The fourfold thinks, and endeavors to come close to, the thing; it is, for Heidegger, a thinking toward and into that which forms the thing, and a philosophizing of the space where the thing is, the space in which the thing dwells. The fourfold is the coming together, the “gathering”, of earth, sky, mortals, and divinities into the constituting of the thing. This “gathering” makes up the thing.
Things are around us; we are surrounded by things in our world, which is a world of things. That is, the world is made up and made possible by things. Things make up the world in their multiplicity and relatedness, or relationality, to each other. This means that existence in the world is relational. This relationality belongs to, and arises only because of, that into which the gathering of earth, sky, mortals, and divinities occurs, that is, the thing.
The Fourfold, Things, and Relationality
According to Heidegger, the fourfold comes together into the forming of things; that is, the fourfold is gathered into the bringing forth of the things into the world. This coming together is a bringing together as gathering into each other. But what does gathering mean? And how does the thing occur as gathered-ness?
Gathering means that the thing is neither closed nor self-enclosed, and neither present nor complete, but rather the point at which the intersecting of earth, sky, mortals, and divinities happens. Intersections are openness because they allow the coming together of what is different in its passing through. Thinking this gathering, openness, and passing must thus precede any thinking of the thing as a complete presence or fullness and completion.
The thing is not a complete presence because the gathering— of the fourfold into the unitary forming of the thing—is itself what separates the thing from itself and breaks it apart. This means that in the gathering that brings the thing together, it is not homogeneity that takes place, but rather the distance and separated-ness of what comes together in this gathering. Heidegger calls this separating gathering “thinging”: “The thing things”. Gathering is a coming together that renders apart. But why is gathering a rendering apart?
In its “thinging”, the thing refers to what is elsewhere. It is in this referring to what lies beyond itself, in an elsewhere, that the thing becomes itself and announces its existence. This means that the thing is both brought together and pulled apart, gathered and dismantled, unity and disunity, and that dismantling, pulling apart, and disunity, make possible the entering of the thing into the world. This entering into the world marks the situated-ness of the thing among other things in the world.
The thing enters the world by passing through the four members of the fourfold and, by this passing, occupies its own place in the world as that which is finite, brought together, and situated. Yet Heidegger does not simply place the finitude of the thing over against what is infinite, but rather says that this finitude must be understood in its relatedness to the world to which the thing refers in its referring to what is beyond itself in its thinging, that is, finitude must be understood in its infinity.
“In-finite means that the ends and the sides, the regions of the relation, do not stand by themselves cut-off and one-sidedly; rather, relieved of one-sidedness and finitude, they belong in-finitely to one another in the relation which “thoroughly” hold them together from its middle … The in-finity that is to be thought here is abysmally different from that which is merely without end.”
Martin Heidegger
Mortals
“The mortals are the humans. They are named the mortals, because they are able to die”
Martin Heidegger
Death is what makes humans humans and thus mortals mortals. In Being and Time, Heidegger thinks of death as both what is our own and that which we cannot possess. This means that the mortals cannot possess what is most their own. There is an impossible paradox at the heart of Dasein. Dasein finds itself in a relation to what is outside it. This relation to what is outside is a relation to that which cannot be contained. Heidegger says that this relatedness to what is outside, to what cannot be contained, is what names and defines the mortals.
But since, according to Heidegger, the mortals die their death in their own being-toward-death, what is outside, or what cannot be contained, is hence not a simple negativity occurring as a lack that could be filled to render the mortals complete, but rather a mere being-in-the-world as openness to, and exposure to, the world and its possibilities. This openness is shared in the being-with of Dasein. In Building Dwelling Thinking, Heidegger speaks of this linking together of openness and being-in-community:
“Mortals dwell in so far as, by their own essence, namely, that they are capable of death as death, they accompany others in the use of this capability so that there may be a good death”
Martin Heidegger
Earth
“The earth is the building bearer, the nurturing fructifying, tending the waters and stones, what grows and the animals.”
Martin Heidegger
Heidegger thinks of earth as that which bears and is thus a bearer. In The Origin of the Work of Art, this bearing is thought as a ground that grounds and, in its grounding, founds and establishes that which it bears, yet this ground is not present, but rather groundless. Heidegger thinks this groundlessness and how it grounds in Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event), The Event, and The History of Beyng.
In The Origin of the Work of Art, Heidegger says that the earth grounds, bears, and founds only in its withdrawing and receding into absence, only in its moving away from itself. This does not only mean that groundlessness grounds and leads into founding, but also that only in the absence of the ground, grounding becomes a possibility.
From out of this grounding, from out of the earth, arises that which is only itself, that which refuses to be reduced to our technological-mathematical thinking. The earth, according to Heidegger, accomplishes a “blooming” that brings forth. This “blooming” is the freedom of that which the earth brings forth so that it becomes only itself without reducing itself to our thinking. The earth thus, by being a “blooming” bringing forth, brings nearer to the world and lets it appear.
Sky
“The sky is the journey of the sun, the course of the moon, the twinkle of the stars, the seasons of the year, light and twilight of the day, dark and light of the night, the favor and the inhospitability of the weather, the drawing of the clouds and the blue depths of the ether.”
Martin Heidegger
The sky is the place of the shining of things and stars. The sky is that into which the earth extends itself and marks its limits, yet the sky is also that from which the earth withdraws and, by withdrawing, lets the things shine and radiate through the sky. The sky is not simply an emptiness or a void, but rather the space in which changing, moving, becoming-different, and difference occur. The sky is the place in which that which appears arises and converses with us, with the mortals. The sky covers, and is above, the earth and the mortals. This covering changes the things and weathers them, for the thing is linked together with, and refers to, what lies beyond it, the sky.
The sky is that under which the mortals dwell in a community preparing for “a good death”. This dwelling under the sky does not render the sky familiar or known, but rather acknowledges its mysteries, for in the sky, changing and altering always take place without the intervention of those who dwell in a community under the sky, the mortals. This becoming-different of the mysterious shows the mortals that change, in its radical unexpectedness, will always happen.
Divinities
“The divinities are the hinting messengers of godhood.”
Martin Heidegger
The word “divinities” says and acknowledges that godhood was received by the mortals, but the divinities are neither God nor gods, but rather those who have approached and come closer to the divine. Those who have come closer to the divine are only messengers, and the divinities are god-like. The mortals, according to Heidegger, “do not make [the divinities] into their gods and do not pursue service to them as idols”.
The messengers let appear a message that they only harbor and hold within themselves. This harboring is not authoring, but only a letting be seen of that which is held within. It is in this letting be seen that the messengers confirm their relation to something that is radically foreign and distant from the mortals.
The divinities are one dimension of the fourfold and are thus gathered into the forming of the thing. This gathering means that the thing, in its thinging, refers to what is beyond itself, that is, to what is otherworldly. It is in this space that any thinking of the divine should occur. The divine is otherworldly. The divinities open up the fourfold so that it is not closed or self-enclosed. This openness says that there is something in existence that cannot be completely unconcealed, or made completely present and available. This non-availability of the hidden, of what conceals itself and hence refuses appearing, makes available a space for deciding and decisions. That is, this non-availability is itself the availability of deciding and decisions, and what precedes any thinking of God or any god: “From out of their holy reign, the god appears in his presence or withdraws himself in his veiling”. In this article, the relation linking together the absence of God with poetry and philosophy in Heidegger’s thought is discussed.