The Creature, the First Question: An Essay (original) (raw)

2019

The article deals with the notion of the "Creature" as being displayed in Joseph Wittig's essay titled Der Weg zur Kreatur. This piece by Wittig (1879-1949), one of the co-founders of the journal Die Kreatur, himself a banished Catholic thinker, an excommunicated theologian, was published in the third volume of the journal in 1929/1930. The major argument to be presented here, following Wittig's essay, concerns the path (but also the method) into the world of the creature, namely, the way-back, a regression, which depends on counter-movements, suspensions, gestures of recollection and witnessing. This path is based on the potentialities of the "first question"-a demand for the first word, a proper name for the silent, forgotten creature, being invited to encounter. The encounter with the creatures is a method of thinking, a way of being in this world that is based on the possibility of asking rightly the "first question". For what this question performs is an attention, hearing of, a method of listening. In asking the question of (and for) the creature, language itself turns toward the world of the creation, in a search for a proper name, calling creation to be heard, to belong. I The "first question" is that of the creature. It is the question concerning the being of creation. The initial question (but perhaps the final one too)-the "prologue," the opening word, is also an "epilogue"-a testimony regarding the world of creation. This first question about the being of creation, however, studies the affinities between man and the animal, revealing the dialectics of human existence and the future of life on Earth. In asking the question of the creature, new attention is directed towards what being is. In asking this question , however, the human engages him or herself with It-with the nameless, silent creature. The question itself is an expression of attention, curiosity, awareness and responsibility for the being of the creature. This question about