~n.~;\~[I].r§ 111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 . 2111469 THE ATHLONE Londoll First published 1999 by THE ATHLONE PRESS 1 Park Drive, London NWIl 7SG First published in France 1983 © Editions de Minuit 1983 L'oubli de l'air cbez Martin Heidegger This English translation © The Athlone Press 1999 The publishers wish to record their thanks to the French Ministry of Culture for a grant towards the cost of translation British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogllc record Jar this book is availablc Jrolll the British Iibraty ISBN 0 485 II491 7 HB ISBN 0 485 12 Il9 0 PB All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any fonn 01' by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopying or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Printed and bound in the USA Translator's Acknowledgments Vl1 CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO 23 CHAPTER THREE 47 CHAPTER FOUR 63 CHAPTER FIVE 79 CHAPTER SIX 95 CHAPTER SEVEN 105 CHAPTER EIGHT 121 CHAPTER NINE 131 CHAPTER TEN 151 CHAPTER ELEVEN 161 CHAPTER TWELVE 171 ~otes 181 Index 1'91 vAJknowledgments I am very happy to thank Professor Robert Mugerauer and Ali Hossaini for initiating and guiding this translation project and Professors Robert C. Solomon, Kelly Oliver, Dina Sherzer, Kathleen Higgins, Louis Mackey, and Douglas Kellner for their support and encouragernent throughout. I thank editor Jim Burr for showing enough patience for a lifetime. lowe special thanks to Dean Kent Buder of the University of Texas School of Architecture and Michael Benedikt, director of the Center for Arnerican Architecture and Design, for providing office space and services, as well as to the Center's administrative as sistants, Suzanne Najarian and Jenny Stone. I am particularly grateful to Luce Irigaray for her many helpful suggestions and clarifications, which I have tried to incorporate into the final version. The expert assistance of Lisa Walsh and readers for the University of Texas Press required a prodigious rneasure of energy and attention for which I am truly grateful. Christina Hendricks, Pierre Larnarche, N odIe McAfee, Karen Mottola, Vllt IUCE ]RIGARAY and Shannon Winnubst deserve thanks for test-driving chapter drafts along the way: C. Roger Mader, Martine Marchand Mader, Madeleine Mader, and Karen Counts Inade the work possible in many ways, whether they know -it or not. Finally, hence, first of all: my greatest thanks to the constant Carrie Laing Pickett. THE FORGETTING The rose is without "why)); it flowers because it flowers. ANGELUS SILESIUS "In what circle are we here, and truly with no way out? Is it the cukuklcos aletbeie, the without-withdrawal [lc sans-retraitJ) perfect roundness, in its turn thought as Lic!Jtung) as the clearing of the opening? But then won't the task of thinking have as its title, instead of Seill und Zeit) Being and Time: licbtung und Anwescnheit (Clearing and Presence)? But whence-and how-is there clear ing (gibt es die lirhtung)?What lTIUSt we hear in this there is lit givcs (cs gib0?The task of thinking would then be the abandonment of the thinking in force until now so as to deterrnine the proper matter for thinking:'I That the there is of the clearing has never been questioned by thought, although it would be the ultirnate condition of possi bility for thought, that, frorn the beginning, it has been a question of the necessity of the opening as the place of entry into presence, but that nevertheless the opening remains unthought-although it reigns within Being itself; in the state of presence-such would be the forgetting that sub-tends the 2 IUCE ]RIGARAY history of n1etaphysics, thus entailing the destiny of Being as being( s). But in which pre-Socratic words can an evocation of the open ing be sought? In Parmenides' Poem.2 Is it not already too late to reopen the seal of its lTlystery? The opening already being con stituted in that text as perfect roundness or as groundless. The circle being already closed up: in each point beginning and end coincide, but at the cost of an abyss. What abyss? And why valorize the heart that does not tremble to so secure itself on the groundless? Why would unconcealrnent frighten, if not because it unveils the chasm on which truth is founded? Why opt for such a truth?-and for the tyranny it rnay well bring in its wake as a result of its pact with fear? In order to exarnine careflilly the fact that Hit is in this bond alone that any request for a possible allegiance of thinking is based,"3 perhaps one must remove from Heidegger that earth on which he so loved to walk. To take away from him this solid ground, to rid hirn of the Hi llusion" of a path that holds up under his step-even if it goes nowhere-and to bring him back not only to thinking but to the world of the pre-Socratics. Metaphysics always supposes, in sorne manner, a solid crust frorn which to raise a construction. Thus, a physics that gives privilege to, or at least that would have constituted, the solid plane. Whether philosophers distance themselves frorn it or whether they rnodify it, the ground is always there. As long as Heidegger does not leave the Hearth," he does not leave meta physics. The rnetaphysica1 is written neither on/in water, nor on/ in air, nor on/in fire. Its ek-sistance is founded on the solid.4 And its abysses, whether frOlTI on high or on low, doubtless find their explanation in the forgetting of those elements that do not have that sarne density. THE FORGETTING OF AIR Would the end of the rnetaphysical be required by their reintervention in the physics of today? But would philosophical rationality not notice things so patent? Would they remain as hidden to it as "the forgetting of Being"?-a name for that sarne refusal to notice? For the sam.e inability to translate fluid realities into discursivity?Was Heidegger, without really saying so, perhaps routing thought toward this question? Were it not for his nearly exclusive love for the earth. .. His desire to abide there always? Despite that strange attraction toward the clearing of the opening. .. The clearing of the opening, "of what" can this be?-one could have asked hirn this. This old philosophical question seems not to have been put to hiln. It was, doubtless, too innocent. Too ignorant. Too sirnple. Too little complicit with the history of philosophy. Too "sensible;' or too Ilphysical"? Not to have been forgotten. "Of what" is a being can be posed as a question. "Of what" [is] BeingS is not Ilposed." It is, always, pre-supposed. Fore seeable, pre-established. At least since Parrnenides: to be and to think being the Sarne. And the question: "of what" is thought made, being left unthought. Would Being and thinking be rnade of the sarrle matter? Of the same element?-which would explain their mutual attrac tion? Their love unto inseparability, in any case when they give themselves to each other without withdrawing"? Would the II Iithere is" be the same for Being and for thinking? At least be fore their decline into the specific aspects of their destinies: being( s) and metaphysics. There relnains the question: isn't thinking already a destiny of Being? Or the contrary? Then how does Parrnenides realize their co-occurrence? What are the properties of this Ilis" that