Interaction, Actions and Events

Abstract

This part of our exploration refers to partial facets of the historical process, as the term “events” indicates. We do not use the term “event” (Ereignis) in the way it became popular through Heidegger, for whom Ereignis is the self-transmission of Being into thinking ontological or cosmic dimensions. We mean rather scattered occurrences taking place in time, situations in which human beings are implicated and find themselves, and which they try to shape to some extent. Underlying this limited interpretation of “event” — which corresponds to the everyday usage of the concept — is the view that history or historicity is not a self-enclosed and total sphere. History itself is the sum-total of events which occur in reality at large, and thus against the background of nature. Sometimes historical occurrences integrate natural occurrences into their own context. Even when human attempts are nullified by natural occurrences, the meeting between the human aspect and the natural occurrence is still a historical event. Not all its components are historical, though, in the sense of being man-made occurrences whose original meaning depends upon the significance bestowed on them by human acts. Natural occurrences have their own meaning in so far as nature goes. Only from the point of view of history can they be integrated into the nexus of historical events and actions.