Due:

Giving Heidegger's Interpretation

of the Anaximander
Fragment

KARIN DE BOER

Free University of Amsterdam

In his Letter on Humanism, Heidegger affirms that thinking the truth of

Being is in itself originally ethical.' It is not clear, however, to what
extent this ethics can be distinguished from ethics in the traditional
sense. We know that Being and Time is motivated by the effort to step
back from the classical ontological question concerning the essential
in order to question-and modify-the horizon of this kind of
questioning itself. This withdrawal implies a critical attitude towards
the common distinction between the ontological and the ethical;
Heidegger tries to throw light on a dynamic structure that is to be
understood as the source of both the ontological and the ethical realms.
Thinking this 'origin' allows Heidegger to develop an ethics that is
not limited to the relation between human beings nor based on, for
instance, man's relation to God.
No doubt Being and Time is on its way to overcoming subject-philosophy
in the Kantian and Husserlian sense, and thereby every kind of thinking
that limits itself to the realm of human beings. According to Heidegger,
all efforts of philosophy to give itself peace in presupposing some kind
of stable, unchanging identity-for instance transcendental subjectivity-
are efforts to flee from its utmost possibility. Facing this 'proper'
possibility, as Heidegger himself tries to do, means facing the funda-
mental instability that underlies and threatens all efforts of beings to
be, that is, to become what they essentially are. Thematizing this

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fundamental instability itself is hardly, if at all, possible. It cannot be

brought to show itself like beings and other phenomena; it is not a
being, it is nothing. But this 'nothing' may help us to understand in a
more radical way than traditional ontology ever could what it means
to exist and, as philosophy is a particular mode of existence, what it
means to think.
If the fundamental structure that underlies every mode of being cannot
be brought to light directly, thinking has to approach it in an indirect
manner. Taking such a detour means taking the risk of not reaching
the point one originally aimed for. This risk is to be understood as
belonging essentially to all movements towards the proper or towards
oneself-whatever that may be. The analysis of Dasein in the first two
sections of Being and Time may be considered as a detour in which
Heidegger tries to depart from metaphysics and sets off for a thinking
that radically understands the 'essence' of the history of metaphysics
itself, that is, the whole of its improper and proper possibilities. In
order to free philosophy for its own possibilities and undo its fixation
on the subject, Heidegger in one complicated movement summarizes,
repeats, and destructs the whole of traditional subject-philosophy. Human
being is indeed taken as a starting point, but only to bring to light an
openness or clearing that possibilizes subjectivity as such. Heidegger's
concept of temporality, as developed only partly in the second section
of Being and Time and in Basic Problems of Phenomenology, must be
understood as a means to overcome the central position of the subject
in favour of a 'non-human' dynamic structure that constitutes human
life and history. We know only too well that in 1927 Heidegger was
not able to bring Being and Time to the point he was originally heading
for, that is to comprehend time as the horizon of the understanding
of Being. Only the answer to the question of the temporal sense of
Being could have formed an adequate basis for the destruction of
traditional metaphysics, as foreseen for the second part of Being and
Time. Because in Being and Time Heidegger only partly developed his
fundamental ontology, this work alone cannot sufficiently clarify in what
sense this questioning is essentially ethical. Only when the human being
is no longer understood as the center of the universe without, however,
any substance or (absolute) subject taking its place, only when every
humanism in the traditional sense is left behind, can an ethical thinking
not based on traditional ontological concepts possibly take place. In
order to understand what Heidegger means by the expression 'original
ethics', one evidently has to go beyond the published sections of Being
and Time. I will therefore turn to a text in which Heidegger by way of
another detour tries to develop an ethics that is not limited to the
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realm of human relationships but is directed towards a non-human

temporal structure that makes possible something like the event of
justice, though always and inevitably tending to make it impossible.
'Justice' is taken here in the sense of giving due. This 'giving' is not
limited to the act of giving someone his or her due, but is understood
as a giving that underlies all human efforts to do justice, that is, to
free something or someone for its or his own and utmost possibilities.
The text in which Heidegger explicitly elaborates this idea of justice
is The Anaximander Fragment from 1946.2 In following this text, I hope
to show that Heidegger's concern for a certain justice in his reading
of Anaximander is intimately connected with the idea of temporality
as developed, though insufficiently, in Being and Time. In my view the
pivot of Heidegger's whole project is formed by this early analysis of
temporality. By stressing the continuity in Heidegger's thought, the
ethical aspects of Being and Time and Heidegger's difficult analysis in
The Anaximander Fragment may clarify each other and possibly throw
some light on the issue that both texts, in their different ways, try to
point at. This indicating gesture of the texts is a special kind of
thematization: something is made present in a way, while at the same
time a certain kind of justice is done to the unpresentability that belongs
essentially to everything that is essential. Reading Heidegger means
risking a kind of clarifying presentation that perhaps cannot but fail
to preserve this unpresentability, though Heidegger's texts, as all texts,
are in need of continuous interpretation. Doing justice to a text-like
doing justice as such-seems to be hardly possible. My reading attempts
to clarify the way in which Heidegger understands this fragility itself.

The Fragment

Heidegger's text on the Anaximander fragment in Holzwege was not

written as a course or lecture and belongs for that reason to the most
difficulty, but also to the most important texts of his oeuvre. As is often
the case with Heidegger, the text opens with a destructive move: the
common, philological interpretations of the fragment are said to be
based on metaphysical presuppositions that block the possibility, as it
were, of letting the meaning of the fragment appear as itself. Heidegger
considers his own approach as guided by a different, non-metaphysical
horizon that throws a different light on texts such as the Anaximander
fragment. It should be stressed, however, that Heidegger's reading of
Anaximander is not an interpretation in the traditional sense. Comparing
Heidegger's texts on Anaximander with the fragment of Anaximander
itself cannot but result in disappointment. The fragment is questioned,
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but not for its own sake: it functions merely as a point of departure,
that is, as one of the possible ways of turning our attention towards
the concern of thinking as such.3 I will therefore disregard the fragment
of Anaximander itself as much as possible and focus on the question
of what Heidegger's reading tells us about the guiding scheme of his
own thinking. This perspective should help us to clarify Heidegger's
understanding of early Greek philosophy and more broadly his concept
of the history of thinking-which is also the history of Being-as such.
An English translation of one of Heidegger's translations of
Anaximander's fragment runs as follows (I add the most important
Greek terms):
But that form which things arise [y£VEJtg] also gives rise to their
passing away according to what is necessary [Katà to
for things render justice [8LKT)]and pay penalty to one another
for their injustice according to the ordinance of time.
(303, 20)
Although it is uncertain whether the formulation of the first section
of the fragment is genuine, Heidegger assumes that Anaximander must
have said something about the genesis and decline of beings. Because
it is not specified which beings are at stake, he infers-rightly, I think-
that the fragment is concerned with an essential feature of beings as
such. For Heidegger, any statement on beings as beings is based on an
answer to the implicit question concerning the sense of Being as such.
This guiding answer itself must be brought to the fore. In order to
understand Anaximander's saying as an articulation of the sense of
Being, Heidegger treats the three distinguished parts of the fragment
separately. The key words of the different sections are 'translated' in
such a way that they lose their common meaning. Heidegger forces
them to refer to that which makes possible the appearance of beings
as such, that is, to the (temporal) structure that constitutes all openness.
Before turning to Heidegger's interpretation of the different sections,
I want to make one more general remark about Heidegger's approach.
Heidegger's reading is based on the assumption that the specific
sense of Being that underlies Anaximander's saying differs from the
understanding of Being that characterizes the ensuing metaphysical
tradition. From Plato to Nietzsche, philosophy is said to be guided by
a specific understanding of Being. In many of his texts, Heidegger
understands the limited reach of metaphysics as follows: in explicitly
turning its attention from beings in their particularity towards what is
'essential', philosophy again and again tends to understand the 'essential'
as a stable, unchanging identity that is constantly present and so
guarantees both the existence of beings and the possibility of knowing
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them. In this approach, Being, or that which is 'essential', cannot appear

as itself; it cannot manifest itself in philosophical language and withdraws
from all attempts to grasp it. This withdrawal has always already begun.
It makes possible the openness wherein beings can appear as meaningful,
that is, acquire a certain extent of presence in the first place. In Being
and Time, this openness is called As soon as philosophy starts
to articulate explicitly what belongs to beings as such, the improper
'presentation' of Being is not overcome but only intensified. This means
that the unavoidable detour that both thinking and Being have to make
in order to come to their proper possibilities is essentially threatened:
it may very well be that thinking will never be able to overcome the
improper tendency of presentation and stabilization that constitutes
the history of metaphysics in its different phases and will err forever.
Throughout his work, Heidegger makes a great effort to understand
this main tendency of metaphysics, while at the same time searching
for possible non-metaphysical ways of thinking. Anaximander is
considered to be one of the thinkers not yet under the spell of
metaphysics; in early Greek thinking, the improper presentation of Being
has already begun to take place, but has not yet got the upper hand.
Thus, Heidegger will try to show how the fragment still speaks of a sense
of Being that got lost in the ensuing history of metaphysics. I will now
turn to Heidegger's reading of the different sections of the fragment.

The Transitivity of Beings

The first section of the fragment deals, in one way or another, with
the genesis and decline of beings. Heidegger understands this process
of becoming as an arrival of beings in unconcealment (322, 37) in
such a way that their lingering in this open space is a return to the
concealment they originated from. What is said in the fragment on
genesis and decline should not so much be understood as an expression
of the perishability of all things (316, 31) but rather as an indication
of their transitivity: what becomes present, arises out of and returns to
an absence or concealment that constitutes and permeates every lingering
in presence. Heidegger calls this way of being "whiling." He suggests
this experience of the whiling of beings to be based on a certain
understanding of the sense of Being itself: only when Being itself is
undertood as a presence that is, as it where, thoroughly penetrated by
absence, can the way of becoming and passing away of beings be
understood as a whiling. This originally Greek experience is said to
be also expressed by Homer when, in the Iliad, he characterizes the
seer Kalchias. Kalchias surveys what has been, what is, and what will
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be, and thus gathers in his seeing both what is actually present and
what is absent: "All that is present and absent is gathered and pre-
served in one presencing for the seer." (321, [36]). Every experience
of beings as emerging from concealment and returning to it is guided
by an understanding of Being as presencing or Anwesen. It is essential
for this presencing to be embedded in a twofold absence:
The while [Heidegger uses the word Weile to indicate the openness
or clearing that makes the whiling of beings possible] occurs between
coming to the fore and withdrawal. Between this twofold absence
the presencing of all that lingers occurs.... In both directions,
presencing is conjointed with absencing (Anwesen ist nach beiden
Richtungen in das Abwesen verfugt). Presencing occurs in such a juncture.
(321, [41])
Being itself is understood as a presencing or Anwesen that stretches
itself towards a twofold absence. This original Greek understanding of
the sense of Being would differ from the metaphysical understanding
insofar as in the latter every absence or negativity is excluded from
Being itself. In Being and Time and notably in Basic Problems of
Phenomenology, Heidegger understands this constellation in terms of
original temporality (Temporalität). The open space or clearing that
possibilizes the appearance of beings as such (world) is itself not in
the first place delimited by time as pure presence (Gegenwart), but by
an original temporal threefoldness in which the absential as absential
plays its part. The 'light' that delimits the horizon wherein beings can
be encountered as meaningful has its source in the temporal ecstases
of pastness ( Gewesenheit) , presence ( Gegenwart) , and future (Zukunft)
together. World in Heidegger's sense is constituted by the three temporal
ecstases in their original juncture, although the ecstasis of presence,
to make it possible for beings to become present at all, must from the
very outset have begun to emerge from this juncture and thereby break
away from the original threefoldness. In Being as presencing something
like a temporal disjointedness has therefore always already begun to
take place.' In what follows, I will try to show that Heidegger's reading
of the words Sucr) and à81KLa, that are mentioned in the third part of
the fragment, is guided by the analysis of temporality as developed in
the period of Being and Time. There is indeed a certain analogy between
Heidegger's analysis of the experience of beings in their practical
meaning at the beginning of Being and Time and that which in 1 he
Anaximander Fragment is considered to be the original Greek experi-
ence of the whiling of beings. In both cases, the experience of beings
is based on an understanding of Being as presencing, while this
understanding itself springs from a certain mode of temporality. It should
156

be stressed that Heidegger's own questioning is not so much directed

towards this sense of Being as presencing but rather towards the whole
of the different meanings of Being that have evolved in the history of
thinking: Being is nothing but the different ways in which it occurs
and possibly could occur. The different historical modes of Being depend
on the extent in which absence is admitted within the very core of
Being itself. Both everyday life and metaphysics show, in Heidegger's
view, the difficulty of allowing this absencing without Being itself. The
temporal origin of this occurrence of Being as presencing could not
be brought to light from within Greek thinking or the ensuing history
of metaphysics. In order to do so, a 'step back' from ontology is necessary.
This is what Heidegger tries to accomplish both in his earlier and his
later works.

joint and Out-of-joint

Heidegger rejects the traditional translation of 8i" and à81KLa with

"justice" and "injustice," and proposes instead the words Fug and Un-
Fug, which refer to something like 'juncture" or "joint" and "out-of-
joint" respectively.b Heidegger clearly wants to free dike from its ethical
and juridical connotations (305, 21) and so enables the word to indicate
a structure that would underlie and make possible, among others,
something like justice in the common sense. The out-of-joint or
disjointedness would then refer to the condition for the possibility of
any kind of injustice. Thus, the word C(5tKL(X allows Heidegger to elaborate
on both the disjointedness of beings in general (that is, not only of
human beings) and the underlying out-of joint within Being itself. This
last rupture must be understood as being due to the temporal movement
of presence ( Gegenzuart) that detaches itself from the other temporal
ecstases in order to open the space wherein beings can be encountered
as beings. This temporal source of the out-to joint is not explicitly
mentioned by Heidegger in this text.7 But he does state that according
to Anaximander, G6tKia is the basic feature of beings: "That which is
present (das Anwesende) is as such out of joint" (327, [41]). This
disjointedness of beings, however, necessarily refers to a juncture, at
least at the level of Being itself: "Both juncture and the possibility of
disjuncture must belong to Being as presencing (Anwesen)" (ibid.).
Heidegger again goes beyond Anaximander in pointing towards a joint
and disjointedness within Being itself that is in no way mentioned in
the fragment. But this most fundamental structure can be clarified
only, if at all, by first paying attention to the disjointedness that
characterizes all beings.
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Heidegger takes what he considers as the Greek experience of beings

in their transitivity as a starting point for his own account of the out-
of-jointness of beings. Beings do not only linger in unconcealment in
so far as they emerge from and return to concealment, but it belongs
essentially to their being to resist this original transitivity. A being that
has arrived in unconcealment tends to establish itself as something
present, to insist on its presence and to refuse to acknowledge both its
origin and future return to concealment. The whiling thus modifies
itself into a tendency to abide as much as possible in the realm of
pure presence (327-28, 42). This persistence in presence is what
Heidegger understands as the disjointedness of beings. It is important
to note that the possibility of the revolt of beings against their own
whiling is opened up by the whiling itself; it has its roots in the movement
of presencing that has always already begun to take place. This movement
of presencing, as a modification within Being itself, underlies every
resistence or disjointedness at the level of beings. Within Being itself,
as disclosed by original time in order to let beings linger in unconceal-
ment, presence has always already begun to detach itself from the other
ecstatic horizons and tends to only intensify this disjuncture. Being as
presencing thus modifies itself into constant presence, and so expels
its original absence: "In presencing itself... arises the insistence on
presence (steht die Beständigung auf)" (328, [43]).
The difficulty of The Anaximander Fragment text is partly due to the
fact that Heidegger seeks to articulate something about beings as such
without differentiating between, for instance, human and non-human
beings. In Being and Time, Heidegger works with this distinction in
order to focus the analysis on the being of human beings. Ultimately,
however, the analysis of Dasein is, as much as The Anaximander Fragment,
motivated by the attempt to show that the being of all beings rests on
a fundamental, in itself divided temporal structure. The tendency of
beings to persist in presence is at work in both innerworldly beings
and in Dasein. Innerwordly beings tend to lose their original practical
meaning and lend themselves to objectivation or presentation. Dasein
on the other hand tends to flee in one and the same movement its
own original past and future and thereby detaches itself from the
threefold temporality that constitutes its being. The same is the case
with philosophy itself as a specific mode of human life: its articulation
of the essential tends to modify that which it articulates into some sort
of permanent and stable presence. This tendency of presenting the
unpresentable and excluding nothingness from Being means that
metaphysics refuses to acknowledge the temporal threefoldness that
underlies all understanding of Being.
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Heidegger tries to understand the tendency towards pure presence

that can be said to determine the being of innerworldly beings, of
human life, and of the history of thinking as due to a disjointedness
in Being itself that is, in a way, always already at work and can hardly
be resisted.8 In his view, however, there is no disjuncture without the
possibility of overcoming it (329, 43)-note that the term Verwindung
which is used here most often indicates the possibility of thinking to
free itself from metaphysics. According to Anaximander, all beings are
essentially marked by à01KLa. But to beings as such belongs also the
possibility of no longer insisting on their permanence and thus bringing
about something like 8i" or juncture. How then can such a modification
take place? How is it that beings can overcome their improper tendency
and turn themselves towards their own and proper possibilities? Or, as
Heidegger puts it,
How should whiling beings that abide in disjuncture, be able to bring
about or give juncture? Can they give what they do not have? (329, [43])
Heidegger notes that the fragment does not answer these questions.
He himself turns to the word ??rnS to elucidate what it means for beings
to do justice to one another, that is, to give each other their due.
The tendency of beings to persist in presence, Heidegger now adds,
implies that they are no longer able to care for the being of the other
beings (331, 45-46). A certain relational structure, where every being
has its proper place and takes into account the being of the beings to
which it is related, falls apart. To understand this, one might again
remember the analysis of equipmentality in Being and Time. The carpenter
may or may not be able to let his tools function as tools, that is, let
them appear as themselves. It is shown that Dasein's objectifying gaze
pulls the beings out of their original joint or context so that they can
no longer appear in their practical meaning. The same possibility could
also be understood at the level of the interrelation between innerworldly
beings. The hammer, for instance, could be said to enable the nails to
function as nails and thereby let them appear as themselves. On the
other hand, a resistance of the hammer to comply with its surround-
ing context breaks down this context as such and thus makes it im-
possible for the surrounding beings to function in accordance with
their being. It should be noted that both in Being and Time and in The
Anaximander Fragment it is neither the carpenter nor one of the tools
that finally possibilizes meaningfulness. Only in and through the move-
ment of presencing can Dasein encounter innerwordly beings, other
human beings, and itself. Whereas in Being and Time the word
Rficksichtslosigkeit indicates only the improper mode of consideration
for other human beings (SZ, 123; BT, 159), in the text on Anaximander
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all beings are said to have the possibility of doing justice to other be-
ings. Heidegger reads this proper mode of care or consideration in
the word normally translated as "penalty" (330, 45). In order to
free from this juridical meaning, Heidegger finally proposes trans-
lating it as "Ruch" (332, 46). This word, that in common German is
only used in the negative form Ruchlos, "reckless," is thus moulded to
indicate all possibilities of beings-whatever they are-to give other
beings their due.'
The introduction of the word Ruch is not only important because it
refers to a possibility for both human and non-human beings to show
consideration for the being of other beings. It also enables Heidegger
to distinguish more clearly between the level of beings and the level
of Being itself. Heidegger claims that the meaning of justice or order
cannot be fully understood when only the relationship between beings
is taken into account. Every ontic injustice or disorder that is to be
overcome rests on a disjuncture that occurs, and occurs necessarily,
within Being itself. This does not mean, however, that beings cannot
but follow the improper movement of Being, that is, insist on pres-
ence. On the contrary: juncture or Fug within Being itself can only
take place in so far as beings give one another their due.l° The rela-
tion between Fug and Ruch or 6iKq and ??6tS is to be understood in
such a way that the possibility of Fug within Being itself depends on
the capacity of beings to care for the being of other beings, whereas
this possibility of beings to give one another their due is both given
and threatened by the occurrence of presencing itself. Thus, beings
have to assume all possible responsibility to let a certain kind of jus-
tice occur that, on the other hand, cannot be reduced to something
purely ontic. Bringing about juncture means trying to surmount the
ontological out-of jointness that has always already begun to take place
and can never be fully overcome. What is possible though, in Heidegger's
view, is a certain resistence on the side of beings that would prevent
the improper tendency within Being itself from definitively getting the
upper hand. It may be clear that it belongs especially to human be-
ings to resist the tendency towards constant presence of Being itself by
rendering justice towards other beings.
Although Heidegger in The Anaximander Fragment scarcely mentions
the difference between Dasein and the innerworldly beings, we may
infer from Being and Time that Dasein is capable of facing a past and
future nothingness (its being-thrown and imminent death respectively)
in a far more radical way than innerwordly beings that do not resist
their own origin and their future return to concealment. Innerwordly
beings are always, as far as they appear, determined by presence and
160

thus by common chronology. Human beings are as much determined

by this common temporality as all beings, but are, as Dasein, further-
more constituted by the threefold ecstatic temporality that makes pos-
sible any encounter of beings. Radical nothingness, one could say, can
only take place insofar as Being is understood, that is, insofar as Dasein
exists. Two different kinds of human beings are mentioned in The
Anaximander Fragment. First, the seer Kalchias, who gathers absence
and presence in their juncture, and secondly, at the end of the text,
the man who rises against his own transitivity and tries to master the
world and its historical course (343, 57). Kalchias and this rebellious
man represent two possibilities of human existence in which we may
recognize the proper and improper mode of existence as analysed in
Being and Time. These contrary possibilities border the battleground
in which the struggle that constitutes human life and human history
takes place.
As I mentioned above, it is especially in philosophy that the essen-
tial absence that pervades all presence may be acknowledged. On the
other hand, it is especially in this same ontological tradition that the
absential is always threatened with exclusion from Being in the most
radical way. As far as Anaximander is said to understand Being already
as presencing, the expulsion of absence from Being must be under-
stood as occurring as soon as thinking begins. At the beginning of the
history of thinking, Being itself could only be encountered as the es-
sence or the being of beings. When Being is thus understood as the
being of beings, it will necessarily appear as a presencing that makes
possible their presence. In modern thought, now definitely guided by
an understanding of Being as that which is permanently present, the
'essence' of human being, for instance, will be presented as a self-
identical subject that underlies all experience; this presentation would,
according to Heidegger, cover up the dynamic, in itself divided struc-
ture that constitutes human life as such. Being and Time on the other
hand uncovers this structure and thus tries to do justice to the being
of human beings. Heidegger not only attempts to let his own ontologi-
cal questioning be guided by a different, non-metaphysical modifica-
tion of Being, but-ultimately-to no longer understand Being from
the perspective of beings at all. Only when this ontological perspective
is surmounted can both presencing and constant presence be under-
stood as two privative modifications of Being that do not cover all its
essential possibilities. The modification of Being in which absence would
be fully acknowledged for the first time is a modification that, for
Heidegger, is still to come and belongs to a future that will never
become present." Because Being, to appear at all, cannot but take the
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detour of presencing and presence, it inevitably takes the risk of never

reaching its proper possibilities. To understand Being as the whole of
its improper and proper possibilities from the point of view of original
temporality--would mean, in Heidegger's terms, to think the truth of
Being. Understanding Being itself in its essential transitivity and insta-
bility demands a thinking that itself no longer resists its own transitiv-
ity and acknowledges the fragility of all its efforts to come to grips
with that which is.

To xpedlv. Handing Over

It may be clear now that in Heidegger's view, the question of how

juncture can be established cannot be adequately answered when only
the relation between beings is taken into account. It is precisely the
difference between beings and Being or Anwesendes and Anwesen that
could not be acknowledged as such in the history of metaphysics. 12
Heidegger not only turns his attention to this ontological difference
but, more radically still, to its origin. The original openness wherein
beings can be encountered as meaningful only occurs insofar as their
being or 'essence' is understood, that is, in so far as Being itself is
distinguished implicitly from concrete beings. Heidegger conceives of
this differentiating movement as made possible by a certain kind of
original 'giving' that hands over Being to beings. It is in and through
such an original giving that the ontological difference occurs-but mostly
fails to occur properly.
Heidegger has to make some complicated interpretative turns to
understand Anaximander's word TO Xpp-6v, normally rendered as
'necessity', as this original giving gesture. Whereas Anaximander seems
to tell us that the genesis and decline of beings happens according to
a certain necessity, Heidegger has it that TO XPEWVrefers to the hand-
ing over of Being as presencing to beings, which allows them to ap-
pear as beings, to be disclosed by language and so come to their truth .13
Only insofar as Being is given to beings can they possibly give each
other their due, that is, give one another enough room to come into
their own. Insofar as this most difficult giving succeeds, Being itself
will not insist on pure presence but will comply with the jointed
threefoldness of original temporality. It is only through the original
disclosing gesture that Being can accomplish itself as presencing or as
constant presence. It is the very same gesture that gives Being its origi-
nal transitivity and sets free the tendency of Being to persist as con-
stant presence: the giving gesture necessarily hinders and even tends
to make impossible the promised gift, that is, the coming into its own
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or Ereignis of Being itself. Heidegger chooses to translate 16 Xpp-6)v

with Brauch to indicate this double gesture:
While it gives juncture (Fug) and reck (Ruch), the Brauch sets free
the whiling and leaves the beings each time to their whiling. This
entails that beings are constantly in danger of petrifying this linger-
ing into mere persistence. Thus, the Brauch is in itself as much the
handing over of presencing (Anzuesen) in the out-ofjoint.14
A satisfying translation of Brauch does not seem to be possible-the
German word is incomprehensible enough in this context. It is clear,
though, that Heidegger uses it to indicate something-that is noth-
ing-like an original giving gesture that gives something it does not
have beforehand while it withdraws itself in the movement of giving.
In the lecture Zeit und Sein from 1962, among others, this same disap-
pearing hand appears in the expression Es gibt. Being is given the
possibility of according itself with its own absence and so granting beings
their transitivity. On the other hand, this very same giving delivers
Being to the danger of persistence. Juncture can only be brought about
insofar as beings are capable of preventing constant presence from
definitively getting the upper hand. It is, Heidegger would say, espe-
cially the task of thinking to turn itself against the disjuncture of Be-
ing that has occurred throughout the history of metaphysics. It is the
task of thinking to do justice to the absence that pervades any presencing
and thus to give Being itself its due. Being only occurs insofar as hu-
man beings try to articulate the essential. It needs human beings for its
accomplishment, as Heidegger suggests in many of his later texts. 15
But it is absolutely uncertain whether that which is needed will actu-
ally be given: the detours that have to be taken-language, for instance-
may very well irrevocably deviate Being's course towards itself that
Heidegger would call the history of thinking.
I do not mean to suggest that the way in which the later Heidegger
understands the relation between Being and human being is already
fully developed in Being and Time. I do want to emphazise, however,
that Being and Time, as much as The Anaximander Fragment, is based on
the idea that all answers regarding the being of human beings should
be guided by an understanding of the temporal sense of Being itself
that is different from metaphysical understanding. Being and Time is
on its way to developing a concept of temporality that would make it
possible to understand both metaphysics and the effort of thinking to
overcome its metaphysical tendency as constituted by different modes
of one and the same instable temporal structure. We may conclude
that, for Heidegger, a thinking of the ethical should be guided by the
thought that doing justice to other beings is both made possible and
 163

radically threatened by a non-human temporal force. Any ethical rela-

tion towards other beings would then have to imply a certain ethical
relation to Being itself; it is only in and through human doings that
Being can be given, but mostly is not given, its due. This human pos-
sibility of giving due or bringing about juncture should itself be under-
stood as a gift human beings received-but most often failed to receive
properly-from a giving that cannot be named Being, let alone God. 16

Derrida's Critique of the Heideggerian Out-of-Joint

One may have noticed that I have tried in the foregoing to bring
Heidegger's undertaking somewhat closer to Derrida's than is perhaps
usual. Themes like an original giving gesture, the promise, metaphys-
ics' incapacity to deal with that which is not presentable, and the di?-
culty-if not the impossibility-of justice play an important role in recent
texts such as Given Time and Specters of In the first chapter of
the latter text, some pages are devoted to the Heideggerian Fug and
Un-Fug, though only in a kind of outflanking movement. Derrida sug-
gests here that Heidegger more or less neglects the fact that only a
certain primordial out-of-joint within Being and time would make pos-
sible the gift of Sucn. Once the importance of comprehending justice
from the perspective of such a giving is acknowledged, Heidegger would
take the risk "of inscribing this whole movement of justice under the
sign of presence, be it of the presence in the sense of Anwesen, of the
event as coming into presence, of Being as presence jointed to itself.""
Derrida himself, on the other hand, asks whether a sense of justice
that goes beyond all moral and juridical determinations would not
presuppose a certain irreducible dislocation within Being and time
themselves, that, in always risking evil, expropriation and injustice
(á8uda) would only be able to bring about justice (ibid.). Heidegger
would, "as he always does," favor the possibility of "the accord that
gathers or collects while harmonizing" (ibid., cf. 28) and, as Derrida
states a bit earlier, think "8ucr) on the basis of Being as presence
comme preSence) " ( 2 7 ) .
With respect to the (im) possibility of justice, Derrida is certainly more
susceptible than Heidegger to the irreducible otherness and singular-
ity of the other. But he evidently overlooks Heidegger's attempt to
understand Un-Fug as the out-of joint within Being that makes possible
as much as it threatens all efforts of beings to bring about justice.
Heidegger's thinking cannot be said to merely understand Being as
presencing insofar as presencing is shown to be only one of Being's
modifications. A radical absence which is not acknowledged as such in
164

metaphysics but should be allowed to pervade Being in its core plays a

far more important role in Heidegger's thinking than Derrida seems
willing to assert. A 'proper' mode of Being-another of the concepts
Derrida problematizes-means precisely that this absencing is given its
due. If that were true, Heidegger might turn out to be less captured
by a metaphysics of presence than Derrida often suggests. I must ad-
mit, however, that the radicality of Heidegger's attempt to understand
the force of temporality as a force that undermines every human search
for unity, security, and stability often does not come to the fore in his
texts. It may very well be that it is only through Derrida that one's
attention is drawn to this side of Heidegger's thinking.

NOTES

1.Wegmarken (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1978), 187; Basic Writings,ed. D. Krell (New

York: Harper & Row, 1977), 234-35.
2. Besides the text that was published in Holzwege,Anaximander is also dealt with in
the second part of the course from 1941, Grundbeg7iffe, vol. 51 of Gesamtausgabe
(GA) (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1981), translated by G. Aylesworth under
the title Basic Concepts(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993). A text on
Anaximander and Parmenides from 1932 ( GA:35) has not yet been published.
Because the version from 1946 is the most elaborate, I will mainly draw on this
text. Note that the Letteron Humanismwith its remarks on original ethics also dates
from 1946. Passages from I'he AnaximanderFragmentwill be referred to by the page
numbers in Holzwege and the English translation in Early GreekThinking,trans. D. Krell
and F. Capuzzi (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), respectively. Where I modified
the translation, the reference to the English text is put in square brackets. Some
particularly untranslatable phrases will only be paraphrased and quoted in German.
3. Compare the difference between that which the question addresses (das Befragte)
and that which is finally aimed at in the question (das Erfragte) as is introduced in
Being and iime with regard to (human) beings and the sense of Being as such (Sein
und Zeit, 16th ed. [Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1986], 6; translated by
J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson under the title Being and Time [Oxford: Blackwell,
1962], 24). In many of Heidegger's later works, philosophical texts are themselves
the 'phenomena' to be questioned.
4. 'World' in this sense is mentioned once in The AnaximanderFragmentalso: "As it
reveals itself in beings, Being withdraws itself. Thus, Being holds back its truth.
This reserve is its early way of revealment. Its early sign is In bringing
about the unconcealment of beings, it founds the concealment of Being.... Every
time that Being holds back itself in that which is given (in seinemGeschick),world
suddenly and unexpectedly occurs. Every epoch of the history of the world is an
epoch of errancy" (311, [26-27]).
5. In Beingand Time,the temporal condition for the possibility of encountering equip-
ment is understood as the rootedness of presence in future and pastness (die
 165

Verwurzelungder Gegenwartin der Zukunjt und Cewesenheit)(SZ, 360; BT, 411). In §

21 of The Basic Problemsof Phenomenology this same temporal structure of world is
called a horizon of presence (Die Grundproblemeder Phänomenologie[Frankfurt am
Main: Klostermann, 1975], GA24: 435; translated A. Hofstadter under the title The
BasicProblemsof Phenomenology [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984], 306).
Fallenness is said to be a disjoining release of presence that springs from original
temporality itself: "Der Ursprung des 'Entspringens' der Gegenwart, das heil3t des
Verfallens in die Verlorenheit, ist die urspriingliche Zeitlichkeit selbst" (SZ, 348;
BT, 399).
6. I will pay no attention to Heidegger's nuanced use of and play with the German
meanings of the terms Fug, Fuge and Unfug, which cannot really be rendered in
English. Various possible translations will be used indiscriminately.
7. Original time is mentioned once, namely as "the hidden temporal character of
Being" that is not to be confused with the usual concept of time (311, 27).
8. In his course on Heraclitus from 1943 (Heraklit [Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann,
1979], GA 55: 146), Heidegger calls the disjointcdness of Being itself original or
initial (der anfänglicheUn-Fug).
9. "[Die Ruch] kehrt sich daran, daB ein andcres in seinem Wesen bleibe" (332, 46).
10. "Die Verwindung des Un-Fugs geschieht eigentlich durch das Geh6renlassen des
Ruchs" (333, 47).
11. Compare Heidegger's clarifying remarks on Being and Time in Die Metaphysikde.s
deutschenIdealismus (Schelling)from 1941: "Thus, one should try to project Being
itself and the way in which it is essentially pervaded by the shadows of nothingness
[die wesenhajieDurchschattungdes Seins durch das Nichts]. Thus, one should try to
experience the understanding of Being in a mode of projection that is distinguished
by its capacity to bring into the open nothingness and that which is marked by it"
(Die Metaphysikdes deutschenIdealismus (Schelling) [Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1991],
GA49: 58).
12. "Ultimately, presencing as such is not distinguished from what is present: it is taken
merely as the most universal or the highest of present beings, thereby becoming
one among such beings" (336, 50).
13. Heidegger makes use of the etymological affinity between 16 xpE<6Vand Xp6(0 to
understand To xpewv as "handing over": "To xpewv ist dann das Einhandigen des
Anwesens, welches Einhandigen das Anwesen dem Anwesenden aushdndigt und so
das Anwesende ... im Anwesen wahrt" (337, 52). I will not try here to follow up
Heidegger's problematic and difficult etymological elaborations.
14. "Der Brauch lal3t, Fug and Ruch verfugend, in die Weile los und iiberlal3t das
Anwesende je seiner Weile. Damit ist es aber in dic standige Gefahr eingelassen,
daB es sich ... in das blol3eBeharren verhartet. So bleibt der Brauch in sich zugleich
die Aushdndigung des Anwesens in die Un-Fug" (339-40, [54]). The translation of
Brauch as "usage" may convey the normal meaning of Brauch, but not Heidegger's
own, peculiar use of the word. As I understand it, he hears in Brauch in the first
place the verb brauchen:to need. In the course Grundbeg7iffe, c6 XpF6v is translated
as "die notigende Not" (GA 51: 94, 116). As the original giving gesture seems to be
motivated by a kind of original lacking, Brauch could perhaps be understood as
"that which needs and is needed."
15. "What if Being in its occurrence ( Wesenis used here as substantified verb) would
need the occurrence of man? If the essence (Wesenagain) of man consisted in
thinking the truth of Being?" (343, [58]).
16. The difficult issue of the affinityand difference between Being and God, as understood
166

by Heidegger and commented upon by Derrida in, among others, Of Spirit (trans.
G. Bennington and R. Bowlby [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989]) can
not be elaborated here. A God that would come close to that which is inadequately
called Being would be such that it would unwillingly tend to destroy what it cre-
ated or only promised to create, and could therefore never be trusted.
17. When Derrida in Given Time (Donner le temps, 1. La fausse monnaie [Paris: Galilée,
1993], 55; translated by P. Kamuf under the title Given Time, 1. CounterfeitMoney
[Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992], 20) briefly circles around the
Heideggerian motive of the giving gesture that gives both Being and time but brings
with it the forgetting of the gift, he also gives us, the readers, something that is not
actually given. A certain promise. A footnote tells us that the theme of the es gibt,
as it appears from Being and Timeonwards, will be elaborated much later, namely,
in the second volume that would focus on Zeit und Sein and connected texts. I
suppose that TheAnaximanderFragmentwould be among them. It might well be the
case, however, that this second volume-due to the lack of ordinary time, per-
haps-will only be given to us in the mode of a future possibility.
18. J. Derrida Spectresde Marx (Paris: Galilée, 1993), 55, translated by P. Kamuf under
the title Spectersof Marx(NewYork/London: Routledge, 1994), 27 (translation slightly
modified).