Ab-grund, a-bismo, ab-ground, Abgrund, abismo, abyss

ABGROUND ( Abgrund). The mystery inherent in the concealment of being includes a nuance of hesitation, refusal, or reservedness. The mystery of being precludes the establishment of an absolute ground for entities, in the sense that metaphysics might ascribe to a supreme entity or God. The refusal and staying away of a ground also implies the role that absence plays, as well as presence, in determining the dynamic of temporality.

When confronting the threshold of death, the self may experience this lack of ground as an abyss. See also FINITUDE. (HDHP)

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sem-fundamento
a-byss

O salto no abismo, no sem-fundamento (Ab-grund), é o jogar-se no ser (Sein), assumir o pertencer ao ser. Compreende-se isto quando se lê em O Princípio da Razão (Satz vom Grund): ‘Ser e fundamento (Grund) pertencem à unidade. Do fato de fazer parte do ser o fundamento recebe sua essência. E vice-versa, da essência do fundamento surge o domínio do ser enquanto ser. Fundamento e ser (’são’) o mesmo, não o igual, o que já indica a diversidade dos nomes ‘ser’ e ‘fundamento. Ser ‘é’ essencialmente: fundamento. Assim, o ser nunca pode primeiro ter um fundamento que o fundamente. O fundamento fica, desta maneira, afastado do ser. O fundamento fica ausente do ser. No sentido de uma tal ausência de fundamento do ser, o ser ‘é’ sem-fundamento (ab-grund), abismo. Na medida em que o ser enquanto tal é fundamento em si mesmo, permanece ele mesmo sem-fundamento’. (Der Satz vom Grund, pp. 92-91)) (Ernildo Stein; MHeidegger:Nota; GA11)

An abyss in general is something that cannot be fathomed-that is, a phenomenon that defeats any effort to explain, determine, define, rationalize it, or make it intelligible using conceptual resources. Heidegger also uses “abyss” as a term of art to refer to a specific and important type of abyss in the more general sense. “Abyss” in Heidegger’s specific sense is something that grounds the being of a thing precisely by refusing to determine it. Heidegger often indicates that he is using “abyss” in this specific sense by hyphenating the term (“a-byss,” Ab-grund), or by referring to it as an “abyssal ground” (abgründige Grund). A true decision or a free act, the genuine beginning of a new historical age – such things are constituted as what they are by the lack of any fully determining antecedent. Thus, the ground or reason for their being what they are is that they lack a determinate ground or reason. As Heidegger puts it in perhaps his clearest definition of an abyss in the special sense, an “a-byss” (Ab-grund) is that which releases into its essence what is groundable, but in such a way that that which is doing the releasing refuses itself and thereby denies to the grounding anything occurrent, or a reference to or insistence on anything occurrent. Instead, it gives to it the necessity of decision (GA69:98).

When we experience an abyss in this specific, ontological sense (that is, an abyss as defining the being of something), it is not merely something negative. It doesn’t simply present us with a failure of our ability to understand or define or make sense of the world. Instead, it has an “existential positivity” (GA20:402). It is a positive determining feature of some things that the reason they are what they are is that they are lacking in reasons or foundations: “the ground grounds as a-byss” (Der Grund gründet als Ab-grund, GA65:29). (WCHL)