In a sparkling essay, Joseph Vogl not only develops a theory of hesitation but also presents a veritable system of hesitation, in which the "hesitation function" emerges as a counterpoint to a history of action that has shaped the West. This can be traced from the "Oresteia" and Schiller's "Wallenstein" to the titans of hesitation in the 19th and 20th centuries—whether it be Melville's "Bartleby" or Musil's "The Man Without Qualities." Hesitation should not be understood as a simple suspension of action: it marks the threshold between action and inaction, where a space of pure creative potential and contingency opens up. It proves to be a method of complication, through which both historical and discursive events can be brought back to their null point and revised in their power of assertion.