Texts from “Wozu Dichter”

Abstract

Among those texts preceding “Die Frage nach der Technik”, substantial passages from the essay “Wozu Dichter”¹ merit special attention, for in the first place, and quite generally, in the essay “Wozu Dichter”, Heidegger brings together the notion of “Vorstellen”, which plays the leading role in traditional Metaphysics, and that of modern “Her-stellen”, which term in our present context must be held apart from the original “Her-stellen”, that is, “Her-stellen” in its Greek sense.² In this way, the putative gulf between the distinctive activity characteristic of modernity and that peculiar to human subjectivity in the post-Nietzschean period is bridged. In the essay “Die Frage nach der Technik”, Heidegger singles out the term “Bestellen” (and “Herausfordern”) instead of making use of the word “Herstellen”, but nevertheless it is unmistakable that both have their point of provenance in the traditional, metaphysical way of “thought” (i.e. “Vorstellen”).