The Four Senses of Earth
We call the obscure ground of our abode—unmistakably obscure—the "Earth." The first sense of the concept of Earth indeed is linked to the essence of physis unthought by the Greeks, that is, to aletheia. More precisely, Earth belongs to the dimension of withdrawal, of concealing (lethe) which holds sway in un-concealment, in a-letheia. But it is not identical with it. It is not simple withdrawal or pure obscurity. "Earth is not the sealed-off that corresponds to concealment";39 it is not self-enclosed to the point of being totally removed from what appears. Opacity in Earth is powerful, but it must manifest itself. Thus the weight of the stone or the particular radiance of colors are revealed as modes of what is obviously present but unexplor- able. Indeed when one breaks a stone into a thousand pieces; when one calculates its exact weight or its molecular structure; when one breaks down its color in spectral frequencies — none of these analytical measures can penetrate the interior of this heavy mass or this luminosity. "It only shows itself if it does not remain undisclosed and inexplicit. Thus Earth brakes every attempt at penetrating it. It makes every calculative indiscretion veer toward destruction."40 Earth possesses a secret ground that resists every elucidation and that does not yield to the violence of an ex-plication or ex-position. One must acquiesce to its unopenable dimension if one does not want to destroy it. It must show itself as what holds itself in reserve.
Thus, Earth indeed appears in the Open, in the clearing of being, but it appears as impenetrable. It is openly latent, manifestly hidden. Heidegger, repeatedly insists that its mode of manifestation is governed by a paradoxical duality: it is das Hervorkomrnend-Bergende, which means "that which shelters in coming forth,"41 that which in emerging keeps its own depth hidden. Being essentially this movement of again taking up and going back into itself, it makes this covering rise up and visibly appear in the very midst of the world. "Earth is the spontaneous arising of what is continually self-secluding."42 As the world is the domain par excellence of free appearing, Earth will prove to be engaged in an ambiguous and conflictual relation with the world, its contrary. Thus it is necessarily compelled to reach an agreement, so to speak, with its inimical principle. "Earth cannot renounce the Open of the world if it is itself to appear as Earth."43
But what is the world? And how are we to take the conflict of Earth-world? In "The Origin of the Work of Art" the definition of the concept of world is considerably enlarged in relation to that of Being and Time. Certainly the world is still defined as a network of possibilities and not as a subsistent being, an in-itself, or a totality of objects. But quite beyond the practical everyday actions on the equipmental level, this network of possibilities principally concerns moral and political choice, the "courses (Bahnen)