De-severance (Ent-fernung)

is the paradoxical idea of simultaneously intensifying distance and eliminating it ---. for example, when I look at a far-off lighthouse, I am seeing it at a great distance—but at the same time it is also in direct, intimate contact with me, since I am occupied with seeing it.

The true spatiality of Dasein has two aspects: de-severance and directionality. “De-severance” is perhaps the most horrible English term in MacQuarrie and Robinson’s version of Being and Time, but many readers gradually acquire a taste for it. It is the translators’ clever (if unavoidably ugly) attempt to deal with Heidegger’s word Ent-fernung. Without the hyphen, this is a normal German word meaning “removal” or “distance.” Skipping any detailed discussion of how German grammar works, it is enough to say that Heidegger coined this term (by adding the hyphen) in order to refer simultaneously to intensifying distance and eliminating it. This is not as paradoxical as it may sound. When I look at a far-off lighthouse, I am seeing it at a great distance—but at the same time it is also in direct, intimate contact with me, since I am occupied with seeing it.

is the way we encounter objects: they are always placed at a specific distance, but also, by being so placed, they are brought directly and immediately into our explicit awareness.

Any object that we encounter is de-severed: it is placed at a specific distance, but also brought directly and immediately into our explicit awareness.

de severance (ent fernung), n.Definitions

de severance (ent fernung)