OFF THE BEATEN TRACK


enduring. That which stays persists in its prescncing. In this way it takes itself out of its transitory while. It extends itself in a stubborn pose of persistence. It concerns itself no longer with the other things that are present. As though this were the way to stay, it becomes concerned with the permanence of its continued existence.

Presencing in the jointure of the while, that which presences, staying awhile, is disjointed. Everything that stays awhile stands in this dis-jointure [in der Un-Fuge]. To the presence of what presences, to the ἐόν of ἐόντα, άδικία belongs. Thus standing in the dis-jointure would be the essence of everything that presences. And so what would come to the fore in this saying of early thinking would be the pessimism - not to say nihilism - of the Greek experience of being.

But does the saying actually say that the essence of what presences consists in the dis-jointure? Yes and no. The saying indeed identifies the dis-jointure as the fundamental trait of what presences, yet only to say


διδόναι γὰρ αὐτὰ δίκην ... τῆς ἀδικίας.


"They must pay penalty or damages [Buße]," as Nietzsche translates - "They must pay the penalty or fine [Strafe]" according to Diels - "for their injustice." But the saying says nothing of payment, penalty, or damages. Nor docs it say that something is punishable or must be avenged (according to the opinion of those who equate vengeance with justice).

In the meantime, the thoughtlessly uttered "injustice of things" has been clarified by our thinking the essence of that which presences and stays awhile as the dis-jointure in the while. The dis-jointure consists in the fact that what stays awhile tries to have its while understood only as continuation. Thought from out of the jointure of the while, staying as persistence is insurrection on behalf of sheer endurance. In preecncing as such - presencing which lets everything that presences stay in the region of unconcealment - continuance asserts itself. In this rebellious whiling, that which stays awhile insists on sheer continuation. It presences, therefore, without and against the jointure of the while. The saying does not say that everything that presences loses itself in the dis-jointure. It says, rather, that that which stays awhile with a view to dis-jointure, διδόναι δίκην, gives jointure.

What does "to give" mean here? How should that which stays awhile, presences in dis-jointure, give jointure? Can it give what it does not have? If it gives anything, does it not immediately give jointure away? Whither


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Anaximander's saying (GA 5) by Martin Heidegger