[1.] “Das erste, ‘Was’ wird, ist das Werden selbst.”
[2.] “Mindlessly” translated the German rücksichtslos, which literally means “without hindsight” or “without looking back.”
[3.] “Ahead” translated the German Voraus. Heidegger says that the Vor in Voraussetzung must be understood as the Voraus. The English translation of Voraussetzung as “presupposition” does not allow for the same kind of morphological-semantic distinction.
[4.] The expression zu Grunde gehen normally means “to perish” or “to founder.” However, when taken literally it means “to go to the ground.”
[5.] “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1).
[6.] “Object-of-consciousness” translates the German ein Bewußtes. Heidegger frequently uses the term das Bewußte to refer to the object or content of consciousness. We have translated das Bewußte for the most part as “the object-of-consciousness.” The hyphenation is meant to indicate that Heidegger is not speaking of the Gegenstand of consciousness. In cases where Heidegger mentions das Bewußte in the same sentence in which he also speaks of “the object of consciousness” [Gegenstand des Bewußtseins] we have translated the former as “that which consciousness is conscious of.”
[7.] Heidegger contrasts the Ein- of Einfall with the less intrusive an- of angefallen: “Wenn der Einfall nicht Einfall,—wenn das Ganze als solches angefallen in seinem ihm ungefragten und unfragbaren Grunde.”
[8.] “Soul, spirit or mind, reason.”
[9.] Heidegger translates nobis consciis—“we being conscious”—as die wir uns mitwissen, which in English may be rendered as “we who also know ourselves” or “we who know ourselves along with.” He translates conscientia according to the meaning of its constituent elements cum (mit/with) and scientia (Wissenschaft/knowing) as Mitwissenschaft, which we chose to translate as “accompanying knowing.”
[10.] The second part of Heidegger’s quotation does not appear in the German edition in this form. It is thus a paraphrase rather than a direct quotation. The German text of Hegel’s Phänomenologie des Geistes reads, “wenn es nicht an und für sich schon bei uns wäre und sein wollte.”
[11.] As Heidegger explains on p.78, the word Gang must be understood in the double sense of “the process of going”(or “a going” [das Gehen]) and “passageway” (or “path”). We have chosen to render Gang consistently as “course.”
[12.] “Absolving” translated the German Absolvieren, which is the nominalization of the verb absolvieren. It means “to complete,” “to pass,” “to finish successfully,” “to work through.”Heidegger says that Absolvieren is a Vollbringen, that is, an “accomplishment” or an “achieving.” (Cf. also p.79.) Absolvieren also names the process in which a person is given an absolution, that is, the process in which a person is pronounced free from guilt. Heidegger unites these two meanings of absolvieren in the term Absolvenz, which we have rendered as “absolvence.” “Absolvence” is at the same time a successful completion and the (resulting) absolution.
[13.] There is no mention of “violence” at WW II, 60 [§73]. Even though the German edition of Hegel makes no mention of this, it appears that the phrase “the (absolute) violence” is Heidegger's own.
[14.] Translation modified.
[15.] “Das Bewußtsein verhält sich als solches zu seinem Bewußten (dem ‘Gegenstand’), und indem es diesen auf sich als es selbst bezieht, verhält es auch schon sich zu sich selbst.”
[16.] In German, the two preceding sentences read as follows: “Es ist einmal streitendes, prüfendes Sichauseinanderlegen, Streitgespräch mit sich selbst. Als dieses Auseinanderlegen ist es und legt es sich heraus und aus und ist das Sichdarlegen in der Einheit des in sich Gesammelten.”
[17.] Heidegger hyphenates the German Er-fahren here. Unlike the English “ex-” in “experience,” the Er- in Erfahren emphasizes the doing or making involved in experience. Fahren can mean to drive, ride, go, and navigate, and so in hyphenating this word, Heidegger is emphasizing how this is an undertaking that we must take. One could render this as “go or take the path” as well.
[18.] Gang, which throughout this volume we have translated by “course,” is a noun derived from gehen (“to go”). In German the sentence reads, “Der Weg ist ein Gang in dem zwiefachen Sinne des Gehens (Gang aufs Land) und des Durchgangs (unterirdischer Gang).” Despite the contrast that Heidegger creates between the activity of going and the object of a passage, the word Durchgang (“passageway”) is itself employed in the double sense of “a passageway” (Durchgang as an object) and a passing through (Durchgang as a process). While Heidegger notes the ambiguity of Gang early on (cf. our translators’ note on p.65), he does not make explicit that this ambiguity also applies to those compound nouns that have Gang as their constituent component. To highlight this difference we use “passageway” and “passage” to translate Durchgang.
[19.] “Diese bedeutet das Sicheinlassen auf etwas aus dem Absehen auf das, was dabei herauskommt.”
[20.] At this point we have deviated from our general rule of translating Bewußtsein by “consciousness.” Although Heidegger does not hyphenate Bewußtsein here, the meaning of the sentence is obscured unless Bewußtsein is rendered as “being-conscious.”
[21.] The verb abarbeiten can also mean “to complete a given list of tasks.” Both meanings of the word abarbeiten resonate here.
[22.] “Movement from something into something. Actuality.” See Aristotle, Physics, 225a1.
[23.] “All human beings by nature desire to know.” See Aristotle, Metaphysics, 980a22.
[24.] “Alle Menschen haben die aus dem Grund ihres Wesens aufgehende Vor-liebe (alles, wozu sie sich verhalten) sich zu Gesicht zu bringen, um es in seinem Aussehen anwesend zu haben (εἰδέναι—ἰδεῖν).”
[25.] “To be familiar” is our translation for Kunde haben.
[26.] Translation modified.
[27.] In current editions these words are printed in italics.
[28.] “Wir lassen hier den ersten Gegenstand nicht fahren, sondern er-fahren ihn, fahren durch ihn gleichsam hindurch.”
[29.] Translation modified.
[30.] “Die Zutat ist der erste und höchste Akt des Zu-sehens, das so im vorhinein zusieht, d.h. darauf sieht und achtet, daß das Absolute als das Absolute geachtet wird und so nur das Absolute und nicht irgend etwas anderes zum Erscheinen kommt.” Heidegger here exploits the dual meaning of zusehen: zusehen with the direct object means “to look on something”; zusehen followed by a that-clause means “to see/watch out to ensure that something happens.”
[31.] “Die Erfahrung ist pervagari—ein hindurchfahrendes Durchmessen von Gängen.”
[32.] In German this sentence reads, “Indem das Erfahren sich auf etwas einläßt, läßt es auch das Vorgenommene jeweils ‘auf etwas ankommen.’”The expression “es auf etwas ankommen lassen” pertains to the moment of risk in πεῖϱα.
[33.] G. W. F. Hegel, Faith and Knowledge, trans. Walter Cerf and H. S. Harris (Albany: SUNY Press, 1977). In the passage in question Cerf and Harris translate Schmerz as “grief.”
[34.] Heidegger is again referring to “What is rational is actual; and what is actual is rational.” See Hegel, Philosophy of Right, 20.
[35.] “For thinking and being are the same.” See G. S. Kirk, et al., The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 269.
[36.] Phenomenology, §87.
[37.] At this point we have deviated from our general idiomatic translation of eine Erfahrung machen as “to undergo an experience” in favor of the more literal “to make an experience” in order to preserve the contrast in the German original between machen, “make,” i.e., a productive activity, and aufnehmen, “take up.”
[38.] “Das Willentliche des Willens—die Wirklichkeit des Wahren.”
[39.] The Kränzchen (“small circle”) was a small gathering that took place on a regular basis.
[40.] Translation taken from Off the Beaten Track, 285; translation modified.