as such, despite being overwhelmed by the pressure of what reveals itself. The sustaining of the unexplainable seeks to perceive only that which the unconcealed reveals in its unconcealedness: namely, presence, constancy, self-installation in a form, self-limitation in a look. The sustaining of the basic disposition is not a melting into or a vague and empty wallowing in “feelings”; on the contrary, it is the carrying out of the necessity of the question of beings as such in their region.
RECAPITULATION
1) The basic disposition of wonder versus related kinds of marvelling.
We are reflecting on the essence of the basic disposition, the one that was compelling at the beginning of Western thinking. It let the question of beings as such become a necessity, though in such a way that it precluded a direct inquiry into ἀλήθεια. This basic disposition is wonder. We have been trying to clarify its essence, its type of disposing. The disposing of a basic disposition is the transformative displacing of man into beings and before them. In order to draw out with sufficient clarity the manner of this disposing in wonder, we attempted to distinguish this basic disposition from related, though essentially different, kinds of marvelling. We mentioned and clarified some aspects of amazement, admiration, and awe. In each case the result was a different position of man: he may be captured by the amazing and get lost in it, he may posit himself as free in relation to the admired, in a certain sense equal to it if not even superior, or he may submit to the awesome by holding himself back. What is common to all these modes of marvelling is that in each case, even if in different ways, a determinate individual object as something unusual is set off against a determinate sphere of the usual and the latter is put aside and for the time being abandoned. How does wonder stand versus all these?
It is precisely with regard to this relation toward the usual and the unusual that the basic disposition of wonder—as something entirely different—is easiest to clarify.