PATHMARKS

c'est l'engagement de l'Être [thinking is the engagement of being]. Here the possessive form "de l' ..." is supposed to express both subjective and objective genitive. In this regard "subject" and "object" are inappropriate terms of metaphysics, which very early on in [146] the form of Occidental "logic" and "grammar" seized control of the interpretation of language. We today can only begin to descry what is concealed in that occurrence. The liberation of language from grammar into a more original essential framework is reserved for thought and poetic creation. Thinking is not merely l'engagement dans l'action for and by beings, in the sense of whatever is actually present in our current situation. Thinking is l'engagement by and for the truth of being. The history of being is never past but stands ever before us; it sustains and defines every condition et situation humaine. In order to learn how to experience the aforementioned essence of thinking purely, and that means at the same time to carry it through, we must free ourselves from the technical interpretation of thinking. The beginnings of that interpretation reach back to Plato and Aristotle. They take thinking itself to be a τέχνη, a process of deliberation in service to doing and making. But here deliberation is already seen from the perspective of πρᾶξις and ποίησις. For this reason thinking, when taken for itself, is not "practical." The characterization of thinking as θεωρία and the determination of knowing as "theoretical" comportment occur already within the "technical" interpretation of thinking. Such characterization is a reactive attempt to rescue thinking and preserve its autonomy over against acting and doing. Since then "philosophy" has been in the constant predicament of having to justify its existence before the "sciences." It believes it can do that most effectively by elevating itself to the rank of a science. But such an effort is the abandonment of the essence of thinking. Philosophy is hounded by the fear that it loses prestige and validity {GA 9: 315} if it is not a science. Not to be a science is taken as a failing that is equivalent to being unscientific. Being,^a as the element of thinking, is abandoned by the technical interpretation of thinking. "Logic," beginning with the Sophists and Plato, sanctions this explanation. [147] Thinking is judged by a standard that does not measure up to it. Such judgment may be compared to the procedure of trying to evaluate the essence and powers of a fish by seeing how long it can live on dry land. For a long time now, all too long, thinking has been stranded on dry land. Can then the effort to return thinking to its element be called "irrationalism"?

^a First edition, 1949: Being as event of appropriation [Ereignis], event of appropriation: the saying [Sage]; thinking: renunciative saying in response [Entsagen] to the saying of the event of appropriation.

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