Buren (GA63:nota 9) – (sich) halten, sich aufhalten, Aufhalten (bei), Aufenthalt

Connected terms formed from “halten.” Heidegger uses another group of poetic terms in connection with those above, i.e., (sich) halten, sich aufhalten, Aufhalten (bei), Aufenthalt, and other terms formed from halten. The verb sich halten auf means literally “to halt” or “hold oneself” (sich halten) “at” (auf) some place, linger there, and “not run away,” as Heidegger colloquially puts it in the passage with which this endnote began. Thus two common meanings of sich halten on which Heidegger draws are (1) “to last,” “keep,” or “hold out” and (2) “linger,” “stay,” or “hang around.” It and the above terms formed from it are clearly connected to Heidegger’s characterization of the “being-there of Dasein’ as a “having-itself-there” (Sich-da-haben) and “whiling” in this “there” (pp. 40ff.). For example, in his treatment of “historical consciousness” in Oswald Spengler   and others, Heidegger discusses the theme of the unified “style” in which a culture “comes to expression, holding itself therein, lingering for a time, and then becoming antiquated [darin sich hält und veraltet]” (§7). He also uses sich halten in §§11-12 to speak of the way that contemporary historical consciousness and philosophy “hold themselves” and “linger” in their “there,” i.e., in their “present” (Gegenwart) or “today” (Heute) which is co-defined by the “open space of publicness” (Öffentlichkeit). And just as he speaks of the “be-ing,” “being-there,” and “whiling” not only of human beings but also of things such as the “table” in his home, so he also says that in everydayness a thing such as a table “holds itself [hält sich] in [its] being-there and being-available, lingering in them in accord with the awhileness of temporal particularity in question and throughout it” (§21).

Accordingly, sich halten is translated with “to hold (itself)” and “to linger,” sich aufhalten with “to hold itself and sojourn,” Aufhalten (bei) with “sojourning (at home in),” “holding itself (in)”, and “holding out (in),” and Aufenthalt with “sojourn,” “abode,” “holding out,” and “halting.” Especially in connection with Heidegger’s key phenomenological example of “tarrying for a while at home” and “being-in-a-room” there (§§19ff.), the reader should keep in mind other possible and more homey translations of sich aufhalten (”dwell,” “abide,” “reside”) and of Aufenthalt (”dwelling place,” “residence,” “home”). Whenever possible, “to hold’ has also been employed in translating the large number of other terms formed from halten: behalten (”to hold onto,” “preserve”), erhalten (”to gain a foothold,” “preserve,” “hold open”), festhalten (”to hold fast [to]”), aushalten (”to hold out”), durchhalten (”to hold out until the end”), Vorhalten (”to hold up before”), halten an (”to require to hold to”), Behaltbarkeit (”ability of preservation [of the past] to hold onto it”), Im-Blick-halten (”holding-in-view”), Sichverhalten (zu) (”comporting-itself [toward],” “self-comportment,” “comportment [toward],” “holding-itself in the comportment”), Verhalten (”comporting,” “comportment”), Halt (”a hold”), Haltung (”stance held to”), aufenthaltslos (”abodeless,” “never halting, making a sojourn, and holding out there”). Enthalten (”holding back”).