Abstract

The appeal of things is that they insinuate a degree of stability, durability, firmness, and a degree of certainty in times of uncertainty. Unlike objects (Gegenstände), things are there even if we—humans who perceive, surround, use them—are not. The article draws on Heidegger’s 1950 essay “The Thing,” which uses the example of a jug, to reflect on Kleist’s things. Kleist’s things are not stable, not durable, and not a ground of certainty for the fickle mind. Nor are they merely fragile and transient. Rather, Kleist’s things are simultaneously both stable and fragile, durable and transient, certain and uncertain. Kleist’s writings show how the liminality of things extends into the social realm where things are recognized as a potential resource: as the singular, different, and surprising element that resists, that can change, but that also makes possible the general, the rule, the law. Focusing in particular on the broken jug in Kleist’s famous comedy by the same name, the article argues that Kleist finds in things an alternative to Kant’s “thing in itself” and to the Romantic absolute (as something Unbedingtes). Counter to the search for certainty and stable grounds advocated by some of the new materialists, Kleist’s episteme works toward a thinking that responds and recalls the uncertainty of things and with it their singularity and generative force.

摘要

事物的魅力在于它们暗示着一定程度的稳定性、耐久性、坚定性，以及在不确定时期的一定程度的确定性。不像物体（Gegenstände)，即使我们——感知、周围、使用它们的人——不存在，事物仍然存在。这篇文章借鉴了海德格尔 1950 年的论文“物”，其中以水壶为例来反思克莱斯特的物。克莱斯特的东西不稳定，不耐用，也不是反复无常的头脑确定的基础。它们也不只是脆弱和短暂的。相反，克莱斯特的事物同时是稳定的和脆弱的、持久的和短暂的、确定的和不确定的。克莱斯特的著作展示了事物的阈限性如何延伸到社会领域，在社会领域，事物被认为是一种潜在的资源：作为独特的、不同的和令人惊讶的元素，它可以抵抗、改变，但也使普遍、规则、法律。特别关注克莱斯特同名著名喜剧中的破罐子，无床）。与一些新唯物主义者所提倡的对确定性和稳定基础的探索相反，克莱斯特的认识论致力于一种思维，这种思维对事物的不确定性及其奇异性和生成力做出反应和回忆。