EARLY GREEK THINKING

The "while" occurs essentially in the jointure.

But then what lingers awhile is precisely in the jointure of its presencing, and not at all, as we might put it, in disjunction, άδικία. But the fragment says it is. The fragment speaks from the essential experience that άδικία is the fundamental trait of ἐόντα.

Whatever lingers awhile becomes present as it lingers in the jointure which arranges presencing jointly between a twofold absence. Still, as what is present, whatever lingers awhile—and only it—can stay the length of its while. What has arrived may even insist upon its while solely to remain more present, in the sense of perduring. That which lingers perseveres in its presencing. In this way it extricates itself from its transitory while. It strikes the willful pose of persistence, no longer concerning itself with whatever else is present. It stiffens—as if this were the way to linger—and aims solely for continuance and subsistence.

Coming to presence in the jointure of the while, what is present abandons that jointure and is, in terms of whatever lingers awhile, in disjunction. Everything that lingers awhile stands in disjunction. To the presencing of what is present, to the ἐόν of ἐόντα, άδικία belongs. Thus, standing in disjunction would be the essence of all that is present. And so in this early fragment of thinking the pessimism—not to say the nihilism—of the Greek experience of Being would come to the fore. {GA 5: 356}

However, does the fragment say that the essence of what is present consists in disjunction? It does and it doesn't. Certainly, the fragment designates disjunction as the fundamental trait of what is present, but only to say:

διδόναι γάρ αὐτα δίκην τῆς άδικίας.

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