ABSTRACT

I must begin with some precautions. They all come down to asking your pardon and indulgence for what in particular touches on the form and the status of this "lecture," this reading, on all the presuppositions I ask you to take account of. In effect, I presuppose the reading of a brief and modest essay published under the title "Geschlecht: sexual difference, ontological difference." This essay, published and translated more than a year ago, 1 began some work I have taken up again only this year in die course of a seminar I am giving in Paris under the title "Philosophical Nationality and Nationalism." For lack of time I can reconstitute neither die introductory article entitled "Geschlecht"O (it treats of the motif of sexual difference in a course almost contemporary with Sein und Zeit), nor all the developments that form, in my seminar on "Philosophical Nationality and Nationalism," the contextual landscape of the reflections I shall present to you today. Nevertheless I shall strive to make the presentation of these few reflections, still preliminary, as intelligible and independent of all these invisible contexts as possible. Another precaution, another call for your pardon and indulgence: for lack of time, I shall present only a part, or rather several fragments, at times a bit discontinuous, of the work I am following this year in the slow rhythm of a seminar engaged in a difficult reading, one that I would like to be as meticulous and careful as possible, of certain Heidegger texts, notably Was heisst Denken? and above all the lecture on Trakl in Unterwegs zur Sprache.