ON THE QUESTION OF BEING
the four regions of the fourfold and their being gathered in the locale of this crossing through (cf. Vorträge und Auftätze [1954], pp. 145-204).
Coming to presence is turned as such toward the human essence, wherein
such turning first finds its consummation insofar as the human essence
thoughtfully commemorates [gedenkt] this turning. In his essence the human
being is the thoughtful memory [Gedächtnis] of being, but of being.
This means: the human essence also belongs to that which, in the crossing
out of being, takes thinking into the claim of a more originary call. a
Coming to presence is grounded in the turning that, as such, turns the
human essence in toward it, so that this essence may expend itself for such
turning.
Like being, the nothing would also have to be written — and that means,
thought - in the same way. This implies that the human essence, in its
thoughtful commemoration, belongs to the nothing, and not merely as
some addition. If, therefore, in nihilism the nothing attains domination in
a particular way, then the human being is not only affected by nihilism, but
essentially participates in it. In that case, however, the entire "subsistence"
of human beings does not stand somewhere on this side of the line, in order
then to cross over it and take up residence on the other side with being. The
human essence itself belongs to the essence of nihilism and thereby to the
phase of its consummation. As [240] that being which is in essence brought
into the need of being, the human being is part of the zone of being, i.e.,
at the same time of the nothing. The human being not only stands within
the critical zone of the line. He himself — but not taken independently, and
especially not through himself alone — is this zone and thus the line. In no
case does the line, thought as a sign of the zone of consummate nihilism, lie
before the human being in the manner of something that could be crossed.
In that case, however, the possibility of a trans lineam and of such a crossing
collapses.
The more we think carefully about "the line," the more this immediately persuasive image disappears, without the thoughts that have thereby been ignited having to lose their significance. In the essay Across the Line, you provide a description of the locale of nihilism and an assessment of the situation and possible mobility of the human being with respect to the locale described and designated by the image of the line. Certainly a topography of nihilism is required, of its process and its overcoming. Yet the topography must be preceded by a topology: a discussion locating that locale which gat hers being and nothing into their essence, determines the essence of
a First edition, 1956: Ereignis
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