore to transcend into a ldquonotrdquo of even this transcending It does
not mean indication and relation ldquotordquo but repelling and repelling reference
ldquofromrdquo as well as repelling of all reference in-predication ir-relation
dis-intention Transcendingmdashif it is not already connected through
a continuous movement with a homogenous other and thereby in no
need of transcendingmdashmust transcend into a nec trans and can only be
a transcending into the un-enterable it must be attranscendence
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 43
ldquoLe pas au-delagraverdquo writes Blanchot step beyond not beyond step beyond
to the not of the step
Only as transition into the not-going can it reach the zone of difference in
its own movement where first a possible toward of this movement opens
up as a relation to something and an intentional attitude to beings as
beings becomes possible us intentions are grounded in a structure of
transcendence that in its turn is defined by a ldquonotrdquo a halt a putting on
hold or a suspension Only this arrest offers the possibility of a relation
to something only in this suspension happens not something but only
the that of it happening
e ldquonotrdquo of this in-transcendence therefore can happen in two ways
the retreating reference to something and the experience that the hap-
pening of this reference is other than and different from the reference
conceptualized as a relation and its correlates
is arresting of the ldquonotrdquo in in-transcendence clearly defines the mini-
mal structure of language Whenever and in whatever way language is
spoken there is reference that distances But beyond this something else
also happens that cannot be reduced to this (repelling) reference and the
agents emerging from it the referents and their relations to each other
Whether absolutely novel or older than old it is incommensurable with
them e intentional attitude only exists as crossed out by the event of
its own epocheacute
erefore it appears to be insufficient and even erroneous to speak of
ldquothe claim of nihilation that has come to the clearingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) and
to say that ldquonihilation first requires the lsquonorsquo as what is to be said in the
letting-be of beingsrdquo (983090983095983091) is phrase attributes a linguistic structure
to the ldquonotrdquo that is at the same time also denied Language is defined as
something claimedmdashnot claimed by a pre-linguistic ldquoexistentiell rdquo beyond
of language but by its own exterior limits and thus by what cannot raise
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1742
T h e R e l a t i o n44
claims Heidegger therefore goes around in circlesmdasheven if we consider
all the complications of going going over and inaccessibility He goes
against himself and he might be going that way because he thinks lan-
guage as a response
e commentary on the structure of transcending (namely that it must
be that of in-transcending) and intentionality (that it must be suspended
in dis-intending) made it clear that these movements for Heidegger
always emerge first in their ldquonotrdquo and their suspension In very much
the same way we could clarify the structure of the claim as Anspruch
as Heidegger understands it not by reading this word according to themeasure of its dictionary meaning but by reading it based on its context
with an emphatically stressed An speaking onto
en the claim raised by the ldquonotrdquomdashfrom nowhere by nobody and mind
you nevermdashwould be a ldquospeakingrdquo onto and in the proximity of language
and its words and particles of negation which persisting in the onto
would never make it out of this proximity to reach language e claim
would be a speaking onto because it would never be a speech in the sense
of a statement or a performative act It would always be en route or on
the way to language An-spruch would be toward language what language
itself is not and that it itself is not presentmdashit would be the irruption of
language its start
In fact according to Heideggerrsquos text ldquothe claim of nihilationrdquo cannot be
more than this cannot be language For he says of this claim that it callsfor the ldquonordquo as what is to be said but never as something already said
never already given in or by language rather as a ldquonordquo that remains still
and always yet to be said and as what is to be said remains forever im-
minent in every possible future Speaking onto and speaking its ldquonot rdquo onto
language the claim would be the retentive relation in which language is
kept away from itself but at the same time held to and held back from
itself and sustained and held in this holding onto and holding back But
unlike what an obvious misunderstanding would suggest this sustaining
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 45
does not hold in potentia as something always merely ldquopossiblerdquo but
never ldquorealrdquo Rather it holds on this side of all modal categories in statu
nascendi et moriendi (as Celan writes in an explicit reference to Heidegger
in a letter to Werner Weber) held out into the happening of language as
perpetual beginning (983089983097983097983095 983091983097983096)
is understanding of the speaking-onto of the ldquonotrdquo also clarifies the
structure of intention It would not be some already given relation of an
already constituted consciousness to a content of consciousness but the
irruption of these relations in their pre-withholding and therefore inten-
tion only arising out of the freedom from such a relation and the opennessto it us every An- that Heidegger writes is to be read not merely as a
ldquoclose tordquo or ldquoontordquo in the sense of a given extension but always also as
the echo the Greek ana- as a privative in- or un- In words like Anspruch
(claim) or Anruf (call) or Answesen (presence) Angehen (approach) and
Ankunft (arrival) with every ldquoclose tordquo and ldquoontordquo at the same time a ldquonotrdquo
and a ldquonordquo is also said that relates relation to irrelation reference to ir-
reference direction to indirection An- is the prefix of differencemdashbut
not only of an intra-linguistic difference between different meanings of
one and the same morpheme but before meanings can appear at all the
difference between language speaking its ldquonotrdquo and language speaking
onto something An- not unlike vor- zu- hin- and aus- is the prefix of
ontological difference Whoever uses ldquospeaking ontordquo in this sense in fact
is saying something insufficient and erroneous but is also saying that this
insufficiency and erroneousness belongs to the structure of language
Language itself is the speaking onto language and therefore a speakingonto another language or something other than language
Understood as ldquospeaking ontordquo ( An-spruch) language is its othering ( An-
derung )
e An- is therefore the word and the fore-word of the madness of lan-
guage In the essay ldquoLanguage in the Poemrdquo Heidegger writes as a com-
mentary on the line ldquoe madman [Wahnsinnige] has diedrdquo from Georg
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1942
T h e R e l a t i o n46
Traklrsquos ldquoPsalmrdquo ldquoe word Wahn comes from Old High German wana
which means lsquowithoutrsquo e madman sensesmdashsenses in fact as no one
else does But he remains without the sense of others He is of another
sense Sinnan originally means to travel to strive for to strike a direc-
tion e Indo-Germanic root sent and set means lsquopathrsquo e departed is
the madman because he is on his way somewhere elserdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983091)983091 e
other way that the madman follows is the way into de-parture into a dif-
ference that departs from every possible distinction and discrimination
So Heidegger can write about the stranger who is the madman without
the sense of the other ldquois stranger unfolds the essence of the human
into the beginning of what has not yet come to bearing [Tragen] (OldHigh German giberan) is quieter and hence more stilling element
in the nature of mortals that has not been borne out is what the poet
calls the unbornrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983093)983092 But if the other waymdashthis without-path the
aporiamdashleads into what has not been borne out how do we stand with
what is defined as ldquogesturerdquo in ldquoA Dialogue on Languagerdquo ldquothe originary
gathering of bearing against and bearing tordquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983097) And how does the
thought of the not-yet-born and the unborn relate to the thought of being
as difference which is described in ldquoe Onto-eo-Logical Constitu-
tion of Metaphysicsrdquo in the following way ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ]
alone grants and holds apart the lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming
and the arrival are held toward one another are borne away from and
toward each other e difference of Being and beings as the inter-rift of
overwhelming and arrival is the bearing out [ Austrag ] of the two in un-
concealing keeping in concealment Within this bearing out there prevails
a clearing of what veils and closes itself offmdashand this prevalence bestowsthe being apart and the being toward each other of overwhelming and
arrivalrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)983093
In these sentences it becomes clear that the words ldquoheldrdquo and ldquobornerdquo
are used in the same sense being held in relation (Ver-halten) is being
borne out ( Austrag ) Both describe the movement of differentiation that
Heidegger writes as Unter-Schied (literally inter -rift ) to separate it from
rational distinctions as well as from differences in perception and to
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 47
emphasize the ldquobetweenrdquo that corresponds to the inter of the unter in
the concept of Unterschied (difference) e German word Austrag is the
literal translation of the Latin differentia which in turn is a translation
of the decisive Greek term diaphoraacute In a definition provided in the first
essay on Trakl ldquoLanguagerdquo (in 983089983097983093983088) diaphoraacute difference and bearing
out are juxtaposed with the following commentary ldquoe intimacy of
dif-ference [Unter-Schied ] is the unifying element of the diaphora the
carrying out [ Austrag ] that carries through e dif-ference carries out
world in its worlding carries out things in their thinging us carrying
them out it carries them toward one anotherrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) And a few
sentences later the series of synonymous concepts is extended to includeEreignis the appropriating event gesture as bearing and granting ldquoe
dif-ference for world and thing disclosingly appropriates things into bear-
ing a world it disclosingly appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo
(983090983088983088) In accordance with these connections in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo
relation (Verhaumlltnis ) is thought out of the appropriating event and more
precisely as the appropriative happening of the essence of language ldquoFor
that appropriating holding self-retaining is the relation of all relations
us our sayingmdashalways an answeringmdashremains forever relational Rela-
tion [Ver-haumlltnis as holding to itself] is thought of here always in terms
of the event and no longer conceived in the form of a mere referencerdquo
(983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093) But if relation means appropriation if appropriation means
difference difference means differentia and diaphora and the latter two
mean the carrying out that carries through while carrying out means
bearing the question unavoidable emerges How do the concepts from
the Trakl commentary the unborn and what is not borne out relate to thisseries And how can this series be unified with the other the without-
path and the aporia of madness ese questions are not yet answered
by the remark that Heidegger understood human Dasein in the sense of
ek-sistence as the ecstatic being outside of itself of madness is only
makes the question more urgent of whether this being-in-madness can
be thought with the concepts of difference and ldquobearing outrdquo Or whether
this madness overburdens ldquothe carrying out that carries throughrdquo and the
ldquobearing outrdquo and is therefore thrown away evacuated and forgotten
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2142
T h e R e l a t i o n48
e question therefore is once again whether the madness of ek-sis-
tence of the ldquonotrdquo of Being and of language can still be articulated in a
languagemdasheven if it as outreacute as Heideggerrsquos
Or Is it possible to think the not-borne-out as the not-borne-out More
precisely Does the not-borne-out allow itself to be thought only as a not
yet or beyond that does it allow itself to be thought as a never borne
out
Hence Can the ldquonotrdquo as a ldquoneverrdquomdashas a never of the sayablemdashdefine the
horizon of language And can this ldquoneverrdquo then also provide the tran-scendental horizon of the possibility of what is sayable Is the ldquoneverrdquo
the condition of the happening of language and the horizon of being
Or Can the ldquoneverrdquo be thought But How could it be other than never be
thought Consequently If the ldquoneverrdquo were the pre- and proto-predicative
happening that is called ldquoBeingrdquo and later more precisely coming-over
(Uumlberkommnis ) because it is what ldquoovercomesrdquo sur-prises overwhelms
more than just comes andmdashoverburdens erefore Can the unbearable
be borne and borne out
Otherwise How could Beingmdashwhether as happening history destiny
or coming-overmdashas the unbearable not be borne Because Can the un-
bearable be found at all otherwise unbearable than as always still and
nevertheless borne And then still not erefore Is there not in Being
itself such a still and nevertheless a but that keeps Being at a distancefrom Being and keeps Being out of Being and in this out and apart brings
it together
However What does the ldquooutrdquo mean in ldquoout of each otherrdquo and in ldquobearing
outrdquo if it still contains a ldquotogetherrdquo Does it refer to an originary synthesis
before every predicative synthesis Is not such a reference misleading if it
suggests a ldquotogetherrdquo there where we can encounter only an ldquoout of each
otherrdquomdasheven if we encounter it in the impossibility of its encounter
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 49
In his seminar in Le or in September 983089983097983094983094 Heidegger cites a paragraph
from the chapter ldquoOn the impossibility of a cosmological proof of Godrsquos
existencerdquo from Kantrsquos First Critique ese stunning sentencesmdashwhich
with their evocation of sinking floating without stop and the abyss
may well have contributed to the descriptions of anxiety in Being and
Time (983089983097983094983090) and ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo (983089983097983097983096)mdashspeak explicitly not only
about the groundless but also about the unbearable Kant writes
e unconditioned necessity which we need so indispensably as the ultimate
sustainer of all things is for human reason the true abyss Even eternitymdash
however awful the sublimity with which a Haller might portray itmdashdoes not
make such a dizzying impression on the mind for eternity only measures the
duration of things but it does not sustain that duration One cannot resist the
thought of it but one also cannot bear it that a being might as it were say
to itself ldquoI am from eternity to eternity outside me is nothing except what is
something merely through my will but whence then am Irdquo Here everything
caves in beneath us and the greatest perfection as well as the smallest hover
without hold before speculative reason for which it would cost nothing to
let the one as much as the other disappear without the least obstacle (Kant
983089983097983097983097 983093983095983092 Heidegger 983090983088983088983091 983089983095) God the highest ground of what is appears in
its monologue as an abyss that does not carry it but lets it collapse And Kant
says of this thought of a God that does not carry itself that ldquoone cannot resist
the thought of it but one also cannot bear itrdquo
With this the primal scene of critical transcendental philosophy and
speculative idealism is described an ens realissimum et nesessarium that does not contain the guarantee of its own being a God that is not
a causa sui and sinks in the abyss of its own question after a ground
cannot offer beings any more hold and must therefore pull down in
its own fall the categories that render it thinkable necessary and real
What remains is the scene of the sinking away of the totality of beings
ldquothe greatest perfection as well as the smallestrdquo and with this scene the
form of representation the mere idea of reason in which beings as a
whole together with the categorial structures of their knowability survive
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2342
T h e R e l a t i o n50
under the condition of their transcendentality For the ldquotranscendental
objectrdquomdashthat Kant can only speak of after the sinking away of a world
and its transcendental groundmdashis not an empirical object and not even
an object at all is object as Kant writes ldquotherefore cannot be further
intuited by us and that may therefore be called the non-empirical ie
transcendental object = Xrdquo (983089983097983097983097 983090983091983091) In his Kant book Heidegger calls
this transcendental X ldquoa Nothingrdquo that is at the same time ldquoSomethingrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983096983094) and describes the X as ldquothe horizon of a standing-against is
horizon is indeed not object but rather a Nothing if by object we mean
a being which is apprehended thematicallyrdquo (983096983095) Furthermore ldquoOnly if
the letting-stand-against of is a holding oneself in the nothing canthe representing allow a not-nothing ie something like a being rdquo (983093983089)
In the Kant commentary the ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo ismdashlike
the anxiety scenes in Being and Time in the Freiburg lecture and more
abstractly in the ldquoLetterrdquo in different waysmdashthe gesture of the horizontal-
transcendental constitution of the domain of objectivity and with that
at the same time of no longer onto-theologically founded beings held
in the mere form of representation not a creatio but still a constitutio ex
nihilo e fact that ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo as Kant examines
it in his critical philosophy stops at the form of representation (Vorstel-
lung ) and the idea of reason makes these gestures into a regulatio nihili
and prevents the further analysis of the transcendental form of being
represented and posited
Heidegger took on this further analysis starting with the exposition of
Dasein in Being and Time is analysis must show that the sinking of theens necessarium and with it that of mere being (which does not hold and
bear itself) remain irreducible to the beings of representation the idea
or the concept It must expose the fact that transcendental representa-
tion merely displaces the ldquonotrdquo that it encounters in the sinking of the
highest being instead of engaging it as the decisive content of being To
do justice to the implications of the anxiety-scene and the unbearable
question of God for his ground the classical analytical concept of differ-
ence between ground and the grounded positing and the posited must
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1142
T h e R e l a t i o n38
recognition Recognition lets that toward which it goes come toward itrdquo
(983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) Just as in Hegel in the ldquoLetter on lsquoHumanismrsquordquo the ldquonotrdquo is
the ldquonotrdquo of something But even when in an ek-sistential conversion it
turns itself into the something of a nihilation this nihilation remains
as counter-phenomenon oriented toward something and remains ca-
pable of being grasped in an answer which even though a citation a
remainder a residue and a trace remains still the determined trace of
a determined being and not the ldquoessential impossibility of determiningrdquo
beings as a whole (983089983097983097983096 983096983096) In contradistinction to his claim Heidegger
does not describe the ldquonotrdquo itself but the ldquonotrdquo of a self Even though the
ldquonot rdquomdashldquoonly this lsquonotrsquordquo (983096983096)mdashis supposed to be the ldquonot rdquo of the hold ona determinable meaning and a determinable direction it moves toward
the transcendental ldquonordquo of language and toward the dwelling in its house
it remains a directional ldquonotrdquo
And the other way around if the ldquonordquo of language is the ldquothe affirmation of
the lsquonotrsquordquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) then this ldquonotrdquo can be affirmed only as the one that
language moves toward e spoken ldquonordquo according to Heideggerrsquos words
is an already addressed ldquonordquo in which only the ldquonotrdquo as an intentional
object will be affirmed language retains for Heidegger an intentional
structure even in its epocheacute Accordinglymdashand in fact in the sense of
a correspondence in a relational pairmdashthe ldquonotrdquo in Heideggerrsquos ldquoLetterrdquo
is attuned to the affirmation of its affirmation It is an intentionally
disposed and moreover affirmative ldquonotrdquo Only this way can the whole
domain of meaningfulness be thought in it as simultaneously suspended
and founded
Furthermore if the recognition of the ldquonotrdquo as Heidegger writes ldquolets
that toward which it goes come toward itrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) the recognition
becomes the place of the advent of the ldquonotrdquo and the intentional ldquonotrdquo
becomes not only linguistically affirmable but moreover recognizable
and locatable in its recognition In all these structures the ldquonotrdquo appears
to be reduced to something less than what as the ldquoannulmentrdquo should
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 39
refuse every recognition and remain placeless wordless and non-inten-
tional Since ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091) the
ldquonotrdquo should be more nihilating than any nihilation within the horizon of
intentional acknowledgement It should remain irreducible to relational
pairs and it should withdraw itself from such alternatives as speaking to
and turning away from presence to and absence from Since it is ldquonotrdquo
it should not remain restricted to pressure constriction and anxiety It
should each time happen as that which in these relations releases from
them and makes them possible in the first place
ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquomdashHeideggerrsquos catchy formulaemploys a comparative to describe the relation between Being and beings
and thus the relation as such It compares the two that should remain
absolutely incomparable It speaks of Being in the language of beings
and says that it is a Being of enhanced intensity e formula however
remains ambiguous It says on the one hand that being is in being and
even more in being than beings On the other hand however it says that
it is in being only in such a way that it transgresses the measure and
range of beings releases itself from all beings and gives up every hold on
them e relation that this formula speaks of is therefore the relation of
the dissolution of every relation of transcendence into the relationless
and of not only quantitative and merely relative but of the ontological
difference between Being and beings Catchy as it is it speaks only the
slippage of Being out of every form of every existing languagemdashand
hyperbolically speaks beyond its own speech Language in difference to
language language of difference language out of it
e syntagm ldquobeing more in being than any beingsrdquo is at the same time
a hypertagm It offers a proposition and steps outside everymdasheven its
ownmdashproposition
Horrifying (entzetzliche) language Every language is displacing (en-
tzetzlich)
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1342
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 41
of the structure of intentionality which is too strongly emphasized in his
thoughts on the ldquonotrdquo to have merely slipped into them For Heidegger
it is important that the ldquonotrdquo is not a nihil negativum or absolutum not
an empty ldquonotrdquo merely posited by a ldquosubjectrdquo or an ldquoIrdquomdasheven if posited
like in Fichte and Hegel through a not-positing For if it were a positum
it would not only be a logicized ldquonotrdquo but also a something (ens rationis )
and so precisely what it is not At the same time it is also important for
Heidegger that the happening of the ldquonotrdquomdashwhich albeit always pos-
sible still ldquorarely enoughrdquo really is (983089983097983097983096 983096983096)mdashdoes not disappear in an
annihilation once again in such a case the ldquonothingrdquo would not be a
ldquonotrdquo it would not be ldquothererdquo it could not be experienced as a happeningor the happening of the withdrawal from happening Joined together the
two observations can be understood in such a way that the ldquonotrdquo cannot
be either a ldquosomethingrdquo or the fait accompli of a mere absence It opens
itself as the zone of separation between beings and empty nothing and
it can be the ldquonotrdquo only as that which emerges in the experience of the
departure or slipping away of all beings e experience of this ldquonotrdquo and
the ldquonotrdquo of this experiencemdashand an abyss opens up in the reversibility
or irreversibility of these expressions and their double genitivesmdashis the
decisive pre-predicative synthesis It is not an archeacute an in itself unified
principle It is structurally an-archic (and in this sense originary) since it
is a synthesis only because of the split that crosses it Heidegger describes
this bifurcation as a ldquorepelling reference toward beings [abweisende
Verweisung ]rdquo983090 (983089983097983097983096 983097983088) as a reference to beings through which they are
brought together and at the same time repelled as a whole At the same
time as this ldquonotrdquo that formulates itself as a ldquonordquo and in Heideggerrsquosdefinition as reference carries an emphatically linguistic trait the experi-
ence of Being itself emerges as the happening of this repelling reference
e ldquonotrdquo is the in itself differentiated archi-disjunction
e separation therefore takes place between beings as a whole and
Being and not between the ldquonotrdquo and beingmdashthis separation is accom-
plished or is (or ldquoexistsrdquo) in the ldquonotrdquo ldquoe nothing itself annulsrdquo (983089983097983097983096
983097983088) it is what happens in the repelling reference and it is that it happens
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1542
T h e R e l a t i o n42
as this reference Since the ldquonotrdquo would not be without its happening
(without its nihilation) the previous phrase can be made more precise
ldquoBeing nihilatesmdashas beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
is is to say Being is always already not-anymore and always not-yet It
is in that it is the ldquonotrdquo of itself As difference from itself it is at the same
time the difference from everything and in everything that exists
e title of ldquoBeingrdquo in Heideggerrsquos thinking belongs only to the movement
of the ldquonotrdquo to the separation the difference as inter-rift (Unter-Schied )
the ontological difference is is why we find in the preface to ldquoOn theEssence of Groundrdquo the following ambiguous formulation ldquoe onto-
logical difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is
programmatic formula can be misunderstood because it places the ldquonotrdquo
between beings and Being as if they were two beings of different nature
or intensity But this ldquonotrdquo is to be thought as the ldquobetweenrdquo with which
Being emerges as differentiated from all even the highest of all beings
Being is what is resulting from and in the separation that happens in the
ldquonotrdquo and thus itself is the ldquobetweenrdquo the difference erefore Heide-
gger can write ldquonothing and Being the samerdquo ldquoHolding itself out into the
nothing Dasein is in each case already beyond beings as a whole Such
being beyond beings we call transcendence if [Dasein] were not in
advance holding itself out into the nothing then it could never adopt a
stance toward beings nor even toward itself rdquo (983097983089)
For Heidegger to transcend means above all to transcend into a ldquonotrdquoand therefore to transcend into a ldquonotrdquo of even this transcending It does
not mean indication and relation ldquotordquo but repelling and repelling reference
ldquofromrdquo as well as repelling of all reference in-predication ir-relation
dis-intention Transcendingmdashif it is not already connected through
a continuous movement with a homogenous other and thereby in no
need of transcendingmdashmust transcend into a nec trans and can only be
a transcending into the un-enterable it must be attranscendence
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 43
ldquoLe pas au-delagraverdquo writes Blanchot step beyond not beyond step beyond
to the not of the step
Only as transition into the not-going can it reach the zone of difference in
its own movement where first a possible toward of this movement opens
up as a relation to something and an intentional attitude to beings as
beings becomes possible us intentions are grounded in a structure of
transcendence that in its turn is defined by a ldquonotrdquo a halt a putting on
hold or a suspension Only this arrest offers the possibility of a relation
to something only in this suspension happens not something but only
the that of it happening
e ldquonotrdquo of this in-transcendence therefore can happen in two ways
the retreating reference to something and the experience that the hap-
pening of this reference is other than and different from the reference
conceptualized as a relation and its correlates
is arresting of the ldquonotrdquo in in-transcendence clearly defines the mini-
mal structure of language Whenever and in whatever way language is
spoken there is reference that distances But beyond this something else
also happens that cannot be reduced to this (repelling) reference and the
agents emerging from it the referents and their relations to each other
Whether absolutely novel or older than old it is incommensurable with
them e intentional attitude only exists as crossed out by the event of
its own epocheacute
erefore it appears to be insufficient and even erroneous to speak of
ldquothe claim of nihilation that has come to the clearingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) and
to say that ldquonihilation first requires the lsquonorsquo as what is to be said in the
letting-be of beingsrdquo (983090983095983091) is phrase attributes a linguistic structure
to the ldquonotrdquo that is at the same time also denied Language is defined as
something claimedmdashnot claimed by a pre-linguistic ldquoexistentiell rdquo beyond
of language but by its own exterior limits and thus by what cannot raise
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1742
T h e R e l a t i o n44
claims Heidegger therefore goes around in circlesmdasheven if we consider
all the complications of going going over and inaccessibility He goes
against himself and he might be going that way because he thinks lan-
guage as a response
e commentary on the structure of transcending (namely that it must
be that of in-transcending) and intentionality (that it must be suspended
in dis-intending) made it clear that these movements for Heidegger
always emerge first in their ldquonotrdquo and their suspension In very much
the same way we could clarify the structure of the claim as Anspruch
as Heidegger understands it not by reading this word according to themeasure of its dictionary meaning but by reading it based on its context
with an emphatically stressed An speaking onto
en the claim raised by the ldquonotrdquomdashfrom nowhere by nobody and mind
you nevermdashwould be a ldquospeakingrdquo onto and in the proximity of language
and its words and particles of negation which persisting in the onto
would never make it out of this proximity to reach language e claim
would be a speaking onto because it would never be a speech in the sense
of a statement or a performative act It would always be en route or on
the way to language An-spruch would be toward language what language
itself is not and that it itself is not presentmdashit would be the irruption of
language its start
In fact according to Heideggerrsquos text ldquothe claim of nihilationrdquo cannot be
more than this cannot be language For he says of this claim that it callsfor the ldquonordquo as what is to be said but never as something already said
never already given in or by language rather as a ldquonordquo that remains still
and always yet to be said and as what is to be said remains forever im-
minent in every possible future Speaking onto and speaking its ldquonot rdquo onto
language the claim would be the retentive relation in which language is
kept away from itself but at the same time held to and held back from
itself and sustained and held in this holding onto and holding back But
unlike what an obvious misunderstanding would suggest this sustaining
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 45
does not hold in potentia as something always merely ldquopossiblerdquo but
never ldquorealrdquo Rather it holds on this side of all modal categories in statu
nascendi et moriendi (as Celan writes in an explicit reference to Heidegger
in a letter to Werner Weber) held out into the happening of language as
perpetual beginning (983089983097983097983095 983091983097983096)
is understanding of the speaking-onto of the ldquonotrdquo also clarifies the
structure of intention It would not be some already given relation of an
already constituted consciousness to a content of consciousness but the
irruption of these relations in their pre-withholding and therefore inten-
tion only arising out of the freedom from such a relation and the opennessto it us every An- that Heidegger writes is to be read not merely as a
ldquoclose tordquo or ldquoontordquo in the sense of a given extension but always also as
the echo the Greek ana- as a privative in- or un- In words like Anspruch
(claim) or Anruf (call) or Answesen (presence) Angehen (approach) and
Ankunft (arrival) with every ldquoclose tordquo and ldquoontordquo at the same time a ldquonotrdquo
and a ldquonordquo is also said that relates relation to irrelation reference to ir-
reference direction to indirection An- is the prefix of differencemdashbut
not only of an intra-linguistic difference between different meanings of
one and the same morpheme but before meanings can appear at all the
difference between language speaking its ldquonotrdquo and language speaking
onto something An- not unlike vor- zu- hin- and aus- is the prefix of
ontological difference Whoever uses ldquospeaking ontordquo in this sense in fact
is saying something insufficient and erroneous but is also saying that this
insufficiency and erroneousness belongs to the structure of language
Language itself is the speaking onto language and therefore a speakingonto another language or something other than language
Understood as ldquospeaking ontordquo ( An-spruch) language is its othering ( An-
derung )
e An- is therefore the word and the fore-word of the madness of lan-
guage In the essay ldquoLanguage in the Poemrdquo Heidegger writes as a com-
mentary on the line ldquoe madman [Wahnsinnige] has diedrdquo from Georg
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1942
T h e R e l a t i o n46
Traklrsquos ldquoPsalmrdquo ldquoe word Wahn comes from Old High German wana
which means lsquowithoutrsquo e madman sensesmdashsenses in fact as no one
else does But he remains without the sense of others He is of another
sense Sinnan originally means to travel to strive for to strike a direc-
tion e Indo-Germanic root sent and set means lsquopathrsquo e departed is
the madman because he is on his way somewhere elserdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983091)983091 e
other way that the madman follows is the way into de-parture into a dif-
ference that departs from every possible distinction and discrimination
So Heidegger can write about the stranger who is the madman without
the sense of the other ldquois stranger unfolds the essence of the human
into the beginning of what has not yet come to bearing [Tragen] (OldHigh German giberan) is quieter and hence more stilling element
in the nature of mortals that has not been borne out is what the poet
calls the unbornrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983093)983092 But if the other waymdashthis without-path the
aporiamdashleads into what has not been borne out how do we stand with
what is defined as ldquogesturerdquo in ldquoA Dialogue on Languagerdquo ldquothe originary
gathering of bearing against and bearing tordquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983097) And how does the
thought of the not-yet-born and the unborn relate to the thought of being
as difference which is described in ldquoe Onto-eo-Logical Constitu-
tion of Metaphysicsrdquo in the following way ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ]
alone grants and holds apart the lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming
and the arrival are held toward one another are borne away from and
toward each other e difference of Being and beings as the inter-rift of
overwhelming and arrival is the bearing out [ Austrag ] of the two in un-
concealing keeping in concealment Within this bearing out there prevails
a clearing of what veils and closes itself offmdashand this prevalence bestowsthe being apart and the being toward each other of overwhelming and
arrivalrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)983093
In these sentences it becomes clear that the words ldquoheldrdquo and ldquobornerdquo
are used in the same sense being held in relation (Ver-halten) is being
borne out ( Austrag ) Both describe the movement of differentiation that
Heidegger writes as Unter-Schied (literally inter -rift ) to separate it from
rational distinctions as well as from differences in perception and to
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 47
emphasize the ldquobetweenrdquo that corresponds to the inter of the unter in
the concept of Unterschied (difference) e German word Austrag is the
literal translation of the Latin differentia which in turn is a translation
of the decisive Greek term diaphoraacute In a definition provided in the first
essay on Trakl ldquoLanguagerdquo (in 983089983097983093983088) diaphoraacute difference and bearing
out are juxtaposed with the following commentary ldquoe intimacy of
dif-ference [Unter-Schied ] is the unifying element of the diaphora the
carrying out [ Austrag ] that carries through e dif-ference carries out
world in its worlding carries out things in their thinging us carrying
them out it carries them toward one anotherrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) And a few
sentences later the series of synonymous concepts is extended to includeEreignis the appropriating event gesture as bearing and granting ldquoe
dif-ference for world and thing disclosingly appropriates things into bear-
ing a world it disclosingly appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo
(983090983088983088) In accordance with these connections in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo
relation (Verhaumlltnis ) is thought out of the appropriating event and more
precisely as the appropriative happening of the essence of language ldquoFor
that appropriating holding self-retaining is the relation of all relations
us our sayingmdashalways an answeringmdashremains forever relational Rela-
tion [Ver-haumlltnis as holding to itself] is thought of here always in terms
of the event and no longer conceived in the form of a mere referencerdquo
(983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093) But if relation means appropriation if appropriation means
difference difference means differentia and diaphora and the latter two
mean the carrying out that carries through while carrying out means
bearing the question unavoidable emerges How do the concepts from
the Trakl commentary the unborn and what is not borne out relate to thisseries And how can this series be unified with the other the without-
path and the aporia of madness ese questions are not yet answered
by the remark that Heidegger understood human Dasein in the sense of
ek-sistence as the ecstatic being outside of itself of madness is only
makes the question more urgent of whether this being-in-madness can
be thought with the concepts of difference and ldquobearing outrdquo Or whether
this madness overburdens ldquothe carrying out that carries throughrdquo and the
ldquobearing outrdquo and is therefore thrown away evacuated and forgotten
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2142
T h e R e l a t i o n48
e question therefore is once again whether the madness of ek-sis-
tence of the ldquonotrdquo of Being and of language can still be articulated in a
languagemdasheven if it as outreacute as Heideggerrsquos
Or Is it possible to think the not-borne-out as the not-borne-out More
precisely Does the not-borne-out allow itself to be thought only as a not
yet or beyond that does it allow itself to be thought as a never borne
out
Hence Can the ldquonotrdquo as a ldquoneverrdquomdashas a never of the sayablemdashdefine the
horizon of language And can this ldquoneverrdquo then also provide the tran-scendental horizon of the possibility of what is sayable Is the ldquoneverrdquo
the condition of the happening of language and the horizon of being
Or Can the ldquoneverrdquo be thought But How could it be other than never be
thought Consequently If the ldquoneverrdquo were the pre- and proto-predicative
happening that is called ldquoBeingrdquo and later more precisely coming-over
(Uumlberkommnis ) because it is what ldquoovercomesrdquo sur-prises overwhelms
more than just comes andmdashoverburdens erefore Can the unbearable
be borne and borne out
Otherwise How could Beingmdashwhether as happening history destiny
or coming-overmdashas the unbearable not be borne Because Can the un-
bearable be found at all otherwise unbearable than as always still and
nevertheless borne And then still not erefore Is there not in Being
itself such a still and nevertheless a but that keeps Being at a distancefrom Being and keeps Being out of Being and in this out and apart brings
it together
However What does the ldquooutrdquo mean in ldquoout of each otherrdquo and in ldquobearing
outrdquo if it still contains a ldquotogetherrdquo Does it refer to an originary synthesis
before every predicative synthesis Is not such a reference misleading if it
suggests a ldquotogetherrdquo there where we can encounter only an ldquoout of each
otherrdquomdasheven if we encounter it in the impossibility of its encounter
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 49
In his seminar in Le or in September 983089983097983094983094 Heidegger cites a paragraph
from the chapter ldquoOn the impossibility of a cosmological proof of Godrsquos
existencerdquo from Kantrsquos First Critique ese stunning sentencesmdashwhich
with their evocation of sinking floating without stop and the abyss
may well have contributed to the descriptions of anxiety in Being and
Time (983089983097983094983090) and ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo (983089983097983097983096)mdashspeak explicitly not only
about the groundless but also about the unbearable Kant writes
e unconditioned necessity which we need so indispensably as the ultimate
sustainer of all things is for human reason the true abyss Even eternitymdash
however awful the sublimity with which a Haller might portray itmdashdoes not
make such a dizzying impression on the mind for eternity only measures the
duration of things but it does not sustain that duration One cannot resist the
thought of it but one also cannot bear it that a being might as it were say
to itself ldquoI am from eternity to eternity outside me is nothing except what is
something merely through my will but whence then am Irdquo Here everything
caves in beneath us and the greatest perfection as well as the smallest hover
without hold before speculative reason for which it would cost nothing to
let the one as much as the other disappear without the least obstacle (Kant
983089983097983097983097 983093983095983092 Heidegger 983090983088983088983091 983089983095) God the highest ground of what is appears in
its monologue as an abyss that does not carry it but lets it collapse And Kant
says of this thought of a God that does not carry itself that ldquoone cannot resist
the thought of it but one also cannot bear itrdquo
With this the primal scene of critical transcendental philosophy and
speculative idealism is described an ens realissimum et nesessarium that does not contain the guarantee of its own being a God that is not
a causa sui and sinks in the abyss of its own question after a ground
cannot offer beings any more hold and must therefore pull down in
its own fall the categories that render it thinkable necessary and real
What remains is the scene of the sinking away of the totality of beings
ldquothe greatest perfection as well as the smallestrdquo and with this scene the
form of representation the mere idea of reason in which beings as a
whole together with the categorial structures of their knowability survive
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2342
T h e R e l a t i o n50
under the condition of their transcendentality For the ldquotranscendental
objectrdquomdashthat Kant can only speak of after the sinking away of a world
and its transcendental groundmdashis not an empirical object and not even
an object at all is object as Kant writes ldquotherefore cannot be further
intuited by us and that may therefore be called the non-empirical ie
transcendental object = Xrdquo (983089983097983097983097 983090983091983091) In his Kant book Heidegger calls
this transcendental X ldquoa Nothingrdquo that is at the same time ldquoSomethingrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983096983094) and describes the X as ldquothe horizon of a standing-against is
horizon is indeed not object but rather a Nothing if by object we mean
a being which is apprehended thematicallyrdquo (983096983095) Furthermore ldquoOnly if
the letting-stand-against of is a holding oneself in the nothing canthe representing allow a not-nothing ie something like a being rdquo (983093983089)
In the Kant commentary the ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo ismdashlike
the anxiety scenes in Being and Time in the Freiburg lecture and more
abstractly in the ldquoLetterrdquo in different waysmdashthe gesture of the horizontal-
transcendental constitution of the domain of objectivity and with that
at the same time of no longer onto-theologically founded beings held
in the mere form of representation not a creatio but still a constitutio ex
nihilo e fact that ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo as Kant examines
it in his critical philosophy stops at the form of representation (Vorstel-
lung ) and the idea of reason makes these gestures into a regulatio nihili
and prevents the further analysis of the transcendental form of being
represented and posited
Heidegger took on this further analysis starting with the exposition of
Dasein in Being and Time is analysis must show that the sinking of theens necessarium and with it that of mere being (which does not hold and
bear itself) remain irreducible to the beings of representation the idea
or the concept It must expose the fact that transcendental representa-
tion merely displaces the ldquonotrdquo that it encounters in the sinking of the
highest being instead of engaging it as the decisive content of being To
do justice to the implications of the anxiety-scene and the unbearable
question of God for his ground the classical analytical concept of differ-
ence between ground and the grounded positing and the posited must
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 39
refuse every recognition and remain placeless wordless and non-inten-
tional Since ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091) the
ldquonotrdquo should be more nihilating than any nihilation within the horizon of
intentional acknowledgement It should remain irreducible to relational
pairs and it should withdraw itself from such alternatives as speaking to
and turning away from presence to and absence from Since it is ldquonotrdquo
it should not remain restricted to pressure constriction and anxiety It
should each time happen as that which in these relations releases from
them and makes them possible in the first place
ldquoBeing is more in being than any beingsrdquomdashHeideggerrsquos catchy formulaemploys a comparative to describe the relation between Being and beings
and thus the relation as such It compares the two that should remain
absolutely incomparable It speaks of Being in the language of beings
and says that it is a Being of enhanced intensity e formula however
remains ambiguous It says on the one hand that being is in being and
even more in being than beings On the other hand however it says that
it is in being only in such a way that it transgresses the measure and
range of beings releases itself from all beings and gives up every hold on
them e relation that this formula speaks of is therefore the relation of
the dissolution of every relation of transcendence into the relationless
and of not only quantitative and merely relative but of the ontological
difference between Being and beings Catchy as it is it speaks only the
slippage of Being out of every form of every existing languagemdashand
hyperbolically speaks beyond its own speech Language in difference to
language language of difference language out of it
e syntagm ldquobeing more in being than any beingsrdquo is at the same time
a hypertagm It offers a proposition and steps outside everymdasheven its
ownmdashproposition
Horrifying (entzetzliche) language Every language is displacing (en-
tzetzlich)
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1342
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 41
of the structure of intentionality which is too strongly emphasized in his
thoughts on the ldquonotrdquo to have merely slipped into them For Heidegger
it is important that the ldquonotrdquo is not a nihil negativum or absolutum not
an empty ldquonotrdquo merely posited by a ldquosubjectrdquo or an ldquoIrdquomdasheven if posited
like in Fichte and Hegel through a not-positing For if it were a positum
it would not only be a logicized ldquonotrdquo but also a something (ens rationis )
and so precisely what it is not At the same time it is also important for
Heidegger that the happening of the ldquonotrdquomdashwhich albeit always pos-
sible still ldquorarely enoughrdquo really is (983089983097983097983096 983096983096)mdashdoes not disappear in an
annihilation once again in such a case the ldquonothingrdquo would not be a
ldquonotrdquo it would not be ldquothererdquo it could not be experienced as a happeningor the happening of the withdrawal from happening Joined together the
two observations can be understood in such a way that the ldquonotrdquo cannot
be either a ldquosomethingrdquo or the fait accompli of a mere absence It opens
itself as the zone of separation between beings and empty nothing and
it can be the ldquonotrdquo only as that which emerges in the experience of the
departure or slipping away of all beings e experience of this ldquonotrdquo and
the ldquonotrdquo of this experiencemdashand an abyss opens up in the reversibility
or irreversibility of these expressions and their double genitivesmdashis the
decisive pre-predicative synthesis It is not an archeacute an in itself unified
principle It is structurally an-archic (and in this sense originary) since it
is a synthesis only because of the split that crosses it Heidegger describes
this bifurcation as a ldquorepelling reference toward beings [abweisende
Verweisung ]rdquo983090 (983089983097983097983096 983097983088) as a reference to beings through which they are
brought together and at the same time repelled as a whole At the same
time as this ldquonotrdquo that formulates itself as a ldquonordquo and in Heideggerrsquosdefinition as reference carries an emphatically linguistic trait the experi-
ence of Being itself emerges as the happening of this repelling reference
e ldquonotrdquo is the in itself differentiated archi-disjunction
e separation therefore takes place between beings as a whole and
Being and not between the ldquonotrdquo and beingmdashthis separation is accom-
plished or is (or ldquoexistsrdquo) in the ldquonotrdquo ldquoe nothing itself annulsrdquo (983089983097983097983096
983097983088) it is what happens in the repelling reference and it is that it happens
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1542
T h e R e l a t i o n42
as this reference Since the ldquonotrdquo would not be without its happening
(without its nihilation) the previous phrase can be made more precise
ldquoBeing nihilatesmdashas beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
is is to say Being is always already not-anymore and always not-yet It
is in that it is the ldquonotrdquo of itself As difference from itself it is at the same
time the difference from everything and in everything that exists
e title of ldquoBeingrdquo in Heideggerrsquos thinking belongs only to the movement
of the ldquonotrdquo to the separation the difference as inter-rift (Unter-Schied )
the ontological difference is is why we find in the preface to ldquoOn theEssence of Groundrdquo the following ambiguous formulation ldquoe onto-
logical difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is
programmatic formula can be misunderstood because it places the ldquonotrdquo
between beings and Being as if they were two beings of different nature
or intensity But this ldquonotrdquo is to be thought as the ldquobetweenrdquo with which
Being emerges as differentiated from all even the highest of all beings
Being is what is resulting from and in the separation that happens in the
ldquonotrdquo and thus itself is the ldquobetweenrdquo the difference erefore Heide-
gger can write ldquonothing and Being the samerdquo ldquoHolding itself out into the
nothing Dasein is in each case already beyond beings as a whole Such
being beyond beings we call transcendence if [Dasein] were not in
advance holding itself out into the nothing then it could never adopt a
stance toward beings nor even toward itself rdquo (983097983089)
For Heidegger to transcend means above all to transcend into a ldquonotrdquoand therefore to transcend into a ldquonotrdquo of even this transcending It does
not mean indication and relation ldquotordquo but repelling and repelling reference
ldquofromrdquo as well as repelling of all reference in-predication ir-relation
dis-intention Transcendingmdashif it is not already connected through
a continuous movement with a homogenous other and thereby in no
need of transcendingmdashmust transcend into a nec trans and can only be
a transcending into the un-enterable it must be attranscendence
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 43
ldquoLe pas au-delagraverdquo writes Blanchot step beyond not beyond step beyond
to the not of the step
Only as transition into the not-going can it reach the zone of difference in
its own movement where first a possible toward of this movement opens
up as a relation to something and an intentional attitude to beings as
beings becomes possible us intentions are grounded in a structure of
transcendence that in its turn is defined by a ldquonotrdquo a halt a putting on
hold or a suspension Only this arrest offers the possibility of a relation
to something only in this suspension happens not something but only
the that of it happening
e ldquonotrdquo of this in-transcendence therefore can happen in two ways
the retreating reference to something and the experience that the hap-
pening of this reference is other than and different from the reference
conceptualized as a relation and its correlates
is arresting of the ldquonotrdquo in in-transcendence clearly defines the mini-
mal structure of language Whenever and in whatever way language is
spoken there is reference that distances But beyond this something else
also happens that cannot be reduced to this (repelling) reference and the
agents emerging from it the referents and their relations to each other
Whether absolutely novel or older than old it is incommensurable with
them e intentional attitude only exists as crossed out by the event of
its own epocheacute
erefore it appears to be insufficient and even erroneous to speak of
ldquothe claim of nihilation that has come to the clearingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) and
to say that ldquonihilation first requires the lsquonorsquo as what is to be said in the
letting-be of beingsrdquo (983090983095983091) is phrase attributes a linguistic structure
to the ldquonotrdquo that is at the same time also denied Language is defined as
something claimedmdashnot claimed by a pre-linguistic ldquoexistentiell rdquo beyond
of language but by its own exterior limits and thus by what cannot raise
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1742
T h e R e l a t i o n44
claims Heidegger therefore goes around in circlesmdasheven if we consider
all the complications of going going over and inaccessibility He goes
against himself and he might be going that way because he thinks lan-
guage as a response
e commentary on the structure of transcending (namely that it must
be that of in-transcending) and intentionality (that it must be suspended
in dis-intending) made it clear that these movements for Heidegger
always emerge first in their ldquonotrdquo and their suspension In very much
the same way we could clarify the structure of the claim as Anspruch
as Heidegger understands it not by reading this word according to themeasure of its dictionary meaning but by reading it based on its context
with an emphatically stressed An speaking onto
en the claim raised by the ldquonotrdquomdashfrom nowhere by nobody and mind
you nevermdashwould be a ldquospeakingrdquo onto and in the proximity of language
and its words and particles of negation which persisting in the onto
would never make it out of this proximity to reach language e claim
would be a speaking onto because it would never be a speech in the sense
of a statement or a performative act It would always be en route or on
the way to language An-spruch would be toward language what language
itself is not and that it itself is not presentmdashit would be the irruption of
language its start
In fact according to Heideggerrsquos text ldquothe claim of nihilationrdquo cannot be
more than this cannot be language For he says of this claim that it callsfor the ldquonordquo as what is to be said but never as something already said
never already given in or by language rather as a ldquonordquo that remains still
and always yet to be said and as what is to be said remains forever im-
minent in every possible future Speaking onto and speaking its ldquonot rdquo onto
language the claim would be the retentive relation in which language is
kept away from itself but at the same time held to and held back from
itself and sustained and held in this holding onto and holding back But
unlike what an obvious misunderstanding would suggest this sustaining
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 45
does not hold in potentia as something always merely ldquopossiblerdquo but
never ldquorealrdquo Rather it holds on this side of all modal categories in statu
nascendi et moriendi (as Celan writes in an explicit reference to Heidegger
in a letter to Werner Weber) held out into the happening of language as
perpetual beginning (983089983097983097983095 983091983097983096)
is understanding of the speaking-onto of the ldquonotrdquo also clarifies the
structure of intention It would not be some already given relation of an
already constituted consciousness to a content of consciousness but the
irruption of these relations in their pre-withholding and therefore inten-
tion only arising out of the freedom from such a relation and the opennessto it us every An- that Heidegger writes is to be read not merely as a
ldquoclose tordquo or ldquoontordquo in the sense of a given extension but always also as
the echo the Greek ana- as a privative in- or un- In words like Anspruch
(claim) or Anruf (call) or Answesen (presence) Angehen (approach) and
Ankunft (arrival) with every ldquoclose tordquo and ldquoontordquo at the same time a ldquonotrdquo
and a ldquonordquo is also said that relates relation to irrelation reference to ir-
reference direction to indirection An- is the prefix of differencemdashbut
not only of an intra-linguistic difference between different meanings of
one and the same morpheme but before meanings can appear at all the
difference between language speaking its ldquonotrdquo and language speaking
onto something An- not unlike vor- zu- hin- and aus- is the prefix of
ontological difference Whoever uses ldquospeaking ontordquo in this sense in fact
is saying something insufficient and erroneous but is also saying that this
insufficiency and erroneousness belongs to the structure of language
Language itself is the speaking onto language and therefore a speakingonto another language or something other than language
Understood as ldquospeaking ontordquo ( An-spruch) language is its othering ( An-
derung )
e An- is therefore the word and the fore-word of the madness of lan-
guage In the essay ldquoLanguage in the Poemrdquo Heidegger writes as a com-
mentary on the line ldquoe madman [Wahnsinnige] has diedrdquo from Georg
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1942
T h e R e l a t i o n46
Traklrsquos ldquoPsalmrdquo ldquoe word Wahn comes from Old High German wana
which means lsquowithoutrsquo e madman sensesmdashsenses in fact as no one
else does But he remains without the sense of others He is of another
sense Sinnan originally means to travel to strive for to strike a direc-
tion e Indo-Germanic root sent and set means lsquopathrsquo e departed is
the madman because he is on his way somewhere elserdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983091)983091 e
other way that the madman follows is the way into de-parture into a dif-
ference that departs from every possible distinction and discrimination
So Heidegger can write about the stranger who is the madman without
the sense of the other ldquois stranger unfolds the essence of the human
into the beginning of what has not yet come to bearing [Tragen] (OldHigh German giberan) is quieter and hence more stilling element
in the nature of mortals that has not been borne out is what the poet
calls the unbornrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983093)983092 But if the other waymdashthis without-path the
aporiamdashleads into what has not been borne out how do we stand with
what is defined as ldquogesturerdquo in ldquoA Dialogue on Languagerdquo ldquothe originary
gathering of bearing against and bearing tordquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983097) And how does the
thought of the not-yet-born and the unborn relate to the thought of being
as difference which is described in ldquoe Onto-eo-Logical Constitu-
tion of Metaphysicsrdquo in the following way ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ]
alone grants and holds apart the lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming
and the arrival are held toward one another are borne away from and
toward each other e difference of Being and beings as the inter-rift of
overwhelming and arrival is the bearing out [ Austrag ] of the two in un-
concealing keeping in concealment Within this bearing out there prevails
a clearing of what veils and closes itself offmdashand this prevalence bestowsthe being apart and the being toward each other of overwhelming and
arrivalrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)983093
In these sentences it becomes clear that the words ldquoheldrdquo and ldquobornerdquo
are used in the same sense being held in relation (Ver-halten) is being
borne out ( Austrag ) Both describe the movement of differentiation that
Heidegger writes as Unter-Schied (literally inter -rift ) to separate it from
rational distinctions as well as from differences in perception and to
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 47
emphasize the ldquobetweenrdquo that corresponds to the inter of the unter in
the concept of Unterschied (difference) e German word Austrag is the
literal translation of the Latin differentia which in turn is a translation
of the decisive Greek term diaphoraacute In a definition provided in the first
essay on Trakl ldquoLanguagerdquo (in 983089983097983093983088) diaphoraacute difference and bearing
out are juxtaposed with the following commentary ldquoe intimacy of
dif-ference [Unter-Schied ] is the unifying element of the diaphora the
carrying out [ Austrag ] that carries through e dif-ference carries out
world in its worlding carries out things in their thinging us carrying
them out it carries them toward one anotherrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) And a few
sentences later the series of synonymous concepts is extended to includeEreignis the appropriating event gesture as bearing and granting ldquoe
dif-ference for world and thing disclosingly appropriates things into bear-
ing a world it disclosingly appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo
(983090983088983088) In accordance with these connections in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo
relation (Verhaumlltnis ) is thought out of the appropriating event and more
precisely as the appropriative happening of the essence of language ldquoFor
that appropriating holding self-retaining is the relation of all relations
us our sayingmdashalways an answeringmdashremains forever relational Rela-
tion [Ver-haumlltnis as holding to itself] is thought of here always in terms
of the event and no longer conceived in the form of a mere referencerdquo
(983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093) But if relation means appropriation if appropriation means
difference difference means differentia and diaphora and the latter two
mean the carrying out that carries through while carrying out means
bearing the question unavoidable emerges How do the concepts from
the Trakl commentary the unborn and what is not borne out relate to thisseries And how can this series be unified with the other the without-
path and the aporia of madness ese questions are not yet answered
by the remark that Heidegger understood human Dasein in the sense of
ek-sistence as the ecstatic being outside of itself of madness is only
makes the question more urgent of whether this being-in-madness can
be thought with the concepts of difference and ldquobearing outrdquo Or whether
this madness overburdens ldquothe carrying out that carries throughrdquo and the
ldquobearing outrdquo and is therefore thrown away evacuated and forgotten
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2142
T h e R e l a t i o n48
e question therefore is once again whether the madness of ek-sis-
tence of the ldquonotrdquo of Being and of language can still be articulated in a
languagemdasheven if it as outreacute as Heideggerrsquos
Or Is it possible to think the not-borne-out as the not-borne-out More
precisely Does the not-borne-out allow itself to be thought only as a not
yet or beyond that does it allow itself to be thought as a never borne
out
Hence Can the ldquonotrdquo as a ldquoneverrdquomdashas a never of the sayablemdashdefine the
horizon of language And can this ldquoneverrdquo then also provide the tran-scendental horizon of the possibility of what is sayable Is the ldquoneverrdquo
the condition of the happening of language and the horizon of being
Or Can the ldquoneverrdquo be thought But How could it be other than never be
thought Consequently If the ldquoneverrdquo were the pre- and proto-predicative
happening that is called ldquoBeingrdquo and later more precisely coming-over
(Uumlberkommnis ) because it is what ldquoovercomesrdquo sur-prises overwhelms
more than just comes andmdashoverburdens erefore Can the unbearable
be borne and borne out
Otherwise How could Beingmdashwhether as happening history destiny
or coming-overmdashas the unbearable not be borne Because Can the un-
bearable be found at all otherwise unbearable than as always still and
nevertheless borne And then still not erefore Is there not in Being
itself such a still and nevertheless a but that keeps Being at a distancefrom Being and keeps Being out of Being and in this out and apart brings
it together
However What does the ldquooutrdquo mean in ldquoout of each otherrdquo and in ldquobearing
outrdquo if it still contains a ldquotogetherrdquo Does it refer to an originary synthesis
before every predicative synthesis Is not such a reference misleading if it
suggests a ldquotogetherrdquo there where we can encounter only an ldquoout of each
otherrdquomdasheven if we encounter it in the impossibility of its encounter
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 49
In his seminar in Le or in September 983089983097983094983094 Heidegger cites a paragraph
from the chapter ldquoOn the impossibility of a cosmological proof of Godrsquos
existencerdquo from Kantrsquos First Critique ese stunning sentencesmdashwhich
with their evocation of sinking floating without stop and the abyss
may well have contributed to the descriptions of anxiety in Being and
Time (983089983097983094983090) and ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo (983089983097983097983096)mdashspeak explicitly not only
about the groundless but also about the unbearable Kant writes
e unconditioned necessity which we need so indispensably as the ultimate
sustainer of all things is for human reason the true abyss Even eternitymdash
however awful the sublimity with which a Haller might portray itmdashdoes not
make such a dizzying impression on the mind for eternity only measures the
duration of things but it does not sustain that duration One cannot resist the
thought of it but one also cannot bear it that a being might as it were say
to itself ldquoI am from eternity to eternity outside me is nothing except what is
something merely through my will but whence then am Irdquo Here everything
caves in beneath us and the greatest perfection as well as the smallest hover
without hold before speculative reason for which it would cost nothing to
let the one as much as the other disappear without the least obstacle (Kant
983089983097983097983097 983093983095983092 Heidegger 983090983088983088983091 983089983095) God the highest ground of what is appears in
its monologue as an abyss that does not carry it but lets it collapse And Kant
says of this thought of a God that does not carry itself that ldquoone cannot resist
the thought of it but one also cannot bear itrdquo
With this the primal scene of critical transcendental philosophy and
speculative idealism is described an ens realissimum et nesessarium that does not contain the guarantee of its own being a God that is not
a causa sui and sinks in the abyss of its own question after a ground
cannot offer beings any more hold and must therefore pull down in
its own fall the categories that render it thinkable necessary and real
What remains is the scene of the sinking away of the totality of beings
ldquothe greatest perfection as well as the smallestrdquo and with this scene the
form of representation the mere idea of reason in which beings as a
whole together with the categorial structures of their knowability survive
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2342
T h e R e l a t i o n50
under the condition of their transcendentality For the ldquotranscendental
objectrdquomdashthat Kant can only speak of after the sinking away of a world
and its transcendental groundmdashis not an empirical object and not even
an object at all is object as Kant writes ldquotherefore cannot be further
intuited by us and that may therefore be called the non-empirical ie
transcendental object = Xrdquo (983089983097983097983097 983090983091983091) In his Kant book Heidegger calls
this transcendental X ldquoa Nothingrdquo that is at the same time ldquoSomethingrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983096983094) and describes the X as ldquothe horizon of a standing-against is
horizon is indeed not object but rather a Nothing if by object we mean
a being which is apprehended thematicallyrdquo (983096983095) Furthermore ldquoOnly if
the letting-stand-against of is a holding oneself in the nothing canthe representing allow a not-nothing ie something like a being rdquo (983093983089)
In the Kant commentary the ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo ismdashlike
the anxiety scenes in Being and Time in the Freiburg lecture and more
abstractly in the ldquoLetterrdquo in different waysmdashthe gesture of the horizontal-
transcendental constitution of the domain of objectivity and with that
at the same time of no longer onto-theologically founded beings held
in the mere form of representation not a creatio but still a constitutio ex
nihilo e fact that ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo as Kant examines
it in his critical philosophy stops at the form of representation (Vorstel-
lung ) and the idea of reason makes these gestures into a regulatio nihili
and prevents the further analysis of the transcendental form of being
represented and posited
Heidegger took on this further analysis starting with the exposition of
Dasein in Being and Time is analysis must show that the sinking of theens necessarium and with it that of mere being (which does not hold and
bear itself) remain irreducible to the beings of representation the idea
or the concept It must expose the fact that transcendental representa-
tion merely displaces the ldquonotrdquo that it encounters in the sinking of the
highest being instead of engaging it as the decisive content of being To
do justice to the implications of the anxiety-scene and the unbearable
question of God for his ground the classical analytical concept of differ-
ence between ground and the grounded positing and the posited must
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1342
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 41
of the structure of intentionality which is too strongly emphasized in his
thoughts on the ldquonotrdquo to have merely slipped into them For Heidegger
it is important that the ldquonotrdquo is not a nihil negativum or absolutum not
an empty ldquonotrdquo merely posited by a ldquosubjectrdquo or an ldquoIrdquomdasheven if posited
like in Fichte and Hegel through a not-positing For if it were a positum
it would not only be a logicized ldquonotrdquo but also a something (ens rationis )
and so precisely what it is not At the same time it is also important for
Heidegger that the happening of the ldquonotrdquomdashwhich albeit always pos-
sible still ldquorarely enoughrdquo really is (983089983097983097983096 983096983096)mdashdoes not disappear in an
annihilation once again in such a case the ldquonothingrdquo would not be a
ldquonotrdquo it would not be ldquothererdquo it could not be experienced as a happeningor the happening of the withdrawal from happening Joined together the
two observations can be understood in such a way that the ldquonotrdquo cannot
be either a ldquosomethingrdquo or the fait accompli of a mere absence It opens
itself as the zone of separation between beings and empty nothing and
it can be the ldquonotrdquo only as that which emerges in the experience of the
departure or slipping away of all beings e experience of this ldquonotrdquo and
the ldquonotrdquo of this experiencemdashand an abyss opens up in the reversibility
or irreversibility of these expressions and their double genitivesmdashis the
decisive pre-predicative synthesis It is not an archeacute an in itself unified
principle It is structurally an-archic (and in this sense originary) since it
is a synthesis only because of the split that crosses it Heidegger describes
this bifurcation as a ldquorepelling reference toward beings [abweisende
Verweisung ]rdquo983090 (983089983097983097983096 983097983088) as a reference to beings through which they are
brought together and at the same time repelled as a whole At the same
time as this ldquonotrdquo that formulates itself as a ldquonordquo and in Heideggerrsquosdefinition as reference carries an emphatically linguistic trait the experi-
ence of Being itself emerges as the happening of this repelling reference
e ldquonotrdquo is the in itself differentiated archi-disjunction
e separation therefore takes place between beings as a whole and
Being and not between the ldquonotrdquo and beingmdashthis separation is accom-
plished or is (or ldquoexistsrdquo) in the ldquonotrdquo ldquoe nothing itself annulsrdquo (983089983097983097983096
983097983088) it is what happens in the repelling reference and it is that it happens
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1542
T h e R e l a t i o n42
as this reference Since the ldquonotrdquo would not be without its happening
(without its nihilation) the previous phrase can be made more precise
ldquoBeing nihilatesmdashas beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
is is to say Being is always already not-anymore and always not-yet It
is in that it is the ldquonotrdquo of itself As difference from itself it is at the same
time the difference from everything and in everything that exists
e title of ldquoBeingrdquo in Heideggerrsquos thinking belongs only to the movement
of the ldquonotrdquo to the separation the difference as inter-rift (Unter-Schied )
the ontological difference is is why we find in the preface to ldquoOn theEssence of Groundrdquo the following ambiguous formulation ldquoe onto-
logical difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is
programmatic formula can be misunderstood because it places the ldquonotrdquo
between beings and Being as if they were two beings of different nature
or intensity But this ldquonotrdquo is to be thought as the ldquobetweenrdquo with which
Being emerges as differentiated from all even the highest of all beings
Being is what is resulting from and in the separation that happens in the
ldquonotrdquo and thus itself is the ldquobetweenrdquo the difference erefore Heide-
gger can write ldquonothing and Being the samerdquo ldquoHolding itself out into the
nothing Dasein is in each case already beyond beings as a whole Such
being beyond beings we call transcendence if [Dasein] were not in
advance holding itself out into the nothing then it could never adopt a
stance toward beings nor even toward itself rdquo (983097983089)
For Heidegger to transcend means above all to transcend into a ldquonotrdquoand therefore to transcend into a ldquonotrdquo of even this transcending It does
not mean indication and relation ldquotordquo but repelling and repelling reference
ldquofromrdquo as well as repelling of all reference in-predication ir-relation
dis-intention Transcendingmdashif it is not already connected through
a continuous movement with a homogenous other and thereby in no
need of transcendingmdashmust transcend into a nec trans and can only be
a transcending into the un-enterable it must be attranscendence
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 43
ldquoLe pas au-delagraverdquo writes Blanchot step beyond not beyond step beyond
to the not of the step
Only as transition into the not-going can it reach the zone of difference in
its own movement where first a possible toward of this movement opens
up as a relation to something and an intentional attitude to beings as
beings becomes possible us intentions are grounded in a structure of
transcendence that in its turn is defined by a ldquonotrdquo a halt a putting on
hold or a suspension Only this arrest offers the possibility of a relation
to something only in this suspension happens not something but only
the that of it happening
e ldquonotrdquo of this in-transcendence therefore can happen in two ways
the retreating reference to something and the experience that the hap-
pening of this reference is other than and different from the reference
conceptualized as a relation and its correlates
is arresting of the ldquonotrdquo in in-transcendence clearly defines the mini-
mal structure of language Whenever and in whatever way language is
spoken there is reference that distances But beyond this something else
also happens that cannot be reduced to this (repelling) reference and the
agents emerging from it the referents and their relations to each other
Whether absolutely novel or older than old it is incommensurable with
them e intentional attitude only exists as crossed out by the event of
its own epocheacute
erefore it appears to be insufficient and even erroneous to speak of
ldquothe claim of nihilation that has come to the clearingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) and
to say that ldquonihilation first requires the lsquonorsquo as what is to be said in the
letting-be of beingsrdquo (983090983095983091) is phrase attributes a linguistic structure
to the ldquonotrdquo that is at the same time also denied Language is defined as
something claimedmdashnot claimed by a pre-linguistic ldquoexistentiell rdquo beyond
of language but by its own exterior limits and thus by what cannot raise
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1742
T h e R e l a t i o n44
claims Heidegger therefore goes around in circlesmdasheven if we consider
all the complications of going going over and inaccessibility He goes
against himself and he might be going that way because he thinks lan-
guage as a response
e commentary on the structure of transcending (namely that it must
be that of in-transcending) and intentionality (that it must be suspended
in dis-intending) made it clear that these movements for Heidegger
always emerge first in their ldquonotrdquo and their suspension In very much
the same way we could clarify the structure of the claim as Anspruch
as Heidegger understands it not by reading this word according to themeasure of its dictionary meaning but by reading it based on its context
with an emphatically stressed An speaking onto
en the claim raised by the ldquonotrdquomdashfrom nowhere by nobody and mind
you nevermdashwould be a ldquospeakingrdquo onto and in the proximity of language
and its words and particles of negation which persisting in the onto
would never make it out of this proximity to reach language e claim
would be a speaking onto because it would never be a speech in the sense
of a statement or a performative act It would always be en route or on
the way to language An-spruch would be toward language what language
itself is not and that it itself is not presentmdashit would be the irruption of
language its start
In fact according to Heideggerrsquos text ldquothe claim of nihilationrdquo cannot be
more than this cannot be language For he says of this claim that it callsfor the ldquonordquo as what is to be said but never as something already said
never already given in or by language rather as a ldquonordquo that remains still
and always yet to be said and as what is to be said remains forever im-
minent in every possible future Speaking onto and speaking its ldquonot rdquo onto
language the claim would be the retentive relation in which language is
kept away from itself but at the same time held to and held back from
itself and sustained and held in this holding onto and holding back But
unlike what an obvious misunderstanding would suggest this sustaining
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 45
does not hold in potentia as something always merely ldquopossiblerdquo but
never ldquorealrdquo Rather it holds on this side of all modal categories in statu
nascendi et moriendi (as Celan writes in an explicit reference to Heidegger
in a letter to Werner Weber) held out into the happening of language as
perpetual beginning (983089983097983097983095 983091983097983096)
is understanding of the speaking-onto of the ldquonotrdquo also clarifies the
structure of intention It would not be some already given relation of an
already constituted consciousness to a content of consciousness but the
irruption of these relations in their pre-withholding and therefore inten-
tion only arising out of the freedom from such a relation and the opennessto it us every An- that Heidegger writes is to be read not merely as a
ldquoclose tordquo or ldquoontordquo in the sense of a given extension but always also as
the echo the Greek ana- as a privative in- or un- In words like Anspruch
(claim) or Anruf (call) or Answesen (presence) Angehen (approach) and
Ankunft (arrival) with every ldquoclose tordquo and ldquoontordquo at the same time a ldquonotrdquo
and a ldquonordquo is also said that relates relation to irrelation reference to ir-
reference direction to indirection An- is the prefix of differencemdashbut
not only of an intra-linguistic difference between different meanings of
one and the same morpheme but before meanings can appear at all the
difference between language speaking its ldquonotrdquo and language speaking
onto something An- not unlike vor- zu- hin- and aus- is the prefix of
ontological difference Whoever uses ldquospeaking ontordquo in this sense in fact
is saying something insufficient and erroneous but is also saying that this
insufficiency and erroneousness belongs to the structure of language
Language itself is the speaking onto language and therefore a speakingonto another language or something other than language
Understood as ldquospeaking ontordquo ( An-spruch) language is its othering ( An-
derung )
e An- is therefore the word and the fore-word of the madness of lan-
guage In the essay ldquoLanguage in the Poemrdquo Heidegger writes as a com-
mentary on the line ldquoe madman [Wahnsinnige] has diedrdquo from Georg
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1942
T h e R e l a t i o n46
Traklrsquos ldquoPsalmrdquo ldquoe word Wahn comes from Old High German wana
which means lsquowithoutrsquo e madman sensesmdashsenses in fact as no one
else does But he remains without the sense of others He is of another
sense Sinnan originally means to travel to strive for to strike a direc-
tion e Indo-Germanic root sent and set means lsquopathrsquo e departed is
the madman because he is on his way somewhere elserdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983091)983091 e
other way that the madman follows is the way into de-parture into a dif-
ference that departs from every possible distinction and discrimination
So Heidegger can write about the stranger who is the madman without
the sense of the other ldquois stranger unfolds the essence of the human
into the beginning of what has not yet come to bearing [Tragen] (OldHigh German giberan) is quieter and hence more stilling element
in the nature of mortals that has not been borne out is what the poet
calls the unbornrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983093)983092 But if the other waymdashthis without-path the
aporiamdashleads into what has not been borne out how do we stand with
what is defined as ldquogesturerdquo in ldquoA Dialogue on Languagerdquo ldquothe originary
gathering of bearing against and bearing tordquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983097) And how does the
thought of the not-yet-born and the unborn relate to the thought of being
as difference which is described in ldquoe Onto-eo-Logical Constitu-
tion of Metaphysicsrdquo in the following way ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ]
alone grants and holds apart the lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming
and the arrival are held toward one another are borne away from and
toward each other e difference of Being and beings as the inter-rift of
overwhelming and arrival is the bearing out [ Austrag ] of the two in un-
concealing keeping in concealment Within this bearing out there prevails
a clearing of what veils and closes itself offmdashand this prevalence bestowsthe being apart and the being toward each other of overwhelming and
arrivalrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)983093
In these sentences it becomes clear that the words ldquoheldrdquo and ldquobornerdquo
are used in the same sense being held in relation (Ver-halten) is being
borne out ( Austrag ) Both describe the movement of differentiation that
Heidegger writes as Unter-Schied (literally inter -rift ) to separate it from
rational distinctions as well as from differences in perception and to
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 47
emphasize the ldquobetweenrdquo that corresponds to the inter of the unter in
the concept of Unterschied (difference) e German word Austrag is the
literal translation of the Latin differentia which in turn is a translation
of the decisive Greek term diaphoraacute In a definition provided in the first
essay on Trakl ldquoLanguagerdquo (in 983089983097983093983088) diaphoraacute difference and bearing
out are juxtaposed with the following commentary ldquoe intimacy of
dif-ference [Unter-Schied ] is the unifying element of the diaphora the
carrying out [ Austrag ] that carries through e dif-ference carries out
world in its worlding carries out things in their thinging us carrying
them out it carries them toward one anotherrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) And a few
sentences later the series of synonymous concepts is extended to includeEreignis the appropriating event gesture as bearing and granting ldquoe
dif-ference for world and thing disclosingly appropriates things into bear-
ing a world it disclosingly appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo
(983090983088983088) In accordance with these connections in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo
relation (Verhaumlltnis ) is thought out of the appropriating event and more
precisely as the appropriative happening of the essence of language ldquoFor
that appropriating holding self-retaining is the relation of all relations
us our sayingmdashalways an answeringmdashremains forever relational Rela-
tion [Ver-haumlltnis as holding to itself] is thought of here always in terms
of the event and no longer conceived in the form of a mere referencerdquo
(983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093) But if relation means appropriation if appropriation means
difference difference means differentia and diaphora and the latter two
mean the carrying out that carries through while carrying out means
bearing the question unavoidable emerges How do the concepts from
the Trakl commentary the unborn and what is not borne out relate to thisseries And how can this series be unified with the other the without-
path and the aporia of madness ese questions are not yet answered
by the remark that Heidegger understood human Dasein in the sense of
ek-sistence as the ecstatic being outside of itself of madness is only
makes the question more urgent of whether this being-in-madness can
be thought with the concepts of difference and ldquobearing outrdquo Or whether
this madness overburdens ldquothe carrying out that carries throughrdquo and the
ldquobearing outrdquo and is therefore thrown away evacuated and forgotten
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2142
T h e R e l a t i o n48
e question therefore is once again whether the madness of ek-sis-
tence of the ldquonotrdquo of Being and of language can still be articulated in a
languagemdasheven if it as outreacute as Heideggerrsquos
Or Is it possible to think the not-borne-out as the not-borne-out More
precisely Does the not-borne-out allow itself to be thought only as a not
yet or beyond that does it allow itself to be thought as a never borne
out
Hence Can the ldquonotrdquo as a ldquoneverrdquomdashas a never of the sayablemdashdefine the
horizon of language And can this ldquoneverrdquo then also provide the tran-scendental horizon of the possibility of what is sayable Is the ldquoneverrdquo
the condition of the happening of language and the horizon of being
Or Can the ldquoneverrdquo be thought But How could it be other than never be
thought Consequently If the ldquoneverrdquo were the pre- and proto-predicative
happening that is called ldquoBeingrdquo and later more precisely coming-over
(Uumlberkommnis ) because it is what ldquoovercomesrdquo sur-prises overwhelms
more than just comes andmdashoverburdens erefore Can the unbearable
be borne and borne out
Otherwise How could Beingmdashwhether as happening history destiny
or coming-overmdashas the unbearable not be borne Because Can the un-
bearable be found at all otherwise unbearable than as always still and
nevertheless borne And then still not erefore Is there not in Being
itself such a still and nevertheless a but that keeps Being at a distancefrom Being and keeps Being out of Being and in this out and apart brings
it together
However What does the ldquooutrdquo mean in ldquoout of each otherrdquo and in ldquobearing
outrdquo if it still contains a ldquotogetherrdquo Does it refer to an originary synthesis
before every predicative synthesis Is not such a reference misleading if it
suggests a ldquotogetherrdquo there where we can encounter only an ldquoout of each
otherrdquomdasheven if we encounter it in the impossibility of its encounter
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 49
In his seminar in Le or in September 983089983097983094983094 Heidegger cites a paragraph
from the chapter ldquoOn the impossibility of a cosmological proof of Godrsquos
existencerdquo from Kantrsquos First Critique ese stunning sentencesmdashwhich
with their evocation of sinking floating without stop and the abyss
may well have contributed to the descriptions of anxiety in Being and
Time (983089983097983094983090) and ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo (983089983097983097983096)mdashspeak explicitly not only
about the groundless but also about the unbearable Kant writes
e unconditioned necessity which we need so indispensably as the ultimate
sustainer of all things is for human reason the true abyss Even eternitymdash
however awful the sublimity with which a Haller might portray itmdashdoes not
make such a dizzying impression on the mind for eternity only measures the
duration of things but it does not sustain that duration One cannot resist the
thought of it but one also cannot bear it that a being might as it were say
to itself ldquoI am from eternity to eternity outside me is nothing except what is
something merely through my will but whence then am Irdquo Here everything
caves in beneath us and the greatest perfection as well as the smallest hover
without hold before speculative reason for which it would cost nothing to
let the one as much as the other disappear without the least obstacle (Kant
983089983097983097983097 983093983095983092 Heidegger 983090983088983088983091 983089983095) God the highest ground of what is appears in
its monologue as an abyss that does not carry it but lets it collapse And Kant
says of this thought of a God that does not carry itself that ldquoone cannot resist
the thought of it but one also cannot bear itrdquo
With this the primal scene of critical transcendental philosophy and
speculative idealism is described an ens realissimum et nesessarium that does not contain the guarantee of its own being a God that is not
a causa sui and sinks in the abyss of its own question after a ground
cannot offer beings any more hold and must therefore pull down in
its own fall the categories that render it thinkable necessary and real
What remains is the scene of the sinking away of the totality of beings
ldquothe greatest perfection as well as the smallestrdquo and with this scene the
form of representation the mere idea of reason in which beings as a
whole together with the categorial structures of their knowability survive
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2342
T h e R e l a t i o n50
under the condition of their transcendentality For the ldquotranscendental
objectrdquomdashthat Kant can only speak of after the sinking away of a world
and its transcendental groundmdashis not an empirical object and not even
an object at all is object as Kant writes ldquotherefore cannot be further
intuited by us and that may therefore be called the non-empirical ie
transcendental object = Xrdquo (983089983097983097983097 983090983091983091) In his Kant book Heidegger calls
this transcendental X ldquoa Nothingrdquo that is at the same time ldquoSomethingrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983096983094) and describes the X as ldquothe horizon of a standing-against is
horizon is indeed not object but rather a Nothing if by object we mean
a being which is apprehended thematicallyrdquo (983096983095) Furthermore ldquoOnly if
the letting-stand-against of is a holding oneself in the nothing canthe representing allow a not-nothing ie something like a being rdquo (983093983089)
In the Kant commentary the ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo ismdashlike
the anxiety scenes in Being and Time in the Freiburg lecture and more
abstractly in the ldquoLetterrdquo in different waysmdashthe gesture of the horizontal-
transcendental constitution of the domain of objectivity and with that
at the same time of no longer onto-theologically founded beings held
in the mere form of representation not a creatio but still a constitutio ex
nihilo e fact that ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo as Kant examines
it in his critical philosophy stops at the form of representation (Vorstel-
lung ) and the idea of reason makes these gestures into a regulatio nihili
and prevents the further analysis of the transcendental form of being
represented and posited
Heidegger took on this further analysis starting with the exposition of
Dasein in Being and Time is analysis must show that the sinking of theens necessarium and with it that of mere being (which does not hold and
bear itself) remain irreducible to the beings of representation the idea
or the concept It must expose the fact that transcendental representa-
tion merely displaces the ldquonotrdquo that it encounters in the sinking of the
highest being instead of engaging it as the decisive content of being To
do justice to the implications of the anxiety-scene and the unbearable
question of God for his ground the classical analytical concept of differ-
ence between ground and the grounded positing and the posited must
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 41
of the structure of intentionality which is too strongly emphasized in his
thoughts on the ldquonotrdquo to have merely slipped into them For Heidegger
it is important that the ldquonotrdquo is not a nihil negativum or absolutum not
an empty ldquonotrdquo merely posited by a ldquosubjectrdquo or an ldquoIrdquomdasheven if posited
like in Fichte and Hegel through a not-positing For if it were a positum
it would not only be a logicized ldquonotrdquo but also a something (ens rationis )
and so precisely what it is not At the same time it is also important for
Heidegger that the happening of the ldquonotrdquomdashwhich albeit always pos-
sible still ldquorarely enoughrdquo really is (983089983097983097983096 983096983096)mdashdoes not disappear in an
annihilation once again in such a case the ldquonothingrdquo would not be a
ldquonotrdquo it would not be ldquothererdquo it could not be experienced as a happeningor the happening of the withdrawal from happening Joined together the
two observations can be understood in such a way that the ldquonotrdquo cannot
be either a ldquosomethingrdquo or the fait accompli of a mere absence It opens
itself as the zone of separation between beings and empty nothing and
it can be the ldquonotrdquo only as that which emerges in the experience of the
departure or slipping away of all beings e experience of this ldquonotrdquo and
the ldquonotrdquo of this experiencemdashand an abyss opens up in the reversibility
or irreversibility of these expressions and their double genitivesmdashis the
decisive pre-predicative synthesis It is not an archeacute an in itself unified
principle It is structurally an-archic (and in this sense originary) since it
is a synthesis only because of the split that crosses it Heidegger describes
this bifurcation as a ldquorepelling reference toward beings [abweisende
Verweisung ]rdquo983090 (983089983097983097983096 983097983088) as a reference to beings through which they are
brought together and at the same time repelled as a whole At the same
time as this ldquonotrdquo that formulates itself as a ldquonordquo and in Heideggerrsquosdefinition as reference carries an emphatically linguistic trait the experi-
ence of Being itself emerges as the happening of this repelling reference
e ldquonotrdquo is the in itself differentiated archi-disjunction
e separation therefore takes place between beings as a whole and
Being and not between the ldquonotrdquo and beingmdashthis separation is accom-
plished or is (or ldquoexistsrdquo) in the ldquonotrdquo ldquoe nothing itself annulsrdquo (983089983097983097983096
983097983088) it is what happens in the repelling reference and it is that it happens
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1542
T h e R e l a t i o n42
as this reference Since the ldquonotrdquo would not be without its happening
(without its nihilation) the previous phrase can be made more precise
ldquoBeing nihilatesmdashas beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
is is to say Being is always already not-anymore and always not-yet It
is in that it is the ldquonotrdquo of itself As difference from itself it is at the same
time the difference from everything and in everything that exists
e title of ldquoBeingrdquo in Heideggerrsquos thinking belongs only to the movement
of the ldquonotrdquo to the separation the difference as inter-rift (Unter-Schied )
the ontological difference is is why we find in the preface to ldquoOn theEssence of Groundrdquo the following ambiguous formulation ldquoe onto-
logical difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is
programmatic formula can be misunderstood because it places the ldquonotrdquo
between beings and Being as if they were two beings of different nature
or intensity But this ldquonotrdquo is to be thought as the ldquobetweenrdquo with which
Being emerges as differentiated from all even the highest of all beings
Being is what is resulting from and in the separation that happens in the
ldquonotrdquo and thus itself is the ldquobetweenrdquo the difference erefore Heide-
gger can write ldquonothing and Being the samerdquo ldquoHolding itself out into the
nothing Dasein is in each case already beyond beings as a whole Such
being beyond beings we call transcendence if [Dasein] were not in
advance holding itself out into the nothing then it could never adopt a
stance toward beings nor even toward itself rdquo (983097983089)
For Heidegger to transcend means above all to transcend into a ldquonotrdquoand therefore to transcend into a ldquonotrdquo of even this transcending It does
not mean indication and relation ldquotordquo but repelling and repelling reference
ldquofromrdquo as well as repelling of all reference in-predication ir-relation
dis-intention Transcendingmdashif it is not already connected through
a continuous movement with a homogenous other and thereby in no
need of transcendingmdashmust transcend into a nec trans and can only be
a transcending into the un-enterable it must be attranscendence
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 43
ldquoLe pas au-delagraverdquo writes Blanchot step beyond not beyond step beyond
to the not of the step
Only as transition into the not-going can it reach the zone of difference in
its own movement where first a possible toward of this movement opens
up as a relation to something and an intentional attitude to beings as
beings becomes possible us intentions are grounded in a structure of
transcendence that in its turn is defined by a ldquonotrdquo a halt a putting on
hold or a suspension Only this arrest offers the possibility of a relation
to something only in this suspension happens not something but only
the that of it happening
e ldquonotrdquo of this in-transcendence therefore can happen in two ways
the retreating reference to something and the experience that the hap-
pening of this reference is other than and different from the reference
conceptualized as a relation and its correlates
is arresting of the ldquonotrdquo in in-transcendence clearly defines the mini-
mal structure of language Whenever and in whatever way language is
spoken there is reference that distances But beyond this something else
also happens that cannot be reduced to this (repelling) reference and the
agents emerging from it the referents and their relations to each other
Whether absolutely novel or older than old it is incommensurable with
them e intentional attitude only exists as crossed out by the event of
its own epocheacute
erefore it appears to be insufficient and even erroneous to speak of
ldquothe claim of nihilation that has come to the clearingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) and
to say that ldquonihilation first requires the lsquonorsquo as what is to be said in the
letting-be of beingsrdquo (983090983095983091) is phrase attributes a linguistic structure
to the ldquonotrdquo that is at the same time also denied Language is defined as
something claimedmdashnot claimed by a pre-linguistic ldquoexistentiell rdquo beyond
of language but by its own exterior limits and thus by what cannot raise
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1742
T h e R e l a t i o n44
claims Heidegger therefore goes around in circlesmdasheven if we consider
all the complications of going going over and inaccessibility He goes
against himself and he might be going that way because he thinks lan-
guage as a response
e commentary on the structure of transcending (namely that it must
be that of in-transcending) and intentionality (that it must be suspended
in dis-intending) made it clear that these movements for Heidegger
always emerge first in their ldquonotrdquo and their suspension In very much
the same way we could clarify the structure of the claim as Anspruch
as Heidegger understands it not by reading this word according to themeasure of its dictionary meaning but by reading it based on its context
with an emphatically stressed An speaking onto
en the claim raised by the ldquonotrdquomdashfrom nowhere by nobody and mind
you nevermdashwould be a ldquospeakingrdquo onto and in the proximity of language
and its words and particles of negation which persisting in the onto
would never make it out of this proximity to reach language e claim
would be a speaking onto because it would never be a speech in the sense
of a statement or a performative act It would always be en route or on
the way to language An-spruch would be toward language what language
itself is not and that it itself is not presentmdashit would be the irruption of
language its start
In fact according to Heideggerrsquos text ldquothe claim of nihilationrdquo cannot be
more than this cannot be language For he says of this claim that it callsfor the ldquonordquo as what is to be said but never as something already said
never already given in or by language rather as a ldquonordquo that remains still
and always yet to be said and as what is to be said remains forever im-
minent in every possible future Speaking onto and speaking its ldquonot rdquo onto
language the claim would be the retentive relation in which language is
kept away from itself but at the same time held to and held back from
itself and sustained and held in this holding onto and holding back But
unlike what an obvious misunderstanding would suggest this sustaining
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 45
does not hold in potentia as something always merely ldquopossiblerdquo but
never ldquorealrdquo Rather it holds on this side of all modal categories in statu
nascendi et moriendi (as Celan writes in an explicit reference to Heidegger
in a letter to Werner Weber) held out into the happening of language as
perpetual beginning (983089983097983097983095 983091983097983096)
is understanding of the speaking-onto of the ldquonotrdquo also clarifies the
structure of intention It would not be some already given relation of an
already constituted consciousness to a content of consciousness but the
irruption of these relations in their pre-withholding and therefore inten-
tion only arising out of the freedom from such a relation and the opennessto it us every An- that Heidegger writes is to be read not merely as a
ldquoclose tordquo or ldquoontordquo in the sense of a given extension but always also as
the echo the Greek ana- as a privative in- or un- In words like Anspruch
(claim) or Anruf (call) or Answesen (presence) Angehen (approach) and
Ankunft (arrival) with every ldquoclose tordquo and ldquoontordquo at the same time a ldquonotrdquo
and a ldquonordquo is also said that relates relation to irrelation reference to ir-
reference direction to indirection An- is the prefix of differencemdashbut
not only of an intra-linguistic difference between different meanings of
one and the same morpheme but before meanings can appear at all the
difference between language speaking its ldquonotrdquo and language speaking
onto something An- not unlike vor- zu- hin- and aus- is the prefix of
ontological difference Whoever uses ldquospeaking ontordquo in this sense in fact
is saying something insufficient and erroneous but is also saying that this
insufficiency and erroneousness belongs to the structure of language
Language itself is the speaking onto language and therefore a speakingonto another language or something other than language
Understood as ldquospeaking ontordquo ( An-spruch) language is its othering ( An-
derung )
e An- is therefore the word and the fore-word of the madness of lan-
guage In the essay ldquoLanguage in the Poemrdquo Heidegger writes as a com-
mentary on the line ldquoe madman [Wahnsinnige] has diedrdquo from Georg
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1942
T h e R e l a t i o n46
Traklrsquos ldquoPsalmrdquo ldquoe word Wahn comes from Old High German wana
which means lsquowithoutrsquo e madman sensesmdashsenses in fact as no one
else does But he remains without the sense of others He is of another
sense Sinnan originally means to travel to strive for to strike a direc-
tion e Indo-Germanic root sent and set means lsquopathrsquo e departed is
the madman because he is on his way somewhere elserdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983091)983091 e
other way that the madman follows is the way into de-parture into a dif-
ference that departs from every possible distinction and discrimination
So Heidegger can write about the stranger who is the madman without
the sense of the other ldquois stranger unfolds the essence of the human
into the beginning of what has not yet come to bearing [Tragen] (OldHigh German giberan) is quieter and hence more stilling element
in the nature of mortals that has not been borne out is what the poet
calls the unbornrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983093)983092 But if the other waymdashthis without-path the
aporiamdashleads into what has not been borne out how do we stand with
what is defined as ldquogesturerdquo in ldquoA Dialogue on Languagerdquo ldquothe originary
gathering of bearing against and bearing tordquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983097) And how does the
thought of the not-yet-born and the unborn relate to the thought of being
as difference which is described in ldquoe Onto-eo-Logical Constitu-
tion of Metaphysicsrdquo in the following way ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ]
alone grants and holds apart the lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming
and the arrival are held toward one another are borne away from and
toward each other e difference of Being and beings as the inter-rift of
overwhelming and arrival is the bearing out [ Austrag ] of the two in un-
concealing keeping in concealment Within this bearing out there prevails
a clearing of what veils and closes itself offmdashand this prevalence bestowsthe being apart and the being toward each other of overwhelming and
arrivalrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)983093
In these sentences it becomes clear that the words ldquoheldrdquo and ldquobornerdquo
are used in the same sense being held in relation (Ver-halten) is being
borne out ( Austrag ) Both describe the movement of differentiation that
Heidegger writes as Unter-Schied (literally inter -rift ) to separate it from
rational distinctions as well as from differences in perception and to
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 47
emphasize the ldquobetweenrdquo that corresponds to the inter of the unter in
the concept of Unterschied (difference) e German word Austrag is the
literal translation of the Latin differentia which in turn is a translation
of the decisive Greek term diaphoraacute In a definition provided in the first
essay on Trakl ldquoLanguagerdquo (in 983089983097983093983088) diaphoraacute difference and bearing
out are juxtaposed with the following commentary ldquoe intimacy of
dif-ference [Unter-Schied ] is the unifying element of the diaphora the
carrying out [ Austrag ] that carries through e dif-ference carries out
world in its worlding carries out things in their thinging us carrying
them out it carries them toward one anotherrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) And a few
sentences later the series of synonymous concepts is extended to includeEreignis the appropriating event gesture as bearing and granting ldquoe
dif-ference for world and thing disclosingly appropriates things into bear-
ing a world it disclosingly appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo
(983090983088983088) In accordance with these connections in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo
relation (Verhaumlltnis ) is thought out of the appropriating event and more
precisely as the appropriative happening of the essence of language ldquoFor
that appropriating holding self-retaining is the relation of all relations
us our sayingmdashalways an answeringmdashremains forever relational Rela-
tion [Ver-haumlltnis as holding to itself] is thought of here always in terms
of the event and no longer conceived in the form of a mere referencerdquo
(983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093) But if relation means appropriation if appropriation means
difference difference means differentia and diaphora and the latter two
mean the carrying out that carries through while carrying out means
bearing the question unavoidable emerges How do the concepts from
the Trakl commentary the unborn and what is not borne out relate to thisseries And how can this series be unified with the other the without-
path and the aporia of madness ese questions are not yet answered
by the remark that Heidegger understood human Dasein in the sense of
ek-sistence as the ecstatic being outside of itself of madness is only
makes the question more urgent of whether this being-in-madness can
be thought with the concepts of difference and ldquobearing outrdquo Or whether
this madness overburdens ldquothe carrying out that carries throughrdquo and the
ldquobearing outrdquo and is therefore thrown away evacuated and forgotten
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2142
T h e R e l a t i o n48
e question therefore is once again whether the madness of ek-sis-
tence of the ldquonotrdquo of Being and of language can still be articulated in a
languagemdasheven if it as outreacute as Heideggerrsquos
Or Is it possible to think the not-borne-out as the not-borne-out More
precisely Does the not-borne-out allow itself to be thought only as a not
yet or beyond that does it allow itself to be thought as a never borne
out
Hence Can the ldquonotrdquo as a ldquoneverrdquomdashas a never of the sayablemdashdefine the
horizon of language And can this ldquoneverrdquo then also provide the tran-scendental horizon of the possibility of what is sayable Is the ldquoneverrdquo
the condition of the happening of language and the horizon of being
Or Can the ldquoneverrdquo be thought But How could it be other than never be
thought Consequently If the ldquoneverrdquo were the pre- and proto-predicative
happening that is called ldquoBeingrdquo and later more precisely coming-over
(Uumlberkommnis ) because it is what ldquoovercomesrdquo sur-prises overwhelms
more than just comes andmdashoverburdens erefore Can the unbearable
be borne and borne out
Otherwise How could Beingmdashwhether as happening history destiny
or coming-overmdashas the unbearable not be borne Because Can the un-
bearable be found at all otherwise unbearable than as always still and
nevertheless borne And then still not erefore Is there not in Being
itself such a still and nevertheless a but that keeps Being at a distancefrom Being and keeps Being out of Being and in this out and apart brings
it together
However What does the ldquooutrdquo mean in ldquoout of each otherrdquo and in ldquobearing
outrdquo if it still contains a ldquotogetherrdquo Does it refer to an originary synthesis
before every predicative synthesis Is not such a reference misleading if it
suggests a ldquotogetherrdquo there where we can encounter only an ldquoout of each
otherrdquomdasheven if we encounter it in the impossibility of its encounter
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 49
In his seminar in Le or in September 983089983097983094983094 Heidegger cites a paragraph
from the chapter ldquoOn the impossibility of a cosmological proof of Godrsquos
existencerdquo from Kantrsquos First Critique ese stunning sentencesmdashwhich
with their evocation of sinking floating without stop and the abyss
may well have contributed to the descriptions of anxiety in Being and
Time (983089983097983094983090) and ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo (983089983097983097983096)mdashspeak explicitly not only
about the groundless but also about the unbearable Kant writes
e unconditioned necessity which we need so indispensably as the ultimate
sustainer of all things is for human reason the true abyss Even eternitymdash
however awful the sublimity with which a Haller might portray itmdashdoes not
make such a dizzying impression on the mind for eternity only measures the
duration of things but it does not sustain that duration One cannot resist the
thought of it but one also cannot bear it that a being might as it were say
to itself ldquoI am from eternity to eternity outside me is nothing except what is
something merely through my will but whence then am Irdquo Here everything
caves in beneath us and the greatest perfection as well as the smallest hover
without hold before speculative reason for which it would cost nothing to
let the one as much as the other disappear without the least obstacle (Kant
983089983097983097983097 983093983095983092 Heidegger 983090983088983088983091 983089983095) God the highest ground of what is appears in
its monologue as an abyss that does not carry it but lets it collapse And Kant
says of this thought of a God that does not carry itself that ldquoone cannot resist
the thought of it but one also cannot bear itrdquo
With this the primal scene of critical transcendental philosophy and
speculative idealism is described an ens realissimum et nesessarium that does not contain the guarantee of its own being a God that is not
a causa sui and sinks in the abyss of its own question after a ground
cannot offer beings any more hold and must therefore pull down in
its own fall the categories that render it thinkable necessary and real
What remains is the scene of the sinking away of the totality of beings
ldquothe greatest perfection as well as the smallestrdquo and with this scene the
form of representation the mere idea of reason in which beings as a
whole together with the categorial structures of their knowability survive
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2342
T h e R e l a t i o n50
under the condition of their transcendentality For the ldquotranscendental
objectrdquomdashthat Kant can only speak of after the sinking away of a world
and its transcendental groundmdashis not an empirical object and not even
an object at all is object as Kant writes ldquotherefore cannot be further
intuited by us and that may therefore be called the non-empirical ie
transcendental object = Xrdquo (983089983097983097983097 983090983091983091) In his Kant book Heidegger calls
this transcendental X ldquoa Nothingrdquo that is at the same time ldquoSomethingrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983096983094) and describes the X as ldquothe horizon of a standing-against is
horizon is indeed not object but rather a Nothing if by object we mean
a being which is apprehended thematicallyrdquo (983096983095) Furthermore ldquoOnly if
the letting-stand-against of is a holding oneself in the nothing canthe representing allow a not-nothing ie something like a being rdquo (983093983089)
In the Kant commentary the ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo ismdashlike
the anxiety scenes in Being and Time in the Freiburg lecture and more
abstractly in the ldquoLetterrdquo in different waysmdashthe gesture of the horizontal-
transcendental constitution of the domain of objectivity and with that
at the same time of no longer onto-theologically founded beings held
in the mere form of representation not a creatio but still a constitutio ex
nihilo e fact that ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo as Kant examines
it in his critical philosophy stops at the form of representation (Vorstel-
lung ) and the idea of reason makes these gestures into a regulatio nihili
and prevents the further analysis of the transcendental form of being
represented and posited
Heidegger took on this further analysis starting with the exposition of
Dasein in Being and Time is analysis must show that the sinking of theens necessarium and with it that of mere being (which does not hold and
bear itself) remain irreducible to the beings of representation the idea
or the concept It must expose the fact that transcendental representa-
tion merely displaces the ldquonotrdquo that it encounters in the sinking of the
highest being instead of engaging it as the decisive content of being To
do justice to the implications of the anxiety-scene and the unbearable
question of God for his ground the classical analytical concept of differ-
ence between ground and the grounded positing and the posited must
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1542
T h e R e l a t i o n42
as this reference Since the ldquonotrdquo would not be without its happening
(without its nihilation) the previous phrase can be made more precise
ldquoBeing nihilatesmdashas beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983091)
is is to say Being is always already not-anymore and always not-yet It
is in that it is the ldquonotrdquo of itself As difference from itself it is at the same
time the difference from everything and in everything that exists
e title of ldquoBeingrdquo in Heideggerrsquos thinking belongs only to the movement
of the ldquonotrdquo to the separation the difference as inter-rift (Unter-Schied )
the ontological difference is is why we find in the preface to ldquoOn theEssence of Groundrdquo the following ambiguous formulation ldquoe onto-
logical difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is
programmatic formula can be misunderstood because it places the ldquonotrdquo
between beings and Being as if they were two beings of different nature
or intensity But this ldquonotrdquo is to be thought as the ldquobetweenrdquo with which
Being emerges as differentiated from all even the highest of all beings
Being is what is resulting from and in the separation that happens in the
ldquonotrdquo and thus itself is the ldquobetweenrdquo the difference erefore Heide-
gger can write ldquonothing and Being the samerdquo ldquoHolding itself out into the
nothing Dasein is in each case already beyond beings as a whole Such
being beyond beings we call transcendence if [Dasein] were not in
advance holding itself out into the nothing then it could never adopt a
stance toward beings nor even toward itself rdquo (983097983089)
For Heidegger to transcend means above all to transcend into a ldquonotrdquoand therefore to transcend into a ldquonotrdquo of even this transcending It does
not mean indication and relation ldquotordquo but repelling and repelling reference
ldquofromrdquo as well as repelling of all reference in-predication ir-relation
dis-intention Transcendingmdashif it is not already connected through
a continuous movement with a homogenous other and thereby in no
need of transcendingmdashmust transcend into a nec trans and can only be
a transcending into the un-enterable it must be attranscendence
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 43
ldquoLe pas au-delagraverdquo writes Blanchot step beyond not beyond step beyond
to the not of the step
Only as transition into the not-going can it reach the zone of difference in
its own movement where first a possible toward of this movement opens
up as a relation to something and an intentional attitude to beings as
beings becomes possible us intentions are grounded in a structure of
transcendence that in its turn is defined by a ldquonotrdquo a halt a putting on
hold or a suspension Only this arrest offers the possibility of a relation
to something only in this suspension happens not something but only
the that of it happening
e ldquonotrdquo of this in-transcendence therefore can happen in two ways
the retreating reference to something and the experience that the hap-
pening of this reference is other than and different from the reference
conceptualized as a relation and its correlates
is arresting of the ldquonotrdquo in in-transcendence clearly defines the mini-
mal structure of language Whenever and in whatever way language is
spoken there is reference that distances But beyond this something else
also happens that cannot be reduced to this (repelling) reference and the
agents emerging from it the referents and their relations to each other
Whether absolutely novel or older than old it is incommensurable with
them e intentional attitude only exists as crossed out by the event of
its own epocheacute
erefore it appears to be insufficient and even erroneous to speak of
ldquothe claim of nihilation that has come to the clearingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) and
to say that ldquonihilation first requires the lsquonorsquo as what is to be said in the
letting-be of beingsrdquo (983090983095983091) is phrase attributes a linguistic structure
to the ldquonotrdquo that is at the same time also denied Language is defined as
something claimedmdashnot claimed by a pre-linguistic ldquoexistentiell rdquo beyond
of language but by its own exterior limits and thus by what cannot raise
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1742
T h e R e l a t i o n44
claims Heidegger therefore goes around in circlesmdasheven if we consider
all the complications of going going over and inaccessibility He goes
against himself and he might be going that way because he thinks lan-
guage as a response
e commentary on the structure of transcending (namely that it must
be that of in-transcending) and intentionality (that it must be suspended
in dis-intending) made it clear that these movements for Heidegger
always emerge first in their ldquonotrdquo and their suspension In very much
the same way we could clarify the structure of the claim as Anspruch
as Heidegger understands it not by reading this word according to themeasure of its dictionary meaning but by reading it based on its context
with an emphatically stressed An speaking onto
en the claim raised by the ldquonotrdquomdashfrom nowhere by nobody and mind
you nevermdashwould be a ldquospeakingrdquo onto and in the proximity of language
and its words and particles of negation which persisting in the onto
would never make it out of this proximity to reach language e claim
would be a speaking onto because it would never be a speech in the sense
of a statement or a performative act It would always be en route or on
the way to language An-spruch would be toward language what language
itself is not and that it itself is not presentmdashit would be the irruption of
language its start
In fact according to Heideggerrsquos text ldquothe claim of nihilationrdquo cannot be
more than this cannot be language For he says of this claim that it callsfor the ldquonordquo as what is to be said but never as something already said
never already given in or by language rather as a ldquonordquo that remains still
and always yet to be said and as what is to be said remains forever im-
minent in every possible future Speaking onto and speaking its ldquonot rdquo onto
language the claim would be the retentive relation in which language is
kept away from itself but at the same time held to and held back from
itself and sustained and held in this holding onto and holding back But
unlike what an obvious misunderstanding would suggest this sustaining
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 45
does not hold in potentia as something always merely ldquopossiblerdquo but
never ldquorealrdquo Rather it holds on this side of all modal categories in statu
nascendi et moriendi (as Celan writes in an explicit reference to Heidegger
in a letter to Werner Weber) held out into the happening of language as
perpetual beginning (983089983097983097983095 983091983097983096)
is understanding of the speaking-onto of the ldquonotrdquo also clarifies the
structure of intention It would not be some already given relation of an
already constituted consciousness to a content of consciousness but the
irruption of these relations in their pre-withholding and therefore inten-
tion only arising out of the freedom from such a relation and the opennessto it us every An- that Heidegger writes is to be read not merely as a
ldquoclose tordquo or ldquoontordquo in the sense of a given extension but always also as
the echo the Greek ana- as a privative in- or un- In words like Anspruch
(claim) or Anruf (call) or Answesen (presence) Angehen (approach) and
Ankunft (arrival) with every ldquoclose tordquo and ldquoontordquo at the same time a ldquonotrdquo
and a ldquonordquo is also said that relates relation to irrelation reference to ir-
reference direction to indirection An- is the prefix of differencemdashbut
not only of an intra-linguistic difference between different meanings of
one and the same morpheme but before meanings can appear at all the
difference between language speaking its ldquonotrdquo and language speaking
onto something An- not unlike vor- zu- hin- and aus- is the prefix of
ontological difference Whoever uses ldquospeaking ontordquo in this sense in fact
is saying something insufficient and erroneous but is also saying that this
insufficiency and erroneousness belongs to the structure of language
Language itself is the speaking onto language and therefore a speakingonto another language or something other than language
Understood as ldquospeaking ontordquo ( An-spruch) language is its othering ( An-
derung )
e An- is therefore the word and the fore-word of the madness of lan-
guage In the essay ldquoLanguage in the Poemrdquo Heidegger writes as a com-
mentary on the line ldquoe madman [Wahnsinnige] has diedrdquo from Georg
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1942
T h e R e l a t i o n46
Traklrsquos ldquoPsalmrdquo ldquoe word Wahn comes from Old High German wana
which means lsquowithoutrsquo e madman sensesmdashsenses in fact as no one
else does But he remains without the sense of others He is of another
sense Sinnan originally means to travel to strive for to strike a direc-
tion e Indo-Germanic root sent and set means lsquopathrsquo e departed is
the madman because he is on his way somewhere elserdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983091)983091 e
other way that the madman follows is the way into de-parture into a dif-
ference that departs from every possible distinction and discrimination
So Heidegger can write about the stranger who is the madman without
the sense of the other ldquois stranger unfolds the essence of the human
into the beginning of what has not yet come to bearing [Tragen] (OldHigh German giberan) is quieter and hence more stilling element
in the nature of mortals that has not been borne out is what the poet
calls the unbornrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983093)983092 But if the other waymdashthis without-path the
aporiamdashleads into what has not been borne out how do we stand with
what is defined as ldquogesturerdquo in ldquoA Dialogue on Languagerdquo ldquothe originary
gathering of bearing against and bearing tordquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983097) And how does the
thought of the not-yet-born and the unborn relate to the thought of being
as difference which is described in ldquoe Onto-eo-Logical Constitu-
tion of Metaphysicsrdquo in the following way ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ]
alone grants and holds apart the lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming
and the arrival are held toward one another are borne away from and
toward each other e difference of Being and beings as the inter-rift of
overwhelming and arrival is the bearing out [ Austrag ] of the two in un-
concealing keeping in concealment Within this bearing out there prevails
a clearing of what veils and closes itself offmdashand this prevalence bestowsthe being apart and the being toward each other of overwhelming and
arrivalrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)983093
In these sentences it becomes clear that the words ldquoheldrdquo and ldquobornerdquo
are used in the same sense being held in relation (Ver-halten) is being
borne out ( Austrag ) Both describe the movement of differentiation that
Heidegger writes as Unter-Schied (literally inter -rift ) to separate it from
rational distinctions as well as from differences in perception and to
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 47
emphasize the ldquobetweenrdquo that corresponds to the inter of the unter in
the concept of Unterschied (difference) e German word Austrag is the
literal translation of the Latin differentia which in turn is a translation
of the decisive Greek term diaphoraacute In a definition provided in the first
essay on Trakl ldquoLanguagerdquo (in 983089983097983093983088) diaphoraacute difference and bearing
out are juxtaposed with the following commentary ldquoe intimacy of
dif-ference [Unter-Schied ] is the unifying element of the diaphora the
carrying out [ Austrag ] that carries through e dif-ference carries out
world in its worlding carries out things in their thinging us carrying
them out it carries them toward one anotherrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) And a few
sentences later the series of synonymous concepts is extended to includeEreignis the appropriating event gesture as bearing and granting ldquoe
dif-ference for world and thing disclosingly appropriates things into bear-
ing a world it disclosingly appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo
(983090983088983088) In accordance with these connections in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo
relation (Verhaumlltnis ) is thought out of the appropriating event and more
precisely as the appropriative happening of the essence of language ldquoFor
that appropriating holding self-retaining is the relation of all relations
us our sayingmdashalways an answeringmdashremains forever relational Rela-
tion [Ver-haumlltnis as holding to itself] is thought of here always in terms
of the event and no longer conceived in the form of a mere referencerdquo
(983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093) But if relation means appropriation if appropriation means
difference difference means differentia and diaphora and the latter two
mean the carrying out that carries through while carrying out means
bearing the question unavoidable emerges How do the concepts from
the Trakl commentary the unborn and what is not borne out relate to thisseries And how can this series be unified with the other the without-
path and the aporia of madness ese questions are not yet answered
by the remark that Heidegger understood human Dasein in the sense of
ek-sistence as the ecstatic being outside of itself of madness is only
makes the question more urgent of whether this being-in-madness can
be thought with the concepts of difference and ldquobearing outrdquo Or whether
this madness overburdens ldquothe carrying out that carries throughrdquo and the
ldquobearing outrdquo and is therefore thrown away evacuated and forgotten
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2142
T h e R e l a t i o n48
e question therefore is once again whether the madness of ek-sis-
tence of the ldquonotrdquo of Being and of language can still be articulated in a
languagemdasheven if it as outreacute as Heideggerrsquos
Or Is it possible to think the not-borne-out as the not-borne-out More
precisely Does the not-borne-out allow itself to be thought only as a not
yet or beyond that does it allow itself to be thought as a never borne
out
Hence Can the ldquonotrdquo as a ldquoneverrdquomdashas a never of the sayablemdashdefine the
horizon of language And can this ldquoneverrdquo then also provide the tran-scendental horizon of the possibility of what is sayable Is the ldquoneverrdquo
the condition of the happening of language and the horizon of being
Or Can the ldquoneverrdquo be thought But How could it be other than never be
thought Consequently If the ldquoneverrdquo were the pre- and proto-predicative
happening that is called ldquoBeingrdquo and later more precisely coming-over
(Uumlberkommnis ) because it is what ldquoovercomesrdquo sur-prises overwhelms
more than just comes andmdashoverburdens erefore Can the unbearable
be borne and borne out
Otherwise How could Beingmdashwhether as happening history destiny
or coming-overmdashas the unbearable not be borne Because Can the un-
bearable be found at all otherwise unbearable than as always still and
nevertheless borne And then still not erefore Is there not in Being
itself such a still and nevertheless a but that keeps Being at a distancefrom Being and keeps Being out of Being and in this out and apart brings
it together
However What does the ldquooutrdquo mean in ldquoout of each otherrdquo and in ldquobearing
outrdquo if it still contains a ldquotogetherrdquo Does it refer to an originary synthesis
before every predicative synthesis Is not such a reference misleading if it
suggests a ldquotogetherrdquo there where we can encounter only an ldquoout of each
otherrdquomdasheven if we encounter it in the impossibility of its encounter
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 49
In his seminar in Le or in September 983089983097983094983094 Heidegger cites a paragraph
from the chapter ldquoOn the impossibility of a cosmological proof of Godrsquos
existencerdquo from Kantrsquos First Critique ese stunning sentencesmdashwhich
with their evocation of sinking floating without stop and the abyss
may well have contributed to the descriptions of anxiety in Being and
Time (983089983097983094983090) and ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo (983089983097983097983096)mdashspeak explicitly not only
about the groundless but also about the unbearable Kant writes
e unconditioned necessity which we need so indispensably as the ultimate
sustainer of all things is for human reason the true abyss Even eternitymdash
however awful the sublimity with which a Haller might portray itmdashdoes not
make such a dizzying impression on the mind for eternity only measures the
duration of things but it does not sustain that duration One cannot resist the
thought of it but one also cannot bear it that a being might as it were say
to itself ldquoI am from eternity to eternity outside me is nothing except what is
something merely through my will but whence then am Irdquo Here everything
caves in beneath us and the greatest perfection as well as the smallest hover
without hold before speculative reason for which it would cost nothing to
let the one as much as the other disappear without the least obstacle (Kant
983089983097983097983097 983093983095983092 Heidegger 983090983088983088983091 983089983095) God the highest ground of what is appears in
its monologue as an abyss that does not carry it but lets it collapse And Kant
says of this thought of a God that does not carry itself that ldquoone cannot resist
the thought of it but one also cannot bear itrdquo
With this the primal scene of critical transcendental philosophy and
speculative idealism is described an ens realissimum et nesessarium that does not contain the guarantee of its own being a God that is not
a causa sui and sinks in the abyss of its own question after a ground
cannot offer beings any more hold and must therefore pull down in
its own fall the categories that render it thinkable necessary and real
What remains is the scene of the sinking away of the totality of beings
ldquothe greatest perfection as well as the smallestrdquo and with this scene the
form of representation the mere idea of reason in which beings as a
whole together with the categorial structures of their knowability survive
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2342
T h e R e l a t i o n50
under the condition of their transcendentality For the ldquotranscendental
objectrdquomdashthat Kant can only speak of after the sinking away of a world
and its transcendental groundmdashis not an empirical object and not even
an object at all is object as Kant writes ldquotherefore cannot be further
intuited by us and that may therefore be called the non-empirical ie
transcendental object = Xrdquo (983089983097983097983097 983090983091983091) In his Kant book Heidegger calls
this transcendental X ldquoa Nothingrdquo that is at the same time ldquoSomethingrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983096983094) and describes the X as ldquothe horizon of a standing-against is
horizon is indeed not object but rather a Nothing if by object we mean
a being which is apprehended thematicallyrdquo (983096983095) Furthermore ldquoOnly if
the letting-stand-against of is a holding oneself in the nothing canthe representing allow a not-nothing ie something like a being rdquo (983093983089)
In the Kant commentary the ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo ismdashlike
the anxiety scenes in Being and Time in the Freiburg lecture and more
abstractly in the ldquoLetterrdquo in different waysmdashthe gesture of the horizontal-
transcendental constitution of the domain of objectivity and with that
at the same time of no longer onto-theologically founded beings held
in the mere form of representation not a creatio but still a constitutio ex
nihilo e fact that ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo as Kant examines
it in his critical philosophy stops at the form of representation (Vorstel-
lung ) and the idea of reason makes these gestures into a regulatio nihili
and prevents the further analysis of the transcendental form of being
represented and posited
Heidegger took on this further analysis starting with the exposition of
Dasein in Being and Time is analysis must show that the sinking of theens necessarium and with it that of mere being (which does not hold and
bear itself) remain irreducible to the beings of representation the idea
or the concept It must expose the fact that transcendental representa-
tion merely displaces the ldquonotrdquo that it encounters in the sinking of the
highest being instead of engaging it as the decisive content of being To
do justice to the implications of the anxiety-scene and the unbearable
question of God for his ground the classical analytical concept of differ-
ence between ground and the grounded positing and the posited must
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 43
ldquoLe pas au-delagraverdquo writes Blanchot step beyond not beyond step beyond
to the not of the step
Only as transition into the not-going can it reach the zone of difference in
its own movement where first a possible toward of this movement opens
up as a relation to something and an intentional attitude to beings as
beings becomes possible us intentions are grounded in a structure of
transcendence that in its turn is defined by a ldquonotrdquo a halt a putting on
hold or a suspension Only this arrest offers the possibility of a relation
to something only in this suspension happens not something but only
the that of it happening
e ldquonotrdquo of this in-transcendence therefore can happen in two ways
the retreating reference to something and the experience that the hap-
pening of this reference is other than and different from the reference
conceptualized as a relation and its correlates
is arresting of the ldquonotrdquo in in-transcendence clearly defines the mini-
mal structure of language Whenever and in whatever way language is
spoken there is reference that distances But beyond this something else
also happens that cannot be reduced to this (repelling) reference and the
agents emerging from it the referents and their relations to each other
Whether absolutely novel or older than old it is incommensurable with
them e intentional attitude only exists as crossed out by the event of
its own epocheacute
erefore it appears to be insufficient and even erroneous to speak of
ldquothe claim of nihilation that has come to the clearingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983090983095983090) and
to say that ldquonihilation first requires the lsquonorsquo as what is to be said in the
letting-be of beingsrdquo (983090983095983091) is phrase attributes a linguistic structure
to the ldquonotrdquo that is at the same time also denied Language is defined as
something claimedmdashnot claimed by a pre-linguistic ldquoexistentiell rdquo beyond
of language but by its own exterior limits and thus by what cannot raise
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1742
T h e R e l a t i o n44
claims Heidegger therefore goes around in circlesmdasheven if we consider
all the complications of going going over and inaccessibility He goes
against himself and he might be going that way because he thinks lan-
guage as a response
e commentary on the structure of transcending (namely that it must
be that of in-transcending) and intentionality (that it must be suspended
in dis-intending) made it clear that these movements for Heidegger
always emerge first in their ldquonotrdquo and their suspension In very much
the same way we could clarify the structure of the claim as Anspruch
as Heidegger understands it not by reading this word according to themeasure of its dictionary meaning but by reading it based on its context
with an emphatically stressed An speaking onto
en the claim raised by the ldquonotrdquomdashfrom nowhere by nobody and mind
you nevermdashwould be a ldquospeakingrdquo onto and in the proximity of language
and its words and particles of negation which persisting in the onto
would never make it out of this proximity to reach language e claim
would be a speaking onto because it would never be a speech in the sense
of a statement or a performative act It would always be en route or on
the way to language An-spruch would be toward language what language
itself is not and that it itself is not presentmdashit would be the irruption of
language its start
In fact according to Heideggerrsquos text ldquothe claim of nihilationrdquo cannot be
more than this cannot be language For he says of this claim that it callsfor the ldquonordquo as what is to be said but never as something already said
never already given in or by language rather as a ldquonordquo that remains still
and always yet to be said and as what is to be said remains forever im-
minent in every possible future Speaking onto and speaking its ldquonot rdquo onto
language the claim would be the retentive relation in which language is
kept away from itself but at the same time held to and held back from
itself and sustained and held in this holding onto and holding back But
unlike what an obvious misunderstanding would suggest this sustaining
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 45
does not hold in potentia as something always merely ldquopossiblerdquo but
never ldquorealrdquo Rather it holds on this side of all modal categories in statu
nascendi et moriendi (as Celan writes in an explicit reference to Heidegger
in a letter to Werner Weber) held out into the happening of language as
perpetual beginning (983089983097983097983095 983091983097983096)
is understanding of the speaking-onto of the ldquonotrdquo also clarifies the
structure of intention It would not be some already given relation of an
already constituted consciousness to a content of consciousness but the
irruption of these relations in their pre-withholding and therefore inten-
tion only arising out of the freedom from such a relation and the opennessto it us every An- that Heidegger writes is to be read not merely as a
ldquoclose tordquo or ldquoontordquo in the sense of a given extension but always also as
the echo the Greek ana- as a privative in- or un- In words like Anspruch
(claim) or Anruf (call) or Answesen (presence) Angehen (approach) and
Ankunft (arrival) with every ldquoclose tordquo and ldquoontordquo at the same time a ldquonotrdquo
and a ldquonordquo is also said that relates relation to irrelation reference to ir-
reference direction to indirection An- is the prefix of differencemdashbut
not only of an intra-linguistic difference between different meanings of
one and the same morpheme but before meanings can appear at all the
difference between language speaking its ldquonotrdquo and language speaking
onto something An- not unlike vor- zu- hin- and aus- is the prefix of
ontological difference Whoever uses ldquospeaking ontordquo in this sense in fact
is saying something insufficient and erroneous but is also saying that this
insufficiency and erroneousness belongs to the structure of language
Language itself is the speaking onto language and therefore a speakingonto another language or something other than language
Understood as ldquospeaking ontordquo ( An-spruch) language is its othering ( An-
derung )
e An- is therefore the word and the fore-word of the madness of lan-
guage In the essay ldquoLanguage in the Poemrdquo Heidegger writes as a com-
mentary on the line ldquoe madman [Wahnsinnige] has diedrdquo from Georg
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1942
T h e R e l a t i o n46
Traklrsquos ldquoPsalmrdquo ldquoe word Wahn comes from Old High German wana
which means lsquowithoutrsquo e madman sensesmdashsenses in fact as no one
else does But he remains without the sense of others He is of another
sense Sinnan originally means to travel to strive for to strike a direc-
tion e Indo-Germanic root sent and set means lsquopathrsquo e departed is
the madman because he is on his way somewhere elserdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983091)983091 e
other way that the madman follows is the way into de-parture into a dif-
ference that departs from every possible distinction and discrimination
So Heidegger can write about the stranger who is the madman without
the sense of the other ldquois stranger unfolds the essence of the human
into the beginning of what has not yet come to bearing [Tragen] (OldHigh German giberan) is quieter and hence more stilling element
in the nature of mortals that has not been borne out is what the poet
calls the unbornrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983093)983092 But if the other waymdashthis without-path the
aporiamdashleads into what has not been borne out how do we stand with
what is defined as ldquogesturerdquo in ldquoA Dialogue on Languagerdquo ldquothe originary
gathering of bearing against and bearing tordquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983097) And how does the
thought of the not-yet-born and the unborn relate to the thought of being
as difference which is described in ldquoe Onto-eo-Logical Constitu-
tion of Metaphysicsrdquo in the following way ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ]
alone grants and holds apart the lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming
and the arrival are held toward one another are borne away from and
toward each other e difference of Being and beings as the inter-rift of
overwhelming and arrival is the bearing out [ Austrag ] of the two in un-
concealing keeping in concealment Within this bearing out there prevails
a clearing of what veils and closes itself offmdashand this prevalence bestowsthe being apart and the being toward each other of overwhelming and
arrivalrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)983093
In these sentences it becomes clear that the words ldquoheldrdquo and ldquobornerdquo
are used in the same sense being held in relation (Ver-halten) is being
borne out ( Austrag ) Both describe the movement of differentiation that
Heidegger writes as Unter-Schied (literally inter -rift ) to separate it from
rational distinctions as well as from differences in perception and to
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 47
emphasize the ldquobetweenrdquo that corresponds to the inter of the unter in
the concept of Unterschied (difference) e German word Austrag is the
literal translation of the Latin differentia which in turn is a translation
of the decisive Greek term diaphoraacute In a definition provided in the first
essay on Trakl ldquoLanguagerdquo (in 983089983097983093983088) diaphoraacute difference and bearing
out are juxtaposed with the following commentary ldquoe intimacy of
dif-ference [Unter-Schied ] is the unifying element of the diaphora the
carrying out [ Austrag ] that carries through e dif-ference carries out
world in its worlding carries out things in their thinging us carrying
them out it carries them toward one anotherrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) And a few
sentences later the series of synonymous concepts is extended to includeEreignis the appropriating event gesture as bearing and granting ldquoe
dif-ference for world and thing disclosingly appropriates things into bear-
ing a world it disclosingly appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo
(983090983088983088) In accordance with these connections in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo
relation (Verhaumlltnis ) is thought out of the appropriating event and more
precisely as the appropriative happening of the essence of language ldquoFor
that appropriating holding self-retaining is the relation of all relations
us our sayingmdashalways an answeringmdashremains forever relational Rela-
tion [Ver-haumlltnis as holding to itself] is thought of here always in terms
of the event and no longer conceived in the form of a mere referencerdquo
(983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093) But if relation means appropriation if appropriation means
difference difference means differentia and diaphora and the latter two
mean the carrying out that carries through while carrying out means
bearing the question unavoidable emerges How do the concepts from
the Trakl commentary the unborn and what is not borne out relate to thisseries And how can this series be unified with the other the without-
path and the aporia of madness ese questions are not yet answered
by the remark that Heidegger understood human Dasein in the sense of
ek-sistence as the ecstatic being outside of itself of madness is only
makes the question more urgent of whether this being-in-madness can
be thought with the concepts of difference and ldquobearing outrdquo Or whether
this madness overburdens ldquothe carrying out that carries throughrdquo and the
ldquobearing outrdquo and is therefore thrown away evacuated and forgotten
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2142
T h e R e l a t i o n48
e question therefore is once again whether the madness of ek-sis-
tence of the ldquonotrdquo of Being and of language can still be articulated in a
languagemdasheven if it as outreacute as Heideggerrsquos
Or Is it possible to think the not-borne-out as the not-borne-out More
precisely Does the not-borne-out allow itself to be thought only as a not
yet or beyond that does it allow itself to be thought as a never borne
out
Hence Can the ldquonotrdquo as a ldquoneverrdquomdashas a never of the sayablemdashdefine the
horizon of language And can this ldquoneverrdquo then also provide the tran-scendental horizon of the possibility of what is sayable Is the ldquoneverrdquo
the condition of the happening of language and the horizon of being
Or Can the ldquoneverrdquo be thought But How could it be other than never be
thought Consequently If the ldquoneverrdquo were the pre- and proto-predicative
happening that is called ldquoBeingrdquo and later more precisely coming-over
(Uumlberkommnis ) because it is what ldquoovercomesrdquo sur-prises overwhelms
more than just comes andmdashoverburdens erefore Can the unbearable
be borne and borne out
Otherwise How could Beingmdashwhether as happening history destiny
or coming-overmdashas the unbearable not be borne Because Can the un-
bearable be found at all otherwise unbearable than as always still and
nevertheless borne And then still not erefore Is there not in Being
itself such a still and nevertheless a but that keeps Being at a distancefrom Being and keeps Being out of Being and in this out and apart brings
it together
However What does the ldquooutrdquo mean in ldquoout of each otherrdquo and in ldquobearing
outrdquo if it still contains a ldquotogetherrdquo Does it refer to an originary synthesis
before every predicative synthesis Is not such a reference misleading if it
suggests a ldquotogetherrdquo there where we can encounter only an ldquoout of each
otherrdquomdasheven if we encounter it in the impossibility of its encounter
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 49
In his seminar in Le or in September 983089983097983094983094 Heidegger cites a paragraph
from the chapter ldquoOn the impossibility of a cosmological proof of Godrsquos
existencerdquo from Kantrsquos First Critique ese stunning sentencesmdashwhich
with their evocation of sinking floating without stop and the abyss
may well have contributed to the descriptions of anxiety in Being and
Time (983089983097983094983090) and ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo (983089983097983097983096)mdashspeak explicitly not only
about the groundless but also about the unbearable Kant writes
e unconditioned necessity which we need so indispensably as the ultimate
sustainer of all things is for human reason the true abyss Even eternitymdash
however awful the sublimity with which a Haller might portray itmdashdoes not
make such a dizzying impression on the mind for eternity only measures the
duration of things but it does not sustain that duration One cannot resist the
thought of it but one also cannot bear it that a being might as it were say
to itself ldquoI am from eternity to eternity outside me is nothing except what is
something merely through my will but whence then am Irdquo Here everything
caves in beneath us and the greatest perfection as well as the smallest hover
without hold before speculative reason for which it would cost nothing to
let the one as much as the other disappear without the least obstacle (Kant
983089983097983097983097 983093983095983092 Heidegger 983090983088983088983091 983089983095) God the highest ground of what is appears in
its monologue as an abyss that does not carry it but lets it collapse And Kant
says of this thought of a God that does not carry itself that ldquoone cannot resist
the thought of it but one also cannot bear itrdquo
With this the primal scene of critical transcendental philosophy and
speculative idealism is described an ens realissimum et nesessarium that does not contain the guarantee of its own being a God that is not
a causa sui and sinks in the abyss of its own question after a ground
cannot offer beings any more hold and must therefore pull down in
its own fall the categories that render it thinkable necessary and real
What remains is the scene of the sinking away of the totality of beings
ldquothe greatest perfection as well as the smallestrdquo and with this scene the
form of representation the mere idea of reason in which beings as a
whole together with the categorial structures of their knowability survive
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2342
T h e R e l a t i o n50
under the condition of their transcendentality For the ldquotranscendental
objectrdquomdashthat Kant can only speak of after the sinking away of a world
and its transcendental groundmdashis not an empirical object and not even
an object at all is object as Kant writes ldquotherefore cannot be further
intuited by us and that may therefore be called the non-empirical ie
transcendental object = Xrdquo (983089983097983097983097 983090983091983091) In his Kant book Heidegger calls
this transcendental X ldquoa Nothingrdquo that is at the same time ldquoSomethingrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983096983094) and describes the X as ldquothe horizon of a standing-against is
horizon is indeed not object but rather a Nothing if by object we mean
a being which is apprehended thematicallyrdquo (983096983095) Furthermore ldquoOnly if
the letting-stand-against of is a holding oneself in the nothing canthe representing allow a not-nothing ie something like a being rdquo (983093983089)
In the Kant commentary the ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo ismdashlike
the anxiety scenes in Being and Time in the Freiburg lecture and more
abstractly in the ldquoLetterrdquo in different waysmdashthe gesture of the horizontal-
transcendental constitution of the domain of objectivity and with that
at the same time of no longer onto-theologically founded beings held
in the mere form of representation not a creatio but still a constitutio ex
nihilo e fact that ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo as Kant examines
it in his critical philosophy stops at the form of representation (Vorstel-
lung ) and the idea of reason makes these gestures into a regulatio nihili
and prevents the further analysis of the transcendental form of being
represented and posited
Heidegger took on this further analysis starting with the exposition of
Dasein in Being and Time is analysis must show that the sinking of theens necessarium and with it that of mere being (which does not hold and
bear itself) remain irreducible to the beings of representation the idea
or the concept It must expose the fact that transcendental representa-
tion merely displaces the ldquonotrdquo that it encounters in the sinking of the
highest being instead of engaging it as the decisive content of being To
do justice to the implications of the anxiety-scene and the unbearable
question of God for his ground the classical analytical concept of differ-
ence between ground and the grounded positing and the posited must
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1742
T h e R e l a t i o n44
claims Heidegger therefore goes around in circlesmdasheven if we consider
all the complications of going going over and inaccessibility He goes
against himself and he might be going that way because he thinks lan-
guage as a response
e commentary on the structure of transcending (namely that it must
be that of in-transcending) and intentionality (that it must be suspended
in dis-intending) made it clear that these movements for Heidegger
always emerge first in their ldquonotrdquo and their suspension In very much
the same way we could clarify the structure of the claim as Anspruch
as Heidegger understands it not by reading this word according to themeasure of its dictionary meaning but by reading it based on its context
with an emphatically stressed An speaking onto
en the claim raised by the ldquonotrdquomdashfrom nowhere by nobody and mind
you nevermdashwould be a ldquospeakingrdquo onto and in the proximity of language
and its words and particles of negation which persisting in the onto
would never make it out of this proximity to reach language e claim
would be a speaking onto because it would never be a speech in the sense
of a statement or a performative act It would always be en route or on
the way to language An-spruch would be toward language what language
itself is not and that it itself is not presentmdashit would be the irruption of
language its start
In fact according to Heideggerrsquos text ldquothe claim of nihilationrdquo cannot be
more than this cannot be language For he says of this claim that it callsfor the ldquonordquo as what is to be said but never as something already said
never already given in or by language rather as a ldquonordquo that remains still
and always yet to be said and as what is to be said remains forever im-
minent in every possible future Speaking onto and speaking its ldquonot rdquo onto
language the claim would be the retentive relation in which language is
kept away from itself but at the same time held to and held back from
itself and sustained and held in this holding onto and holding back But
unlike what an obvious misunderstanding would suggest this sustaining
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 45
does not hold in potentia as something always merely ldquopossiblerdquo but
never ldquorealrdquo Rather it holds on this side of all modal categories in statu
nascendi et moriendi (as Celan writes in an explicit reference to Heidegger
in a letter to Werner Weber) held out into the happening of language as
perpetual beginning (983089983097983097983095 983091983097983096)
is understanding of the speaking-onto of the ldquonotrdquo also clarifies the
structure of intention It would not be some already given relation of an
already constituted consciousness to a content of consciousness but the
irruption of these relations in their pre-withholding and therefore inten-
tion only arising out of the freedom from such a relation and the opennessto it us every An- that Heidegger writes is to be read not merely as a
ldquoclose tordquo or ldquoontordquo in the sense of a given extension but always also as
the echo the Greek ana- as a privative in- or un- In words like Anspruch
(claim) or Anruf (call) or Answesen (presence) Angehen (approach) and
Ankunft (arrival) with every ldquoclose tordquo and ldquoontordquo at the same time a ldquonotrdquo
and a ldquonordquo is also said that relates relation to irrelation reference to ir-
reference direction to indirection An- is the prefix of differencemdashbut
not only of an intra-linguistic difference between different meanings of
one and the same morpheme but before meanings can appear at all the
difference between language speaking its ldquonotrdquo and language speaking
onto something An- not unlike vor- zu- hin- and aus- is the prefix of
ontological difference Whoever uses ldquospeaking ontordquo in this sense in fact
is saying something insufficient and erroneous but is also saying that this
insufficiency and erroneousness belongs to the structure of language
Language itself is the speaking onto language and therefore a speakingonto another language or something other than language
Understood as ldquospeaking ontordquo ( An-spruch) language is its othering ( An-
derung )
e An- is therefore the word and the fore-word of the madness of lan-
guage In the essay ldquoLanguage in the Poemrdquo Heidegger writes as a com-
mentary on the line ldquoe madman [Wahnsinnige] has diedrdquo from Georg
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1942
T h e R e l a t i o n46
Traklrsquos ldquoPsalmrdquo ldquoe word Wahn comes from Old High German wana
which means lsquowithoutrsquo e madman sensesmdashsenses in fact as no one
else does But he remains without the sense of others He is of another
sense Sinnan originally means to travel to strive for to strike a direc-
tion e Indo-Germanic root sent and set means lsquopathrsquo e departed is
the madman because he is on his way somewhere elserdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983091)983091 e
other way that the madman follows is the way into de-parture into a dif-
ference that departs from every possible distinction and discrimination
So Heidegger can write about the stranger who is the madman without
the sense of the other ldquois stranger unfolds the essence of the human
into the beginning of what has not yet come to bearing [Tragen] (OldHigh German giberan) is quieter and hence more stilling element
in the nature of mortals that has not been borne out is what the poet
calls the unbornrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983093)983092 But if the other waymdashthis without-path the
aporiamdashleads into what has not been borne out how do we stand with
what is defined as ldquogesturerdquo in ldquoA Dialogue on Languagerdquo ldquothe originary
gathering of bearing against and bearing tordquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983097) And how does the
thought of the not-yet-born and the unborn relate to the thought of being
as difference which is described in ldquoe Onto-eo-Logical Constitu-
tion of Metaphysicsrdquo in the following way ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ]
alone grants and holds apart the lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming
and the arrival are held toward one another are borne away from and
toward each other e difference of Being and beings as the inter-rift of
overwhelming and arrival is the bearing out [ Austrag ] of the two in un-
concealing keeping in concealment Within this bearing out there prevails
a clearing of what veils and closes itself offmdashand this prevalence bestowsthe being apart and the being toward each other of overwhelming and
arrivalrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)983093
In these sentences it becomes clear that the words ldquoheldrdquo and ldquobornerdquo
are used in the same sense being held in relation (Ver-halten) is being
borne out ( Austrag ) Both describe the movement of differentiation that
Heidegger writes as Unter-Schied (literally inter -rift ) to separate it from
rational distinctions as well as from differences in perception and to
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 47
emphasize the ldquobetweenrdquo that corresponds to the inter of the unter in
the concept of Unterschied (difference) e German word Austrag is the
literal translation of the Latin differentia which in turn is a translation
of the decisive Greek term diaphoraacute In a definition provided in the first
essay on Trakl ldquoLanguagerdquo (in 983089983097983093983088) diaphoraacute difference and bearing
out are juxtaposed with the following commentary ldquoe intimacy of
dif-ference [Unter-Schied ] is the unifying element of the diaphora the
carrying out [ Austrag ] that carries through e dif-ference carries out
world in its worlding carries out things in their thinging us carrying
them out it carries them toward one anotherrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) And a few
sentences later the series of synonymous concepts is extended to includeEreignis the appropriating event gesture as bearing and granting ldquoe
dif-ference for world and thing disclosingly appropriates things into bear-
ing a world it disclosingly appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo
(983090983088983088) In accordance with these connections in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo
relation (Verhaumlltnis ) is thought out of the appropriating event and more
precisely as the appropriative happening of the essence of language ldquoFor
that appropriating holding self-retaining is the relation of all relations
us our sayingmdashalways an answeringmdashremains forever relational Rela-
tion [Ver-haumlltnis as holding to itself] is thought of here always in terms
of the event and no longer conceived in the form of a mere referencerdquo
(983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093) But if relation means appropriation if appropriation means
difference difference means differentia and diaphora and the latter two
mean the carrying out that carries through while carrying out means
bearing the question unavoidable emerges How do the concepts from
the Trakl commentary the unborn and what is not borne out relate to thisseries And how can this series be unified with the other the without-
path and the aporia of madness ese questions are not yet answered
by the remark that Heidegger understood human Dasein in the sense of
ek-sistence as the ecstatic being outside of itself of madness is only
makes the question more urgent of whether this being-in-madness can
be thought with the concepts of difference and ldquobearing outrdquo Or whether
this madness overburdens ldquothe carrying out that carries throughrdquo and the
ldquobearing outrdquo and is therefore thrown away evacuated and forgotten
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2142
T h e R e l a t i o n48
e question therefore is once again whether the madness of ek-sis-
tence of the ldquonotrdquo of Being and of language can still be articulated in a
languagemdasheven if it as outreacute as Heideggerrsquos
Or Is it possible to think the not-borne-out as the not-borne-out More
precisely Does the not-borne-out allow itself to be thought only as a not
yet or beyond that does it allow itself to be thought as a never borne
out
Hence Can the ldquonotrdquo as a ldquoneverrdquomdashas a never of the sayablemdashdefine the
horizon of language And can this ldquoneverrdquo then also provide the tran-scendental horizon of the possibility of what is sayable Is the ldquoneverrdquo
the condition of the happening of language and the horizon of being
Or Can the ldquoneverrdquo be thought But How could it be other than never be
thought Consequently If the ldquoneverrdquo were the pre- and proto-predicative
happening that is called ldquoBeingrdquo and later more precisely coming-over
(Uumlberkommnis ) because it is what ldquoovercomesrdquo sur-prises overwhelms
more than just comes andmdashoverburdens erefore Can the unbearable
be borne and borne out
Otherwise How could Beingmdashwhether as happening history destiny
or coming-overmdashas the unbearable not be borne Because Can the un-
bearable be found at all otherwise unbearable than as always still and
nevertheless borne And then still not erefore Is there not in Being
itself such a still and nevertheless a but that keeps Being at a distancefrom Being and keeps Being out of Being and in this out and apart brings
it together
However What does the ldquooutrdquo mean in ldquoout of each otherrdquo and in ldquobearing
outrdquo if it still contains a ldquotogetherrdquo Does it refer to an originary synthesis
before every predicative synthesis Is not such a reference misleading if it
suggests a ldquotogetherrdquo there where we can encounter only an ldquoout of each
otherrdquomdasheven if we encounter it in the impossibility of its encounter
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 49
In his seminar in Le or in September 983089983097983094983094 Heidegger cites a paragraph
from the chapter ldquoOn the impossibility of a cosmological proof of Godrsquos
existencerdquo from Kantrsquos First Critique ese stunning sentencesmdashwhich
with their evocation of sinking floating without stop and the abyss
may well have contributed to the descriptions of anxiety in Being and
Time (983089983097983094983090) and ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo (983089983097983097983096)mdashspeak explicitly not only
about the groundless but also about the unbearable Kant writes
e unconditioned necessity which we need so indispensably as the ultimate
sustainer of all things is for human reason the true abyss Even eternitymdash
however awful the sublimity with which a Haller might portray itmdashdoes not
make such a dizzying impression on the mind for eternity only measures the
duration of things but it does not sustain that duration One cannot resist the
thought of it but one also cannot bear it that a being might as it were say
to itself ldquoI am from eternity to eternity outside me is nothing except what is
something merely through my will but whence then am Irdquo Here everything
caves in beneath us and the greatest perfection as well as the smallest hover
without hold before speculative reason for which it would cost nothing to
let the one as much as the other disappear without the least obstacle (Kant
983089983097983097983097 983093983095983092 Heidegger 983090983088983088983091 983089983095) God the highest ground of what is appears in
its monologue as an abyss that does not carry it but lets it collapse And Kant
says of this thought of a God that does not carry itself that ldquoone cannot resist
the thought of it but one also cannot bear itrdquo
With this the primal scene of critical transcendental philosophy and
speculative idealism is described an ens realissimum et nesessarium that does not contain the guarantee of its own being a God that is not
a causa sui and sinks in the abyss of its own question after a ground
cannot offer beings any more hold and must therefore pull down in
its own fall the categories that render it thinkable necessary and real
What remains is the scene of the sinking away of the totality of beings
ldquothe greatest perfection as well as the smallestrdquo and with this scene the
form of representation the mere idea of reason in which beings as a
whole together with the categorial structures of their knowability survive
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2342
T h e R e l a t i o n50
under the condition of their transcendentality For the ldquotranscendental
objectrdquomdashthat Kant can only speak of after the sinking away of a world
and its transcendental groundmdashis not an empirical object and not even
an object at all is object as Kant writes ldquotherefore cannot be further
intuited by us and that may therefore be called the non-empirical ie
transcendental object = Xrdquo (983089983097983097983097 983090983091983091) In his Kant book Heidegger calls
this transcendental X ldquoa Nothingrdquo that is at the same time ldquoSomethingrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983096983094) and describes the X as ldquothe horizon of a standing-against is
horizon is indeed not object but rather a Nothing if by object we mean
a being which is apprehended thematicallyrdquo (983096983095) Furthermore ldquoOnly if
the letting-stand-against of is a holding oneself in the nothing canthe representing allow a not-nothing ie something like a being rdquo (983093983089)
In the Kant commentary the ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo ismdashlike
the anxiety scenes in Being and Time in the Freiburg lecture and more
abstractly in the ldquoLetterrdquo in different waysmdashthe gesture of the horizontal-
transcendental constitution of the domain of objectivity and with that
at the same time of no longer onto-theologically founded beings held
in the mere form of representation not a creatio but still a constitutio ex
nihilo e fact that ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo as Kant examines
it in his critical philosophy stops at the form of representation (Vorstel-
lung ) and the idea of reason makes these gestures into a regulatio nihili
and prevents the further analysis of the transcendental form of being
represented and posited
Heidegger took on this further analysis starting with the exposition of
Dasein in Being and Time is analysis must show that the sinking of theens necessarium and with it that of mere being (which does not hold and
bear itself) remain irreducible to the beings of representation the idea
or the concept It must expose the fact that transcendental representa-
tion merely displaces the ldquonotrdquo that it encounters in the sinking of the
highest being instead of engaging it as the decisive content of being To
do justice to the implications of the anxiety-scene and the unbearable
question of God for his ground the classical analytical concept of differ-
ence between ground and the grounded positing and the posited must
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 45
does not hold in potentia as something always merely ldquopossiblerdquo but
never ldquorealrdquo Rather it holds on this side of all modal categories in statu
nascendi et moriendi (as Celan writes in an explicit reference to Heidegger
in a letter to Werner Weber) held out into the happening of language as
perpetual beginning (983089983097983097983095 983091983097983096)
is understanding of the speaking-onto of the ldquonotrdquo also clarifies the
structure of intention It would not be some already given relation of an
already constituted consciousness to a content of consciousness but the
irruption of these relations in their pre-withholding and therefore inten-
tion only arising out of the freedom from such a relation and the opennessto it us every An- that Heidegger writes is to be read not merely as a
ldquoclose tordquo or ldquoontordquo in the sense of a given extension but always also as
the echo the Greek ana- as a privative in- or un- In words like Anspruch
(claim) or Anruf (call) or Answesen (presence) Angehen (approach) and
Ankunft (arrival) with every ldquoclose tordquo and ldquoontordquo at the same time a ldquonotrdquo
and a ldquonordquo is also said that relates relation to irrelation reference to ir-
reference direction to indirection An- is the prefix of differencemdashbut
not only of an intra-linguistic difference between different meanings of
one and the same morpheme but before meanings can appear at all the
difference between language speaking its ldquonotrdquo and language speaking
onto something An- not unlike vor- zu- hin- and aus- is the prefix of
ontological difference Whoever uses ldquospeaking ontordquo in this sense in fact
is saying something insufficient and erroneous but is also saying that this
insufficiency and erroneousness belongs to the structure of language
Language itself is the speaking onto language and therefore a speakingonto another language or something other than language
Understood as ldquospeaking ontordquo ( An-spruch) language is its othering ( An-
derung )
e An- is therefore the word and the fore-word of the madness of lan-
guage In the essay ldquoLanguage in the Poemrdquo Heidegger writes as a com-
mentary on the line ldquoe madman [Wahnsinnige] has diedrdquo from Georg
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1942
T h e R e l a t i o n46
Traklrsquos ldquoPsalmrdquo ldquoe word Wahn comes from Old High German wana
which means lsquowithoutrsquo e madman sensesmdashsenses in fact as no one
else does But he remains without the sense of others He is of another
sense Sinnan originally means to travel to strive for to strike a direc-
tion e Indo-Germanic root sent and set means lsquopathrsquo e departed is
the madman because he is on his way somewhere elserdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983091)983091 e
other way that the madman follows is the way into de-parture into a dif-
ference that departs from every possible distinction and discrimination
So Heidegger can write about the stranger who is the madman without
the sense of the other ldquois stranger unfolds the essence of the human
into the beginning of what has not yet come to bearing [Tragen] (OldHigh German giberan) is quieter and hence more stilling element
in the nature of mortals that has not been borne out is what the poet
calls the unbornrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983093)983092 But if the other waymdashthis without-path the
aporiamdashleads into what has not been borne out how do we stand with
what is defined as ldquogesturerdquo in ldquoA Dialogue on Languagerdquo ldquothe originary
gathering of bearing against and bearing tordquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983097) And how does the
thought of the not-yet-born and the unborn relate to the thought of being
as difference which is described in ldquoe Onto-eo-Logical Constitu-
tion of Metaphysicsrdquo in the following way ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ]
alone grants and holds apart the lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming
and the arrival are held toward one another are borne away from and
toward each other e difference of Being and beings as the inter-rift of
overwhelming and arrival is the bearing out [ Austrag ] of the two in un-
concealing keeping in concealment Within this bearing out there prevails
a clearing of what veils and closes itself offmdashand this prevalence bestowsthe being apart and the being toward each other of overwhelming and
arrivalrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)983093
In these sentences it becomes clear that the words ldquoheldrdquo and ldquobornerdquo
are used in the same sense being held in relation (Ver-halten) is being
borne out ( Austrag ) Both describe the movement of differentiation that
Heidegger writes as Unter-Schied (literally inter -rift ) to separate it from
rational distinctions as well as from differences in perception and to
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 47
emphasize the ldquobetweenrdquo that corresponds to the inter of the unter in
the concept of Unterschied (difference) e German word Austrag is the
literal translation of the Latin differentia which in turn is a translation
of the decisive Greek term diaphoraacute In a definition provided in the first
essay on Trakl ldquoLanguagerdquo (in 983089983097983093983088) diaphoraacute difference and bearing
out are juxtaposed with the following commentary ldquoe intimacy of
dif-ference [Unter-Schied ] is the unifying element of the diaphora the
carrying out [ Austrag ] that carries through e dif-ference carries out
world in its worlding carries out things in their thinging us carrying
them out it carries them toward one anotherrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) And a few
sentences later the series of synonymous concepts is extended to includeEreignis the appropriating event gesture as bearing and granting ldquoe
dif-ference for world and thing disclosingly appropriates things into bear-
ing a world it disclosingly appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo
(983090983088983088) In accordance with these connections in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo
relation (Verhaumlltnis ) is thought out of the appropriating event and more
precisely as the appropriative happening of the essence of language ldquoFor
that appropriating holding self-retaining is the relation of all relations
us our sayingmdashalways an answeringmdashremains forever relational Rela-
tion [Ver-haumlltnis as holding to itself] is thought of here always in terms
of the event and no longer conceived in the form of a mere referencerdquo
(983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093) But if relation means appropriation if appropriation means
difference difference means differentia and diaphora and the latter two
mean the carrying out that carries through while carrying out means
bearing the question unavoidable emerges How do the concepts from
the Trakl commentary the unborn and what is not borne out relate to thisseries And how can this series be unified with the other the without-
path and the aporia of madness ese questions are not yet answered
by the remark that Heidegger understood human Dasein in the sense of
ek-sistence as the ecstatic being outside of itself of madness is only
makes the question more urgent of whether this being-in-madness can
be thought with the concepts of difference and ldquobearing outrdquo Or whether
this madness overburdens ldquothe carrying out that carries throughrdquo and the
ldquobearing outrdquo and is therefore thrown away evacuated and forgotten
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2142
T h e R e l a t i o n48
e question therefore is once again whether the madness of ek-sis-
tence of the ldquonotrdquo of Being and of language can still be articulated in a
languagemdasheven if it as outreacute as Heideggerrsquos
Or Is it possible to think the not-borne-out as the not-borne-out More
precisely Does the not-borne-out allow itself to be thought only as a not
yet or beyond that does it allow itself to be thought as a never borne
out
Hence Can the ldquonotrdquo as a ldquoneverrdquomdashas a never of the sayablemdashdefine the
horizon of language And can this ldquoneverrdquo then also provide the tran-scendental horizon of the possibility of what is sayable Is the ldquoneverrdquo
the condition of the happening of language and the horizon of being
Or Can the ldquoneverrdquo be thought But How could it be other than never be
thought Consequently If the ldquoneverrdquo were the pre- and proto-predicative
happening that is called ldquoBeingrdquo and later more precisely coming-over
(Uumlberkommnis ) because it is what ldquoovercomesrdquo sur-prises overwhelms
more than just comes andmdashoverburdens erefore Can the unbearable
be borne and borne out
Otherwise How could Beingmdashwhether as happening history destiny
or coming-overmdashas the unbearable not be borne Because Can the un-
bearable be found at all otherwise unbearable than as always still and
nevertheless borne And then still not erefore Is there not in Being
itself such a still and nevertheless a but that keeps Being at a distancefrom Being and keeps Being out of Being and in this out and apart brings
it together
However What does the ldquooutrdquo mean in ldquoout of each otherrdquo and in ldquobearing
outrdquo if it still contains a ldquotogetherrdquo Does it refer to an originary synthesis
before every predicative synthesis Is not such a reference misleading if it
suggests a ldquotogetherrdquo there where we can encounter only an ldquoout of each
otherrdquomdasheven if we encounter it in the impossibility of its encounter
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 49
In his seminar in Le or in September 983089983097983094983094 Heidegger cites a paragraph
from the chapter ldquoOn the impossibility of a cosmological proof of Godrsquos
existencerdquo from Kantrsquos First Critique ese stunning sentencesmdashwhich
with their evocation of sinking floating without stop and the abyss
may well have contributed to the descriptions of anxiety in Being and
Time (983089983097983094983090) and ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo (983089983097983097983096)mdashspeak explicitly not only
about the groundless but also about the unbearable Kant writes
e unconditioned necessity which we need so indispensably as the ultimate
sustainer of all things is for human reason the true abyss Even eternitymdash
however awful the sublimity with which a Haller might portray itmdashdoes not
make such a dizzying impression on the mind for eternity only measures the
duration of things but it does not sustain that duration One cannot resist the
thought of it but one also cannot bear it that a being might as it were say
to itself ldquoI am from eternity to eternity outside me is nothing except what is
something merely through my will but whence then am Irdquo Here everything
caves in beneath us and the greatest perfection as well as the smallest hover
without hold before speculative reason for which it would cost nothing to
let the one as much as the other disappear without the least obstacle (Kant
983089983097983097983097 983093983095983092 Heidegger 983090983088983088983091 983089983095) God the highest ground of what is appears in
its monologue as an abyss that does not carry it but lets it collapse And Kant
says of this thought of a God that does not carry itself that ldquoone cannot resist
the thought of it but one also cannot bear itrdquo
With this the primal scene of critical transcendental philosophy and
speculative idealism is described an ens realissimum et nesessarium that does not contain the guarantee of its own being a God that is not
a causa sui and sinks in the abyss of its own question after a ground
cannot offer beings any more hold and must therefore pull down in
its own fall the categories that render it thinkable necessary and real
What remains is the scene of the sinking away of the totality of beings
ldquothe greatest perfection as well as the smallestrdquo and with this scene the
form of representation the mere idea of reason in which beings as a
whole together with the categorial structures of their knowability survive
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2342
T h e R e l a t i o n50
under the condition of their transcendentality For the ldquotranscendental
objectrdquomdashthat Kant can only speak of after the sinking away of a world
and its transcendental groundmdashis not an empirical object and not even
an object at all is object as Kant writes ldquotherefore cannot be further
intuited by us and that may therefore be called the non-empirical ie
transcendental object = Xrdquo (983089983097983097983097 983090983091983091) In his Kant book Heidegger calls
this transcendental X ldquoa Nothingrdquo that is at the same time ldquoSomethingrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983096983094) and describes the X as ldquothe horizon of a standing-against is
horizon is indeed not object but rather a Nothing if by object we mean
a being which is apprehended thematicallyrdquo (983096983095) Furthermore ldquoOnly if
the letting-stand-against of is a holding oneself in the nothing canthe representing allow a not-nothing ie something like a being rdquo (983093983089)
In the Kant commentary the ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo ismdashlike
the anxiety scenes in Being and Time in the Freiburg lecture and more
abstractly in the ldquoLetterrdquo in different waysmdashthe gesture of the horizontal-
transcendental constitution of the domain of objectivity and with that
at the same time of no longer onto-theologically founded beings held
in the mere form of representation not a creatio but still a constitutio ex
nihilo e fact that ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo as Kant examines
it in his critical philosophy stops at the form of representation (Vorstel-
lung ) and the idea of reason makes these gestures into a regulatio nihili
and prevents the further analysis of the transcendental form of being
represented and posited
Heidegger took on this further analysis starting with the exposition of
Dasein in Being and Time is analysis must show that the sinking of theens necessarium and with it that of mere being (which does not hold and
bear itself) remain irreducible to the beings of representation the idea
or the concept It must expose the fact that transcendental representa-
tion merely displaces the ldquonotrdquo that it encounters in the sinking of the
highest being instead of engaging it as the decisive content of being To
do justice to the implications of the anxiety-scene and the unbearable
question of God for his ground the classical analytical concept of differ-
ence between ground and the grounded positing and the posited must
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 1942
T h e R e l a t i o n46
Traklrsquos ldquoPsalmrdquo ldquoe word Wahn comes from Old High German wana
which means lsquowithoutrsquo e madman sensesmdashsenses in fact as no one
else does But he remains without the sense of others He is of another
sense Sinnan originally means to travel to strive for to strike a direc-
tion e Indo-Germanic root sent and set means lsquopathrsquo e departed is
the madman because he is on his way somewhere elserdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983091)983091 e
other way that the madman follows is the way into de-parture into a dif-
ference that departs from every possible distinction and discrimination
So Heidegger can write about the stranger who is the madman without
the sense of the other ldquois stranger unfolds the essence of the human
into the beginning of what has not yet come to bearing [Tragen] (OldHigh German giberan) is quieter and hence more stilling element
in the nature of mortals that has not been borne out is what the poet
calls the unbornrdquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983095983093)983092 But if the other waymdashthis without-path the
aporiamdashleads into what has not been borne out how do we stand with
what is defined as ldquogesturerdquo in ldquoA Dialogue on Languagerdquo ldquothe originary
gathering of bearing against and bearing tordquo (983089983097983095983089 983089983097) And how does the
thought of the not-yet-born and the unborn relate to the thought of being
as difference which is described in ldquoe Onto-eo-Logical Constitu-
tion of Metaphysicsrdquo in the following way ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ]
alone grants and holds apart the lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming
and the arrival are held toward one another are borne away from and
toward each other e difference of Being and beings as the inter-rift of
overwhelming and arrival is the bearing out [ Austrag ] of the two in un-
concealing keeping in concealment Within this bearing out there prevails
a clearing of what veils and closes itself offmdashand this prevalence bestowsthe being apart and the being toward each other of overwhelming and
arrivalrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)983093
In these sentences it becomes clear that the words ldquoheldrdquo and ldquobornerdquo
are used in the same sense being held in relation (Ver-halten) is being
borne out ( Austrag ) Both describe the movement of differentiation that
Heidegger writes as Unter-Schied (literally inter -rift ) to separate it from
rational distinctions as well as from differences in perception and to
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 47
emphasize the ldquobetweenrdquo that corresponds to the inter of the unter in
the concept of Unterschied (difference) e German word Austrag is the
literal translation of the Latin differentia which in turn is a translation
of the decisive Greek term diaphoraacute In a definition provided in the first
essay on Trakl ldquoLanguagerdquo (in 983089983097983093983088) diaphoraacute difference and bearing
out are juxtaposed with the following commentary ldquoe intimacy of
dif-ference [Unter-Schied ] is the unifying element of the diaphora the
carrying out [ Austrag ] that carries through e dif-ference carries out
world in its worlding carries out things in their thinging us carrying
them out it carries them toward one anotherrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) And a few
sentences later the series of synonymous concepts is extended to includeEreignis the appropriating event gesture as bearing and granting ldquoe
dif-ference for world and thing disclosingly appropriates things into bear-
ing a world it disclosingly appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo
(983090983088983088) In accordance with these connections in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo
relation (Verhaumlltnis ) is thought out of the appropriating event and more
precisely as the appropriative happening of the essence of language ldquoFor
that appropriating holding self-retaining is the relation of all relations
us our sayingmdashalways an answeringmdashremains forever relational Rela-
tion [Ver-haumlltnis as holding to itself] is thought of here always in terms
of the event and no longer conceived in the form of a mere referencerdquo
(983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093) But if relation means appropriation if appropriation means
difference difference means differentia and diaphora and the latter two
mean the carrying out that carries through while carrying out means
bearing the question unavoidable emerges How do the concepts from
the Trakl commentary the unborn and what is not borne out relate to thisseries And how can this series be unified with the other the without-
path and the aporia of madness ese questions are not yet answered
by the remark that Heidegger understood human Dasein in the sense of
ek-sistence as the ecstatic being outside of itself of madness is only
makes the question more urgent of whether this being-in-madness can
be thought with the concepts of difference and ldquobearing outrdquo Or whether
this madness overburdens ldquothe carrying out that carries throughrdquo and the
ldquobearing outrdquo and is therefore thrown away evacuated and forgotten
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2142
T h e R e l a t i o n48
e question therefore is once again whether the madness of ek-sis-
tence of the ldquonotrdquo of Being and of language can still be articulated in a
languagemdasheven if it as outreacute as Heideggerrsquos
Or Is it possible to think the not-borne-out as the not-borne-out More
precisely Does the not-borne-out allow itself to be thought only as a not
yet or beyond that does it allow itself to be thought as a never borne
out
Hence Can the ldquonotrdquo as a ldquoneverrdquomdashas a never of the sayablemdashdefine the
horizon of language And can this ldquoneverrdquo then also provide the tran-scendental horizon of the possibility of what is sayable Is the ldquoneverrdquo
the condition of the happening of language and the horizon of being
Or Can the ldquoneverrdquo be thought But How could it be other than never be
thought Consequently If the ldquoneverrdquo were the pre- and proto-predicative
happening that is called ldquoBeingrdquo and later more precisely coming-over
(Uumlberkommnis ) because it is what ldquoovercomesrdquo sur-prises overwhelms
more than just comes andmdashoverburdens erefore Can the unbearable
be borne and borne out
Otherwise How could Beingmdashwhether as happening history destiny
or coming-overmdashas the unbearable not be borne Because Can the un-
bearable be found at all otherwise unbearable than as always still and
nevertheless borne And then still not erefore Is there not in Being
itself such a still and nevertheless a but that keeps Being at a distancefrom Being and keeps Being out of Being and in this out and apart brings
it together
However What does the ldquooutrdquo mean in ldquoout of each otherrdquo and in ldquobearing
outrdquo if it still contains a ldquotogetherrdquo Does it refer to an originary synthesis
before every predicative synthesis Is not such a reference misleading if it
suggests a ldquotogetherrdquo there where we can encounter only an ldquoout of each
otherrdquomdasheven if we encounter it in the impossibility of its encounter
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 49
In his seminar in Le or in September 983089983097983094983094 Heidegger cites a paragraph
from the chapter ldquoOn the impossibility of a cosmological proof of Godrsquos
existencerdquo from Kantrsquos First Critique ese stunning sentencesmdashwhich
with their evocation of sinking floating without stop and the abyss
may well have contributed to the descriptions of anxiety in Being and
Time (983089983097983094983090) and ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo (983089983097983097983096)mdashspeak explicitly not only
about the groundless but also about the unbearable Kant writes
e unconditioned necessity which we need so indispensably as the ultimate
sustainer of all things is for human reason the true abyss Even eternitymdash
however awful the sublimity with which a Haller might portray itmdashdoes not
make such a dizzying impression on the mind for eternity only measures the
duration of things but it does not sustain that duration One cannot resist the
thought of it but one also cannot bear it that a being might as it were say
to itself ldquoI am from eternity to eternity outside me is nothing except what is
something merely through my will but whence then am Irdquo Here everything
caves in beneath us and the greatest perfection as well as the smallest hover
without hold before speculative reason for which it would cost nothing to
let the one as much as the other disappear without the least obstacle (Kant
983089983097983097983097 983093983095983092 Heidegger 983090983088983088983091 983089983095) God the highest ground of what is appears in
its monologue as an abyss that does not carry it but lets it collapse And Kant
says of this thought of a God that does not carry itself that ldquoone cannot resist
the thought of it but one also cannot bear itrdquo
With this the primal scene of critical transcendental philosophy and
speculative idealism is described an ens realissimum et nesessarium that does not contain the guarantee of its own being a God that is not
a causa sui and sinks in the abyss of its own question after a ground
cannot offer beings any more hold and must therefore pull down in
its own fall the categories that render it thinkable necessary and real
What remains is the scene of the sinking away of the totality of beings
ldquothe greatest perfection as well as the smallestrdquo and with this scene the
form of representation the mere idea of reason in which beings as a
whole together with the categorial structures of their knowability survive
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2342
T h e R e l a t i o n50
under the condition of their transcendentality For the ldquotranscendental
objectrdquomdashthat Kant can only speak of after the sinking away of a world
and its transcendental groundmdashis not an empirical object and not even
an object at all is object as Kant writes ldquotherefore cannot be further
intuited by us and that may therefore be called the non-empirical ie
transcendental object = Xrdquo (983089983097983097983097 983090983091983091) In his Kant book Heidegger calls
this transcendental X ldquoa Nothingrdquo that is at the same time ldquoSomethingrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983096983094) and describes the X as ldquothe horizon of a standing-against is
horizon is indeed not object but rather a Nothing if by object we mean
a being which is apprehended thematicallyrdquo (983096983095) Furthermore ldquoOnly if
the letting-stand-against of is a holding oneself in the nothing canthe representing allow a not-nothing ie something like a being rdquo (983093983089)
In the Kant commentary the ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo ismdashlike
the anxiety scenes in Being and Time in the Freiburg lecture and more
abstractly in the ldquoLetterrdquo in different waysmdashthe gesture of the horizontal-
transcendental constitution of the domain of objectivity and with that
at the same time of no longer onto-theologically founded beings held
in the mere form of representation not a creatio but still a constitutio ex
nihilo e fact that ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo as Kant examines
it in his critical philosophy stops at the form of representation (Vorstel-
lung ) and the idea of reason makes these gestures into a regulatio nihili
and prevents the further analysis of the transcendental form of being
represented and posited
Heidegger took on this further analysis starting with the exposition of
Dasein in Being and Time is analysis must show that the sinking of theens necessarium and with it that of mere being (which does not hold and
bear itself) remain irreducible to the beings of representation the idea
or the concept It must expose the fact that transcendental representa-
tion merely displaces the ldquonotrdquo that it encounters in the sinking of the
highest being instead of engaging it as the decisive content of being To
do justice to the implications of the anxiety-scene and the unbearable
question of God for his ground the classical analytical concept of differ-
ence between ground and the grounded positing and the posited must
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 47
emphasize the ldquobetweenrdquo that corresponds to the inter of the unter in
the concept of Unterschied (difference) e German word Austrag is the
literal translation of the Latin differentia which in turn is a translation
of the decisive Greek term diaphoraacute In a definition provided in the first
essay on Trakl ldquoLanguagerdquo (in 983089983097983093983088) diaphoraacute difference and bearing
out are juxtaposed with the following commentary ldquoe intimacy of
dif-ference [Unter-Schied ] is the unifying element of the diaphora the
carrying out [ Austrag ] that carries through e dif-ference carries out
world in its worlding carries out things in their thinging us carrying
them out it carries them toward one anotherrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) And a few
sentences later the series of synonymous concepts is extended to includeEreignis the appropriating event gesture as bearing and granting ldquoe
dif-ference for world and thing disclosingly appropriates things into bear-
ing a world it disclosingly appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo
(983090983088983088) In accordance with these connections in ldquoe Way to Languagerdquo
relation (Verhaumlltnis ) is thought out of the appropriating event and more
precisely as the appropriative happening of the essence of language ldquoFor
that appropriating holding self-retaining is the relation of all relations
us our sayingmdashalways an answeringmdashremains forever relational Rela-
tion [Ver-haumlltnis as holding to itself] is thought of here always in terms
of the event and no longer conceived in the form of a mere referencerdquo
(983089983097983095983089 983089983091983093) But if relation means appropriation if appropriation means
difference difference means differentia and diaphora and the latter two
mean the carrying out that carries through while carrying out means
bearing the question unavoidable emerges How do the concepts from
the Trakl commentary the unborn and what is not borne out relate to thisseries And how can this series be unified with the other the without-
path and the aporia of madness ese questions are not yet answered
by the remark that Heidegger understood human Dasein in the sense of
ek-sistence as the ecstatic being outside of itself of madness is only
makes the question more urgent of whether this being-in-madness can
be thought with the concepts of difference and ldquobearing outrdquo Or whether
this madness overburdens ldquothe carrying out that carries throughrdquo and the
ldquobearing outrdquo and is therefore thrown away evacuated and forgotten
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2142
T h e R e l a t i o n48
e question therefore is once again whether the madness of ek-sis-
tence of the ldquonotrdquo of Being and of language can still be articulated in a
languagemdasheven if it as outreacute as Heideggerrsquos
Or Is it possible to think the not-borne-out as the not-borne-out More
precisely Does the not-borne-out allow itself to be thought only as a not
yet or beyond that does it allow itself to be thought as a never borne
out
Hence Can the ldquonotrdquo as a ldquoneverrdquomdashas a never of the sayablemdashdefine the
horizon of language And can this ldquoneverrdquo then also provide the tran-scendental horizon of the possibility of what is sayable Is the ldquoneverrdquo
the condition of the happening of language and the horizon of being
Or Can the ldquoneverrdquo be thought But How could it be other than never be
thought Consequently If the ldquoneverrdquo were the pre- and proto-predicative
happening that is called ldquoBeingrdquo and later more precisely coming-over
(Uumlberkommnis ) because it is what ldquoovercomesrdquo sur-prises overwhelms
more than just comes andmdashoverburdens erefore Can the unbearable
be borne and borne out
Otherwise How could Beingmdashwhether as happening history destiny
or coming-overmdashas the unbearable not be borne Because Can the un-
bearable be found at all otherwise unbearable than as always still and
nevertheless borne And then still not erefore Is there not in Being
itself such a still and nevertheless a but that keeps Being at a distancefrom Being and keeps Being out of Being and in this out and apart brings
it together
However What does the ldquooutrdquo mean in ldquoout of each otherrdquo and in ldquobearing
outrdquo if it still contains a ldquotogetherrdquo Does it refer to an originary synthesis
before every predicative synthesis Is not such a reference misleading if it
suggests a ldquotogetherrdquo there where we can encounter only an ldquoout of each
otherrdquomdasheven if we encounter it in the impossibility of its encounter
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 49
In his seminar in Le or in September 983089983097983094983094 Heidegger cites a paragraph
from the chapter ldquoOn the impossibility of a cosmological proof of Godrsquos
existencerdquo from Kantrsquos First Critique ese stunning sentencesmdashwhich
with their evocation of sinking floating without stop and the abyss
may well have contributed to the descriptions of anxiety in Being and
Time (983089983097983094983090) and ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo (983089983097983097983096)mdashspeak explicitly not only
about the groundless but also about the unbearable Kant writes
e unconditioned necessity which we need so indispensably as the ultimate
sustainer of all things is for human reason the true abyss Even eternitymdash
however awful the sublimity with which a Haller might portray itmdashdoes not
make such a dizzying impression on the mind for eternity only measures the
duration of things but it does not sustain that duration One cannot resist the
thought of it but one also cannot bear it that a being might as it were say
to itself ldquoI am from eternity to eternity outside me is nothing except what is
something merely through my will but whence then am Irdquo Here everything
caves in beneath us and the greatest perfection as well as the smallest hover
without hold before speculative reason for which it would cost nothing to
let the one as much as the other disappear without the least obstacle (Kant
983089983097983097983097 983093983095983092 Heidegger 983090983088983088983091 983089983095) God the highest ground of what is appears in
its monologue as an abyss that does not carry it but lets it collapse And Kant
says of this thought of a God that does not carry itself that ldquoone cannot resist
the thought of it but one also cannot bear itrdquo
With this the primal scene of critical transcendental philosophy and
speculative idealism is described an ens realissimum et nesessarium that does not contain the guarantee of its own being a God that is not
a causa sui and sinks in the abyss of its own question after a ground
cannot offer beings any more hold and must therefore pull down in
its own fall the categories that render it thinkable necessary and real
What remains is the scene of the sinking away of the totality of beings
ldquothe greatest perfection as well as the smallestrdquo and with this scene the
form of representation the mere idea of reason in which beings as a
whole together with the categorial structures of their knowability survive
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2342
T h e R e l a t i o n50
under the condition of their transcendentality For the ldquotranscendental
objectrdquomdashthat Kant can only speak of after the sinking away of a world
and its transcendental groundmdashis not an empirical object and not even
an object at all is object as Kant writes ldquotherefore cannot be further
intuited by us and that may therefore be called the non-empirical ie
transcendental object = Xrdquo (983089983097983097983097 983090983091983091) In his Kant book Heidegger calls
this transcendental X ldquoa Nothingrdquo that is at the same time ldquoSomethingrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983096983094) and describes the X as ldquothe horizon of a standing-against is
horizon is indeed not object but rather a Nothing if by object we mean
a being which is apprehended thematicallyrdquo (983096983095) Furthermore ldquoOnly if
the letting-stand-against of is a holding oneself in the nothing canthe representing allow a not-nothing ie something like a being rdquo (983093983089)
In the Kant commentary the ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo ismdashlike
the anxiety scenes in Being and Time in the Freiburg lecture and more
abstractly in the ldquoLetterrdquo in different waysmdashthe gesture of the horizontal-
transcendental constitution of the domain of objectivity and with that
at the same time of no longer onto-theologically founded beings held
in the mere form of representation not a creatio but still a constitutio ex
nihilo e fact that ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo as Kant examines
it in his critical philosophy stops at the form of representation (Vorstel-
lung ) and the idea of reason makes these gestures into a regulatio nihili
and prevents the further analysis of the transcendental form of being
represented and posited
Heidegger took on this further analysis starting with the exposition of
Dasein in Being and Time is analysis must show that the sinking of theens necessarium and with it that of mere being (which does not hold and
bear itself) remain irreducible to the beings of representation the idea
or the concept It must expose the fact that transcendental representa-
tion merely displaces the ldquonotrdquo that it encounters in the sinking of the
highest being instead of engaging it as the decisive content of being To
do justice to the implications of the anxiety-scene and the unbearable
question of God for his ground the classical analytical concept of differ-
ence between ground and the grounded positing and the posited must
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2142
T h e R e l a t i o n48
e question therefore is once again whether the madness of ek-sis-
tence of the ldquonotrdquo of Being and of language can still be articulated in a
languagemdasheven if it as outreacute as Heideggerrsquos
Or Is it possible to think the not-borne-out as the not-borne-out More
precisely Does the not-borne-out allow itself to be thought only as a not
yet or beyond that does it allow itself to be thought as a never borne
out
Hence Can the ldquonotrdquo as a ldquoneverrdquomdashas a never of the sayablemdashdefine the
horizon of language And can this ldquoneverrdquo then also provide the tran-scendental horizon of the possibility of what is sayable Is the ldquoneverrdquo
the condition of the happening of language and the horizon of being
Or Can the ldquoneverrdquo be thought But How could it be other than never be
thought Consequently If the ldquoneverrdquo were the pre- and proto-predicative
happening that is called ldquoBeingrdquo and later more precisely coming-over
(Uumlberkommnis ) because it is what ldquoovercomesrdquo sur-prises overwhelms
more than just comes andmdashoverburdens erefore Can the unbearable
be borne and borne out
Otherwise How could Beingmdashwhether as happening history destiny
or coming-overmdashas the unbearable not be borne Because Can the un-
bearable be found at all otherwise unbearable than as always still and
nevertheless borne And then still not erefore Is there not in Being
itself such a still and nevertheless a but that keeps Being at a distancefrom Being and keeps Being out of Being and in this out and apart brings
it together
However What does the ldquooutrdquo mean in ldquoout of each otherrdquo and in ldquobearing
outrdquo if it still contains a ldquotogetherrdquo Does it refer to an originary synthesis
before every predicative synthesis Is not such a reference misleading if it
suggests a ldquotogetherrdquo there where we can encounter only an ldquoout of each
otherrdquomdasheven if we encounter it in the impossibility of its encounter
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 49
In his seminar in Le or in September 983089983097983094983094 Heidegger cites a paragraph
from the chapter ldquoOn the impossibility of a cosmological proof of Godrsquos
existencerdquo from Kantrsquos First Critique ese stunning sentencesmdashwhich
with their evocation of sinking floating without stop and the abyss
may well have contributed to the descriptions of anxiety in Being and
Time (983089983097983094983090) and ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo (983089983097983097983096)mdashspeak explicitly not only
about the groundless but also about the unbearable Kant writes
e unconditioned necessity which we need so indispensably as the ultimate
sustainer of all things is for human reason the true abyss Even eternitymdash
however awful the sublimity with which a Haller might portray itmdashdoes not
make such a dizzying impression on the mind for eternity only measures the
duration of things but it does not sustain that duration One cannot resist the
thought of it but one also cannot bear it that a being might as it were say
to itself ldquoI am from eternity to eternity outside me is nothing except what is
something merely through my will but whence then am Irdquo Here everything
caves in beneath us and the greatest perfection as well as the smallest hover
without hold before speculative reason for which it would cost nothing to
let the one as much as the other disappear without the least obstacle (Kant
983089983097983097983097 983093983095983092 Heidegger 983090983088983088983091 983089983095) God the highest ground of what is appears in
its monologue as an abyss that does not carry it but lets it collapse And Kant
says of this thought of a God that does not carry itself that ldquoone cannot resist
the thought of it but one also cannot bear itrdquo
With this the primal scene of critical transcendental philosophy and
speculative idealism is described an ens realissimum et nesessarium that does not contain the guarantee of its own being a God that is not
a causa sui and sinks in the abyss of its own question after a ground
cannot offer beings any more hold and must therefore pull down in
its own fall the categories that render it thinkable necessary and real
What remains is the scene of the sinking away of the totality of beings
ldquothe greatest perfection as well as the smallestrdquo and with this scene the
form of representation the mere idea of reason in which beings as a
whole together with the categorial structures of their knowability survive
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2342
T h e R e l a t i o n50
under the condition of their transcendentality For the ldquotranscendental
objectrdquomdashthat Kant can only speak of after the sinking away of a world
and its transcendental groundmdashis not an empirical object and not even
an object at all is object as Kant writes ldquotherefore cannot be further
intuited by us and that may therefore be called the non-empirical ie
transcendental object = Xrdquo (983089983097983097983097 983090983091983091) In his Kant book Heidegger calls
this transcendental X ldquoa Nothingrdquo that is at the same time ldquoSomethingrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983096983094) and describes the X as ldquothe horizon of a standing-against is
horizon is indeed not object but rather a Nothing if by object we mean
a being which is apprehended thematicallyrdquo (983096983095) Furthermore ldquoOnly if
the letting-stand-against of is a holding oneself in the nothing canthe representing allow a not-nothing ie something like a being rdquo (983093983089)
In the Kant commentary the ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo ismdashlike
the anxiety scenes in Being and Time in the Freiburg lecture and more
abstractly in the ldquoLetterrdquo in different waysmdashthe gesture of the horizontal-
transcendental constitution of the domain of objectivity and with that
at the same time of no longer onto-theologically founded beings held
in the mere form of representation not a creatio but still a constitutio ex
nihilo e fact that ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo as Kant examines
it in his critical philosophy stops at the form of representation (Vorstel-
lung ) and the idea of reason makes these gestures into a regulatio nihili
and prevents the further analysis of the transcendental form of being
represented and posited
Heidegger took on this further analysis starting with the exposition of
Dasein in Being and Time is analysis must show that the sinking of theens necessarium and with it that of mere being (which does not hold and
bear itself) remain irreducible to the beings of representation the idea
or the concept It must expose the fact that transcendental representa-
tion merely displaces the ldquonotrdquo that it encounters in the sinking of the
highest being instead of engaging it as the decisive content of being To
do justice to the implications of the anxiety-scene and the unbearable
question of God for his ground the classical analytical concept of differ-
ence between ground and the grounded positing and the posited must
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 49
In his seminar in Le or in September 983089983097983094983094 Heidegger cites a paragraph
from the chapter ldquoOn the impossibility of a cosmological proof of Godrsquos
existencerdquo from Kantrsquos First Critique ese stunning sentencesmdashwhich
with their evocation of sinking floating without stop and the abyss
may well have contributed to the descriptions of anxiety in Being and
Time (983089983097983094983090) and ldquoWhat is Metaphysicsrdquo (983089983097983097983096)mdashspeak explicitly not only
about the groundless but also about the unbearable Kant writes
e unconditioned necessity which we need so indispensably as the ultimate
sustainer of all things is for human reason the true abyss Even eternitymdash
however awful the sublimity with which a Haller might portray itmdashdoes not
make such a dizzying impression on the mind for eternity only measures the
duration of things but it does not sustain that duration One cannot resist the
thought of it but one also cannot bear it that a being might as it were say
to itself ldquoI am from eternity to eternity outside me is nothing except what is
something merely through my will but whence then am Irdquo Here everything
caves in beneath us and the greatest perfection as well as the smallest hover
without hold before speculative reason for which it would cost nothing to
let the one as much as the other disappear without the least obstacle (Kant
983089983097983097983097 983093983095983092 Heidegger 983090983088983088983091 983089983095) God the highest ground of what is appears in
its monologue as an abyss that does not carry it but lets it collapse And Kant
says of this thought of a God that does not carry itself that ldquoone cannot resist
the thought of it but one also cannot bear itrdquo
With this the primal scene of critical transcendental philosophy and
speculative idealism is described an ens realissimum et nesessarium that does not contain the guarantee of its own being a God that is not
a causa sui and sinks in the abyss of its own question after a ground
cannot offer beings any more hold and must therefore pull down in
its own fall the categories that render it thinkable necessary and real
What remains is the scene of the sinking away of the totality of beings
ldquothe greatest perfection as well as the smallestrdquo and with this scene the
form of representation the mere idea of reason in which beings as a
whole together with the categorial structures of their knowability survive
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2342
T h e R e l a t i o n50
under the condition of their transcendentality For the ldquotranscendental
objectrdquomdashthat Kant can only speak of after the sinking away of a world
and its transcendental groundmdashis not an empirical object and not even
an object at all is object as Kant writes ldquotherefore cannot be further
intuited by us and that may therefore be called the non-empirical ie
transcendental object = Xrdquo (983089983097983097983097 983090983091983091) In his Kant book Heidegger calls
this transcendental X ldquoa Nothingrdquo that is at the same time ldquoSomethingrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983096983094) and describes the X as ldquothe horizon of a standing-against is
horizon is indeed not object but rather a Nothing if by object we mean
a being which is apprehended thematicallyrdquo (983096983095) Furthermore ldquoOnly if
the letting-stand-against of is a holding oneself in the nothing canthe representing allow a not-nothing ie something like a being rdquo (983093983089)
In the Kant commentary the ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo ismdashlike
the anxiety scenes in Being and Time in the Freiburg lecture and more
abstractly in the ldquoLetterrdquo in different waysmdashthe gesture of the horizontal-
transcendental constitution of the domain of objectivity and with that
at the same time of no longer onto-theologically founded beings held
in the mere form of representation not a creatio but still a constitutio ex
nihilo e fact that ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo as Kant examines
it in his critical philosophy stops at the form of representation (Vorstel-
lung ) and the idea of reason makes these gestures into a regulatio nihili
and prevents the further analysis of the transcendental form of being
represented and posited
Heidegger took on this further analysis starting with the exposition of
Dasein in Being and Time is analysis must show that the sinking of theens necessarium and with it that of mere being (which does not hold and
bear itself) remain irreducible to the beings of representation the idea
or the concept It must expose the fact that transcendental representa-
tion merely displaces the ldquonotrdquo that it encounters in the sinking of the
highest being instead of engaging it as the decisive content of being To
do justice to the implications of the anxiety-scene and the unbearable
question of God for his ground the classical analytical concept of differ-
ence between ground and the grounded positing and the posited must
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2342
T h e R e l a t i o n50
under the condition of their transcendentality For the ldquotranscendental
objectrdquomdashthat Kant can only speak of after the sinking away of a world
and its transcendental groundmdashis not an empirical object and not even
an object at all is object as Kant writes ldquotherefore cannot be further
intuited by us and that may therefore be called the non-empirical ie
transcendental object = Xrdquo (983089983097983097983097 983090983091983091) In his Kant book Heidegger calls
this transcendental X ldquoa Nothingrdquo that is at the same time ldquoSomethingrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983096983094) and describes the X as ldquothe horizon of a standing-against is
horizon is indeed not object but rather a Nothing if by object we mean
a being which is apprehended thematicallyrdquo (983096983095) Furthermore ldquoOnly if
the letting-stand-against of is a holding oneself in the nothing canthe representing allow a not-nothing ie something like a being rdquo (983093983089)
In the Kant commentary the ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo ismdashlike
the anxiety scenes in Being and Time in the Freiburg lecture and more
abstractly in the ldquoLetterrdquo in different waysmdashthe gesture of the horizontal-
transcendental constitution of the domain of objectivity and with that
at the same time of no longer onto-theologically founded beings held
in the mere form of representation not a creatio but still a constitutio ex
nihilo e fact that ldquoholding oneself in the nothingrdquo as Kant examines
it in his critical philosophy stops at the form of representation (Vorstel-
lung ) and the idea of reason makes these gestures into a regulatio nihili
and prevents the further analysis of the transcendental form of being
represented and posited
Heidegger took on this further analysis starting with the exposition of
Dasein in Being and Time is analysis must show that the sinking of theens necessarium and with it that of mere being (which does not hold and
bear itself) remain irreducible to the beings of representation the idea
or the concept It must expose the fact that transcendental representa-
tion merely displaces the ldquonotrdquo that it encounters in the sinking of the
highest being instead of engaging it as the decisive content of being To
do justice to the implications of the anxiety-scene and the unbearable
question of God for his ground the classical analytical concept of differ-
ence between ground and the grounded positing and the posited must
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 51
be transformed into the concept of a difference that can no longer be
contained within the horizon of representation and its transcendental
language is analysis therefore should yield a concept of difference
that retains only a single transcendental remainder namely that even
the horizon of a transcendental representation offers no other hold than
the ldquono hold rdquomdashthus a difference in which everything that can bear is
abandoned except for this that nothing bears Being must be thought on
the basis of this difference and as this difference since Being is neither
its own ground nor grounded in the structure of representation
Consequently this difference cannot be said in a language of predica-tion of position or of synthesis It must be the difference of ex-thesis
im-predication and the ex-positing of all forms of representation the
concept and the idea Not only beings in their being-ness not only the
highest and grounding being but primarily and above all Being itself is
to be thought from and as this different difference ldquoBeing as differencerdquo
(983090983088983088983090a 983094983092) To bring out the difference of this difference Heidegger
writes Unterschied as Unter-Schied mdashthat is as inter-rift mdashand transposes
the Greek diasphoraacute and the Latin differentia to the German Austrag
With this no rational distinction and no stable distance in the space of
the represented can be defined only a movement that leaves the space
of representation and moves into an incommensurably other space
Bearing out is primarily the ldquobearing outrdquo between difference and bear-
ing out (It is a transposition a trans lation an ldquoUumlber setzungrdquo as it is
written in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo [983090983088983088983090b 983090983094983088] to show that it changesover from one domain of language and thought to another) Bearing
out now means nothing else but that the concept of difference has alto-
gether abandoned its meaning based in theories of representation and
consciousness as well as its historical-philosophical meaning which is
not replaced by anything of the same order that is by any meaning Not
only does Heidegger pursue in his whole work this elimination of the
historical meanings and contents of words and concepts he also always
explains it and comments on it is is what we find in ldquoLanguagerdquo where
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2542
T h e R e l a t i o n52
Heidegger discusses Unter-Schied ldquoe word lsquodif-ferencersquo [Unter-Schied ]
is now removed from its usual and customary usage What it now names
is not a generic concept for various kinds of differences It exists only
as this single difference It is uniquerdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) It is unique in Traklrsquos
poem ldquoA Winter Eveningrdquo as well as in its interpretation by Heidegger
Consequently it is unique in the now of the moment that is not only
world-historical but also belongs to the history of being the moment
that the interpretation of the poem tries to grasp e same is true for the
translation of difference into bearing out the historical word is withdrawn
from its customary usage and it is submitted to an anasemie that takes
out its usual meaning like a false figure from an equation and leaves onlythis evacuated meaning ldquoBeing as differencerdquo means being as bearing out
in the sense of the efference of nominal as well as predicative structures
as a carrying-out-of into an outside of all hold and at the same time as
an opening of an ex an out and a not inside the ldquohouserdquo of language
Being as bearing out is therefore the parting with beings and at the
same time with every habitual and inhabitable linguistic formulation of
being Bearing out is to be read as the difference and parting from itself
of an elementary philosophical concept as well as the parting difference
of being from itself in which alone it holds itself and holds onto itself as
being in that it holds itself away from itself Understood as bearing out
im-predicable being bears itself out in its own proper happening as this
im-predicable being bearing out fulfills itself as the efference the evacu-
ation and expropriation of historical beings
Since this evacuation of historical modes of being is the proper historical
happening of Being itself its expropriating bearing out is also its self-
appropriation and exists as the appropriating event of Being Bearing out
carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the history of
language It carries itself out in the sense of an appropriating event in the
history of thought and being which rests on nothing else but that being
suspends all of its habitual representations exposes itself as a coming-
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 53
over and allows beings as different and separate from itself to come to
their proper status of predication e appropriating event that carries
itself out in Heideggerrsquos Unter-Schied is an appropriation only out of ex-
propriation only possible due to the ex-propriation ex-nomination and
ex-predication of all concepts and sentences of representation that his-
torically speaking have fixed and still might fix themselves onto ldquobeingrdquo
and ldquobeingsrdquo But it is also the appropriation of ex-propriation and thus
the affirmation of the propriative structure of all happenings regardless
of whether it is understood as belonging to the history of being thought
or language erefore in On Time and Being we read ldquoought in terms
of the event of propriation this means in that sense it expropriates itselfof itself Expropriation belongs to the event of propriation as such By this
expropriation propriation does not abandon itselfmdashrather it preserves
what is its properly ownrdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983090983090ndash983090983091)
Bearing out therefore does not only mean evacuation and exference For
the same reason it also means carrying to an end and a goal a telos in
which something comes to its own and to itself and thus it designates
once again the archi-teleological movement of the whole history of
philosophy No matter how different the concepts and practices of dia-
phoraacute and differentia distinction and difference might be in this history
Heidegger pulls them together into the unity of the fundamentalmdashand
a-fundamentalmdashdifference and thereby clarifies the ference-structure of
the thought of Being in general Only hence the vocabulary of unity only
hence the symmetry between bearing ldquoaway fromrdquo and ldquotowardrdquo each
other only hence in the end the persistence of the phoraacute and ferre ofbearing ldquoat inter-rift [Unter-Schied ] alone grants and holds apart the
lsquobetweenrsquo in which the overwhelming and the arrival are held toward
one another are borne away from and toward each otherrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093)
And ldquoOf itself it holds apart the middle in and through which world
and things are at one with each other e dif-ference for world and
thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world it disclosingly
appropriates world into the granting of thingsrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983088) As long as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2742
T h e R e l a t i o n54
thought of being is understood as difference and carrying out it remains
caught in the logic of the event of appropriation of the property even in
expropriation as well as the logic of bearing and of the bearable
After this long detour we must now return to the problem of what
happens with Godrsquos unbearable question about his own ground with
a ground that does not hold and holds nothing with what cannot be
borne and with the unbearable that ldquoone cannot resist the thought ofrdquo
Furthermore we must also ask if what happens here can still be called
or thought of as a happening And in what relation if it still is a relation
does it stand with the other way of madness
Kant calls the thought of ldquothe ultimate bearer [Traumlger ] of all thingsrdquo that
is not its own groundmdashcausa sui mdasha true abyss for finite reason For rea-
son only positional and propositional being is thinkable only being as
positing but never as an ab-solute being emerging from its self that is
from the ldquonotrdquo of every position Such a being without position such an
ex-posed being is the unbearable from which reason transcendentally
posting its own horizon and always made anxious by it must turn itself
away Bare being cannot be borne at there ldquoisrdquo such a thing is attested
by the thought that Kant calls unbearable What it also attests to at the
same time is an abyss a ldquonotrdquo of reason that belongs to reason as its
own property and not although but precisely because and as long as this
ldquonotrdquo expropriates reason dispossesses it and makes reason unbearable
for itself
e ldquonotrdquo of bare Being is always carried and borne only as the simply
unbearable that cannot be rejected Being which does not obey reason yet
belongs to it must therefore be thought as bearing out of the incapability
to bear out ldquoBeing as differencerdquo must be thought as ex -ference of di ffer-
ence and diaphoraacute As a result thinking must be thought as un-thinking
When the unbearable must be thought it must be thought as the unbear-
ability of thinking itself It must be thought as the unthinkability or the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 55
forgetting of thought Not-thinking belongs to the structure of thinking
itself As long as it does not think its not-thinking it does not yet think
To be thinking it must bear its difference from itself and therefore its own
not-thinking inking must bear its ldquonot being able to bearrdquo
A difference that does not bear anything apart from its not-bearing It
would bear the ldquowithoutrdquo of ference But would it be its own ldquowithoutrdquo
and could it be the ldquowithoutrdquo of its own ference A bearing out that would
be unbearable for itselfmdashcould it still give itself in its property and in
the end obtain itself Are these possessive pronouns in fact justified
when we are dealing with a ldquonotrdquo that precedes every act of positing bya subject and thus it must release all nouns pronouns and possessives
that are made possible by such an act
A difference that bears nothing but a ldquonotrdquo can never exclude the pos-
sibility that the ldquonotrdquo it bears is its own But it cannot renounce the other
possibility either namely that it can not be its own It is always possible
to turn the ldquonotrdquo into a possessive (even if it is primarily ldquoonlyrdquo a linguistic
possessive) or into a ldquonotrdquo of something a genitive or dative ldquonotrdquo but
with this putting into relation of the ldquonotrdquo its reduction leads to a depen-
dence that is in fact dissolved by the ldquonotrdquo e ldquonotrdquo remains irreducible
to something other since it means not-other It remains irreducible to
itself since it means not-self Neither other nor self the ldquonotrdquo is a ldquonotrdquo
also to the Hegelian ldquoother of itselfrdquo It is other than other the movement
of unstoppable othering and as such always the other as well as the self
yet never one of the two It is the tie between them but only a tie thatdissolves itself
e ldquonotrdquo would be the solutionmdashbut only as the dissolution of the ldquonotrdquo
is is why it bears and does not bearmdashand the formula ldquoe ontological
difference is the lsquonotrsquo between beings and Beingrdquo (983089983097983097983096 983097983095) is insufficient
It is not borne and cannot be the bearing out of itself to itself and to
the beings disclosed by it Even the directional formula ldquodifference from
Being toward beingsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983096983089) represents a restriction of difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 2942
T h e R e l a t i o n56
namely its restriction to the teleological relation between ldquoBeingrdquo and
ldquobeingsrdquo If this restriction is removed the directional character of the
ldquoessencerdquo of difference is suspended by the ldquonotrdquo that it carries and also
does not carry but rather mis -carries carries away or throws off is way
bearing out as well as being and beings can only be thought of as one of
the possibilities of difference that is always thwarted by the other that
the ldquonotrdquo of Being the Being from ldquonotrdquo is not and does not bear itself
out to beings Between these two possibilities of the ldquonotrdquo between these
two impossibilities a difference in the sense of a bearing out can and also
cannot be thought and must remain therefore un-thought is is why
Heideggerrsquos assumption that ldquothis localisation which assigns the differ-ence of Being and beings to bearing out as the approach to their essence
could even bring to light something all-pervading which pervades Beingrsquos
destiny from its beginning to its completionrdquo983094 (983090983088983088983090a 983094983095) either must be
considered erroneous or must be abandoned It does not bear out and
pervade because it does not bear witness to the alternative possibility
that the aporetic structure of the ldquonotrdquo breaks up every process before
its end and completion
ldquoNotrdquo is the exproprium par excellence It is what approaches yet does not
ever approachmdashanything or anybody anytime In this not-approaching
approach it is the not-bearable that cannot be borne out e difference
that bears the ldquonotrdquo of its bearing at the same time also always bears
the ldquonotrdquo of another bearing and the ldquonotrdquo of something other than bear-
ing And since it can not be its own difference cannot be thought in the
emphatic sense as bearing out as the gesture of bearing the birth andthe gift of the ldquonotrdquo of being and neither can bearing out be thought
as the unconcealing of the concealment of being and the arrival of be-
ings Rather it must be thought as the withdrawal of bearing out as the
epocheacute of difference the deactivation of giving and the depassivation
of bearing Since it does not ever belong ( gehoumlrt ) and does not belong
to itself as a ldquonotrdquo it cannot be either heard (houmlrt ) or simply not heard
it can neither be stilled nor reached through the saying not-saying that
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 57
Heidegger speaks about at the end of Identity and Difference As the abyss
of reason it is also the abyss of hearing and of every language that seeks
to answer it It is silent not only in the sense that language could be ldquothe
peal of stillnessrdquo (983090983088983088983089 983090983088983093) it is (if we can still say is here) also mute
Since it must precede every distinction between outside and inside it is
simply what cannot be interiorized in memory and yet also what simply
cannot be forgotten either
Both may be said of Heideggerrsquos phrase of the forgetfulness of being In
the final chapter of the Kant book (983089983097983090983097) it is spoken of as ldquothe primal
metaphysical factum [Urfaktum]rdquo of Dasein ldquois factum consists in thefact that what is most finite in its finitude is indeed known but neverthe-
less has not been grasped e finitude of Daseinmdashthe understanding
of Beingmdashlies in forgetfulness is [ forgetfulness] is not accidental and
temporary but on the contrary is necessarily and constantly formedrdquo
(983089983097983097983095 983089983094983091ndash983094983092) e moderate assessment of this forgetfulness shows itself
in that even as it is a ldquoprimal factumrdquo it nevertheless must be possible to
ascertain and even as it is forgetfulness it must still be apprehensible Al-
most 983090983088 years later in ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Sayingrdquo (in 983089983097983092983094) Heidegger writes
the following no longer from the perspective of the analytic of Dasein but
from that of the history of being ldquothe destiny of Being begins with the
oblivion of Being so that Being together with its essence its difference
from Being holds back with itself rdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) e tension between
forgetfulness (veiling concealment holding back with itself) and mani-
festation (unconcelament experience clearing) is dissolved here in the
thought of the trace the trace of the erasure of the trace of difference thistrace ldquothe oblivion of the differencerdquo that Heidegger defines as ldquothe event
of metaphysicsrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) remains legible because it bears difference
in its very forgetfulness and brings it out from its forgetfulness and bears
it out (983090983095983093) With the oblivion of difference the trace (the differentiality of
difference that Derrida writes as diffeacuterance) carries two things it carries
difference and hence the ldquoessencerdquo of Being but also carries it together
with its forgetting withholding and withdrawal erefore on the one
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3142
T h e R e l a t i o n58
hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of beings in which their Being emerges on
the other hand it is carrying the ldquonotrdquo of this ldquonotrdquo in which it conceals
and maintains itself
Heideggerrsquos difference is the amphora of being lethe-phoraacute and aletheia-
phoraacute and as such the sheltering that unfolds itself into unconcealment
and concealment and defines the whole ldquoworld-history of the Occidentrdquo
(983090983088983088983090b 983090983095983093) yet maintains itself securely preserved and remaining
equally in both as sheltering Heidegger writes ldquoe difference collapses
It remains forgottenrdquo (983090983095983093) But since this collapse and forgetting remains
unforgotten at least in the trace of a trace which remains the primal factum of the self-preservation of being and forgetting it does not fall
and does not collapse but is rather preserved and maintained as the
erased and self-erasing Nothing is forgotten e forgetting as thought
by Heidegger is the sublation of forgetting Being and self
But it is not so in the sense of a sublation in an absolute knowledge that
knows itself in its negativity and secures its past in internalizing memory
It is rather a keeping of forgetting and keeping forgetting in a medium
thatmdashbefore every subjectivity of consciousness and every objectivity
determined by its representations and conceptsmdashmakes consciousness
and self-consciousness possible in the first place and therefore cannot
be thought or remembered by it Whereas Hegel can think forgetting as a
moment of internalizing memory he cannot think it as the unthinkable
that still remains to be thought and to be thought in its stillness Forget-
ting does not allow itself to be internalized or remembered Internalizingmemory in which the gallery of forgotten contents of consciousness is
re-presented does not forget the forgotten but forgets forgetting itself If
in the Kant book ldquoremembering againrdquo (written in quotation marks) is
described by Heidegger as ldquothe basic fundamental-ontological actrdquo (983089983097983097983095
983089983094983092) it does not make a case for a platonic anamnesis of what is was
and will be but rather refers to the primal fact of forgetfulness and hence
to something absolutely un-rememberable that offers the possibility of
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 59
remembering it as absolute withholding as that which cannot be held
or held up kept maintained or preserved
Being forgets itself this fact of the pre-ontological de-facticity of finite
and thus defective Dasein cannot be raised into internalizing memory
and therefore cannot be sublated Neither can it be reversed arrested
or postponed It resists every classical analytical work of dissolution
as well as every act albeit a basic act of separation or repression of
internalization or opposition or positing at being forgets itselfmdashthis
auto-amnesia in the ur- and un-factum of happening in generalmdashblocks
every operation of and every access to memory remembrance and think-ing that tries to grasp and revive to understand or explain a ldquowhatrdquo or a
something is self-forgetfulness of Being is the ldquoinaccessiblerdquo (983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)
the unanalyzable phenomenologically inexposable in every attempt at
access analysis and exposition Precisely because it is an irresolvable im-
possibility and in that sense a necessity it must be thematized however
and in fact must be thematized as the un-thematizable What remains
still unthought is the ldquooblivion of the differencerdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983093983088) which is
not contingent and episodic but structural oblivion forgotten from the
beginning never-yet-thought and still-to-be-thought
End of thinking ( Denk-Ende)mdashthe one thought to be thought the un-
thinkable one erefore Heidegger speaks of memory not as internaliz-
ing Erinnerung but as Andenken once again with the emphatic isolation
of the prefix as An-denken which could hardly be understood differently
than ldquoto think against a wallrdquo or ldquoto think of something that withdrawsitselfrdquo e one who thinks forgetting thinks the ldquonotrdquo of thinking and
thinks toward against and from the ldquonotrdquo of this thinking He thinks
from that which cannot be thought by his thinking itself as long as it
happens with this thinking itself and happening this way resists thinking
Always thought from the difference of thinking the ontological difference
is at the same time forgetting and the forgotten the outmdashthe ex- and
exitusmdashof thinking happening and being Being as difference difference
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3342
T h e R e l a t i o n60
as bearing out therefore means the bearing out of the ldquooutrdquo into the
ldquooutrdquomdashinto lethe forgetting death It also means the appropriation of
the ldquooutrdquo as the end from which every experience receives its definition
Furthermore it means the appropriation of beings as those which first
receive their contour from their ldquooutrdquo
However this ldquoekrdquo and ldquoexrdquo this lethe death and forgetting the ldquonotrdquo does
not allow itself to be thought It can be said and passed on written and
repeated but it cannot be thought So when Heidegger speaks of An-
denken when following a metaphor from Houmllderlin and Rilke he speaks
of the trace of difference and the trace of the erasure of the trace (983090983088983088983090b983090983095983093) he tries to do justice precisely to the factum of the unthinkablity of
this factum At the same time however he also tries to insist that this
ldquonotrdquo of the thinkable must be thought and with this insistence he goes
astray He means the trace to be of necessity the trace of difference the dif-
ference always difference of being forgetfulness always the forgetfulness
of difference But forgetfulnessmdashif it deserves its namemdashmust always be
able to be also something non-relational non-genitive and non-genetic
and nothing is able to ascertain that it ever was not without a tie to
Being Although there are innumerable passages in Heideggerrsquos texts that
discuss with utmost care the double meaning of the genitive as subjec-
tivus and objectivus there are none that formulate a serious thinking of
genitivity as such When being forgets itself its forgetfulness must also
be able to be the dissolution of the tie that bound it to the forgotten If
the forgotten difference leaves behind a trace this trace must always also
be able to be the trace not of this difference but released and abandonedby it without a memory trace And finally if the difference of Being from
beings is truly a difference it must also be able to be such that it does not
remain the difference of Being but absolved from it and stepping into the
cold light of something indeterminably other than being
This other difference and this other forgotten which can never be
without the possibility of a relation to the one examined by Heidegger
manifests itself in his language with the re-segmentation the de- and
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3442
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 61
re-semantization of customary words and syntagms in the continuous
denaming of the already named in the invention of a idiolect which
should set against or next to the thoughtlessness of common ldquometaphysi-
calrdquo languages not only a new terminology but an alternative gesture of
thought No less does it show itself in an attention to the languages of
poetry and art which remain without an equal in modernity from Hegel
to Benjamin Even if he leaves no doubt that he understands language
as the answer to the ldquonotrdquo of beings the ontological vocabulary is used
conspicuously more discreetly in the texts devoted to language and po-
etry than in the quasi-systematic and historical works No matter how
infinitely problematic these texts remain they correspond to a trait oflanguage that corresponds to neither beings nor Being and cannot be
defined by the forgotten or preserved difference between the two In
them we encounter something other than Being its oblivion and the dif-
ferentiality of its residual traces without however being able to exclude
their possibility obtrusion and terroristic gestures of gathering It speaks
with another and for another ldquonotrdquo in which occasionally still another
may intervene
More not
Still more Language is a matter of the still of the ldquostillrdquo of a not-anymore
and of a still-not And this still the one in the other and this in that
speaks in such a way that its correlates can first extract themselves from
it the ldquonotrdquo of what has been and what is still to be in the future of beings
and their presence and absence is spoken and thought from a ldquostillrdquo that precedes both thinking and language
e concern that this ldquostillrdquo may be only a further variant of the ontologi-
cal difference in which its structures of appropriation stabilization and
presentation repeat themselves one more time might perhaps be dis-
persed through two observations On the one hand the still of language
always says moremdashno-more and still-more In its still-more it exceeds
every comprehensible limit of the form of representation as well as the
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3542
T h e R e l a t i o n62
analytic of its collapse in the history of being It speaks for a still-more
than what all being and its oblivion could grant for a forgetting that is
not even forgotten or still more than forgotten and therefore speaks
beyond what is merely thinkable and thinking Its still-more does not
say more of the same but still-another and still-other-than-other With
its ldquostillrdquo language speaks itself free from everything that can be said and
thought
On the other hand the ldquostillrdquo and the ldquostill-other-than-otherrdquo of language
is delirious Two substantial pages of Heideggerrsquos ldquoAnaximanderrsquos Say-
ingrdquo bear witness to this that are not too far separated from the passagein which he defines thinking as based on language and its poetry ldquoe
thinking of being is the primordial form of poeticizing in which before
everything else language first comes to language enters that is to say its
essence inking is the ur-poetry which precedes all poesyrdquo (983090983088983088983090b
983090983092983095) Somewhat later we read ldquoBy revealing itself in what is Being
withdraws itself In this way in its clearing Being invests the beings with
deliriousness or errancy What is happens in errancy deliriousness in
which it strays from Being and so founds error and delirium is is
the essential space of historyrdquo (983090983093983091ndash983093983092) Furthermore after the ldquoepocheacute
of beingrdquo is described as the ldquoclearing keeping to itself with the truth of
its essencerdquo Heidegger writes ldquoEach time that Being keeps to itself in
its sending suddenly and unexpectedly world happens Every epoch of
world-history is an epoch of errancy and deliriousness e epochal
essence of Being appropriates the ecstatic essence of Da-seinrdquo (983090983093983092ndash983093983093)
Delirious Aberrant It is not only the bright madness of language but also
that of Being and the epochs of its history As Being discloses (or bears
out or gives birth to) itself in beings it keeps to itself with its truth with-
draws and conceals itself it shelt-ers and errs What it releases from itself
is its errancymdasha delirious birth-giver of delirious births If every epoch of
world history is an epoch of errancy it is because the epochal character
of being as it keeps to itself does not allow anything other than what
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3642
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 63
is held outside of its truth and held into the errancy of Da-sein into the
ldquothererdquo and ldquoekrdquo of ek-sistence as its un-truth To think the epochality of
the epochs of being means to think errancy as the irreducibility of epochs
to a truth that would not be un-truth withdrawal and forgetfulness e
ur-poetry of thinking is the err-poetry of Being in which its epocheacute comes
about as the oblivion of thinking
e essence of being which lies in its existence and not its essentia (983089983097983094983090
983094983096) and its differentia could be called only errentia (if the word existed
and did not have to be first invented) It does not lead only into errancy
but is in errancy and exists as it spells the ldquoisrdquo of all beings in the errantlanguage of its errant Being as ldquoerrsrdquo
e appropriating event of language ( Ereignis )mdashexposed in the language
of poetrymdashthat bespeaks its happening its essence and its existence
would be the mis-appropriating err-ent ( Err-eignis oder Irr-eignis ) since
it goes astray unbound from its essence and without access to it And the
bearing out of its essence its ek-sistence and errancy would be the bearing
out of its epochal impossibility of bearing out its holding to itself and its
withdrawal bearing out in errancy and always still more errant bearing
out in its diaphora as aphora difference as diff-errence
If language were thought otherwise (as logos apophantikos proposition
expression structure of signification communication of information) it
would always be thought only within a specific epoch but not from the
epochality of each epoch e epocheacute of the happening of language how-ever says that the opening as such is held back and therefore allows still
other epochs to be announced and to arrive It says that still more errors
and errancies are possible without the horizon of this still being able to
set a limit and a measure for a truth other than that of the guarding of its
un-truth Epochality insists on a ldquostillrdquomdasha still-not-yet of the appearance
of Being as such a still-yet and a still-yet-another of the appearance of
Being in its delirious errancy
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3742
T h e R e l a t i o n64
ere ldquoisrdquo then only a parodic beingmdasha being on the errant track of its
mere being offered named represented posited and positionedmdashbut
not one that can be defined by such positional and propositional state-
ments that would allow a more than an epochal erroneous delirious
parodic access to its truth its refusal ldquoClearing of beingrdquo thus does not
mean that something but rather that always only the disappearance and
the unclearablity of its happening will become clear ldquoe clearing of
what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) means the revelation of the
impossibility of revelation the release of the without-being of everything
that could be said and done of everything that could be
To the ldquoepochality of beingrdquo (983090983088983088983090b 983090983093983092) and the ek-static character of
Da-sein corresponds in terms of the method of thinking the ldquostep backrdquo
of which Heidegger speaks taking up a phrase from Schillerrsquos twentieth
letter on ldquothe aesthetic education of manrdquo (983090983088983088983093 983093983095) In a marginalium
to Identitaumlt und differenz he describes it in the following terms ldquothe step
back before the whole of the destiny of Being is in itself awakening from
the appropriating event into the appropriating event as expropriation
from the jointurerdquo (983090983088983088983094 983093983097) is step which is supposed to relinquish
the appropriating event of being as expropriation into the errancy of the
without-being is (or ldquoerrsrdquo) similar to the parekbasis in Greek comedy a
parodic step that even in the step back from ldquothe whole of the destiny of
beingrdquo enters its parodic structure
ldquoAwakening from the appropriating event into the appropriating eventrdquomdash
ldquothe step backrdquo does not step out of ldquothe whole of the sendings of BeingrdquoEven when it does step out it does so only in such a way that it steps
into it as an outside without interiority It is a step into the step itself
going into going itself thinking toward ( An-denken) the toward ( An) of
thinking speaking toward ( An-sprechen) the toward ( An) of language yet
it is not something said thought or reached If this step is to be taken
then it cannot take place as one of the historically already realized or the
still possible further historical steps thoughts or statements in which
Being occurs It cannot be presupposed or experienced as one among
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3842
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 65
other ldquodestinies of beingrdquo because the offering and giving character of
being itself its sense of ldquooccurringrdquo first occurs in this stepmdashand with
the occurring of ldquothe whole of the giving of Beingrdquo is also its going astray
and erring its un-destinal and ex propriating sense Being shows itself as
what never shows itself but as the self-withdrawing shows in itself as
withdrawal of every showing Being step into the distance and the gift
an ellipse
If this is the meaning of aletheia it is precisely the originary aletheic truth
that errs It cannot be anything but what originarily jumps away from
itself and therefore can only be erroneous But inasmuch as it is its ownerrancy only this errancy comes close to it not the direct but only the
indirect wordmdashone may think here of Kierkegaardrsquos ldquoindirect communi-
cationrdquo only the ldquoironicrdquo yet neither the objectively nor the subjectively
ironic but rather the irony of history and Being which cannot be any
rhetorical figure or trope since as an anatrope it makes possible in the
first place every trope figure form and shape of Being and thinking
and makes them possible by withholding itself in its silence or muteness
Being is an-tropological erefore it cannot be grasped by thought but
must come about through poetry Poetry is the language in which the
errancy of Being finds itself as errancy as its only truth the truth of its
truth It is the err-language that deceives itself as little about the absence
of truth as about the fact that there is truth Errancy without errancy
ironic
Aletheia thus should not be understood simply as revelation but asldquoa clearing of what veils and closes itself off rdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983094983093) as revelation
of concealment e concealed that shows itself in this clearing is not
something kept secret that would be finallymdashwho knows through what
processmdashexposed e concealed is concealment It is the unstoppable
itself unstoppability that holds itself back the finitude the forgetting
the passing away that conceals itself in everything that shows itself and
what can only show itself as self-concealment by withdrawing from
erasing and crossing out this (and precisely this) showing concealment
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 3942
T h e R e l a t i o n66
e privation of lethe in the alpha privativum of aletheia belongs to lethe
itself unconcealment belongs to concealment When it allows itselfmdash
ironically or parodicallymdashto be written in poetry and therefore to be
thought it does not stand before our eyes as the unconcealed as such
but always only in such a way that the moment of its appearance is that
of the blinding glare of precisely this moment and the concealment in
this unconcealment e structure of the aletheic the originary truth is
paraletheic it is the truth about truth that it is the ldquonotrdquo of truth that it
is always almost and approximately that it is by or close to truth to the
now already past and the now still coming truth that it is forever in error
about error itself and therefore not is but errs
ere is no ldquoproperrdquo apart from the refused and therefore only a going
astray deliriously
Every ousiacutea is para-ousiacutea in this par-odos that offers no passage to no
ending on this other way that Heidegger reads in the madness (Wahnsinn)
of Traklrsquos poem
A somewhat other way of language than the one that is on the way to
it already naming language as the goal which can be anticipated and
therefore promised a way
ldquoworstward hordquo Beckett writes ldquonohow onrdquo
into the ldquocloseness of the inaccessiblerdquo of which ldquoRimbaud vivantrdquo speaks(Heidegger 983089983097983096983091 983090983090983094)mdashinaccessible but always taken always traversed
always in every errancy fulfilled
e epocheacute of being holds only to itself mdashit does not hold others And hold-
ing to itself it does not hold on to the name or the matter of ldquobeingrdquo
e title of our discussion could also have been epocheacute mdashldquoTo hold back
is in Greek epocherdquo (983090983088983088983090c 983097)mdashand still it would have been misleading
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4042
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 67
We have tried to speak of what holds what does not hold and what does
not hold itself and thus neither bears nor can be carried or borne We
had to try it in a perhaps errant and probably labyrinthine waymdashand
the labyrinth is a horizontal abyss Our dialoguemdashor as we have become
other and have been mute our contribution to a comical com-mutismmdash
could not therefore bear any title at all or only the kind that it does not
bear and that at least refers to the complications of bearing bearing out
difference diaphoraacute
is sounds as if our reflections could begin only here as if we had to
turn around now and return to begin again As if we did not know whereour head is or if we still had one and not only feet without a ground And
what turn could we find if ldquoOur Occidental languages are languages of
metaphysical thinking each in its own wayrdquo (983090983088983088983090a 983095983091) and are there-
fore delirious and erroneous yet we have tried to take two or more steps
back to probe them these languages and these steps
It must not be a word from the lexicon of one of these languages But it
could be two from different languages which somehow play together
approach each other and distance themselves from each other miss
something and thereby allow something to be readmdasheven if only a littlemdash
from that of which we spoke
For example
The Aphora
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4142
T h e R e l a t i o n68
983150 983151 983156 983141 983155
983089 Translation slightly modified
983090 Translation modified
983091 Translation modified 983092 Translation modified
983093 Translation modified In what follows the Heideggerian term Austrag will be of central
importance e verb austragen means to carry out deliver discharge To maintain the
continuity of argument that centers around tragen it will be translated as bearing out
or carrying out depending on the context
983094 Translation modified
983154 983141 983142 983141 983154 983141 983150 983139 983141 983155
Blanchot Maurice 983089983097983095983091 Le Pas as-delagrave Paris Gallimard
Beckett Samuel Nohow On Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Hordquo ree Novels New York
Grove Press 983089983097983097983094
Celan Paul 983089983097983097983095 Fremde Naumlhe Celan als Uumlbersetzer Ausstellung und Katalog Ed Axel Gellhaus
Marbach Deutsche Schillergesellschaft
Gascheacute Rodolphe 983089983097983097983092 e Eclipse of Difference In Inventions of Difference On Jacques Derrida
Cambridge MA Harvard University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983097 On the Nonadequate Trait In Of Minimal ings Stanford CA Stanford University
Press
Heidegger Martin 983089983097983094983090 Being and Time Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson New
York Harper
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983095983089 A Dialogue on Language (983089983097983093983091983092) Language in the Poem (983089983097983093983090) e Way to Lan-
guage (983089983097983093983097) In On the Way to Language Trans Peter D Hertz New York Harper and
Row
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983096983091 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983091 Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens 983089983097983089983088ndash983089983097983095983094 Frankfurt am
Main V Klostermann
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983095 Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Trans Richard Taft Bloomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983089983097983097983096 Letter on ldquoHumanismrdquo (983089983097983092983094) On the Essence of Ground (983089983097983090983097) What Is Meta- physics (Freiburg Lecture 983089983097983090983097) In Pathmarks Trans William McNeil Cambridg UK
Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983089 Language In Poetry Language ought Trans Albert Hofstadter 983089983096983093ndash983090983088983096 New
York Perennial
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090a e Onto-eo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics (983089983097983093983094ndash983093983095) In Identity and
Difference Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago University of Chicago Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090b Anaximanderrsquos Saying (983089983097983092983094) In Off the Beaten Track Trans Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983090c On Time and Being Trans Joan Stambaugh Chicago Chicago University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press
8102019 Werne Hamacher- The Relation
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullwerne-hamacher-the-relation 4242
W e r n e r H a m a c h e r 69
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983091 Four Seminars Le or 983089983097983094983094 983089983097983094983096 983089983097983094983097 Zaumlhringen 983089983097983095983091 Boomington IN Indiana
University Press
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983093 Uumlbungen fuumlr Anfaumlnger Schillers Briefe uumlber die aumlsthetische Erziehung des Menschen
Wintersemester 983089983097983091983094983091983095 Ed Ulrich von Buumllow Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiller
Gesellschaft
mdashmdashmdash 983090983088983088983094 Gesamtausgabe Vol 983089983089 Identitaumlt und differenz Frankfurt am Main V Kloster-
mann
Kant Immanuel 983089983097983097983097 Critique of Pure Reason Trans Paul Guyer and Allen Wood Cambridge
UK Cambridge University Press