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BEING SINGULAR PLURAL
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M E R I D I A N
Crossing Aesthetics
Werner Harnacher
& D a v i d E . W e l l b e r y
Editors
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BEING SINGULAR PLURAL
T r a n s l a t e d b y
R o b e r t D . R i c h a r d s o n
a n d A n n e E . O ' B y r n e
Jean-Luc Nancy
Stanford
University
Press
Stanford
California
2000
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Contents
S t a n f o r d U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s
S t a n f o r d , C a l i f o r n i a
2 0 00 b y th e Bo a r d o f Tr us tees
o f t h e L e l a n d S t a n f o r d J u n i o r U n i v e r s i r y
Being Singular Plural'was originally published as Etre singulier pluriel
1 9 9 6 , di t io n s G a l i l e .
A s s is ta n c e fo r th e t r a n s l a t io n wa s p r o v ided b y th e F r en c h Mi n i s t r y o f Cul tur e .
Pr i n te d in the U n i te d S tates o f A m er ic a o n a c id- fr ee , a r c h i v a l - q u a l i ty p a p er .
L i b r a r y o f C o n g r e s s C a t a l o g i n g - i n - P u b l i c a t i o n D a t a
N a n c y , J e a n - L u c .
[ E t r e s i n g u l a r p l u r i e l . E n g l i s h ]
B e i n g s i n g u l a r p l u r a l / J e a n - L u c N a n c y ; t r a n s l a te d b y R o b e r t D . R i c h a r d s o n
a n d A n n e E . O ' B y r n e
p . c m . ( M er id ia n , c r o s s in g a es th et ic s )
In c l udes b ib l io g r a p h ic a l r e fer en c es a n d in dex .
I S B N 0 - 8 0 4 7 - 3 9 7 4 - 9 ( a 'k - p a p er ) I S B N 0 - 8 0 4 7 - 3 9 7 5 - 7 (pbk. : alk. p a p er )
I. O n t o l o g y . 2 . P h i l o s o p h i c a l a n t h r o p o l o g y . I . T i t l e . I I . M e r i d a n
( S t a n f o r d , C a l i f . )
B2 4 30. N36 3 E 8 71 3 2 00 0
1 9 4 d c 2 i 0 0 - 0 5 7 3 2 6
O r i g i n a l p r i n t i n g 2 0 0 0
L a s t f ig ur e b el o w in dic a tes y ea r o f th is p r in t in g :
09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00
Ty p es et b y Ja m es P . Br o m m er
in 1 0. 9 / 1 3 G a r a m o n d a n d L i th o s d is p l a y
Preface XV
O f B ein g S in g u l a r P l u ra l1
Wa r , R ig ht , So v ere ig n t yTec hn IO I
Eulogy for the Mle 145
Th e Surprise of the Event 159
H u ma n Ex c ess 177
Cos mos Basel ius 185
Notes 193
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Lead, as I do, the flown-away virtue back to earth
yes, back to body and life; that it may give the earth its
meaning, a human meaning! May your spirit and your
virtue serve the meanin g of the earth. . . . M a n and
man's earth are still unexhausted and undiscovered.N iet z sc he
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Th is epigr aph is chosen quite deliberately. I r un the risk of its
seeming to lend itself to a certain Ch ris tia n, idealist , and huma nist
tone, a tone in which it is easy to recognize those well-meaning
virtues and values that have loosed upon the world all the things
that have drive n the hu ma nit y of our cen tury to despair over itself, where these values are both blind to and complicit in this letting
loose. In h is ow n w ay , Nietzs ch e h im s el f w ou ld h ave undoub te dly
participated in this dubious, moralizing piety. At any rate, the word
"meaning" rarely appears in his work, and stil l more rarely in any
positive sense. One would do well , therefore, not to give any hasty
interpretations of it here. The above excerpt appeals to a "human
meaning," but it does so by aff irming that the human [l'homme]
remains to be discovered. 1 In order for the human to be discovered,
and in order f or th e ph ras e " h um an m eaning" to acquire s om e
meaning, everything that has ever laid claim to the truth about the
nature, essence, or end of "ma n" mu st be undone . In other words,
not hin g must remai n of what, u nder the tit le of mea nin g, related
the earth [la terre] and the human to a specif iable horizon. Again, it
is Nietzsc he who said that we are now "on the hor izon of the inf i
nite"; that is , we are at that point where "there is no more ' land,'"
and where "there is nothing more terrible than the inf inite." 2
Are we f inally going to learn this lesson? Are we perhaps f inally
able to hear it , or is it now impossible for us to learn anything
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X l l Xlll
else? Can we think an earth and a human such that they would be
only what they arenothing but e a r t h a n d h u m a n a n d s u c h
that they wo ul d be none of the various hor izons often harb ored
unde r these names, none of the "perspectives" o r "views" in view
of whi ch we have disf igured hu mans [les hommes] and driven th em
to despair?
"Th e horiz on of the inf init e" is no longer the hor izo n of the
whole, but the "whole" (all that is) as put on hold everywhere,
pus h ed to the outs ide justas much as it is pushed back inside the
"self ." It is no longer a l ine that is drawn, or a l ine that will bedra wn , whi ch orie nts or gathers the mea nin g of a course of progress
or navigation. It is the opening [la brche] or distancing [lecarte-
ment] of hori zon itself , and in the openi ng: us. We happen as the
ope nin g itself , the dangerous fault l ine of a ruptu re.
I want to emphasize the date on which I am writing this. It is
the summ er of 1995, an d as far as specif ying the situ ation of the
earth and h um ans is concerned, noth ing is m ore pres s ing ( h ow
co uld i t really be avoided?) than a l ist of prop er name s such as
these, presented here in no particular order: Bosnia-Herzogovina,
Ch ec h ny a , Rw anda , Bos nian S erb s, T uts is , Hutus , T am i l T igers ,
Kra jina Serbs, Casamance, Chia pas, Is lamic Jiha d, Banglad esh, the
S ecret Ar m y f or th e Lib erat ion of Arm eni a, H am as , Kazakh s tan,
K h m e r s Ro u g es , E T A m i l i t i a , K u rd s ( U P K / P D K ) , M o n t a t a i r e, t heM ovem ent f or S el f - determ inat ion, S om al ia , Ch icanos , S h i i tes ,
F N L C - C a n a l H i s t o r i q u e , L i b e r i a , G i v a t H a g a d a n , N i g e r i a , t h e
League of th e No rt h , Af gh anis tan , Indones ia , S ikh s , Ha it i , Ro m a
gy psies of S lovenia , T aiw an , Bur m a, P L O , Iraq, Is lam ic Front S al
vat ion , S h in ing P ath , Vaulx- en - Vel ins , N euh of . . . . Of cours e, i t
woul d be dif f icult to bri ng this l ist to an end if the aim was to in
clude all the places, groups, or authorities that constitute the the
ater of blo ody conflicts am ong id entities, as well as wha t is at stake
in these conflicts. These days it is not always possible to say with
any assurance whether these identities are intranational, infrana-
t ional , or t rans nat ional ; w h eth er th ey are " cul tural ," " rel ig ious ,"
"ethnic," or "historical"; whether they are legitimate or notnot
to mention the question about which law would provide such le
gitimation; whether they are real, mythical, or imaginary; whether
they are independent or "instrumentalized" by other groups who
wield polit ical, economic, and ideological power. . . .
This is the "earth" we are supposed to "inhabit" today, the earth
for which the name Sarajevo will become the martyr-name, the
testimonial-name: this is us, we who are supposed to say we as if
we know what we are saying and who we are talking about. This
earth is anythi ng but a sharing of huma nity. It is a wo rld that doesnot even manage to constitute a world; it is a world lacking in
w orld , and lack i ng in th e m eaning of w orld . I t is an enum erat ion
that brings to light the sheer num ber an d proli fera tion of these var
ious poles of attrac tion and r epul sion. It is an endless l ist , and
everything happens in such a way that one is reduced to keeping
accounts but never taking the f inal toll . It is a l itany, a prayer of
pure sorrow and pure loss, the plea that falls fro m the lips of mi l
lion s of refugees every day: wh ethe r they be deportees, peop le be
sieged, those who are mutilated, people who starve, who are raped,
ostracized, excluded, exiled, expelled.
What I am talking about here is compassion, but not compassion
as a pity that feels sorry for itsel f an d feeds on itself. Com -p ass io n
is the cont agi on, the contact of bei ng with one anothe r in this tur
moil. Compassion is not altruism, nor is it identif ication; it is the
distur bance of viol ent relatedness.
Wha t does the above-named p roliferation require of us, this pro
liferation that seems to have no other meaning than the indetermi
nate multipli catio n of centripetal mean ings, mean ings closed in on
themselves and supersaturated with signif icancethat is , meanings
that are no longer meaningful because they have come to refer only
to their ow n closure, to their hori zon of appr opr iati on, and have
begun to spread nothing but destruction, hatred, and the denial of
existence?
Wha t if this autistic mul tipl ici ty, whi ch tears open and is torn
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XI V
open, lets us know that we have not even begun to discover what it
is to be many, even though "la terre des hommes" 3 is exactly this?
What if it lets us know that it is itself the first laying bare [mise
nu] of a wo rl d that is only the wo rl d, bu t wh ic h is the wo rl d ab
solutely and unreservedly, with no meaning beyond this very Be
ing of th e w orld: s ingular ly p lural an d p lura l ly s ingular?
Preface
The f irst and pr inc ipa l essay of this book, w hic h gives it its t it le,
was not composed in an altogether sequential manner, but rather
in a discontinuous way, repeatedly taking up several themes. To a
certain extent, then, the sections can be read in any order, s ince
there are repetition s here and there. B ut this is the result of a fun
damen tal dif f iculty. Th is text does not disguise its am bit ion of re
doing th e w h ole of " f i rs t ph i los oph y " b y g iv ing th e " s ingular
p lural" of Being 1 as its foundation. This, however, is not my a m b i
tion , bu t rather the necessity of the thi ng itself and of our history.
At the very least, I hope to make this necessity felt. At the same
time, apart from the fact that I do not have the strength to deliver
the treatise "of the singular p lura l essence of Bei ng, " the for m of
the ontological treatise ceases to be appropriate as soon as the sin
gular of Bei ng itself, an d therefore also of ontolog y, is in qu estion .
This is nothing new. At least s ince Nietzsche, and for all sorts of
reasons that no doubt come together in the reason I invoke, phi
losophy is at odds with its "form," that is , with its "style," which is
to say, f inally, with its address. H o w does thin ki ng address itself to
itself , to thinking (which also means: how does thinking address
itself to everyone, wi thou t its being a matter of a "com prehe nsion "
or " unders tanding" th at m igh t b e cal led " com m on" ) ? How is
thinking addressed? (The philosophical treatise, and "philosophy"
as such, is the neut rali zati on of address, the subjectless discou rse of
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X V I Preface
Being- S ub ject [l'Etre-Sujet] itself.) Put another way, what is the "di
alogue of the soul wi th itself" that Plato talks about, whic h dem on
strates that this ques tion , or this wor ry, has always been par t of ou r
history? If thi nk ing is addressed, then it is because there is mea ning
in this addre ss, and no t in disc ourse ( but it is in the address of dis
cours e) . T h is ob eys th e pr im ordi al , ontological c ondi t ion of b eing-
with or being-together, which is what I would like to talk about. A
treatise, therefore, is not suff iciently discursive. Nor is it enough to
dress discourse in the f orm of an address ( for me to address you
w ith th e f am il iar " y ou" [tu] the whole way through). The address
mean s that thi nk in g itself addresses itself to "me" a nd to "us" at thesame time; that is , thi nki ng addresses itself to the wo rld , to history,
to people , to th ings : to " us ." Anoth er am b it ion s prings f rom th is
or, better yet, another, more restricted, attempt: to allow thinking's
address to be perceived, an address that comes to us from every
where simultaneously, multiplied, repeated, insistent, and variable,
ges turing only tow ard " us " and tow ard our curious " b eing- w ith -
one- anoth er ," [tre-les-uns-avec-les-autres], tow ard our addres s ing-
one- anoth er . 2
(By the way, the logic of "wi th" often requires heavy-handed syn
tax in order to say "being-with-one-another." You may suffer from
it as you read these pages. But perhaps it is not an accident that
language does not easily lend itself to showi ng the "wit h" as such,
for it is itself the address and no t what mu st be addressed.)
In this , there is an il lu sion that l ies in wait, the il lu sion of wi ll i ng
th e adequat ion of " f orm " and " content ," o f w i l l in g t ruth i t s el f intopresence: as if I co ul d write to every addressee a seismo grap hical
account of our ups ets , our agitat ions , our t roub les , an d our ad
dresses without addressees. My only response is no: no will , "on
my life I did not know what it was to will" (Nietzsche). Or I might
say the following: will ing (or desire) is not a thinking; it is a dis
turbance, an echo, a reverberating shock.
The latter essays were chosen because their subjects converge
wi th that of the pri ma ry essay. As you wi ll see, the first two are con
necte d to the exact circ umsta nces of the most viole nt events of
these last years.
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Of Being Singular Plur al
I t i s g o o d to r e l y up o n o th er s . F o r n o o n e c a n b ea r th is l i fe a l o n e.
H l d e r l i n
S i n c e h u m a n n a t u r e i s t h e t r u e c o m m u n i t y o f m e n , t h o s e w h o
p r o d u c e t h e r e b y a f f i r m t h e i r n a tu r e , h u m a n c o m m u n i t y , a n d s o c i a l
b ein g wh ic h , r a th er th a n a n a b s tr a c t , g en er a l p o wer in o p p o s i t io n
t o t h e i s o l a t e d i n d i v i d u a l , i s t h e b e i n g o f e a c h i n d i v i d u a l , h i s o w n
a c t iv i ty , h is o w n l i fe , h is o w n jo y , h is o w n r ic h n es s . To s a y th a t a
m a n is a l ien a te d f r o m h im s el f i s to s a y th a t th e s o c iety o f th is
a l ien a ted m a n is th e c a r ic a t ur e o f h is r ea l c o m m u n it y .
M a r x
We Ar e Mea ning
It is often said today that we have lost meaning, that we lack it
and , as a result , are in need of and wa iti ng for it . The "one" wh o
speaks in this way forgets that the very propa gati on of this discourse
is itself mea nin gfu l. Re gre tting the absence of me ani ng itself has
meaning. But such regret does not have meaning only in this nega
tive mode; d enyi ng the presence of mea ning aff irms that one knows
what meaning would be, were it there, and keeps the mastery and
truth of mea nin g in place (whi ch is the pretension of the human ist
discourses that propose to "rediscover" meaning.) Whether it is
aware of it or not, the con tem por ary discourse on me ani ng goesmuch further and in a completely dif ferent direction: it brings to
light the fact that "meaning," used in this absolute way, has become
the bared [dnud] name of our being-with-one-another. We do not
" h ave" m eaning any m ore, b ecaus e w e ours elves are m eaning en
tirely, without reserve, inf initely, with no meaning other than "us."
Thi s does not mean that we are the content of mea nin g, nor are
we its fulf il lm ent or its result , as if to say that hum ans were the
mean ing (end, substance, or value) of Bein g, nature, or history. The
mean ing of this mea ni ng t ha t is, the signif ication to whi ch a state
of af fairs corresponds and com pa re s is precisely what we say we
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2 Being Singular Plural
have lost. But we are meaning in the sense that we are the element
in which signif ications can be produced and circulate. The least s ig
nif ica tion just as mu ch as the most elevated (the me ani ng of "na il"
as well as the meani ng of "G od ") has no mea nin g in itself and , as a
result , is what it is and does what it does only insofar as it is com
m unicated, even w h ere th is com m unicat ion takes p lace only b e
tw een " m e" and " m y s el f ." M eaning is i t s ow n com m unicat ion or
i ts ow n c irc ulat ion. T h e " m eanin g of Bein g" is not s om e property
that will come to qualify, f il l in, or f inalize the brute givenness of
"Being" pure and simple.' Instead, it is the fact that there is no"brute givenne ss" of Bei ng, that there is no desperately poor there
is presented when one says that "there is a nai l catching. . . . " But
the givenness of Bei ng , the givenness in here nt to the very fact that
we understand something when we say "to be" (whatever it may
be and however confused it might be), along with the (same)
givenness that is given with this factcosubstantial with the given
ness of Bei ng and the under stand ing of Bei ng, that we under stand
one another (however confusedly) when we say it, is a gift that can
be summarized as follows: Being itself is given to us as meaning.Be
ing does not have m ean ing. Bein g i ts elf , th e ph en om en on of Be
i n g , i s m e a n i n g t h a t i s , i n t u r n , i t s o w n c i r c u l a t i o n a n d we are
th is c irculat io n.
T h ere is no m ea ning i f m ean ing is not s h ared,2 and not because
there would be an ultimate or f irst s ignif ication that all beings have
in com mo n, but because meaning is itselfthe sharing of Being. Mean
ing begins where presence is not pure presence but where presence
comes apart [se disjoint] in order to be itselfas such. This "as" pre
supposes the distancing , spacing, a nd divi sion of presence. O nl y the
concept of "presence" contai ns the necessity of this divi sion . P ure
uns h ared pres ence pres ence to noth ing, of noth ing, f or no th in g
is neither present nor absent. It is the simple i mp losi on of a being
that could never have beenan implosion without any trace.
Th is is why what is called "the creation of the worl d" i s not the
p r o d u c t i o n o f a p u r e so m e t h i n g f r o m n o t h i n g w h i c h w o u l d n o t ,
at the same time, im plo de into the nothi ng out of whi ch it could
never have com e bu t is the explosion of presence in the origina l
Being Singular Plural 3
m ul t ip l ic i t y of i t s d iv i s ion. I t is the exp los ion of nothing, in fact,
it is the spacing of me ani ng, sp acing as m e a n i n g a n d c i r c u l a t i o n .
T h e nihilof creatio n is the truth of m ean ing, b ut m ea ning is th e
orig inar y sharing of this truth. It coul d be expressed in the follo w
ing w ay : Being cannot b e any th ing b ut b eing- w ith - one- anoth er ,
c irculat ing in th e with and as the with of th is s ingular ly p lu ral
coexistence.
If one can put it l ike this , there is no other mea nin g than the
m ean ing of c ircula t ion. But th is c irculat io n goes in a l l d irect ions
at once, in all the directions of all the space-times [les espace-temps]
opened by presence to presence: all things, all beings, all entities,
everything past and future, alive, dead, inanimate, stones, plants,
nails , godsand "humans," that is , those who expose sharing and
circ ulati on as such by saying "we," bysaying we to themselves in all
possible senses of that express ion, a nd by saying we for the totalit y
of all being.
(Let us say we for all being, that is, for every being, for all beings
one by one, each time in the singular of their essential plural. Lan
guage speaks for all and of all: for all, in their place, in their name,
including those who may not have a name. Language says what there
is of the world, nature, history and humanity, and it also speaks for
them as well as in view ofthem, in order to lead the one who speaks,
the one through who m language comes to be and happens ("man"), toall of being, which does not speak but which is neverthelessstone,
fish, f iber, dough, crack, block, an d b reath . Thespeakerspeaks for
the world, which means the speaker speaks to it, on behalf of it, in or
der to make it a "world. "As such, the speaker is "in its place" and "ac
cording to its measure"; the speaker occurs as its representative but also,
at the same time (and this has all the values ofpr o in Latin), in an
ticipation of it, before it, exposed to it as to its own most intimate con
sideration. Language says the world; that is, it loses itself in it and ex
poses how "in itself" it is a question of losing oneself in order to be of it,
with it, to be its meaningwhich is all meaning)
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4 Being Singular Plural
Circulation goes in all directions: this is the Nietzschean thought
of the "eternal retu rn," the aff irmation of mea nin g as the repetition
of the instant, noth ing but this repetiti on, and as a result , nothi ng
(since it is a matter of the repe tition of what essentially does not
return). But it is a repetition already comprised in the aff irmation
of the instant, i n this af f irmation/req uest {re-petitid) seized in the
lett ing go of the instant, a ffir min g the passing of presence and its elf
passing with it , af f irmation abandoned in its very movement. It is
an im pos s ib le th oug h t , a th in kin g th at does not h ol d i t s el f b ack
f rom th e c irculat i on i t th inks , a th i nki ng of m ea nin g r igh t at [
mme]3 mea ning , where its eternity occurs as the tru th of its pass
ing. ( F or instance, at th e m om ent at w h ich I am w ri t ing , a b row n -
and-white cat is crossing the garden, s lipping mockingly away, tak
ing my thoughts with it .)
It is in this way that the thi nki ng of the eternal return is the in
augural tho ught of our contem pora ry history, a think in g we must
repeat (even if it means ca lling it some thin g else) . We must reap-
propriate what already made us who "we" are today, here and now,
the "we" of a wor ld wh o no longer struggle to have mean ing bu t to
be meaning itself . This is we as the beginning and end of the world,
inexh aus t ib le in th e c ircum s cript ion th at noth ing c ircum s crib es ,
that "the" nothing circumscribes. We makesense [nous faisons sens],
not by setting a price or value, but by exposing the absolute value
that the world is by itself . "World" does not mean anything other
than this "nothing" that no one can "mean" [vouloir dire], but thatis said in every saying: in other words, Bei ng itself as the absolute
value in it self of all that is, but this absolute value as the being-with o f
all that is itself bare and im possible to evaluate. It is neither mean
ing [vouloir-dire] nor the giving of value [dire-valoir], but value as
such, that is , "mean ing" w hich is the mean ing of Bein g only because
it is Being itself, its existence, its truth. Existence is with: otherwise
nothing exists.
C i r c u l a t i o n o r e t e r n i t y g o e s i n a l l d i r e c t i o n s , b u t i t m o v e s
only insofar as it goes from one point to another; spacing is its ab
s olute condit ion . From p lace to p lace, and f rom m om ent to m o
ment, without any progression or l inear path, bit by bit and case by
Being Singular Plural 5
case, essentially accidental, it is s ingular and plural in its very prin
ciple. It does not have a f inal fulf il lment any more than it has a
poin t of orig in. I t is the origin ary plur ality of origins an d the cre
ation of the wor ld in each singularity, creation c onti nued i n the dis
cont inu ity of its discrete occurrences. F ro m now on , we, we others4
are charged with this truthit is more ours th an ever th e t ruth of
this paradoxical "f irst-person plur al" w hic h makes sense of the worl d
as the spacin g and inte rtw ini ng of so man y world s (earths, skies,
histories) that there is a takin g place of mea nin g, or the crossing-
through [passages] of presence. " We " says (and "we say") the uni que
event whose uniqueness and unity consist in multiplicity.
People Are Strange
Everything, then, passes between us.''This "between," as its name
implies, has neither a consistency nor conti nui ty of its own. It does
not lead from one to the other; it constitutes no connective t issue,
no cement, no bridg e. Per haps it is not even fair to speak of a "co n
nection" to its subject; it is neither connected nor unconnected; it
falls short of bo th; even better, i t is that whi ch is at the heart of a
connection, the interlacing [Yemrecroisment] of strands whose ex
tremities rem ain separate even at the very center of the knot. T he
"between" is the stretching out [distension]and distance opened by
the singul ar as such, a s its spaci ng of me ani ng. Th at whi ch does
not maintain its distance from the "between" is only immanencecollapsed in on itself and depr ived of mea ning .
From one singular to another, there is contiguity but not conti
nuity. There is proximity, but only to the extent that extreme close
ness emphasizes the distanc ing it opens up. A ll of being is in touc h
with all of being , but the law of tou chi ng is separation; more over,
it is the hetero gene ity of surfaces that tou ch each othe r. Contact is
b ey ond f u l lnes s and em pt ines s , b ey ond connect ion and dis con
nect ion. If "to come i nto con tact" i s to begin to ma ke sense of one
another, then this "coming" penetrates nothing; there is no inter
m ediate and m ediat ing " m il ieu ." M eaning is not a m il ieu in w h ich
we are immersed. There is no mi-lieu [between place]. It is a mat-
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6 Being Singular Plural Being Singular Plural 7
ter of one or the other, on e and the other, one wi th the other, bu t
by no means the one in the other, which would be something other
than one or the other (another essence, another nature, a diffuse or
infuse generality) . From one to the other is the syncopated repeti
tion of origi ns-of-th e-wor ld, wh ich are each time one or the other.
T h e or ig in is a f f i rm at ion; repet i t ion is th e condi t ion of a f f i rm a
tion. I say "that is, that it is." It is not a "fact" and has nothing to
do wit h any sort of evalua tion. It is a s ingu larity tak ing refuge inits af f irmation of Bei ng, a tou ch of mea ning . It is not an other Be
ing; it is the singular of Bei ng by whic h the being is, or it is of Be
i n g , w h i c h is being in a transi tive sense of the verb (an un hea rd of,
inaudib le s ens e th e very m eaning of Being) . T h e touch of m ean
ing b r ings into p lay [engager] i t s ow n s ingular i ty , i t s d is t inct ion ,
and br ings int o play the plura lity of the "each time" o f every touch
of mea nin g, " min e" as well as all the others, each one of whi ch is
" m i n e " in turn, acc ord ing to the singular turn of its af f ir mati on.
Rig ht away, then, there is the repetition of the touches of mea n
ing, w h ich m eaning dem ands . T h is incom m ens urab le , ab s olutely
heterogeneous repetition opens up an irreducible strangeness of
each one of these touches to the other. Th e other origi n is in co m
parable or inassimilable, not because it is s imply "other" but be
cause it is an or igin and tou ch of mea ning . Or rather, the alterity of
the other is its originary contiguity with the "proper" origin. 6 Y o u
are absolutely strange because the world begins its turn with you.
We say "people are strange."7 Thi s phrase is one of our most c on
stant and rudimentary ontological attestations. In fact, it says a
great deal. "People" indicates everyone else, designated as the in
determinate ensemble of populations, lineages, or races [gentes]
from which the speaker removes himself . (Nevertheless, he re
moves h ims elf in a very par ticula r sort of way, because the desig
nat ion is s o general and th is is exact ly th e point th at i t in
evitably turns back around on the speaker. Since I say that "people
are strange," I incl ude m yself in a certain w ay in this strangeness.)
The word "people" does not say exactly the same thing as the
H e i d e g g e r i a n 8 " o n e , " 9 even if it is partl y a mod e of it . W i t h the
word "one," it is not always certain whether or not the speaker in
cludes hims elf in the anony mit y of the "one." For example , I can
say "someone said to me" ["on m'a dit"] or else "it is said that" ["on
dit que"] or else "that is how it is done" ["c'est comme a qu'on
fait"] or else "one is born; one dies" ["on nat, on meurt"]. These
uses are not equivalent and, moreover, it is not certain that it is al
ways the case that the "one" speaks of him sel f ( fro m an d about
himself) . Heidegger understood that "one" would only be said as a
response to the question "who?" put to the subject of Dasein, bu t
he does not pose the other inevitable question that must be asked
in order to discover who gives this response and who, in respond
ing like this , rem oves him self or has a tendency to remove himself .
As a result, he risks neglecting the fact that there is no pure and
simple "one," no "one" in which "properly existing" existence [l'ex
istant"proprement existant"] is , from the start, purely and simply
imme rsed. "People " clearly designates the mode of "one" by whic h
"I " remove myself , to the poi nt of appea ring to forget or neglect
the fact that I my sel f am par t of "pe ople ." In a ny case, this setti ng
apart [mise l'cart] does not occur without the recognition of
identity. "People" clearly states that we are all precisely people, that
is, indis t inc t ly pers ons, h um a ns , a l l o f a com m o n " k in d, " b ut of a
kind that has its existence only as numerous, dispersed, and inde
terminate in its generality. This existence can only be grasped in
th e paradoxical s im ultane ity of togethernes s ( anony m ou s , co n
fused, and indeed massive) and disseminated singularity (these or
those "people(s) ," or "a guy," "a girl ," "a kid") .
"People" are silhouettes that are both imprecise and singular-
ized, faint outlin es of voices, pattern s of com por tme nt, sketches
of af fects, not the anonym ous chatter of the "publ ic do ma in ." B ut
what is an affect, if not each ti me a sketch? A com po rt me nt , if not
each time a pattern? A voice, if not each time a faint outline? Wh at
is a s ingularity, if not each time its "own " clearin g, its "ow n" i m
m inence, th e im m i nenc e of a " propriety " or propriety i t s el f as im
m inence, a lw ay s touch ed upon, a lw ay s l igh t ly touch ed: reveal ing
itself beside, always beside. ("Beside himself" ["a ct de ses pom
pes " 10 ] , as the saying goes. The c ome dy of this expression is no ac
cident, and, whether it masks an anxiety or l iberates the laughter
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of the ignora nt, it is always a matter of an escape, an evasion, a nd
an e mpt yin g out of what is closest, an oddi ty presented as the rule
itself.)
"I" take refuge in an exception or distinction when I say "peo
ple," but I also confer this distinction on each and every person,
although in just as obscure a way. This is undoubtedly why people
so often make the judgment "people are strange" or "people are in
cred ible. " It is not only, or even prim ari ly, a questi on of the ten
dency (however evident) to set up our own habitus as the norm. It
is necessary to uncove r a more pr im iti ve level of this partic ular judgm ent , one w h ere w h at is appreh ended is noth ing oth er th an
singularity as such. From faces to voices, gestures, attitudes, dress,
and conduct , w h atever th e " ty p ical" t ra i t s are , every one dis t in
guis h es h im s el f b y a sort of s udden and h e adlong pr ec ip i tat ion
where the strangeness of a s ingulari ty is concentrated. Wi th ou t this
prec ip itat ion th ere w ould b e, quite s im ply , no " s om eone." And
there would be no more interest or hospitality, desire or disgust, no
matter who or what it might be for.
"Someone" here is understood in the way a person might say
"it 's him all right" about a photo, expressing by this "all right" the
cover ing over of a gap, mak in g adequate what is inadequa te, capa
ble of relatin g only to the "insta ntaneo us" gra sping of an instan t
that is precisely its own gap. The photoI have in mind an every
day, banal photosimultaneously reveals s ingularity, banality, and
our curios i ty ab out one anoth er . T h e pr in cip le of indis cernab i l i ty
here becomes decisive. Not only are all people dif ferent but they
are also all dif ferent from one another. They do not dif fer from an
archetype or a generality. The typical traits (ethnic, cultural, social,
generational, and so forth), whose particular patterns constitute an
other level of s ingula rity, do not aboli sh singular dif ferences; in
stead, they bring them into relief . As for singular dif ferences, they
are not only " indiv idual ," b ut in f raindiv idual . I t is never th e cas e
that I have met Pierre or Marie per se, but I have met him or her in
such and such a "form," in such and such a "state," in such and
s uch a " m ood," and s o on.
Thi s very humb le layer of our everyday experience contains an
other rudimentary ontological attestation: what we receive (rather
than what we perceive) with singularities is the discreet passage of
other origins o f the world. What occurs there, what bends, leans,
twists, addresses, deniesfrom the newborn to the corpseis nei
ther primarily "someone close," nor an "other," nor a "stranger,"
nor "someone simi lar ." It is an ori gin ; it is an aff ir mati on of the
world, and we know that the world has no other origin than this
singular mult ipl ici ty of origin s. The worl d always appears [surgit]11
each time accord ing to a decided ly local turn [of events] . Its unity,
its uniq uenes s, and its totality consist in a co mb in ati on of thisreticulated multiplicity, which produces no result .
Without this attestation, there would be no f irst attestation of
existence as such, that is, of the nonessence and non-subsistence-by-
itself that is the basis of being-oneself . Th is is w hy the H eideg ger-
ian "one" is insuff icient as the i n i t i a l u n d e r s t a n d i n g ofexistentielle
"everydayness." Heidegger confuses the everyday with the undif
ferentiated, the anonymous, and the statistical. These are no less
important, but they can only constitute themselves in relation to
the dif ferentiated singularity that the everyday already is by itself:
each day, each time, day to day. One cannot aff irm that the mean
ing of Be ing m ust express itself starti ng fro m everydayness an d
then begi n by neglecti ng the general dif ferent iation of the every
day, its constantly renewed rupture, its intimate discord, its poly-
mor phy and its polyphon y, its relief and its variety. A "day" is not
s im ply a unit f or coun t ing ; i t is th e tur nin g of th e w o rl d ea ch
time singular. An d days, indee d every day, could not be similar if
they were not f irst dif ferent, dif ference itself . Likewise "people," or
rather "peoples," given the irreducible strangeness that constitutes
them as such, are themselves prima ril y the exposin g of the singu
larity according to which existence exists , irreducibly and primar
i l y an d an expos it ion of s ingular i ty th at experience c la im s to
com mun icat e wi th, i n the sense of "to" and "alon g wi th ," the to
tality of beings. " Nat ure " is also "strange," and we exist there; we
exist in it in the mod e of a constantly renewed singula rity, whether
the singula rity of the diversi ty and dispa rity of our senses or that
of the disco nce rtin g profu sion of nature's species or its various
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metamorphoses into "technology." Then again, we say "strange,"
"o d d ," "c u r io u s ," "d isc o n c ert in g " about all of being .
Them es o f "wo n d er" a n d t he "ma rv e l o f B e in g " a re suspec t i f
they refer to an ecstatic mysticism that pretends to escape the world.
Th e theme of scientific curi osity is n o less suspect if it boils d ow n
to a collector's preoccupation with rarit ies. In both cases, desire for
the exception presupposes disdain for the ordinary. Hegel was un
doubtedly the first to have this properly modern consciousness of
t he v io l en t pa ra d o x o f a t h i n k in g who se o w n v a l u e i s a s yet u n
heard of, and whose dom ai n is the grayness of the wo rld . Thi s or
d in a r y g rayn ess , t he in s ig n i f ic a n c e o f t he ev e ryd a y wh ic h t he
H eid eg g er ia n "o n e" s t i l l bea rs t he ma rk o fa ssu mes a n a bsen t ,
lost , or far away "grandeur. " Yet , truth can be no thi ng if not the
truth of being i n totality, that is, the totality of its "ordinarin ess,"
just as meaning can only be right at [ mme] existence and no
where else. The modern world asks that this truth be thought: that
me ani ng is right at. It is in the indefin ite plur ality of origins and
t he ir c o ex ist en c e . The "o rd in a ry" i s a l wa ys ex c ept io n a l , ho wev er
lit t le we understand its character as origin. What we receive most
c o m mu n a l l y a s "st ra n g e" i s t ha t the o rd in a r y i t se l f i s o r ig in a ry.
Wi th existence laid ope n in this way and the meani ng of the wo rld
being what it is, the exception is the rule. (Is this not the testimony
of the arts and literature? I s not the first and on ly pur pos e of thei r
strange existence the prese ntati on of this strangeness? Aft er all , in
the etymo logy of the word bizarre) 1 whether the word comes from
Basque or Ara bic , there is a sense of valor, com ma nd in g presence,and elegance.)
Gaining Access to the Origin
As a consequence, gaining access to the origin,1 3 en t er in g in t o
mea ning , comes dow n to exposing oneself to this tru th.
What this means is that we do not gain access to the origin: ac
cess is refused by the origin's conc eali ng itself in its mu ltip lic ity . We
do not gain access; that is, we do not penetrate the origin; we do
not identify with it . More precisely, we do not identify ourselves in
it or as it, but with it, in a sense that must be elucidated here and is
noth ing other than the mean ing of origi nary coexistence.
Th e alterity of the other is its being-o rigin . Conve rsely, the orig-
inarity of the origin is its being-other, but it is a being-o ther than
every being forand in crossing through [ travers] all being. Thus,
the originarity of the origin is not a property that would dist inguish
a being from all others, because this being would then have to be
som ethi ng other than itself in order to have its ori gin in its own
turn . Thi s is the most classic of God's aporias, an d the pr oof of his
nonexistence. In fact , this is the most immediate importance of
Kant 's destruction of the ontological argu ment, wh ic h can be de
ciphe red in a quas i-l ite ral ma nner ; the necessity of existence is
given right at the existing of all existences [l'exister de tout l'exis
tant], in its very diversity and contingency. In no way does this
constitute a supplementary Being. The world has no supplement. It
is supp lemen ted in itself and, as such, is indefinite ly supp leme nted
by the origin.
Th is fol low s as an essential consequence: the being-other of the
orig in is not the alterity of an "oth er-th an-th e-w orld. " It is not a
question of an Othe r (the inevitab ly "capital ized Othe r" ) 1 4 than the
world ; it is a ques t ion of the alterity or alterat ion of t he wo r l d . I n
other words, it is not a ques tio n of an aliudor an alius, or an
alienus, or an other in general as the essential stranger who is op
posed to what is proper, but of an alter, that is, "one of the two."
This "other," this "lowercase other," is "one" among many insofar
as they are ma ny ; it is each one, an d it iseach time one, one among
them, one among all and one among us all. In the same way, and
reciprocally, "we" is always inevitab ly "us al l , " where no one of us
can be "a ll " and each on e of us is, in tu rn (wh ere all our turns are
simultaneous as well as successive, in every sense), the other origin
of the same wor ld.
Th e "o u ts id e" o f t he o r ig in i s " i n s id e" i n a n in s id e mo re in t e
rior than the extreme interior, that is, more interior than the inti
macy of the worl d and the int im acy that belongs to each "me." If
int im acy must be defined as the extremity of coinciden ce with one
self, then what exceeds int imacy in inferiority is the distancing of
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coin cide nce itself . It is a coexistence of the origi n "i n" itself , a co
existence of orig ins; it is no accide nt that we use the wor d "i nt i
macy" to designate a relation between several people more often
than a relation to oneself . Our being-with, as a being-many, is not
at all accidental, and it is in no way the secondary and random dis
persio n of a prim ord ial essence. It forms the proper an d necessary
status and c onsistency of orig inar y alterity as such. The plurality o f
beings i s at the foundation [fondment] of Being.
A single being is a contradiction in terms. Such a being, which
w ould b e i t s ow n f oundat ion, or ig in , and int im acy , w ould b e incapable of Being, in every sense that this expression can have here.
"Being" is neither a state nor a quality, but rather the action ac
cordin g to w h ich w h at Ka nt cal ls " th e [ m ere] pos it in g of a th i ng " 1 5
takes place ("is") . The very simplicity of "position" implies no more,
although no less, than its being discrete, in the mathematical sense,
or i t s d is t inct ion from, in the sense ofwith, other (at least possible)
positions, or its distinction among, in the sense ofbetween, other
positions. In other words, every position is also dis-position, and,
consi der ing the appea ring that takes the place of and takes place in
the position, all appearance is co-appearance [com-parution]. T h i s
is why the mean ing of Bei ng is given as existence, being-in-oneself-
outside-oneself , which w e m ake expl ic i t , w e " h um ans ," b ut w h ich
we make explicit , as I have said, for the total ity of beings.
I f th e or ig in is i rred ucib ly p lur al , i f i t i s th e indef in ite ly unf ol d
ing and var ious ly m ult ip l ied in t im ac y of th e w or ld, th en not gaining access to the origin takes on another meaning. Its negativity is
neither that of the abyss, nor of the for bid den , no r of the veiled or
the conceal ed, nor of the secret, nor that of the unpresen table. It
need not operate, then, in the dialectical mode where the subject
must reta in in itse lf its own n egation (since it is the negation of its
own origin). Nor does it have to operate in a mystical mode, which
is the reverse of the dialec tical m ode , where the subject mus t rejoice
in its negation . In bot h of these, negati vity is give n as the aliud,
where alien ation i s the process that must be reversed in terms of a
reapprop riat ion. A l l f orm s of th e " capita l ized Oth e r" pres um e th is
alienation from the proper as their own; this is exactly what con
stitutes the "capi taliza tion" of the "Othe r," its unif ie d and br oke n
transcendence. But, in this way, all forms of the capitalized "O the r"
represent precisely the exalted and overexalted mode of the propri
ety of what is prop er, w hi ch persists an d consists in the "some
where" of a "nowher e" an d in the "someti me" o f a "no time ," that
is, in the punctum aeternum outside the world.
Th e outside is insi de; i t is the spaci ng of the dis-p osit ion of the
world; it is our disposition and our co-appearance. Its "negativity"
ch anges m eaning; i t is not converted into pos it iv i ty , b ut ins tead
corres ponds to the m o de of Being w h i ch is th at of d is pos it ion/ co -appearance and w h ich , s t r ic t ly s peaking, is neith er negat ive nor
pos it ive , b ut ins tead th e m ode of b eing- togeth e r or b ein g- with.
T h e or ig in is togeth er w ith oth er or ig ins , or ig inal ly d iv ided. As a
matt er of fact, we do have access to it. W e have access exactly in
the mode of hav ing access; we get there; we are on the br ink , clos
est, at the threshold; we touch th e or i g i n . " ( T ruly ) w e h ave access
(to the truth). . . . " , 6 [" la vrit, nous accdons . . . "] is Ba
tai l les ph ras e, 17 the ambi gui ty of wh ic h I repeat even thou gh I use
it in another way ( in Bata ille, it precedes the aff irm ation of an i m
mediate loss of access) . Pe rhaps ever ythin g happens betw een loss
and appropriat ion: neith er one nor th e oth er , nor one and th e
other, nor one in the other, but much more strangely than that,
m uch m ore s im ply .
" T o reach 18 [toucher] the end" is again to risk missing it , because
the orig in is not an end. E n d, l ike Pr inci ple , is a form of the Other.To reach the origin is not to miss it ; it is to be properly exposed to
it . Since it is not another thing (an aliud), th e or ig in is neith er
"missable" nor appropriable (penetrable, absorbable) . It does not
obey this logic. It is the plural s ingularity of the Being of being. We
reach it to the extent that we are in touch with ourselves and in
touch w ith the rest of beings. We are in touc h wit h ourselves inso
far as we exist. Be ing in to uch wi th ourselves is what makes us "us,"
and there is no other secret to discover buried behind this very
touch ing , b e h ind th e " w it h " of coexis tence.
We have access to the tru th of the ori gi n as ma ny tim es as we are
in one ano ther's presenc e an d in the presen ce of the rest of bein gs.
,
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Access is "com ing to presence," but presence itself is dis-pos ition ,
the spacing of s ingu larit ies. Presence is nowhe re other than in
"coming to presence." We do not have access to a thing or a state,
but only to a coming. We have access to an access.
"Strangeness" refers to the fact that each singularity is another
access to the world. At the point where we would expect "some
thing," a substance or a procedure, a principle or an end, a s ignif i
catio n, there is noth ing but the mann er, the tur n of the other ac
cess, wh ic h conceals itsel f in the very gesture wher ein it offers itself
t o u s a n d w h os e c o nc e a l i n g is the turning itself . In the singularity that he exposes, each child that is born has already concealed
the access that he is "for himself" and in which he will conceal
himself "within himself ," just as he will one day hide under the f i
nal ex pressi on of a dead face. Thi s is why we scruti nize these faces
with such curiosity, in search of identif i cation, l ooki ng to see wh om
the chil d looks like, and to see if death looks like itself . Wh at we
are looking for there, l ike in the photographs, is not an image; it is
an access.
Is this not what interests us or touches us in "literature" and in
"the arts"? W ha t else interests us about the dis jun cti on of the arts
among themselves, by which they are what they are as arts: plural
singulars? W ha t else are they but the expo siti on of an access co n
cealed in its own opening, an access that is , then, "inimitable," un-
trans portab le , untrans latab le because it forms, each time, an ab
solute point of translation , transm ission, or transi tion of the origininto origin. What counts in art, what makes art art (and what
makes hu man s the artists of the worl d, that is , those wh o expose
the world for the world), is neither the "beautiful" nor the "sub
l im e" ; i t is neith er " purpos ivenes s w ith out a purpos e" nor th e
"jud gme nt of taste"; it is neither "sensible manifest ation" nor the
"pu ttin g into wor k of tru th. " Undo ubte dly, it is all that, but in an
other way: it is access to the scattered origin in its very scattering; it
is the plur al tou chin g of the singular ori gin . This is what "the im i
tati on of natu re" has always meant. A rt always has to do wit h cos
mogony, but it exposes cosmogony for what it is : necessarily plural,
dif fracted, discreet, a to uch of color or tone, an agile tu rn of phrase
or folded mass, a radiance, a scent, a song, or a suspended move
men t, exac tly because it is the birt h of a world(and not the con
stru ctio n of a system). A wo rl d is always as many worl ds as it takes
to m ake a w orld.
We only have access to ourselvesand to the world. It is only
ever a ques tio n of the foll ow in g: f ull access is there, access to the
whole of the orig in. Thi s is called "f initude " in Heideg gerian te rmi
nology. But it has become clear since then that "finitude" signifies
the inf inite s ing ularity of mea ning , the in f inite s ing ularity of access
to t ruth . F in itude is the origi n; that is , it is an inf in ity of origin s." Origin" does not s igni f y th at f rom w h ich th e w orld com es , b ut
rather the com in g of each presence of the wo rl d, each t ime singu lar.
The Creation o f the Wo rl d and Curiosit y
The conc ept of the "creation of the wor ld " 1 9 represents the origin
as originarily shared, spaced between us and between all beings.
This, i n turn , contributes to ren dering the concept of the "author"
of the wo rld u ntenable. In fact, one could show ho w the moti f of
creation i s one of those that leads dir ectl y to the death of G o d un
derstood as author, f irst cause, and supreme being. Furthermore, if
one looks at metaphysics carefully, there is not a Go d who sim ply
and easily conform s to the idea of a producer. W het her in Au gus
tine, Aquinas, Descartes, Malebranche, Spinoza, or Leibniz, one al
ways finds that the theme of creat ion is burd ene d wit h and mi srep resented as a probl em of pr odu cti on, ri ght up until the decisive
moment of the ontological argument's downfall . (Hegel's restoration
of the argument, the one to whi ch Sc helling assigned signif icant im
portance, is no thin g but an ela boration of the concept of creation.)
The dist incti ve characteri stic of the concept of crea tion is not
that it posits a creator, but that, on the contrary, it renders the "cre
ator" indistinct from its "creation." (It has to be said, here, in a gen
eral way, that the distinctive chara cteristic of Weste rn mon othe ism
is not the pos iti ng of a single god , but rather the effacin g of the di
vine as such in the transcendence of the wo rld . W it h respect to the
question of ori gin , this is surely the precise poin t at whi ch the lin k
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i 6 Being Singular Plural Being Singular Plural 17
is forged that makes us unfail in gly Jew-G reek in every respect. An d ,
with respect to the question of dest in ation, this is the point fro m
which we are sent into the "global" space as such.20 ) I n myt ho l o g i
cal cosmogonies, a god or demiurge makes a world start ing from a
situation that is already there, whatever this situation may be. 21 In
creation, however, it is the being-already-there of the already-there
that is of con cer n. In fact, if crea tion is ex nihilo, this does not sig
nify that a creator operates "start ing from nothing." As a rich and
complex tradit ion demonstrates, this fact instead signifies two
things: on the one hand, it signifies that the "creator" itself is thenihil', on the other, it signifies that this nihilis not , logical ly speak
in g , so met hin g " fro m whic h" ["d 'o "] wha t i s c rea t ed wo u l d c o me
[provenir], but the very origin [provenance], and destination, of
some thi ng in general and of everything. No t only is the nihiln o t h
ing prior but there is also no longer a "nothing" that preexists cre
ation ; it is the act of app earin g [surgissement], i t i s t he v ery o r ig in
insofar as this is understood only as what is designated by the verb
"to originate." If the nothin g is not anything prior, th en only the ex
re ma in s i f o n e c an t a l k a bo u t i t l ik e t h i s t o q u a l i fy c rea t io n - in
a c t io n , t ha t is, the a ppea r in g or a rr iv a l [venue] in nothing (in the
sense that we talk about someone appearing "in person").
Th e nothin g, then, is no thin g other than the dis-p osit ion of the
appearing. The origin is a distancing. It is a distancing that imme
diately has the mag nitu de of all space-time an d is also not hin g other
than the interst ice of the int i ma cy of the world : the among-being[l 'entre-tant] of al l beings. Thi s among -bei ng itself is not hin g but
[a] being, and has no other consistency, movement, or configura
t ion th an that of the being-a-being [l'etre-tant] of al l beings. Be ing,
or the am ong , shares the singula rit ies of al l appearings. C rea tio n
takes place everywhere and alwaysbut it is this unique event, or
advent, onl y on the condi tion of bei ng each time wha t it is, or being
what it is only "at each t ime," each t ime appearing singularly.
On e can understa nd how the creation, as it appears in any Jew ish-
Chr ist ia n -I s l a mic t heo l o g ic o -myst ic c o n f ig u ra t io n , t est i f ies l ess
(a n d c er t a in l y n ev er ex c lu s iv e l y) t o a pro d u c t iv e p o wer o f G o d
than to his goodness and glory. In relat ion to such power, then,
creatures are onl y effects, whi le the love and glo ry of G o d are de
posited right at [ mme] the level of wh at is created ; that is, crea
tures are the very bril l iance [clat]11 of God's c om in g to presence.
It is necessary, then, to u nder stan d the theme of the "ima ge of
Go d" a nd/or the "trace of G od " not acco rding to the logic of a sec
o n d a ry imit a t io n , bu t a c c o rd in g t o t h is o t her l o g ic where "G o d " i s
itself the singular appearance of the image or trace, or the disposi
t ion of its exposi t ion: place as divine place, the divine as strict ly lo
cal. As a consequence, this is no longer "divine," but is the dis
l o c a t io n a n d d is-p o si t io n o f the wo r l d (wha t Spin o z a c a l ls " t hedivine extension") as that opening and possibil ity [ressource] w h i c h
comes from further away and goes farther, infinitely farther, than
any god.
If "creation" is i ndeed this singu lar ex-posi t ion of bein g, then its
real name is existence. Existence is creation, our creation; it is the
beginning and end that tware. This is the thought that is the most
necessary for us to think. If we do not succeed in thin ki ng it , th en
we will never gain access to who we are, we who are no more than
u s in a wo r l d , whi c h i s i t se lf n o mo re t ha n the wo r l d b u t we wh o
have reached this point precisely because we have thought logos (the
self-presentation of presence) as creation (as singular com ing ).
This t h in k in g i s in n o wa y a n t hro po c en t r ic ; i t d o es n o t pu t hu
man ity at the center of "cre ation "; on the contrary , it transgresses
[traverse] humanity in the excess of the appearing that appears on
the scale of the tota lity of bei ng, but w hi ch also app ears as that excess [dmesure] which is impossible to totalize. It is being's infinite
original singularity. In humanity, or rather right at [ mme] h u
manity, existence is exposed and exposing. The simplest way to put
this into language would be to say that humanity speaks existence,
but what speaks thro ugh its speech says the who le of being . W ha t
Heidegger cal ls "the ontico-ontological privilege" of Dasein is nei
ther its prerogative nor its privilege [apanage]: it gets Being on its
way [//engage l'tre], but the Being ofDasein is nothing other than
the Bein g of being .
If existence is exposed as such by hu ma ns, wh at is exposed there
also holds for the rest of being s. The re is n ot, on the one sid e, an
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18 Being Singular Plural
originary singularity and then, on the other, a simple being-there of
things, more or less given for our use. On the contrary, in exposing
itself as singularity , existence exposes the singula rity of Bei ng as s uch
in al l being . Th e difference between hum ani ty and the rest of be
ing ( whi ch is not a concer n to be deni ed, b ut the nature of wh ich is,
nevertheless, not a given), wh ile itself being inseparable fr om other
differences within being (since man is "also" animal, "also" l iv ing,
"also" physio-chemical), does not dist inguish true existence from a
sort of subexistence. Instead, this difference forms the concrete con
dit i on of singularity. We wo uld n ot be "hum ans" if there were not
"dogs" an d "stones." A stone is the exteriority of singu larity in w hat
would have to be cal led its mineral or mechanical actuality [litter-
alit}. But I wou ld no longer be a "h um an" if I di d not have this
exteriority "i n me, " in the form of the quasi-mi nerality of bone: I
woul d no longer be a hu ma n if I were not a body, a spaci ng of all
other bodies and a sp acing of "me" in "m e." A singularity is always
a body, and all bodies are singularities (the bodies, their states, their
movements, their transformations).
Existence, therefore, is not a property of Dasein; it is the origi
n a l s in g u l a r i t y o f B e in g , whi c h Dasein exposes for al l being. This
is why hu ma n it y i s n o t " in t he wo r l d " a s i t wo u l d be in a mi l ieu
(why would the milieu be necessary?); it is in the world insofar as
the wo rl d is its ow n exteriority, the pro per space of its being- out-
in-the-world. But it is necessary to go farther than this in order to
avoid giving the impression that the world, despite everything, re
main s essential ly "the wo rl d of hum ans ." It is not so muc h the
world of hum anity as it is the wor ld of the nonhum an to whi ch hu
ma n it y i s ex po sed a n d whic h hu ma n it y , in t u rn , ex po ses . O n e
could try to formulate it in the fol lowing way: humanity is the ex
posing of the w orld; it is neither the end nor the ground of the world;
the world is the exposure of humanity; it is neither the environment
nor the representation of humanity.
Therefo re, howev er far hu ma nit y is fro m bein g the end of na
ture or nature the end of hum ani ty (we have already tried al l the
variat ions of this formul a), the end is always bei ng-i n-th e-w orld
and the being -wor ld of al l being.
Being Singular Plural 19
Even supposing one st il l wished to take the world as the repre
sentation of human ity, this woul d not necessarily imp ly a solipsism
of hu ma nit y: because, if that is the case, then it is the representa
tion itse lf that instructs me abou t what it necessarily represents to
me, an irrefutable exteriority as my exteriority. The representation
of a spacin g is i tself a spaci ng. An intuitus originarius, w h i c h w o u l d
not be a representation but rather an immersion in the thing-itself,
would exist alone and wo uld be for itself the origin an d the thing:
this was shown above to be contradictory. Descartes him sel f test i
fies to the exterio rity of the wor ld as the exter iority of his body. Because he hardly doubts his body, he m akes a fict ion of dou bti ng it ,
and this pretension as such attests to the truth of res extensa. It is
also not surp risi ng that for Descartes the reality of this wor ld,
about wh ich G od coul d not deceive me, is mai ntain ed in Being by
the continuous creation on the part of this very God. Reality is al
ways in each instant, from place to place, each time in turn, which
is exactly how the reality ofres cogitans attests to itself in each "ego
sum, " whi ch is each t im e the "I am" of each one in turn [chaque
fois de chacun son tour].
Once again, this is the way in which there is no Other. "Cre
ation" signifies precisely that there is no Other and that the "there
is" is not an Other. Being is not the Other, but the origin is the
punct ual and discrete spacing between us, as between us and the rest
of the world, asbetween all beings.25
We find this alterity primarily and essential ly intriguing. It in
trigues us because it exposes the always-other origin, always inap
propriate and always there, each and every t ime present as inim
itable. This is why we are primarily and essential ly curious a bo u t
the world and about ourselves (where "the world" is the generic
name of the object of this ontolog ical curiosity ). Th e correlate of
creation, understood as existence itself, is a curiosity that must be
understood in a completely different sense than the one given by
Heidegger. For h im , curiosity is the frantic act ivity of passing from
being to being in an insa tiable sort of way, wi tho ut ever bei ng able
to stop and think. Without a doubt, this does test ify to being-with-
one-another, but it testifies to it without being able to gain access to
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2 0 Being Singular Plural Being Singular Plural 21
the existent opening that characterizes Dasein in th e " ins tant ." 2 4 It
is necessary, then , to disconn ect the most pri miti ve layer of curio s
ity, the level on which we are primarily interested by what is inter
esting par excellence (the origin), from this inconsistent curiosity
an d also from the attent ion that takes care of others (Fiirsorge). At
this level, we are interested in the sense of bein g intri gue d by the
ever-re newed a lterity of the orig in a nd , if I ma y say so, in the sense
of havi ng an affair wi th it . (It is no accident that sexual curio sity is
an exem plary f igure of curiosi ty and is , in fact, more than just a f ig
ure of it.)
As English [and French] allows us to say, other beings are curious
(o r bizarre) to me because they give me access to the origin; they
allow me to touch it; they leave me before it, leave me before its
turning, which is concealed each time. Whether an other is another
person, animal, plant, or star, it is above all the glaring presence of
a place and m om ent of absolute origi n, irrefutable, offered as such
and va nish ing in its passing. This occurs in the face of a new born
child, a face encountered by chance on the street, an insect, a shark,
a pebble . . . but if one really wants to und ersta nd it , it is not a
matter of ma kin g all these curious presences equal.
If we do not have access to the other in the mo de just descri bed ,
but seek to appropriate the originwhich is something we always
do th en this same curiosity transforms itself into appropriative or
destructive rage. We no long er look for a s ingula rity of the orig in
in the other; we look for the unique and exclusive origin, in order to
either adopt it or reject it . The other becomes the Other according
to the mod e of desire or hatred. Ma ki ng the other divine (together
with our voluntary servitude) or making it evil ( together with its
exclu sion or extermin ation) is that part of curio sity no longer in
terested in dis-position and co-appearance, but rather has become
the desire for the Position itself. This desire is the desire to fix the
or i g i n , or to give the origin to itself, once and for all , and i n one place
for all, that is, always outside the world. This is why such desire is a
desire for murder, and not only murder but also for an increase of
cruelty and horror, which is l ike the tendency toward the intensif i
cation of murd er; it is mutila tion , carvin g up, relentlessness, metic
ulous exe cut ion , the joy of agony. O r it is the massacre, the mass
grave, massive and te chnologic al execu tion, the boo kkee ping of the
camps. It is always a matter of expe ditin g the transforma tion of the
other into the Other or making the Other appear in the place of
the other, and, therefore, a matter of iden tifyi ng the Oth er and the
origin itself.
The O the r is nothi ng more tha n a correlate of this mad desire,
but others, in fact, are our originary interests. It is true, however, that
the possibility of this mad desire is conta ined in the very dispo si
tion of orig ina ry interests: the dissem inat ion of the origi n upsets[affole] the origin in "me" to exactly the same extent that it makes
me curious about it, makes "me" a "me" (or a "subject," someone
in any case). (It follows, then, that no ethics would be independent
from an ontology. Only ontology, in fact, may be ethical in a con
sistent manner. It will be necessary to return to this elsewhere.)
Between Us: First Philosophy
When addressing the fact that philosophy is contemporaneous
with the Gree k city, one ends up losi ng sight of what is in que s
t ion and r igh t ly s o . As is only f i t t ing, h ow ever , los ing s igh t of
what is in question returns us to the problem in all its acuity after
these twenty-eight centuries.
It returns us to the qu estion of the origi n of our history. Ther e is
no sense of reconstituting a teleology here, and it is not a matter of
retracing a process directed toward an end. To the contrary, history
clearly appears here as the movement sparked by a singular cir
cumstance, a movement that does not reabsorb this s ingularity in
a universality (or "universal history," as Marx and Nietzsche under
stood it) , bu t instead ref lects the impac t of this s ingula rity in re
newed singular events. Thus, we have a "future" [avenir] and a "to
com e" [ venir]; we have this "future" as a "past," which is not past
in the sense of bein g the starting po int of a directed process, but
past in the sense of bei ng a "curios ity" ["bizarrerie"] (the "Gre ek
miracle") that is itself int rig ui ng and, as such, rema ins stil l "to
come." Th is dis-po sition of history indee d makes there be a h is tory
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2 2 Being Singular Plural Being Singular Plural 2 3
and not a processus (here as elsewhere, the Hegelian model reveals
itself as un coverin g the truth by way of its exact opposite). O ne can
unders tand, then, Heidegger's "history of Bei ng, " and understand
that our relati on to this h istor y is necessarily that of its Destruktion,
or deconstruction . In other words, it is a matter of brin ging to l igh t
this history's singulari ty as the disassem bling law of its unity an d
under stand ing that this law itself is the law of mea ning .
This clearly supposes that such a task is as demanding and ur
gent as it is impossible to measure. The task is to understand how
h i s t o r y a s a s i n g u l a r , W e s t e r n a c c i d e n t " b e c a m e " w h a t o n emig ht c a l l "g l o ba l " o r "pl a n et a ry" wi t ho u t , a t t he sa me t ime, en
gend ering itself as "unive rsal ." C onseq uently , it is the task of un
d erst a n d in g ho w t he West d isa ppea red , n o t by rec i t in g t he fo r
mu l a s o f i t s g en era liz ed u n i fo r mit y , bu t by u n d erst a n d in g t he
expansion, by and through this "uni form ity," of a plur al singularity
that is and is not , at the same t ime, "proper" to this "o/accident."
An d o n e mu st u n d erst a n d t ha t t h is fo rmid a bl e q u est io n i s n o n e
other than the questi on of "ca pita l" (or of "cap ital is m") . If one
wa n t s t o g iv e a fu l l a c c o u n t o f "c a p i t a l "s t a r t i n g fro m t he v ery
first mome nts of history that began in the merchant cit ie s the n it
is necessary to remove it , far more radically than Marx could have,
fro m i t s o wn represen t a t io n in l in ea r a n d c u mu l a t iv e h ist o ry , as
well as fro m the representation of a teleological history of its over
c o m i n g o r r e j e c t i o n . T h i s w o u l d a p p e a r t o b e t h e p r o b l e m a t i c
lesson of history. Bu t we cann ot under stan d this task unless we first
understand what is most at stake in our history, that is, what is
most at stake in philosophy.
Ac c o rd i n g t o d i f feren t vers ion s , bu t in a pr ed o min a n t l y u n i f o rm
ma n n er , t he t ra d i t io n pu t fo rwa rd a represen t a t io n a c c o rd in g t o
whic h ph i l o so p hy a n d t he c i t y wo u l d be ( wo u l d ha v e been, mu st
have been) related to one another as subjects. Accordingly, philos
ophy, as the art iculat ion of logos, is the subjec t of the city, w here
the city is the space of this art icul at ion . Li kew ise, the city, as the
gathering of the logikoi, is the subject of philo soph y, where ph ilos
o ph y i s t he pro d u c t io n o f t he ir c o mm o n logos. Logos itself, then,
contains the essence or mea nin g of this recipro city: it is the com
mo n fo u n d a t io n o f c o mm u n it y , where c o mm u n it y , in t u rn , i s t he
fo u n d a t io n o f B e in g .
It is within this uniform horizon, according to different versions
(whether strong or weak, hap py or unhap py) of this pred omi nan t
mode of inqu iry, that we st il l understand the famous "pol it ica l an
i m a l " of Ari stot le: it is to pres ume that logos i s t he c o n d i t io n o f
c o mmu n it y , w hic h, in t u rn , i s t he c o n d i t io n o f hu ma n it y; a n d /o r i t
is to presume that each of these three terms draws its u nit y and
consistency from [its sharing] a com mu nica tion of essence wi th the
other two (where the world as such remains relat ively exterior tothe whole affair, presuming that nature or physis accomplishes itself
in humanity understood as logos politikos, whereas technsubordi
nates itself to both).
B u t t h is ho r i z o n t ha t o f po l i t i c a l phi l o s o phy in t he fu l l est
sense (not as the "ph iloso phy of poli t ics," b ut philo sop hy as po li
t i c s)mig ht v ery wel l be wha t po in t s t o t he s in g u l a r s i t u a t io n
where our history gets under way and, at the same time, blocks ac
cess to this situation. Or instead, this horizon might be that which,
in the course of its history, gives an ind ica t ion of its ow n dec on
struction and exposes this situation anew in another way. 25 " P h i
losophy and polit ics" is the exposit ion [nonc] of this situation.
But it is a disjunc tive expos it ion, because the situation itself is dis
ju n c t iv e . The c i t y i s n o t pr ima r i l y "c o mmu n it y , " a n y mo re t ha n i t
is primarily "public space." The city is at least as much the bringing
t o l ig ht o f be in g - in -c o m mo n as the dis-position (dispersal and dis
parity) of the comm un ity represented as foun ded in interio riry or
t ra n sc en d en c e . I t i s "c o mmu n it y" wi t ho u t c o mmo n o r ig in . Tha t
being the case, and as long as philosophy is an appeal to the origin,
the city, far from being philosophy's subject or space, is its prob
lem. Or else, it is its subject or space in the mod e of bei ng its pro b
lem, its aporia. Philosophy, for its part , can appeal to the origin
only on the condit ion of the dis-posit ion oflogos (that is, of the o r i
gin as just ified and set into discourse): logos is the spacing at the
very place of the orig in. C onseq uently , phil osop hy is the probl em
of the city; p hil oso phy covers over the subject that is expected as
" c o m m u n i t y . "
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2 4 Being Singular Plural Being Singular Plural *5
This i s why phi l o so phic a l po l i t i c s a n d po l i t i c a l phi l o so phy reg u
l a r l y ru n a g ro u n d o n t he essen ce o f c o m mu n it y o r c o m mu n it y a s
o r ig in . R o u ssea u a n d Ma rx a re ex empl a ry in t he ir s t ru g g l e wi t h
these obstacles. Rousse au revealed the aporia of a com mu ni ty that
wou ld have to precede itse lf in order to consti tute itself: in its very
concep t, the "social contr act" is the den ial or foreclosure of the orig-
i n a r y d i v i s i o n [dliaison] between those singularit ies that would
have to agree to the contr act and, thereby, "d raw it to a close." Al
though assuredly more radical in his demand for the dissolution of
polit ics in al l spheres of existence (which is the "realizat ion of ph ilosophy"), Marx ignores that the separation between singularit ies
overcome and suppressed in this way is not , in fact , an accidental
separation imposed by "polit ical" authority, but rather the consti
tut ive separation of dis-p osit ion . Ho wev er powerfu l it is for thi nk
in g t he "rea l re l a t io n " a n d wha t we c a l l t he " in d iv id u a l , " "c o mmu
nism" was st il l not able to think being-in-common as dist inct from
c o m m u n i t y .
In this sense, philosophical polit ics regularly proceeds according
to the surrep tit ious appeal to a metaphys ics of the one -or igi n,
where, at the same time, it nevertheless exposes, volens nolens, the
situatio n of the dis-po sit ion of origins. Oft en the result is that the
d is-po si t io n i s t u rn ed i n t o a ma t t er o f ex c l u s io n , in c l u d ed a s ex
clud ed, an d that al l philo sop hica l polit ics is a polit ic s of exclusiv
ity and the correlat ive ex clu si on o f a class, of an order, of a "c om
mu n it y" t he po in t o f whi c h i s t o en d u p wi t h a "peo pl e , " in t he"base" sense of the term . Th e dem and for equality, t hen , is the nec
essary, ult imate, and absolute gesture; in fact , it is almost indica
t ive of dis-p osit ion as such. Howe ver, as lon g as this continues to
be a matter of an "egalitarian dem and f ounde d upo n some generic
i d e n t i t y , " 26 eq u a l i t y w i l l never do justice [ne faitencorepas droit] to
singula rity or even recognize the considerable difficult ies of want
in g to do so. It is here that the criti que of abstract rights com es to
the fore. However, the "concrete" that must oppose such abstrac
t io n i s n o t ma d e u p pr im a r i l y o f empir ic a l d et ermin a t io n s , whic h ,
in the capital ist regime, exhaust even the most egalitarian wil l :
rather, concretehete. pri mar ily signifies the real object of a thin kin g
0 f be ing -in -co mm on, and this real object is, in tur n, the singula r
pl u ra l o f t he o r ig in , t he s in g u l a r pl u ra l o f t he o r ig in o f "c o m mu
nity" itself (if one st il l wants to cal l this "com mun ity" ). A ll of this is
undoubtedly what is indicated by the word that fol lows "equality"
in the French republican slogan: "fraternity" is supposed to be the
solution to equality (or to "equil iberty" ["galibert"]) 27 by evok
ing or invoking a "generic identity." What is lacking there is exact ly
t he c o mm o n o r ig in o f t he c o m mo n . 2 8
It is "lacki ng" insofar as one attempts to take account of it with in
t he ho r iz o n o f phi l o so p hic a l po l i t i c s . O n c e t h is ho r iz o n is d ec o n structed, however, the necessity of the plu ral sing ular of the orig in
comes into playand this is already under way. But I do not plan
to propose an "other polit ics" under this heading. I am no longer
sure that this term (or the term "polit ical philosophy") can con
t inue to have any consistency beyond this op eni ng up of the hori
zon whi ch come s to us bo th at the end of the long histor y of our
West ern s i t u a t io n and as the reop enin g of this situati on. I onl y
want to help to bring out that the combination philosophy-polit ics,
in al l the force of its being joined together, simultaneously exposes
and hides the dis-position of the origin and co-appearance, which is
its correlate.
The phi l o so phic o -po l i t i c a l ho r iz o n is wha t l in k s t he d is-po si t io n
to a contin uity and to a com mu ni ty of essence. In order to be ef
fect ive, such a relat ion requires an essential iz ing procedure: sacri
fice . If one look s carefully, one ca n fin d the place of sacrifice in a llpolit i cal phi loso ph y (or rather, one wi l l find the challenge of the
abstract, wh ich makes a sacrifice of concrete singularity). B ut as sin
gular origin, existence is unsacrificable. 29
In this respect , then, the urgent demand named above is not an
other politic al abstrac tion. Instea d, it is a recons idera tion of the very
mea n in g o f "po l i t i c s "a n d , t herefo re , o f "ph i l o s o ph y" in l ig ht o f
the origina ry situation: the bare exposit ion of singular origins. Th is
is the necessary "first ph ilo sop hy " (i n the canoni cal sense of the ex
pression). It is an ontology. Philosophy needs to recommence, to
restart itself from itself against itself, against polit ic al p hil oso phy
and philosophical polit ics. In order to do this, philosophy needs to
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think in principle about how we are "us" among us, that is, how the
consistency of our Being is in bei ng- in-c omm on, and how this con
sists precisely in the "i n " or in the "betw een" of its spac ing.
Th e last "first philo soph y," if one dare say any thin g about it , is
given to us in Heidegger's fundamental ontology. It is that which
has put us on the way [chemin] to where we are, together, whether
we know it or not. But it is also why its author was able to, in a sort
of retur n of Destruktion itself, com pro mi se himse lf, in an unpa r- i
d o n a bl e wa y, wi t h h is in v o l v emen t in a phi l o so phic a l po l i t i c s t ha t
became criminal. This very point , then, indicates to us that placefro m whic h f i rst phi l o so phy mu st rec o mmen c e: i t i s n ec essa ry t o
refigure fundamental ontology (as well as the existential analyt ic ,
the histor y of Bein g, and the th ink ing ofEreignis that goes along
with it) with a thorough resolve that starts f rom the plural singular
of origins, from being-with.
I wan t to return to the issue of "first philo sop hy" in order to push
it even further, but without claiming to be the one who can fully ac
complish such an undertaking. By definit ion and in essence, the
above "first philosophy" needs "to be made by al l , not by one," l ike
the poetry of Mal doror . Fo r the mom ent, I only want to indicate the
pri nci ple of its necessity. H eideg ger clearly states that bein g-w ith
#1 {Mitsein, Miteinandersein, and Mitdasein) is essential to the consti
tut ion of Dasein itself. Given this, it needs to be made absolutely
clear that Dasein, far from being either "man" or "subject ," is not
even an isolated and unique "one," but is instead always the one,each one, with one another [l'un-avec-l autre]. If this determinati on
is essential, then it needs to attain to the co-originary dimension and
expose it without reservation. But as it has often been said, despite
this affirm ative assertion of co-ori ginari ry, he gives up on the step to
the consideration ofDasein itself. It is appropriate, then, to examine
the possibil ity of an explicit an d endless exposit ion of co-origin arity
and the p ossibil ity of takin g account of what is at stake in the to
getherness of the ontolog ica l enterprise (and , in this way, tak ing ac
count of what is at stake in its polit ic al consequen ces.) 30
It is necessary to add here that there is a reason for this exami
nation which is far more profound than what first appears to be a
simple "readjustm ent" of the Heideg geri an discourse. Th e reason
obviously goes much farther than that, since at its fullest, it is about
nothing less than the possib il ity of speaking " ofDasein'' in general ,
or of saying "the exist ing" or "existence." Wh at wo ul d happe n to
philosop hy if speaking about Be ing in other ways than saying "we,"
"you," and "I" became excluded? Where is Being spoken, and who
speaks Being?
The reason that is foreshadowed has to do precisely with speak
in g (o f) B e i n g . The t hemes o f be in g -wit h a n d c o -o r ig in a r i t y n eed
to be renewed and need to "reinit ial ize" the existential analyt ic , exact ly because these are mean t to resp ond to the qu estio n of the
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