16000-14

The covering-up itself, whether in the sense of hiddenness, burying over, or disguise, has, in turn, two possibilities. There are accidental coverings-up; some are necessary, grounded in what the thing discovered consists in. Whenever a phenomenological concept is drawn from primordial sources, there is a possibility that it may degenerate if communicated in the form of an assertion. It gets understood in an empty way and is thus passed on, losing its indigenous character, and becoming a free-floating thesis. Even in the concrete work of phenomenology itself, there lurks the possibility that what has been primordially ‘within our grasp’ may become hardened so that we can no longer grasp it. Moreover, the difficulty of this kind of research lies in making it self-critical in a positive sense.