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Einblick in das was ist: Heidegger and the world in view

Today I presented here at the LSU my reading of the Einblick, guided by my attempt to build a (non-ontologist) metaphysics of the other and by my interest in perception - in the ethics of perception and in perceiving as a concern with what nears and shows. Below is the handout I distributed. I organized the presentation around several key oppositions in the text that interest me, most involving Ge-Stell and the idea of objects ready to be conscripted.

Handout

Nähe/Ge-Stell: The setting apart of all distances brings no nearness: nearness is not short distance. Nähe is not about distance, it's about a presence that is not forced, it's about not placing something in a map, but approach it where it makes itself present. In contrast, Ge-Stell is a self-gathered collection of positionings that works like a device that produces objects exposed, mapped, available, in standing reserve. The issue is about placing, presentating and presencing. Nearing is the essence of nearness – approaching.

Thing/object: The object is what is exposed, what stands against a viewpoint that makes it visible. The thing, in contrast, does its own thing, it approaches and reveals itself at its own accord: the thing things (Nähe). When Plato thinks of the jug as an idea appearing to the producer, he is not engaging with the thing but positioning its appearance. What makes a jug be a jug is the empty that it holds, what makes the jug jug, the thing thing. A jug holds and awaits to offer. The empty prefigures the gift: holding and outpouring. When its essences atrophies, pouring becomes just pouring in and out. In the gift of the pour, earth and skies, divinities and mortals abide, “they belong together”, the Geviert. A thing is what gathers – brings together what is scattered. This gathering is not a gathering of positions in a point (it's no topography). Rather, it is engaging with what is gathered from nearness – a gathering to bring together different forces or urges, an articulation, a negotiation (business). The thing concernfully approaches, its presencing is not a position in a topography. The thing things: gathering is always an act; thing is the meeting place and not the abbreviation for its relations and its positions. The essence of nearness – approaching (with concern). A thing offers itself, an object is exposed, presented (that is, made present), given. Ge-Stell transforms things in objects; it makes them presence as what is ordered to be present. (Kant's things in themselves are objects that are not objects for anyone, they are already understood as being there, as composing a landscape that can be viewed – even if no possible experience can attain them.)

Guarding/exposing: Things don't come through machinations of the humans, but they also don't come without the vigilance of the mortals (humans). Things need vigilance for they are gatherings, offerings, approaches and they reveal and conceal.Vigilance is not unconcealing, it is not making things present. Vigilance requires commemorative thinking, it also requires letting things concealed. Care/security, Invigilating/spying. Perception: to exercise nearness (to engage) or to take in what is revealed (to expose). We place, set things in a position and therefore we make possible their requisitioning; positioning, exposing what is available. Ge-Stell is a conscription (die Gestellung): place what is available in standing reserve. Tending the fields as being watchful of what the discretion of the growing forces in the crops contrasts with farming the land. Ge-Stell replaces gathering with conscription – an order that is orderable. Ge-Stell is the essence of technology (science is an application of the essence of technology). Ge-Stell doesn't guard the thing as thing. Ge-Stell let things unguarded, away from their truth – not protected (un-veiled). Wahrnis-Wahrheit: Das Ge-Stell läßt in seinem Stellen das Ding ohne die Hut — ohne die Wahr seines Dingwesens. Things are in greater and greater neglect – to guard is not to expose.

World/Ge-Stell: In the unguarding of the thing, there takes place the refusal of the world: there is no world of things that refer to the Geviert of God/Sky/Earth/Mortals but only a reservoir of what is available in standing reserve. World guards the being of being. But it is proper of the world to refuse itself as a world – it is not offered as a world, as a guardian of being. It guards but leaving it unguarded – concealed, not exposed. World and Ge-Stell are the same, but the same is never equivalent. World and Ge-Stell are set against one another. World that worlds contrasts with the world in view, the latter is a step towards the disclosure and unveiling which is proper of Ge-Stell. The essence of Ge-Stell is danger; danger that is associated with pursuit (Nach-stellen, fara, gefahr). Pursuit requires things that can be found, the world ready to be viewed, perception as disclosure. Things are placed in a landscape in view, the Great Outdoors that rest unguarded.

Alethea/the world in view: World withdraws in concealment. There ought to be lethe for alethea, alethea doesn't displace lethe, but rather welcomes it for without lethe alethea cannot guard. Unconcealment is about presencing – alethea relies on concealment (physis kriptestai philei). So, lethe is the essential source and essential provenance of every way of being. Ge-Stell ousts being from its truth.

Physis/thesis: There is thesis to physis – physis is bringing-here-forth, it is the opening of something closed from itself: that is to say, letting something presence of its own accord. Showing. Thesis arrange a presence in a position, this is what humans do to the presencing of physis. Then a stone presenced by physis is arregimented into a staircase and its steps by thesis. Here we see how thesis disguises itself trying to present things as if they presence in the thesis way, and not in the physis way. As if they were in view, exposed, out there always. Physis gives unconcealment to human representation and place it at their disposal. An offer – this is representable, not yet represented. When things are represented, they become placed to be viewed, no longer offerings but in standing reserve for the sensorial devices to grasp. Ge-Stell is a dispensation of being (Seinsgeschickes) where to be is to be placed, to be set, to be a position in a (thethic) topology. The world becomes a landscape of points, and being exposed and never interrupted.

Mortal/Ge-Stell: The thing gathers and is offered to the human who exercises an essence (a thing that things) while Ge-Stell places objects in front of the human. The human is conscripted by Ge-Stell. “The human has offered himself for the carrying out of this conscripting. He stands in line to take over such requisitioning and to complete it. The human is thereby an employee of requisitioning.”(22, AM). Requisitioning assaults the destiny of the human as it does with gods: a theology based on atomic physics would makes gods orderable. The essence of the human is not decided by humans in their own terms and Ge-Stell sneaks through it. It is not up to the human to fight it, but the human can pave the way or precipitate the turn towards a different dispensation of beyng. The human can collaborate in the turn (not predictable because it involves another Seinsgeschickes) by replacing exposing by guarding, by being tuned to concealment through forgetting. Forgetting is guarding. The salvation lies in guarding, in the world worlding for the world is the forgetful guard of things. Ge-Stell disguises the thing and also the unthinging of things, like forgetting forgets the very act of forgetting. It presents things as if the world is itself always in view, ready to be seen, spotted. It is necessary to let being escape from this pursuit, we need to forget how we let it escape. The sudden salvation from danger comes in protecting forgetfulness.

Glancing/the world in view: Forgetfulness is close to seeing things in a glance – a glance leaves the concealed unilluminated. It is like the light of the Pasolini's firefly. The Blick is an Einblick. The insight is an insight, not a permanent light as not even God could have insights about the world without essencing in the worlding of the world that involves concealment (compare with Wittgenstein's “not even God could know anything mathematical without doing mathematics” PU 352, RFM; mathematical objects are not placed in a position where they are in view by someone, attaining them requires some sort of careful approach that understands that under a different angle they will disappear from one's view, they will be concealed) A world in view (a world of objects, maybe in themselves) is a world that can be viewed by someone else, by God. Glancing is engaging in the thinging of things, in their approaching, in their showing, as opposed to a contemplation of a landscape where objects are set.

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