extending reach to which the present belongs as presencing, insofar as there is presence {Anwesenheit}? True, man always remains approached by the presencing of something actually present without explicitly heeding presencing itself. But we have to do with absence just as often, that is, constantly. For one thing, there is much that is no longer present in the way we know presencing in the sense of the present. And yet, even that which is no longer present presences immediately in its absence—in the manner' of what has been, and still concerns us. What has been does not just vanish from the previous now as does that which is merely past. Rather, what has been presences, but in its own way. In what has been, presencing is extended.
But absence also concerns us in the sense of what is not yet present in the manner of presencing in the sense of coming toward us. To talk of what is coming toward us has meanwhile become a cliché. Thus we hear: "the future has already begun," which is not so, because the future never just begins since absence, as the presencing of what is not yet present, always in some way already concerns us, is present no less immediately than what has been. In the future, in what comes toward us, presencing is offered.
If we heed still more carefully what has been said, we shall find in absence—be it what has been or what is to come—a manner of presencing and approaching which by no means coincides with presencing {GA 14: 18} in the sense of the immediate present. Accordingly, we must note: Not every presencing is necessarily the present. A curious matter. But we find such presencing, the approaching that reaches us, in the present, too. In the present, too, presencing is given.
How are we to determine this giving of presencing that prevails in the present, in the past, in the future? Does this giving lie in this, that it reaches us, or does it reach us because it is in itself a reaching? The latter. Approaching, being not yet present, at the same time gives and brings about what is no longer present, the past, and conversely what has been offers future to itself. The reciprocal relation of both at the same time gives and brings about the: present. We say "at the same time," and thus ascribe a time character to the