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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
