If Ereignis is the essence of Seyn then let us begin by asking what in turn is the essence of Ereignis? Heidegger name this essence explicitly and on many occasions throughout Contributions to Philosophy: it is the refusal which hesitates (die zögernde Veragung). This refusal which hesitates is precisely the gesture that will explain how it is that a withdrawal can give. Heidegger goes on ever more simply to specify the relation between withdrawl and giving, replacing these words--withdrawl/giving, refusal/hesitation--with others that bring us gradually closer to an understanding of the way in which this process 'actually' occurs, the process of abyssal grounding.

So far we have seen this process to comprise: being/beings, abyss/ground, withdrawal/giving, refusal/hesitation.

'Hesitant refusal' is the essence of Ereignis as the name for the slash or the process of rifting that seperates and joins the contrasting processes named above and that is ultimately the differenciation of the ontological difference called Seyn. It is necessary to follow this process to the point at which being can be seen fully to 'join up' with beings, in such a way that we may explain, as Being and Time did not, how being's withdrawal from beings as a whole allows them to form an organized totality or world. In other words, it is necessary to follow this process until we reach the thing.

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¶ 5:29 AM