Lovitt: WESEN - GESTELL

Throughout this essay the noun Wesen will sometimes be given its traditional translation "essence," but more often it will be translated with "coming to presence." For Heidegger the essence of anything is its "enduring as presence." As such, it is the manner in which anything in its enduring comports itself effectually as what it is, i.e., the manner in which it "holds sway" through time (see QT 30; 3, n. 1). Thus in this essay the Wesen of that enframing summons — "Enframing," das Ge-stell — which governs the modern age is the "challenging setting-upon" (Stellen) that sets everything in place as supply, ruling in modern technology (cf. QT 15, n. 14; 19, n. 17); the Wesen of modern technology is Enframing itself; the Wesen of Being is the manner in which Being endures, at any given time, as the Being of whatever is (cf. p. 38); the Wesen of man is that dwelling in openness, accomplished through language and thinking, wherein Being can be and is preserved and set free into presence (cf. pp. 39-42 and "Time and Being" in On Time and Being, trans. Joan Stambaugh   [New York: Harper & Row, 1972], p. 12).