We must discuss our choices for rendering die Geschichte des Seins, Seinsgeschichte, and seinsgeschichtlich. Focusing on the “being” component in these words and deciding to translate Geschichte with “history,” we rendered these words as “history of being,” “being-history,” and “being-historical.” But how to reflect in translation the important difference between Geschichte and Historie?
Our translation needs to reflect the difference between Geschichte as what is enowned by being and Historie as the discipline of historiography. This differentiation is of paramount importance for understanding Contributions because, as Heidegger points out near the end of this work, “enowning” is the “origin of history.” “History” here is quite different from history as a discipline or as historiography. The happenings that constitute Geschichte are quite different from the events that make up history. The German word Geschichte, more so than the English word history, implies: unfolding, issuance, and proffering. Given this difference and considering the sheer impossibility of using two different words in English, one for Geschichte and one for Historie, we decided to use the same word history for both but to demarcate Historie by using two parenthetical devices. Whenever the context makes it clear that Historie is meant, the reader will find the word history followed in brackets either by the word Historie or the words “as a discipline.” (p. xxiii)