Lovitt: ENTBERGEN - REVEAL

The verb entbergen   (to reveal) and the allied noun   Entbergung   (revealing) are unique to Heidegger. Because of the exigencies of translation, entbergen must usually be translated with "revealing," and the presence of Entbergung, which is rather infrequently used, has therefore regrettably been obscured for want of an appropriate English noun as alternative that would be sufficiently active in meaning. Entbergen and Entbergung are formed from the verb bergen and the verbal prefix ent-. Bergen means to rescue, to recover, to secure, to harbor, to conceal. Ent- is used in German verbs to connote in one way or another a change from an existing situation  . It can mean "forth" or "out" or can connote a change that is the negating of a former condition. Entbergen connotes an opening out from protective concealing, a harboring forth. For a presentation of Heidegger’s central tenet that it is only as protected and preserved — and that means as enclosed and secure — that anything is set free to endure, to continue as that which it is, i.e., to be, see "Building Dwelling Thinking" in Paetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), p. 149, and cf. p. 25 below.

Entbergen and Entbergung join a family of words all formed from bergen — verbergen (to conceal), Verborgenheit   (concealment), das Verborgene (the concealed), Unverborgenheit (unconcealment), das Unverborgene (the un-concealed) — of which Heidegger makes frequent use. The lack of viable English words sufficiently numerous to permit a similar use of but one fundamental stern has made it necessary to obscure, through the use of "reveal," the close relationship among all the words just mentioned. None of the English words used-"reveal," "conceal," "unconceal" — evinces with any adequacy the meaning resident in bergen itself; yet the reader should be constantly aware that the full range of connotation present in bergen sounds for Heidegger within all these, its derivatives. (QCT   p. 11)