1. Of course, to deny that an ethical situation is also historical—it has its ghosts that continue to haunt it—would be silly. However, at the moment of decision, of choosing, one has little choice but to be blind to both the historicities (leading to the choice) and the potentialities (of the choice), and acknowledge the double blindness of choosing.

2. Is this even a question for the introduction, one that must be asked from the very beginning, or must it be left to the very end—an invitation to begin again, to start again, to read again—a question that can only be uttered when the reading is over, when the text is finished, a question that can only be known at the very end? Can you really ask a question about beginnings, about origins, without an idea of the end in mind? Or, another way to put the question: is there a possibility of a beginning without the notion of an end? In this sense, the question of origins is not just an archeological project but always a teleological one as well.

3. Reading in this form is always a reading of the specific with relation to the general—reading the particular text in relation to the universal book. The assumption here, of course, is that there is a totality which is the book to be referenced against, to be compared with, to be kept in mind. This suggests, then, that reading can only occur the second time one looks at a text, or, even more radically, that each reading is always a second reading.

4. The only time one has to utter something is in its absence: if the object that was referred to were present, then there would be no necessity to utter the signifier. The very recollection of the signified to one's mind is premised on the fact that it was momentarily forgotten; otherwise, there would not be a remembering that was taking place. If the signified were already in one's mind, it would be purely knowledge. Hence, the very condition of language itself—the fact that one has to refer to something, and communicate this to someone else by language—is, precisely, forgetting: if one never forgot, there would be no need for language at all.
     An excellent instance of the thinking of the status of memory and forgetting can be found, among other places, in the writings of Werner Hamacher, including “Hermeneutic Ellipses: Writing the Hermeneutic Circle in Schleiermacher” in Premises: Essays on Philosophy and Literature from Kant to Celan, trans. Peter Fenves (Stanford, CA: Meridian, 1999), 44–80.