26
LUCE IRIGARAY

says, would not be, without the Being of man. The circle is closed up.

"Plainly, if the Being of man is entrusted to the open expanse, this is because it belongs -so essentially to the open expanse that, without the Being of man, the open expanse would not be able to unfold as it does:"2 The beginning of the Being of man is thus quasi-instrumentally necessary to the open expanse. Without it, the open expanse would not come to unfold. This is why the Being of man is appropriate to the open expanse: the open expanse needs it. Since the Being of man is, the open expanse needs it—he asserts, beyond the thinkable.

But how does the Being of man need the open expanse in order to be?This question, which is in advance of the beginning and even further in advance of serenity, is not asked. Pocket of air3—or of blood, or of life—through which Being tacitly feeds? Surely, Being also must assimilate something in order to have begun to be? This operation of assimilation—like any doing, if not any repetition?—by and for the Being of man is forgotten. It is left to the open expanse? Though after the Being of man already is.


What is man, before the Being of man already is? What a question ... It's too naïve to be thinkable! But isn't this commemoration—a more or less noble one—recalled in the open expanse? In the reserve of air that is kept there? In the assimilation that is attributed to it? In the constituting of things? In the opposition? ... In all the operations left, there, (Being) in suspense between realization and conditions of possibility. Between the present participle and the infinitive. Neither a participation that is simply present-for it has already taken place, nor the immutability of a completed constituting-for it will still take place. The reconstitution of the impossible definitive infinitive is repeated indefinitely. The suspense between the definitive and the infinitive—indefinitive—still permits something to be made of


Luce Irigaray - Forgetting of Air in Martin Heidegger