I said Ereignis means "event" through much of Heidegger's work, not at all. Indeed, certain texts speculate on its etymology but do not propose a new technical term. Being and Time (51-52) speaks of death as an event. What could it possibly mean to call death an appropriation ?
And Heidegger certainly does not mean that death is "emergence into intelligibility." On the contrary. Also, Being and Time outlines a philosophy of history in which Heidegger often refers to past events. It is ironic that Sheehan, who is so concerned with dating texts, should not realize that the early Heidegger understands Ereignis literally. For a later Heideggerian usage consult the Afterword to "What is Metaphysics?" where product and event (Erzeugnis and Ereignis) are distinguished. Finally, in those passages where Heidegger does attempt to ramify the sense of Ereignis by comments on aneignen and eräugen (e.g., in Identität und Differenz), he plays on the tension between the unreflective normal sense of the term and his etymological sense.
Understanding these passages means keeping both in mind, and Heidegger underscores this fact by writing Er-eignis when he wishes to stress his etymological sense. He wants to emphasize that genuine historical events are changes in mentality and the understanding of the world, and not mere happenstance.
To indiscriminately substitute "appropriation" wherever Heidegger utters Ereignis, as Sheehan seems to propose, is to produce the sort of mystical mumbo-jumbo with which Heidegger is all too often and wrongly associated. Or should we also translate Begebenheit as "be-givenness"?
