surrender of the primacy of consciousness in favor of a new domain – that of Dasein – there corresponds the fact that there is only one possibility for man to join this new domain: that of stepping into it, entering it, in order to stand in a relation to what is not man, in that man receives his determination from there.
The entry into this domain is not produced by the thought undertaken by Heidegger. To believe thinking capable of changing the place of man would still conceive of it on the model of production.
Therefore?
Therefore, let us say cautiously that thinking begins to prepare the conditions for such an entry. In other words, Heidegger says, this thinking above all prepares man for the possibility of corresponding to such an entry.
III
Today’s session, Saturday, September 8, 1973, opens with the reading of the protocol.
Heidegger first wishes to make a few additions to yesterday’s work:
1) First with respect to what was said regarding the “imperatives”: in German, “Zwang” [imperative] belongs to “zwingen” (to necessitate, to do violence to [to compel]).
This sociological or anthropological way of speaking, Heidegger stresses, despite the undeniable results of the analyses it allows,118 nonetheless leaves the very notion of “imperative” undetermined in its ontological character.
Now, I find the ontological determination of imperative, Heidegger continues, in positionality [Ge-stell].
What is positionality? First, from a strictly linguistic point of view, it has the following meanings:
In the Ge- one hears the gathering, the unification, the bringing together of all the modes of positing. Let us be more precise about the positing. Heidegger says: the meaning of positing is here that of a challenging. It is in this sense that one can say: “Nature is set upon [hin gestellt] to yield energy” or: nature is compelled [gezwungen] to deliver its energy. The meaning is that of a being held to something, whereby that which is held to something is at the same time forced to adopt a certain form, to play a role, a role to which it is henceforth reduced. Nature, held to delivering its energy, henceforth appears as a “reserve of energy.”
But, Heidegger immediately amends, as soon as nature is posed [gestellt] to deliver its energy, man is set [gestellt] to encounter and correspond to these produced energies – to the extent that one can say: the greater the challenging of nature, the greater the challenge man imposes on himself. To give an example: coal, having become energy, then leads