Heidegger "Building, Dwelling, Thinking" Notes
Language remains the master of man 348
"The way in which you are and I am, the manner in which we humans are on earth, is buan, dwelling." 349
The lose of building as dwelling 349
Bauen – man is as he dwells. Bauen also means to cultivate (the vine). In cultivating we cherish and protect and preserve. Such building takes care, but there is another building which is constructing. Both are means of dwelling. Building as being on the earth is an everyday experience. As a commonplace experience, it is habitual…meaning we inhabit it. Unfortunately, because of habit, we forget the way that dwelling is accomplished. Bauen as building gets claimed by the activities of cultivation and construction while Bauen as being and dwelling is forgotten.
"Language withdraws…but its primal call does not thereby become incapable of speech; it merely falls silent. Man, though, fails to heed this silence." 350
"to remain, to stay in place" 350
Dwelling as sparing 351
Dwelling is a freeing, to set free, to spare. Such sparing is a positive task.
Dwelling as mortals on the earth invokes the four fold. 351
Mortals dwell in that they
· Save the earth
· Receive the sky
· Await the divinities
· Initiate their own essence as capable of death as death
Dwelling is a staying with things 353
Dwelling preserves the fourfold by bringing the essence of the fourfold into things. In doing so, dwelling is a building (see 353 for details).
Bridge example 354
*Gathering is called a thing. (anti-symbol). How is this so?
People think of the bridge as merely a bridge and only later a symbol of the 4fold. But in fact, the bridge is not a symbol. It is a thing and in being a thing gathers the 4fold. 355
Things which as locales allow a site (space for 4fold) we call buildings. 356-57
Spatium and extensio are more abstract and come later 357
The bridge is a locale. As a thing, it allows a space into which the 4fold is admitted. Places near or far from the bridge become positions measured by intervals. Spatium or stadion means intervening space or interval. Measuring follows after locale and space. In spatium, the bridge appears as merely occupying a position. Marking position of length, height, and depth the bridge is now considered not from spatium but from extensio. This is a mathematical space which is a no-space, without space nor place. Although abstract and universal, they are not the ground of the essence of spaces and locales.
Situated 358
To say, “a man” is already to situate a human within the 4fold.
I am not only here 359
“When I go toward the door of the lecture hall, I am already there”
We sustain spaces by staying constantly with near and remote locales and things. "our stay among things" which is to "stay in place" and to spare. (350-51)
The failure in staying presupposes staying. It is also a failure in language.
“Man’s relation to locales, and through locales to spaces, inheres in his dwelling. The relationship between man and space is none other than dwelling, thought essentially.” 359
Thing as locale admits and installs the fourfold. Edifices guard the fourfold. 360
Building brings the fourfold HITHER into a thing
and Building brings FORTH the thing as a locale (out into what is already present) 361 It is a producing that brings forth.
TECHNE: to make something appear within what is present, as this or that, in this way or that way . . . producing in terms of appearing. 361
Example of farm house 361-62
The homelessness of man 361 & problem of knowing the question to ask about dwelling and building, relate to staying in place (350). Our homelessness calls us to our proper place in dwelling.