THINGS
more expropriated [enteignet] to what is its own. This expropriative bringing into ownership [enteignende Vereignen] is the mirror-play of the fourfold. From it is entrusted the single fold of the four. (GA 79: 18/17–18)
Because what is one’s own is found within the single fold that joins the four, what is one’s own is nothing simply received. One’s own is not something merely appropriated, but simultaneously expropriated as well. To belong to this fold and thereby to be what one is requires not keeping to oneself, but exhausting oneself in a movement of expropriation. The mirroring out is expropriative, but only on this non-identity of self can any appropriative movement be found. Not in the sense that the appropriation would reconcile the expropriated—rather it receives it back multiplied by the reflections of the others. Each member must expropriate itself in order to receive itself back as having reflected the other. Bringing expropriation together with appropriation should keep us from thinking identity as anything internalized. Rather what is one’s own takes place outside oneself, in the stretch of relation between appropriation and expropriation.3 Identity happens through this tensed belonging that creates its own “free space.” All belonging is consequently a belonging to this freedom. All belonging is spaced. This is ultimately what the mirror play gives us to think. A belonging that is sustained expropriatively and thereby allows what belongs to move past itself in a manner that opens a region, even a world. The expropriative mirror play lets there be world: “we name the appropriating mirror-play of the single fold of the earth and sky, divinities and mortals the world. . . . The fouring essences as the worlding of world” (GA 79: 19/18).
The reciprocity of this movement is what leads to its determination as a circling, a circling that lets the four be together:
The collected essence of the mirror- play of the world, ringing in this way, is a circling [das Gering]. In the circling of this playfully- mirroring ring, the four nestle [schmiegen sich] into their united essence and nonetheless each respectively into its own essence. Supple [schmiegsam] in this way, they join pliantly [fügsam] and worldingly the world. (GA 79: 19/18)
The ring joins by letting each maintain its own identity while participating in the unity of the four, its circling. Were the four to lose themselves, there would be no ringing, just static homogeneity. The play of circling emerges out of an appropriation that brings each party into the ownership of itself precisely through its relational contact with others. Through