File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_1998/heidegger.9803, message 143


Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 18:01:07 +0100
Subject: Re: On the Essence of Truth
From: artefact-AT-t-online.de (Michael Eldred)


Cologne, 18 March 1998

Toma Tasovac schrieb:
> 1. Why does freedom as the-letting-beings-be [das Seinlassen von
> Seiendem] disclose beings and conceal *beings as a whole*?
> 2. What is the difference between beings and beings as a whole?
> 3. Why is it the case that "the openedness of beings as a whole does not
> coincide with the sum of all immediately familiar beings"?

Toma, I take it that you are referring to section “5. The Essence of Truth” in 
_Vom Wesen der Wahrheit_ in which Gestimmtheit (attunedness) is dealt with. 

The essencing of truth discloses beings in their being. Such disclosure enables 
Dasein to comport itself towards this being or that. But the essencing of truth 
is also (and simultaneously!) a holistic happening; beings as a whole are 
disclosed (entborgen) or, as I prefer to say: de-crypted. (Think of the crypt as 
a place of shelter.) This wholeness of disclosure or de-cryption affects, or 
touches Dasein, i.e. Dasein is open to this wholeness of disclosure _in its 
wholeness_ in and _as_ mood, i.e. Dasein is always attuned with the wholeness of 
this happening in one way or other, even though it may not be able to “define” 
and “grasp” (com-prehend) what precisely is going on. (In defining and grasping, 
beings are brought to stand in under-standing.) 

The “openness of beings as a whole does not coincide with the sum of beings that 
are currently known” (_Wegmarken_ 190), because this wholeness itself affects 
Dasein as attunedness. By adding up one being after another, one will never come 
across the phenomenon of attunedness or moodedness. Moodedness is another 
dimension altogether of Dasein’s openness to truth’s (play-ful) essencing. In 
SuZ Heidegger calls this openness of Dasein to attunedness “Angaenglichkeit”, 
which is its _ontological_ ‘status’ of being open to the wholeness of being in 
its de-cryption (disclosure). Only Dasein is open to attunedness as such because 
only Dasein is open to beings as a whole in their wholeness. 

Why is this openness to beings as a whole in attunedness a concealment 
(en-cryption, hiding, closure)? Because Dasein, in its everyday comportment, 
directs its (focus of) attention towards the beings it is currently concerned 
with; the wholeness of beings as a whole recedes into the background, and is 
thus concealed, whilst at the same time _making itself present_ (presenting 
itself) in the wholeness of a mood. The mood is always the mode in which Dasein 
is currently in the world. Moods are always whole, even though they may also be 
fleeting.

So disclosure and closure, revealing and concealing, decryption and encryption 
are happening ‘all the time’ in the play of truth’s essencing. Truth is the 
on-going going-on of being in its decryption and encryption. The world itself is 
this play of truth in particular beings and in beings as a whole. 

For example, as Dasein shifts it focus of attention in shifting its involvement 
with beings _as such_, other beings come into view (the view of explicit 
understanding), whereas other beings fade from view, recede into the background. 
This background has not simply disappeared, however, but makes itself ‘felt’ 
(Angang) in mood, in one way or the other, in one mode or the other. 

Thus, what eludes the grasp of our understanding is _there in truth_ 
nonetheless, i.e. the essencing of truth covers not only ‘unconcealment’, but is 
the whole of the play and strife between concealment and unconcealment, 
encrpytion and decryption. 

Regards,
Michael
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_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Dr Michael Eldred -_-_-_
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