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The Forty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the Heidegger Circle

Emory University Atlanta, GA May 4-6, 2012

convener : andrew j. mitchell

Table of Contents
From the Facticity of Dasein to the Facticity of Nature: Naturalism, Animality, and the Ontological Difference
Raoni Padui (Villanova University)

Heideggers Critique of a Causal Understanding of Human Action


Hans Pedersen (Indiana University of Pennsylvania)

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Heidegger on Discourse and Idle Talk: The Role of Aristotelian Rhetoric


Jess Adrin Escudero (Universidad Autnoma de Barcelona, Spain)

38

Preserving Play in The Origin of the Work of Art


Catherine Homan (Emory University)

60

Another Look at Heideggers Hermeneutics


James Risser (Seattle University)

75

heidegger circle 2012 review committee

I, Who Am Still not Dead: Heidegger, Death and Survivance in Derridas The Beast and the Sovereign, vol. 2
Adam Knowles (New School for Social Research)

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Walter Brogan Daniel O. Dahlstrom William McNeill Andrew J. Mitchell David Pettigrew Richard Polt

Heidegger and Derrida: The Ex-Appropriation of Responsibility


Franois Raffoul (Louisiana State University)

124

Dwelling and the Ontological Difference


Christopher Ruth (Villanova University)

141

Heidegger and the Inner Truth of National Socialism: A New Archival Discovery
Julia Ireland (Whitman College)

160

Heideggers Philosophy of Right?


Christophe Perrin (Universit Paris-Sorbonne, France)

175

The Forty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the Heidegger Circle 2012

Why Hegel? Heidegger and the Political


Peter Trawny (Bergische Universitt Wuppertal, Germany)

198

Making Sense of Heidegger: A Paradigm Shift


Thomas Sheehan (Stanford University)

220

The Matter of Being in Time and Being


Richard Capobianco (Stonehill College)

244

Event/Language
Krzysztof Ziarek (University at Buffalo)

258

Sounding/Silence
David Nowell-Smith (Universit Paris VII, France)

277

Knowledge and Faith: On Heideggers Reading of Saint Paul


Sophie-Jan Arrien (Universit Laval, Qubec, Canada)

292

Work as Vocation: The Pauline Roots of Earthly Dwelling


Julie Kuhlken (Misericordia University)

315

appendix

Conference Program

339

iv

From the Facticity of Dasein to the Facticity of Nature: Naturalism, Animality, and the Ontological Difference
Raoni Padui
villanova university

Despite some recent attempts at naturalizing phenomenology, ever since Husserls attack on psychologism the phenomenological tradition has been largely critical of naturalism.1 Throughout his project of a phenomenological ontology in the twenties Heideggers philosophy appears to share this antipositivistic and anti-naturalistic position, particularly through his resistance to the reduction of the ontological to the ontic. In this paper I will initially outline how Heidegger resists naturalism by distinguishing Dasein from Vorhandensein and identifying the latter with the factuality of natural entities. However, I will argue that there are at least two significant moments in the late twenties, moments that coincide with Heideggers abandoning of the project of fundamental ontology, in which the threat of naturalism returns and the ontological difference is at least questioned, if not altogether undermined. The first is the overturning of fundamental ontology into the

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complementary project of metontology, specifically insofar as it identifies the facticity of Dasein to the facticity of nature, while the second can be found in the famous account of animality and the attempt to distinguish Daseins mode of beingin-the-world from the animals world-poverty. In both of these cases what is at stake is not only the stability of Heideggers ontological difference but the very possibility of a distinction between Dasein and nature.
i.

facticity and the distinction between dasein and vorhandensein

One of the fundamental theses of Heideggers Being and Time is that the manner of being of the entity he calls Dasein is radically distinct from the mode of being of other entities. The analytic of Dasein is developed from the beginning by contrast to the mode of existence Heidegger calls Vorhandensein: Ontologically, existentia means objective presence [Vorhandensein], a kind of being which is essentially inappropriate to characterize the being which has the character of Dasein. We can avoid the confusion by always using the interpretive expression objective presence [Vorhandenheit] for the term existentia, and by attributing existence [Existenz] as a determination of being only to Dasein (GA 2: 56/SZ 42). The term existence (Existenz) designates the manner of being appropriate to Dasein, to entities for whom being is a question, while the other categorical modes of Vorhandenheit and Zuhandenheit are reserved to other entities. The way in which

Dasein is in a world is distinct from the inner-worldliness of other entities. This distinctive characteristic of Dasein is one Heidegger will repeatedly insist on, claiming that to understand Dasein as one objectively present entity among others is to completely overlook Daseins essential ontological determination: Dasein is never to be understood ontologically as a case and instance of a genus of beings as objectively present [einer Gattung von Seiendem als Vorhandenem] (GA 2: 57/SZ 42). Of course, such an (mis)understanding is always possible. Just as biology identifies a certain class of entities (Gattung von Seiendem) as biological objects for investigation, anthropology or neurophysiology could single out the human for objective investigation. But Heidegger insists that in so doing what is distinctive about Daseins mode of being is either lost or ignored. Dasein is distinguished ontically from other entities by the fact that an understanding of being is constitutive of its existence: Understanding of being is itself a determination of being of Dasein. The ontic distinction of Dasein lies in the fact that it is ontological (GA 2: 16/SZ 12). Treating Dasein as a mere object among other existent objects would obscure this ontological possibility. However, there is an important ambiguity here, since Dasein is also an entity that is, a being thrown into the world among other beings. Dasein is an ontic being among others, factically thrown into the world just as other entities are contingently thrown into the natural world. Up to a certain degree, Heidegger accepts the identification of the brute factual existence of Dasein with an objective entity such as a lump of coal: More precisely, they can be understood within certain limits and with a certain justification as something merely objectively present (GA 2: 74/SZ 55).

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However, Heidegger immediately adds that in order to do this, one must completely disregard or just not see the existential constitution of being-in (GA 2: 74-75/SZ 55). So there is a way in which Dasein exists as objectively present among other entities, and this can be appropriate if kept within certain limits. I take Heidegger to mean here that if one thinks that this mode of being is exhaustive of what it means to be Dasein, it would remain inappropriate and reductive. This is because one is either reducing or eliminating the existential mode of being-in that distinguishes Dasein from a stone or a table. While Heidegger admits that in terms of the question of reality Dasein is present (and real) among other present, real entities, thinking along these lines will lead us astray in the goal of fundamental ontology, and of thinking through the ontological constitution of Dasein: Like other beings, Dasein is also objectively present as real. Thus being in general acquires the meaning of reality. Accordingly, the concept of reality has a peculiar priority in the ontological problematic. This priority diverts the path [Dieser verlegt den Weg] to a genuine existential analytic of Dasein, it also diverts our view of the being of innerworldly things initially at hand [Zuhandenen] (GA 2: 267/SZ 201). That is, it not only obscures the fact that Dasein is in the world in a particular way of circumspective concern and engagement, but also that the objects encountered in a world are primarily encountered as useful entities within a context of significance, as handy (Zuhanden). So the problem with the view of Reality as a heap of factually existing entities is that it

simply ignores or skips over the phenomenon of worldliness [berspringen des Phnomens der Weltlichkeit] (GA 2: 88/ SZ 65). But Dasein is also factically thrown into a world among other entities. This singular being-thus and not otherwise is what Heidegger designates by Daseins facticity. One may think that the facticity of Dasein, its being thrown into the world (Geworfenheit) in some way designates a mode of being that Dasein shares with other entities. However, this is not the case, and Heidegger goes to great pains to distinguish between the factuality and contingency of the objectively present and Daseins facticity, reserving the term Tatschlichkeit for the former and Faktizitt for the latter. Just as the mode of being (existence, objective presence) is distinguished, the mode of factical thrownness (facticity, factuality) is distinguished: And yet the factuality of the fact [die Tatschlichkeit der Tatsache] of ones own Dasein is ontologically totally different from the factual occurrence of a kind of stone. The factuality of the fact [Die Tatschlichkeit des Faktums] Dasein, as the way in which every Dasein actually is, we call its facticity [Faktizitt] (GA 2: 75/SZ 56). Of course, there is some form of facticity to the being of a stone its thatness or its existing in the very way that it does in fact exist. But as Agamben and others have noted, this mode of existence has traditionally been understood under the concept of contingency (Zuflligkeit), which Heidegger differentiates from Daseins mode of contingent existence, designated by Faktizitt.2 The mode in which Dasein falls into the world (Geworfenheit, Verfallenheit) is not the way in which stones fall (Zuflligkeit) into the world. Agamben is thereby correct to stress that for Heidegger the difference in modes of Being is decisive here.3

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This difference is so decisive that almost every time Heidegger returns to the problem of Daseins facticity in Being and Time, he goes out of his way to repeat its distinction just in case the reader has forgotten it: Facticity is not the factuality of the factum brutum of something objectively present, but is a characteristic of the being of Dasein taken on in existence (GA 2: 180/SZ 135).4 This distinction is repeated so often throughout the book that it could properly be called a refrain or motif of Being and Time. Each time Heidegger further elucidates Daseins being-in-the-world and articulates a new existential structure, he insists on the distinction between factical existence and factual objective presence. For example, when developing the phenomenon of conscience: As a phenomenon of Dasein, conscience is not a fact [Tatsache] that occurs and is occasionally objectively present. It is only in the kind of being of Dasein and makes itself known as a fact [Faktum] only in factical existence [ faktischen Existenz] (GA 2: 357/SZ 269). He returns to it when describing the temporality that is proper to Dasein and distinguishing it from the way in which objective entities are in time: Evidently Dasein can never be past, not because it is imperishable, but because it can essentially never be objectively present. Rather, if it is, it exists [sondern weil es wesenhaft nie vorhanden sein kann, vielmehr, wenn es ist, existiert] (GA 2: 503/SZ 380). From the standpoint of this repetitive and resolute attempt to distinguish Dasein from Vorhandensein, it becomes surprising to read the closing paragraphs of Being and Time, where Heidegger questions this very distinction: The distinction between the being of existing Dasein and the being of beings unlike Dasein (for example, objective presence) may seem to be il-

luminating, but it is only the point of departure for the ontological problematic; it is nothing with which philosophy can rest and be satisfied [ist doch nur der Ausgang der ontologischen Problematik, aber nichts, wobei die Philosophie sich beruhigen kann] (GA 2: 576/SZ 436-437). A book that involves repetitive attempts to delineate the proper mode of being of Dasein by differentiating it from the being of other entities ends, it seems, by problematizing this very project. The distinction upon which the proper being of Dasein was articulated is something of a heuristic starting point, but not something that we must remain settled with.
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the

identification of vorhandensein with nature

In distinguishing Dasein from Vorhandensein, Heidegger is simultaneously distinguishing the mode of being of the human from the mode of being of other natural entities, thereby separating fundamental ontology from any form of naturalism. By seeing how Heidegger identifies the Vorhanden with the natural in this phenomenological period, it becomes clear how this is the site of Heideggers resistance to naturalism. But naturalism is a famously slippery term, which historically has come to mean many diverse and often contradictory philosophical positions.5 By claiming that Heidegger resists naturalism, I cannot be claiming that he is criticizing the contemporary, post-Quinean narrow sense of naturalism: namely, the methodological view that the empirical natural sciences are the measure of what exists and that they ought to determine our ontological commitments. Instead, I have a broader category in mind, one that includes a view of the world as

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a natural whole, with human beings as a specific part of this whole. The latter view is what Heidegger, already in Being and Time, identifies with traditional ontology (GA 2: 88/SZ 65). What is at stake is exactly how to understand world and Heideggers claim is that the positivism of traditional ontology skips over (berspringen) the phenomenon of world and determines nature as a totality of objectively present things. From this point of view, Dasein becomes one entity within the natural cosmos and its proper mode of existence is ignored: Instead, one tries to interpret the world in terms of the being of the being [dem Sein des Seienden] which is objectively present within the world [innerweltlich vorhanden] but has not, however, even been initially discovered in terms of nature (GA 2: 88/SZ 65). While Heidegger does not use the language of naturalism, he has this position in mind when he criticizes the positivism of these endeavors in order to stress the way in which they reduce the ontological dimension to an ontic explanation of the positive sciences (GA 24: 17/13). From 1925 to 1927 Heidegger very closely identifies the Vorhanden with the natural, and the ontology that determines everything as Vorhandenheit with the traditional ontology of nature. This becomes most explicit in his lecture course of the summer semester of 1927, where he attempts to differentiate the concept of world he developed in Being and Time from this traditional and more naturalistic one: The world is not nature and it is certainly not the extant [die Welt ist nicht die Natur und berhaupt nicht das Vorhandene], any more than the whole of all the things surrounding us, the contexture of equipment, is the environing world, the Umwelt. Nature even if we take it in the sense of

the whole cosmos as that which we also call, in ordinary discourse, the universe, the whole world all these entities taken together, animals, plants, and humans, too, are not the world, viewed philosophically (GA 24: 235/165). In this seminar Heidegger differentiates Dasein from the Vorhanden by directly identifying the latter with nature, with the effect of creating a contrast between the human and the merely natural. What is distinctive about Dasein is that as long as it is, it is necessarily within a world; the two are co-belonging or co-relational. However, being-in-the-world is merely a possible (but not necessary) determination of the natural: Intraworldliness belongs to the being of the extant, nature, not as a determination of its being, but as a possible determination (GA 24: 240/169). A rock can enter a world or not enter it, but this determination is not constitutive for its mode of being. This change, from being worldless to being in the world is not inherent in what it means to be a rock, or in Heideggers words, it does not belong to natures being [ gehrt nicht zum Sein der Natur] (GA 24: 241/169). To the natural it is, so to speak, optional whether or not it takes part in the context of meaning and significance designated by being-in-the-world. The distinction between Daseins mode of being-in-theworld (In-der-Welt-sein) and that of other natural entities (Innerweltlichkeit) is therefore Heideggers articulation of the distinction between Dasein and nature. And the distinction is based on the fact that worldliness in the proper sense is necessary for Dasein, but only a possibility for natural entities, differentiating between being-in-the-world [In-der-Welt-sein] as a determination of the Daseins ontological constitution

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[Seinsverfassung] and intraworldliness [Innerweltlichkeit] as a possible but not necessary determination of extant entities [des Vorhandenen] (GA 24: 239-240/168). Traditional ontology thinks of the world as the entirety of the cosmos, as the universe, as nature in the Spinozistic sense, but this sense of nature is not at all what Heidegger means by Welt: World is only, if, and as long as a Dasein exists. Nature can also be when no Dasein exists (GA 24: 241/170). Whether we think of a stone or a chair, nature as Vorhanden is already described by Heidegger as worldless: The chair does not have a world [Der Stuhl hat keine Welt] (GA 24: 236/166). The world is something that only is or happens when Dasein happens. Only Dasein is properly understood as inhabiting a world: The world is something Dasein-ish [Die Welt is etwas Daseinsmiges] (GA 24: 237/166). There is here a deep continuity between Heideggers conception of world and the Kantian conception of nature, at least insofar as the human is understood as a contributor to the constitution of the space in which it meaningfully abides. Of course, Heidegger is always weary of the subjectivistic tendencies in these sorts of claims, especially insofar as they may come to mischaracterize the world as the product or fabrication of an active subject. Nonetheless, while not a product of Dasein, the world is not without Daseins contribution or participation: So far as the Dasein exists a world is cast-forth [eine Welt vor-geworfen] with the Daseins being. To exist means, among other things, to cast-forth a world [sich Welt vorher-werfen] (GA 24: 239/168). It is significant to note that in the very lecture course in which Heidegger introduces the ontological difference he does so by identifying it with the distinction between Dasein and nature. The ontological difference itself depends on the fact

that there is a difference between the facticity of Dasein, Daseins mode of being-in-the-world, and the factuality of nature. If naturalism were correct and all that existed were entities and nothing more, then there would be no ontological difference. Heidegger calls the difference between modes of being of Dasein and nature this radical distinction of ways of being [diesem radikalem Unterschied der Seinsweisen] (GA 24: 250/176) wondering whether there is any way of unifying these senses of being: The ontological difference between the constitution of the Daseins being and that of nature proves to be so disparate that it seems at first as though the two ways of being are incompatible and cannot be determined by way of a uniform concept of being in general (GA 24: 250/176). It is unclear what this uniform concept of being would be, since if being were simply a higher genus under which both Daseins existence and natural entitiess objective presence were subsumed, we would readily return to the view of traditional ontology and to naturalism. What is at stake in Heideggers concern is the following: either we have two radically distinct modes of being that cannot be unified and we end up in some form of dualism, or we have the threat of something like naturalism, and Dasein is simply one type of entity among others. This concern arises from the fact that the ontological difference is identified with the distinction between the mode of being of Dasein and the mode of being of nature traditionally understood.
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undermining

the distinction

Even though throughout 1926 and 1927 Heidegger insists on this distinction in a strong way, we have already noted how

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Being and Time ends by questioning the difference between Dasein and nature, or at least in warning us that it must not become something of an unquestioned dogma. While the faultlines are already beginning to appear, it is only in 1928 and 1929 that the fissures reach a critical point in the overturning of fundamental ontology and in the question of animality. Both of these moments in Heideggers lecture courses involve a naturalistic challenge to the difference between Dasein and nature, and Heidegger appears to be acutely aware that they undermine the very project of a phenomenological ontology. In a restricted sense I am claiming that the demise of Heideggers fundamental ontology happens at the hands of naturalism. The first important break can be seen in the appendix to his 1928 seminar on the Metaphysical Foundations of Logic. Here Heidegger notes that the concept of world developed within fundamental ontology leads to a necessary overturning [Umschlag] (GA 26: 196/154). This overturning is not simply a change in focus or understanding, as if we should now turn to an ontic metaphysics because we have exhausted the resources of fundamental ontology. Rather, he sees fundamental ontology and a new metontology as complementary sciences, with the former developing into the latter: precisely the radicalization of fundamental ontology brings about the above-mentioned overturning [Umschlag] of ontology out of its very self (GA 26: 200/157). In what does this overturning consist? Precisely in going beyond the radical distinction between Dasein and nature that was decisive for fundamental ontology, and in further investigating the ontic existence Dasein shares with other extant entities in a more primordial manner: Since being is there only insofar as beings are already there [Da es Sein nur gibt, indem auch

schon gerade Seiendes im Da ist], fundamental ontology has in it the latent tendency towards a primordial, metaphysical transformation which becomes possible only when being is understood in its whole problematic. The intrinsic necessity for ontology to turn back to its point of origin can be clarified by reference to the primal phenomenon of human existence: the being man understands being; understanding-of-being effects a distinction between being and beings; being is there only when Dasein understands being. GA 26: 199/156. The transformation from fundamental ontology to metontology involves noticing that even though the ontological difference only happens if and as long as Dasein is, all of this is simultaneously dependent on ontic existence. There is a strange circularity here: even though the distinction between being and beings only happens if Dasein exists in a manner different from entities, Dasein can only exist in this way and have an understanding of being insofar as beings are already there. Why should this return us to the problem of naturalism? Because Heidegger is suggesting that we think of Dasein as one entity among others that factically happens to have an ontological tendency. The dichotomy between the facticity of Dasein and the factuality of nature is going to break down, and this becomes clear when Heidegger uses the term facticity for the type of being of nature, a term he earlier reserved only for Dasein. This important moment is obscured by the translation, which, in line with Heideggers earlier claims, insists on differentiating factical and factual, hoping that this is simply a momentary terminological slip:

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In other words, the possibility that being is there in the understanding presupposes the factical existence of Dasein [die faktische Existenz des Daseins], and this in turn presupposes the factual extantness of nature [das faktische Vorhandensein des Natur]. Right within the horizon of the problem of being, when posed radically, it appears that all this is visible and can become understood as being, only if a possible totality of beings is already there (GA 26: 199/156-157). This statement would have been unthinkable in Being and Time, since here Heidegger is not only equivocating between the type of being of nature and that of Dasein, but also claiming that the facticity of Dasein presupposes the facticity of nature. The suggestion is here that beyond the difference between Daseins Existenz and natures Vorhandensein, there is a factical ( faktische) mode of being they share. Furthermore, fundamental ontology is said to depend on an understanding of a possible totality of beings [eine mgliche Totalitt von Seiendem], once again precisely the type of move that he criticized under the name of traditional ontology. Nevertheless, he claims that if posed radically enough, even the problematic of Being and Time leads in that direction. One year later and now in Freiburg, Heidegger returns to a different question that threatens to undermine the distinction between Dasein and nature, but this time through the issue of animality. Already in Being and Time, Heidegger had noted how life is somehow in between Dasein and objective presence, and that it does not fit comfortably within that dichotomy: Life is neither pure objective presence, nor is it Dasein. (GA 2: 67/SZ 50). Within the categoricals offered in

Being and Time, this exception should have become central to Heideggers analytic, however, it remains a marginal comment with no further elaboration. Heidegger attempts to deliver on this promissory note in the lecture course The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics. Here, Heidegger returns to the distinction between the worldless constitution of the stone (which now replaces the chair as the exemplar of the Vorhanden) and the world-forming constitution of Dasein (GA 29/30: 263/177). However, Heidegger places the animal as an in-between category, famously claiming that the animal is poor in world (GA 29/30: 263/177). This poverty is phenomenologically developed through a comparative and privative analysis in relation to Dasein, leading many interpreters to accuse Heidegger of certain anthropocentric tendencies.6 As Derrida has shown, Heidegger believes that when compared to Dasein there is something deficient in the as-structure (als-Struktur) of the animal, even if this deficiency is not to be understood as an absolute privation.7 While the animal is not world-forming, it does have a mode of access to entities and entities are actually phenomenologically given to the animal: whatever the lizard is lying on is certainly given in some way for the lizard, and yet is not known to the lizard as a rock (GA 29/30: 291/198).8 Animals have distinct relationships to their environments, treating entities in a manner that is fairly close to Zuhandenheit. Just as I may see a hammer as a hammer, my dog may see it as object-to-be-chewed. As Derrida, Calarco, and others have argued, Heidegger is unable to successfully articulate these distinctions. He notices that animality transcends Vorhandenheit, but cannot find a way to determine its relationship to Dasein other than through privation and comparison. In the end, the seminar ends apo-

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retically, once again showing that animality is an impasse to the distinctions essential to fundamental ontology: Thus the thesis that the animal is poor in world must remain as a problem (GA 29/30: 396/273). It is a problem that, I will argue by way of conclusion, returns us to the threat of naturalism. Once again, the distinction between the faciticity of Dasein and the factuality of nature is blurred, but now by the addition of an excluded middle. Animals are clearly a part of nature, and yet they do not necessarily fit the categories of Vorhandeheit or Zuhandenheit, challenging the notion that nature is even appropriately determined by these categories. Furthermore, if animals are somehow in a world, then Dasein is not as distinctive and unique as it would appear from the analytic of Dasein in Being and Time. More importantly, what the question of animality brings with it is the threat of something like gradualism the idea that one can be more- or less- Dasein-ish, that one can be in a world to different degrees. If that is the case, then Daseins ontological possibilities can be ontically reinterpreted as capacities or dispositional properties of a particular kind entity within a natural cosmos. Not only are animals poor in world, but many humans can be poor in world, such as children or the mentally disabled, or perhaps even the severely drunk or sleeping. The problem of world-poverty and the privative interpretation that goes along with it could be equally applied, mutatis mutandis, to infants or to humans with specific types of neurological deficiencies. The capacity to have an understanding of being, of effectuating the ontological difference, would then be explainable as an ontic capacity embedded in our material nature. The questions of animality and of metontology bring Heidegger to the brink of accepting

naturalism and to a radical blurring of the contours of the ontological difference. If Kant shrank back from the abyss of metaphysics, Heidegger did so from the abyss of naturalism. The question of being and the ontological difference cannot, he argued six years later, be understood as a mere factical occurrence.9 Heidegger neutralizes the threat of animality, reverting back to the claim that animals have no world, and leaves undeveloped the promise of metontology.10 But while these two problems helped undermine the project of a phenomenological ontology, he seems to actually return to a strong reading of the ontological difference: Because this, that we understand Being, does not just occur in our Dasein like the fact, say, that we possess earlobes of such and such a sort. Instead of earlobes, some other structure could form part of our hearing organ. That we understand Being is not just actual; it is also necessary [Da wir das Sein verstehen, ist nicht nur wirklich, sondern es ist notwendig] (GA 40: 90/88). But once some of the transcendental aspects of Heideggers phenomenological ontology are abandoned, this distinction should no longer hold. In light of the problems of metontology and animality, Heidegger should accept, at least as questionworthy, the possibility that the facticity of Dasein is related to the facticitiy of other natural entities. Our understanding of Being could then be understood as a contingent and factical occurrence, just as the size of our earlobe, or the capacities of our prefrontal cortex.

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notes

Cf. Petitot, J., Varela, F., Pachoud, B., and Roy, J.-M. (editors), Naturalizing Phenomenology: Issues in Contemporary Phenomenology and Cognitive Science (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999). Some more traditional interpreters of Husserl see this project as doomed from the very start, since, as Lawlor claims, without any question, the idea of naturalizing contradicts Husserls entire conception of phenomenology. Leonard Lawlor, Becoming and Auto-Affection: Part 2: Who Are We? Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, Vol. 30: 2 (2009), 220. Giorgio Agamben, The Passion of Facticity, in Potentialities: Collected Essays in Philosophy, edited and translated by Daniel HellerRoazen (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 188-189. Agamben, The Passion of Facticity, 189. This differentiation is repeated throughout the text, for example: Dasein, after all, always exists factically. [] But the facticity of Dasein is essentially distinguished from the factuality of something objectively present. Existing Dasein does not encounter itself as something objectively present within the world (GA 2: 366-367/ SZ 276). An excellent history and taxonomy of the term can be found in Geert Keils Naturalism, in The Routledge Companion to Twentieth Century Philosophy, edited by Dermot Moran (New York: Routledge, 2008), 254-307. See, for example, Matthew Calarco, who concludes that despite all the caveats, Heideggers discourse on animals constantly falls back into an anthropocentric framework, measuring animals against what he considers to be uniquely human capacities. Matthew Calarco, Zoographies: The Question of the Animal from Heidegger to Derrida (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 36. Jacques Derrida, The Animal that Therefore I Am, translated by David Wills (Fordham University Press, 2008), 143-160.

of beings as such as a whole (GA 29/30: 512/353). This letting-be of the whole is precisely what Heidegger, in his conclusions, denies to animality, determining its world-relation as poor in relation to Dasein: Nothing of this kind is to be found in animality or in life in general (GA 29/30: 398/274). 9 Cf. The asking of this question is not, in relation to beings as such and as a whole, some arbitrary occurrence amid beings, such as the falling of raindrops (GA 40: 6/5). 10 It is therefore troubling to note that even though Heideggers phenomenological exercise into the question of animality ends aporetically with the claim that it remains an open problem, when he returns to the question in subsequent years Heidegger does so cursorily and in a different tone. Several times he dogmatically insists that animals have no world. For example: World is always spiritual world. The animal has no world (Welt), nor any environment (Umwelt). (GA 40: 48/47). Even after problematizing the relationship between the human and nature, Heidegger constantly falls back on the distinction in very strong terms: The human being alone exists. Rocks are, but they do not exist. Trees are, but they do not exist. Horses are, but they do not exist (GA 9: 374/284).

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8 However, even if animals do have some mode of comportment towards their world, Heidegger denies the holistic understanding of being which is necessary for world-formation: World is the manifestness

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pedersen

Heideggers Critique of a Causal Understanding of Human Action


Hans Pedersen
indiana university of pennsylvania

In his 1930 lecture course, The Essence of Human Freedom, Martin Heidegger provides a detailed analysis and interpretation of Kants account of human freedom in the Critique of Pure Reason. Heideggers main focus is the way in which Kant understands freedom and, indeed, human agency in general in terms of causality. His analysis focuses on Kants development of the conception of causality and its application to human action. Heidegger argues that the traditional conception of causality cannot be used to adequately understand human action. His argument, in brief, is that the traditional conception of causality is based on a conception of temporality that cannot be used to capture the structure of the lived temporality of human existence. In his essay, On the Essence of Ground, we can find an outline of how the conception of ground (Grund) can be used to provide a way of understanding human agency that is compatible with what Heidegger sees as the unique temporal structure of human existence and a sketch of how

the traditional causal understanding of human action is made possible by grounding (Grnden). The general aim of this paper will be to try to see how to best make sense of Heideggers argument against understanding human agency in causal terms and Heideggers non-causal alternative. In essence, this is a re-construction and elaboration of Heideggers position and is certainly not meant to be a thorough defense of Heideggers views. We will begin by attempting to flesh out his argument against using the traditional conception of causality to understand human action by considering his analysis of the temporal structure of human existence in Being and Time. We will then proceed to attempt to demonstrate how Heideggers conception of grounding could provide a non-causal account of human action and how Heidegger might try to show that traditional causal conceptions of action are in fact made possible by the fundamental activity of grounding.
i.

heideggers temporal critique of the traditional conception of causality

According to Heidegger, Kants treatment of causality must be understood in terms of the connection between causality and temporality. Heidegger states bluntly that [c]ausality means temporal succession (GA 31: 150/108). To explain this, Heidegger outlines the standard Humean analysis of causality as follows: A cause is always the cause of an effect. That which is brought about we also call the outcome. An outcome is something that follows from something else. So to bring about, to effect, means to

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let-follow. As the effecting of the effect, the cause lets something follow-on, and thus is itself prior. The cause-effect relation thus involves priority and outcome: the following-on of one thing from another, succession, which Kant conceives as temporal succession (GA 31: 149/108). This familiar connection between causality and temporal succession is not a problem for Heidegger in and of itself. However, Heidegger takes the further step of arguing that this understanding of time as succession is not suitable for understanding human existence at the most basic level. The understanding of time as succession expresses the relationship between present things in time as a sequence (of nows); seen under this sequential aspect, every present thing follows on from something else present (GA 31: 159/113). According to this conception of time, the present will be the currently existing now. The future would be the now that does not yet exist, but which will arise from the present now, and the past would be that now which was present, but no longer exists. In essence, then, Heideggers approach is to demonstrate that human existence at the most basic level does not have this sequential temporal structure. To better understand Heideggers argument, I will begin by briefly outlining his analysis of human existence in Being and Time. For my purposes here, I will consider only two key aspects of existence identified by Heidegger in Division I of Being and Time : disposition (Befindlichkeit) and understanding (Verstehen). By way of explaining what he means by disposition, Heidegger provides an analysis of what is to have a mood (Stimmung), or more generally, to be attuned to the world around us (Gestimmtsein) (SZ 134). He is clear that

in talking about moods, he is not talking about the psychological description of various different moods, but rather, he is concerned with analyzing what it means ontologically to be the sort of being that has moods. Perhaps the key ontological characteristic of moods is that, [i]n having a mood, Dasein is always disclosed moodwise as that entity to which it has been delivered over in its Being; and in this way it has been delivered over to the Being which, in existing, it has to be (SZ 134). In other words, moods reveal that we are already affected by world around us before any conscious thought about how we should feel or what things should matter to us. In this way, we can be said to be delivered over to the world in which we find ourselves and delivered over to certain facts about our own being over which we have no control. Heidegger explains his conception of understanding by analyzing its structure in terms of what he calls projection (Entwurf ) upon a for-the-sake-of-which (Worumwillen) (SZ 145). Heidegger makes it clear that any for-the-sake-of-which, always pertains to the Being of Dasein (SZ 84). The example that he gives here is that of securing a house against bad weather. When we cut boards and use hammers and nails to fix the boards to the side of a house, we are doing so for the sake of providing ourselves with shelter. There is no further aim towards which our activities are directed. Insofar as we understand ourselves as beings who require shelter, we establish a world in which we understand things (at least in part) in terms of their usefulness for this project. We are able to enact various possible ways of being like being a philosopher, being a mother, being a creature that needs shelter, etc. We are able to be in different possible ways by directing ourselves out towards the enactment of these possibilities. If we think of the

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example of being a professor, we can say that by understanding myself as a professor, I am projecting myself towards the enactment of this particular way of being. The next step is to show why human existence conceived of in terms of disposition and understanding has a non-sequential temporal structure. Let us begin by looking at what it would mean to say that the future-directed aspect of our existence, understanding, has a non-sequential temporal structure.1 When we consider the examples I have been using up to this point to illustrate what Heidegger means by understanding (e.g. projecting oneself towards the possibility of being a professor), we can see that there is a problem in thinking of the temporal structure of human existence, at least as conceived of by Heidegger, as sequential. If I am a graduate student, it makes sense to see being a professor as a future way of being that I will work towards making actual. At some point, if I do all the right things and have some luck, I will actually become a professor. At this point, however, how does it still make sense for Heidegger to claim that I would be projecting forward into the possibility of being a professor? Would it not seem that I just am a professor now and that there is no need to see my existence as projecting beyond this? Heidegger recognizes the difficulty and makes it clear that he has something else in mind when he says that projection is a fundamental and essential aspect of human existence and that it is future-directed. He states, Future here does not mean a now that has not yet become actual and which sometime will be for the first time (SZ 325, tm). This does make some sense when considering the above example of being a professor. As mentioned above, one can see taking on this possible way of being as something that is achieved at some definite point in time, i.e. as a now

that was not yet, but which has become actual. However, it is also true that being a professor (or being any sort of person) is different in significant ways from completing a task like finishing a paper. Once a paper is finished, i.e. made actual, there is nothing else to be done. Possibility has been fully converted to actuality with no remainder. On the other hand, being a professor is not something that has a specific point of completion. Even after initially obtaining a position as a professor, one must continually perform all of the duties and actions that make one a professor. It is indeed a continual projection of ones existence towards this possibility that is required, and such projection can never be understood as something that can be fully actualized in any particular moment. It is, perhaps, a bit trickier to understand why Heidegger identifies Befindlichkeit as the past-directed aspect of our existence, and why he thinks that this aspect of our existence also has a non-sequential temporal structure. We can begin with the first issue: understanding why ones disposition would be past-directed in its temporal orientation. Heidegger makes the claim that, Understanding is grounded primarily in the future; ones disposition, however, temporalizes itself primarily in having been (SZ 340, tm). By way of explanation, he states, The thesis that ones disposition is grounded primarily in having been means that the existentially basic character of moods lie in bringing one back to something (SZ 340, tm) and attempts to show why we might think this by once again turning to an analysis of fear. Fear would seem to be a prime counter-example to the claim that our moods are fundamentally directed towards the past. In most (if not all) normal experiences of fear, we are afraid that something will happen in the future, and that it is precisely that possibility that some

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undesired event will occur at a future point in time that makes us afraid. Instead, Heidegger states that: in fear the awaiting lets what is threatening come back to ones factically concernful potentiality-for-Being. Only if that to which this comes back is already ecstatically open, can that which threatens be awaited right back to the entity which I myself am; only so can my Dasein be threatened (SZ 341). The idea in this passage seems to be that we are only able to find specific things fearful in light of those potentialities for being through which we understand ourselves. For instance, if I read in the newspaper that the governor wants to cut the budget for public universities again, I might very well be afraid that this will come to pass, because such cuts could result in the loss of my job. What is revealed in this experience of fear is that a crucial part of who I am is being a philosophy professor. I then experience fear when confronted with a threat to the continuance of this possible way of being, a way of being that I must have already taken up to make possible my fear in the first place. This is why Heidegger can say that disposition is a bringing one back to something, and as such, is in fact grounded primarily in having been. Now we can move on to understanding the second claim that the temporal structure of disposition is non-sequential. In pointing out that like the temporal structure of understanding, the temporal structure of disposition is non-sequential, Heidegger states, With this before we do not have in mind in advance of something in the sense of not yet now but later; the already is just as far from signifying no longer now but

earlier (SZ 327). As we saw with understanding, to say that the projective aspect of understanding is future-directed does not mean making actual a state that currently does not exist. Here Heidegger makes the corresponding claim about the temporal structure of disposition. By saying that disposition is past-directed (i.e. characterized by the already), he does not mean that in the experience of moods we are directed towards some prior state that once existed, but now no longer does. In his words, In the disposition in which it finds itself, Dasein is assailed by itself as the entity which it still is and already was that is to say, which it constantly is as having been (SZ 328, tm). That is, in the experience of a mood like fear (as we saw above), those self-understandings that we have already taken up and that have already defined us are revealed. Disposition is past-directed not because it points to something that once was actual but is no longer, but rather because it points to something that already was and continues to be. In fact, the temporality of disposition is further differentiated from a sequential temporality when we recognize that what already was in the experience of a mood is not something that ever was or that can even become actual. Instead, what already was in the experience of a mood is the future-directed projection towards some possible way of being that is not in itself ever actualizable. With these considerations in place, we can see why Heidegger would not accept any account of human action that primarily involves a conception of causality that is based on a sequential temporality. The two key components of human existence, disposition and understanding, cannot be adequately understood, if one tries to analyze their structure in terms of a conception of temporality that sees time as a sequence of

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nows. If this is the case, then the traditional conception of causality cannot be used to provide an adequate analysis of the fundamental structure of human existence and agency.
ii .

heideggers

conception of grund /grnden as an

alternative way of understanding human agency

The aim of this section will be to show what a Heideggerian alternative to the traditional causal explanation of human action might look like and to show how the traditional causal account is in fact made possible by the fundamental activity of grounding (at least on Heideggers view). To begin with, we should perhaps consider what an account of action based on the traditional conception of causality would look like. Here I have in mind something like Donald Davidsons conception of action as put forth in his essay, Actions, Causes, and Events.2 According to a fairly simple causal theory of action like this, our actions are caused by mental phenomena like beliefs, desires, intentions, etc. On Davidsons view, a reason, which is a combination of a belief and a desire, is the cause of an action. Davidson uses the example of turning on a light to illustrate what he has in mind. Upon entering a dark room, I might have a desire for the room to be lighted. I also have a belief that flicking the light switch will lead to the room being lit. The combination of this belief and desire give me a reason to perform the action of flicking the light switch, and it is this reason that Davidson picks out as the cause of the action. We can see that the sort of causal analysis employed by Davidson does implies a temporal ordering of cause and effect, namely, the cause being the reason that precedes the effect that is the performance of the action.

We find Heideggers alternative to the traditional understanding of causality in his conception of ground (Grund). Unlike the traditional conception of causality, which is derived from the idea of temporal succession, Heideggers concept of ground is based on the unique temporal structure of human existence. In his 1929 essay, On the Essence of Ground, Heidegger identifies three different aspects of grounding (Grnden): (1) grounding as establishing (Stiften); (2) grounding as taking up a basis (Bodennehmen); and (3) grounding as the grounding of something (Begrnden) (GA 9: 165/127). The first aspect of grounding, establishing, is clearly a parallel to the future-directed aspect of our existence: understanding. Still using the language of Being and Time, Heidegger states that establishing is nothing other than the projection of the for-the-sake-of-which [Worumwillen] (GA 9: 165/127). As we know from Being and Time, this projection of a for-the-sake-of-which establishes a world, i.e. a relational context of significance in which things make sense to us and matter to us. Heidegger next characterizes the second aspect of grounding, taking up a basis (Bodennehmen), as an absorption by beings, in which Dasein has taken up a basis within beings, gained ground (GA 9: 166/128). Again, this second aspect of grounding has a parallel in Heideggers earlier characterization of human existence in Being and Time, but this parallel is perhaps a bit more difficult to make clear. In this case, what Heidegger means by taking up a basis can be understood by returning to his characterization of the past-oriented aspect of existence: disposition. Recalling the earlier analysis of disposition in terms of what it means to have moods, we know that for Heidegger it is not the case that we emerge in the world

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neutrally disposed towards the things or completely indifferent to things encountered in the world. Rather, we are already disposed towards the world in some way. Due to the fact that we always encounter things in the world through our moods, we always encounter things in the world as mattering to us in one way or another. This leads to a natural, pre-reflective absorption in the things and events encountered in the world. It is this ability to always encounter things as mattering to us in one way or another that makes it possible for us to have reasons to act. Playing on the ambivalence of the word Grund, which can mean ground or reason, we can see why Heidegger maintains that it is through an absorption in the world that we gain ground. Heideggers next move is to claim that it is the interconnection of projection and absorption that first makes possible the traditional conception of causality. Here Heidegger turns to the third aspect of ground as the grounding of something (Begrnden) to demonstrate how this would work. He claims that grounding something means making possible the whyquestion in general (GA 9: 168/129). Heidegger connects this claim about the why-question to causality by stating that the answer given to the question of why something happens is generally understood to be the cause of that thing or event. This is why Heidegger says that in the grounding of something, what occurs is the referral to a being that then makes itself known, for example, as cause or as the motivational grounds (motive) for an already manifest nexus of beings (GA 9: 169-170/130). We see here the sequential temporal structure discussed above in connection to the traditional conception of causality. When we encounter some state of affairs in the world, we might be inclined to ask why things are

this way, and the answer to the why question would be some preceding events or state of affairs that could be seen as the cause of the current state of affairs. Heidegger is making a much broader metaphysical claim here about the nature of causality and the role that human beings play in the constitution of the world, but for our purposes we can focus on the implications of Heideggers views for our understanding of human agency. In order to see how Heideggers claim that absorption and projection make possible the traditional causal explanation of action we can consider the following example. Suppose I arrive to my office on campus several hours before I am scheduled to teach class. Upon entering my office, I turn on my computer and begin writing my lecture for the upcoming class. Let us focus on the action of writing the lecture, an action that is still relatively simple, but is more complex than Davidsons flicking the light switch. How could we give a causal explanation of this action using Davidsons conception of action outlined above? Perhaps on the Davidsonian view we would say that I have a desire to teach a good class later in the day and that I have a belief that spending a fair amount of time working on lecture prior to class is necessarily for teaching a good class. The combination of these beliefs and desires form a reason to work on my lecture that would be seen as the cause of this particular action. We can see how this sort of causal explanation fits with Heideggers connection of causality and the why-question. If someone were to come into my office and ask why I am working on my lecture, a sensible response to this question would be to say something like, I want to make sure I have a good class this afternoon and having a well-prepared lecture is a necessary condition for that.

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It is a little harder to see how to make sense of Heideggers claim that the first two aspects of ground (establishing a world and being absorbed by the concerns of that world) make these causal accounts of the action possible. We could say that in this case the for-the-sake-of-which towards which I am projecting myself is my understanding of myself as a professor, or perhaps even more precisely, as a responsible professor. We could say that if I were not to understand myself as a responsible professor, the action of writing a lecture would not strike me as an important or significant action. In this way, my projection of myself towards a specific way of being establishes a world in which certain actions, events, and duties can make sense to me. It is my absorption in this context of relations structured by my understanding of myself as a responsible professor that lets the action of writing a lecture matter to me. This second characteristic of being absorbed in this world is important, because it could very well be the case that I made the decision to be a professor and understood the duties involved in enacting that way of being, but felt no pull to actually perform of the actions required to be this sort of person. By understanding myself as a responsible professor, I will have gained grounds for action. That is, I will encounter events and actions as inherently meaningful and as mattering to me. Building on this line of thought, we can see how Heidegger would think that a traditional causal understanding of the action of writing the lecture is made possible by this interconnection of projection and absorption. A desire to teach a good class only makes sense within a context in which I understand myself as a responsible professor, i.e. in a context in which teaching a good class matters to me. Similarly, a belief that writing a lecture before class is necessary to teaching a good

class is something that makes sense only within the context of the norms that lay out what it is to be a responsible professor. It is my commitment to understand myself according to these norms that would allow such a belief to make sense. In general, then, we can say that it is this larger context of significance, in which certain actions matter to me, and which is opened up by my projection towards a certain self-understanding that allows causal explanations of the Davidsonian variety to make sense in the first place. At this point, it is appropriate to point out again that Heidegger maintains that the fundamental activity of grounding (constituted by projection and absorption) is not something that can be adequately analyzed in the causal terms. The traditional conception of causality relies on a sequential understanding of temporality, but for Heidegger, projection towards a possible way of being and being absorbed in the world around us exhibit a non-sequential temporal structure. Ultimately, then, we can say that Heideggers conception of grounding is not so much a wholesale rejection of the traditional causal analysis of human agency as it is an attempt to show the derivative nature of this conception of causality and its inadequacy when considered as the most basic way of understanding human agency.
iii . concluding remarks

Much more would have to be said in order to make a serious defense of Heideggers argument. There are two immediate issues that come to mind when considering Heideggers argument that merit further consideration. First, it can be asked whether the conception of causality criticized by Heidegger

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(i.e. the conception of causality in terms of temporal succession) is in fact too simplistic. There has been a great deal of philosophical effort expended on figuring out the best way of understanding causality, and it is not clear that all plausible conceptions of causality rely on the idea that the cause is distinguished from its effect primarily through the temporal priority of the cause (this is why I have tried to be careful to refer to the traditional conception of causality throughout when referring to the conception of causality based on temporal succession). It might be the case that Heideggers argument is really against the use of the simple, Humean causal analysis of human action and that other conceptions of causality that do not place such heavy weight on temporal succession could be compatible with the non-sequential temporality of human existence maintained by Heidegger. Secondly, even though Heidegger claims that the priority accorded by his account to the activity of grounding is transcendental rather than temporal, it might still be asked whether Heideggers account does presuppose the temporal priority of grounding, perhaps specifically the temporal priority of the projection towards some possible way of being. That is, Heidegger claims that grounding makes possible traditional causal explanation, but that this making possible is not itself analyzable in causal terms. Grounding has explanatory or ontological priority over the traditional causal explanation not because the activity of grounding must temporally precede causal explanation, but rather because grounding makes possible causal explanation. However, it does seem reasonable to think that the establishing of a world that occurs in grounding takes place through the projection towards a certain way of being, a projection that must have begun at some point

in time. In more concrete terms, if we return to the example considered above, one could accept Heideggers claim that my understanding of myself as a responsible professor makes possible the Davidsonian analysis of my action of writing the lecture, but that for this account to work, I would still have had to commit myself to being a professor at some time prior to this current action. This would imply that the making possible referred to by Heidegger, the establishment of a world in which my current action makes sense and matter to me, is a cause of my current action, just a cause that is further removed than the immediate, Davidsonian reason for my action. All that being said, if Heideggers account is plausible, a movement away from understanding human agency solely in terms of the traditional conception of causality would require a re-thinking of our understanding of important concepts like freedom, responsibility, and autonomy, all of which tend to be understood in terms of causality. The necessity of re-thinking what we mean by freedom in light of this argument against the traditional conception of causality might explain Heideggers focus on this concept in his writing of the late 1920s and early 1930s, and, perhaps more importantly, might open relatively unexplored avenues in the current philosophical discussion of the nature of freedom and autonomy.

notes

In the attempt to deliver such an explanation, I will rely heavily on William Blattners excellent work on Heidegger and time, Heideggers Temporal Idealism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), especially Chapter 2: Originary Temporality. Donald Davidson, Actions, Causes, and Events in Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 3-20.

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Heidegger on Discourse and Idle Talk: The Role of Aristotelian Rhetoric


Jess Adrin Escudero
universidad autnoma de barcelona, spain

Aristotle plays a fundamental role in the development of Heideggers thinking. His ontological radicalization of Aristotles practical philosophy and his hermeneutic reinterpretation of Husserls phenomenology comprise two of the basic pillars that support the complex thematic and methodological framework of the philosophical program of his youth. Interpretations of Aristotle are a recurring theme throughout his university courses in the first half of the twenties and, as Heidegger himself has pointed out in different autobiographical statements, his journey through Aristotelian philosophy ended up being crucial for the development of his own thinking.1 From his arrival in Freiburg as Husserls assistant in January of 1919, Heidegger concentrated on developing a method for accessing the phenomenon of life. At first, he found in Christian religiosity an initial historic paradigm for his project of an original science of life. However, this first attempt

did not end up coming together well. Perhaps for philosophical reasons or perhaps because of personal differences with Husserl, who had encouraged him to develop a phenomenology of religion.2 Even in May of 1919, Heidegger still considered phenomenology of religious conscience a central theme of his research. But in the 1920-1921 course, Introduction to Phenomenology of Religion, he was already hinting that entering into such complex [of Christian facticity, J.A.] is almost hopeless (GA 60: 121/86). The possibility of carrying out a truly phenomenological analysis of life was brought about with the early rediscovery of Aristotle, exactly as is attested by his programmatic written work of 1922, Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle. Directives for the Hermeneutical Situation, better known as the Natorp Report. The Arisotelian notion of practical wisdom ( phronesis) here takes the place of primitive religiosity. Evidently, it is not only a question of a simple virtue that governs our behavior, but rather of a particular openness of life, of a way of being that is fundamental to mankind which Heidegger will bring together in the concept of care (Sorge). What is the true nature of human life? What concept of man does philosophy control? Traditionally, man has been defined as an animal endowed with reason (zoon logon echon, animal rationale). If we had to find a modern equivalent to the Greek definition of man as a zoon logon echon Heidegger wonders in his 1924 summer semester lectures, Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy, we could say that the human being is a living thing that reads the newspaper (GA 18: 108/74). For a start, such a comparison seems very surprising, if not disturbing. But if it is taken into account that, in the context of these lectures, Heidegger translates the definition of man

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as zoon logon echon in the sense that the human being is a living thing that has its genuine being-there in conversation and in discourse (GA 18: 108/74). Perhaps one can better understand the background idea which is hidden behind the Heideggerian image. If we wanted to translate this image into contemporary terms, we could say without any great difficulty that any person carries out its existence by discursive and communicative means, and can carry it out either appropriately or inappropriately. With this general argument as a base, the present work is structured in two parts as follows. First, special attention is given to the significance of the revaluation of Aristotelian rhetoric that we find in the aforementioned lectures of 1924, Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy. The interpretation of Aristotle in these lectures not only allows us to better understand the role of attunement and of discourse in Being and Time, but it also calls into question some interpretations which accuse Heidegger of totally disregarding ethics and politics. Unlike Platonic dialectics which focuses on the connection between discourse and the truth of statements, Heidegger emphasizes that Aristotelian rhetoric explicitly places itself on the level of the communicability of what the speaker says to her audience. In accordance with this theory, the element of reference of discourse is not the universe of pure thought, but rather the realm of opinions and the communal system of beliefs which thus become the basic criterion for human understanding. In this way, opinion (doxa) and belief ( pistis) contain, as does idle talk (Gerede), which Heidegger addresses in Being and Time, an eminently positive sense, insofar as they open up the world to us and reveal us to others through the common element of language (logos).

And, second, it is shown how Heideggers interpretation of Aristotles logos helps him understand speech not only as language or discourse, but also as the ontological condition of speaking in and of itself. People are able to speak of the same things due to the fact that they share a common natural language; in this sense, people are able to talk about something that they are not directly familiar with firsthand. But on the other hand, they run the risk of becoming trapped in the snares of public opinion and, consequently, of never achieving a genuine understanding of things. In Being and Time, Heidegger analyzes the positive and negative consequences of this occurrence in his detailed phenomenological interpretation of everyday discourse, which is given the technical name of idle talk (Gerede).
i.

heideggers interpretation of aristotles rhetoric

Contrary to medieval systematization which, starting from the 9th century, included rhetoric in the trivium of the liberal arts, Heidegger asserts that Aristotles Rhetoric must be understood as the first systematic hermeneutics of the everydayness of being-with-one-another (GA 2: 184/SZ 138).3 This assertion, which is stated within the context of the analysis of attunement, once again seems astonishing: on the one hand, because it goes back to an Aristotle that is forgotten by the prevailing Neo-Scholastic trends in the Catholic Freiburg of the beginning of the century, and, on the other hand, because it occurred at a time in which rhetoric had fallen into deep obscurity. Heidegger specifically refers to this obscurity in the beginning of the third chapter of the afore-mentioned lectures of the summer semester of 1924, where he characterizes rheto-

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ric as the discipline in which the self-interpretation of being-there is explicitly fulfilled. Rhetoric is nothing other than the interpretation of concrete being-there, the hermeneutic of being-there itself. That is the intended sense of Aristotles rhetoric (GA 18: 110/75). Starting from the fundamental possibility of being-togehter, Heidegger carries out an interpretation of Dasein which adopts Aristotelian rhetoric as its guiding thread. Coexistence or being-together is only possible within the framework of communicability or, as Ricoeur formulates it, in the intersubjective and dialogical dimension of the public use of language (1980: 49). Rhetoric basically appeals to communication among men: Again, it is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs, but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason (logos), when the use of rational speech is more distinctive of a human being then the use of his limbs (Rhet. I 5, 1355b1-2).4 In the concrete case of rhetoric we do not move within the sphere of pure principles and axioms, but rather within the sphere of opinions (doxai). This point of view drastically changes the Platonic approach: the referential outline of opinions is no longer the ideal representation of things, but rather the representation of language. While dialectics focuses on statements from the point of view of the denotative function of language, from which conclusions can be made about the credibility of said statements, rhetoric centers its interest on those same statements from the point of view of the communicative abilities of language, from which now emerge conclusions about its ability to persuade. Rhetoric thus introduces itself as an instrument which determines the requirements that lines of argument

must fulfill, as an instrument of selection and justification of persuasive statements. This is to say that the meaning of a definition is produced in the order of what is said; dialectic formulas refer to other forms of a preexisting language and of a body of beliefs. Doxa, as a common element of all individuals in a community, constitutes the starting point of moral discourse, of philosophical arguments, scientific disputes, political discussions, etc.5 Therefore, doxa expresses a true basis of wisdom in an already constructed and recognizable language. In this sense, rhetoric possesses a clear political aspect that refers to the space of coexistence that is intersubjectively shared with others. Contrary to those interpretations which maintain that Heidegger simplifies the analysis of ethical virtues and that he detaches Aristotelian praxis from its connection to the political community,6 we find in his commentary on Rhetoric an unusual interest in the political aspect. Heidegger explains that this rhetorical-political aspect shows a different side of the zoon logon echon: Insofar as the human being lets something be said, he is in a new respect. He lets something be said insofar as he hears. He does not hear in the sense of learning something, but rather in the sense of having a directive for concrete practical concern (GA 18: 111/76).7 The Greeks, and specifically Aristotle, clearly saw that logos comprises the fundamental determination of mans being; furthermore, the Greek definition of man in terms of a zoon logon echon is no accident, but rather it echoes the way in which the Greeks primarily understood themselves within the framework of their coexistence in the polis (see GA 18: 110/76).8 Heideggers stimulating transposition of Greek philosophical language to contemporary vocabulary invites us to under-

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stand the phenomenon of logos as a concept that is specific to human life. Heidegger pleads against the metaphysical tradition that restricts logos in a unilateral way to its propositional and categorical dimension. In consequence, Heidegger is unable to accept the classical definition of man as an animal endowed with reason since it reduces mans humanity to his rationality. A rejection, incidentally, that he shares with Kant, who thinks that mans nature is neither determined by his rationality (Vernnftigkeit) nor by his animality (Tierheit), but rather by his spirituality (Geistigkeit), that is to say, by his personality. Contrary to the traditional definition, which reduces man to a thing among things, Heidegger highlights the practical, emotional, communicative, and dialogical components of human life. In this sense, he interprets logos primarily as language, as the ability to speak, and, above all, as the capacity to discover par excellence. In all texts from this time period one can clearly see that Heidegger defines the function of language from the Aristotelian perspective of logos, interpreted as an openness and as a privileged access to the entity, that is, as a primordial form of human lifes disclosedness. In his different exegeses of De interpretatione, carried out in the lectures of 1923-1924, 1925-1926, and 1929-1930, Heidegger considers statements, and language in general, as an act of discovery, as an unveiling behavior which human life sets in motion in its relationship with the beings its encounters in world.9 Implicit in this interpretation of logos as openness, Heidegger asserts, is an entirely peculiar, fundamental mode of being of human beings characterized as being-with-oneanother, . These begins who speaks with the world are, as such, through being-with-others (GA 18: 46/33). Evidently, it is not a simple question of being-placed-one-next-

to-the-other, but rather of being-as-speaking-with-one-another through communicating, refuting, confronting (GA 18: 47/33). Logos, as speaking, is the ontological basis of livingtogether (koinonia) in being-in-the-polis. On this respect, Heideggers interpretation of Aristotelian rhetoric sheds new light on the political aspect of human existence. Until now, much has been written about the role that pathos play in these lectures of 1924,10 since they refer directly to the analyses of attunement (Befindlichkeit), of mood (Stimmungen), and of the temporary structure of Dasein that are present in Being and Time.11 Within this context, it is sufficient to remember the place that pathos holds in Heideggers interpretation of Rhetoric. These which Heidegger translates as affects (Affekte) are not states pertaining to ensouled things, but are concerned with a disposition of living things in their world, in the mode of being positioned toward something, allowing a matter to matter to it. The affects play a fundamental role in the determinations of being-in the world, of being-with-and-toward-others. (GA 18: 122/83) In our case, it seems more interesting to highlight Heideggers interpretation of logos and doxa. In section 15 of the aforementioned lectures of the summer semester of 1924, rhetoric, which for Heidegger is nothing other than the interpretation of being-there with regard to the basic possibility of speakingwith-one-another (GA 18: 139/96), is intimately related to doxa, since as he himself says is the mode in which living knows from out of itself (GA 18: 138/94.) In other

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words, is the mode in which we have living there in its everydayness (GA 18: 138/94). But this means that logos remains in the rhetorical-political sphere of opinions (doxai) as the true means and object of conversation. This interpretation is precisely the one which Heidegger supports when he asserts that in , and on its basis, one has to do with the world in the way that one lives in the world in an everyday manner and has to do with things. One does not have to investigate everything with regard to its concrete content; what others say about it is what one thinks about it (GA 18: 151/102). In this sense, doxa carries a positive aspect that Heidegger analyzes phenomenologically. Doxa is not only limited to the practical world, but rather reaches out the entire world (GA 18: 150/101), that is, it opens us up, first of all, to the world and to other people: The world is there for us as what-iswith-one-another in discoveredness, insofar as we live in . Living in a means having it with others. That others also have it belongs to opinion (GA 18: 149/101). Opinion is something that, by nature, is shared and, therefore, something that refers to living-together (koinonia). Likewise, the credibility of an opinion depends on who is supporting it: With an , it does not matter who has it. For a valid proposition, it does not matter who I am ; that contributes nothing to the elucidation, to the being-true, of what is known. By contrast, the one having the view is, as such, co-decisive for . [] In , the matter itself does not only speak for itself to the extent that it is uncovered, but it also speaks for who has the view. Accordingly, the stability of a is not exclusively

grounded in the state of affairs that it conveys, but in him who has the . (GA 18: 150/102) The reason which explains the importance of who supports the opinion lies in the koinonia in the fact that we live in a community in which men are already distinguished from one another and in which the mood (ethos) of one speaker seems more truthful and believable than that of another. But these differences can be overcome. To opinion belongs as Heidegger points out the ability of revision: Its sense is to leave a discussion open (GA 18: 151/102) and allow the basic possibility of being-against-one-another (GA 18: 138/94). However, neither can one lose sight of the danger of falling captive to the opinions that circulate in the public sphere of the polis. The possibility of falling lies precisely in the fact that man exists in dialogue and in speech: It is this possibility that being-there allow itself to be taken in a peculiar direction and become absorbed in the immediate, in fashions, in babble. For the Greeks themselves, this process of living in the world, to be absorbed in what is ordinary, to fall into the world in which it lives, became, through language, the basic danger of their being-there. The proof of this fact is the existence of sophistry. (GA 18: 108/74) Thus, the rhetorical-political sphere in which we live makes a first undertstanding as well as an inauthentic understanding of the world possible: on the one hand, doxa opens us up in advance to the world with our already being familiarized with it, and, on the other hand, this same familiarity with the world can end up determining our ways of behaving. Doxa carries

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the possibility of exercising a characteristic control by means of the undetermined and everyday self (Man) (see GA 18: 150151/101-102). Doxa, in short, provides the basis of and the impetus to conversation (to the speaking-with-one-another); phrased differently, doxa is the source of the the genuine orientedness of being-with-one-another-in-the-world (GA 18: 151/102). In this context, one can very clearly observe the homologies between Aristotles doxa and Heideggers Gerede.
ii .

rede

and the peculiar function of gerede

In Being and Time, discourse (Rede) constitutes, together with attunement (Befindlichkeit) and understanding (Verstehen), one of the fundamental ontological characteristics of human beings. Rede is a technical term which denotes more than the mere ability to speak. Rede is the articulation of intelligibility that Dasein possesses by virtue of its communicative competence, which, at the same time, allows it to share the same world with others (see GA 2: 213-214/SZ 161-162). Unlike the conventional concept of language exclusively understood as a transmitter of propositional content, Heidegger highlights the dialogical, communicative, expressive, and performative components of discourse. Discourse promotes action. Therefore, it is not surprising that Heidegger includes the phenomena of listening and being silent as discoursive elements, since both of these refer to the intersubjectively shared world and to the language practices with which we are already socialized. In any case, keeping with Heidegger, the peculiarity of the human ability to use language to communicate is its function of openness to the world. By sharing a natural language, speakers not only share a conventional system of signs, but,

much more importantly, they share the same way of speaking about the things in their world that can be shown. Because of this, understanding language is never a question of hearing sounds, but rather of understanding the significant expressions of the world. Knowledge of the world and knowledge of language are two inseparable elements. This explains why speakers, through communication, are able to acquire an understanding about the world which transcends their own personal experience. However, for the same reason, they can become misinformed, deceived, and manipulated through communication. Speakers are able to speak about something that they are unfamiliar with or that they do not fully understand. In order to show the positive and negative consequences of this innovative point of view, Heidegger offers a detailed phenomenological analysis of everyday speech, to which he assigns the technical name of idle talk (Gerede) (see GA 2: 222-226/SZ 167170).12 The analysis of Gerede in Being and Time seems fascinating and problematic for several reasons. On the one hand, idle talk as the way of speaking within the framework of the public one (das Man), first of all, controls and levels out all interpretation of the world. This idea, for example, was fruitfully developed by the representatives of the Frankfurt School, in particular by Herbert Marcuse, who wrote his dissertation under the academic tutelage of Heidegger. And, on the other hand, the function of Gerede seems problematic within the framework of what Heidegger calls Daseins falling (Verfallenheit). This corresponds to Heideggers provision of two different definitions of the term and, furthermore, his using it to refer to two different, though interrelated, phenomena, without any advance warning.

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First, let us observe the two definitions that Heidegger provides for Gerede: 1) Idle talk is the possibility of understanding everything without any previous appropriation of the matter (GA 2: 225/SZ 169) Idle talk is constituted in this gossiping and passing the word along (GA 2: 223/SZ 168). One first clear difference between the two definitions is that the first conveys a particular type of communicative act that speakers can actively engage in the form of gossiping and passing the word along, while the second refers only to the passive capacity of linguistic understanding that speakers possess simply by the fact of knowing a language. Without a doubt, these two phenomena are internally related, but they are not identical (see Lafont 2005: 5-6). Linguistic competence is a condition that is necessary for any type of communication using language (such as gossiping and passing the word along), but the reverse is not the case. A speaker with normal linguistic competence could decide not to perform the act of gossiping and passing the word along, but, in contrast, she could not decide to not understand the meaning of the terms available in her language and still have linguistic and communicative competence. Therefore, we find ourselves before two perceptions of Gerede : one passive and the other active. The passive form of Gerede (idle talk), which does not involve any communicative act, is what Heidegger calls Rede (discourse), that is, the articulation of the intelligibility of the meaningful whole in which Dasein previously lives (see GA 2: 214/SZ 161). In its passive meaning, Gerede refers to a specific possibility contained in Rede, namely, the possibility of having an understanding of something without previous appropriation of the matter. According to Heidegger, this is possible because in accordance

with this intelligibility, the discourse which is communicated can be understood to a large extent without the listener coming to be being toward what is talked about in discourse so as to have a primordial understanding of it. () One means the same thing because it is in the same averageness that we have a common understanding of what is said (GA 2: 223/SZ 168). Here, Heidegger points out the obvious fact that speakers are able to speak of the same thing, and understand to a certain degree what is said, thanks to the fact that they share a common language, even without being directly familiarized with those things which are being talked about. For example, one can be informed of the risks of lung cancer without needing to have previously acquired a medical knowledge of this disease. Therefore, it is worth distinguishing between a genuine understanding and an average understanding. The average understanding that one can have of lung cancer is not negative per se. Rather the opposite, the purpose of communication is to share the public knowledge at our disposal. The purpose of communication is to make sharing experiences and information possible among speakers who previously did not have them, otherwise, communication would be redundant. In principle, there is nothing against such a practice, particularly to the extent that the acquisition of information and knowledge stems from those who have a genuine understanding of what is spoken, that is, from the experts on that subject, from those who do not have a mere average understanding of it. As long as this is the case, our gossiping and passing is perfectly justified by reference to those that have such authority. In fact, we can only hope to acquire the genuine understanding that the experts already have by learning from them. All the same, sometimes one asks

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the question of how expert understanding and average understanding are different, if all speakers that share the same language have as is stated in the beginning of the section dedicated to idle talk the same concepts. What is different among speakers is the accurateness of their respective understanding of those concepts by virtue of their different technical abilities, personal experiences, professional authority, and knowledge background. Nevertheless, things are not so simple. Behind these positive aspects of everyday discourse lies the risk not only of overgeneralization, but also of certain determinability. Indeed, the communicative acts of Gerede do not seem as free as they had appeared at first. Communication does not allow us to expand our knowledge beyond our individual experience. In fact, much of what we know comes from this source, that is to say, our average understanding always surpasses our direct and primary understanding: We get know many things initially in this way, and some things never get beyond such an average understanding. () The domination of the public way in which things have been interpreted has already decided upon even the possibilities of being attuned (GA 2: 225/SZ 169, em). In this sense, the term Gerede, as a structural possibility, is a necessary characteristic of Rede, and, therefore, of the disclosedness of Dasein. However, as Heidegger quickly points out, once communication is set in motion it is almost impossible to distinguish what have been disclosed in a genuine understanding or in an average understanding. This is especially clear in the case of written communication, in which the average understanding of the reader will never be able to decide what has been drawn from primordial sources with struggle, and how much is just gossip (GA 2: 225/SZ 169).

Here is where one can begin to see the negative aspect of Gerede, which, as it reaches increasingly broader circles, loses the primary relation of being to the being spoken about (GA 2: 224/SZ 168). Gerede thus ends up taking on an authoritative and normative nature that decides in advance the way to interpret things: Dasein can never escape the everyday way of being interpreted into which Dasein has grown initially. All genuine understanding, interpreting and communication, rediscovery and new appropriation come about in it, and out of it and against it (GA 2: 225/SZ 169). Now Gerede is interpreted as an existential, that is, as a way of being of Dasein, characteristic of its falling tendency: Dasein itself presents itself with the possibility in idle talk and public interpretedness of losing itself in the they, of falling prey to groundlessness (GA 2: 235/SZ 177). And the more one becomes immersed in Gerede, the more one falls and gets lost. In this way, Gerede loses its initial neutrality and acquires a negative sense. As Heidegger describes it, this is a process where Dasein passes from the initial lack of ground to complete groundlessness inherent to gossiping. Dasein has the tendency to content itself with the average understanding that Gerede provides. As is shown in the section dedicated to falling prey and thrownness, idle talk and ambiguity, having-seen-everything and having understood-everything, develop the supposition that the discolsedness of Dasein thus available and prevalent could guarantee to Dasein the certainity, genuineness, and fullness of all possibilities of its being. In the self-certainity and decisiveness of the they, it gets spread abroad increasingly that there is no need of authentic, attuned understanding. (GA 2: 235/SZ 177)

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But this possibility of falling that is contained within Gerede is not in itself a negative phenomenon that necessarily sentences Dasein to inauthencity by the mere fact that it participates in everyday discourse. As Lafont points out, we must bear in mind that the negative and positive aspects of Gerede analyzed by Heidegger are part form a contiunuum and not an all or nothing affair (2005: 10). The same choice of words that Heidegger uses to describe Geredes reflects this process in which the initial lack of grounds characteristic of everyday communication degenerates into the complete groundlessness of idle talk. Trivialization and simplification are the true culprits behind Daseins thrownness and inauthenticity. Its mistake consists in be anchored to average understanding and stop looking for new ways of understanding. The average understanding is just our common point of departure. The fact that Dasein shares a common language does not prevent it from achieving a primordial relationship with the entities and with its own being.13 The social nature of language shows that Dasein always retains in Gerede an understanding of the open world, which necessarily becomes the starting point of all interpretive and communicative activity. But, as Heidegger points out, the inevitability of connecting with the public average understanding of oneself does not exclude the possibility of transforming this understanding. Being and Time is the perfect example of such a possibility. In short, the social nature of language does not itself lead to groundlessness. In the preliminary analysis of the definition of logos that Heidegger offers in the first sections of the 1924 lectures, Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy, we already find this dual negative and positive possibility. In

logos as a possibility of speaking about something [and] speaking with others (GA 18: 19/15) there is a common intelligibility is given, which has a peculiar character of averageness (GA 18: 20/16), but this logos was also used by the Greeks in order to determine the being of the human being itself in its peculiarity (GA 18: 20/16). From the perspective of these lectures, one better appreciates the extent to which Heideggers analyses of Rede and Gerede and his notion of everyday communication are fed by a weighty interpretation and a stimulating appropriation of Aristotelian rhetoric. Perhaps now we better understand the viewpoint which, at that time, inspired the surprising and disconcerting assertion of Being and Time : Aristotles Rhetoric must be understood as the first systematic hermeneutic of the everydayness of being-with-one-another (GA 2: 184/SZ 138).

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works cited

Adrin, J. (2009). El lenguaje de Heidegger. Diccionario filosfico 19121927. Barcelona: Herder. Aristotle (1924). Rhetorica. In The Works of Aristotle (vol. XI). Oxford: Clarendon Press (edited and translated by W.D. Ross). . (1925). Nichomachean Ethics. In The Works of Aristotle (vol. IX). Oxford: Clarendon Press (edited and translated by W.D. Ross). Carman, T. (2000). Must We Be Inauthentic? In M. Wrathall & J. Malpas (eds.), Heidegger, Authenticity, and Modernity (pp. 13-28). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Gross, D. (2005). Being-Moved. The Pathos of Heideggers Rhetoric Ontology. In D. Gross & A. Kemmann (eds.), Heidegger and Rhetoric (pp. 1-45). Albany: State University of New York Press. Kisiel, Th. (1993). The Genesis of Heideggers Being and Time. Berkeley/ Los Angeles: University of California Press. Lafont, C. (2005). Was Heidegger an Externalist? Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, 48 (6), 507532. McNeill, W. (1999). The Glance of the Eye. Heidegger, Aristotle and the Ends of Theory. Albany: State University of New York Press. Metclaff, R. (2007). Aristoteles und Sein und Zeit. In A. Denker et al. (eds.), Heidegger-Jahrbuch 3. Heidegger und Aristoteles (pp. 156169). Freiburg/Mnchen: Karl Alber.. Plato (1986). Charmides. Indianapolis: Hackett. Pggeler, O. (1999). Martin Heidegger und die Religionsphnomenologie. In Heidegger und seine Zeit (pp. 244-258). Mnchen: Fink Verlag. Rese, F. (2003). Praxis und Logos bei Aristoteles. Handlung, Vernunft und Rede in Nikomachischer Ethik, Rhetorik und Politik. Tbingen: J.C.B. Mohr. Heidegger und Aristoteles (pp. 170198). Freiburg/Munchen: Karl Alber. Ricoeur, P. (1980). La metfora viva. Madrid: Ediciones Cristiandad.

Rosen, S. (2004). Phronesis or Ontology: Aristotle and Heidegger. In R. Pozzo (ed.), The Impact of Aristotelianism on Modern Philosophy (pp. 248-265). Washington: The Catholic University of America Press (Studies in Philosophy and The History of Philosophy, 39). Smith, P. Ch. (1995). The Uses and Abuses of Aristotles Rhetoric in Heideggers Fundamental Ontology: The Lecture Courses, Summer, 1924. In B. Babich (ed.), From Phenomenology to Thought. Errancy and Desire (pp. 315-333). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Taminiaux, J. (1991). Heidegger and the Project of Fundamental Ontology. Albany: State University of New York Press, Albany. Volpi, F. (1989). Sein und Zeit. Homologien zur Nikomachischen Ethik. Philosophisches Jahrbuch, 96, 225240. . (1996). La Question du logos dans larticulation de la facticit chez le jeune Heidegger, lecteur dAristote. In J.-F. Courtine (ed.), Heidegger 1919 1929. De lhermneutique la mtaphysique du Dasein (pp. 3365). Paris: J. Vrin. Weigelt, Ch. (2004). Logos as Kinesis. Heideggers Interpretation of the Physics in Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie. Epoch: A Journal for the History of Philosophy, 9(1), 101116.

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notes

This study has been funded by the Spanish Department of Science and Education (Project reference: FFI2009-13187). See, for example, the famous letter to Richardson (Heidegger 1974), the autobiographical remembrances in My Way in Phenomenology (Heidegger 1976b), and the forward to the first edition of Frhe Schriften (GA 1: 55-57). Undoubtedly, Aristotle is one of the authors who Heidegger devoted an considerable part of his energies during his first lectures in Freiburg and Marburg, including the unfinished project of writing a book on Aristotle as we know thanks to the Natorp Bericht. As Pggeler remembers, in 1920 Heidegger expressed to Karl Lwith his indignation regarding Husserl, who still considered him a theologian rather than a philosopher (see Pggeler 1999: 249252). In this sense Heidegger conceives rhetoric as a possibility (dynamis) rather than a technique (techne), namely the possibility of speaking in certain ways (see GA 18: 114119/78-81). Similar textual evidence in Pol. I 1, 1253a918, and Pol. VII 12, 1332b5. Heidegger recognizes in his commentary on the first book of Topics that doxa is the basis for practical behavior as well as for theoretical attitude. Doxa is the specific form of being-in-the-world; to phrase it differently, world comes to presence in doxa (see GA 18: 152-154). See Rosen 2004: 250ff, Taminiaux 1991: 131, and McNeil 1999: chap. 2-4. For a rhetorical and political reading of Heideggers interpretation of the Aristotelian text, see Metclaff 2007: 156-169, and Gross 2005: 1-45. Heidegger takes here up again the idea expressed later in Being and Time that the original meaning of logos is aphophansis: to let beings be seen from themselves (GA 2: 205/SZ 154). Heidegger shows how the different translations of logos (like reason, judgment, definition, concept, or statement) derive from the original meaning of

apophansis. But it occurs in other passages of Being and Time, this reference to Aristotle is really succinct, and makes difficult to recognize to what extend his early phenomenological interpretations of Aristotle are fundamental for understanding his later analysis of language, attunement, truth, temporality and care, among other examples. 9 Among other passages, see GA 17: 13-41, GA 21: 162-179, and GA 29/30: 441-473. For a more detailed analysis of the peculiar function of logos in early Heidegger, see Rese 2003, Volpi 1996, and Weigelt 2004.

10 See in particular the paragraphs regarding the fundamental role of mood ( pathos) in human life and the concrete analysis of fear ( phobos) in Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy (GA 18: 18 and 21, respectively). 11 See, for example, Smith 1995: 315-333, and Kisiel 1993: 276308. 12 Idle talk (Gerede) is an inauthentic mode of discourse (Rede). Together with ambiguity (Zweideutigkeit) and curiosity (Neugier), idle talk constitutes Dasein in its everydayness. Literally, Gerede means the whole, as the German collective prefix Ge- denotes, of what is said, that is, Gerede is the whole of what one says, one thinks, or one discusses in the diffuse context of openness. Therefore, one should avoid interpreting Gerede in the pejorative sense of gossip, rumor, chatter, or prattle. For more information regarding the technical meaning of Gerede see Adrian 2009: 98-99. 13 See for more information Carman: 2000: 21-22.

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Preserving Play in The Origin of the Work of Art


Catherine Homan
emory university

Describing Heideggers The Origin of the Work of Art, Mihai Spariosu states that the essence of the artwork, and therefore of poetry as well, can be defined only as play.1 Similarly, Ingeborg Heidemann claims that the concept of play is essential for an integrated interpretation of the entirety of Heideggers philosophy.2 The artwork is filled with playful elements: the agonistic play (Widerspiel) or strife between world and earth, the origin as a springing forth, the work as spontaneous and created. Furthermore, the place where truth happens is a Spielraum, a playspace or leeway. Both writers suggest the founding of the artwork is playful, yet they focus almost exclusively on the strife between world and earth. Yet if we are to take seriously Spariosus claim that the essence of the artwork can only be play, then we must take stock of how the artwork as play fits with Heideggers understanding of art as a whole. Heidegger claims that art is the creative preservation of truth in the work (GA 5: 65/49), but it is this creative preservation that is missing in most discussions of play in Heidegger. I suggest expanding the scope of play beyond the world-earth strife to encompass founding and creative preserving as well.

Heidegger identifies play as a free, but rule-bound happening that requires particular comportment. Furthermore, play is autotelic and takes shape in an original (ursprngliches) creation of playspace through playing (GA 27: 312). This mirrors, I claim, his characterization of preservation. Looking at these dimensions of play in art lends a greater richness to Heideggers account that also expands the locus of play beyond the play of power. I would like first to examine the accounts of play in The Origin of the Work of Art given by Heidemann and Spariosu before turning to Heideggers own analysis of play. Following this, I suggest how we expand discussions of play to other dimensions in art and the artwork.

widerspiel

Heidemann locates playful language in Heideggers text primarily in the Widerspiel between both world and earth and appearance and being, as well as in the Spielraum of the clearing that enables this strife. According to Heidegger, Truth happens only by establishing itself in the strife and space [Spielraum] it itself opens up (GA 5: 49/36). Heidegger believes that each artwork is the site of this strife in the setting up of a world and setting the forth of the earth. The work erects the world, and setting up and worlding of the world in the work of art is what allows the beings of the world to presence. However, because the earth presences itself as self-closing and the world is the clearing and opening of paths, there is fundamentally a belligerent struggle between the two. The earth resists any attempt to presence itself, whereas the world resists any closing, thus In its resting upon earth the world strives to surmount it. As the self-opening it will tolerate noth-

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ing closed. As the sheltering and concealing, however, earth tends always to draw the world into itself and keep it there, (GA 5: 35/26). Based on the dynamic play of forces in this strife, Heidemann identifies this relationship as Heraclitean struggle.3 Furthermore, like Heraclitus flux, the strife is never something resolved or concluded. In fact, world and earth are only what they are so long as they remain in this struggle. However, the battle is not merely one of destruction. Rather, there is an important intimacy and unity between the powers of world and earth. Earth is the unforced coming forth of continually self-closed and self-sheltering (GA 5: 35/26) so that although the world resists any concealment, it does not rip the earth out from its seclusion; rather it allows the earth to show itself as self-concealing. Thus, in this struggle, world and earth intimately belong together. Heidegger writes, In the struggle, each opponent carries the other beyond itself and the opponents admit themselves into the intimacy of their simple belonging to one another (GA 5: 35/27). Although the strife marks a fundamental rift (Riss), we should not think of this as a sort of tearing asunder, but as the common ground and shared outline (Umriss) (GA 5: 50/38). It is this intimacy in the struggle that provides the unity of the work, such that the rift structures and gives rise to truth. In this way, this intimacy of the rift also provides the unconcealment of beings. Heidegger writes, The essence of truth is in itself the ur-strife [Urstreit] in which is won that open center within which beings stand, and from out which they withdraw into themselves (GA 5: 42/31). What is won in the battle between earth and world is not one over the other; rather what is won is truth. For Heidegger, however, truth is not correct correspondence, but unconcealment, for which Heidegger uses the Greek

altheia. However, because the earth resists unconcealment, the unconcealment as altheia is never total unconcealment. For this reason I believe the play of the world of earth to be more than merely cosmic play, for the play is not only between forces, but also with the beings that are brought forth. Thus while I believe Heidemanns and Spariosus discussions of strife to be correct, I find they treat this dynamic too much as a kind of cosmic play at the cost of a fuller discussion a kind of play that attends to the participation of beings in play. What seems particularly important to Heidegger is the play of poetic projection and the participation of creator and preserver. Poetry, as the projective saying of being and the settinginto-work of truth, is founding in three senses: bestowing, grounding, and beginning. To each of these modes of founding belongs a mode of preserving. As a primal leap, Ursprung, the work cannot be derived from what went before it. Rather, it is fundamentally original. Because it is not derivative, it also marks a surplus, an overflow or bestowal. Finally, as this immediate original beginning, it provides its own ground and opens up its own space. Thus for Heidegger, the origin of the work of art is marked by exuberance, spontaneity, and a surplus of energy, which points to the playful dimension of poetic projection.
mitspieler

Martina Roesner claims play is convertible, though not necessarily identical, with every major theme in Heideggers thought.4 Play offers a way to think through Heideggers ideas because the structure of play both reflects the structure of the world and because engaging Heideggers thought is a kind of

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play. Play enables us to enter into possibilities by liberating us from the ordinary world while simultaneously providing us with access to that world. So, play is not devoid of truth or knowledge, but accesses it in a very different way. Thus Heideggers play marks genuine existential possibilities. Heidegger characterizes play in his Freiburg lectures as the dynamic between being and beings situated in a playspace or leeway. Dasein as leeway marks a horizon of possibility that is not deterministic, but allows things make themselves present. Fundamental for Heidegger is plays original character, its autotelic nature, and its horizon for possibilities, including the possibility of bringing beings into unconcealment. Heidegger suggests we can speak of different kinds of play, but they all belong to play. Play as play has four dimensions, namely 1) play does not proceed according to a sequence of procedures, but is a simultaneously free and rule-bound happening, 2) what is important is not the behavior as such, but rather the finding of ones self thereby in play, 3) the rules first form in play; playing plays itself and brings forth its own rules as it brings itself to play, such that 4) the play rule does not exist somewhere outside the play, but is found in and through playing and in creating its own space (GA 27: 312). Only through playing, through being-in-the-world, do the rules and norms arise and are the play and players found. In this way, play is fundamentally spontaneous and original. Furthermore, the play is not subjective since it does not happen within the subject. The subject rather happens in play; beings are Mitspieler with being. Thus being-in-the-world in play provides the possibilities for understanding being, of finding oneself thereby. Play is fundamentally world-formation. Thus play is not to be understood as merely frivolous, but as serious. Although play

is a break from the everyday, we take it seriously in our giving ourselves over and attuning ourselves to play. Heidegger continues these thoughts much later in The Principle of Reason., coupling the history of being with play. Heidegger alters Leibnizs principle of reason such that it is when God plays, rather than when God thinks, that the world comes to be. Heidegger emphasizes that this formulation itself belongs to the history of being, Geschick. He writes, When we use the word Geschick in connection with being, then we mean that being hails us and clears and lights itself, and in clearing it furnishes the temporal play-space wherein being can appear (GA 10: 91/62). Again we have the sense that being lays a claim on us, invites us into that playspace that it itself clears and makes room for in order to show itself. Geschick is a kind of founding and grounding that enables the history of being to be made present, not in terms of a chronology that passes away, but as a proffering and withdrawing (GA 10: 91/62) that yields something in its partial unconcealment. Heidegger here refers again to the world play of Heraclitus: Life is a child playing, moving the pieces in a game: kingship belongs to the child.5 Thus Heidegger takes the Geschick of being to be the child playing. He continues, By the gentleness of its play, the greatest royal child is that mystery of the play in which humans are engaged throughout their life, that play in which their essence is at stake. Why does it play, the great child of the world-play Heraclitus brought into view in the aion? It plays because it plays. The because withers away in the play. The play is without why. It plays since it plays. It simply remains a play: the most elevated and the

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most profound. But this simply is everything, the one, the only. The question remains whether and how we, hearing the movements of this play, play along [mitspielen] and accommodate ourselves to the play. (GA 10: 168-9/113) Four things can be gathered from this description. First, we see again that play is autotelic, that is, it does not have an external goal. The why of play disappears into that play, not so that play is completely devoid of purpose, but that the purpose of play cannot be thought outside of play. It intends itself. The childlike nature of play points to something wanton or lawless, but again it develops its own order as it plays, much like a kind of dance rather than a definite procedure. Second, the essences of humans are at stake in play. This is compatible with Heideggers characterization of play in Einleitung in die Philosophie where he speaks of play as providing the possibility of being. Third, there remains the question of how and whether we play along and accommodate ourselves to the play. Note that although Heidegger does not answer this question himself, he poses it in such a way as to assert the primacy of shaping ourselves to that play rather than seeking to dominate or master it. Thus, as Mitspieler of Dasein, we are caught up in this play and are played as much as we play. Play is something ecstatic insofar as it takes us outside of ourselves. Fourth, this play is quite serious business as it is the most elevated and the most profound, especially because essence is at stake. It is perhaps worth noting, too, that the play of the greatest royal child is gentle rather than violent. John Caputo suggests in his essay, Being, Ground, and Play in Heidegger, that because beings are the Mitspieler or toys of being, there remains a fundamentally agonistic element

to this play between beings and being. It is true that there is great risk involved, particularly when Heidegger emphasizes the abyssal nature of being, yet I think agon ought not be our starting place in thinking through Heideggers play, for we risk thinking of play then as merely violent without also thinking of the openness, self-determination, intimacy, and horizon of possibility that belong to play. We do need to remember the strife involved, but I take it to be less central than these other features. Caputo does, however, provide a rich explanation of the relationship between being and play: Being is not a sober, rational process for Heidegger. Nor can thinking be sober logic. Being is play; thinking is playing: intimating, symbolizing, poetizing, associating, hinting, revealing, concealing. Play is not only what Heidegger means by Being; it is also the way we must speak about it. Being, outside the ordinary sphere of things (beings) is an extra-ordinary play. Thinking, outside the serious occupation of considering the connections between things, is an extra-ordinary attempt to play along with Being.6 Caputos analysis echoes that provided by Roesner: not only is being itself playful, but our ability to speak about and think through being is possible through play. Play fundamentally lets things be in such a way that we do not turn our backs on those things, but allow them to make themselves present. So, while we cannot calculate or determine being, we mortals can still hear and address ourselves to the movements of its play.

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preserving play

Thus I propose we think of play as original, spontaneous, autotelic, a free, but bound, happening, self-creating, occurring only through play, a horizon of possibility, a space for unconcealment, and a way of understanding not prefigured or derived. Based on this, I believe preservation of works of art is fundamentally playful precisely because of its original, spontaneous, and creative bringing forth beings out of unconcealment and setting into work of truth, thus as the Mitspieler of the work. Because the artwork does not exist or become actual before it opens up a region for itself, the work is original and spontaneous. In the strife of the world and earth, a center is won, a place is brought forth. Only this clearing grants us human beings access to those beings that we ourselves are not and admittance to the being that we ourselves are (GA 5: 40/30). This space, which Heidegger describes as a playspace, develops through the play between world and earth. Beings belong to the clearing as players belong to play. We have access to ourselves and others in ways we would not otherwise have. The clearing is a spontaneous horizon of possibility of understanding and truth. Play happens, too, in the constant play between concealment and unconcealment that allows the clearing to occur. Truth is a happening, Ereignis, marked by this play of concealing and unconcealing. It is not static. Although the strife between the world and earth is the locus of truth in the work, this truth of the work must include the works createdness. Creation is not production, but the bringing forth of what is present out of concealment into unconcealment. The artist enables the work to come to presence. In so doing, the artist is not master over her materials,

but is attuned to them in a certain way. She must attempt to set up the work, but in so doing, she must also let the work be. She enters into play with the work. As bringing forth, creation is original in two senses. First, there is the mutual origin of the work and artist in play. Second, this bringing forth is in fact a springing forth, an origin, that is unique in its creation. The work transports us out of the usual and into this openness. We let this displacement happen, we dwell with the work, and in so doing, all familiar relations are transformed. This transformative nature of the work also points toward the involvement of the audience, of the preserver. Preserving is allowing the work to be a work, allowing the unconcealment of beings to happen. Like the creator, the preserver brings beings forth through standing within, knowing, and willing. Thus, The knowing that is a willing, and the willing that is a knowing, is the existing human beings allowing himself ecstatic entrance into the unconcealment of beings (GA 5: 55/41). The preserver does not force the work, but wills her active attunement to the unconcealment. Preservation allows the work first to speak for itself. In this way, whereas the work makes creators possible, it also needs preservers to let this bringing forth happen. Just as play cannot happen without players, the work cannot happen without creators and preservers. Because we allow ourselves entry into some extra-ordinary, preservation, like play, is ecstatic. Preservation is also autotelic. We do not seek to preserve a work in order to get something out of it. Rather, we let the work be and submit ourselves to it. We expose ourselves to the horizon of possibilities and let ourselves be played by and in the openness at work. Furthermore, preservation is spontaneous and original. The space of preservation does not exist prior to preserva-

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tion, nor could preservation exist without the work. We enter into play with the work as soon as we turn to it and let it be. Heidegger writes, Thus art is: the creative preservation of the truth in the work. Art is, then, a becoming and happening and truth (GA 5: 59/44). This happening, this creative preservation, is fundamentally originary becomes it comes from nothing. As play, it exists only as it opens up the space for itself. It is not made up of ordinary things; it is projected. Heidegger draws on this idea of projection by insisting that all art is essentially poetry, because poetry is a projective saying that allows the unconcealment of beings. Poetry as poetry, thus not as a particular poem, enables the playspace for both works and beings. Poetry allows the open to happen in an originary way, so that beings for the first time are brought to shine. This relationship is not causal, but transformative. Poetry furnishes the playspace in which beings can appear, which is how Heidegger characterizes the play of Geschick. As language, poetry names things and thus brings them to appearance. It is the saying of the unconcealment of beings. Since poetry is this projection and throwing open of the open, it is also the founding of truth. Heidegger thinks of founding in a threefold sense: as bestowing, as grounding, and as beginning. But it only becomes actual in preserving. Thus to each mode of founding there corresponds a mode of preserving (GA 5: 63/47). Preserving thus always maintains this originary, foundational role. The work springs forth and is projected toward preservers, who receive it and attune themselves to it. Because the setting-into-work of truth is always extra-ordinary and cannot be derived from the everyday, there must be an overflow or superabundance to the work. Heidegger char-

acterizes this as founding as bestowal. It is a gift. This echoes discussions of play, too, as characteristic of excess energy and superabundance. Nietzsche, for example, in The Will to Power explicitly refers to the artists work as superabundant play: the useless-as the idea of him who is overfull of strength, as childlike. The childlikeness of God, pais paizon.7 However, because this bestowal is extra-ordinary, there remains strife between it and the ordinary. We are displaced when we enter into the open; what was ours is no longer so. Furthermore, because what we encounter could not be derived from before, it is truly a springing forth. There is no ground for it ahead of time. Grounding is this second instance of founding. Because what we encounter is originary, it is truly a springing forth. However, it is only in grounding that there is ground, similar to how the playspace exists only in playing. Poetry projects the truth toward humans; everything which is through must be fetched forth and grounded. Because of the strife between the ordinary and extra-ordinary, founding is also a beginning. It is a sudden leap, yet this leap includes both preparation suggested by historical existence and the leap ahead into the future. Beginning always contains this threefold fullness of past, present, and future. As a leaping ahead, beginning entails a thrust that enters history such that history either begins or resumes (GA 5: 65/49). History is the transporting of people into the appointed task, and as such marks a beginning, a bestowal. Although Heidegger wrote The Principle of Reason several years after The Origin of the Work of Art, I think we can consider this beginning of the appointed task of history as the playful Geschick of the history of beings that allows beings to become partially apparent. Geschick also maintains the sense of this task, as

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schicken means to send, to give, and Geschichte is history. Thus we might say that the appointed task given to us through the beginning founding of poetry is to be Mitspieler of Dasein. Heidegger points to history again in claiming that not only is art the creative preservation of truth, but also fundamentally historical. By this he means that art itself grounds history. He suggests that art allows truth to arise [entspringen]. Art arises as the founding preservation of the truth of beings in the work. To allow something to arise, to bring something into being from out of the essential source in the founding leap [Sprung] is what is meant by the word origin [Ursprung] (GA 5: 65-6/49). In this sense, then, preservation as founding is originary play. Preservation allows the playspace of to arise, allows the beings to come forth, and so is this founding leap that allows for truth to happen. Preservers are thus Mitspieler, not only in playing with the work, but in playing with this happening of truth and being. Based on this, I believe the discussions of play that emphasize the agonistic play of world and earth speak of a particular form of play, just as preservation is a form of play. I believe that for Heidegger, play as play is fundamentally this openness to and willingness to play along. Through its self-development and actualization, play provides a space characterized by a negotiation between freedom and necessity. These two are not pitted against one another, but mutually inform each other. Play requires letting the other be. Even in the strife of world and earth, the opponents allow each other to appear in their individuality, and only through their intimacy can they appear as such. Finally, play always marks a horizon of possibility, even in terms of the possibility of the play itself.

For Heidegger, it seems that these particular types of play, such as those found in The Origin of the Work of Art point to a more originary sense of play between beings and being, between beings and the unconcealment of truth. We see this in The Origin of the Work Art as truth happens both through the strife of world and earth, as well as through creative preservation and founding. We find that through play, beings come to presence. In a certain sense, however, beings are never outside of play. In his discussion of The Origin of the Work of Art, Gadamer writes that the understanding of being is not a self-projection. Rather, it knows that it is not master of itself and its own Dasein, but comes upon itself in the midst of beings and has to take itself over as it finds itself. It is a thrown projection.8 Thus we find ourselves in the middle of being, but we must choose how to attune ourselves to it. When we choose to play with being, when being lays claim upon us, we encounter something extra-ordinary and play along. One possible way to play with being is through preservation of the work of art. What is most important is that through play, we find ourselves and participate in the happening of truth and history of being.

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notes

Mihai I. Spariosu, Dionysus Reborn: Play and the Aesthetic Dimension in Modern Philosophical and Scientific Discourse (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), 104. Ingeborg Heidemann, Der Begriff des Spieles und das sthetische Weltbild in der Philosophie der Gegenwart (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1969), 353-4. Ibid., 341. In Heideggers discussion of the presence of gods in the tragedy, just prior to his discussion of the strife of world and earth, he makes reference to Heraclitus Fragment 53, stating Rather, it transforms that speech so that now every essential word fights the battle and puts up for decision what is holy and what unholy, what is great and what small, what is brave and what cowardly, what is noble and what fugitive, what is master and what slave (GA 5: 29/22). Martina Roesner, Metaphysica Ludens: Das Spiel als Phnomenologische Grundfigur im Denken Martin Heideggers (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003), 309.

ANOTHER LOOK AT HEIDEGGERS HERMENEUTICS


James Risser
seattle university

5 Heraclitus, Heraclitus: Translation and Analysis, trans. Dennis Sweet (Lanham: University Press of America, Inc., 1995), 52. 6 John Caputo, Being, Ground, and Play in Heidegger, Man and World 3, no. I (1970): 44. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage Books, 1968), 797. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Heideggers Later Philosophy, in Philosophical Hermeneutics, ed. David E. Linge (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 218.

In this paper I want to explore in a distinct way Heideggers characterization of hermeneutics as it emerges out of phenomenology. My approach here is to proceed from Heideggers first formulation of hermeneutics in his early lecture courses where he describes hermeneutics in relation to Aristotles concept of logos. His early analysis raises three issues that require greater clarification: 1) the hermeneutic character of articulation; 2) the unique character of the jointure in hermeneutic articulation; and, 3) the movement from seeing to saying in hermeneutic articulation. When Heidegger first turns to the hermeneutical in his lecture courses during the early 1920s, he does so by way of an extensive treatment of the phenomenological method. This treatment is in fact Heideggers attempt at clarifying his earlier work on the problem of transcendental logic and the theory of categories that was guided largely by Husserls methodological standpoint of phenomenological immanence.1 Still following Husserl, Heidegger is now convinced that philosophy itself, as phenomenological explication, is a reflective clarification rather than theoretical explanation, since the

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theoretical itself is in need of clarification. Such clarification will require, then, access to the pre-theoretical, to what he calls elsewhere a certain unity of natural experience,2 as the original evidence-situation of philosophy.3 But the accessibility of the pre-theoretical is precisely the problem, or better, is that which inaugurates the turn to the hermeneutical. The original evidence situation, which Heidegger will soon call factical life, and will eventually call Dasein, is one that can only be accessed in a continual movement of rigorous gaining access.4 This is so because factical life is not a datum for consciousness, but that which is constituted by a basic motility (Grundbewegtheit) in which the knower is already in the hold of, already involved in. The continual movement of gaining access amounts to an interpretative seeing within the motility of life, and the reflective clarification sought, Heidegger calls a hermeneutics of facticity. From the outset, then, the character of the hermeneutical within phenomenology has little to do with interpretation in the ordinary sense of explicating a foreign object. To begin with, the interpretive seeing that is to be commensurate with the hermeneutic situation will necessarily incorporate a transformation of the categorical. The continual gaining access to the original evidence-situation will require that the very categories that define being in a situation must be taken hold of interpretatively, i.e., unlike pure logical forms, the categories must be consonant with the method that would gain access to this original pre-thematic having of life. The categorical structures of the pre-thematic situation are thus themselves interpretive accomplishments (Vollzge), which are in effect paths in the process of understanding.5 They are formally indicating, providing access to the phenomenon through a

directional sense; and, the enactment of this movement constitutes an act of understanding.6 These indications are formal, not as something opposed to the material, but as an empty intention that must be gone through relative to an accomplishment or actualization. Only through these interpretive accomplishments, as Heidegger argues in his 1921-22 lecture course, can phenomenological explication bring to fruition [zeitigen] the vitalization of the genuine binding claim of the object and thereby bring about a genuine grasp of the object.7 The hermeneutics of hermeneutic phenomenology then will be commensurate with the phenomenon so understood. When Heidegger takes up hermeneutics as a theme for the first time in his 1923 lecture course, he introduces it through a brief account of the historical concept of hermeneutics, and notes that with Aristotle, , as a function of , makes something accessible as being out there in the open, as being available.8 One cannot help but to be amazed at the brilliance by which Heidegger is able to interpret the word beyond its ordinary sense so that it immediately resonates with the phenomenological task of accessing intuitive givenness.9 Although Heidegger expands this definition in the context of the principal theme of the lecture course, namely, factical life, he still in effect repeats Aristotle. Heidegger writes: Hermeneutics has the task of making Dasein which is in each case our own accessible to this Dasein itself with regard to the character of its being, communicating Dasein to itself in this regard, hunting down the alienation from itself with which it is smitten [geschlagen].10 While the third aspect of hermeneutics described here, the hunting down of alienation, alludes to the ruinant quality of factical life that disperses and covers itself overand perhaps also to the dimen-

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sion of destructuring that hermeneutics enacts with regard to the traditionthe first two, accessing and communicating, are decidedly qualities of an Aristotelian hermeneutics. This reliance here on Aristotle is by no means incidental. Heidegger discusses Aristotles conception of the in his 1923-24 lecture course Introduction to Phenomenological Research, and then more significantly in his 1925-26 lecture course on logic. Even more remarkable is that after the publication of Being and Time Heidegger devotes a significant portion of the last part of his 1929-30 lecture course Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics to the hermeneutical character of the Aristotelian . If we were to ask then what exactly constitutes the character of interpretation on the basis of this first indication, we would soon be on more familiar ground if we say that interpretation accomplishes this accessing and communicating precisely by making manifest, bringing into the open; it would be a matter of letting the phenomenon, as that which in its givenness shows itself, be seen. We can add to this classic formulation from being and Time that the accomplishing of this seeing occurs, as Heidegger tells us in a late seminar in which he looks back on his early work, by traversing an open expanse as the very being of Dasein.11 Most decisively, to traverse an open expanse is to make a crossing, a transfer () that carries one thing to another. The accomplishing of this transfer, to use familiar language once again, is an explication (Auslegung). Every transfer is at once a laying out, and this means in relation to its formal indicating character, a working out of that which is, as phenomenon, a being-at-workwhat in Aristotelian language we would call . To turn these remarks back towards the direction from which they started, we can say

finally that this transfer, which in phenomenological terms amounts to the creation of sense, is what we ordinarily call articulationthe sounding of speech that carries one thing to another in relation to a joining, to a jointure (Fuge). But what is ordinary here is in fact essential to the character of interpretation. The forming of the joint, jointure, is precisely what Heidegger identifies as the as-structure of interpretation. The as, in the sense of seeing-as, taking-as, displaying-as, is the jointure with respect to the crossing and carrying over. The as, in other words, is the condition under which all of our usual modes of interpretation such as metaphor and translation have their interpretive character. *** From this familiar description, let us note just how Heidegger characterizes the hermeneutical in his various treatments in his lecture courses of Aristotles (hermeneutical) conception of the .12 As we know, Aristotles principal treatise on the , De Interpretatione, is not in fact concerned with interpretation as we understand this word today, but principally with what in logic we call the declarative sentence, . That Heidegger is able to view this logical treatise as a treatise on hermeneutics has much to do with the early project of clarifying the theoretical and ultimately with raising anew the question of being. In its simplicity, Heidegger in effect clarifies the status of the logical in its determination from and in corresponding fashion lets the character of the hermeneutical emerge from the Greek , which in its ordinary meaning concerns how we express thoughts through

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words. To proceed then in outline fashion, let me make just three points. First, in relation to this ordinary sense of , Heidegger tells us that gives something to be understood. It gives something to be understood by a signifying () that comes initially, and perhaps primarily, through the voice. In his 1923-24 lecture course, Heidegger describes this basic character of the as audible being that means something, it is a voice.13 The voice is that which pertains to the being of the living and thus the sound of the voice is distinctive in relation to other kinds of sound such as a cough or a knocking at the door. The basis for the distinction is noteworthy. Quoting Aristotle Heidegger says that the sound of the voice is different from other sounds because is contained in the very middle of it.14 Without further elaboration Heidegger notes that the sense of here indicates that something shows itself in the voice so that the sound is a voice if, by means of it, something is to be perceived (seen).15 When Heidegger again considers this distinction in his 192930 lecture course, he is more concerned with drawing a more pronounced distinction between the human and animal voice, and the notion of does not arise. The sound that an animal makes is indeed indicating something, but it is not an articulated sound, such that, although animals can even reach agreement among themselves, none of the utterances are words. They are vocal utterances () that lack meaning (Bedeutung).16 This distinction allows Heidegger to claim that the human alone has the ability to apprehend something as something, that a vocal utterance is a word only when a symbol occursa point I will return to in a moment. On the basis of this distinction, Heidegger claims that non-human

animals produce only noises, even though they also can reach agreement among themselves. This distinction also allows Heidegger to claim further that meaning is not a property added to utterances, but rather the reverse, the sound is forged from meanings that are forming and have already been formed.17 Second, understandability, then, requires not just speech but words, it requires articulated speech, and this is to say that the is , by agreement, which consists in the generation of . Our modern word symbol which conveys the sense of a sign that represents something else fails to capture what is at issue in the Greek . As Heidegger points out, means holding something together with something else joining them to and with one another. therefore means joint, seam, or hinge, in which one thing is not simply brought together with the other, but the two are held to one another, so that they fit one another.18 As in the breaking of the two halves of a ring, the is the agreement between two that provides the identity of one to the other. Accordingly, occurs only where an agreement () and a holding together () occur, and this, as Heidegger points out, is more than a matter of the logical as such. In the recognition that is not a mere product of nature Aristotle wants to affirm that words emerge in relation to an essential agreement of human beings with one another whereby they are open in their being with one another for the beings around them, which they can agree or disagree about. that is is not only generative with respect to itself, it is also tied to the condition of human transcendence. To this determination of the Aristotle then adds the more familiar characterization that has the capacity to exhibit, in effect to make

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explicit, what it refers to and thus the ability to apprehend what is being talked about. most properly is the articulation of intelligibility insofar as every is a a statement that points out through its capacity to reveal or conceal. The articulation of intelligibility in other words depends on speech that can be true or false. But as Heidegger points out, the condition under which concealing and revealing are possible is the ability to take something as something, and the determination of something as something is the real hermeneutical character of the . All articulation has the structure of (taking) something as somethinga relating in which the taking together also takes apart, as the very structure of explicitness. Understandability is thus achieved by rendering beings explicit, which in turn is achieved in the as-structure. Third, within this direction of establishing the character of the hermeneutical Heidegger now asks about the structural condition that makes as such possible. Continuing with the analysis of the statement, Heidegger notes with Aristotle that the ground of the possibility of revealing or concealing in the statement is the formation of a unity, a that posits a taking together; for example, the statement the chalkboard is black must take together chalkboard with the quality of being black. But equally so, Heidegger points out, every is a that separates, takes apart, for something can be held together with another only if this holding together in itself remains a holding apart.19 The more specific character of a statement to either affirm or deny what is held together depends on whether the pointing out in the statement points toward something or points away from something.

To ask then how Aristotle grounds this synthetic structure of the , Heidegger remarks that the subject matter contained in the must have already become accessible.20 When I make explicit through a statement, as in his example the chalkboard is black, I already have the chalkboard present to me as something uncovered through my involvement with it. The chalkboard is already posited in meaning, it already makes sense [bedeuten].21 Since this prior disclosing amounts to having something as something, the as-structure is not necessarily related just to predication, but pertains to every act of having something before our eyes. This prior pre-predicative as-structure is the condition for the possibility of every such that the statement the chalkboard is black amounts to a thematic presentation of what is already disclosed: the chalkboard as black can then be rendered a insofar as it is b, or a is b.22 The acts of directly taking something, having something, dealing with it as something are so original, Heidegger tells us, that trying to understand anything without employing the as requires a peculiar inversion of the natural order. All experience is in effect an as-structure experience and, this allows Heidegger to claim that the asstructure belongs essentially to our comportment (Verhalten) such that making sense of something is always an act that has an as-structure.23 Heidegger then extends his analysis of the as-structure in our comportment to the world by noting precisely how the act of sense making unfolds. If the as has the function of disclosing something in terms of something, this synthesizing relation of bringing together and taking together within our fundamental comportment to the world must be grasped in relation to the directional sense of sense making. That direc-

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tional sense in existing is given in relation to the end for which I take the thing as given and encountered. According to Heidegger, in apprehending and understanding one has always already gone further ahead such that in order to understand one must come back from this being-out-ahead to that which is encountered.24 In this returning from what can be called an anticipation of meaning is the disclosing, and ultimately for Heidegger this movement is one that time itself constantly makes; the as is ultimately grounded in the ecstatic-horizonal unity of timeliness, which in effect is the first principle of hermeneutics.25 In this way of sense making the world is opened up for existence; the world is effectively made accessible by a movement of articulation, of carrying one to another through a joining. Such a joining constitutes the as-structure as the structure of understanding which belongs to Dasein. Interpretation is thus, in our familiar language, the articulation of this understanding that belongs at once to as discourse, for, as Heidegger notes in his 1925 Logic lectures, I am, qua Dasein, speaking, going, understanding, going about by understanding.26 *** The above summary analysis, though, does not exhaust Heideggers analysis of the hermeneutical character of the logos. There are at least three issues that require greater attention, and by briefly attending to each we can not only say something more about the character of interpretation in hermeneutic phenomenology, but also say something about the consequences for a hermeneutical philosophy in general. All three issues pertain to what transpires in every articulation.

First, the issue of articulation as taking together. In Being and Time, Heidegger writes: Intelligibility is always already articulated before its appropriative interpretation. Discourse is the articulation of intelligibility.27 From our summary we know exactly what this means: in the fundamental having of life from which sense making unfolds, there is already an apprehending, not of something in itself, by itself, but as one thing with another. The tool is apprehended in relation to other instruments, I move about in relation to a where-from and a where-to. Articulation as , an assembling and taking together, occurs in this having of life. Such assembling is what is conveyed by the as, signifying thereby a relation such that the as is never given on its own. Every as points to something which stands in the as, and equally points to some other thing, as which it is.28 What is apprehended is not a what seen by itself but a what-as. All interpretive seeing is in effect a matter of indirection: a this here as that. While it is the case that I must have the chalkboard in view as something unitary in order to take apart in a statement what has been apprehended, I do not have direct access to the immediately understood thing. This relation of indirection introduces not only the issue of transfer in hermeneutic phenomenology, but also the general sense of comparisona pairing in which one passes from one given to another. What is first seen is already compared, and, in the seeing of life where the as is rooted in the basic comportment of life, to the being-there that traverses an open expanse, the comparison unfolds more dramatically in a movement, not as the comparing of equals but of unequals. One could well argue that the actual demand for interpretation arises only with this inequality. This comparison of inequality is not strictly speaking the issue of comparing

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otherwisethe issue that Heidegger calls in his 1923 lecture course the disturbability of inexplicit familiarity;29 that is to say, it is not strictly speaking the issue of understanding of the strange in which interpretation is spaced between familiarity and strangeness. Rather, the comparing of inequality is what arises in the order of being when the comparing is made in relation to a possibilizing component that carries me away from myself; in effect, by virtue of projection (upon possibilities) I am unequal to who I am. Now, leaving aside the existential analytic of Dasein, any comparison that proceeds to compare what is non-equal is precisely what we call metaphora transfer from one to another that involves a shift in equality to what does not properly belong to it. To state the first issue accordingly, in being given over to articulation, at a certain point and in a certain context, the taking together encounters an impertinence in the comparison that does not just issue in the demand for interpretation but marks its essential character. Such an impertinence is precisely what one encounters in the articulation of intelligibility that is discourse, i.e., language. Discourse is itself this impertinence insofar as it does not acquiesce to the formalized unity of the concept whereby discourse is able to remain within the sphere of the merely logical. In speaking we relate one word to another by running ahead of the concept, transferring from one word to a disparate word, not waiting for the determination in advance of a common identity. The impertinence is in effect in the very middle of language as the metaphoricity of language that involves concept formation.30 For Heidegger being as such has this metaphoricity. If he does not name it as such we know that the formulation of the problem of being is indebted to the classical sources that

saw the problem of being as the problem of analogy.31 This is the problem taken from Aristotle of understanding the relation between the different senses of being and being itself as a similarity based on analogy. Formulated in this way, it implies that being itself is relational with respect to difference. Accordingly, interpretation in hermeneutic phenomenology can only unfold what it takes together though this impertinence, which is to say, through the as. This brings me to the second issue, namely, the issue of articulation as jointure. This is not the issue of the taking part that goes hand in hand with every taking together as much as it is the issue of the differential element in the as-structure. To bring this issue quickly into view, it is interesting to see just where the issue of jointure actually emerges for Heidegger in his treatment of the in his lecture courses. While the 1925 Logic lectures forcefully demonstrate the derivative character of thematic statements so that as can never be made the clue for the question of what an entity is,32 by the time he gives the lectures on worldhood with its extended treatment of in 1929, Heidegger has begun the turn to the question of being as such, and in doing so attends to the in a slightly different way. What is different here is the emphasis he places on the relationality that is located in the copula of a sentence. This allows Heidegger to make the claim that propositional discourse is not, in general, about being, yet it is of being, of beings as they are, in their being.33 After reminding his audience about the character of , Heidegger asks: in all this pointing out and apprehending comportment towards beings in discourse, a guiding understanding of the is, of being (not only of beings), manifests itself. How

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does [such being] relate to what we came to know as the fundamental structureto and , to the as?34 His question is meant to draw attention to the copula, but this is to say that the elucidation of the as goes together with the question concerning the essence of the is, of being, which taken together unfold the problem of world, i.e., the manifestness of beings as such as a whole. Heidegger answers his question by inquiring back into the ground of the possibility of the structure of and , acknowledging that in Being and Time he fell victim to the illusion that this ground was exposed by starting with the primary form of the as a positive and true assertion.35 Heidegger now says that the ground of the must be seen in relation to all the transformations in the assertion, which include being either true or false, being both positive and negative. The ability for a comportment that points out beings in this multiple way is grounded in being free for beings as such, and the is grounded accordingly in such a relation.36 The dramatic point Heidegger wants to make here is that is not an originary making manifest through which beings as such lie open. The merely takes apart what is already manifest, and the issue turns to a consideration of how beings themselves are already manifest, which is to return to the issue of world-formation. As noted, world is the manifestness of being as such as a whole. Attending now to this as a whole, Heidegger notes that the whole admits the manifestness of manifold beings, which is not to say that it is merely the multiplicity of things at hand. Rather, the as a whole brings with it the undifferentiatedness of the manifestness of beings within which we move,37 and the issue then hinges on the possibility of dis-

tinguishing, which is for us the re-emergence of the issue of articulation.38 As the final stage in his analysis, Heidegger describes this articulation through what he calls the fundamental occurrence that is involved in world-formation. This occurrence has the character of projectiona unique kind of action that carries those who project out and away from themselves, as a raising away into the possible. At the same time, this raising away binds us to making possible; the projection is thus an opening for making possible, and in this opening, Heidegger tells us, is the irrupting of the between of being and beings.39 Such irrupting is, in other words, the articulation of being. Only insofar as this irrupting has occurred, Heidegger adds, that affirmation and denial become possible, that questioning itself becomes possible. Accordingly, in this world-formation we are able to see the ground of the as the original unity of and . Projection, as raising away, takes apart () in such a way that it brings together () what has been projected. And this means that projection is the relating in which the as springs forth.40 The as designates the structural moment of the originarily irruptive between, and this is to say that what gives itself, what shows itself, is already moving within the as, moving within the irruptive jointure. In his continuing efforts to express this articulation, Heideggers subsequent thought can remain hermeneutical while it distances itself from its phenomenological beginnings. If we now take these first two issues together, we have a clear path to the third and final issue. With the second issue we see even more dramatically than we did with the first issue that the as is not a simple pivot of being otherwise. In fact, if the as, which now we see defines the hermeneutical, merely

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introduces being otherwise, there would be little to distinguish hermeneutics from dialectics. Is it not be the case, as we see for example in the reading of history, that every as that issues from the demand for interpretation have this irruptive moment such that the carrying over from one thing to another involves not an ordinary differencethe difference of being otherwisebut a fantastic difference? It is a difference made fantastic because the carrying over from one to another occurs not by mediation through opposition, but precisely as irruptive. And if so, would this not also mean, to return to Aristotle and the character of the hermeneutical here, that is hermeneutical and not merely a matter of the logical precisely because it is able to accommodate this fantastic difference. This brings us directly to the third issue, namely, the issue of articulation as voiced. Despite what Heidegger says about the derivative character of the apophantic as in the 1925 Logic lectures, one cannot dismiss so quickly the priority of speech in interpretation. Discourse is, after all, the articulation of intelligibility, communicating, in Aristotelian language, the of the , what the hermeneutics of facticity calls the having of life. For hermeneutic phenomenology this priority entails that a passage is made from seeing to saying, from having seen to talk, from interpreted seeing to articulated letting be seen, i.e., voiced. But how is this passage enacted? What, in other words, constitutes this carrying across that crosses from seeing to saying, and thus constitutes, in effect, hermeneutic phenomenology? Given what we have seen so far, the answer would undoubtedly have something to do with projecting (from our second issue), if not also synthesizing (from our first issue). We do know on the basis of Heideggers remark from his summer 1925 lecture course on the history

of the concept of time, that this crossing is not a strange leap for hermeneutic phenomenology. Noting that phenomenology placed expressedness (Ausdrcklichkeit), as a comportment through meaning, in the foreground of the question of the logical, Heidegger says that our simplest perceptions and constitutive states are already expressed, even more, are interpreted in a certain way. What is primary and original here? It is not so much that we see the objects and things but that we first talk about them. To put it more precisely: we do not say what we see, but rather the reverse, we see what one says about the matter.41 What Heidegger means here is that as expression, perception involves a communicating, but more so, it is pervaded by what Husserl called categorial intuition that revivifies for Heidegger the Aristotelian .42 Returning then to Aristotle for the last time, let us recall that the is the articulation of intelligibility precisely because, from the start, is a signifying voice, i.e., unlike ordinary , the sound of the voice is articulated sound. But this articulation rests, in fact, on a prior articulation that makes possible the crossing from seeing to saying, or better, constitutes the crossing as such. To have voice, and thus articulation, depends as Aristotle notes, on occurring in the very middle of it.43 What occurs by virtue of is the appearing of the sensed image, but for such appearing, to let something be seen in the voice, can only mean that there is, beyond perception, the articulating of perception, thereby constituting seeing as a seeing as.44

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According to Aristotle if is that by which we speak of some image as being present to us it is one of those powers in virtue of which we make distinctions [],45 i.e., to distinguish something as something. In this as-structure will likewise exhibit the structure of taking together and taking apart. The taking together is not the adding together of perceptions, but, in the manner of , an interweaving of perception and opinion, crossing from seeing to saying. It is that enables, for example, one to take something as white, in effect articulating, and thereby interpreting, transferring into sense. What appears is not merely the this here of perception, but the this here as whitean irruptive sense making. Accordingly, what is given in experience for phenomenology is already articulated; what is given has been given over to interpretation, and given over at once to the voice. What appears in the voice, then, is something of the fantastic, and thus names the hermeneutics of hermeneutic phenomenology.

notes

See Steven Crowell, Question, Reflection, and Philosophical Method in Heideggers Early Freiburg Lectures, in Phenomenology: Japanese and American, ed. Burt Hopkins (Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998), p. 204. See Martin Heidegger, Towards the Definition of Philosophy, trans. Ted Sadler (New Brunswick: The Athlone Press, 2000), p. 173-74. This text is a translation of Zur Bestimmung der Philosophie, Gesamtausgabe Bd. 56/57 (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1987). See also, Heidegger, Phnomenologie des religisen Lebens, Gesamtausgabe Bd. 60 (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1995), p. 90-93. See Heidegger, Phnomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristotles, Gesamtausgabe Bd. 61 (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1985), p. 35; English translation, Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle, trans. Richard Rojcewicz (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), p. 28.

4 Heidegger, Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle, p. 119. 5 the term category refers to something which, according to its sense, interprets a phenomenon in a direction of sense, in a determinate way, at the level of principle, and brings the phenomenon to intelligibility as the interpretatum. Heidegger, Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle, p. 65. See Crowell, Question, Reflection, and Philosophical Method in Heideggers Early Freiburg Lectures, p. 214. The notion of formal indication is prominent throughout Heideggers early Freiburg lecture courses where he discusses the phenomenological method. Commentaries dealing with these early lecture courses include Theodore Kisiel, The Genesis of Heideggers Being and Time (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), and John van Buren, The Young Heidegger (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994). For a detailed discussion of formal indication see Daniel Dahlstrom, Heideggers Method: Philosophical Concepts as Formal Indications, Review of Metaphysics 47 (June 1994): 775-795.

7 Heidegger, Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle, p. 125. 8 Heidegger Ontologie (Hermeneutik der Faktizitt), Gesamtausgabe 63

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(Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1988), p. 11; English translation, Ontology The Hermeneutics of Facticity, trans. John Van Buren (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), p. 8. 9 As the title of the treatise De Interpretatione, is simply taken to mean the explanation of how we express thoughts through words.

21 Heidegger, Logic: Die Frage nach der Wahrheit, p. 144. 22 This point in persuasively demonstrated by Dahlstrom, Heideggers Concept of Truth, New York 2001. 23 Heidegger, Logic: Die Frage nach der Wahrheit, p. 146. 24 Heidegger, Logic: Die Frage nach der Wahrheit, p. 147. 25 Heidegger, The Concept of Time, trans. William McNeill (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1992), p. 20. 26 Heidegger, Logic: Die Frage nach der Wahrheit, p. 146.

10 Heidegger, Ontology The Hermeneutics of Facticity, p. 11. At the very outset of the lecture course, Heidegger says that [t]he expression hermeneutics is used here to indicate the unified manner of engaging, approaching, accessing, interrogating, and explicating of facticity. (p. 6) 11 See Heidegger, Four Seminars, trans. Andrew Mitchell and Franois Raffoul (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003), p. 69. 12 In the analysis that follows, I am deeply indebted to the work of Thomas Sheehan, who early on had noted this connection to Aristotle for an understanding of Heideggers hermeneutic phenomenology. 13 Heidegger, Introduction to Phenomenological Research, trans. Daniel Dahlstrom (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005) p. 10. 14 Heidegger, Introduction to Phenomenological Research, p.11. 15 Heidegger, Introduction to Phenomenological Research, p.11. 16 Heidegger, Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik, Geamtausgabe Bd. 20/30 (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1983), p. 444; English translation, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, trans. William McNeill and Nicholas Walker (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), p. 307. 17 Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, p. 307.

27 Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), p. 203. 28 See Heidegger, The Fundamental Concept of Metaphysics, p. 288. 29 Heidegger, Ontology The Hermeneutics of Facticity, p. 77. 30 See Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. Donald Marshall and Joel Weinsheimer (New York: Continuum Publishing, 1989), 429. 31 This connection to the problem of analogy is discussed by Rodolphe Gasch in The Tain of the Mirror (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986). 32 Heidegger, Logic: Die Frage nach der Wahrheit, p. 159. 33 Heidegger, The Fundamental Concept of Metaphysics, p. 322. 34 Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, p. 322-23. 35 Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, p. 336.

18 Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, p. 307. 36 Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, p. 339. 19 Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, p. 316. 37 Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, p. 354. 20 See Heidegger, Logic: Die Frage nach der Wahrheit, Gesamtausgabe Bd. 21 (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1976), p. 143. 38 The distinction between being and beings always already occurs in such a way that being, although undifferentiated, is indeed under-

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stood at all times in an inexplicit articulation. At least with respect to what-being and that-being. Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, p. 357. 39 Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, p. 364. Heidegger has an interesting reference to Schelling at this point. Noting that the projection unveils the being of beings, Heidegger adds: for this reason it is, as we may say in borrowing a word from Schelling, the look into the light of a possible making-possible [Lichtblick ins Mgliche-Ermglichende] in general. (p. 364) 40 Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, p. 365. 41 Heidegger, The History of the Concept of Time, Prolegomena, trans. Theodore Kisiel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), p. 56. 42 See Jacques Taminiaux, Heidegger and the Project of Fundamental Ontology, trans. Michael Gendre (Albany: SUNY Press, 1991), p. 31. 43 The passage, which Heidegger quotes, is from De anima, 420b31f. 44 In Being and Time Heidegger writes: Perception is consummated when one addresses oneself to something as something and discusses it as such. The amounts to interpretation in the broadest sense; and on the basis of such interpretation, perception becomes an act of making determinate. Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 89. If we stay close to Aristotle here, we can say that Heidegger is being imprecise. It is not but that makes determinate. 45 Aristotle, De anima, 428a1-4.

I, Who Am Still Not Dead: Heidegger, Death and Survivance in Derridas The Beast and the Sovereign, Vol. II
Adam Knowles
new school for social research

Good actions of friends, then, and bad actions similarly, appear to contribute something to the dead, but they do so to such a degree and extent as not to change happy into unhappy men or to make some other such change. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics1 But that [Parmenides] regards perception as also due to the opposite as such he makes clear when he says that a corpse does not perceive light, heat, or sound owing to its deficiency of fire, but that it does perceive their opposites, cold, silence and so on. Theophrastus, De Sensu2

Derridas seminar The Beast and the Sovereign, Vol. II represents a unique contribution to Heidegger scholarship.3 The seminar holds a great number of themes and parallel narra-

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tives in tension, dropping some while continually returning to others, proceeding in the figure of the circle, taking its guiding cues from resources found in the two primary works under analysis: Heideggers seminar The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics4 and Daniel Defoes novel Robinson Crusoe.5 As always in his unique style of reading, Derrida steers the argument through a wide range of texts and thinkers beyond Heidegger and Defoe, including, most prominently, Aristotle, Freud, Rousseau, Kant, Lacan, Celan and Blanchot. The interpretive strands followed by Derrida are equally diverse and prominent among them are the questions of the world, isolated ipseity and solitude, all concerns proper as much to Heidegger as to Crusoe (But were they not saying, signifying basically the same?6), as well as the continuing questions of the animal, the sovereign, the Other, and war (the tenth session begins just days after the American invasion of Iraq in March 2003),7 with all of this aimed in a significant way towards the question of knowing who can die,8 which itself is closely intertwined with knowing how to die. With regard to Heidegger, Derrida focuses not only on World, Finitude, Solitude, but also on The Thing, Introduction to Metaphysics and Identity and Difference, with occasional references to Being and Time. Derridas interpretive efforts are focused on, but by no means limited to, three central questions: 1) Heideggers assertion that only man is capable of dying9 2) Heideggers three guiding theses that man is world-forming, animals are poor in world, and stones are worldless (GA 29/30: 261ff./176ff.) and 3) Heideggers superabundant use of the language of Walten.10 The questions are not to be considered separate and Derrida brings them into an astounding convergence in the final pages of the final ses-

sion. This story cannot be told in such a short essay, and the interpretive efforts of this paper will be much more modest, focusing instead on the question of what it means to be able to die and the closely related theme of survivance, the cultivation of ones death in learning to die, which Derrida elsewhere calls a strange commitment, both impossible and necessary, for a living being supposed to be alive.11 Through an analysis of survivance, I will raise the question of who is capable of dying while moving as Derrida himself does in tracing the themes of the wheel, the circle, and the island in a circular fashion through a number of texts that Heidegger would not have read.
i.

the archive, or what stands in place of the world

In order to more fully raise the questions that are of interest here, let us for the moment conceive of Martin Heidegger as a character in a work by Samuel Beckett: Martin, Molloy, Malone, we might say.12 Becketts characters are notable for the extraordinary contradictions that mark them, the strange raglimp stasis13 that they seem to want out of, yet never leave. They are marked by a certain lack, and that lack is not something that they do not have, but it is their being. They are as lacking, and are therefore never quite capable enough of anything, caught always between the essential intertwining of a capacity and an incapacity, a capacity/incapacity which they do not so much have but are, and this is what interests us in relation to Heidegger: their ability/inability to die. What interests us here in our reading of Derridas seminar is mans supposedly unique capacity for death, and, moreover, the archive, the drive for the archive as a figure of death, a death foretold and forestalled. To this end, we will imagine Martin

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as Becketts great archival character Krapp from Krapps Last Tape, a man taken too much to drink who celebrates his birthdays by listening at random to spools of tape recordings made on past birthdays before recording his thoughts on the current birthday as he looks forward to the time when all my dust has settled.14 And we turn to the archive as a figure of death as survivance, the struggle with finitude, the life/death of a work. As Derrida describes survivance: The book lives its beautiful death. Thats also finitude, the chance and the threat of finitude, this alliance of the dead and the living. I shall say that this finitude is survivance.15 Survivance is the drive to see ones own death through the traces that one will leave behind, and in turning to the archive as a figure of survivance, we seek to raise the question of whether Heidegger was and is capable of dying. Are we (and hence Heidegger) capable of thinking death as death, or of thinking death only as survivance? As we know, Heidegger was a great archivist. Er hat alles aufgehoben, we might say, he saved everything, laying the seeds for this mammoth archive of the Gesamtausgabe, an assemblage which spares us no tedium in this posterity of the probable improbable archive.16 As an archive, this great production known as the Gesamtausgabe (not merely content, as is the case with so many respectable philosophers, with being a Gesammelte Werke),17 presents everything from Heideggers infamously tepid poetry to the manifold seminars ringing around themselves, but also the quotidian, the quaint, the charmingly strange, and to amuse you before we begin our insular wanderings, but also to set up a number of Beckettian ties that will prove crucial even comical moments. The latter can be witnessed in Heideggers most urgent request published in the volume Speeches and Testimonies, a request writ-

ten in 1947 to the French occupation forces regarding the noise made by the French officers family stationed in his acoustically sensitive [hellhriges] house. It seems that the presence of this foreign family deprived Heidegger of the modest conditions for a workshop for intellectual labor, and that and here is Heideggers justification for requesting that they be isolated to one room in his house, instead of two precisely at the moment when my philosophical work is being received with great interest from the French intellectual world (GA 16: 426-427, tm). Because the French like him so much, Heidegger reasons, he would like to be spared the necessity of having to listen to them. This curious logic will emerge again in our reading of Heidegger as we begin to address the question of the relation between nearness and farness, for death is what is at all times both closest to us and furthest away from us. In this curious letter from this no less curious volume, Heidegger is begging for the chance to sit alone in a room, for the chance to establish an island, for the chance to be spared the feeling of not being at home when at home, even though, according to the fragment by Novalis which Heidegger takes as the opening motif of the The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, [p]hilosophy is properly nostalgia, a drive to be everywhere at home [Die Philosophie ist eigentlich Heimweh, ein Trieb berall zu Hause zu sein] (GA 29/30: 7/5)18 Heimweh as nostalgia as we know, in his earlier readings of Heidegger Derrida made a great deal of Heideggers nostalgia and hope, his longing for a lost native country of thought,19 and his desire for rigorous non-contamination.20 Moreover, he offered a closely related critique of Heideggers privileging of the same [das Selbe].21 Yet it is precisely with respect to his reading of the same that Derrida begins to re-

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think his understanding of Heidegger, and this rethinking takes place without closure.22 In Derridas early deconstructive readings, there is a surety about the reader, a force, even a palpable degree of Schadenfreude as he is finally able to diagnose a longing for a metaphysics of presence in Heidegger, and this Schadenfreude is all the stronger when Derrida can make this diagnosis with respect to Heideggers greatest point of pride: his reading of Aristotle as a recovery of Aristotles Greek in Ousia and Gramm.23 But the Derrida of The Beast and the Sovereign seminars is not the Derrida of Margins, and the Derrida of 2003 is less prone to a traditional style of frontal attack, and less convinced even that he has understood Heidegger, despite his continued disease with Heideggers compulsive nostalgia in the seminar.24 In The Beast and the Sovereign, Vol. II, combined with this disease is an inability to decide, and this inability is equally a drive to decide and a drive to seat his philosophy in the terror of indecision. As you see, Derrida says, late in my life of reading Heidegger, I have just discovered a word that seems to oblige me to put everything in a new perspective. And that is what happens and ought to be meditated on endlessly.25 Derrida has just discovered Heideggers superabundant useof the vocabulary of Walten26 in texts such as Identity and Difference and The Introduction to Metaphysics, and this untranslatable term, along with the family of terms emerging from it,27 have made Derrida question his entire understanding of force, difference, the same, the world, and many related concepts, not the least of which is death. In the process of rethinking his reading of Heidegger, Derrida comes across as a magnanimous reader, but also one in the midst of a seemingly necessary ambivalence, an ambivalence that is

uncanny in the sense of a proximal nearness, a distant proximity which plays itself out in Derridas language. As Derrida writes in a line seemingly plucked from Beckett: Perhaps there is too much world in the world, but who can assure us that there is a world? Perhaps there is no world. Not yet and perhaps not since ever and perhaps not ever. I do not say this to roil you up and depress you, but because it is what I must think and say according to the most implacable necessity.28 It seems necessary to say that there is no world; it seems necessary to say that there is too much world. I cant go on this way, but I must of course go on.
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am still alive then : heidegger, derrida and beckett29

At the risk of leveling off various authors of terrifying richness, I would like to call this necessary ambivalence Beckettian. Derridas Beckettian ambivalence with regard to Heidegger can be formulated as follows: It is not only that I, Jacques Derrida, an aged man who may soon find death,30 know that I cannot die, but I also know that I must say this about Heidegger, that Heidegger was incapable of death. And thereupon follows the proper ambivalence: I cannot say this about Heidegger, I must say this about Heidegger. Heidegger like all the rest of us did not know how to die, but equally, since the limit between life and death is in a significant way indeterminable, he did not know how to live. There is of course no paucity of writers who assert that Heidegger did not know how to live, but that sort of ontic argument is not of interest

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here.31 Instead, the ontological question that concerns us is: Was Heidegger, like the beasts he says cannot die, too poor in world to know how to die? And does the same apply to us all? Thus we bring Heidegger into a properly Beckettian frame, circling back to Molloy, for whom, like Crusoe, the wheel carried so much meaning: For in me there have always been two fools, among others, one asking nothing better than to stay where he is and the other imagining that life might be slightly less horrible a little further on.32 Could we ever imagine saying this about Heidegger, that he carried within him two, or indeed many, fools? Derrida himself fights with the ready-made conception of Heidegger which drives us to say no to such an absurd idea even when he details those very amusing passages in Heideggers The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics which would seem to call our preconceptions of Heidegger into question.33 But the point is perhaps not to decide. We can only ask if it would illuminate Heidegger for us in any way if we thought of him as caught in a Beckettian ambivalence (I cannot die, I must die; I cannot be, I must be), and to see Derrida caught in this ambivalence in a seminar where is own death is very much at stake.34 And what is to be made of this philosophical method, this collage? Derrida himself addresses this question: It is artificial and unwarranted to bring together all of these motifsIt would be, incontestably, if the point were to claim to impose bad anachronisms on all these textsI say bad anachronisms because every reading is not only anachronistic, but consists in bringing out anachrony, non self-

contemporanity, dislocation in the taking-place of the text. The distinction between the good and the bad anachronism does not have its criteria outside what the reading-writing that busies itself with a given text, with more than one given text, does, succeeds, or fails in doing.35 If we are so poor in world that we fail to reach beyond ourselves except under the regulative myth of the world, which we interact with as if it were there, then what is not an anachronism? What measure of time will allow us to declare the anachronism?36 As a gathering of anachronisms, the archive, the drive for survivance, is not a preparation for death so much as it is continuous preparation for living, for getting on with living. But I remain uneducable when it comes to any kind of wisdom about knowing-how-to-die, or, if you prefer, knowing how to live, Derrida states in his final interview, as [t]he time of the reprieve is rapidly running out.37 Our time, too, is running out, and before we turn more closely to the archive as a figure of death, it is worth noting that Derrida stated that he could not write about Beckett, not because of a distance from Becketts work, but because of a proximity to it. This distance-in-proximity will bear greatly on the question of death. As Derrida says of Beckett: This is an author to whom I feel very close, or to whom I would like to feel myself very close; but also too close. Precisely because of this proximity, it is too hard for me, too easy and too hard. I have perhaps avoided him a bit because of this identification. Too hard because also because he writes in my language, in a language which is his up

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to a point, mine up to a point (for both of us it is a differently foreign language) texts which are both too close to me and too distant for me even to be able to respond to them.38 What, we must ask, is this incapacity, this inability, this impotence caused by proximity that Derrida feels towards Beckett? What does it mean to (not) be able to, to (not) have a power, or even to (not) be able to have a power? Or is this at all a question? One will never have either the possibility or the powerto understand what power means if one isolates this word power, Derrida states, urging us to clarify the question.39 Ultimately the question is this: what does it mean to be able to die if at all times it is both too easy and too hard to die, if death is both too distant and too close to respond to? Is death, death as such and that death which is our own, so close to us that we do not know how to respond to it even in always already responding to it? For if [l]ife and death are not separable as such,40 will it not always be too easy and too hard to speak of death? To provide one possible answer to the question of the inseparability of life and death while casting our net even further afield from the insular world of Heideggers tastes, we can see these themes addressed in David Lynchs film Eraserhead. Turning to this film is not merely justified for the reason that we must, as Derrida urges, read and write what Heidegger would not have read, but also because of the films stark portrayal of the very themes at stake in The Beast and the Sovereign, including solitude, isolation, and animality. Yet despite this astounding convergence of themes, we cannot underestimate the necessity of writing with Heidegger against Heidegger, especially in Derridas work. Im constantly accompanied by

Heidegger, watched by him, Derrida writes in a critique of what he calls the machine of Heidegger scholarship, and I always do my best to disconcert him in me, to disobey him, and to write something he wouldnt be able to read.41 In the dystopian industrial wasteland of Eraserhead, a young couple is confined for long stretches in one room with their new progeny, which was seemingly conceived without intercourse. This child is a vaguely alien-looking lump with an elongated semi-equine head, and a limbless, featureless torso. They havent told us if its a baby yet, the mother cries out about this thing that is neither human nor animal, yet something in any case too human to kill, too animal to love as ones own, and too loud to be in a room with much like the terrifying cry of the savage, the foreign, the Other threatening Crusoe with being devourd.42 This child or beast is indeed devouring its parents with its endless crying, and the terror of the film is the terror of not being able to lock away the strange birth-in-death of their mutant animal-human child, not being able to put a wall between themselves and it; it is the terror of at once being too isolated and not being isolated enough, which is properly the terror of the sexless Crusoe as he simultaneously yearns for human company and exists in constant terror of being devoured by the savages who land on his island to perform their cannibalistic rituals. The child, like Crusoes cannibals, is both too much da and not enough da. And what the film also illustrates is the terror once again a theme in Crusoe of the absolute blurring of the distinction between phusis and techn. After all, the only nature in the film is indoors, the chickens served at dinner are man-made, and in a dream sequence erasers are produced from the main characters severed head as if such a head were the sole necessary

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raw ingredient for pencil production. This blurring between man-made production and natural emerging is closely related to what Derrida calls originary prostheticity, which is confirmed in its terror as the father, while attempting to remove the bandages that cover the childs torso, cuts open its chest, as if there were no difference between skin and bandage. But above all what these isolated characters illustrate is what it means to be without a world, to be in a world which can no longer be called world, a world not worldly enough. Derrida provides some clues about this terror: Not only a multiplicity and an equivocality of the world, of the word world,a cobbled-together verbal and terminological construction, destined to mask our panic (that of a baby who would be born without coming into the world), destined to protect us against the infantile but infinite anxiety of the fact that there is no worldThis can, I admit, look like a lot of apocalyptic statements.43 Infantile and infinite anxiety Heidegger is of course a profound thinker of anxiety, but does he portray himself as being too sovereign over his anxiety, not childish or playful enough? Is there a deeper anxiety driving Heidegger to hide his anxiety? And what does this mean for our reading of Heidegger? Was Heidegger, for all of his being-toward-death in Being and Time, for all of his forceful Walten and Gewalt in texts such as the Introduction to Metaphysics, for all of his terror in the Beitrge, and for all of his talk of das Sterbenknnen unique to man, a philosopher and here lies the crux of Derridas seminar incapable of thinking death other than as a spectator of his own death?44 And was Heidegger not therefore incapable

of thinking death as a being able to die, even if he explicitly holds the human to be the only being capable of dying? And is it possible to say this even if it was Heidegger himself who thinking entirely in the vein of Aristotles Metaphysics convincingly argued for the necessary intertwining of dunaton and adunaton (capable and incapable) as enantia (contraries) that exist in a relation of stersis (privation, withdrawal) such that any impotency is necessarily intertwined with its corollary potency?45 Does Heidegger once again fail to live up to his own Aristotelian insight when it comes to death? Has Heidegger transformed death into on object present-at-hand, or even an object of an Erlebnis,46 as an observable object, with apparently legitimate, yet fundamentally exaggerated and mistaken precision? (GA 29/30: 143/95). Or, to offer one final formulation utilizing Derridas vocabulary, was Heidegger too much of an attempted sovereign over his own death? One need only think of the pseudo-mythical Beitrge, which, in all of Heideggers proto-Nietzschean Selbstdarstellung of untimeliness,47 was not to be published for a hundred years, or the voice from the grave that was the Spiegel interview,48 or the controversy surrounding the dating of modifications made to the declaration of the inner truth and greatness of the Nazi regime in the Introduction to Metaphysics,49 or his various rebuttals in Reden und andere Zeugnisse eines Lebensweges written to newspapers and journals he accused of printing shockingly incorrect claims (GA 16: 699-700) and senseless and baseless accusations (GA 16: 466-67) which do not correspond to the facts (GA 16: 638) about his Nazi past, or one could look at his curious participation in a series of television productions for the station Sdwestrundfunk, as if staging his own Nixonian philosophical Checkers Speech,50 or, finally, his

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careful crafting of his image through such radio readings as the work of pastoral peasantly Selbstdarstellung Why Do We Remain in the Province?,51 which appeared coincidentally enough precisely at a time when it was still possible to call his German rootedness into question.52 It is perhaps useful at this point to look to what Derrida says about the archive in a very different context: The fact that this corpus and this name also remain spectral is perhaps a general structure of every archive. By incorporating the knowledge deployed in reference to it, the archive augments itself, engrosses itself, it gains in auctoritas. But in the same stroke it loses the absolute and metatextual authority it might claim to have. One will never be able to objectivize with no remainder. The archivist produces more archive, and that is why the archive is never closed. It opens out to the future.53 And what is at stake in all of this archival image-making? In survivance, in proliferating himself, Heidegger loses all the more control over the archive he produces under his own control. Survivance, we begin to see, is the curating of ones own death, the cultivation of ones own death, not so as to die it or to learn to die it, but in order to be a spectator of it, for, as Derrida writes, all our thoughts of death, our death even before all the help that religious imagery can bring us our thoughts of death are always, structurally, thoughts of survival.54 In this portrayal, we can begin to see Heidegger as Becketts Krapp, a fastidious archivist whose life seemingly ends with him playing back a mechanical silence recorded

three decades hence, a recording of nothing that is nonetheless a recording of nothing, a taking down of nothing, an archivization of nothing.
iii .

to

play the spool : heidegger as krapp

Heidegger as Krapp listening to his own mechanical voice being spun out of spools recorded decades hence: Hard to believe I was ever that young whelp. The voice! Jesus! And the aspirations!, a thirty-nine-year-old Krapp on a recorded spool says of a younger Krapp into the ear of the sixty-nineyear-old Krapp.55 And this Krapp, the oldest one sitting alone in a room, repeatedly plays one scene recounting an amorous afternoon from his days as a young whelp: We lay there without moving. But under us all moved, and moved us, gently up and down, and from side to side. [Pause.] Past midnight. Never knew such silence. The earth might be uninhabited. [Pause.] Here I end [Krapp switches off, winds the tape back, switches on again.]56 There is so much to be said about this isolated, insular man sitting alone with himself in a room, returning again and again to this scene, to this moment in which he ends, and about this silence in which he ends. Crusoe, too, felt that the

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earth might have been uninhabited in his years of bliss before discovering the strange footprint in the sand which signaled that, unbeknownst to him, the cannibals had been visiting his island all along. As Crusoe writes: for I was alone, circumscribd by the boundless ocean, cut off from mankind, and condemnd to what I calld a silent life; that I was as one who Heaven thought not worthy to be numberd among the living, or to appear among the rest of his creaturesI should now tremble at the very apprehensions of seeing a man, and was ready to sink into the ground at but the shadow, or silent appearance of a mans having set his foot on this island.57 Here I, Krapp, end in this solitude, but after playing the same spool several more times, we finally hear how it ends: Here I end this reel. Box [ pause] three, spool [ pause] five. [Pause.] Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldnt want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldnt want them back. [Krapp motionless staring before him. The tape runs on in silence.] Curtain58 And to return to Derrida, in a certain amount of haste before the we end:

A phantom speaks. What does this mean? In the first place or in a preliminary way, this means that without responding it disposes of a response, a bit like the answering machine whose voice outlives its moment of recording: you call, the other person is dead, now, whether you know it or not, and the voice responds to you, in a very precise fashion, sometimes cheerfully, it instructs you, it can even give you instructions, make declarations to you, address your requests, prayers, promises, injunctions.59 Heidegger as Krapp with the hand of the archivist starting and stopping the spools that contain his own mechanical voice, no doubt fixating on a favorite scene, or even one where he got it all wrong. Think only of the marginalia from Being and Time,60 and search for the exclamatory, the author pointing over his own shoulder to himself, with remarks ranging from the simple nein! (GA 2: 62/440n46) to the more explanatory Not at all! The concept of world is not understood at all, (GA 2: 69/440n52) to the downright Krapp-ian But who are you? The one who lets go and becomes (GA 2: 194/440n145). Heidegger stands over his own shoulder and directs himself to edit his own text, changing the spools as necessary. [I]t was difficult, Derrida reminds us, to separate writing from onanism.61 Standing over myself I write myself, play myself back, call myself up again. Because, you know, learning to live is always narcissisticone wants to live as much as possible, to save oneself, to preserve, and to cultivate all these things which, though infinitely greater and more powerful than oneself, nonetheless form a part of this little me that they exceed on all sides.62 Heidegger of course

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cannot be the sovereign over such a great archive, much like Krapp who fumbles with the spools, forgetting the numbers of the tapes. Krapp was not a sovereign over his death anymore than he was over his life. Yet with Heideggers purported sovereignty over his own death, do we not see Heidegger slipping back into the very sort of sovereign subject that he taught us to deconstruct? But beyond this sovereign Heidegger, there is the Heidegger of the archive of death, the Heidegger of both an archive and a death that eludes his grasp. There is Heidegger as Krapp, as one held in the sway of his own inability and hence ability to die. Are we all beasts with too little world to die or authentic beings with death under our power? Or is the point not to decide, but to know that we will always return, always cultivate, always curate, always play back the spool, and exclaim to our younger selves and know that we are always already dying, and it is perhaps for that very reason that death is the one thing we will not have been capable of. Birth was the death of him. Again. Words are few. Dying too. Birth was the death of him, a Beckettian monologist murmurs.63 Or as Derrida quotes Heidegger quoting someone whose name Derrida had forgotten: Heidegger points out in Sein und Zeit, on the basis of I forgot which quotation, that from the moment of birth one is old enough to die, which means that one can always find death before ones time; and find oneself dead, find oneself faced with death before ones time64

notes

1 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Hippocrates G. Apostle (Grinnell, Iowa: Peripatetic Press, 1975), 1101b5-8. 2 Quoted in Geoffrey Stephen Kirk and John Earle Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957), 283. Jacques Derrida, The Beast & the Sovereign, vol. II, trans. Geoffrey Bennington (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011).

4 Martin Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude, trans. William McNeill and Nicholas Walker (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995); Heidegger, Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik: Welt, Endlichkeit, Einsamkeit, vol. 29/30 of Gesamtausgabe, ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1983). Hereafter GA indicates the Gesamtausgabe of Heideggers works published by Vittorio Klostermann. 5 Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (New York: Penguin, 2001). Derridas reading of Crusoe, which will not be dealt with as such in this paper, focuses on Crusoes twin fears, his dread and terror of falling into the hands of saveages and cannibals (Defoe, 129) and his fear of being swallowd up alive (Defoe, 66), but Derrida also touches on issues of originary prostheticity (there is no ipseity without this prostheticity [Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 88]), solitude, circularity, sovereignty, but also spectrality and the phantasm (the strange footprint on the shore that Crusoe encounters). The themes of the footprint and spectrality were already pervasive in the first volume of The Beast and the Sovereign: To move pas de loup is to walk without making a noise, to arrive without warning, to proceed discreetly, silently, invisibly, almost inaudibly and imperceptibly, as though to surprise a prey, to take it by surprising what is in sight but does not see coming the one that is already seeing it, already getting ready to take it by surprise, to grasp it by surprise. Derrida, The Beast & the Sovereign, vol. I, trans. Geoffrey Bennington (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009).

6 Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 262. 7 See Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 260 where Derrida even recounts

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a strange fever-induced dream about defending the rights of speech of the great warmongers of the day: The other dayI had a nightmare, during which I had been given, by a tribunal, a kind of super-Security Council, assigned an odd mission that I had no desire to take on 8 Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 290. 9 As Heidegger writes in Das Ding: The mortals are the humans. They are called the mortals because they are capable of dying. Dying means: to be capable of death as death. Only man dies. The animal comes to an end [verendet]. Heidegger, Das Ding, in vol. 7 of GA, ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2000), 171, tm; See also Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 121.

16 Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 240; Derrida is here referring to Heidegger, and fittingly enough he goes on to write: Could he foresee that in the posterity of the probable improbable archive, the day would come when a French animal, in turn conducting a seminar on this seminar and every Wednesday sniffing out the footprints or the track of an improbable Friday? 17 For insight into the conditions of production of the Gesamtausgabe see the scathing article by Theodore Kisiel, Heideggers Gesamtausgabe : An International Scandal of Scholarship, Philosophy Today 39:1 (1995), 3-15. 18 The English translation is cited from Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 95. Derrida translates Heimweh as both nostalgia and homesickness throughout the seminar. 19 Jacques Derrida, Diffrance, in Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 27. 20 Jacques Derrida, Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question, trans. Geoffrey Bennington and Rachel Bowlby (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 10. 21 Derrida, Specters, 34: Heidegger runs the risk, despite so many necessary precautions, when he gives priority, as he always does, to gathering and to the same (Versammlung, Fuge, legein, and so forth) over the disjunction implied by my address to the other, over the interruption commanded by respect which commands it in turn, over a difference whose uniqueness, disseminated in the innumerable charred fragments of the absolute mixed in with the cinders, will never be assured in the One. 22 This cannot be developed in depth here, but suffice it to refer one passage in Derrida, Beast and the Sovereign II, 254: Whatever the translation here, we must clearly see that Heidegger intends to mark the fact that if Being and beings as such are (wesen : comment: active, quasi-transitive and announcing walten) as different, they are (wesen) different only as the same, remaining the same, and in the internal splitting of the same of the Unter-Schied, where the hyphen thus inscribes this union of the same in difference. In his book Broken Hegemonies, Reiner Schrmann develops a similar concept of agonic sameness in his Plotinian reading of what he calls the henological dif-

10 Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 280. See e.g. the section entitled The Second Meaning of : Prevailing [Walten] as Such as the Essence and Inner Law of Matter in Heidegger, GA 29/30, 47ff./31ff. 11 Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx, trans. Peggy Kamuf (New York: Routledge, 1994), xvii; This paper will not attempt to offer a full accounting of the vast theme of death in Derrida, nor the closely related them of the work of mourning, but suffice it to call attention to a few key texts: Jacques Derrida, The Work of Mourning, trans. PascaleAnne Brault (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001) and Derrida, The Gift of Death & Literature in Secret, trans. David Willis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008). 12 William Richardson has also recently drawn parallels between Heidegger and Beckett in his paper Heideggers Godot read on Nov. 19th, 2009 at the SPEP conference in Washington D.C.: http: //www. youtube.com/watch?v=NwTKECXOwiE, accessed on Dec. 30th, 2011. 13 Samuel Beckett, Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, trans. Patrick Bowles and Samuel Beckett (New York: Grove Press, 1991), 26. 14 Samuel Beckett, Krapps Last Tape, in: Samuel Beckett: The Grove Centenary Edition, vol. III: The Dramatic Works (Grove Press: New York, 2006), 224. 15 Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 130.

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ference in Reiner Schrmann, Broken Hegemonies, trans. Reginald Lilly (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003). Significantly enough, Schrmann is explicitly responding to Derridas open question about the place of Plotinus in Heideggers history of the tradition. Derrida raised this question very early: Thus Plotinus (what is his status in the history of metaphysics and in the Platonic era, if one follows Heideggers reading?) Jacques Derrida, Ousia and Gramm : Note on a Note in Being and Time, in Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 66n.41; See also Derridas repeated references to Plotinus in Jacques Derrida, Sauf Le Nom (Post-Scriptum), in On the Name, trans. David Wood (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 70, 84-5. 23 Derridas critique in Ousia and Gramm centers on Heideggers understanding of Aristotles use of the term at the same time [hama], as well as the different understandings of counted and counting number in Greek mathematics. 24 Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 107. 25 Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 279. 26 Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 280. 27 Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 280 offers the following list: durchwalten, Mitwalten, umwalten, verwalten, Verwaltung, bergewalt, vorwaltend, bewltigen, unbewltigt, Gewalt, and of course, Allgewalt, Gewalt-tat and Gewalt-ttigkeit, etc. Not surprisingly, Derrida makes occasional references to Walter Benjamins Kritik der Gewalt and his own essay Force of Law. See for example his pun on Walter at Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 44. 28 Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 266. 29 I am still alive then is borrowed from Becketts Molloy : Samuel Beckett, Three Novels, 14. 30 Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 263: one does not say in French that someone finds death if they die of old age: one finds death by accident, in a plane or a car crash, or at war, and in that case death surprises me, it finds me as much as I find it at a turn in the road.

31 Emmanuel Faye represents but the most recent iteration of this type of reading: Emmanuel Faye, Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism Into Philosophy in Light of the Unpublished Seminars of 1933-1935, trans. Michael B. Smith (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009). 32 Beckett, Three Novels, 48. 33 Avital Ronell has perhaps been most successful in bringing out Heideggers strange and even terrible but in any case subtle humor in Avital Ronell, The Telephone Book: Technology Schizophrenia Electric Speech (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989). 34 Witness a passage such as the following in which the sentence, as the critical apparatus notes, remains incomplete: When every day, at every moment of the day and night, we are overcome with the feeling that between a given other, and sometimes the closest of those close to us and of those that we call so imprudently and stupidly, tenderly and violently, our own, and ourselves those with whom we share everything, starting and ending with love, the feeling that the worlds in which we live are different to the point of the monstrosity of the unrecognizable, of the un-similar, of the unbelievable, the non-assimilable, the untransferable, the incomparable, the absolutely unshareable Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 266 35 Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 87. 36 Anochrony is a major theme of Derridas thinking of spectrality: Without this non-contemporaneity with itself of the living present, without that which secretly unhinges it, without this responsibility and this respect for justice concerning those who are not there, of those who are no longer or who are not yet present and living, what sense would there be to ask the question where? where tomorrow? whither? Derrida, Specters, xviii. 37 Jacques Derrida and Jean Birnbaum, Learning to Live Finally: An Interview With Jean Birnbaum, trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas (Hoboken, NJ: Melville House, 2007), 25. 38 Jacques Derrida, The Strange Institution Called Literature: An Interview with Jacques Derrida, in: Acts of Literature, trans. Geoffrey Bennington and Rachel Bowlby (New York: Routledge, 1992), 60.

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39 Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 234. 40 Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 117. As Derrida goes on to say: We know that the criteria for deciding as to the state of death in other words, to decide if one is really with a corpse or on the contrary with a moribund living person, a prolonged coma, etc., we know that these criteria are variable and offer no natural, scientific and consensual certainty. 41 Jacques Derrida, Derridas Response to Catherine Malabou, in Augustine and Postmodernism: Confessions and Circumfession, ed. John D. Caputo and Michael J. Scanlon (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), 139; Derrida goes on to say: So I constantly counter [Heidegger], try to write what hes against, what is counter to, or irreducible to, Heideggers machinery. Because there is a machinery interpretation of Heidegger. There is a machine; there is a program. 42 Note that Crusoe only properly loves his savage companion Friday once he tames, civilizes and Christianizes him. As Derrida notes (Beast and Sovereign II, 134ff.), in his discussion of the savages, Defoe intersects in a significant way the question of Orientalism, an ancient and enduring system of tropes documented brilliantly in the seminal work Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1979); The question of Orientalism bears great importance for philosophy as well. To offer but one example, witness how the erotic, intimate fraternal gathering in Platos Lysis is dispersed because the slaves of the boys gathered went on calling in their foreign accents [hupobarbarizontes] (223a): Plato, Lysis, trans. Stanley Lombardo, in Plato: Complete Works, ed. John M. Copper (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997). 43 Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 266. 44 Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 160: And Freud too emphasized the fact that we can live our death only by becoming a spectator of it. 45 See Derridas discussion of privation in the context of animals being deprived of a world in Beast and Sovereign II, 282-283. The relation of dunamis, energeia, and stersis is of course the major theme of Heideggers reading of Aristotle carried out shortly after GA 29/30 in Martin Heidegger, Aristotles Metaphysics 1-3: On the Essence and Actuality of Force, trans. Walter Brogan and Peter Warnek (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995); Martin Heidegger, Aristoteles,

Metaphysik 1-3: Von Wesen und Wirklichkeit der Kraft, vol. 33 of GA, ed. Heinrich Hni (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1981); Walter Brogan also offers perhaps the most detailed analysis of Heideggers reading of stersis : Walter Brogan, Heidegger and Aristotle: The Twofoldness of Being (Albany: SUNY Press, 2005): see esp. 57-110. For a reading of Aristotelian dunamis closely aligned with Heideggers, see also Giorgio Agamben, On Potentiality, in Potentialities: Collected Essays in Philosophy, ed. and trans. Daniel HellerRoazen (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 177-184. 46 On Heideggers deconstruction of the Husserlian concept of Leben and Erlebnis, see Beast and the Sovereign II, 124n19; A representative version of Heideggers recurring critique of Erlebnis can be found in Heidegger, Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes, in vol. 5 of GA, ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1994). 47 It is my contention that Heideggers Nietzsche lectures, written coterminously with the Beitrge, can be read as a grand act of selfrepresentation with Heidegger constantly comparing himself to the great untimely philosophers he deals with in the lecture. To take but one example: But, though his many efforts to make what was new in his grounding of metaphysics intelligible to his contemporaries by responding to their doubts, Descartes was forced to discourse at the already prevailing level and so to explain his fundamental position superficially, that is, always inappropriately, a contingency that threatens every essential thinking a contingency that is already the consequence of a hidden relationship. Heidegger, Nietzsche, vol. 4, trans. David Farrell Krell (New York: Harper, 1982), 118; Heidegger, vol. 6.2 of GA, ed. Brigittte Schillbach (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1997), 148. 48 In The Telephone Book, Avital Ronell meditates at length on Heideggers decision to make his final word be a posthumously published interview in a popular magazine. As she writes: In other words, is Heideggers last word, made to be articulated after his death, a woundingly ironic utterance made against the grain of his thinking (what does it mean for Heidegger to intend to tell the truth in a newspaper?), or will his afterwordly in-the-world discourse force a rethinking of languages housing projects? Ronell, 14. 49 For a detailed account of the controversy around the dating of portions

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of this passage, see the Translators Introduction by Gregory Fried and Richard Polt in Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. Gregory Fried and Richard Polt (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), xv-xviii. 50 These recordings, made between 1960 and 1964 are available in the following DVD collection: Heidegger Verstehen: Vortrge und Gesprche (Munich: Quartino, 2009). Richard Nixons 1952 Checkers Speech, named after the family dog Nixon held during the speech, is widely considered one of the first effective uses of television as a medium for political image reform in the United States. 51 Martin Heidegger, Schpferische Landschaft: Warum bleiben wir in der Provinz?, in Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens, vol. 13 of GA, ed. Hermann Heidegger (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2002); Heidegger, Why Do I Stay in the Provinces? in Heidegger the Man and the Thinker, ed. and trans. Thomas Sheehan (Chicago: Precedent, 1981). According to the notes in GA 13, the text was broadcast on the radio in Berlin, broadcast two additional times on the radio stations Freiburger Sender and Sdfunk, and subsequently published in the culture section of Der Alemanne, the National Socialist political organ (Kampfblatt) of Upper Baden in 1934. 52 Rdiger Safranski documents how Heidegger was considered by contemporaries such as Helmuth Plessner to not by vlkisch enough in the early 1930s: Rdiger Safranski, Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil, trans. Edwald Ossers (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1998), 205ff. 53 Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, trans. Eric Prenowitz (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 67. 54 Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 117. 55 Beckett, Krapps Last Tape, 224. 56 Beckett, Krapps Last Tape, 227. 57 Defoe, 124. 58 Beckett, Krapps Last Tape, 230.

59 Derrida, Archive Fever, 61-2. 60 See the Randbemerkungen aus dem Handexemplar des Autors in Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 18th ed. (Tbingen: Niemeyer, 2001 [1927]). The marginalia are reproduced as footnotes in Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. Joan Stambaugh and Dennis J. Schmidt (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010). 61 Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 140. 62 Derrida, Learning to Live, 29. 63 Samuel Beckett, A Piece of Monologue, in Samuel Beckett: The Grove Centenary Edition, Vol. III: The Dramatic Works (New York: Grove Press, 2006), 453. 64 Derrida, Beast and Sovereign II, 264.

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Heidegger and Derrida: The Ex-Appropriation of Responsibility


Franois Raffoul
louisiana state university

Responsibility has traditionally been associated with a project of appropriation, understood as the securing of a sphere of mastery for a willful subject, a model one finds unfolded from Aristotles discussion of the voluntary and responsible decision in Book III of The Nichomachean Ethics to Kants discussion of transcendental freedom in the third antinomy (and his understanding of enlightenment as self-determination), and culminating, although not without some paradoxes and reversals, with Sartres philosophy of hyperbolic responsibility.1 Indeed, the concept of responsibility has traditionally been identified with accountability, that is, conceived of on the basis of the categories of will, causality, and subjectivity. In that tradition, responsibility is understood in terms of the subjectum that lies at the basis of the act, as ground of imputation, and opens onto the project of a self-legislation and self-appropriation of the subject. It thus belongs to a semantics of power and appropriation, as it is about owning ones actions and owning oneself, as well as establishing an area of mastery and control for a

powerful subject: to be responsible in this context designates the capacity by a sovereign subject to appropriate itself entirely in an ideal of self-legislation and transparency. As Derrida puts it, all the fundamental axiomatic of responsibility or decision (ethical, juridical, political), are grounded on the sovereignty of the subject, that is, the intentional auto-determination of the conscious self (which is free, autonomous, active, etc).2 However, one finds in Heidegger and Derrida the reversal indeed the deconstruction of such a tradition, and responsibility understood instead as an exposure to an inappropriable: experience of the im-possible for Derrida, assumption of an inappropriable thrownness and finitude for Heidegger in an original Schuldigsein or being-guilty. For both Heidegger and Derrida, then, responsibility cannot be conceived of as the imputation or ascription of an act to a subject-cause. As Derrida explains, responsibility is in no way that of the tradition anymore, that tradition implying intentionality, subjectivity, will, conscious ego, freedom, autonomy, meaning, etc.3 Rather, responsibility has to do with the encounter and exposition to an event as inappropriable, which ones finds at several stages of Heideggers work: in the ruinance of factical life in the early writings and lecture courses; in the Uneigentlichkeit of existence and the being-guilty of conscience in Being and Time ; in the thrownness felt in moods and in the weight of a responsibility assigned to an inappropriable facticity; in the withdrawal as origin of the call and in the presence of Enteignis within Ereignis in the later writings. We will see how responsibility is thought from such inappropriable, in an experience of what Derrida calls exappropriation, in one word. I will begin by identifying instances of inappropriability in Heideggers existential analytic, before engaging Derridas

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thought of the im-possible as site of an aporetic responsibility. In the process I will engage the very complex and tortuous relation of Derrida to Heidegger.
heidegger : dasein and responsibility

Heidegger develops a major thought of responsibility, in the early works as well as in the later writings. However, responsibility for Heidegger is not, and cannot be, accountability in the classical sense, which assumes the position of a subjectcause. Heideggers thinking of Dasein breaks decisively with that tradition of subjectivity and free-will, and causality is said to be foreign to the eventfulness of being. Heidegger interprets anew what to be responsible means, now associated with a certain responsiveness. Heidegger thus explains in the 1934 summer semester course on Logic as the Question Concerning the Essence of Language that responsibility should not be understood in its moral or religious sense but is to be understood philosophically as a distinctive kind of answering.4 Such response is certainly a response to a call, whether the call of conscience in Being and Time or the address of being in later writings. But what I will argue today is that, more precisely, it is a response to what remains inappropriable in such calls Indeed, as Heidegger explains in What is Called Thinking, it is from a certain withdrawal of being that Dasein finds itself called. In its very eventfulness, being withdraws, is the mystery: such a withdrawal, Heidegger stresses, calls us.5 This withdrawing is not nothing. Withdrawing is an event. In fact, what withdraws may even concern and claim man more essentially than anything present that strikes and touches him (WCT, 9). This motif of a call from a withdrawal

is where Heidegger may not be as far from Derrida as one (including Derrida himself!) may want to admit The question of responsibility is hence situated outside of egology, arising instead out of the very openness of being where the human being dwells as Dasein. In fact, responsibility defines the very concept of Dasein, which, as care, means to be a responsibility of and for oneself. Dasein does not simply occur among other beings, but rather is concerned about its very being.6 This original non-indifference to being, and to ones own being, defines Dasein as care, and as primordial responsibility. Care, concern, solicitude, anxiety, authenticity, being-guilty, all these names designate such primordial responsibility in Being and Time. In later texts, responsibility would be thought in terms of the humans response and correspondence to the address of being. Responsibility then names the correspondence between humans and being, humans very belonging to being, as well as their essence as humans. Responsibility thus designates no less than the co-belonging of being and Dasein, a co-belonging that is the question of Heideggers thought, the very heart of his thought.
inappropriable thrownness

Yet, as I just suggested, this co-belonging remains affected by a certain expropriation: one finds in Being and Time what one might call instances of inappropriability at the heart of the analytic of Dasein, which, in turn, far from threatening the very possibility of responsibility (as they represent not only what I am not responsible for, but what I could never appropriate, what will always evade my power), will turn out to be the paradoxical origins of responsibility. Heidegger marks

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a certain opaqueness in Daseins being. For instance, when discussing moods (Stimmungen) in Being and Time, he emphasizes the element of withdrawal in them that seems to interrupt and foreclose any possibility of cognitive or practical appropriation. Having a mood brings Dasein to its there, before the pure that of its There, which as such, Heidegger writes in a striking formulation, stares directly at it with the inexorability of an enigma (SZ, 136). Heidegger states that in being-in-a-mood, the being of the there becomes manifest as a burden [Last]; he then adds, One does not know why. In fact, Dasein cannot know why (SZ, 134). Any rational enlightenment finds here an impassable limit, for cognition falls far short. This phenomenon is not due to some weakness of our cognitive powers, but has to do with the fact that the that of our being is given in such a way that the whence and whither remain obscure (SZ, 134). In the phenomenon of moods, there is a remaining obscure which is irreducible: it is, Heidegger says, a characteristic of Daseins being, which he names: thrownness. We shall call this character of being of Dasein which is veiled in its whence and whither the thrownness [Geworfenheit] of this being into its there (SZ, 135). The thrownness revealed in moods thus reveals the inappropriability of our existence. Does any meaningful sense of responsibility not collapse in such an expropriation?

responsibility as appropriation of the inappropriable

In fact, it is at this juncture, at this very aporetic moment, that Heidegger paradoxically situates the responsibility of Dasein, a responsibility arising as it were from its own impossibility, a paradoxical phenomenon that Derrida attempted to

approach in terms of a logic of aporia, as ex-appropriation. Derrida stresses that, in principle, responsibility is situated in paradox: the concepts of responsibility, of decision, or of duty, are condemned a priori to paradox, scandal, and aporia.7 As such, responsibility can only be, as he puts it, an experience of the impossible (for Derrida, experience itself means: to be in the impossible, in the aporia, in the contradiction). How does such a paradox of responsibility appear in Heideggers text? In contrast to Derridas constant claims (except for a few exceptions, as in Philosophy in a Time of Terror8) that Heidegger privileged the proper and appropriation in his thinking, here on the contrary we find that Heidegger reveals an expropriation at the heart of responsibility: on the one hand, Heidegger explains that Dasein exists as thrown, that is, brought into its there not of its own accord (SZ, 284). Thrownness means that Dasein can never get back behind its coming into being, and can never appropriate its origins. Dasein can never gain power over ones ownmost being from the ground up (SZ, 284). At the same time, existence means being called to appropriate ones own being, from the ground up. Hence the paradox of responsibility: The self, which as such has to lay the ground of itself, can never gain power over that ground, and yet it has to take over being the ground in existing (SZ, 284). Responsibility is hence the carrying of the inappropriability of existence, the paradoxical appropriation of an inappropriable. This is indeed why one speaks of the weight of responsibility9. What weighs in such weight? What weighs is what remains inappropriable in existence. This is the very weight of responsibility, as it registers this incommensurability of being a thrown origin and takes on the weight of an inap-

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propriable facticity.10 It is thus the inappropriable that Dasein is called to appropriate. Responsibility hence signifies: the appropriation of the inappropriable, as inappropriable. But how is one to read that sentence? In what sense, or direction [sens]? Is it the appropriation of the inappropriable, or the inappropriability of appropriation? Everything for Derrida is at stake in the expression, the possibility of the impossible. How should it be understood? It is a matter, he tells us, of knowing in which sense [sens] one reads the expression the possibility of impossibility11 reminding the reader, following the polysemy of sens in French, that the term should also be heard as direction. Hence if one reverses the direction, the possibility of the impossible becomes the impossibility of the possible. This is the question that Derrida poses, following the thread of a responsibility understood as an experience of the impossible.
derrida : from the inappropriable to the im- possible

It is in fact around this motif of weight that Derrida encounters Heidegger, and attempts to break with him. For appropriation, according to Derrida, still governs Heideggers thought of existence, and responsibility, still manifest in the expression of appropriation of the inappropriable as inappropriable, whereas the very motif of weight, for Derrida, indicates the impossibility of appropriation, and the primacy of expropriation.12 In On Touching Jean-Luc Nancy, Derrida returns to the motif of weight, and cites a passage from The Gravity of Thought, where Nancy wrote that existence is the appropriation of the inappropriable.13 Derrida reads that expression by insisting on the ex-scription revealed in it, that is, on

what remains inappropriable in the appropriation (it thus inscribes the uninscribable in inscription itself, it exscribes). Derrida reverses Heideggers appropriation of the inappropriable into an expropriation of the proper, which he calls: exappropriation. Ex-appropriation refers to that interminable appropriation of an irreducible nonproper that limits every and any appropriation process at the same time (On Touching, pp. 181-182). In Politics and Friendship, Derrida describes a paradoxical ex-appropriation as that movement of the proper expropriating itself through the very process of appropriation.14 Thus, the most proper sense of existence is such on the condition of remaining inappropriable, and of remaining inappropriable in its appropriation. On the condition, then, as Nancy put it, of existence having weight or weighing [faire poids] at the heart of thought and in spite of thought (cited in On Touching, p. 299, modified). This in spite of thought indicates the outside to which thought is assigned, and which weighs on thought from the outside. Such is, precisely, the weight of a thought: The weight of a thought is quite exactly the inappropriability of appropriation or the impropriety of the proper (proper to the proper, absolutely) (cited in On Touching, p. 299). From this thinking of weight as mark of the inappropriable in existence, Derrida introduces the motif of the impossible: Another way of saying that existence, is, Being, is quite exactly, are all names of the impossible and of self-incompatibility (On Touching, 299, my emphasis). For Heidegger, we know, death is the most proper possibility of Dasein; for Derrida, on the contrary, it will be an issue of leaning towards the impossible, that is, the improper and expropriation. For, as Derrida argues, if the most extreme and

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most proper possibility turns out to be the possibility of the impossible, then we will have to say that expropriation always already inhabits the proper, and that death becomes the least proper possibility. Derrida evokes a disappearance of the possible in the impossible, explaining that for Dasein, death is both its most proper possibility and this same (most proper) possibility as impossibility, and is hence, the least proper, I would say, although he immediately concedes: but Heidegger never says it like that (A, 70). This reversal also affects the very senses of the possible and the impossible.15 In A Certain Impossible Possibility of Saying the Event, Derrida challenges the traditional opposition between the possible and the impossible, seeking to upset the distinction, and attempting to grasp the impossible no longer as the opposite of the possible, but on the contrary as what haunts the possible.16 Even when something comes to pass as possible, when an event occurs as possible, the fact that it will have been impossible, that the possible invention will have been impossible, this impossibility continues to haunt the possibility (CI, 452). Thus, in a sense, the possible is impossible, and the impossible possible: To put it otherwise, I will try to explain how possible and impossible say the same thing (CI, 445). Everything takes place as if the possible could only be possible as impossible. For that reason, Derrida rewrites impossible as im-possible: We should speak here of the im-possible event, an im-possible that is not merely impossible, that is not merely the opposite of possible, that is also the condition or chance of the possible. An im-possible that is the very experience of the possible. (CI, 454). Responsible decision is only possible as impossible.

of an im- possible responsibility

Responsibility thus becomes approached as an experience of the impossible; each time, responsibility can only happen as impossible: as a decision without norms, as a law that is itself lawless, as the undergoing of the undecidable, as a decision without or beyond knowledge, as the unconditional and thus impossible welcome of the other, finally as a responsibility for an incalculable and unpredictable event. Let us briefly, in closing, draw the features of this im-possible responsibility. For Derrida responsibility, in its very possibility, is aporetic (possible as impossible). A first aporia marks the excess of responsibility with respect to any norm or rule, indeed in relation to duty itself. One typically understands responsibility in terms of a conformity to a rule or a law, in terms of an act done in conformity with or out of duty. For Derrida, this conception would be the height of irresponsibility, as it reduces responsibility to the application of a rule, to the unfolding of a program. Ethical responsibility cannot consist in applying a rule: the ought of ethics cannot and must not even take the form of a rule (P, 8). One needs to seize responsibility instead as an event, as a risk, as a taking of responsibility, which can only take place beyond norms and rules: the ethical event, is there is such a thing, must take place beyond duty and debt (Sens en tous sens, 175). The event of responsibility takes us beyond the law, beyond the language of duty, beyond the categorical imperative itself! The aporia of the rule, in which one knows the rule but is never bound by it, leads the responsible decision to the undecidable. For Derrida, there is no decision and no responsibility without the confrontation with the aporia of undecidability. That is to say, with the impossible. Undecidable does not

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mean the impossibility of decision, but its paradoxical condition, i.e., its condition of possibility and/or impossibility. The undecidable designates the event-character of decision, Derrida evoking the event of a decision without rules and without will in the course of a new experience of the undecidable: there is no politics, right, ethics, without the responsibility of a decision which, to be just, must not be content with simply applying existing norms or rules but take the absolute risk, in each singular situation, to justify itself again, alone, as if for the first time, even if it is inscribed in a tradition.17 Ethical responsibility is thus a matter of invention, an invention of the impossible, as it were, and not the application of a rule. A not-knowing is thus a condition of responsible decision, marking another appearance of the impossible: If I know what I must do, I do not take a decision, I apply a knowledge, I unfold a program. For there to be a decision, I must not know what to do The moment of decision, the ethical moment, if you will, is independent from knowledge. It is when I do not know the right rule that the ethical question arises, Derrida explains in a 2004 interview with lHumanit.18 Of course, Derrida recognizes that one must know as much as possible and as well as possible before deciding,19 but there will always remain a gap between decision and knowledge. The moment of decision, the moment of responsibility, thus supposes a rupture with the order of knowledge, with calculative rationality, as a decision always takes place beyond calculation (GD, 95). To that extent, there is what Derrida calls a madness of the impossible20 as opening to the incalculable.21 Is a matter of deciding without knowing, without seeing (voir) or foreseeing ( prvoir), thus from a certain invisible or unforeseeable, without being able to calculate all the consequences of the

decision, by entering, as Derrida says, into the night of the unintelligible (CF, 49). To that extent, Derrida will go so far as to speak of an unconscious decision! In sum, a decision is unconscious insane as that may seem, it involves the unconscious and nevertheless remains responsible.22
conclusion : the secret of responsibility

Responsible decision is thus assigned to a secret, one that makes the I tremble, a secret of myself that nonetheless is not my secret, and that in fact belongs to no one (GD, 92). I tremble at what exceeds my seeing and my knowing [mon voir et mon savoir] although it concerns the innermost parts of me, right down to my soul, down to my bone, as we say (GD, 54). Hence the paradox of a passive or passactive decision, the paradox without paradox to which I am trying to submit: a responsible decision must be that im-possible possibility of a passive decision, a decision by the other in me that does not exonerate me from any freedom or any responsibility (PM, 87). With such a passive decision, it is a matter of designating an alterity at the heart of responsible decision, an alterity or heteronomy from which and in which alone a decision can be made. That is what I meant by heteronomy, by a law come from the other, by a responsibility and decision of the other of the other in me, an other greater and older than I am (PTT, 134). With this motif of the other, one is brought back to the question of the inappropriable, the inappropriable event of the other, and the responsibility that arises from it. Heidegger showed that Daseins belongingness to being, to Ereignis, happens from a certain expropriative motion, which he called

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Enteignis. Original responsibility is hence a responsibility to such withdrawal, responsibility to a secret. And it may well be around this motif of the secret that Heidegger may be closest to Derrida, if it is the case, as Derrida wrote, that the other is secret insofar as it is other.23 Indeed, Responsibility is to the event of the other, the coming of the other, or as other: nonreappropriable (Sens en tous sens, p. 178). Responsibility is to a secret, the secret of the other. Ultimately, responsibility is to the unpredictable event of the other that is, the event of who or what happens and arrives, the absolute arrivant (larrivant absolu). As such, as a responsibility to the event, responsibility itself is an event, itself unpredictable, a matter of invention, an invention of the impossible: The responsibility to be taken is and must remain incalculable, unpredictable, unforeseeable, non programmable. Each one, each time and this is where there is responsibility must invent (Sens en tous sens, p. 179). Certainly, as Derrida concedes, what unpredictably happens/arrives exceeds my responsibility; yet from such an excess I am called to responsibility. Responsibility thus becomes the response to such an absolute arrival, an arrival that remains inappropriable and yet to which I cannot not respond: the event is an arriving event (une arrivance) that surprises me absolutely and to which and to whom I cannot, I must not, not answer and respond in a way that is as responsible as possible.24

notes

On this history of responsibility, I take the liberty of referring to my recent book, The Origins of Responsibility (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2010). Jacques Derrida. Without Alibi, trans. Peggy Kamuf (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), xix. Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy. Responsabilit Du sens venir, in Sens en tous sens: autour des travaux de Jean-Luc Nancy, ed. Francis Guibal and Jean-Clet Martin (Paris: Galile, 2004), pp. 178-179. Martin Heidegger. Logic as the Question concerning the Essence of Language (translation of Logik als die Frage nach dem Wesen der Sprache, volume 38 of the Gesamtausgabe), trans. Wanda Torres Gregory and Yvonne Unna (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2009), p. 101. Martin Heidegger. What is Called Thinking? English translation by J. Glenn Gray (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), pp.7-10, 17-18. Hereafter cited as WCT, followed by page number. Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tbingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1953), p. 12. Being and Time. Trans. Joan Stambaugh. Revised and with a Foreword by Dennis J. Schmidt. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010. Hereafter cited as SZ, followed by German pagination. Jacques Derrida, The Gift of Death, trans. David Wills (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 68. Hereafter cited as GD, followed by page number. In his interview with Giovanna Borradori, Derrida writes that the Heideggerian thought of being as event, as Ereignis, involves a certain expropriation, an impossible. Going against the grain, one must admit, of many of his previous interpretations of Heidegger, where he tended to stress an alleged privilege of the proper in Heideggers work, here on the contrary Derrida states that the thought of Ereignis in Heidegger would be turned not only toward the appropriation of the proper (eigen) but toward a certain expropriation that Heidegger himself names (Enteignis). Jacques Derrida, Autoimmunity: Real and

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Symbolic Suicides, in Giovanna Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), p. 90. 9 In moods, the being of the there becomes manifest as a burden [Last] (SZ, 134), or: Even though it has not laid the ground itself, it rests in the weight of it, which mood reveals to it as a burden (SZ, 284, my emphasis).

13 Jean-Luc Nancy. The Gravity of Thought, trans. Franois Raffoul and Gregory Recco (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1997), cited in Jacques Derrida in On Touching Jean-Luc Nancy, trans. Christine Irizzary (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000), p. 299. 14 Jacques Derrida. Negotiations: Interventions and Interviews, 19712001, trans. Elizabeth Rottenberg (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), p. 171. 15 In Rogues, Derrida insists that what is at issue is precisely another thought of the possible (of power, of the masterly and sovereign I can, of ipseity itself) and of an im-possible that would not be simply negative. Jacques Derrida. Rogues: Two Essays on Reason, trans. PascaleAnne Brault and Michael Naas (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005), p. 143 16 Jacques Derrida. A Certain Impossible Possibility of Saying the Event, Trans. by Gila Walker, in Critical Inquiry, Vol. 33, n. 2 (Winter 2007), p. 452. Hereafter cited as CI, followed by page number. 17 Jacques Derrida. Papier machine (Paris: Galile, 2001), p. 358. Translation mine. 18 Jacques Derrida, Jacques Derrida, penseur de lvnement, interviewed by Jrme-Alexandre Nielsberg for lHumanite, 28 January 2004; accessed at http://www.humanite.fr/2004-01-28_Tribunelibre_-Jacques-Derrida-penseur-de-levenement. Translation mine, my emphasis. 19 Jacques Derrida et Elisabeth Roudinesco. De quoi demain Dialogue (Paris: Galile/Fayard, 2001), p. 92. 20 Jacques Derrida. On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness (London, UK: Routledge), p. 45. Hereafter cited as CF, followed by page number. 21 In A Taste for the Secret (Malden, MA: Polity, 2001), p. 61, Derrida writes that, the moment of decision, and thus the moment of responsibility, supposes a rupture with knowledge, and therefore an opening to the incalculable. 22 Jacques Derrida. The Politics of Friendship, trans. George Collins

10 Heidegger speaks of the human being as burdened or heavy with a weight, in a situation of care and concern, in contrast to the lightness or care-lessness of inauthentic or irresponsible being. He evokes the fundamental burdensome character of Dasein even when it alleviates that burden (SZ, 134). In his early lecture courses, Heidegger stated that factical life (later renamed Dasein) is a fundamental caring, marked by the difficult weightiness of a task, and affected by an irreducible problematicity and questionableness. That weight, Heidegger claims in a 1921-1922 Winter semester course, does not accrue to life from the outside, from something that lacks the character of life, but is instead present in and with life itself. Martin Heidegger. Phnomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles. Einfhrung in die phnomenologische Forschung (1921-22), volume 61 of the Gesamtausgabe. English translation by Richard Rojcewicz, Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle: Initiation into Phenomenological Research (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2008), p. 75. The weight is here the weight of existence itself, an existence which, as Heidegger puts it, is worrying about itself (Supplements, 118). 11 Jacques Derrida, Aporias, trans. Thomas Dutoit (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1993), p. 77. Hereafter cited as A, followed by page number. 12 This is also Agambens reading, who considers that the originary facticity of Dasein signifies that Daseins opening is marked by an original impropriety. Such is the passion of facticity, a passion in which man bears this nonbelonging and darkness. Giorgio Agamben, The Passion of Facticity, in Rethinking Facticity, eds. Franois Raffoul and Eric Sean Nelson (Albany: SUNY Press, 2008), p. 107. This allows Agamben to claim a primacy of the improper in Heideggers thought of being. As he puts it, on Heideggers account of facticity, Dasein cannot ever appropriate the being it is, the being to which it is irreparably consigned. Ibid, p. 100.

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(London, UK: Verso, 2005), p. 69. Derrida seeks to imagine an alterity of decision, a decision that would be of the other, marking a hiatus within the subject. Whenever I say my decision or I decide, you can be sure that Im mistaken. Decision should always be the others decision. My decision is, in fact, the others decision. (CI, 455). That decision of the other is nonetheless a decision of the other in me, for at the same time, it engages me: just as no one can die in my place, no one can make a decision, what we call a decision, in my place (GD, 60). 23 Jacques Derrida. Autrui est secret parce quil est autre [Autrui is secret because it is other], interview by Antoine Spire, Le Monde de lEducation ( JulyAugust 2001), www.lemonde.fr/mde/ete2001/derrida.html. Translated as Others are Secret Because They Are Others, in Paper Machine, trans. Rachel Bowlby (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005), p. 137, p.162. 24 De quoi demain, pp. 9091.

Dwelling and the Ontological Difference


Christopher Ruth
villanova university

In his book Engaging Heidegger, Richard Capobianco raises the question of Daseins dwelling, and asks whether Dasein is primordially at home or not at home in being.1 The answer Capobianco gives is that Heideggers thinking on this topic changes from the earlier work, where Dasein is seen as primordially unhomely, to the later, where Heidegger is much more sanguine about the possibility that we can be at home in being. In what follows, taking Capobiancos question as my point of departure, I will consider the theme of dwelling in Heidegger. It will be seen that the trajectory of Heideggers thinking on this subject is inseparable from the question of the ontological difference. While accepting Capobiancos basic thesis, that Heideggers emphasis gradually shifts from homelessness to homecoming, I will inquire further into the meaning of this shift in order to show that these are not two static poles but rather dynamic coordinates that must be indexed to the transformations in Heideggers thinking of the ontological difference. My approach will be synoptic, going over some of the same ground that Capobianco covers in his book. I will show how

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the theme of dwelling transforms as Heideggers treatment of the ontological difference develops. In that case, the shift in emphasis that Capobianco identifies, from homelessness to homeliness, must be understood in light of a continuously transforming engagement with the theme of ontological difference. However, the course of this transformation ultimately leads beyond the ontological difference, which is no longer an adequate framework for the later Heideggers insights. Heideggers late understanding of dwelling must be understood in light of the transition from the thematization of the relation of being and beings to that of world and thing. Heidegger, both early and late, identifies the question of the essence of the human being, or the being of Dasein, as the question of dwelling. This can be seen if we consider the following two quotes, one from 1927 and one from 1951. The first quote, from Being and Time, reads: The expression bin is connected with bei, and so, ich bin [I am] means in its turn I reside or dwell alongside the world, as that which is familiar to me in such and such a way. Being [Sein], as the infinitive of ich bin (that is to say, when it is understood as an existential), signifies to reside alongside, to be familiar with.2 The second quote is from Building Dwelling Thinking: The way in which you are and I am, the manner in which we humans are on the earth, is Buan, dwelling. To be a human being means to be on the earth as a mortal. It means to dwell.3

If we carefully consider the differences between these two quotes, which, it will be seen, are just as instructive as the similarities, it will become evident that the trajectory of the theme of dwelling is inextricably bound up with the fate of the ontological difference in Heideggers thinking. Beings are what is most familiar to us, and yet because of our relation to being we are not at home in what is most familiar. Therefore, to understand the shift in emphasis from dwelling alongside the world to dwelling as a mortal on the earth, it will be necessary to examine the close relation between the question of dwelling and the theme of ontological difference. In considering the question from the perspective of the ontological difference, the first thing that must be marked is the ambiguous sense in which Heidegger speaks of being at home. In being at home among beings, Dasein is estranged from being, and therefore remains outside of its essence. On the other hand, the essence of Dasein, which is to have a relation to being, volatilizes Daseins relation to beings, rendering them unfamiliar, and thus Dasein is not at home in its familiar dealings with beings. Thus, Dasein is not unambiguously at home in either case. Dasein, in its everyday way of dwelling, generally interprets the world in terms of what it is concerned with, to the point where it misapprehends itself, as well as the others it is with in the way of Dasein, treating them as things rather than as existences or Dasein-like beings; as Heidegger says, Proximally and for the most part, Dasein is in terms of what it is concerned with4 This misapprehension is what Heidegger calls Daseins falling [Verfallen]. As falling, Dasein is captivated by its world and takes itself to be a thing, a what rather than a who. This means that Dasein is proximally and for the most

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part alongside [bei] the world of its concern.5 Heidegger also calls this being alongside [Sein bei] Daseins absorption in [Aufgehen bei]6 In both of these formulations it is important to pay particular attention to the word bei, which in the passage quoted above has been interpreted by Heidegger to connote residing or dwelling. Being alongside [Sein bei] the world in the sense of being absorbed in the world could thus be alternately translated Being at-home in the world, etc. This indicates that being at home is itself estranging. The aim of Heideggers analyses in Being and Time is to reawaken the question of being in Dasein. This question has been forgotten to the extent that Dasein turns away from being toward that with which it is most familiar, beings. Such turning away, however, is a constitutive state of Daseins being, and as such is the condition in which Dasein, initially and for the most part, always finds itself. The unsettling attunement of Angst confronts Dasein with the fact that its easy familiarity with beings estranges it from its essence. It is then that Dasein encounters death. In being towards death Dasein is awakened to itself as possibility; in existing as possibility, Dasein is never fully at home in any particular actualization of itself, so its essence is to be continually unsettled. Dasein, then, is at home in being not at home, and not at home in being at home, which is to say that its staying with what is most familiar is a form of estrangement, whereas the questioning relation to being, which is what is most essential to Dasein, is unaccustomed and unsettling. In the 1930s, Heidegger begins to think of being in terms of a historically instituting event. In the Introduction to Metaphysics, the exceptional human beings are those who do violence by bringing the overwhelming power of being into play among beings. This happens, according to Heidegger, in poetic

saying, thoughtful projection, constructive building, and state-creating action.7 The instituting power of being, rather than human doing, is primary, but it makes an accomplice of the poet, thinker, builder or statesman in laying out the paths into the beings that envelop humanity in their sway.8 The ontological difference is seen as a polemos or strife in which beings confront being as a counter-power; in this confrontation, the instituting power of being is confronted with the instituted ways that it has opened up among beings. Human beings, who stand in the breach of the ontological difference, fall into a habitual relation to beings and become estranged from being. In this way, the new trails that are blazed among beings become a maze in which human beings errantly wander: The violence-doing, which originally creates the routes, begets in itself its own unessence, a manifold of twists and turns, which in itself is the lack of ways out, so much so that it shuts itself out from the way of meditation on the seeming within which it drifts around.9 Thus the poet, thinker, builder, or statesman, as a facilitator of ontological violence, is ultimately a tragic figure. The Unheimlichkeit of all that does violence shows itself as human beings are continually thrown back on the paths that they themselves have laid out; they get bogged down in their routes, get stuck in ruts, and by getting stuck they draw in the circle of their world, get enmeshed in seeming, and thus shut themselves out of being.10 This entanglement among beings, however, is not what is most uncanny; all violence-doing directly shatters against

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death, which confronts the violence-doer with the ultimate limit to the accustomed stay among beings:11 The human being has no way out in the face of death, not only when it is time to die, but constantly and essentially. Insofar as humans are, they stand in the no-exit of death. Thus Da-sein is the happening of uncanniness itself.12 Note the ambiguity in Unheimlichkeit: the human being is first of all said to be uncanny because it is enmeshed in beings and shut out from being, but now the human being is uncanny in the sense that there is no way out in the face of death. No matter how bogged down it is among beings, the accustomed familiarity of human existence shatters in the confrontation with death. Thematically, this is clearly a return to the existential analytic of Being and Time, but it at the same time points forward to the next step in Heideggers thinking of the theme of home as modulated by the transformations in his thinking of the ontological difference. Although being is now thought as a historically instituting event, reintroducing the theme of being towards death at this point in the Introduction to Metaphysics disrupts the texts sense of being as a sovereign, instituting power and points to the sense of being beyond the being of beings, i.e. beyond the ontological difference, that Heidegger will shortly begin to work out. It is a short step from being as an instituting power to being as something that undermines everything that is instituted. If death haunts all human existence as an unactualizable limit, then what is most essential to human beings is to dwell in the proximity of what cannot be actualized. This is

being, thought historically as an enabling and self-giving occurrence. The re-introduction of being towards death at this point shifts the emphasis from what is given to the giving itself. Death is thus the veil of being as Seyn or Ereignis, being as event, now thought as historical destiny. To think being as enabling event is not only to undermine the stability of what is enabled, which can only come to presence in the effacement of being, but to think beyond being as ground, and thus to come to grips with the instability of the being of beings which we now see is in each case given or sent. If we keep in mind the destinal and historical turn in Heideggers engagement with the Seinsfrage in the 1930s, it should be evident that to think being as the historical putting into place of essence is simultaneously to volatilize essence, to think it as something in movement. In thinking being as the occurrence of a historical ground, Heidegger has already begun to make the turn from the ground to the occurrence from being to Seyn or Ereignis that will now become the primary matter for Heideggerian thinking. In other words, if being happens as ground, then what is most worthy of questioning is the happening of ground, Ereignis, which can only be thought of as groundless, not only in the sense that it is not grounded in something still more fundamental, which would only defer the question, but also in the sense that, as simple happening, it is not itself a ground, is not the most fundamental or the first instance in which being itself is grounded. Rather, Ereignis is the happening of being, the historical opening up of sense. The question of the home is always the question of the human essence, which means the human relation to being. In Ereignis, we are placed into a relation to being that is histori-

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cally determinative. However, now that we have arrived at the thought of Ereignis as a groundless event, this being placed comes to light as a displacement: [T]his displacement places man for the first time into the decision of the most decisive relations to beings and non-beings. These relations bestow on him the foundation of a new essence. This need displaces man into the beginning of a foundation of his essence. I say advisedly a foundation for we can never say that it is the absolute one.13 Note the three terms used in the first sentence: beings and nonbeings, i.e. the ontological difference, but also displacement, which here indicates Ereignis. Ereignis is not displacement because it is chaotic, but because, as we have seen, as the happening of ground it is itself groundless. Human dwelling, then, now appears to be a relation to the groundless. What it is absolutely necessary to remark upon here is that the possibility of becoming at home in being14, in the ambiguous sense that Heidegger will soon call becoming at home in homelessness,15 directly follows from this thought of being beyond the ontological difference. If Heidegger thinks the historical event of the placement of the human essence on a new foundation as each time a displacement, then thinking, which for Heidegger is an essential mode of occurrence of finite and historical human existence, is, to the extent that as being towards death it is turned toward its limit, more fundamentally attuned to the unsettling or displacing, i.e. the event-like, nature of being than to any instituted regime of presencing. What is simultaneously most homely and most uncanny for human beings is being as Ereignis, which by virtue of its char-

acter as the giving of the ontological difference is already beyond the ontological difference. In that case, it should not be surprising that Heideggers inclusion of statesmen along with thinkers, poets and builders as essential founders of being was short-lived; in fact, their demotion is a consequence of the line of thinking already begun in Introduction to Metaphysics.16 Heideggers attempt to think being historically, begun in the 1930s, leads to the conclusion that: being offers us no ground and no basis as beings do to which we can turn, on which we can build, and to which we can cling.17 Nevertheless, Heidegger asks whether there can be an ontohistorical people, a people whose destiny it is to withstand the proximity of being as ungrounding event in their everyday mode of life. This, Heidegger dared to hope, would be the historical calling of the Germans. But he could no longer consider those who wield instituting power, like statesmen, up to the task of leading such a people. While the act of founding a state may be instrumental in installing a new epoch of ontological difference, by foregrounding this act Heideggers thinking had already taken a step back from it. Heidegger could only see this step as fateful, committed as he was to an understanding of thinking as harboring the historical potentialities of the human essence. The relation to potentiality as such, discovered in being toward death, is now thought in terms of a historical destiny. From one perspective, this is a kind of homecoming; from another, it is a relinquishing of everything homely: Being is not some thing that is actual, but that which determines what is actual in its potential

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for being, and determines especially the potential for human beings to be; that potential for being in which the being of humans is fulfilled: being homeless in becoming at home. Such is our belonging to being itself. What essentially prevails as being, and is never a being or something actual and therefore always appears to be nothing, can be said only in poetizing or thought in thinking.18 Only the poet and the thinker are capable of a kind of language in which the singularity of Ereignis is sheltered from languages own institutionalizing power.19 Therefore, regardless of Heideggers private opinions or actions, irrespective of what external influences may have come to bear on his thought and when they did so, and without in any way trying to absolve him from his appalling commitment to Nazism, I would like to insist that the most central impulses of Heideggerian thinking, as already evident in Introduction to Metaphysics, made it inevitable that this thinking would arrive at a place where Nazism could no longer be presented as an authentic response to being. If we consider the trajectory of the theme of dwelling in Heidegger, it should in fact become evident that the central imposition of political power is incompatible with thoughtful dwelling once Heidegger begins to understand the latter as a becoming at home in homelessness. Furthermore, once again it is possible to see, at least in retrospect, the trajectory of our theme leading toward the next step along the way. In order to make this clear, it will be helpful to briefly return to what has thus far been said. I have been arguing that the theme of dwelling is integrally bound up with the question of the ontological difference. In Being and Time, the awakening of the Seinsfrage in Dasein depends on the

uncanny attunement of angst to call Dasein from its entanglement with beings and, in being towards death, to undergo the defamiliarization of beings, which is to say to experience its fundamental homelessness, and to encounter being as potentiality. In the 1930s the attempt to think being historically led to the thought of the uncanny violence-doer who allows being to break in among beings, disrupting Daseins accustomed ways. This thinking was in turn called by being towards death to step back from the being of beings as instituting power and to turn toward being as event, as Seyn or Ereignis. This turn was recognized as a historical destiny, which calls upon human beings in particular, Germans to become at home in being homeless, i.e. to dwell in an open proximity to being as event. Institutionalizing power the power of the statesman was found to be inadequate to this event, which is accomplished by the language of the thinker or poet which shelters the singularity of Ereignis. To begin with, we have ontological difference being and beings. Then, the insight that the difference between being and beings occurs as the opening up of history, which leads to the realization that this event of being is in some sense beyond ontological difference, not as its ground but as its sheer happening. This happening which cannot be a ground becomes the matter for thinking, and, as such, Daseins home away from home. Now it appears we have a tri-partite scheme: beings (being of) being(s) (being as) Ereignis. Since beings are grounded in being (the being of beings), and the happening of ground is Ereignis, the matter of thinking seems to have taken two steps away from beings. First, the turn from beings to being; next, the turn from being as the being of beings to being as Ereignis. Beings, as grounded in being, are always

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under description, in other words they are understood within the horizon of the meaning of being, a meaning that is lived through and historically enacted by Dasein, which in turn can only do so by undergoing the sending of the meaning of being, which Heidegger calls Ereignis. However, Heideggers thinking, in taking a step back from what is instituted in the withdrawal of being and considering the event of withdrawal itself, has arrived at a place where Ereignis is no longer primarily understood as the sending of the ontological difference. Instead, the latter now appears as the guise in which being as Ereignis cloaked itself in the epoch of metaphysics. This destinal guise of being bespeaks a double forgetting: both the forgetting of the originary event, which means that Ereignis withdraws in favor of an epoch of being, and the forgetting of this forgetting, a failure of thinking to arrive at the originary event as its proper matter. The entry of thinking into Ereignis, as we have seen, suggests a transformation of dwelling in which the human being becomes at home in an open proximity to being in the originary sense. But to dwell in such proximity is to have turned from the ontological difference to the giving of the difference. To say that thinking can now concern itself with this event is the same as to say that Ereignis no longer sends itself epochally. In that case, being is no longer given as a horizon for beings, and the relation to beings is transformed, which is to say that Ereignis now gives itself as the event of presencing of beings, rather than as the sending of their horizon. Therefore, if Heidegger wants to consider the possibility that human beings can dwell in an open proximity to the groundless, which is to say not merely to encounter and withstand homelessness (as in Introduction to Metaphysics), but

to become at home in it (as in Hlderlins Hymn The Ister ), then the ontological difference, which has provided the scheme for Heideggers theme of dwelling thus far, now becomes an obstacle to proper dwelling. The framework that distinguishes between being and beings, and thinks Ereignis as the giving or sending of this difference, describes an epoch of being that has reached its limit.20 This limit becomes apparent when thinking tries to advance, however tentatively, beyond the history of being and take up a relation to being that is no longer epochal or destinal, but has become homely. Although Heideggers breakthrough on this account comes in the late 1940s, when the mirror-play of world and thing becomes a central concern for his thinking, it is in the notes to a seminar on 1962s lecture On Time and Being where this theme is most explicitly juxtaposed with the ontological difference at the same time as it is referred to the topic of dwelling. In the seminar, Heidegger emphasizes the need to think being without regard to grounding being in terms of beings.21 To ground being in this way is to remain at the level of beingness, or the being of beings, and this would prevent Ereignis from emerging as the matter for thinking. However, Heidegger maintains that To think being without beings does not mean that the relation to beings is inessential to being, that we should disregard this relation.22 But it is not immediately clarified how this relation is to be thought, or what its significance is for non-metaphysical thinking. The relation between being and beings is in a certain way circular: being is the ground of beings, but as such it is grounded in terms of beings. This is because being, when thought as the being of beings, reveals itself as beingness, the way that beings are (in the epoch of metaphysics, this has been

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one form or another of constant presence). What Heidegger calls the forgetting of being in favor of beings is not a onesided occlusion of the former by the latter, but a sort of mutual ensnarement in which beings are also, in a sense, forgotten, which is to say their singularity is effaced in that they are referred back to their ground. As Heidegger says, in reference to one such being, to this day, thought has never let the tree stand where it stands.23 In thinking of/from Ereignis, on the other hand, the relation of being and beings is transformed: [F]rom Ereignis it becomes necessary to free thinking from the ontological difference. From Ereignis, this relation shows itself as the relation of world and thing, a relation which could in a way be understood as the relation of being and beings. But then its peculiar quality would be lost.24 With the transformation of the ontological difference into the relation of world and thing, we arrive at the final elaboration of our theme of dwelling. Whereas at times Heidegger seems to refer to the relation between the human being and being as a sort of dyad, albeit one in which the relation is more primary than its individual terms, here this crucial relation is also transformed and elaborated, as the thinking from Ereignis takes place as an event that transposes human dwelling into the fourfold: Thus, at the end of the lecture on Identity it is stated what Appropriation appropriates, that is, brings into its own and retains in Appropriation: namely, the belonging together of being and man. In this belonging together, what belongs together

is no longer being and man, but rather as appropriated mortals in the fourfold of world.25 Ereignis, in appropriating the human relation to being, brings the human being into the fourfold. To dwell in this way, as mortals in the fourfold, is always to remain in proximity to things: Mortals would never be capable of it if dwelling were merely a staying on earth under the sky, before the divinities, among mortals. Rather, dwelling itself is always a staying with things.26 When the later Heidegger suggests that human beings can come to be at home in being, then, it is explicitly being as Ereignis that he means. Ereignis is the event in which a historical home is opened up for human dwelling, and humans are placed into their essence. However, when this groundless event is emphasized, when thinking is held in proximity to the movement of placement rather than the nascent stability of the resultant relations into which we are placed, this placement is of necessity at the same time a displacement, which is why Heidegger calls this movement a coming to be at home in homelessness. Homelessness does not imply estrangement from the things that surround us; it is the institutionalization of relations which stabilizes both the human being and its surroundings in categorial determinations that is continually unsettled in such uncanny dwelling. In being freed from the ontological difference, however, thinking is brought into close proximity to things. Therefore, Ereignis is not beyond the ontological difference as a third thing that is absolved from the difference. Rather, it is beyond the difference in the sense that thinking of/from Ereignis no longer remains bound to the ontological difference but is freed from it. When this happens beings are also freed

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from their determination by the ontological difference, revealing themselves as things. Without engagement with things, there is no Ereignis, since without things, there is no fourfold dwelling, which is what is appropriated in Ereignis. The human engagement with things beyond the ontological difference is what Heidegger calls letting beings be, and this is what is meant by dwelling. A thing is a singular being, which is to say it is neither an instance of a universal category nor a mute occurrence that remains indifferent to its determinations, but a happening that each time brings world into play, or, as Heidegger says, The thing things world.27 World and thing are inseparable, each a reflection of the other in their mutual sameness and difference. For the later Heidegger, to dwell is to remain in an open proximity to the singularity of the happening of world and thing. As Heidegger says, again in reference to a tree, the thing that matters, first and foremost, and finally, is not to drop the tree in bloom, but for once let it stand where it stands.28 To let it stand where it stands is not to take it as an isolated, ineffable this, but to engage it in all its ramifications as an event of world-disclosure. For the later Heidegger, then, to think of/from Ereignis implies that thinking must engage with the way world is disclosed in singular things, and to allow thought to take its cue from the thing that is in each case under consideration. But this is not just a theoretical undertaking, since such thinking is never separate from our lived engagement with things, which must come to foster the happening of world in the thing. This kind of engagement is what the later Heidegger means by dwelling. It is a coming to be at home in homelessness in the sense that, since world happens each time in the thing, the

displacing placement of Ereignis is what is most intimate both to human beings and to things. To be at home once and for all would be to assume a systematic familiarity with beings. But this would be at the same time the utmost homelessness, because the opening of world would be totally occluded. In that case, we never are at home precisely because of the fact that we are always coming to be at home. This relation to things is indicated by Heidegger in a prospective sense; our entire way of being in the world as it is currently constituted militates against such dwelling. Thus it is not just a theoretical challenge to understand things as singularities; a social and historical transformation is required, the concrete implications of which are far outside the scope of this essay. In any case, Heidegger presents what for him are the terms of a historical decision when, in the Memorial Address, he juxtaposes our current mode of dwelling with a new rootedness, in which the relation to world and thing, respectively, are described as openness to the mystery and releasement toward things.29 Here I have only begun to indicate the difficulties and challenges which are harbored in such seemingly simple formulations; as Heidegger acknowledges: Yet releasement toward things and openness to the mystery never happen of themselves. They do not befall us accidentally. Both flourish only through persistent, courageous thinking.30

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notes

18 GA 53: 150. 19 This singularity can only be sheltered, not encountered directly: Heidegger calls the thinking of/from Ereignis a remembrance of forgetting, an overcoming of a second forgetting that evicts the human essence and compels it to wander among beings, but as we will see there is a primary forgetting that cannot be overcome. 20 In fact, the Ge-stell is an epoch without a principle, which is why it is the obverse of Ereignis. 21 GA 14: 41/OTB 33. 22 Ibid. 23 GA 8: 46. 24 GA 14: 46/OTB 37, tm. 25 GA 14: 51/OTB 42. 26 GA 7: 153/PLT 149. 27 GA 7: 182/PLT 178. 28 GA 8: 46. 29 GA 16: 528/DT 55. 30 GA 16: 529/ DT 56.

Engaging Heidegger, Chapter 3, The Turn Towards Home. An earlier version, Heideggers Turn Toward Home, appeared in Epoche Volume 10, Number 1 (Fall 2005). GA 2 73/SZ 54. GA 7: 149/PLT 145. GA 2: 188/SZ 141. GA 2: 233/SZ 175.

2 3 4 5

6 Ibid. 7 8 9 GA 40: 166. GA 40: 166. GA 40: 167, tm.

10 GA 40: 167. 11 GA 40: 167. 12 GA 40: 167. 13 GA 45: 160-1. 14 More proper here would be beyng, however, which is now to be distinguished from being. 15 My translation of Das Heimischwerden im Unheimischsein, which McNeill and Davis give as becoming homely in being unhomely. GA 53: 143. 16 Nevertheless, the following out of this consequence is seen as a regression by Zizek (cf. Why Heidegger Made the Right Step in 1933 International Journal of Zizek Studies v. 1.4). 17 N4: 193.

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ireland

Heidegger and the Inner Truth of National Socialism: A New Archival Discovery
Julia A. Ireland
whitman college

Scandalous. It is the single word most often used to characterize Heideggers 1935 reference in Einfhrung in die Metaphysik to the inner truth and greatness of [N.S] (National Socialism).1 The consistency with which it is deployed by nearly everyone writing on Heideggers politics from journalists to philosophically-minded internet bloggers to serious Heidegger scholars reveals it to have assumed an almost idiomatic force. Scandalous is the word used to capture and mark the experience of immediate moral offense built into a formulation that has the disadvantage of showing Heidegger engaged in that uniquely philosophical activity of drawing a distinction. And it is also the word used to describe the relationship between the experience of that offense and its blatancy, which connects the scandalous to both shamelessness and to publicity. This has placed more than one serious scholar into the ambivalent position of, on the one hand, praising Heidegger

for the courageousness of his decision to include in the 1953 Niemeyer edition of Einfhrung in die Metaphysik a sentence that he did not, in fact, deliver as part of the original lecture course, while on the other hand taking him to task for not just not deleting the phrase when presented the opportunity but for retrospectively justifying it by way of the later addition of a parenthetical. In the chapter he dedicates to the interpretation of this sentence in The Shadow of That Thought, French philosopher Dominique Janicaud thus poses the question, Why keep an acknowledgement of the inner and truth and greatness of [N.S.]? In fact this is what has caused the problem or the scandal in 1953 and what keeps it alive today.2 The answer is because the phrase the inner truth and greatness of [N.S.] possesses for Heidegger positive, which is to say, decisive philosophical contenta point he seeks to draw forward when challenged in the 1966 Der Spiegel interview, however much he garbles just when he added the parenthetical.3 Despite the explanation he goes on to offer in that interview (and the most salient point concerns how we go about identifying what he there terms a real confrontation with the technicized world), this positive content nonetheless seems to remain indecipherable within the context of Heideggers specific analyses in Einfhrung in die Metaphysik. It does not seem possible to retrace the steps that connect the depth of creative insight which distinguishes that course with the sardonic tonality of remarks on the increased number of works on value generated by Nazi ideologues and Heideggers own affirmation of an inner truth and greatness through which he asserts a genuine philosophical distance within the privacy of his manuscript page.

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Yet the scandalous reference Heidegger makes to the inner truth and greatness of [N.S.] in is not indecipherable. For when Heidegger uses this particular expression Einfhrung in die Metaphysik he is in fact quotingand thereby presupposingthe entire supporting context of what is his first reference to the inner truth of National Socialism. Phrased in just a slightly different manner and also employing an abbreviation, this first reference took place exactly five months earlier within the context of a series of remarkable insertions found in the Der Rhein portion of the handwritten manuscript of Heideggers 1934/35 Winter Semester lecture course, Hlderlins Hymnen Germanien und Der Rhein, but has remained unknown for contingent reasons.4 The typescript of this course collated by Fritz Heidegger and corrected by Heidegger makes clear that, in contrast to Einfhrung in die Metaphysik, Heidegger made an editorial decision to omit several passages from the manuscript containing overt political content, including the bracketed sentences found on this particular page. When the German editor for the Gesamtausgabe volume, Susanne Ziegler, returns to fill in these sentences she mistakenly interprets Heideggers handwriting in the abbreviation N.soz for N.W, transcribing it in the edited volume as Naturwissenschaft or natural science. (A review of the philological evidence makes clear that she has grounds for doing so.) The passage as it is found in the current third edition of the course thus reads: Neu ist diese angeblich neue Wissenschaft nur dadurch, da sie nicht wei, wie veraltet sie ist. Mit der inneren Wahrheit der Naturwissenschaft [sic] hat sie vollends nichts zu tun. [This purportedly new science is new only by virtue of the fact that it does not know how antiquated it is. It has nothing whatsoever to do

with the inner truth of natural science (sic)] (GA39, 195).5 I discovered Zieglers error in the context of examining what the Deutsches Literaturarchiv catalogues as a Nachschrift or transcript of a first version of the course put together by Luise Krohn,6 which was included as part of a comprehensive review of archival documents undertaken for the English translation of the Germanien und Der Rhein course by Indiana University Press. Krohns inclusion of manuscript page numbers confirms that this transcript is instead a copy that was independently generated from Heideggers handwritten manuscript prior to at least the Der Rhein portion of the courses being delivered in January 1935; philological and philosophical analysis show that Krohn correctly transcribes the abbreviation N.soz as Nationalsozialismus, though she transposes the order of Heideggers insertions in this particular section of text. Student lecture notes confirm that Heidegger did not actually read out the parenthetical referring to National Socialism as part of the lecture course, which is consistent with the way he treated the reference from Einfhrung in die Metaphysik. While Heideggers decision to omit parenthetical sentences both from the lecture course and from the typescript already goes far in confirming the fact of their political content, and the further review of Heideggers handwriting verifies the abbreviation as N.soz,7 correcting this sentence in the Gesamtausgabe volume does not address its deeper significance. It does not clarify what it was philosophically that prompted Heidegger to add the parenthetical reference to National Socialism within what the manuscript page shows to be the wholesale revision of an otherwise schematic transition within Heideggers interpretation of Hlderlins Der Rhein hymn.

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Nor does it help to make sense of the way Heidegger then went on to add several further insertions in light of that reference, making explicit a series of latent political connections that begin with the distinction he draws in this passage between the Greek interpretation of Nature as and natural science and that extend back to the three services outlined in his 1933 Rectoral Address. To play off the question posed by Janicaud, the issue here is not, Why keep an acknowledgment of the inner truth and greatness of [N.S.]?, but why add one in the first place? What about Hlderlins rivers prompts Heidegger to include such an acknowledgment, and then what prompts him again to repeat nearly this exact same formulation just five months later in Einfhrung in die Metaphysik? In this respect, Zieglers mistaken transcription of the abbreviation as natural science provides the decisive philosophical clue. For the interpretive reconstruction of this passage shows that the phrase the inner truth of natural science not only fails to make basic sense, the meaning of these paragraphs reveals that it is not, in fact, a possible formulation for Heidegger; indeed, precisely his point in adding this insertion is that natural science is not something capable of possessing an inner truth. This is of particular significance for understanding the larger implications of this discovery, which are not about the excavation of still another reference to National Socialism within Heideggers philosophical corpus. Instead, the contrast between the way the inner truth of natural science does not make coherent sense and the way the inner truth of National Socialism does reveals that the locus of this difference lies in the distinction Heidegger draws between and natural science apropos this purportedly new science, which in the

context of the time meant political science with its explicitly racial (vlkisch) metaphysics. This metaphysics is predicated on the derivative interpretation of Nature as growth (erwachsen) taken up within the context of modern science as process or Bewegungsvorgang and further mapped onto the project of science itself as what Heidegger terms the organized business of procuring and disseminating of knowledge. Thus rather than the abbreviation N.soz reading as a non-sequitur that comes from out of nowhere, the succession of insertions on the manuscript page makes clear that what Heidegger says about in this passage governs what the phrase the inner truth of can and cannot refer to. However oblique it may seem, Heidegger understands National Socialism as what I want to term a -event. This helps clarify what Heidegger has in mind in employing the expression the inner truth of National Socialism within the Germanien und Der Rhein lecture course and, even more importantly given its provocative interpretive history, within Einfhrung in die Metaphysik. It is that locates what Heidegger means by the inner truth of N.Soc against what he refers to in an ideologically coded way as science today as made manifest by the scholarship industry.

appendix a

In discussing Einfhrung in die Metaphysik, I cite Fritz Heideggers too little attended to typescript of the course as quoted by Theodore Kisiel in his article, Heideggers Philosophical Geopolitics in the Third Reich, which includes formulations not found in the current Gesamtausgabe edition of the course

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or in Petra Jaegers somewhat begrudging discussion of this passage in her Editors Epilogue8: Im Jahre 1928 erschien eine Gesamtbibliographie des Wertbegriffs 1. Teil. Hier sind 661 Schriften ber den Wertbegriff aufgefhrt. Vermtlich sind es inzwischen tausend geworden: das all nennt sich Philosophie. (Und wenn man jetzt noch jene komische Wissenschaft der Aporetik auf Wertlehre anwendet, wird alles noch komischer und berschlagt sich in den Unsinn.) Aber wohl gemerkt, das gilt heute als streng wissenschaftliche Philosophie. Was nun vollends heute als Philosophie des Nationalsocialismus herumgeboten wird, aber mit der innerer Wahrheit und Gre des N.S. nicht das Geringste zu tun hat, das macht seiner Fischzuge in diesen trben Gewssern der Werte. In the year 1928 there appeared a collected bibliography on the concept of value, Part One. It cites 661 publications on the concept of value. Probably by now it has become one thousand: all this calls itself philosophy. But mark it well, this today counts as rigorous scientific philosophy. (And if one applies this odd science of aporetics to the doctrine of value everything becomes still more comical and quickly turns into nonsense.) What in particular is being peddled about today as the philosophy of National Socialism, but that has not the slightest thing to do with the inner truth and greatness of N.S., is fishing in these troubled waters of values and totalities.

appendix b

The following reproduces what is found on ps. 195-6 in Zieglers Gesamtausgabe edition of the Germanien und Der Rhein course. Wir wissen die Strme sind nicht einfach >Bilder< fr etwas, sondern sind selbst gemeint und mit ihnen die heimatliche Erde. Aber diese ist nicht ein irgendwie abgezirkelter Bereich von Land, Wasser, Planzen, Tieren und Luft unseres Planeten im Sinner des Gegenstandfeldes der Naturwissenschaften von der Geologie bis zur Astrophysik, berhaupt nicht >Natur< im neuzeitlichen Sinne. Denn gerade der metaphysische Sinn von Natur, natura, in der unanfnglichen Nennkraft des Wortes ist schon eine wesentliche Auslegung des Seins, die mit Naturwissenschaft nicht das Geringste zu tun hat. Die ursprngliche, von den Griechen erschlossene und ins Wort gebrachte Nature wurde spatter durch zwei fremde Mchte denaturiert. Einmal durch das Christentum, wodurch die Natur estlich zum >Geschaffenen< herabgesetzt und zugleich in ein Verhltnis zu einer ber-Natur (Reich der Gnade) gebracht wurde. Sodann durch die neuzeitliche Wissenschaft, die die Natur auflste in die Machtbereiche der mathematischen Ordnung des Weltverkehrs, der Industrialisierung und der im besonderen Sinne maschinenhaften Technik. Geschehnisse, die ihrerseits wieder zurckschlugen in die Auffassung der Wissenschaft berhaupt, also nicht nur der

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Naturwissenschaften, und zu dem fhrten, was wir heute haben: Wissenschaft als organisierten Betrieb der Wissensbeschaffung un vermittlung. Ob dieser Betrieb in Gang gehaltn wird in der Haltung der sogenannten liberalen Objektivitt oder einer solchen, die diese Haltung nur verneint, ndert an der Gestalt der heutigen Wissenschaft als solcher nichts. Neu ist diese angeblich neue Wissenschaft nur dadurch, da sie nicht wei, wie veraltet sie ist. Mit der inneren Wahrheit der Naturwissenschaft hat sie vollends nichts zu tun. Wenn wir uns daher heute die Aufgabe stellen, einen Wande der >Wissenschaft< im Ganzen zu erwirken, dann gilt es zuvor, eines zu wissen: Wissenschaft als Ganze kann nie durch Wissenschaft und noch weniger durch Manahmen, die nur eine nderung ihres Lehrbetriebs betreffen, gewandelt warden, sondern nur durch eine andere Metaphysik, d.h. eine neue Grnderfahrung des Seyns. Diese schliet in sich: erstens Wandel des Wesen der Wahrheit, zweitens Wandel des Wesens der Arbeit. Diese Grunderfahrung wird usprnglicher sein mssen as die der Griechen, die sich in Wort und Begriff der ausspricht.

appendix c

The following is my corrected translation of the passage found on pages 295-296 of the Germanien und Der Rhein course and differs from that published by Indiana University Press:

We know that the rivers are not simply images of something, but are meant to be taken for themselves, and that together with them the Earth of the homeland is intended. Yet the Earth is not a domain of land, water, plants, animals, and air belonging to our planet, a domain that is somehow circumscribed in the manner of the field of objects for the natural sciences extending from geology to astrophysics it is not at all nature in the modern sense. For precisely the metaphysical sense of Nature,9natura, in the primordial, inceptive naming force of the word, is already an essential interpretation of being that does not have the slightest thing to do with natural science. Primordial Nature, disclosed and brought into the word by the Greeks, later came to be denatured by way of two alien powers. On the one hand, by Christendom, through which Nature was first demoted to something created, and at the same time brought into a relationship with a supraNature (the realm of grace). And then by modern science, which dissolved Nature into domains of power belonging to the mathematical ordering of world commerce, industrialization, and technology, which in a special sense is machine technology. Events that for their part in turn impacted our view of science in general, thus not only natural science,10 and that led to what we have today: science as the organized business of procuring and transmitting knowledge. (Whether this business is kept in operation in the stance taken by so-called

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liberal objectivity, or in one that merely rejects that stance, alters nothing with regard to the shape of contemporary science as such.)11 (This purportedly new science is new only by virtue of the fact that it does not know how antiquated it is. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the inner truth of National Socialism.12) 13If, therefore, we today set ourselves the task of bringing about a transformation in science itself as a whole, then we must first come to know one thing: science as a whole can never be transformed through science, and still less through measures that are concerned merely with altering the business of its teachings, but only through another metaphysics, that is, a new fundamental experience of beyng. Such an experience entails, first, a transformation in the essence of truth; and second, a transformation in the essence of labor. This fundamental experience will have to be more original than that of the Greeks, which expresses itself in the concept and word .

notes

I would like to thank Frau Heidrun Fink and Frau Hildegard Diecke at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv (DLA) in Marbach, Germany for helping me to locate Heideggers manuscripts. I also gratefully acknowledge archive director Dr. Ulrich von Blow, who took the time to review the manuscript page with me and to address some of my very basic questions. I also want to thank Tom Davis, Richard Polt, William McNeill, David Farrell Krell, Gregory Fried, Thomas Sheehan for their input on drafts of this article. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Theodor Kisiel for helping me to locate documents in the archive and for his willingness to answer all (!) my e-mails. Finally, I am indebted to both Whitman College and the Alexander-von-Humboldt-Stiftung for contributing funding for the three separate trips to the archive that made this article possible.

For reasons that will become clear, I will be referring to Heideggers original formulation of this sentence as it is found in the Fritz Heidegger typescript of Einfhrung in die Metaphysik, which includes the abbreviation N.S. [Nationalsozialismus]. (See Appendix A.) Einfhrung in die Metaphysik, 4th ed., Gesamtausgabe, vol. 40, ed. Petra Jaeger. (Vittorio Klostermann: Frankfurt am Main, 1983) 208; trans. by Gregory Fried and Richard Polt as Introduction to Metaphysics (Yale University Press: New Haven, 2000) 213. (Fried and Polts translation is based on the 1953 Max Niemeyer edition of Einfhrung in die Metaphysik.) I will abbreviate the German text as GA40, and the English translation as IM throughout. Though I have made consistent reference to the translation of this course by Fried and Polt, I have also modified their translation in order to bring forward Heideggers use of particular words. Though cumbersome, I have chosen to cite the titles of Heideggers texts in German rather than in English. This is in part for consistency, as the nature of my philological analysis requires more numerous and lengthy citations in German than is customary. However, it is also reflective of my effort to put brackets around the texts Ill be addressing (at least for English speakers), inviting further reflection on their material construction as texts. This seems especially important, since the content of this article concerns discrepancies between what Heidegger wrote and what Heidegger said, what Heidegger wrote but did not say, what is and is not included in his brother, Fritz Heideggers, typescripts of the courses, and what is actually published in the individual edited volumes of the Gesamtausgabe or Collected Works. Beyond whatever

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arguments one wishes to make in favor or against a critical edition of Heideggers work, the two lecture courses Ill be addressing provoke quite basic questions concerning what a Heidegger text is. 2 See Chapter Four, The Purloined Letter, p. 54. The Shadow of That Thought: Heidegger and the Question of Politics, trans. by Jrome Millon. (Northwestern University Press: Evanston, IL, 1996) 50-64. Janicaud offers the single most thorough and philosophically thoughtful interpretation of this passage from Einfhrung in die Metaphysik available in the current scholarship. The argument he presents in this chapter and the questions he poses have greatly informed both my general approach and the specific questions I suggest here. The sentence published in the 1953 Niemeyer edition, and currently found in the 4th edition of the Gesamtausgabe volume of Einfhrung in die Metaphysik, reads: Was heute vollends als Philosophie des Nationalsozialismus herumgeboten wird, aber nicht mit der inneren Wahrheit und Gre dieser Bewegung (nmlich mit der Begegnung der planetarisch bestimmten Technik und des neuzeitlichen Menschen) nicht das Geringste zu tun hat, das macht seine Fischzge in diesen trben Gewssern der Werte and der Ganzheiten, GA 40: 208. (What is being peddled about today but has not the least thing to do with the inner truth and greatness of this movement [namely, the encounter between global technology and modern man] is fishing about in these troubled waters of values and totalities, IM 213.) In the Der Spiegel interview Heidegger mistakenly claims that the parenthetical was included in the original manuscript, and corresponded exactly to [his] conception of technology at that time. Reden und Andere Zeugnisse eines Lebensweges. Gesamtausgabe, vol. 16, ed. Hermann Heidegger. (Vittorio Klostermann: Frankfurt am Main, 2000) 667-8. Hereafter cited as GA16. Translated as Only a God Can Save Us by Maria P. Alter and John D. Caputo in The Heidegger Controversy: A Critical Reader, ed. Richard Wolin. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991) 91-116. Fried and Polt place this sentence in square brackets in their translation to indicate that it was added when Heidegger revised the course for publication in 1953. Hlderlins Hymnen Germanien und Der Rhein, 3rd ed, Gesamtausgabe volume 39, ed. Susanne Ziegler. (Vittorio Klostermann, 1980, 1999). Translated in English as Hlderlins Hymns Germania and The Rhine by William McNeill and Julia Ireland, forthcoming by Indiana University Press, 2013. I have hereafter abbreviated the 5

course as GA39. Student lecture notes by Siegfried Brse indicate that Heidegger would have delivered this reference in the lecture he gave on January 29th, 1935. The reference from Einfhrung in die Metaphysik would have been delivered on June 27th, 1935. See the article by Theodore Kisiel, Political Interventions in the Lecture Courses of 19336. Heidegger Jahrbuch 5. Heidegger und der Nationalsozialismus: Interpretationen, eds. Alfred Denker and Holger Zaborowski. (Verlag Karl Alber: Freiburg/Mchen, 2009) 23. In the context of the then new university schedule with its abbreviated Summer Semester, no one knows when Heidegger would have been composing Einfhrung in die Metaphysik in relationship to the Germanien und Der Rhein course. See Appendix B for the full citation of the passage from the Germanien und Der Rhein course as it is currently found in the 3rd edition of Gesamtausgabe, vol. 39; Appendix B provides my modified English translation of this same portion of text, and reflects the corrections suggested by Krohns manuscript copy. Translators are legally bound by the Heidegger family to translate only what is found in the published German text, including errors they may find in the context of reviewing the Gesamtausgabe edition against Heideggers handwritten manuscript. Krohns Nachschrift and my comparative review of that copy with the Fritz Heidegger typescript and the handwritten manuscript revealed other reasonable errors in the Gesamtausgabe editionthough none as significant as the misreading of the abbreviation N.soz. My hope is that the Krohn manuscript copy will lead to a corrected new edition of the Germanien und Der Rhein course, and an updated Editors Epilogue discussing the archival documents now available. I have been unable to establish much about Luise Krohn other than that she was the wife of a Freiburg bookseller. (E-mail correspondence with Theodore Kisiel, October 20th, 2010). Gnter Seubolds Editors Epilogue to Heideggers Summer Semester 1934 lecture course, Logik als die Frage nach dem Wesen der Sprache, mentions that Victor Faras based his unauthorized version of this course on a Luise Krohn Abschrift, and gives the further detail that Luise Krohns maiden name was Luise Grosse. Seubold also indicates that he understands Krohns document to be a typed copy of student lecture notes (maschinenschriftliche Abschrift der Vorlesungsnachschrift). Gesamtausgabe, vol. 38. (Vittorio Klostermann; Frankfurt am Main, 1998) 174; trans. by Wanda Torres Gregory and Yvonne Unna as Logic as the

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Question Concerning the Essence of Language. (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2009). As I go on to detail, Krohns copy of the Germanien und Der Rhein course is not a typed transcript of student notes but an independently generated manuscript copy. 7 Based on the passage from Einfhrung in die Metaphysik, I had originally thought the abbreviation read N.S. The director of the Archive at the DLA, Dr. Ulrich von Blow, first suggested that it was instead N.soz. I was able to confirm this with Theodore Kisiel, who reviewed the manuscript page with me at the DLA in June, 2011. I am extremely grateful to both Drs. von Blow and Kisiel for the time they took in listening to my interpretation of the evidence, reviewing the manuscript page with me, and giving me advice for how to thoughtfully proceed. See Kisiel, Heideggers Philosophical Geopolitics in the Third Reich, pp. 323-324 (translation modified). In her Editors Epilogue, Jaeger makes reference only to Heideggers omission of the parenthetical and his changing the abbreviation, N.S., to die Bewegung. For reasons that are not clear to me, she does not address or include the sentence, Aber wohl gemerkt, das gilt heute als streng wissenschaftliche Philosophie, that comes immediately after the parenthetical. Nature for nature. I have capitalized the word Nature whenever it is used in the sense implied by .

Heideggers Philosophy of Right?


Christophe Perrin universit paris-sorbonne,

france

10 natural science for the natural sciences. 11 Brackets added. 12 National Socialism for natural science. 13 Paragraph break removed.

First, we have the facts, and unedifying facts at that. After resigning from his post as rector of Albert-Ludwigs-Universitt, Heidegger, then a member of the Academie fur deutsches Recht founded by the Reichsleiter of the Nazi Party, Hans Franck, accepted an invitation to take part in the work of the Academys Ausschu fur Rechtsphilosophie alongside, most notably, Alfred Rosenberg, Carl Schmitt and Julius Streicher. No evidence of the results of these proceedings currently exists in any form. Apart from a seminar for beginners on Hegels Philosophy of Right delivered during the winter semester of 1934 and the reflections on law developed in the lecture course Einfhrung in die Metaphysik delivered during the following summer semester, Heidegger never developed a complete thematic presentation of, what might be termed, the question of law. In any case, whilst there may be some reflections and comments here and there in his writings, what little does exist cannot really be pieced together so as to supply us with any ready-made Heideggarian philosophy of law. In fact, what is noteworthy is that the problematic Heidegger did ostensibly pursue, attested to in all of his major writings was, as we know, the question

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of being. Now, this is, even at first glance, a broader and deeper form of reflection than the explication of the regional ontological framework underpinning legal practice. Of course, it is open to us in any case to dip into Heideggers writings and pluck out whatever we find there that might be of use in constructing and refining our own legal theories. In doing so, we would also have to acknowledge that we were simply making use of a collection of words and, at best, grammatical constructions drawn from Heideggers texts without allowing ourselves to be drawn into the questions raised by Heideggers texts. The following approach instead suggests itself to us: to enter into the domain of Heideggers questioning in order to draw our own reflections on law out from that site. In this, we are making our way along a relatively untrodden path of reflection, despite the notable efforts in this direction attempted by other thinkers.1 This path of reflection proceeds through three stages.

ity. But it is also where man remains subject that the deliberate struggle against individualism and in favour of community, as field and goal of all efforts and all types of utility, has any meaning.2 The person in modernity is thus, first and foremost, a subject, and indeed the subject. Other determinations, whether the subject is treated as a comrade in a socialism regime or whether the subject is treated as an individual in a liberal democratic regime, are of secondary importance. But what sort of subjectivity are we dealing with here? We might think first of all of a form of subjectivity constituted through law, the autonomous bearer of legal rights. However, even this form of legal subjectivity is derivative from a more basic form of subjectivity and which Heidegger terms, the metaphysics of subjectivity.3 This is a metaphysics which is arriving at its final form.4 This final form of metaphysics is omni-present and is called, technology. So, Russia and America, in 1938, the representatives of socialism and liberal democracy, are as Heidegger states: the same thing: the sinister frenzy of unconditional technology.5 What then is metaphysics and what does this term technology designate? First, we must go back to the humanism which constitutes the modern epoch and which valorizes man in terms of two basic capacities: self-reflection, the capacity to be conscious of oneself, and autonomy, the capacity to be self-determining, to be in control of ones destiny. These two capacities define the classical conception of subjectivity: the status of the person as an author of thoughts and actions. For Heidegger, this modern form of subjectivity becomes the interpretative key to understanding the basic standpoint of metaphysics itself and its view of reality as a whole. Thus the phrase metaphysics of subjec-

from subject to technology

In Freiburg, on the 9th of June 1938, Heidegger stated: It is only because and, to the extent that, man has become, in a most essential and striking sense, a subject that the following unambiguous question forces itself on him : whether he wants to or should be a singular Ego reduced to drifting anomie and savage isolation or whether instead he should identify himself with the collective Ego of modern civil society []. It is only where man is essentially subject, that there is the possibility of individuality in the sense of the aberrant inessentially of subjectiv-

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tivity refers to the world-view according to which the person is treated as first principle and as source of all value. The person is, to use Heideggers expression, alpha and omega6 and the referential centre of all beings as such.7 In other words, the person is conceived as that which underlies, founds and determines all other beings. That is literally the subject as conceived in the metaphysical tradition as that which underlies: in scholastic Latin sub-iectum. For the person as subject even the smallest matter is treated as an object (Gegenstand). Further, the person also relates to these objects to itself in order to determine their value. As such, the objects constitute a fund or stockpile of valuables (Bestand). For Heidegger, the development of this metaphysics of subjectivitydetermines the essence of modernity, and an understanding of this development sheds light on the apparently non-sensical founding process of modern history. As part of this process, through which, the more completely and comprehensively the world, as conquered, stands at mans disposal, and the more objectively the object appears, all the more subjectively (i.e. peremptorily) does the subiectum rise up and all the more inexorably, too, do observations and teachings about the world transform themselves into a doctrine of man.8 Heideggers reading of modernity as the epoch of subjectivity is usefully summarized in the following quotation: however one rethinks historically the concept of modernity and its development, whatever phenomena, political, artistic, scientific or social form the basis of such an enterprise it is impossible to ignore how the person as subject organizes itself and provides for its security on the basis of a stance it takes up as regards beings as a whole; any entity as such presents itself to the modern subject and is conceived in terms of how

it can be rendered transparent and available for production.9 For Heidegger, an understanding of all of the most remarkable features of modernity, the emergence of totalitarianism, the appearance of aesthetics, the spread of method-centered research or the advent of the consumer society must be brought back to the specific matrix through which modern metaphysics installs the subject as the linchpin of being as a whole. This process of installation was originally set in train with the intention of achieving human happiness but has gradually come to serve different ends. Heidegger explains this by outlining the three stages involved : the Cartesian, the Kantian and the Nietzschean. Descartes, Kant, Nietzsche: their thought determines the perfection of the essence of willing10 which characterizes the modern epoch and expresses itself in technology. The atomic era provides the clearest indication that humanity is led by the essence of willing to place beings as a whole at the disposal of this will and to acquire the greatest possible power for it by harnessing all the forms of energy that it is capable of rooting out. This will to render beings into available and deliverable resources; 11 this will, a permanent form of usury,12 defines an irresistible and total manipulation of world and human by technology13 and turns man into its entrepreneur.14 The full significance of any entity that belongs to our epoch emerges in accordance with what Heidegger terms a technolological description and interpretation.15 For Heidegger, for example, modern scientific research must be understood as scientific technology. Is this the case for modern law; that is to say, the law constitutive of the modern subject? This modern subjective law enshrines the arbitrary will of the individual. In accordance with the demands of a calculating reason, it places

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formal limits on individual will so conceived. However, as such, it fails to address the deeper grounds of a common existence and it replaces the subtlety of an ordered common life with a blunt systematic legal logic. For all that we may surmise what Heideggers views might have been on this issue, he does not address the topic directly apart from his discussion of Hegels Philosophy of Right in a seminar for beginners in philosophy, the transcripts and summaries of which have appeared in volume 86 of his collected works. It is nevertheless difficult to deny the way in which legal thinking has been taken over by technological rationality, manifested in the nineteenth century conversion of jurisprudence to positivism. Legislation is now drafted not on the basis of the observation of concrete situations but rather on the basis of scientific advice, opinion polls and statistics. However, even while law as a regulatory instrument has been refined, this does not imply any concomittant progress in terms of ends. And this for a reason: the planetary reign of technology is nothing other than what Heidegger termed, the spiritual devastation of the earth.16

from technology to circumventing metaphysics

Our epoch is one which organizes the world in accordance with will, and in which technology unfolds itself. For Heidegger, all is well other than the fact that we are running the risk of the extreme danger17 in seeking to make ourselves available for availability, we become indisposed towards that which cannot be placed at our disposal. In considering beings solely in the light of their availability and use, there is the risk that human being is also reduced to this status. Whilst human being might be considered the most important resource given its role in

establishing the scale of utility, it is still a resource and as such risks elimination where it is no longer deemed to be useful. This is the consequence of technology, or rather we should say, the consequence of its essence. For Heidegger is not dealing with technology as a historical phenomenon and its development form hand tools, to machine tools and then to contemporary technological equipment. Heidegger is concerned instead to delineate the historical figure which constitutes not so much a manufacturing process but a manner of bringing things into being, of making manifest. It is important to understand what the word technology says.18 Relating to and to , Heidegger brings science and technology together as elements of the same configuration, namely knowledge in its widest sense but held in distinction from each other as regards their relation with that which they unveil and the manner in which they unveil it.19 This relationship means that it is difficult to think through modern technology since the modern exact science of nature20 with which it is linked, is itself founded on the tools which technology makes available to it. This reciprocal relationship21 between technology and science has, for at least three centuries, structurally transfomed which is no longer a form of production as a bringing forth from concealment [Hervorbringen] but is now rather a type of requirement [Herausforden] whereby nature is made to deliver an energy which can as such be extracted and stored.22 In this way, whether it is a case of electricity of fossil fuels, energy hidden by nature is liberated, that which is obtained is transformed, that which is transformed is stored, that which is stored is divided and then distributed.23 Thus, the person marked by the technical epoch considers nature to be an

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energy store24 whilst those who had gone before looked on with reverence as the very source of life itself. The mistake would be to consider humanity to be free and happy in so far as it exercises its dominion over nature. Where such dominance constitutes a key element in the apparatus of technology, humanity no where gives greater expression to the fact that it is in thrall to technology than where it believes itself to be lord of the earth.25 A dialectical reversal then comparable to Hegels master-slave relation: beyond the apprent control exercised over nature (and which is indeed no more than apparent in the light of dysfunctional technology and the unpredictable catastrophes nature still inflicts) humanity lords it over entities whilst remaining the puppet of being. Because, in the end, it is a question of being. More precisely, it is the incapacity to pose once again, what Heidegger terms the basic question of thought; that is, the question concerning the essence of the truth of being, a question which he distinguishes from the guiding question26 of philosophy. In 1930, Heidegger laid out this distinction for the first time. Whilst the guiding question is what is the entity as such?, the basic question is what is being?27 The entire difficulty lies in thinking being whilst taking into account its difference with respect to entities. This is exactly what philosophy has failed to do right from the start. In this way, when Thales in response to the question: what is an entity?, answers: water, he clarifies the nature of an entity by referring to another entity, even where he is asking after the nature of the entity as such. In the question he poses he understands something like being, but in his answer interprets being as an entity.28 According to Heidegger, the same goes not only for pre-Socratics like Thales but for all philosophers after as

well. Over the course of history various entities served as the leading principle , , , , , substantiality, objectivity, will, will to power, will to will29 and being itself was effaced. Because this thinking is a thinking with entities30, the tradition which Heidegger calls metaphysics does not think about being.31 This is the reason why Heidegger seeks to circumvent metaphysics, that is to say to transpose it to a higher level, through a transformation of a reflection on the being of the entity into a meditation on being as such and on its unconcealing (Entbergen), and also on its truth which the Greeks called , and which the Romans translated by veritas.32 Now, in thinking about being, we can never be content to represent an actual thing and then to claim that it represents the truth itself. Thinking about being means: to respond to an an appeal to its essence.33 The appeal to being is composed of what is unveiled in and thus in the opening up of a realm shows itself to be discovered. This realm was called by the Greeks. Let us turn with Heidegger toward the words of one of the first thinkers, Heraclitus fragment 123: 34 which is ordinarily is taken to mean that nature loves to hide itself. Heideggers translation is as follows: Emergence (from self-concealment) favours that which conceals itself.35 Why? Because does not refer to the natural world, nor to the essential being of things but rather essence itself in a verbal sense.36 As for , it does not only refer to the chance inclination of something towards something else, but the profound need of a thing for what is essential to the deployment of its being. We also have to understand what in nature can appear to be even in the movement

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by which it withdraws from that which it brings about; that is to say, entities. When the Greeks started to question the nature of the entity, they named it , naming that which emerges from itself, in the same way as the flowering of a rose, the fact of unfolding itself in opening itself and, in such an unfolding making its appearance, sustaining this appearance and abiding in it, in brief indicates the predominance of perdurance in emergence.37 Conceived as emergence, as flourishing, is within the phenomena that are attributed to nature, even if in such emergence, this flourishing, also hides itself. In this sense, it is being itself, thanks uniquely to which the entity becomes observable and remains observable.38 But whilst the Ancients begin with a fundamentally poetic and thoughtful experience of beingwhich they called 39 in order to pose themselves questions concerning natural phenomena, the Moderns begin with a scientific experience of that which manifests itself fundamentally by the movements of material things, atoms and electrons40 and move toward nature. The consequence: being reduced to nature is no longer the distant and confused echo of being thought as . The consequence of the consequence: reason and liberty are placed opposite to nature. The nature of the entity, as well as liberty and duty are no longer thought in relation to being. Being and duty and being and value become opposed. Finally, as the will arrives at the furthest point of alienation from its own essence, being itself also becomes a mere value.41 Legal positivism also bears witness to this in so far as it opposes law to nature, and denounces natural law in order to liberate the positive law from any relation to a metajuridical norm.

from circumventing metaphysics to the renewal of the ancient idea of law

Seeking to circumvent metaphysics which, in the modern era, is characterized by the installation of humanity as subject, Heidegger must also implicitly seek to circumvent the conception of law to which it also leads. To begin this task, Heidegger must reflect on what has led to this modern way of thinking and what would lead away from it. In 1935 Heidegger accordingly traces the emergence of this modern way of thinking, which opposes nature to law and being to the ought-to-be, to the point when, with Plato, being was determined as . The word designates that which is perceived in the visible, the vision which something offers.42 Whilst it results from the experience of being as , this interpretation distances itself from this experience in the sense that what follows from an essential movement of being is itself taken to be essential, and in this way replaces what is genuinely essential.43 From this perspective, the appearance of the which opens a space where something is unveiled is nothing other than that appearance which is taken as what arranges that space and models it. In this way, the concept of the idea installs itself as the only interpretation of being, but with the idea, the appearance which belongs to the thing becomes more decisive than the thing itself.44 Further, the idea demands a determination of its own mode of being.45 Now, for Plato, the idea of ideas, the highest idea, which accords to being its model, is the idea of the good, that which realizes itself and realizes that which it deems appropriate.46 This supreme idea is thus situated beyond being, being which, under these conditions, finds itself tasked with an assignment, something which it ought to be doing, and which derives from a higher

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source, such that being is not yet fully realized but rather is something which ought to be.47 Because duty is from now on opposed to being, thought, by this determination, and as the enunciator of the , assumes a decisive role.48 Also we should not be surprised at the fact that for Kant the entity is nature, knowable in the synthesis of understanding and sensibility, and that in contrast to nature as such and superimposed on it, is the categorical imperative, the Sollen, conceived as the expression of pure reason. Concerning what would lead away from metaphysics and the conception of law belonging to it, Heidegger indicates that a renewed thought of the is central to the task. is a term which is conventionally translated as State, City or City-State, but which according to Heidegger, has a fuller sense as the site49 of that being-there (Da-Sein) which is human being. This is the site at which human being can be there in its own relation, that is, to being and in relation with the entities which are disclosed to it and which it discloses. Amongst those texts where Heidegger draws attention to this, two might be marked out: the reflection carried out on Heraclitus understanding of over the course of the summer semester of 1935 entitled Einfhrung in die Metaphysik and the analysis carried out of the meaning of in Anaximander, in an essay entitled, Der Spruch des Anaximander published in 1946. For Heidegger these two words speak the language of being and in thus would allow us to think about law beyond subjectivity and in an original manner. : Heidegger pays a great deal of attention to this word as witnessed by a lecture he gave on this theme in Bremen. In order to understand it, he goes back to Fragment 50 by Heraclitus, which he translates as follows: if is not me, but the

meaning, which you have understood, then it is wise to say in accordance with this meaning: the one is all.50 His comment on this fragment is: Heraclitus ponders an understanding and a saying. He enunciates that which says: , the one is all.51 Against the hermeneutic tradition that relates , in accordance with its Latin translation, ratio to reasoning and calculation, Heidegger relates to the Greek , a term which signifies saying and speakingbut also setting down or laying out. According to Heidegger, that which reigns here is gathering, this is the Latin legere in German lesen in the sense of collecting in and re-uniting. s most proper meaning is setting down and laying out after having been gathered together along with other things.52 In summary, the action consists in reuniting and interlinking distinct elements, such that the is neither more nor less than the one which collects the multiple, that is, the one in which everything that is going-on (Anwesende) in so far as it has gone on and is going-on (Anwesen), is gathered and is laid out.53 The one, that is, being itself, the flowing movement through which all entities are brought along, and in which they are gathered and in this way, find themselves going-on within the self -same. Now in 1935, it is the , in other words, the foundational law of the , its constitution, which is thought as the of Heraclitus fragment 114. Here the which we have discussed appears in the guise of the of the , the us not something general hovering above everything and coming into contact with no-one, but rather is is the orginary unifying unity of the everything which is going on, in relation to the other, in its different ways.54 Heraclitus was called the obscure, but here he lights up the pathway we have been following with Heidegger.

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It has been lit up in so far as the ancient understanding of is counterposed to modern law, that general something, abstract and ethereal which Heidegger discusses. Where modern law is a norm posited by subjectivity in order to supply a point of convergence for a variety of divergent wills and thus to constitute a society, the of antiquity is a gathering word which has always already gathered the different citizens into a community; that of being. Without doubt this does not happen when that word does not receive any hearing, but it is certain that we will have heard when we form part of what has been said.55 In this case, it makes itself , and something and well disposed [geschicklich]56 is brought out, as Heidegger explains. When resonates for us, we take our bearing from the measure of being which reigns in good order in the , the order by virtue of which the poets are not only poets, but real poets, the thinkers not only thinkers but real thinkers.57 In this case, each understands how to orientate their own bearing so that they come to present themselves or are able to go-on in their own manner, in a way that is authentic to them. This is the just city and, as a result, the beautiful city, but it is, according to Heidegger only possible where it is a city of poets and thinkers who have a mastery of the word.58 For the average run of mortals whose speech and ear are not directed towards being and in particular its , they find that unity as gathering and recollection is neither easily accessible not available at any price, but remains hidden, and in its place that other unity which is nothing but compromise, elimination of the tension of authentic bearing: levelling.59 If we are not satisfied with the result of this other union: posited, positive, interest-based and constantly subject to evaluation by calculating subjective

reason, then we must think more precisely about what exactly it means60. : the word is used in the most ancient words of Western thought, that of Anaximander.61 At the beginning of his study of this saying, Heidegger presents Nietzsches translation which, in general, is in accordance with the philological orthodoxy: From where things are born, there also they must fall to their doom, according to necessity, since they arrive at their end and are judged for their injustice, according to the order of time.62 Convinced that a translation is only faithful where the words it uses speak from the language of the thing itself,63 Heidegger revises this orthodox translation entirely. According to him, that of which the saying speaks is the multiple entity in its entirety not only the things of nature but also the human things and the things demonical and divine; 64 better yet: it is about beings in relation to that which accords them their being, their manner of going-on. It is impossible to understand if we are encumbered by a number of prejudices: first that we are dealing with a philosophy of nature which only subsequently attempts to graft on, in a non-objective fashion, considerations of a moral or juridical sort; next, that representations from different fields (nature, morality, law) enter into play; and finally that it is an outburst of a primitive form of experience, which interprets the world in a non-critical and anthropomorphic fashion and in this sense, has recourse to poetic expression.65 According to him, what this fragment says is than when the entity which has come about affirms itself as such, when it sticks to its own way of being once it spreads itself out in obstinate insistence it no longer heeds what is going on in other ways66 with respect to these other ways of being, it therefore finds itself out of

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joint; 67 on the other hand, where it defers to the game of coming to pass and fading away which characterizes whatever goes on since what is going on, is such only for the time being when it accepts, what belongs to its coming to pass, that is the measure of its stay which ordains how it comes to pass and how it decays away, this measure brings being into harmony68. Now things are clearer, lies only in this harmonic measure. In translating this word as justice and in understanding it in juridical moral terms, that is to say in referring it back to the dimension of law and values, and the opposition between being and the ought-to-be, the word loses its essential metaphysical content,69 that which, thought out of being as coming to pass, designates the harmony of the harmonic measure.70 Whatever happens belongs to the one through which things come to pass, each entity comes to pass in its own time and shares its stay with others. At the heart of all that takes place, the reign of the convergence of what passes through is ordained out of the secrecy of the gathering hearth.71 Discovered in the gathering event, Heraclitus named the as we have seen. But all of the thinkers of the dawn72 understood being in terms of that gathering which welcomes and makes a home for entities. Also each one of their basic words are important , , , 73 But it is sufficient for now to have had a glimpse of that world, a world opposed to the understanding of justice articulated by Nietzsche as the supreme representative of life itself,74 that is to say, the will to power. A recovery of the original understanding of in order to return to being as the gathering measure between entities, and to have found this beyond the conception of the entity as object and of humanity as subject, a subject which deprives everything of its being and

imposes instead its own values, this is the pathway Heidegger opened up, at the margin of his metaphysical reflections, but thanks to them as well. We might conclude by giving Heidegger the last word: It is only in so far as humanity takes the bearings for its existence from the truth of being which belongs to being, that being itself can being offers humanity the signs and signals, which can become rules and statutes. To assign in Greek is . is not only law, but more originally the assignment hidden by the decree of being. Only this assignment joins man to being. And only such an injunction can properly oblige and consign. Otherwise, any other legal act is the mere product of human reason.75 Here, in these lines from the letter written to Jean Beaufret in 1946, we have a the leading idea of Heideggers concept of law: if legal acts are established by the ratio which belongs to this entity called humanity, the ultimate foundation of this activity is the which is being. And it is for humanity to consign into language.

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notes

See Jean-Philippe Guinle et al., Heidegger: la philosophie du droit (Paris: PUF, tudes philosophiques, 1972); Alain Renaut and Lukas Sosoe, Philosophie du droit (Paris: PUF, Recherches politiques, 1991), pp. 155-184; Oren Ben-Dor, Thinking about law: in silence with Heidegger (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2007). Die Zeit des Weltbildes, in Holzwege,GA 5: 92-93. Nietzsche II, GA 6.2: 170, 171, 177, 206, 211, 218, 343, 347, 350 ; Brief ber den Humanismus, in Wegmarken, GA 9: 318 ; Zur Seinsfrage, in GA 9, 404; Schelling: Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit (1809), GA 42: 147(n); Nietzsche: Der europische Nihilismus, GA 48: 253, 259, 266, 269-271, 273, 307, 313, 320; Der Anfang des abendlndischen Denkens, in Heraklit, GA 55: 158; Zum Wesen der Sprache, GA 74: 22, 26; Zu Erst Jnger, GA 90: 28, 31, 304. berwindung der Metaphysik, in Vortrge und Aufstze, GA 7: 97. Einfhrung in die Metaphysik, GA 40: 40-41. berwindung der Metaphysik, in GA 7: 86. Die Zeit des Weltbildes, in GA 5: 88 ; GA 6.2: 17. Ibid, 93. This doctrine of man is termed by Heidegger anthropologyby which he means not so much the modern academic discipline of anthropology or any Christian theology of man in terms of creation, fall and redemption, but rather a philosophical interpretation of man which explains and evaluates beings as a whole from the standpoint of, and in relation to, man. GA 6.2: 17.

14 Wozu Dichter? in GA 5: 294. 15 Die onto-theo-logische Verfassung der Metaphysik, in Identitt und Differenz, GA 11: 61. 16 GA 40: 41. 17 Die Frage nach der Technik, in GA 7: 27. 18 Ibid., 14. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid, 15. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid. Heidegger exemplifies this transformation by means of the contrast between the old windmill which depended on the favours accorded to it by nature and the modern hydro-electric dam which summons the stream to deliver its hydraulic pressure (ibid., 16) and that between the land cultivated by the toil of the country-dweller and the mine abandoned as soon as the coal has been extracted. 23 Ibid, 17. 24 Ibid, 22. 25 Ibid, 28. 26 Prologue de lauteur (lettre Henry Corbin du 10 mars 1937), in Questions I (Paris: Gallimard, Tel, 1990), p. 9. 27 Vorrede zur japanischen bersetzung von Was ist Metaphysik? in Reden und andere Zeugnisse eines Lebensweges, GA 16: 66. Each of these questions refers to another term which Heidegger described, three years earlier, as the ontological difference (Die Grundprobleme der Phnomenologie, GA 24: 454); that is, the difference between entities and being. Heidegger stated that being means the being of entities, that being is always the being of an entity and that being only exists in the understanding of entitites. At the same time, he is

2 3

4 5 6 7 8

10 berwindung der Metaphysik, in GA 7: 87. 11 Der Satz vom Grund, GA 10: 52. 12 berwindung der Metaphysik, in GA 7: 91. 13 GA 10: 119.

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also clear that being is nothing like an entity, that the being of an entity is not itself an entity (Sein und Zeit, GA 2: 6, 9, 183, 4 and 6). On one side then, being, which grants the being of an entity without itself being an entity and, on the other, the entity, which can only be in accordance with the being which it itself is not. 28 GA 24: 453.

34 Quoted by Heidegger in Aletheia (Heraklit, Fragment 16), in GA 7: 277. See Heraklit, in Seminare, GA 15: 78. 35 Aletheia (Heraklit, Fragment 16), in GA 7: 279. 36 Ibid., 278. 37 GA 40: 16.

29 Die onto-theo-logische Verfassung der Metaphysik, in GA 11: 73. 38 Ibid., 17. 30 A thinking concerned with entities in their being, given that entities cannot be thought otherwise and that as a result, a thinking of the ontological difference, given that being is not an entity, is a thinking of this difference which leaves unthought, since it is a thinking concerned with entities. 31 The proof is its onto-theo-logical structure. Metaphysics historically thinks about entities in two ways: metaphysics thinks the entity as such, that is, in its generality. Metaphysics thinks the entity as such, that is in its totality. (Die onto-theo-logische Verfassung der Metaphysik, in GA 11: 65-66). Metaphysics thus consists of two moments: the moment where the being of the entity is thought in a horizontal manner, that is to say, reducing it to the common denominator of the field of entities (onto-) and the moment where the being of the entity is thought vertically, that is to say, in terms of the entity thought to be the most perfect and from which the others stem (theo-). Both moments result is a discourse (-logical) through which all entities are thought in terms of the primary and necessary entity which is the divine entity, the founding foundation, the primary foundation, (ibid., 66-67). Metaphysics is precisely such a discourse, a discourse which brings entities to the fore, and in this way passes over in silence the difference inscribed at the heart of the real, that is to say being itself, the fact that there is something rather than nothing. In so far as this is thought about, it is questioned at level of causality following the guiding question: why?, that thinking which thinks being is suppressed to the profit of a representational knowledge issuing from entities (Einleitung zu Was ist Metaphysik?, in GA 9: 381). 32 Die Frage nach der Technik, in GA 7: 13. 33 Das Ding, in ibid., 185. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid. 41 berwindung der Metaphysik, in GA 7: 75. 42 GA 40: 189. 43 Ibid., 191. 44 Ibid., 192. 45 Ibid., 205. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid., 206. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid., 161. 50 . 51 Logos (Heraklit, Fragment 50), in GA 7: 213. 52 Ibid., 214. 53 Ibid., 231.

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54 GA 40: 140. 55 Logos (Heraklit, Fragment 50), in GA 7: 220. 56 Ibid., 223.

73 It is therefore necessary to pursue our discussion of Heideggers own discursive confrontation with Anaximanders saying through an examination of all those pre-Socratic texts in which the lineaments of an alternative philosophy of law can be discerned. 74 Cf. GA 6.2: 175.

57 GA 40: 162. 75 Brief ber den Humanismus, in GA 9: 360-361. 58 Ibid., 140. 59 Ibid., 141. 60 Historically, it has made its way from the conventionalism of the sophists response to the loss of the authentic understanding of the polis, to the still influential Kelsenian theory of law. 61 . See Der Spruch des Anaximander, in GA 5: 321. 62 Ibid. 63 Ibid., 322. 64 Ibid., 330-331. 65 Ibid., 332. 66 Ibid., 355. 67 Ibid., 354. 68 Ibid., 357. 69 GA 40: 169. 70 Der Spruch des Anaximander, in GA 5: 357. 71 Ibid., 353. 72 Ibid., 322-324, 333.

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Why Hegel? Heidegger and the Political


Peter Trawny
bergische universitt wuppertal, germany

Why Hegel? Why Hegels Philosophy of Right? Hegels guideline to the lecture courses [...] about the Philosophy of Right is the only text of the canon of political philosophy taken by Heidegger as the basis of a seminar-reading. It is furthermore the only text on political philosophy in general that was taken into consideration by Heidegger in the context of his work at all. This sheds a special light on the manuscript of this seminar, which Heidegger gave for beginners (GA 86: 95) in the WS 1934/35 at the university of Freiburg. If there is a Heideggerian interpretation of the political and there is one within certain limits then this seminar must be relevant. The occasion for such a seminar appears to be quite clear. In 1933 Heidegger had his coming out as a National-Socialist. Thus the seminar seems to be and was interpreted as a kind of key-testimony of this political position. Nevertheless, in 1934 Heidegger abdicated the rectorate of this university, i. e. the institutional organization of this disposition if not this very disposition itself. According to his own proclamation

he already in this time backed out of the official party line: From April 1934 on, I lived outside of the university, insofar as I did not care any more for the procedures, but attempted to fulfill only what was absolutely necessary in the mandatory teaching assignment in accordance with my energy (GA 16: 389). In this respect it is very remarkable that Heidegger still at the end of the same year taught a seminar with a clearly political orientation. Emmanuel Faye therefore spoke of an identification of Heidegger with Hegel. There Hegel, the philosopher of the Borussian state, the absolute king not only of a philosophical department, but of German university as such, here Heidegger, the philosopher of the National-Socialist state, the thinker of a German university in the Third Reich. But the facts and texts are more complex. They are so complex that the different threads of Heideggers projects in this time are not easy to disentangle. Because many factors determine Heideggers philosophical field, I will first begin with a general representation of this entanglement. I will briefly mention the Hlderlin-lecture in the winter of 34/35 parallel to the seminar, the other lecture course of summer 1933, where Hegel plays an important role, and the importance of Schmitt and Jnger in this time. After this general survey on the obscure situation between 1933/34 I will isolate some threads. The first will be a closer look at the content and the course of the seminar itself. The second will be the emphasis on the concept of spirit. The third, then, will represent Heideggers discussion with Carl Schmitt about the true political. In the last chapter I will draw out a certain line of Heideggers understanding of the political. (One last word in this introduction: I will not refer to the transcriptions of the seminar On the Essence and

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the Concept of Nature, History and State of winter-semester 1933/34. In my opinion, original writings of the philosopher are the presupposition for a serious interpretation. This is not intended to play down the importance of these minutes. I recommend them, especially the first one, where we can see that obviously even Heideggers seminars can fail helplessly.)
i . heideggers

hegel

in the situation between 1933 and 1934

Parallel to the Hegel-seminar of the winter 1934 Heidegger lectured on an interpretation of Hlderlins Hymns Germanien and Der Rhein. The poetry had already appeared as the later way to overcome metaphysics. In the lecture course Heidegger refers to the seminar. The actuality of the spirit in history for Hegel is the state, and the state can only be what it must be if it is dominated and supported by the in-finite force of the infinite spirit. (GA 39: 133) Hegel is only able to think this way, because his philosophy is fueled by a new, productively repeating execution of Heraclitus primary thoughts. At the same time, the whole meanwhile expired history of the world-spirit is included in the flux of this thought and is distinguished in its essential steps. These reflections are directed consciously at a purpose. Hegel himself emphasized that there is no phrase of Heraclitus, which I did not integrate in my logic. The being-historical locating of his thought is repeated in the seminar. It represents the consummation of Western Philosophy (95). But Heraclitus thought, which is also very present in the seminar of the Philosophy of Right, belongs to the very beginning of this philosophy. In the winter of 34/35 Heidegger focussed on the state. The mere fact that he lectured on the hymns of Hlderlin at

the same time seems to confirm this decision. At the beginning of the lecture course Heidegger speaks of our fatherland Germanien and calls it the most forbidden, withdrawn from the hastiness of everyday life and from the noise of business. It is the highest and therefore most difficult, the very last, because in fact primary the silent origin (4). Certainly, the fatherland is not the state (especially not for Hlderlin himself). The fatherland not only transcends the state; it also has a different essence. Nevertheless, the people of this fatherland, as Heidegger stresses, needs a constitution in a state. Thus, the lecture course on Hlderlin and the seminar on Hegel appear to be coordinated. If there were no question of Heidegger continuing his program to renew the German university, as he represented it in his inaugural address, then this continuation could be interpreted as the coordination of the Hlderlin lecture course and the Hegel seminar. But this possible understanding of Heideggers reading of the Philosophy of Right is strongly refuted by the lecture course from summer 1933 on The Basic Questions of Philosophy. This is a surprising fact, because as a matter of fact the lecture course could serve to emphasize Heideggers engagement for National-Socialism with certain declarations like this one from the beginning: The German people as a whole comes to itself, i.e. finds its leadership. In this leadership the people, come to itself, creates its state (GA 36/37: 3). From this statement a transition to Hegels Philosophy of Right appears to be very close, especially to the paragraphs concerning the state. But the lecture course takes a different turn. This interpretation of Heideggers reading of Hegel is obviously wrong.

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For immediately after this pathetic declaration Heidegger concedes that the basic question of philosophy can only be decided with its beginning (5). Heidegger lectures about The Beginning of Occidental Philosophy in the summer of 1932. In this lecture course in the context of an interpretation of Parmenides and Anaximander the distinction of a first beginning and a beginning for the ones to come, (GA 35: 83) who could perhaps again begin with this beginning, is presented for the first time. Here, in difference to the lecture course of summer 1933, we do not find direct references to the political situation. But it is in this very lecture course that Heidegger picks up the thread by spinning it in the political direction: The beginning is still and subsists as distant disposal ( ferne Verfgung), which so far anticipates our Western destiny and chains the German destiny to itself (GA 36/37: 6). The beginning is politicized and related to the current historical situation. But regardless of in whatever respect we might understand the beginning Hegel is not its philosopher. Thus, it is said in the lecture course that his thought is the consummation of Western philosophy if seen backwards. Considered forwards, it is immediately and mediately the starting point for the antagonism (15) of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. Therefore the Basic Question of Philosophy in the historical situation of our spiritual people-related [volklich] destiny (14) cannot be found in a simple adoption of Hegelian ideas, but in a historical confrontation [Auseinandersetzung] with these thoughts. In other words: if we have to deal here with a political-historical departure, we have to understand that Hegel is not the figurehead of this departure, but the consummation of the very tradition, which still defines the

situation of this departure, and at the same time is no longer able to define it. Having in mind the consummation of the history of Western philosophy, Heidegger in the lecture course of summer 1933 emphasizes two determining powers of Western metaphysics, especially of modern Western metaphysics (69). He thinks of the Christian-believing world-view and the mathematical. Hegels thought assimilates these powers, nay, embodies them in their consummate forms: Hegels metaphysics is Theo-Logic [...]. (70) Heidegger sums up. The consummation of occidental philosophy is a Theo-Logic, a thought that unifies Christianity and mathematical rationality in a systematic layout of philosophy. Approximately twenty years later, with reference to Hegel, Heidegger will speak of an onto-theo-logical constitution of metaphysics. In the same lecture course of Summer 1933 we find a direct reference to the Philosophy of Right. Hegel left Heidelberg for Berlin, because the philosophy of the state is completed (19). He hoped to have some political influence, and he found mere lecturing tiresome. And Heidegger writes: His philosophy gained a highly remarkable influence on the ethos of the state. Obviously Heidegger is referring to two letters Hegel wrote on one day in April 1818 to the university of Heidelberg and to the Department of the Interior. In neither of the two letters we do we find any word of a completed philosophy of the state. Hegel only expresses his hope that he could be delivered to and needed for a different employment. Concerning the remarkable influence on the ethos of the state, Heidegger is probably thinking of Hegels relation to Freiherr vom Stein zum Altenstein, the minister who was responsible for the move of Hegel from Heidelberg to Berlin.

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In this context Hegels academic change was interpreted as a strategic preparation of the anti-revolutionary enactments of Karlsbad (1819). Hegels polemic words in the Philosophy of Right about the philosopher and antisemite Jakob Friedrich Fries could have been understood in this way. But in fact the reasons for Hegels decision to go to Berlin were foremost scientific, even if Hegel was indeed later involved in political issues. But if we suggest that Hegels career was a model for Heidegger, we have to admit that Heidegger refused to go to Berlin and Munich in 1930 and 1933. Of course, he would have found there better opportunities to win political influence. Obviously, he balanced the situation quite intensely. With respect to Munich, he speculates in a letter to Elisabeth Blochmann from autumn 1933 about the possibility of approaching Hitler and so on typically misinterpreting his standing. Different from Hegel, Heidegger was never the philosopher of a capital. But all this happened before he gave up his position as rector of the university in Freiburg. In winter 1934/35, the semester of the Hegel-seminar, Heidegger did not have any means to obtain political influence. The fictional identification of Heidegger with Hegel insinuated by Faye might be an error. Given the fact that in winter 1934/35 Heidegger no longer had any plans to become engaged officially for the politics of the party, it is also impossible to deny any political motivation at all. Certainly, the intention of the seminar based on the recognition that Hegel was the philosopher of the consummation of occidental philosophy. In a passage of the seminar-manuscript with the title Hegel and us (GA 86: 112) he declares that in this lecture on the Philosophy of Right a fundamental overcoming is at stake. The object of this overcoming was without a doubt that consummation of occidental

philosophy, i.e. Hegels thought as its representation. But at the same time Heidegger wanted to connect this philosophical project with the concrete political and in his eyes revolutionary situation. The consummation of Western philosophy and its overcoming should be the metaphysical background for the actual transformations in European history. Thus the question, why Hegel? why his Philosophy of Right? can receive the following, preliminary response. In the winter of 1934 Heidegger wanted to interlace two intentions, namely a philosophical project of overcoming a certain historical philosophical situation with a political project to support the deep political transformation in Germany. Without a doubt in reference to the parallelization of lecture course and seminar, of Hegel as the consummator of Western philosophy and Hlderlin as the beginner of a new history, Heidegger responded to what for him was a necessary historical coincidence, a necessary historical responsibility (GA 38: 121). Therefore he also was willing to reconsider certain public discourses. Thus, he read attentively Ernst Jngers highly influential book The Worker, which was published at the end of 1932, just to address the German student as worker (GA 16: 198-208) in a pathetic speech at the end of November 1933. Obviously, at this time Heidegger recognized in Jngers speculative attack the possibility of building a philosophical storm-troop. Another immediate challenge were the texts Carl Schmitt was publishing at this time. In 1933 it was the short article State, Movement, People: The Trinomial Structure of Political Unity. In this text Schmitt declared that on this January 30 the Hegelian bureaucratic state [Beamtenstaat] of the 19th Century was replaced by a different construction of the state. And rhetorically he adds: Therefore on this day,

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one can say, Hegel has died (32). Of course, this is immediately qualified. This does not mean that the great work of this German philosopher of the state has become meaningless. On the contrary: What in Hegels powerful monument of the spirit is eternally great will remain effective also in the new form. Just recently Schmitt had lauded Hegel in the new edition of The Concept of the Political. Nevertheless, Hegel remains everywhere political, he writes there. Heidegger most of all heard the words of Hegels death: On January 30 in the year 1933 Hegel died, no! he has not yet lived! only then did he come alive just as history begins to live, or respectively, die. (GA 86: 85) If one understands Hegel philosophically related to the state as metaphysics of the bureaucratic state, then everything is nonsense. Anyhow a mere renewal of Hegels Philosophy of Right is impossible. Thus, Heidegger responds to the rhetoric statement of Schmitt. But there was even more in this Schmitt text that must have been interesting for the philosopher. Especially the Trinomial Structure of Political Unity in state, party, and people, already mentioned in the title, represented a philosophical provocation for Heidegger. Moreover, what Schmitt wrote about the principal meaning of the Fhreridea (36) referred to Heideggers own problems. I will return to this issue later. And there, in the manuscript of the Hegel-seminar, is yet one other indication that fosters the assumption that Heidegger was trying to profile his own political position in the more or less philosophical-political discussions around 1933. At the end of the manuscript we can find considerationsthat the philosopher bundled under the heading Basic Ideas on the Doctrine of the State. They appear to represent his own approach to

political philosophy or to a Philosophy of the Political. This interpretation can be supported by the fact that Heidegger tried to come to those basic ideas by a transferral of Daseinsanalytical concepts into the political dimension. An investigation of Heideggers Hegel-seminar of winter 1934/35 has to take into account especially these notes. But and this but is not unimportant in the minutes we find hardly any traces of these notes. In this respect, they must stand on their own. If I use the expression Philosophy of the Political here, I have to deliver a coherent definition of this concept, even if all coherent definitions in philosophy are not philosophical anymore. A very simple, but useful definition of the political could be: the Political is the beginning of every political being, every political thought, and even of every politics. In this sense the Political is not present in the sequences of being and thought. The career of the concept is without a doubt connected to Carl Schmitt. Still in the summer 1942 Heidegger wrote that now suddenly the political is being discovered everywhere (GA 53: 98), a strange remark in times in which indeed the political was everywhere at stake.
ii . form and matter of the seminar

Heideggers interpretation of Hegels Philosophy of Right is a seminar for beginners, presented in eight sessions. In this designation ( for beginners) a didactical-academic intention is connected with a didactical-political one. The didactical-academic intention serves for a general introduction into Hegels thought, the didactical-political one conduces to a philosophical preparation for the new historical situation. The academic intention has a preparatory character for the political. What-

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ever specific didactics philosophy may have, it only can consist in a unity of the academic and the political. There are no prerequisites to participation in the seminar. Knowledge of philosophy, superficially read and snapped up from somewhere is to be left at home. The will to authentic knowledge is positively necessary. This will Heidegger wants to guide into a Philosophical reflection [Besinnung] [...] on the state. This might be an abundantly old-fashioned endeavor, but is stems from the belief that our people still has to be there in 50 years. Therefore the beginner shall lose all previous knowledge, to be able to pose the basic question for the state: to whither from whence? (GA 86: 115) in a new and different way. There we are not dealing with an academic education of freshman students, but with the breeding for the future (128). Breeding here means education, which, Heidegger is claiming, is always political, i.e co-grounding [mitgrndend ] and unfolding and preserving the Dasein of the state. For the people is to be educated to the state and primarily with this it becomes people (177). But the political is the unity that lets that original constitution and ethos emerge (176). I will come back to this. The connection of the didactical-academic with the didactical-political character of the seminar obviously was not unusual in the first years after 1933. If we can take something from the seminar On the Essence and the Concept of Nature, History and State of the winter semester 1933/34, it is the documentation of how the intrusion of political issues into the seminars created a specific atmosphere. In the seminar on Hegels philosophy Heidegger was well-prepared. Thus Heidegger principally addresses the question, whether we

generally need philosophy (108-109). He does so by provoking the students with a remark of the uselessness of studying philosophy: Here you learn practically nothing (560), he emphasized (as reported in a students notes). But even if we have to consider the special situation immediately after 1933, we have to be aware of the fact that Heidegger was always interested in the circumstances of philosophical beginners. Later notes (from the fifties) on the essence of the seminar (498-499) bear witness to this fact. Nevertheless, the integration of the didactical and the political was certainly a specific challenge. Heidegger insures himself of his hermeneutic presuppositions in interpreting the Philosophy of Right by speaking of an alienation (147). The situation is that on the one hand all concepts of Hegel are different and we have to participate in these peculiarities of the philosopher, on the other hand our daily concepts are perhaps futile and highly odd in their arbitrariness, while Hegel stands truly in the greatness of history. The alternative is didactic insofar as Hegel belongs to this great (Western) history by consummating it. The thematic kernel of the seminar are 257-276, where especially 257-268 are interpreted. Here the matter is Hegels definition of the state in the third section of the third part of the book, as a whole dealing with ethical life (Sittlichkeit). The main question is the essence of the state. Of course, Heidegger also relates to Hegels understanding of family and of civil society, especially concerning the recognition struggle ( 57). In general, it must be ascertained that Heidegger keeps Hegels elucidation of the phenomenon of recognition in mind by even transforming it in his own thought. The relation between morality and ethical life is also reflected. What is not considered by Heidegger is the

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first part of the Philosophy of Right about abstract right, including the definition of property. Concerning the important Preface, Heidegger only refers to the famous logical connection of reason and actuality. The course of the exercises, which contains an echo of the concrete political situation, is for the most part unfolding a didactical-academic doctrine. Over broad parts it disguises itself as an introduction to Hegels philosophy. Heidegger lays emphasis on the understanding of Hegels method, on dialectics and its immanent meaning of negativity. In the second session a discussion of the terms abolition and system appears. At the same time, Heidegger interprets Hegels ideas of freedom and recognition. The fifth exercise explains the general construction of the Philosophy of Right, by finally reaching the concept of the state in 257. In the sixth and seventh session Heidegger dedicates himself to the already mentioned sequence of 257-268. Here we find among other topics the idea of the state as an organism. Only the eighth and last session represents a problematization of the concept of the political (607). Only in this session might it have been emphasized that Hegels political philosophy could not have been understood as a model. Schmitts interpretation of the political as friend-foedifference is declined as not original enough. Hegels determination of the relation between religion and state is mentioned. Just as Heidegger previously had elucidated Hegels overcoming of the volont gnrale more or less sketchily, in the context of a discussion of Hegels concept of labour he finally comes to a negative remark on Marx, finishing the seminar without any real conclusion.

The special character of the seminar is confirmed by the participation of Erik Wolf, this important philosopher of right, who was a friend of Heideggers. Wolf emerges in the fourth session, where he contributes introductory considerations of right in the sense of the jurists (580). Heidegger had appointed Wolf in autumn 1933 to the dean of the faculty for the science of right and state. In March 1934 Wolf resigned with his rector. Wolf did not join the party very enthusiastically. Thus, his contribution to the seminar consists in a sober draft of a juridical distinction between right and law (582). Moreover, he gives a survey on the three kinds of the theory of right, the dogmatic of right, the general doctrine of right, and the philosophy of right (583). In principle one has to ask, whether our right is at issue, a question which seems ambivalent. The relation to the actual political events crystallizes for example in a note on the Constitution of the national-socialist state, where Heidegger distinguishes its begin, its fundament, and its origin [Ur-sprung] (74-75), but without elucidating this distinction further on. It became relevant to think about the defounding [Entgrndung] and founding of the New State. Therefore, he copied for himself the titles of the law of empowering (Ermchtigungsgesetz) concerning the elimination of distress for state and people from March 1933, the Reichsstatthaltergesetz of April 7th, 1933, and the Law for the Security of the Unity of Party and State laws Schmitt was treating (if he was not concerned with writing them) at the same time. Obviously, Heidegger saw in these laws a grounding meaning for the factually existing new state. This summary of matter and form of the seminar is necessarily incomplete, but it can show its oddly fragmented charac-

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ter. It combines a general introduction into Hegels philosophy with actual references to new laws, a general introduction into the science of right and law by Wolf with an open critique of Schmitt. The project of overcoming the whole occidental philosophy by confronting this intention with Hegels philosophy is barely present. Whoever would to judge Heideggers seminar on the Philosophy of Right must needs deal with this confusing material.
iii . focuses of the interpretation : the state as spirit

Heidegger added to the didactic notes of the seminar notes, in which he refers to Basic Ideas of the Doctrine of the State. In the seminar they were not mentioned. By and large, they are quite unsystematic, sometimes they refer to the seminar, sometimes they stand completely alone. It can be claimed that in these notes on the political we perhaps have the first, never to be completed, remarks on Heideggers own political philosophy. The philosopher speaks of metapolitical questions (72). The metapolitical is a third concept in relation to the political and to politics. If the political is what gives every politics its structure (if it is really to be called politics), without appearing in it, the metapolitical seems to be something that determines the political without being itself political. Of course, Heidegger did not explicate or develope this term. But we can say that Heideggers interest in politics and in the political was always in this sense metapolitical. For Heidegger the authentic political is the metapolitical. In these notes on Basic Ideas of the Doctrine of the State different guidelines can be distinguished. One of these lines is an emphasis on the concept of the spirit beyond Hegels

systematical understanding of it. Another line is the critique of Carl Schmitt. A third one is the attempt often undertaken in this time to introduce the concepts of Being and Time (for example Dasein and care) into an explicitly political context. These guidelines do not appear isolated, but as interlaced. For Heidegger Hegels understanding of the state can only be grasped in reference to his concept of the spirit. The infinite spirit is the initial [anfnglich] unification [] i.e., | movement | concrete freedom return actualizing [erwirkende] self unfolding self-assertion (173). But if the spirit is an initial unification, it seems to be evident that the state as organism, i.e. as unifying form, has a formative meaning for the understanding of the spirit itself. Thus, Heidegger claims that Hegel thinks from early on the spirit unfolding from the state - as ethical life [Sittlichkeit] (143). Then spirit and state find themselves in a hermeneutic circle; what state is can only be understood with reference to the spirit, what spirit is only with reference to the state. Much has already been said about Heideggers own interest in the concept of the spirit. Already in the winter of 1919/20 he charges the term with great importance. In the Introduction to Metaphysics from the summer of 1935 the concept plays a leading role. In a certain transformation it then appears the esoteric text of the Western Dialogue and in the interpretations of Trakl around 1945. Once in the seminar on the Philosophy of Right, Heidegger briefly announces: The state only has power, because it is power and it is power because it is spirit (180). It would transcend the scope of this lecture, if I were to elucidate the relation between Being and power and spirit. At least it must be said that with these considerations Heidegger is distancing himself from the ide-

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alistic presuppositions of Hegel and is approaching a political interpretation of the question of the meaning of Being. The state, or rather its essence as spirit, is the origin of the political (173), Heidegger claims at one point. In this definition the philosopher interweaves the understanding of the (172) as it is poetized in Homers Odyssey, with the modern state and as an offspring of the spirit. Heidegger attributes qualities to it developed by Hegel in his lecture course. One of these qualities is that the organism (176) emerges of its essence. Thus, the state is an organism because of its origin in the spirit. Like an organism the state structuring itself in itself is always on its way to itself. In its organic unity the unity of constitution and political ethos is included. To this context belongs still another unity. For Heidegger (and in a sense also for Hegel) spirit is always spirit of a people (179). If the spirit is always spirit of a people, we not only have to ask after the relation between state and people, but also what a people is in the first place. For Heidegger the state is insofar the Beyng of the people (116), as the people is the source of the state. This is a precarious elucidation of the people, because Heidegger tiptoes around the concepts of spirit, state, and people. Anyhow the constitution (not in the juridic sense) of a people is delivered by a certain event. Here obviously Heidegger leaves the context of Hegels philosophy and enters the space of Hlderlins poetry. The genesis of a people is the event of a Theophany (139). A people appears in the separating nearness of the God to come. In the Hlderlin lecture course it is maintained, that the true appearing or non-appearing of the God in the being of the people out of the distress of the

Beyng and for it (147) is at stake. Especially in the Contributions to Philosophy Heidegger has given strong attention to the idea of a negative-theophanic genesis of a people, of the people of the event. The state as spirit is itself unfolding self-assertion. This self-assertion is understood as struggle for recognition (173). What Hegel thinks as a social struggle of classified individuals as forms of consciousness is transformed by Heidegger into a struggle of institutions such as the university or the state or, in a different way, of a people. Hence, the often used term self-assertion obviously does not mean the annihilation of the other state or people, but their recognition as mutual recognition. Nevertheless, the struggle for recognition not only could, but must be be intensified.
iv. heidegger and schmitt

The relation between Heidegger and Schmitt beyond biographical proximity or distance is still not sufficiently thought through. This difficult task would primarily have to concentrate this relation on two positions from which a meaningful approach in general would be possible. This theoretical encounter would without a doubt have to transcend Heideggers fragmentary remarks to a more principal discussion. In the background of the seminar on the Philosophy of Right, including the notes on Basic Ideas of the Doctrine of the state, there is a provocation of Schmittian thoughts. In the Concept of the Political, this text, according to a letter to Schmitt from August 1933, Heidegger knew in its second edition of 1932 the difference of friend and foe is introduced as a conceptual determination in the sense of a criterion, not as

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a sufficient definition or material characterization. Heidegger interprets it in the sense of a metaphysical principle, albeit an insufficient one. For Heidegger the recognition struggle is the phenomenal fundament for the friend-foe-distinction. The essential origin [Wesensursprung] is Beyng as historical being-in-the-world, which is understood as the will to itself, the will to be with and anti (176), i.e. as struggle of recognition. In the beginning the historical Dasein presupposes and its metaphysical ground as truth (177). Corresponding to this, the historicality is decisionlike-danger-producing and danger retrieving and removing. The difference of friend and foe, which can turn to war, is metapolitically reduced to the as Heraclitus thinks it (Frg. 53). For Heidegger this is simply Beyng. Schmitt did send the third edition of the Concept of the Political to Heidegger with the -Fragment as a dedication. In his considerations on the state Heidegger was not only provoked by the Concept of the Political, but perhaps even more by Schmitts article State, Movement, People. Here Schmitt expounds on the political unity of the present state in this trinomial structure. This unity is considered to be totally different from the liberal-democratic scheme of the state from the 19th Century. Therefore, in the same text Schmitt announces the death of Hegel. If Heidegger contradicts this judgement by claiming that Hegel primarily came alive with the takeover of the Nazis, then he thinks of the necessity of a overcoming of the Christian and mathematic character of metaphysics as a necessary philosophical grounding of the political event. In Heideggers view Schmitt argued for a political revolution without a philosophical one. In this sense, Heidegger (not far from Leo Strauss) thinks that Schmitts thought is liberal.

In his article Schmitt was focussing the core-concept of the national-socialist right of the state, the concept of leadership (36). Leading is not commanding, dictating, centralized-bureaucratic ruling or any arbitrary form of domination (41). Leading is a concept of immediate and real presence [unmittelbarer Gegenwart und realer Prsenz]. The result of this concept is the positive demand of a unconditional equality of character [Artgleichheit] between the leader and his following. In the equality of character Schmitt sees the presupposition of permanent unmistakable contact between leader and following as their mutual fidelity. I do not have to emphasize that the concept of equality of character seems to be intentionally porous. Heidegger approaches this problem with the question how leading can be legitimate (170). For him the leader is in thought (king) master in practice servant (169). He orients himself in philosophy and serves the whole. But the reference for the leader is here not the state, but the people. The leader thinks much and knowingly wants what the people wants. Indeed the people does not know what it wants. But in the leader it comes to itself. For Heidegger between the leader and the people there is a metaphysical correspondence which occurs by grounding where the people comes into such a being and as a state thoroughly forms this being. Schmitt took the risk of losing himself in biologistic non-concepts. Heidegger tries to insinuate a metaphysic ground. Although both of these attempts to deliver a philosophical justification of leadership are corrupt, it can be stressed that Heidegger avoids not only a biologistic concept of the relation between leader and people, but also a biologistic concept of the people.

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v. the political as care

The refusal is spoken out there, where Heidegger attempts to bring the Dasein into a political context. Dasein cannot be deduced biologically (162), but emerges of care correctly understood. At this point starts the endeavor to interpret the political with Heideggers own concepts. The fundament for this attempt is the idea that Beyng is power (GA 86: 161; GA 65: 76-77). Power stems from the , which unfolds the first structure of rule (Gods/Man, Slaves/Freemen). Hence power is primarily not a political phenomenon, but a metapolitical condition of possibility. The probably most important sketch of projecting a political philosophy in the context of the seminar on the Philosophy of Right Heidegger marked with the heading The Metaphysical Basic Power of the State to Come (162). Here care as a political existentiale is unfurled from out of struggle, i.e. from . Care is then distinguished in four elements. At first it appears as domination. This domination is seized and wielded by the caring. The end of care is to preserve [wahren] beings. The second element of care is labour. In this determination we could consider a response to Jngers ideas about the worker. For Heidegger in labour, care is the first intention. In its third element care appears as truth, which realizes itself in nature soil blood home landscape Gods death. Finally care is finitude, in which the cleavage [Zerklftung] of being, i.e. the modality in its temporal distinctions, is present. (WS 33/34: Blood and soil are indeed powerful and necessary, but not the sufficient condition for the being of a people GA 36/37: 136.) The question is whether Heidegger has found his own access to the political. Finally, there are two approaches. The

first consists in the idea that the political is located in the essence of the state (173), in the very mode, in which he essences. This interpretation also seems to form a circle if we are aware of the fact that the state necessarily presupposes the political. Another determination of the political is read: The political (i.e.) being = care of the people (not for the people) (174). This understanding primarily identifies the political with the being, in order then to deliver it to the care of the people. This care refers not to the self-preservation of the caring, but, as was said, of beings. But there is still one aspect to remember. Being is in this context metapolitically thought as . Therefore, care is the response and, for Heidegger at this time, the responsibility for the power of the . Approximately ten years later Heidegger was far away from trying to play a role in political discourse. The German revolution was unmasked. Interpreting the Antigone of Sophocles again, he might have seen that the responsibility for the power of the is in vain. The political vanishes in tragedy. And in tragedy, there is no responsibility.

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MAKING SENSE OF HEIDEGGER: A PARADIGM SHIFT


Thomas Sheehan
stanford university

What, after all, was Heideggers philosophy about? The usual answer has been being (das Sein), at least since the early 1960s when William J. Richardson and Otto Pggeler crafted the still dominant paradigm for understanding Heidegger. But the uncertainty of Heidegger scholarship is nowhere more evident than with that key term. Heidegger begins Being and Time with the famous citation from The Sophist, where the Eleatic Stranger tells Theaetetus and Theodorus: Obviously you have long known (what you mean when you say being). But we who used to think we knew, are now confused (244a) We might say much the same thing about Heidegger. He may have known what he meant by being but he did not always make that clear to the rest of us. In fact, we might make our own the plea that is enunciated in the next sentence of The Sophist: Teach us, then, so that we wont imagine we understand what you say when in fact we dont. Was Heideggers main topic being? Or the meaning of being? Or was it the clearing, which Heidegger called the

Ur-phnomen? Or was it Ereignis, the Es that gives both being and time? Or was it altheia? Or perhaps the leth that Heidegger once found in altheia? Are all of these the same thing, seen from different points of view, or are they different phenomena? And if different, what distinguishes them? Confusion reigns at the heart of the Heideggerian enterprise, and the fetishization of being that has dominated this way of philosophizing for the last fifty years can no longer solve the problem. Before even venturing into this or that particular topic within Heideggers corpus, we must first clarify what his thought was ultimately about: What is the thing itself? I will argue that to attain such clarity, a radical paradigm shift is required, one that takes seriously Heideggers phenomenological reduction and, as a consequence, reads Sein in terms of Anwesen, the meaningful presence of something to human being. But then in turn, Heideggers project shifts from the centrality of being as meaningful presence to what is responsible for such meaningful presence from Anwesen to Anwesenlassen. Once we have worked out what the latter means, we will be in a position to ask the question about the core of Heideggers thought. My thesis here is that the language of being (Sein) has run its course and hit the wall. *** Heidegger never understood being as the raw existence of things out there in space and time. That was what he called existentia in the sense of Vorhandensein, the ontological substance of things when they are considered apart from human involvement with them which is to say, before the enactment of a phenomenological reduction. It is wrong to think that

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Heidegger refused the phenomenological reduction and instead conducted his early investigations of the everyday world within the natural attitude. Husserl, however, thought that was the case, and he always accused Heidegger of not understanding the phenomenological reduction. Heidegger himself gave Husserl reason enough to doubt his protg when in October of 1927 Heidegger drafted significant sections for Husserls eventual Encyclopaedia Britannica Article, specifically on the idea of phenomenology and the method of pure psychology (including the phenomenological reduction).1 In that draft he argued that the topic proper to phenomenology was being (das Sein), but always in correlation with some form of human being. When that correlation is explicitated by way of a phenomenological reduction, the things out there in the world become phenomena: the perceived of a perception, the loved of an act of love, the judged of an act of judgment that is, always in relation to a constituting act by human being. In his own work, of course, Heidegger focused the reduction on practical action; and there the phenomena are the things we engage with in our practical dealings (Umgang). A few weeks after composing that draft for Husserl, Heidegger clarified the phenomenological reduction in his course Grundprobleme der Phnomenologie (autumn, 1927), and contrasted his own understanding of the reduction with that of Husserl. For Husserl, he said, it means leading things back to the transcendental life of consciousness and its noetic-noematic experiences, in which objects are constituted as correlates of consciousness. On the other hand: For us phenomenological reduction means leading the phenomenological vision back from the apprehension of a being [Seiende], whatever may be the

character of that apprehension, to the understanding of the being [Sein] of the being (understanding the thing in terms of the way it is disclosed).2 Here it almost seems as if being stands on its own, with no relation to human being. But not so. It is the very nature of the phenomenological reduction to explicitly draw the reflective philosopher into the correlation between the phainomenon and the logos that lets it be seen; and that entails understanding the being of the phenomenon as the meaningful presence of the phenomenon to the mind (not just to the senses) of the phenomenologist. In other words, a reduction of a Seiendes to its Sein is a reduction of the thing to a meaningful Anwesen that always includes human being as its dative. In fact Heidegger himself, especially in his later work, shied away from the word Sein. I no longer like to use the world being, he said.3 The reason: Being remains only the provisional word. Consider the fact that being was originally called presence [Anwesen] in the sense of a things staying-here-before-us in unconcealment [that is, in meaning].4 Therefore, as long as we take the word logos in the broad sense in which Heidegger meant it as encompassing intelligent activities (minding) of all sorts: practical, theoretical, aesthetic, and so on we may say that the Anwesen which is the outcome of the phenomenological reduction is a things presence to mind and never its out-there-ness apart from a human engagement. Of course neither Husserl nor Heidegger doubt that things remain out there after the reduction. Husserl explicitly said that

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we must not overlook the most essential thing of all, namely that even after the purifying epoch, perception still remains perception of this house, indeed, of this house with the accepted status of actually existing.5 And Heidegger added that the thing in nature shows up in the reducing gaze that focuses on the act of perceiving, because this perceiving is essentially a perceiving of the thing. The thing belongs to the perceiving as its perceived.6 For Heidegger as well as for Husserl, things are still outthere (vorhanden) after the reduction; its just that such things are not philosophically interesting. The subject matter of a phenomenological inquiry is things only insofar as we are in some way meaningfully engaged with them. After the phenomenological reduction, the only philosophical problems one may properly pursue are those of sense and meaning, i.e., hermeneutical questions. In its most basic form, the phenomenological reduction is a matter of learning to stand thematically where we always already stand existentielly. The upshot of Heideggers phenomenological reduction is that we engage with things from a contextualized, first-person embodied-experiential stance that inevitably makes sense of things. Even if I get information about a thing from someone else, it is still I who get that information in the first person. (This is the unavoidable truth of Descartes ego cogito.) And no matter where I get that information from, I cannot not make sense of it. (In other words, human being is pan-hermeneutical.) This first-person experi-

ential sense-making is where I stand prior to any move into the theoretical or the practical. *** Within Heideggerian circles this reading of being as the meaningfulness of things which is the heart of the paradigm shift I am proposing here may be a scandalum piis auribus ; however, the textual evidence strongly supports it. For example, in the War Emergency Semester of 1919 Heidegger declared that what we first encounter and always live with is the meaningful (das Bedeutsame) that is what is first and immediately given to us without some mental detour through a conceptual grasp of the thing. When we live in the Umwelt, everything comes at us loaded with meaning, all over the place and all the time.7 Which means: If beings are the meaningful (das Bedeutsame), then their being is their meaningfulness (Bedeutsamkeit). This position is especially pronounced in Heideggers lectures and writings of 1924. For example, his course on Aristotle: For a long time now, I have been designating the ontological character of human existence as meaningfulness (Bedeutsamkeit). This ontological character is the primary one in which we encounter the world.8 Or in reading through his essay The Concept of Time, one can hardly take a step without stumbling over the word Bedeutsamkeit:

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The lived world is present not as a thing or object, but as meaningfulness.9 We have now identified the basic character of encountering the world: meaningfulness.10 We identify meaningfulness as the worlds primary ontological characteristic.11 The following year, Heidegger again signaled the centrality of meaning to human being in his course on logic: Because the very nature of human being is to make sense of things, human being lives in meanings and can express itself in and as meanings.12 Finally, in Being and Time Heidegger designated the very structure of world (Welt) as meaningfulness (Bedeutsamkeit)13 and referred to Division One of Being and Time as his doctrine of meaning (Bedeutungslehre).14 The center of that doctrine is the phenomenology of being-in-the-world. But since the essence of world is meaningfulness, we should interpret In-derWelt-sein as In-der-Bedeutsamkeit-sein. The very structure of human being consists in its a priori engagement with meaning.15 Absent that engagement, we cease to exist. When we are no longer related to meaning, we are dead. This entails that we are ineluctably hermeneutical: it is our only way to be. We necessarily make some sense of everything we meet, and if we cannot make any sense at all of something, not even interrogative sense (What is this?), we simply cannot meet it. There can be no encounter with things (much less an understanding of the existentia of things) that lies outside our hermeneutical horizon of possible Anwesen. And whatever we make sense of must first of all be in the senses an

Aristotelian principle that Heidegger ties to Geworfenheit and Befindlichkeit. Heidegger insists that meaning which is always discursive is confined to the realm of the human. Having to make sense of things is an index of finitude.16 Recall Heideggers theory of meaning and its corollary, his theory of world. How do things become meaningful? In Being and Time Heidegger writes: Meaning is an existentiale of human being, not a property attaching to things. Human being alone has meaning.17 But at the same time: When things within the world are discovered with the being of man that is, when they come to be understood we say they have meaning.18 That is, we alone have the ability to make sense of things, and we do so by connecting a possibility of ourselves (a need or concern) with a possibility of something we encounter. We take whatever we meet as related to our everyday concerns and possibilities. When things are discovered in such a relation with human beings, they make sense. And world is what brings that about: the world as a realm of meaningfulness

things

things

human human concerns possibilities things things

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Heidegger says, As existing, human being is its world.19 That is, the world is ourselves writ large as the matrix of intelligibility. It is our thrown-openness (geworfener Entwurf ) turned into a set of meaning-giving relations. The world consists of lines of referral to our concerns (represented by the arrows in the diagram above), referrals such as this-as-useful-for-that. All these lines of referral lead to a possibility of ourselves. We are a hermeneutical field of force, like a magnet that draws things together into unities of meaning20 insofar as these things are connected with a possibility of ourselves as the final point of reference. Anything outside the scope of our spatio-temporal hermeneutical ken does not make sense.

*** The previous sections have offered several interconnected arguments for why Sein in Heideggers sense of the term is best understood as Anwesen, the meaningful presence of something to human understanding. I will now argue that this Sein even in its phenomenological transformation as Anwesen is not the ultimate concern of Heideggers work. It is obvious that Heideggers fundamental topic was not the being of metaphysics (Vorhandensein). But it is equally clear that the thing itself of his work was not Sein-as-Anwesen.21 The full textual evidence makes it clear that Heideggers ultimate focus was not on being or presence but rather on what allows for that presence, the source (Herkunft) of being as the meaningfulness of things.22 His formal term for that source was Anwesenlassen, where Anwesen stands for the presenceto-mind of things, and where the underscored lassen refers to what allows for or makes possible that Anwesen. And Sein was

not that source. In 1969 Heidegger said, If the emphasis is on the words to allow for presence, there is no longer room even for the word being.23 Now we can see that, in order to carry out his project, Heidegger had to take three steps away from metaphysics. The first step (which was necessary but not sufficient) consisted in submitting traditional ontology to a phenomenological reduction, thereby transforming the metaphysical notion of being as the existence of things apart from us into the phenomenological understanding of being as the meaningful presence of things to us. But establishing the fact that being means phenomenological Anwesen was not Heideggers final concern. Taking that first step means still having one foot stuck in metaphysics and its guiding issue, the being of beings, only now reformulated in a phenomenological mode as the meaningfulness of the meaningful. At best this step reaches only the antechamber of Heideggers fundamental question or Grundfrage. More important is the second step, which entails reaching through meaning and asking: Granted that Sein reduces to the Anwesen of things, what lets Anwesen meaningfulness come about at all? This step is the leap into a new and fundamental question, heretofore unasked in Western philosophy. Without appealing to a creative deity or a transcendental ego or some crude notion of causality, what lets meaning come about? Heidegger answered that question with a set of metaphors. If we are to encounter things as meaningfully present, he said, there must be something prior, like an ur-openness (das Offene) that things must traverse in order to become present to us; 24 or something analogous to a clearing in the forest (Lichtung) within which they can appear to us as this or that; 25 or an area spread out before us (die Gegend) in which we can

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meet and make sense of things.26 He also designates this openness as the disclosedness of meaning to man (die Wahrheit des Seins). In addition he calls it Sein selbst or Sein als solches or even Seyn.27 In an important conversation with Jean Beaufret, Heidegger finally announced in plain terms that what he meant by the clearing was intelligibility: In Being and Time the title for this question was: the question about the meaning of being (SZ, p. 1). And to put it briefly, meaning is the realm of unhiddenness, the realm of clearing (intelligibility). Within this intelligibility, all understanding is possible, i.e., all taking-something-as (= bringing something into the open).28 Note the distinction between the second and the third sentence above. In the second sentence the clearing is spoken of as intelligibility (Verstndlichkeit) as such. The third sentence, however, speaks of understanding a particular thing by taking it as something, e.g., taking (or projecting) a rock as a hammer. The former, the clearing, is what makes possible the latter, the understanding of something, i.e., rendering the thing intellectually accessible by bringing it into the open as this or that. Hence, we may clarify the relation between these two sentences by saying that the clearing/intelligibility is what makes it possible for us to understand things in terms of their various meanings. The clearing is the openness of mind (nous) in the broad sense of the ability to understand at all. As the early Heidegger put it: The primary openness of man is grounded in nous.29 And: The disclosure of man as beingin-the-world is characterized by nous.30 Only on the basis of

ourselves as this ur-openness do we in fact understand x in terms of its meaning as y. But Heidegger also equates the clearing with being as such, which he takes to be the same as Seyn. So, with the clearing have we arrived at the focal topic of all Heideggers work? First of all, in the phrase being as such what does the as such add to being as the phenomenological presence of things? Being as such is only a way of saying being in its essence, where essence refers to the source and explanation (the arch and aitia) of all forms of being, understood as phenomenological presence. Since being is always the presence of things to us, being as such does not refer to some different and higher form of being, a phenomenon that stands off on its own. As the source of all forms of intelligible presence, being as such is simply a heuristic term that stands in for whatever makes possible the meaningful presence of all we encounter. Thus being as such names a question, not an answer. So again we ask: When we have reached the openness or the clearing or being as such or Seyn, have we finally arrived at the end of Heideggers quest? The answer is both yes and no but finally no. Yes, with the clearing we have arrived at Heideggers basic topic but only as the subject matter of a new question. The inquiry does not stop here because the clearing is only the fragwrdigste, the phenomenon most worthy of being questioned.31 The open clearing is only das Befragte, i.e., merely the subject matter of Heideggers final and most fundamental question. Recall what Being and Time identifies as the three moments of any question: the Befragte, the Gefragte, and the Erfragte respectively: (1) the subject matter, (2) ones view-

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point on that subject matter, and (3) the answer being sought, i.e., the field, the focus, and the final outcome.32 1. The field or das Befragte is what medieval scholasticism called the obiectum materiale quod, i.e., the subject matter under investigation. 2. The focus on that field (das Gefragte) is what the medievals called the obiectum formale quo, the specific optic through which one views the material object. Das Gefragte is the question put to the subject matter. 3. The final outcome of the inquiry, das Erfragte, is the answer the philosopher seeks to obtain by bringing the questions formal focus to bear on the material object. It is the heuristic X standing for the not-yet-known to-beknown. Now let us apply these three concepts to Heideggers own later work, where the schema unfolds as follows: 1. The subject matter of investigation is phenomenological being: Sein or Anwesen as the meaningful presence of things to understanding. 2. The focus on that field, the question that is put to such Anwesen, is: What makes it possible? 3. The outcome of the inquiry, the answer to that question, is primal openness, the clearing as the possibility of meaningful mediation.

Here, I believe, is where most Heideggerians stop. But if we stop at this point, we have not gone far enough in our search for the thing itself. In one sense it may seem we have gone far enough. Heidegger calls the clearing the ur-phenomenon and identifies it with primal altheia. But we are given pause by the fact that the pre-Socratic philosophers also knew of the clearing and also identified it with primal altheia. Parmenides, for example, spoke of the untrembling heart of wellrounded altheia (Fragment 1, 30). In a sense, then, getting only as far as the clearing or Sein selbst means getting no further than the pre-Socratics did. They knew of the clearing at least well enough to name it; however, they never questioned it as such, that is, for its source, for what is responsible for it.33 And if we do not raise that question, we remain merely at the same level as the pre-Socratics. So again: with the clearing or Seyn have we gone far enough? Heidegger did not think so. In the last lines of his lecture The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking, in which he discusses the clearing at some length, Heidegger poses one further question, the final question: Whence and how is the clearing given?34 Elsewhere he asks the same basic question in different terms: How does Seyn come about?35 How does Anwesen come about?36 Or yet again, the final question concerns whence and how there is such a thing as ur-openness.37 These questions, taken as a unity form the true Grundfrage, which pushes through the clearing to its source. So we need to take a third and final step.

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Step one, we recall, was to reduce metaphysical Sein to phenomenological Anwesen. Step two was to ask what makes Anwesen possible, and the answer was the clearing as our uropenness. Now step three asks for what makes the open or clearing possible. Thus, in its final iteration, the three moments of Heideggers fundamental question look like this: The Befragte of the investigation is the clearing itself. The Gefragte of the investigation is the question: What is the source of the clearing? The Erfragte or outcome of the inquiry is that Ereignis makes the clearing possible. But what does Ereignis mean? This brings us to the thing itself of Heideggers thought. *** Ereignis is the appropriation of human being to intelligibility as such. It is the later Heideggers term for what he had earlier called Geworfenheit, i.e., the human beings thrownness into the meaning-process. In his Contributions to Philosophy Heidegger straightforwardly declares the equivalence of these two terms. For example: geworfenerd.h. er-eignet: thrown, i.e., appropriated; 38 das Dasein ist geworfen, ereignet: man is thrown or appropriated; 39

die Er-eignung, das Geworfenwerden: the appropriating, that is, mans being thrown.40 And so on.41 I prefer to use the early language of thrownnesswithout-a-thrower rather than speaking of the appropriation of human being, lest the latter invoke and eventually hypostasize a who or what that does the appropriating. What we are thrown into is the condition of Zu-sein, having to constantly become in order to stay alive. Our actuality is to be thrown into ourselves as possibility, as still to be achieved, as open in the radical sense of never arriving at full self-presence. Human being is ever in movement towards more of itself (or less, as the case may be). Here Heidegger draws upon Aristotles definition of movement as energeia atels (in Latin actus imperfectus), i.e., the anticipation of a fulfillment that, in our case, we shall never achieve.42 To adapt Augustines prayer to Heideggers existential vision, we might say: Inquietum est cor nostrum our very being is ever in movement but without the donec requiescat in te, without any final rest either in itself or in the divine. The best that the human being can do is to existentielly become its existential becoming, that is, to personally and decisively assume its own thrown-open-ness. While ever incomplete, i.e., never immediately closed in on ourselves, we still can become whole in our incompleteness by taking over that incompleteness in an act of resolve. Our inescapable movement entails being ever thrownopen, or as Heidegger puts it, stretched out (erstreckt) beyond ourselves while still remaining ourselves.43 Heidegger describes this movement as a self-excess that never loses itself in German, a fortnehmende Zukehr, i.e., a being carried away into possibility ( fortnehmende), that is always return-

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ing to itself (Zukehr), in the sense of always remaining with itself.44 In a phrase, we are an ec-centric self, an incompletely self-present aheadness-in-possibility. As Heidegger says: This being-ahead-of-oneself as a returning [Sichvorweg-sein als Zurckkommen] is, if I may put it this way, a peculiar kind of movement that existence itself constantly makes.45 For its part, this thrown-aheadness is the thrown-open space of human possibility. In turn this thrown-open space discloses the possibilities of whatever we may encounter, such that we can take the thing we meet in terms of its own possibilities as related to us. The medium into which we are thrown is open-ended possibility, and this same medium mediates things to their meanings in light of their relation to us. In Heideggerese: Our thrown-openness discloses the being of things. In other words, the openness of thrown-openness is the clearing, the field within which the meaning of things can discursively emerge. And the thrownness of thrown-openness means that we do not generate this openness on our own initiative but rather find ourselves a priori appropriated (ereignet) to sustaining (ausstehen) the open.46 Being-thrown-open determines and defines us, it is our raison dtre, and in that sense it grants us our existence as the clearing.47 But there is another side to the story: without thrown human being, there is no clearing.48 The clearing is human being in its thrownopen essence.49 To summarize: Our thrownness into becoming is our a priori thrown-openness, and that thrown-openness is the clearing. Geworfenheit i.e., Ereignis is what is responsible for the clearing. So (step one) we have phenomenologically re-

duced metaphysical being to phenomenological meaning; then (step two) we followed phenomenological meaning back to the clearing as ur-openness; and finally (step three) we traced that ur-openness back to thrownness or appropriation. To state the three steps in German: first, from Sein to Anwesen; second: from Anwesen to Lichtung; and third, from Lichtung to Geworfenheit / Ereignis i.e., to thrown or appropriated Dasein. *** The thrown-openness that enables all meaningfulness of things is, Heidegger says, intrinsically hidden. (It would be an error, of course, to say that the clearing hides itself, as if it exercised quasi-personal agency upon itself.) By this intrinsic hiddenness Heidegger means two things. (1) As the ultimate condition of the possibility of all meaningfulness, the thrownopen clearing must be presumed in every effort to make sense of something. (2) But therefore any attempt to make sense of the clearing itself entails the prior utilization of it, and thus constitutes a petitio principii, presuming what one is trying to ground.50 In that sense, thrown-openness as the source of intelligibility is the mystery (Geheimnis), the ultimate factum, the final ohne Warum, behind which one cannot go. In the words of Albert Einstein, the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.51 That is, everything is comprehensible except the fact of its comprehensibility. In Heideggers readings of Hlderlin, the hidden or mysterious ur-openness that is the clearing is equated with nature ( phusis), not in a naturalistic sense but rather a phenomenological one: an emerging and arising, a self-opening, the very clearing of the open, the rising up of the clearing.52 He also

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uses Hlderlins term the Holy (das Heilige) as a name for the clearing that we must always presuppose in all our actions. Nature is prior to and above everything, It is the antecedent in two senses: It is the oldest of every former thing, and always the youngest of subsequent things. [] What is ever antecedent is the holy; for as the primordial, it remains unbroken and whole [heil] in itself. By virtue of its allpresence this originary wholeness gives a gift to everything that is real: it confers on it the grace of its own abiding presence.53 This unsurpassable, ever earlier openness, which is of the essence of human being, gathers everything isolated together into a single presence and mediates to each thing its appearing. Immediate all-presence is the mediator for everything mediated, that is, for the mediate. The immediate is itself never something mediate; on the other hand, the immediate, strictly speaking, is the mediating, i.e., the possibility for the mediatable to be mediated [die Mittelbarkeit des Mittelbaren], because it renders the mediated possible in its essence.54 *** Thrown-openness, as that which allows for meaningful presence, is, for Heidegger, a fact that is hidden, holy, ever-open, and immediate. It mediates whatever we can meet to its possible meanings and constitutes the ultimate horizon of all ac-

cessibility. Its hiddenness and holiness are of the essence of human being (das vergessene Geheimnis des Daseins),55 just as are its ever-openness and immediacy. Precisely as thrown into our existence (or, equally, having it granted to us), we are the clearing and thus are condemned to making mediate, discursive and therefore hermeneutical sense of everything we encounter.

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notes

Edmund Husserl, Psychological and Transcendental Phenomenology and the Confrontation with Heidegger (1927-1931), ed. and trans. Thomas Sheehan and Richard E. Palmer (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1997), 107-116 (= Husserliana IX, 256-263). GA 24: 29.15-18 = 21.25-30. GA 15: 20.8-9 = 8.34-35. GA 7: 234.13-17 = 78.21-24: her-vor-whren in die Unverborgenheit. Husserl, op. cit., 91 (= Husserliana IX, 243.30-34). Husserl, op. cit., 113 (= Husserliana IX, 261.6-9). GA 56/57: 73.1-5 = 61.24-8. GA 18: 300.15-18 = 203.27-29. GA 64: 65.18-19 = 55.15-16.

ing what is understood is not the meaning but the entity, or alternatively being. Meaning is where the intelligibility of something is maintained. The phrase alternatively being refers to when being (Sein) rather than beings is the focus of the question. 19 SZ 364.34-35 = 416.8: Dieses [= das Dasein] ist existierend seine Welt. 20 GA 9: 279.1-4 = 213.10-12. 21 Compare GA 8: 99.18-19 = 95.27-28 (dem zu-Denkenden, dem Sein) with GA 14: 50.2-3 = 41.4-5 (das Sein . . .nicht mehr das eigens zu Denkende). But compare as well GA 81: 209.8: Das Seyn ist die Ereignung, die, was vormals Sein geheien. . .). 22 GA 6:2: 304.11 = Nietzsche IV, 201.13-15: Herkunft von Anwesen. GA 2: 53.34-35, Das Anwesen aus dieser Herkunft. 23 Anwesenlassen: GA 14: 45.29-30 = 37.5-6; no longer room: GA 15: 365.17-18 = 60.9-10. Cf. Zollikon 228.8-9 = 182.10-12 (Anwesen. . .verschiedet.) 24 GA 15: 401.24-27: Beide, Vernehmen sowohl als auch Anwesen bedrfen eines Freien und Offenen, innerhalb dessen sie einander angehen. Cf. GA 48, 177.25-8: Wir meinen, ein Seiendes werde eben dadurch zugnglich, da ein Ich als Subjekt fr ein Subjekt vorstellt. Als ob nicht hierzu vorher schon ein Offenes sein mte, innerhalb dessen Offenheit etwas als Objekt fr ein Subjekt zugnglich werden und die Zugnglichkeit selbst noch als erfahrbare durchfahren werden kann. 25 GA 14: 80.8 = 65.4. Heidegger also equates the clearing with world die Lichtung des Seins, und nur sie ist Welt GA 9: 326.15-16. 26 GA 77: 114.12-13 = 74.10. 27 On the equivalence of Sein als Sein and Seyn: GA 11: 148.35-36 = Richardson, xvii.4-5. 28 GA 16: 424.18-22. 29 GA 18: 326.7-8 = 220.26: Die primr Aufgeschlossenheit des Menschen ist gegrndet im nous.

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 Ibid. 23.32-33= 17.25-26. 11 Ibid.: 24.2-3 = 17.30-31. Cf. also ibid. 25.13-14 = 19.1-2: the primary character of encountering the world meaningfulness. 12 GA 21: 151.4-5 = 127.30-32. 13 SZ, 87.17-18 = 120.23, and 334.33-34 = 384.1. 14 SZ, 166.2-10 = 209.18-28; cf. GA 64: 24.4-7 = 17.34-35. 15 Geworfener Entwurf is what Heidegger designates as [der] Bezug zum Sein [i.e., zur Anwesen]: GA 48: 283.1. 16 GA 3: 280.30-31 = 197.24-25. 17 SZ, 151.34-35 = 193.11-13. 18 Ibid., 151.22-24 = 192.35-37. The text continues: But strictly speak-

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30 Ibid. 326.12-4 = 220.30-2: Die Entdecktheit des Seins des Menschen als In-der-Welt-sein ist durch den nous charakteriziert. 31 GA 45: 114.8 = 100.14; GA 48: 282.30-32. 32 SZ 5.7-17 = 24.14-27. 33 GA 45: 112.8-10 = 98.27-29. 34 GA 14: 90.3-4 = 73.3: Woher und wie gibt es die Lichtung? 35 GA 65: 78.22 = 54.35. Wie west das Seyn? Cf. GA 66: 420.10 = 371.15: [die Frage] nach der Wahrheit des Seyns und ihrer Grndung im Da-sein. 36 GA 15: 405.30: Wo und wie west anwesen an? 37 GA14: 46.5 = 37.14-15: von woher und wie es das Offene gibt. 38 GA 65: 239.5 = 169.12. 39 Ibid.: 304.8 = 214.22. 40 Ibid.: 34.9 = 24.32. 41 Taking SZ 325.37 = 373.14-15 with GA 65: 322.7-8 = 226.13-14: bernahme der Geworfenheit = ber-nahme der Er-eignung: taking over ones thrownness is the same as taking over ones appropriation. GA 65, 239.7-9 = 169.14: Geworfenheit und damit die Zugehrigkeit zum Seyn. Ibid. 320.16-17 = 225.5-6: bernahme der Zugehrigkeit in die Wahrheit des Seins. See also GA 9, 377 note d = 286 note d: Geworfenheit und Ereignis. 42 Metaphysics III 2, 201b 32: energeia atels: It seems that movement is a kind of fulfillment, but an incomplete one. For motus est actus imperfectus: Bonaventure, Commentaria in Quatuor Libros Sententiarum, Part I, distinction 37, Part II, article 1, question 2, no. 2. Cf. GA 31: 58.6-8 = 40.33-34: Wo umgekehrt das Wesen von Bewegung zum Problem gemacht wird, da hlt sich das Fragen in der nchste Nhe der Frage nach dem Sein. 43 Re erstreckt and Erstreckung: SZ 374.22-23 = 426.27-29. Re beyond

itself while never losing itself: GA 29/30: 343.4 = 235.24-25 (Weg-vonsich) and 342.19 = 235.9 (bei sich selbst einbehalten). 44 GA 29/30: 527. 35 = 363.15-16. Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, 14, 2 ad 1: Redire ad essentiam suam nihil aliud est quam rem subsistere in se ipsum. Aquinas here draws on Proclus, The Elements of Theology, proposition 83: All that is capable of self-knowledge is capable of completely returning to itself. 45 GA 21: 147.23-26 = 124.19-20. Cf. GA 3: 189.19-20 = 132.29-30: Von-sich-aus-hin-zu. 46 With sustain I translate Heideggers (1) Entwurf als Offenhalten, projection as holding-open/sustaining, (2) ausstehen as at GA 9: 332. 19 = 253.14, and in the sense of ausstehend at GA 65: 35.6-7 = 25.20. 47 GA 16, 631.31 = 221.31.: insofern die Lichtung erst das Dasein ist, das heit es als ein solches gewhrt. 48 GA 45: 212.10-11 = 179.29-30: Wre der Mensch nicht seiend, dann knnte auch diese Lichtung nicht geschehen. 49 GA 15, 415.10-3: Es gilt, das Da-sein in dem Sinne zu erfahren, da der Mensch das Da, d.h. die Offenheit des Seins fr ihn, selbst ist, indem er es bernimmt, sie zu bewahren und bewahrend zu entfalten. (Vgl. Sein und Zeit, S. 132f.). 50 Aristotle, Prior Analytics II, 16, 68b 28ff., and 65a 26f. 51 Albert Einstein, Physics and Reality (1936) reprinted in his Essays in Physics (New York: Philosophical Library, 1950), 18. 52 Erlaterungen zu Hlderlins Dichtung, 56.22-26 = 79.8-12: das Hervorgehen und Aufgehen, das Sichffnen, das Lichten jener Lichtung, der Aufgang der Lichtung. 53 Ibid. 63.9-18 = 85.17-25. 54 Ibid.: 62.12-18 = 20-25. 55 GA 9: 195.23 = 149.28.

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The Matter of Being in Time and Being


Richard Capobianco
stonehill college

Heidegger delivered this much anticipated lecture January 31, 1962 at the University of Freiburg, and Bill Richardson was in attendance. We all look forward to Bills recollections of the circumstances and the excitement of the event. Later, in September of the same year in Todtnauberg, Heidegger led six seminar sessions on the text of the lecture. Summaries or protocols of the seminars were written by one of the participants, Alfred Guzzoni, and these were checked and slightly supplemented by Heidegger for publication. Both the lecture and protocol texts were published in a small collection titled Zur Sache des Denkens in 1969.1 Time and Being attempts to gloss what might have been said in the proposed third section of the first part of Being and Time. He freely admits, though, that the lecture is really no more than a series of indications because written three and half decades later, [the lecture text] can no longer be a continuation of the text of Being and Time (SD, 91/TB, 83).

At the time, Heidegger thought the lecture to be an important statement of his later thinking and no doubt it is but from the perspective of the present, it is not an altogether satisfying philosophical reflection. The language is especially abstract and cryptic, and the major themes are not well developed. It is arguable that he addressed the concerns of the lecture more lucidly in other statements of the same period, including in his Preface to Bills great book Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought the 50th anniversary of which we are also fast approaching and happily celebrating. Heidegger composed the Preface not long after the lecture; he dated it early April, 1962 in response to Bills letter to him dated March 1, 1962.2 There are many questions that we could put to the text of Time and Being, but let me single out one for this afternoon: How do things stand with Being in this lecture? To make the focus sharp, Id like to target one key line for discussion. Nearing the end of the lecture, Heidegger states: The sole purpose of this lecture is to bring into view Being itself (das Sein selbst) as Ereignis (SD, 22/TB, 21). This one line would appear to offer a decisive and definitive answer to our question were it not that he does not helpfully clarify this conclusion. He immediately shifts to a consideration of how this is not to be thought. That is, he warns that the as in this statement is especially treacherous because the metaphysical habit of thinking reflexively construes what follows the as to be only a mode of being. He observes that if his statement is considered in this metaphysical manner, Ereignis would be no more than a subset of being and therefore subordinated to being as the main concept, and he emphasizes that this is certainly not his meaning. Metaphysical thinking simply misses the fundamental matter to be thought in saying Be-

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ing itself as Ereignis. This may be so, but he offers no careful elucidation of how his conclusion is to be understood, although his meaning is perhaps apparent enough that Being itself as Ereignis names the Same that is the giving of the epochal or historical renderings of being qua beingness. Yet, more to the point, he does not directly address the apparent tension in the lecture between two claims: on the one hand, he states throughout that Ereignis gives das Sein (Es gibt Sein), but, on the other hand, he concludes with the indication that the whole point of the lecture is precisely to bring into view Being itself as Ereignis. The root of the problem lies with his uncertain use of the word das Sein. In those places where he speaks of Ereignis giving or granting das Sein, he appears to be referring to being as beingness (die Seiendheit), but, unlike in some earlier texts from the late 1950s, such as The Way to Language, in this text he does not enclose das Sein in quotation marks to give the reader a telling clue that he is limiting the meaning of being in such formulations to the many forms of metaphysical beingness or presence (Anwesenheit). I think that we can agree that one of the chief difficulties in reading the later Heidegger is that he often leaves the reader uncertain about the precise meaning of das Sein in certain contexts, and here is a particularly vexing instance of this. On the other hand, this is certainly not the case with his use of the name das Sein selbst, Being itself, because he is always careful and precise in reserving this name for the fundamental matter for thought. So, in Time and Being we find that he does not state that Ereignis gives or grants Being itself; in fact, as far as I can determine, there is no place in any of Heideggers texts early, middle, or late where he allows that Ereignis gives Being

itself (nowhere, in other words, where he use the phrase Es gibt Sein selbst). Therefore, if we sort out the terminology of the lecture, then we can make better sense of his fundamental position: Ereignis as Es gibt gives (grants, lets, allows, enables) beingness; but Ereignis and Being itself say the Same. This reading is strengthened by turning to the protocol of the fourth seminar on the lecture text that Heidegger led several months later in Todtnauberg. According to the protocol, the participants addressed the problem of the apparent contradiction that I have mentioned. The response (and I think we can presume that it was principally Heideggers response) was that the name Being itself always had a special significance in his thinking. The participants cite the Letter on Humanism (1946/1947), and it is observed that although the word Ereignis is not mentioned in this statement, nonetheless the term Being itself already names Ereignis (SD, 46/TB, 43). In other words, for Heidegger, the name Being itself also names Ereignis and always had in his thinking. Consequently, as the protocol observes, this reminder should make it clear that there is no contradiction in Time and Being. Unfortunately, the protocol clarifies this crucial point in an all-too cryptic way: it is precisely a matter of seeing that das Sein, in coming into view as Ereignis, disappears as das Sein (SD, 46/TB, 43). We can dispel the mystery and confusion by re-stating the line more carefully: it is precisely a matter of seeing that if we are able to bring into view Being itself as Ereignis, then there is no contradiction in also saying that being qua metaphysical beingness recedes in visibility and importance for thinking. In turn, this reading is supported by a brief response Heidegger made to a question posed to him by Joan Stambaugh

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(and editors) during the summer of 1970 in their preparation of the volume The End of Philosophy. The third question made in writing to Heidegger asked, in part, whether Being itself [should] be thought as the Appropriation [Ereignis]? Stambaugh provides only a translation of his written response, so, regrettably, we cannot examine his own words. Nevertheless, even in this translation, his answer clearly echoes the cryptic statement from the 1962 seminar and also clarifies the issue as I have suggested: Being itself means: The Appropriation [Ereignis] can no longer be thought as Being in terms of presence. Appropriation no longer names another manner and epoch of Being. Being thought without regard to beings (i.e., always only in terms of, and with respect to, them) means at the same time: no longer thought as Being (presence).3 To put a finer point on the matter, I gloss his response as follows: Being itself means Ereignis. Being itself and Ereignis cannot be thought in terms of beingness. Ereignis does not name another historical form of beingness. Thinking Being itself means that all metaphysical thinking about beingness must recede in importance. Carefully considered, then, Heideggers lecture Time and Being does not reveal a departure in his thinking at all on the matter of Being, but rather only a reformulation of the fundamental matter for thought in terms of Ereignis as Es gibt. In

fact, I suggest that this very formulation represents a retrieval and restatement of a theme that we find in his earliest lecture course given during the 1919 war emergency semester.4 Specifically: In 13-15, Heidegger criticizes Husserls reflective, theoretical phenomenology for addressing the things that we encounter as inert objects appearing for and before the sense-giving I or I-pole. But for Heidegger, what we encounter, what there is (es gibt) has the character of an Ereignis, a happening or event within lived experience. In other words, things happen to us and address us in their significance; they are events of showing that we appropriate. As he puts it, es weltet, that is, the surrounding world worlds; things world everywhere and always. I suggest that with this expression es weltet Heidegger was tapping into the meaning of the old verb form welten, to world, which, even more evidently in English, once conveyed to furnish and fill up and also to come into existence. That is, things emerge and abound about us in their significance; they manifest themselves to us in an eventful way and address us and even speak to us, as it were. Things are not so much made present by us (Husserl) as they present themselves to us. And we hear in these sections, too, a prefiguring of Heideggers more fully developed understanding of world as The springing up of the world comes to pass as the self-opening (1941/42, GA 88: 325). In any case, my point is that already in 1919, Heidegger was employing the very same language of the much later Time and Being to indicate or point out that our experience of things is a marvelous there is/it gives (es gibt) that has the character of an Ereignis. It is possible to say, then, that Heideggers thinking and language in 1962 had returned to where it had essentially begun in 1919.

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But with regard to the matter of Being, my overarching point is that the task for thinking called for in Time and Being remained what it had always been, namely, to get into view what earlier Western philosophical thinking simply could not: the pure appropriating, putting into place, giving, granting, letting of what appears (beings in their beingness, that is, in their sheer presence, their full look(eidos)). This is the very aim of the lecture, Heidegger tells us both at the very beginning and at the very end: The attempt is to think Being without beings, he remarks at the outset of the lecture, and he concludes by noting that the upshot of the lecture has been to think Being without beings, and that means to think Being without regard to metaphysics (SD, 5 and 25/TB, 2 and 24). Thus, in fact, very little is different in this lecture. Heideggers focus remained on Being itself as Ereignis as aletheia as the unifying one and only, temporal-spatial, finite and negatived, emerging of beings in their beingness (in the ensemble) this spontaneous presencing of what is present, this pure giving of what is given beyond which there can be no phenomenological seeing. As he pointed out at the end of the lecture, everything that he had said regarding Being itself and Ereignis as Es gibt was not really new, but rather the oldest of the old in Western thought: the most ancient that conceals itself in the name a-letheia. And I would add that in the Preface to Bills book, Heidegger reinforced this basic theme and the language of Being in a particularly concise and clear manner. Nevertheless, we do detect in the lecture a variation in his formulation of die Sache that is more characteristic of his writings of the 1960s, namely, the emphasis on the letting character of Being itself. That Being itself is the letting of

beings in their beingness was always implicitly conveyed by his earlier indications that Sein selbst is the emerging, arising, appearing of beings ( physis) or the laying out and gathering of beings (the primordial Logos) or the presencing of beings (das Anwesen, in the verbal sense). But in Time and Being and in the subsequent seminars, Heidegger seemed to have become especially frustrated that his earlier formulations were still not understood in the proper way as he would often say, primarily because we who are accustomed to speaking of beings only as static objects and facts have lost the ability to hear the names of Being as the Greeks heard them and in the 1960s he often turned to the language of letting (Lassen) and giving (Es gibt) in order to counter the philosophical habit of thinking of only beings in their beingness or objects in their objectiveness. Being itself as the letting of beings says the Same as the emerging and unconcealing and presencing of beings but it is the language of letting that, at this point in his thinking, he found most helpful to indicate the fundamental matter for thought. There is confirmation for this in the seminars that Heidegger conducted later in September of that year, but I think that his clearest statement can be found a few years later, in the last seminar held at Le Thor (11 September 1969). He begins by stating plainly that Being lets beings come to presence, and continues: It is a matter here of understanding that the deepest meaning of Being is letting [das Lassen]. Letting beings be, this is the non-causal meaning of letting in Time and Being. This letting is something fundamentally different from doing. The text Time and Being attempted to think

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this letting still more fundamentally in the expression giving. The giving meant here speaks in the expression Es gibt. [GA 15: 363; Also my Engaging Heidegger, 20-23] He adds that his point in highlighting letting and giving is that by doing so, it is no longer the presence (Anwesenheit) of a being which draws ones attention, but the ground which that being covers over [temporally-spatially] in order to make itself independent from [the ground]: thus, letting as such. In the Le Thor seminar, as in Time and Being, he was trying to find fresh language that would draw our attention away from what-is-present (the being, das Seiende as das Anwesende) in its sheer presence (beingness, die Seiendheit as die Anwesenheit or das Anwesen but only in the static, nominalized sense, not in the verbal sense) in order for us to see pure comingto-presence itself (anwesen selbst, that is, what he referred to as Being without beings in Time and Being). By focusing upon the letting itself, he concluded in Le Thor, one [finally] stands before Being as Being. [Being as Being = Beyng, Being itself, Being as such /Sein als Sein = Seyn, Sein selbst, Sein als solches] In Time and Being, Heidegger brought the language of letting and giving to the forefront, but, again, the core matter of his thinking remained the same: the movedness (Bewegtheit) of all things into and out of presence. It had always been his claim that if we were able to truly hear the Greek language, then we would be able to discern this movedness in the Ur-words physis, logos, hen, aletheia. For Heidegger, the Greeks never spoke simply of static presence; their experience of presence was dynamic, as he noted as late as 1965:

What we call, ambiguously and confusedly enough, beings the Greek philosophers experienced as what-is-present [das Anwesende] because Being was granted to them as presence [Anwesenheit]. And in this presence, what was thought together was the passage from presenting to absenting, from arriving to departing, from emerging to passing away, that is, movement. [On the Question Concerning the Determination of the Matter for Thinking, trans. Capobianco and Gbel, Epoch 14:2 (2010), 216] In other words, the Greek thinkers never proffered what we now so routinely refer to as a metaphysics of presence, because they never lost sight of the presencing of all things, even if they could not thematize this as such. But, in fact, it is we who are accustomed to thinking of beings as merely inert objects for a subject and even posited by a subject it is we who need to be reminded of the temporal ground of beings which lets and gives what-is-present in its presentness. His language of letting and giving in Time and Being simply attempted to say (sagen) and thereby show (zeigen) in yet one more way what was (and often continues to be) forgotten in modern and contemporary philosophical thinking: the Being of beings (in their beingness). Yet, even after Time and Being, Heidegger continued to use the simple term presence [Anwesenheit] in the way that he understood the Greeks to have experienced it (as the 1965 text cited above clearly shows).5 Another instance: From his Black Forest Htte in October 1966, Heidegger wrote a heartfelt 60th birthday greeting to Hannah Arendt, and in the course of his note, he voiced to her his strong objection to how

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contemporary readers of his work were insistent on subjectivizing or intellectualizing his understanding of aletheia. He writes that his three visits to Greece have testified to this one thing, still hardly thought, that A-letheia is not a mere word and not an object for etymologizing but the ever-prevailing power of the presence [Anwesenheit] of all beings and things. [Letters 1925-1975, 127/Briefe, 153] The presence[to us]of all beings and things. Indeed, to us, to Dasein, is understood here (Dasein as the shepherd and guardian of Being), and on this basis, one could maintain that Heideggers thinking remained phenomenological, as Tom [Sheehan] and others have pressed this point but the focal point of his thinking, from beginning to end (in his own view of the matter) was the temporal self-showing of things; their opening, manifestation, shining-forth to us: It is rather Being, Heidegger states in the Preface to Bills book, as presencing, marked by its time-character, that approaches Dasein. For Heidegger, aletheia, as a name for Being itself, speaks to the power of the presencing, the truthing, of all beings ( physis) and all things (techne/poiesis) altogether, physis in the originary sense.6 [And here we have something rich to consider: Being ( physis) as the presencing of beings and things together in the ensemble the farmer in the field; the sailboat on the sea; the footbridge over the stream; the steeple against the sky; the road through the valley; and so forth. Never a mere tableau, though, but a happening of beings and things together.] Yet, admittedly, Heidegger had a special appreciation for the shining-forth of nature, or what he sometimes called the

naturalness of nature (die Natrlichkeit der Natur). Along with his note to Arendt, he enclosed a copy of one of Hlderlins last poems, which bears the heading Autumn. Heidegger was particularly fond of this poem,7 and a few years later he composed a brief commentary on it that included references to several other last poems. [GA 75: 205-209; our translation of complete text forthcoming.] Here is the poem in full: Natures gleaming is higher revealing, Where with many joys the day draws to an end; It is the year that completes itself in resplendence, Where fruit with cheerful radiance blend. Earths orb is thus adorned, and rarely clamors Sound through the open field, the sun warms The day of autumn mildly, the fields lie As a great wide view, the breezes blow Through boughs and branches, rustling gladly, When then already to emptiness the fields give way. The whole meaning of this bright image lives As an image bathed in golden splendor. Natures gleaming Das Glnzen der Naturcaptures in poetic language what so profoundly moved Heidegger and summoned his thinking and saying over the course of his lifetime. Das Glnzen is a favorite word of Hlderlins and of Heideggers, and for Heidegger it speaks to the gleaming, glistening, glimmering, glittering, glowing that is the manifestness of Being to Dasein the phos that is at the very core of phainesthai. This luminosity, this resplendence of primordial physis calls forth from us wonder and astonishment and great joy; brightens, lightens, and opens us; inclines our thinking toward thanking; and humbles us into recognizing the limit of

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all our saying, language, meaning or as the poet expressed this, cited so approvingly by Heidegger: Yet so very simple the images, so very holy these, that one is really often fearful of describing these.

notes

Martin Heidegger, Zur Sache des Denkens (Tbingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1969/2000). Hereafter SD. On Time and Being, trans. Joan Stambaugh (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972/2002). Hereafter TB, but I have modified the translations.

2 William J. Richardson , Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1963), with a Preface by Martin Heidegger, viii-xxiii. 3 Introduction to The End of Philosophy, trans. Joan Stambaugh (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), p. xiii. 4 13-15 in GA 56/57: 63-76; Towards the Definition of Philosophy, trans. Ted Sadler (London: Athlone Press, 2008), 51-64. 5 See also the last seminar in Zhringen, 8 September 1973, GA 15: 390-407. Also, my Engaging Heidegger (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010), 26-29. 6 For a full discussion of the truth of Being and for my critique of the so-called pragmatist Heidegger and transcendental Heidegger, see my article Arriving at the Truth of Being, forthcoming. Also, in this regard, note Heideggers remarks to Arendt in a letter dated 6 May 1950: Although I saw clearly and tried to capture [in the 1920s] that the resoluteness of Dasein proceeds from aletheia, I was not yet in a position at that time to think from out of A-letheia. Briefe 1925 bis 1975 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1998), 104. 7 Not long after he sent a copy of this poem to Arendt, Heidegger also mentioned it to his friend the clergyman Paul Hassler in a letter in the spring of 1967. In part, Heidegger writes to Hassler, who had been ill: Above all, I wish that, in this period of recovery, undisguised nature addresses you and that through nature you are claimed by what never ceases to claim human beings. Heinrich Petzet, Encounters and Dialogues with Martin Heidegger, 1929-1976 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).

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Event / Language
Krzysztof Ziarek
university at buffalo

What happens then, when beings and the beingness (the a priori ) that is always appended to them lose their preeminence? Then be-ing is. Then the is and all language transform themselves essentially. GA 66: 337/300-301

on language, so does the evolving understanding of language impact the reformulations of the question of being from the initial prism of the ontological difference to the history of being and the event. One of the markers of this shifting approach in the texts from late 1930s is the way Heidegger vacillates between writing about the overcoming (berwindung) of metaphysics and about the need of an admittedly more radical twisting or torsion (Verwindung) in it. Recognizing the fact that the call for the overcoming of metaphysics remains essentially metaphysical, since it aims to open a further zone of thought beyond metaphysics, Heidegger begins to explore instead the possibility of a torsion within metaphysics which would release thinking from its metaphysical foundations and perhaps let it think otherwise.1 This shift from overcoming to twisting and torquing is also reflected in the well-known remarks from The Way to Language about the need for a transformation of language. In order to think according to the essence of language, in order to after-say [nachzusagen] what is its own, we need a transformation [Wandel] of language, a transformation we can neither compel nor concoct. The transformation does not result from the fabrication neologisms and novel phrases. The transformation touches on our relation [Verhltnis] to language. (GA 12: 267/BW 424-25) Overcoming metaphysics would be tantamount to an impossible invention of a new language, and thus to a forcible change, which would not necessarily touch at all upon that from which the transformation in question could and, in Heideggers estimation, should spring: namely our relation to lan-

The key role of language in Heideggers thinking after the turn of mid-1930s comes from his recognition that the question of being is essentially the question, or more precisely, the way of language. This may be why the last section of Contributions to Philosophy is entitled Language (Its Origin),(GA 65: 510/358-359) as it outlines briefly the guiding threads of Heideggers emerging signature approach: language and event; language as unfolding from silence; language as rift (Riss); language as both the broadest humanization [Vermenschung] of beings and as the opportunity for the dishumanization (Entmenschung) of man as an extant living-being and subject.(GA 65: 510/359) Just as much as Heideggers repeated rephrasing of the Seinsfrage influences his writings

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guage, the way we hold ourselves to and experience languages way-making. Language needs to be experienced and thought in its issuing, in its being, from the event: not from beings, humans, or life but from the always singular (einzig) and only one-time (einmalig) clearing of the event. Because language is(sues) in this manner, the change in our relation to language reverberates within the event as the relation of all relations, twisting the way the event unfolds and thus perhaps allowing language to transform. In other words, without transforming our relation to language, of our experience of what language is and how it comes to pass, thinking will not be able to change, and no amount of talking about radical critique, postmodernity, or postmetaphysics, will force or manufacture the transformation.2 What is necessary instead is a shift away from the metaphysical understanding of language based on the notion of zoon logon echon, that is, on the concept of the human as a living being who possesses language. This dominant approach results in the locking of language within the matrix of physiological, biological, and anthropological presuppositions and determinations, which produce various types of metaphysical discourses about language, rather than make room for a thinking experience with language. This is why Heidegger does not tie the origin of language either to the organs of speech or writing, or simply to the capabilities of the human brain but instead decisively shifts the inquiry into the domain of the event. To counter the prevailing metaphysical framing of language, Heidegger inverts this phrase and repeatedly states that language has man or the word has man. Das Wort, was den Menschen (Dasein) hat (Wesung des Wortes), grndend ab-grndig. The word, which has

man (Dasein) (unfolding of the word), groundingly abgrounding. (GA 74, 100) And in another place, Der Mensch hat die Sprache, weil die Sprache im Wort entspringt, das Wort aber als die Sage des Seyns den Menschen hat, d. h. bestimmt in seine Bestimmung. (GA 74, 122) Man has language, because language arises within the word, however, the word as the saying of be-ing has man, that is, determines him into his determination. The notion that human beings have language assumes that language functions primarily as a tool, an informational instrument, which can be owned, used, and manipulated, and that as such a tool, it can be adequately described and understood through linguistics, philosophy of language, or (bio)informatics, or perhaps the combination of the three. The formulation language has man, which occurs repeatedly in the texts on language from Zum Wesen der Sprache und Zur Frage nach der Kunst bespeaks the key point in Heideggers thinking of language, the point which has not been given enough attention in responses to Heideggers reflections on language, even in poststructuralist approaches, which are often sympathetic to at least the fundamental orientation of Heideggers critique of metaphysics: Heideggers continuous insistence, beginning perhaps with Contributions to Philosophy, that the inceptive moment of language does not have to do with living beings to begin within. This is the crux of the already mentioned final section of this book, in which Heidegger, noting the humanizing power of language, its overwhelming and pervasive Vermenschung, points out that, when finally experienced in its essence, language instead dishumanizes (Entmenschung) man as an extant living being and subject. It is crucial to note that this dishumanizing momentum of language, when it is experienced from the event, does not

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pertain simply to the concept of the subject but to the notion of the living being. In other words, its import is not circumscribed within or exhausted by the critique of the subject as a unitary being, produced, constituted, or performed by and in language. For Heidegger, the decisive moment of dishumanization has to do with questioning the notion that man can be explained as essentially a living being who in distinction from other animals is also endowed with language. To think man non-metaphysically requires dis-placing the notion of the living being in the wake of the event, after and according to the events language, which means that what makes humans human is not their status as particular living beings but instead their specific relatedness to being. As Heidegger explains in GA 74, Das Wort hat den Menschen (nicht das Lebewesen), sondern den Menschen als den Vernehmer des Seienden vor-stellend, ver-nehmend (planend), besorgend. (143) The word has man (not as the living being), but man as the perceiver of beings re-presenting, per-ceiving (planning), concerned with. And he immediately explains this sense of having as the specific way in which the word carries, draws, and tunes/determines (stimmen/be-stimmen) humans decisively, that is, as always open to deciding, into Da-sein, that is as guardians of the truth of being: Haben in seinem verborgenen Wesensgrund entcheidungshaft im Da-sein tragend be-stimmend als Wchter der Wahrheit des Seyns. (GA 74: 143) The phrase language has man comes to indicate that a) language is not to be defined through the prism of man conceived as a living being, b) language is not limited to human language(s). In fact, language, as much as Da-sein, is essentially non-human: both invite and necessarily involve reciprocal relation to humans but are neither initially delim-

ited nor finally determined by that relation. One could put it this way: while humans are indispensible to carrying out what Heidegger calls the way of language, specifically as the ones who bring language into words and signs, the part they play in language has to be experienced and thought inceptively from the event, not from human language(s).3 Heideggers approach to language hinges on the notion that the giving of being, its event, takes place as language, at first a word-less, that is, as yet sign-free language of giving/ manifestation, which is, however, already on the way to signs. Volume 71 of the Gesamtausgabe, Das Ereignis, makes this abundantly clear: Das Ereignis ist das anfngliche Wort ./The event is the inceptual word, and /be-ing itself is inceptually the word) (GA 71, 172). Human languages are part of this broader sense or expanse of language, as they come always already as a response to the giving of being a hearingbelonging (hren/gehren) to the manifestation which brings it into words/signs. Human languages, their words or signs as well as speech and writing, come in and as a response (Antwort) to the word of being as event; on the one hand, as a response to the claim of this inceptual or inceptive word, literally its beginning to language, to speak, and its speaking at us (both indicated by the German word Heidegger uses: an-sprechen) and, on the other hand, as a response rendered possible by what this word grants, or literally speaks to us (zu-sprechen). As Heidegger emphatically puts it: Language is the response to the word; Die Sprache ist die Antwort auf das Wort. (GA 74, 71) The German indicates both the prompting and the calibration of the response by the word through the etymological connection between the answer (Antwort) and the word which impels and calls it forth. As though

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to reinforce these remarks from Das Ereignis, the more recent Zum Wesen der Sprache und Zur Frage nach der Kunst, uses repeatedly the phrase das Wort des Seyns (the word of be-ing), in which the genitive of is most often deliberately set in quotation marks to indicate its status as neither the subjective nor the objective genitive, nor both (see GA 74, pp. 20, 34,127-128, 131, 135, etc.) In a parallel way, Heidegger also writes of the saying of be-ing (Sagen des Seyns, e.g. p. 132) or of the event as Er-sagen (en-saying), (GA 71: 181) highlighting the manner in which the event of being is tantamount to being saying itself and giving its own word, as it were. In another place, Heidegger simply writes Das Ereignis wortet, The event words (GA 74, 99), turning the noun Wort into a verb worten: to word. Here the verb is deployed intransitively, indicating that the event issues as words, that the eventing of the event is its wording.4 This wording of the event is explained in On the Way to Language in terms of the weave or the braid of language, which emerges and expands as the Riss, the rift-design, the cleft or fissure opening onto the outline (Aufriss) of the strife and tension which span the between of the event, that is, opening onto the way of language. Yet in an important note to his own copy of Unterwegs zur Sprache, Heidegger remarks that the noun Geflecht (weave) used in the essay, hearkening back to Platos symploke, is a bad choice, since it indicates poorly what is at issue in the way-making of language: der Name Geflecht ist schlecht. (GA 12: 230, note e) Meshwork or braiding ( flechten) need to be rethought as folding ( falten), as das Gefalt / die Einfalt; the fold / the onefold, or the infold. (GA 12:231, note b) Although only a handwritten note, this remark hints at a critical distinction to be drawn out between

weave/mesh, on one side, and fold, or rather co-fold, to resonate more accurately the inventive ge- in Heideggers Gefalt, on the other. This co-fold is to be thought as at the same time a one-fold, a holding together and a gathering well-known from Heideggers rethinking of logos, and also as the infold which indicates the way in which the event in its habitual meaning, in its modes of articulation in language and thought, is always already infolded and thus one-folded as an array of relations into das Ereignis. This pull of gathering, resonated in the word Gefalt, is perhaps the one thread as which logos gets woven here into this more complex account of language both exceeding and folding into itself the metaphysical conceptualization of the human being as a life form which possesses logos or language. The Gefalt thus signals Heideggers departure from the understanding of language simply as logos, logos which when rethought in the context of early Greek thought as a gathering which lays out (legein, legen, auslegen) what exists, becomes only part of the way of language instead of explicating or defining its complex way-making. What remains to be developed in this context is how one might think this barely signaled distinction between weaving and folding. Perhaps a way of making this distinction more legible is to realize that meshwork or braiding relies on bringing together, that is, on gathering and interweaving, distinct, apparently separate or separable, threads or strands. Likewise, terms like mesh or netting imply points of crossing and intersecting, as well as points or nodes which become connected by the weave, and thus rendered part of a nexus or a network. By contrast, folds arise within and in turn alter, that is, render distinct, various moments or sites in what in its unfolding remains essentially at one. Not one as uniform or homoge-

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neous but at one, that is, specifically infolded as onefolded, as the double meaning of Einfalt suggests. It is of key importance here to realize the distinct resonance of Heideggers Einfalt: it is not first a onefold, which subsequently becomes an infold through the folds developing within it, but rather this onefold is the infold, as the German term implies. The crucial importance of this difference between weave and fold lies in the distinct modality or momentum of relating indicated by meshing/braiding on the one hand and by in-one-folding on the other. The folding momentum of relation does not bring together or span the between of relata but, as folding and introducing flection, it distinctively opens up curvatures and folds which instantiate relations to begin with: these flections clear the time-space for relating, from which and within whose expanse what is held in relation comes to unfold in the first place. In other words, the emphasis in the relatedness of the Einfalt falls on this emergence already from a relation and therefore as always already in relation, rather than on the notion of relation as developing between what already exists. This latter manner of relating inescapably falls back on the sense of presence, since only what is in some sense present as already manifested, there in view, can become related. What the words Einfalt and Gefalt imply, together with their reverberations throughout Heideggers works from late 1930s onward, is that Heideggers reflection on language endeavors to remain discrete and, in the specific Heideggerian sense of the term, decided both from the notion of the weaving of relations and from the echoes of naturalness traceable in the term sheaf. In other words, the way of language is neither simply worked nor constructed by humans, nor does it occur naturally, as in living forms, i.e. grain stalks. Obviously, hu-

man participation is critical to language but it does not determine or exclusively set the tone, in the sense of Stimmung, for how language makes its way into words. The way of language is neither natural nor artificial; it is not something that occurs discretely within the clearing but instead traces and stirs its unfolding one can think here of Heideggers idiomatic terms bewgen, make way, or erzittern, enquiver. Finding an idiom for this saying/unfolding that would be distinct from the wide range of symploke, whether as weaving or braiding on the one hand or bundling and forming sheaves on the other, remains critical to the possibility of a transformation in our relation to language emphasized by Heidegger in On the Way to Language. This is why the rift-design as the way in which language unfolds needs to be thought in a particular key (Stimmung) of relations and differentiation, namely as folding and co-folding indicated by the German terms Einfalt and Gefalt, not to be confused into the terms of symploke. This is in part the case because the fold which opens as the rift-design is also a fault, which bends the way-making of language in a way that makes it appears circular: bringing language as language into language. But in this bending or curving in which the language infolds, what takes place is a shift or a traversal which lets words arrive into signs and yet remains withheld from signification. The fact that the fold is both flection and fault bespeaks the simultaneous one-folding and in-folding ciphered into the German Einfalt, which becomes here the principal term for envisaging language as the way-making. It is also pivotal to inferring how manifestation as the wording of the event yields signs or language in the usual sense of a human system for signifying and communicating. The noun Einfalt indicates a

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specific manner of holding together through infolding, which is not intelligible as either difference, i.e. a twofold, or as identity, or a onefold, taken as a homogeneous unity. Human language, the sounded word, does not simply replicate what is being said in the form of the manifestation of relations and beings brought into the open through the withdrawal of being, but it responds to this manifestation by bringing it into words. Language signs are not copies of the word of being, straightforwardly transferred into speech and writing. Bringing language into words involves a response, an active encountering and a countering of the word (Ant-worten), coming toward and over against it, and inscribing it in signs. While the word may be granted by being, that is, as the clearing of manifestation, human beings need to answer the claim of this word, its An-spruch, literally the manner in which this word addresses itself to and at humans, and in this initial answering lies the germ of acting. In other words, the answer is an active en-countering, not a passive repetition or an inactive echoing. Furthermore, a great deal turns upon the fact that this active encountering happening as the conversation be measured and in tune which how being imparts its saying, that is, as each time singular and always only one-time, in short, as historial (geschichtlich) or being-historical (seynsgeschichtlich), as Heidegger puts it. Heidegger himself refers to this shift or fault which characterizes the conversation as the proper turning (Kehre) of the event. This turning is itself envisaged as a literal folding in word: from the word of being, which Heidegger describes as an An-wort, a word only directed at, in this case, the response or answer, the Ant-wort. Thus the conversation as which the event turns is the fold of the An-wort into the

Ant-wort, from what comes to and at human language and its signs, to what answers it in signs, in the sounded word, as The Way to Language puts it. Another way Heidegger indicates this turning is as the shift from Vorwort to Antwort, that is, from a preword or fore-word to a counter-word, or the answer to what arrives en-worded in the Vorwort. Auch der Anfang und das Ereignis sind nur Vorworte/ Also the inception and the event are only prewords. (GA 71, 251252). The inception and the event are themselves just prewords and are so in a double sense. First, they are pre-words in the sense in which the phrase the event words encodes precisely the en-countering, the turning, of An-wort and Antwort. Second, the event is a preword in the sense that the word is always singularly and one-time, which means that any word or sign, here, event, can at best only pre-word it by giving it a worded, en-signed, answer. As Heidegger puts it again in Das Ereignis, Der Spruch ist das Wort der Antwort auf den Anspruch des Anfangs. Das Vorwort in der Antwort des Wortes des seynsgeschichtlichen Denkens.; The saying is the word of the answer to the claim of the inception.The preword in the answer of the word of the being-historical thinking.(GA 71, 263) The (en)countering of the foreword and the answer scripts itself through its own erasure as the An(t)wort, which figures the only way which being says itself as withdrawn or withheld, as though crossing and yet not crossing the t in the same gesture. Poietic thinking heeds this scripting (as) erasure without dismissing it as a gimmick or a flaw in proper articulation but instead recognizing it as the fold that is properly a fault in its way-making. Differently put, languages folding into signs constitutes its own faulting: a shift and a proper (mis)saying,

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that is, the (mis)saying of Anwort into the Antwort. Thus the way-making of language occurs as its proper faulting, and thus also as defaulting, into signs. Having always already de-faulted into signs, that is precisely how language says its own essence, its way-making. And though Heidegger describes this most often in terms of saying and speaking, there is no doubt that at issue is the word in both its pre-scripted and pre-sounded momentum, the word already bringing itself into speech and writing, pre- or fore-wording itself, calling for language to encounter it into signs. The turns of the conversation described above are the circling or circularity properly wording the event. This circularity, as Heidegger signals already in Being and Time, before recognizing the need to rethink being from the event as Seyn to encounter metaphysics properly on its terms in order to counter its tendency to forgetting Seyn in the guises of Sein and Seiendheit, is not vicious, and opens out of the torsion, the Verwindung, in metaphysics. Perhaps the most suggestive explanation of Verwindung comes in Das Ereignis, where it is for once the en-twisting into the twist (the wreath) of the event, so that being and its turning unfold purely in the event; ist einmal die Einwindung in das Gewinde (den Kranz) des Ereignisses, so dass das Seyn und seine Kehre rein im Ereignis west. (GA 71, 141) The passage pivots on the verb winden: to wind, twist, coil, or bind (the wreath), used three times, first, in Verwindung (twisting, torsion), then in Einwindung, a twisting into what, third, forms the Gewinde, the coil or bind which the event is. In this sense, the event is the wreath as the very rim of the way-making of language. Both Gewinde and Kranz can signify a wreath, thus again putting in play a quasi-tautological momentum of language, literally making

it turn in (quasi)circles. While it is easy to take issue with the flourishes of Heideggers language, the point he makes remains clear: the twisting of metaphysics allows the event to turn and thus to open up its proper fold(s) without hypostatizing being into something, into an it to be predicated upon. Die Verwindung windet nicht in das Ereignis etwas ein, was diesem zuvor fehlte, sondern die Verwindung last die Lichtung des Ereignisses sich ereignen; The twisting does not twist into the event something that was missing from it before, but the twisting lets the clearing of the event event itself. (GA 71, 142) What is crucial is that the momentum of the Verwindung is the letting, underscored so forcefully by Time and Being. The torsion does not add anything to the event, does not supplement it or fill in a lack, since, as Heidegger repeatedly indicates, there is no lack in the event, without the event ever being full, since it unfolds each time singularly and one-time, which makes the notions of totality or fullness irrelevant. The Verwindung does not make, produce, or enact anything; rather, it lets the event transpire (sich ereignen: to event) as the clearing, that is, as the way-making of language. Metaphysics disallows the event to clear, that is, to occur as the clearing understood in the complex sense of lighting, clearing, and making room discussed above. We can now look again at Heideggers difficult claim that the event words. This remark indicates that to word with respect to the event means that the clearing as the rifting, riving, and furrowing of the outlines of relations occurs as this wording, that is, the saying. The experience of the clearing is nothing other than the experience of the word as An-wort, the word as en-wording itself on the way to its Antwort in and as signs. The rift-design of the clearing is not a

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word-less unfolding of relations, simply deprived of meaning and sound, which then comes to be re-presented in language. Rather, the clearing is already a Stimmung: a tuning and a voicing at once, a bringing into a projective relatedness and tonality of beings in their spatio-temporal relations. This unfolding from the event as the clearing constitutes the inceptive saying which, furthermore, is the saying which gives the key or sets the pitch for how and in what tonality relations and beings coming to presence unfold. In GA 74, Heidegger explicitly remarks that Stimme is silent, soundless, and not really a voice but the tuning as displacement of the human being into the there of Da-sein: Stimme hier in der wesentlichen Zweideutigkeit des Anrufs aber des lautlosen, der gerade eigentlich stimmt, d.h. die Verseztung in das Da vollbringt. / Die Grunstimmung und ihre Stimme (Anruf und Versetzung) erffnen versetzend das Inzwischen. (GA 74, 132) Stimme in Heidegger is, therefore, less about phone than it is about the design, the drawing out (Aufriss) of the relatedness constitutive of beings as the way-making of language. Stimme resonates primarily as Stimmung, which means that it becomes less a (speaking) voice and more the pre-disposing of what comes into the clearing, imparting it on the way to words, its en-wording (An-worten). A key passage from Das Ereignis instantiates this critical turn in the word Stimme and illustrates how Heidegger reframes the notion of experience (Erfahrung) through the prism of language: Was ist das Wort? Die lautlose Stimme des Seyns. Was heisst hier Stimme? Nicht Laut, sondern das Stimmen, d.h. Er-fahren lassen (GA 71, 283) / What is the word? The soundless voice of being. What is called voice here? Not sound but tuning, that is, letting ex-perience. The passage

can be translated only with difficulty, because it hinges on the etymologically inflected turn Heidegger brings about in the word for voice: Stimme is rendered dependent on Stimmung rather than the other way round. If this critical shift remains unacknowledged, the formulaic tendency to read Stimmung (tonality or attunement) in terms of Stimme and phone sets in. But it does so at the risk of missing the point and crucially misreading Heidegger. It seems to me that the numerous passages in Heideggers oeuvre devoted to the discussion of Stimmung as a (pre)disposing of the relatedness of beings which allows for their perceptual and conceptual determination (Bestimmung) leave no doubt that this is how Heidegger intends Stimmung to be (re)thought. What is more, Stimme, voice, and Laut, sound, are precisely to be reconceived from the originative sense of Stimmung as a (pre)disposing. This is already signaled in the play of Anwort and Antwort: since the tuning here, Stimmung, means the en-wording, the imparting on the way to words and predisposing for words, and not yet sounding as words. The passage from Das Ereignis makes this turn unequivocal, since Heidegger writes directly that Stimme is not sound (Laut) and therefore not voice as a speaking or a sounding to begin with, but instead Stimmen, a disposing which allows experience (Erfahren lassen). This disposing, the Stimme(n) of being, lets experience in the specific sense that it manifests and shows what comes to be, and thus showing it, phenomenologically speaking, it also says it in the originative sense suggested by the term Anwort. In the formulation offered by The Way of Language, we understand the saying in terms of to say in the sense of to show (Zeigen) (GA 12: 242/BW 410); and What unfolds essentially in language is saying as pointing (Das Wesende

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der Sprache ist die Sage als die Zeige) (GA 12: 242/BW 410). This showing is not a mute manifestation or a wordless appearance but a Stimmen. As Stimmen the showing is already language, specifically, language on the way to words. This singular manner of showing as Stimmen is not a human doing, since human activity comes into play when this already tuned showing is brought into signs, signified and rendered meaningful. Because this showing disposes what shows itself toward language, bringing it into speech and writing, or toward the sounded word, it is elementally a saying: The saying is a showing. (GA 12: 246/BW 413) This is why Heidegger frequently writes about the showing saying (zeigende Sagen), making both words form a sort of a compound, or perhaps a fold, where showing shows only as saying and the saying says through showing. This showing saying marks every coming to presence or withdrawal to absence, which means that such showing saying clears the room for presence and absence and, as Stimmen, sets the tone for presented relations and beings. This rewriting of voice as Stimme(n), that is, as initially a disposing, shows itself to be crucial to Heideggers rethinking of language. Heideggers claim that showing is saying hinges in fact on this reversal of the priority of voice, of phone, in relation to disposing, which critically undermining phoncentrism. It depends on the turning of Stimme into the originative Stimmen, whose critical importance has been largely neglected in commentaries and responses to Heidegger. Therefore the showing, the coming into the open of the clearing which happens as Stimmen, is always and already language, though it is so prior to word-signs in the specific sense intimated by the notion of the way-making.

As the quotation above confirms, even when such language showing is accomplished through human saying, that is, through language happening as speech and writing, it is always in and as a response, as the Antwort, called for and rendered possible by the disposing Anwort. This dynamic indicates an important distinction Heidegger introduces between saying/showing and saying/signs, Sagen/Zeigen and Sagen/Zeichen. The saying as signs, as human language, is not to be seen as autonomous or disconnected from the saying showing. The saying by way of signs is not simply added to wordless manifestation but stems from the events peculiar modalities of Stimmen and Anworten. Perception and representation, and thus also linguistic reference, unfold from the event as part of the way-making of language, constituted as its having always already arrived into word-signs. This is why in its dimension of the word-signs, language is neither simply continuous nor discontinuous with the showing saying. There is neither rupture nor unity here but the already described fold (Einfalt) of the way-making the fold which shows itself, from the perspective of the word-signs, as a fault and a shift, which can also appear as a fracture and as discontinuity. In the same tonality, language as the word-sign does not simply repeat or (re)present the showing but takes an active part of responding in bringing this showing into signs. This is why how the showing saying is brought into word-signs becomes of capital importance here, requiring a particular attentiveness and openness of thinking, nothing short of a new style of thinking Heidegger projects in Contributions to Philosophy. This style would be mindful, in the sense of Besinnung, of the distinctness of the saying-showing from the saying-signs, indicating through this distinction the need for transforming our

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relation to language. One is tempted to say, playing between English and German, that what Heidegger calls the showing saying (zeigende Sage) is indeed a pre-sage, or a pre-saying, of what would need to be let transform.

Sounding/Silence

notes

In the much later Time and Being, Heidegger goes as far as to speak of the need to cease all overcoming and to leave metaphysics to itself. (GA 14: 30/OTB 24) In her recent study on Heidegger, Franoise Dastur insists on the fact that language is not just one of the topics in Heidegger but is co-extensive with the questions of being and of truth. Heidegger: la question du logos (Paris: Vrin, 2007) 215. Writing about the fact that it is language that speaks, Dastur indicates that language is neither human nor suprahuman but rather that humans are always already inscribed in language; see Heidegger 246-249. John Sallis comnents on the way in which this issue of the event is also the drawing of thinking into proximity to it and to its words: The issue of Ereignis is to draw thoughtful saying into proximity to Being so that its words become those of Being. Sallis, The Manic Saying of Beyng; in Heideggers Beitrge zur Philosophie, ed. E. Meja and I. Schssler, Klostermann, 2009: 79.

David Nowell-Smith universit paris vii, france


i

In the introductory remarks to his 1934-5 lecture series on Friedrich Hlderlins late hymns Germanien and Der Rhein, the first he gave on Hlderlins poetry, Heidegger discusses the form of the opening lines from Germanien: The form of the poem provides no particular difficulties. The metre does not follow the model of any conventional genre. A poem without metre and rhyme is nevertheless not really a poem at all, not poetry, prose rather. [] and yet, [a] common, precise, prosaic for [Denn], sounds, as though spoken for the first time, and this apparent prose of the whole poem is more poetic than the smoothest gambolling lines and jingling rhymes of any Goethesque Lieder or other singsong (GA 39: 16). What is at stake when Heidegger says that this word Denn sounds, as though spoken for the first time? Firstly, it has an impact for how we understand Heideggers relation to poetry,

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and to what he scathingly calls literary history and aesthetics. The words sounding is in antagonism with the generic requirements of metre and rhyme; yet metre and rhyme are not therefore irrelevant to what Heidegger is trying to describe, since it is precisely in rejecting metre and rhyme from within verse that this word comes to sound. The apparent prose through which this word sounds is only apparent; it is not prose but the prosaic as it irrupts within verse; its sounding cannot be extracted from its prosodic effect within the verse structure of the hymn as a whole. Such moments show Heidegger in a far more ambivalent relationship with poetics and criticism than we might suspect. Secondly, the sounding of the word would collapse the distinction between linguistic meaning on the one hand and the sonority of language on the other: the sounding of Hlderlins poem concerns the meaning of an individual word, Denn, but is not thereby simply a figure for semantic (or aletheic, even) clarity. For this meaning is generated prosodically, as the incursion of prosaic dissonance into jingling singsong. It is only when we experience this word as prose (which, were it embedded in prose, we would not do) that we can hear its sounding. Heideggers invocation of sounding thus brings us to the very core of his thinking on language. In this paper I wish to approach these two questions alongside one another, and argue that sounding is crucial to our understanding both of the truth-value of art and poetry its capacity to bring a word to sound, as though spoken for the first time and of the phrase language speaks, which will become a guideword to his thinking from 1950 onwards.

ii

Heideggers thinking on the sounding of language is elaborated at greatest length in the notes to his 1939 lecture series on Herders On the Origins of Languages. The published version of the lecture series is made up for the most part of lecture notes, and constitutes less an overarching account of language than a thinking through of some of his most abiding concerns: for precisely this reason it provides an illuminating depiction of Heidegger attempting to confront these concerns at a moment when his thought was in flux. Throughout these notes he returns to Herders claim that the sounds of language are heard not in the ear but the soul, and which he takes to mean that, instead of sounds being added to meaning, rather the meaning sounds (GA 85: 111/94). This is precisely what he was getting at in his analysis of the word Denn in Germanien: the meaning is not a pre-existing semantic content transmitted through a physical token, rather it is through its sounding that it becomes meaningful. Sounding and, by consequence, linguistic meaning would in this respect be anterior to any opposition between ideality and materiality. This is developing on the claim central to Being and Times claim that Dasein hears because it understands (GA 2: 217/ SZ: 163); however, it also offers an advance on this early account of language. In Being and Time Heidegger is arguing that all sensory receptivity to language is grounded on the discoveredness of Dasein; when he turns to languages sounding, the phenomenal heft of the word has become part of what first engenders this discoveredness. However, for this to be the case, Heidegger is at pains to distinguish the sounding of language that means and lets appear from the sonority of the word as verbal icon, Wortlaut (word-sound) or Lautgebilde

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(the words sound-form). Heidegger argues that in the Wortlaut, the sounding itself has been abstracted (or, in Heideggers more extreme, and, given the political context of 1939, troubling terminology, degenerated) into a present-at-hand sensuous token whose function is to transmit the meaning of a referential sign (GA 85: 34/38). The sounding of language only becomes mere sound when its referential function has been taken to be linguistic meaning in its entirety, with sound itself reduced to its bodily husk. This anticipates his observation, in The Nature of Language almost two decades later, that on the referential model it is unlikely that the physical element of language, its vocal and written character, is being adequately experienced, nor that it is sufficient to associate sound exclusively with the body understood in physiological terms, and to place it within the metaphysically conceived confines of the sensuous (GA 12: 205/OWL 98). I will return to the question of the body below. Before that, I wish to dwell on the other detail of the sounding of this word Denn in the opening lines of Germanien: that it sounds as though spoken for the first time. The motif for the first time recurs throughout The Origin of the Work of Art (written between the Germanien lecture series and the series on Herder), as a trope for the artworks aletheic capacity, whereby it sets up a world. This happens first at the level of the art medium The rock comes to bear and to rest and so first becomes rock; the metal comes to glimmer and shimmer, the colours to shine, the sounds to ring, the word to say (GA 5: 35/24) but subsequently inflects the surrounding world: the temple at Paestum, for instance, first makes the storm visible in its violence, first brings forth the light of day, the breadth of the sky, the darkness of night, so that Tree, grass,

eagle and bull, snake and cricket first enter their distinctive shapes and thus come to appearance as what they are (GA 5: 31/21). In other words, the artwork transforms the ways in which we encounter beings in an open region, and this is experienced as our seeing them for the first time, just as the poem brings us to encounter the word Denn differently than we had done so before. And indeed, this is precisely how, in the Herder lectures, sounding is conceived: sounding is at first a self-showing as a being, an appearing, that lets appear (GA 85: 111/96). The sounding of language both announces its own entry into appearance (as self-showing), and permits other beings to show themselves. In this, Heidegger is not simply following the argumentation of Origin, however: as a letting-appear, we encounter the basis of something like linguistic reference. Heidegger, that is, is anticipating that programmatic claim of his later writing on language that the essence of language is saying as showing (GA 12: 254/OWL 123). Indeed, he goes on to characterise logos itself as a gathering sounding [sammelnde Lauten] (GA 85: 35/29): the articulation of beings in openness that language effects coincides with its own appearance in this open. This description of logos as a gathering sounding will strike us at first as rather unexpected, given that in both Being and Time and On the Way to Language authentic logos is depicted as silent. Yet the gerundive Lauten implies a process of movement into sound from out of an anterior silence. Here we see its sounding coincide with Heideggers explanation, in Origin, for how the artwork can engender this first quality. For Heidegger tells us that sounding is the happening of the strife of earth and world (GA 85: 54/45, emphases in

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original), and in this it is not essentially related to the tone and sound, but to the openness and clearing of being and, that is, to the silence and the rending of the silence in the strife of world and earth (GA 85: 125/107). If we are to understand both how language comes to sound, and what kind of meaning this sounding might furnish, we should look in greater detail at its strife-character. It is to this question that I now turn.

iii

In Origin, earth, whilst most readily encountered as a brute thingliness, is defined ostensibly by its movement of coming-forth concealing (OBT 35/24). Heidegger depicts a struggle in which the earth, bearing and rising up, strives to preserve its closedness (OBT 51/38), but is captured and traced within the world from which it would withdraw. The strife would be silent insofar as it withdraws from worldly experience; it would emerge into sounding as it is captured and traced momentarily within the world. Heidegger situates the earth in the artworks work-material, or medium, but this poses a particular problem when it comes to poetry: whereas this work-material is easy enough to identify elsewhere the bearing and resting of stone, the shining of colour, and the ringing of sound it is not certain what poetrys work-material would be. Heidegger calls the earth of language the naming power of the word (GA 5: 35/24), but where this power resides, and what is earthy about it, are not entirely clear. One influential and powerful reading speaks of the opacity of verbal matter: The sounds of spoken language, its rhythm, its accents, its timbre, its resonance, its pace, as well as its written characters which, through their

material weight escape signification and withdraw from the clarity of sense and from the transparency of the world.1 But there is a danger in this gloss: to escape signification will not in and of itself entail a withdrawal from sense and world, especially given Heideggers attempt to dispute the model of language as signification with an arbitrary sonorous token. Moreover, it cannot be grasped simply in its sounds, insofar as the earth withdraws from all phenomenality sound, after all, remains audible. Whatever sonority the earth might have will be far more complex to situate. In light of this difficulty, I would like to focus on the strife itself. If sounding has a strife-character, this would mean that the very movement of language into sounding strives against (or rends, reisst) the silencing movement that bounds it. But insofar as it is in strife, it does enter sounding. Perhaps we might think of earth as something like an open E-string played on the violin: at once pitch, timbre, and the oscillations of the string reverberating on the soundboard, but at the same time the scraping of horsehair on catgut. As anyone acquainted with this sound (especially when it is generated by a 5 year old beginner) will know, the moment that is most violent on the ear is also the moment closest to silence, as the bow almost scratches to a halt on the string (and so the vibrations cease). This would also explain why the word Denn in Germanien sounds through its prosodic dissonance, as this is where we most powerfully experience the excess and breakdown of our sonorous experience and experience it as sonority. It is in its excess over simple audibility, then, an excess experienced at the limits of audibility, that Heidegger can describe Wortlaut as the preserving keeping earth of the world (GA 85: 109/93). In the sounding of

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language, earth enters the phenomenal world in such a way as to become audible, but dissonantly and aporetically, and so inhabits the Wortlaut even as the Wortlaut would blot it out.

iv

It is in this regard that we can understand another of the key phrases of Heideggers late writings on language, one which obtains its first formulations in the Herder lectures: the peal # of stillness [Gelut # der Stille] (GA 85: 90/78). In the 1939 lectures, there is an arrow pointing upwards after peal, indicating non-verbally the movement of this peal into sounding, embodying the coming-forth of the earth into phenomenal experience. Whilst the arrow was subsequently dropped, its directional thrust strikes me as illuminating for understanding what is meant by his saying that language speaks as the peal of stillness. In this phrase, his concern is double: first, he wishes to characterise the way a silent language anterior to reference can be experienced; second, he wishes to grasp the movement by which this originary language enters verbal articulation. In both instances, the way we conceive of verbal sound is crucial, as this becomes the mode by which this peal is experienced. In The Way to Language, which marks the culmination of his thinking of the period, and perhaps the most succinct statement on language he makes, he sums it up thus: The phonetic-acoustic-physiological explanation of sounding does not experience their origin in the peal of stillness, even less so how sounding is thereby brought to voice and determined [die hierdurch erbrachte Be-stimmung des Lautens] (GA 12: 252/OWL 122-3, translation modified).

There are two striking things about this passage; firstly, we can note how, through his insertion of a hyphen into Bestimmung, he wishes to suggest that the determination of verbal language takes place as a bringing-to-voice. This means that the fixing of the words semantic meaning is inextricably bound up with the human body: indeed, Heidegger links the phonetic explanation of verbal sound as a sensuous token with the physiological explanation of sound production through the vocal chords. Secondly, this bringing to voice is concerned with the movement into language of two stillnesses, which would both come to sound in this peal: the silence of a linguistic essence beyond all human activity, and therefore beyond the limits of the audible, and a silence that stems from out of the opacity of the human body itself. The first of these two silences is probed in the 1950 lecture Language, a reading of Trakls Ein Winterabend. Here he argues that silence, Stille (also translated as stillness), is by no means the soundless [Lautlos], that is, the absence of sound, but lies anterior to any sound-soundless opposition (GA 12: 29/PLT 204). This echoes his similar claim, in Origin, that the artworks rest [Ruhe], is not the lack of motion but rather the highest form of movedness [Bewegtheit] which furnishes motion as such. Indeed, the German Stille incorporates both silence and stillness, allowing Heidegger to depict the sounding of language as a form of movement into appearance. The Saying which effects such motion would be silent/ still both by virtue of lying anterior to verbal language and by virtue of its excess over verbal language. When we hear a peal of stillness, what we are hearing in part is this excess from within the framework that is being exceeded.

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The peal of stillness is not only the point where silence and sounding, stillness and movement, intersect: it is also the point of contact between languages linguistic essence and human speech: the peal of stillness is nothing human (GA 12: 30/PLT 205), and yet it peals within human speech. This means that the peal of stillness, when it sounds, is necessarily distorted: coming to sound, Heidegger says, be it speech or writing, the silence is broken (GA 12: 31/PLT 206). Arising from out of this silence, the sounding of language loses the silence that is its source: drawn into presence, it has been torn from the withdrawing movement proper to it. And yet, as Chris Fynsk has noted, insofar as language needs human speech, the breaking of its silence in fact becomes a condition for this silence. Not only, then, does its silence speak through, and as, noise; such noise becomes an integral feature to the silence of linguistic essence itself.2

thought, earth is no longer being conceived as in strife with world, but rather one of the fourfold that makes up the world: it is in opposition with sky or heaven [Himmel], whilst on a second axis, divinities are opposed to mortals. This has a subtle shift of emphasis: whilst still characterised by its coming-forth concealing movement, earth is now thematised much more in terms of what is sheltered by it and emerges from out of it. To see how precisely earths flow and growth becomes at once bodily and linguistic, Heidegger calls upon some passages from Hlderlin, notably the description of language as the mouths flower. This phrase, Heidegger continues, lets us hear the sound of language rising up earthwise. From whence? From a saying in which happens the letting-appear of world. The sound rings out in the resounding assembly call which, open to the open, lets world appear in things. The sounding, the earthly of language is held with the harmony [Stimmen] that, playing together in chorus the regions of the worlds structure, attunes them towards one another [einstimmt] (GA 12: 208/OWL 101, translation modified). This sounding arises both out of the earth of the flowering mouth and throat, and out of the saying which first brings world to appear. In this respect, the sounding of language is something like the point of intersection of both movements of saying into speech and of the earth of the body into a language that rings, vibrates, hovers, and trembles. Yet Heidegger is in fact making a far stronger claim: that these two constitute not only one and the same peal, but one and the same movement.

Here, the silence that peals in human speech is aligned with an originary logos. In the 1957-8 lectures on The Nature of Language, however, Heidegger identifies a second silence out of which language sounds. Here, Heidegger takes issue with the notion that language is merely reference, and points to the property of language to sound and ring and vibrate, to hover and to tremble as evidence that verbal sound is more than simply the arbitrary husk of the signifier. As in the 1939 Herder lectures, he appeals to the earth as the provenance of such sounding, ringing, and vibrating: body and mouth are part of the earths flow and growth in which we mortals flourish (GA 12: 205/OWL 98). By this juncture in Heideggers

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The earth of the body engenders the open space in which we encounter ourselves and the world around us; at the same time, saying offers a harmony that attunes beings towards one another, thus setting them into relation and holding them within the world. We encounter an articulation at once bodily and linguistic, whose sounding arises out of the earth of this body, and even, as sounding, preserves this earth in momentary presence. All sounding becomes Be-stimmung: a bringing to voice which fixes language in presence.

vi

I would like to finish by treating briefly two final points. Firstly, this account of languages sounding movement entails a striking transformation in the category of voice. And indeed, placing the shared origin of body and language in the voice, Heidegger seems to be committing the most egregious phonocentrism. This charge, however, would be precipitate: Heideggers conception of sounding aims to think the bodily in language far beyond any simplistic privileging of speech over writing, as evidenced by the marginal notes he adds to the 1960 editions of Origin and The Way of Language: Language and Body (Sound and Script), and Sounding and Bodying Body and Script (GA 5: 62/47; GA 12: 249), and in his apparent indifference in the Ein Winterabend lecture, cited above, as to whether human language is in speech or writing. Yet Heideggers thinking at this juncture also offers a significant advance to (Im tempted to say, it supplements) deconstructive philosophy. At the crux of Derridas critique of phonocentrism is the claim that Husserl attempts to secure the absolute presence of voice to the speaking subject through

the motif of hearing-oneself-speak, but cannot because voice itself is ultimately inflected with irreducible difference.3 When Heidegger portrays languages sounding as the earthwise rising up of voice in throat, then voice withdraws from the very articulation it renders possible. The body becomes the site for language only as it becomes opaque to it becomes, indeed, opaque to itself. The intersection of language and body happens, in other words, at the breakdown of bodily self-presence, which is at the same time the breakdown of a transparent logos. What is at issue in this silence is precisely how the human body itself, far from securing self-presence, becomes the site of an opacity that shapes our experience of presence as such and endows the limits of presence with an aporetic phenomenal weight. Heidegger depicts languages originary articulation as a soundless calling gathering [lautlos rufende Versammeln] (GA 12: 214/OWL 107): its binding power, and its capacity, in calling, to engage with absence, are such that they exceed our experience of the phenomenality of language. Secondly, and finally, I would like to return to the question of poetry with which I started. Heideggers account of the sounding of language comes through a gloss of two moments in Hlderlin: words, like flowers, and the mouths flower. This moment is perhaps most famous for the denunciation of metaphor that follows his employment of these phrases, which is one further instance of his disputing a literary interpretation of poetry in favour of attending to its significance for the thinking of being. At the same time, and inversely, we can regret the fact that, if Heidegger situates the voices rising up in these lines, he does not attend to their vocal qualities, even though he suggests that, in order to grasp language anterior to the scission of sound and sense, we should attend to melody

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and rhythm in language, and to the kinship between song and speech. Indeed, if the very notion of sounding is meant to antecede the sound-sense split, then for Heidegger to focus entirely on the content of the phrases (metaphors or similes or no) is somewhat problematic. In this regard, the first instance I cited, from the lecture series on Germanien, appears more successful, as the words sounding concerns the meaning of an individual word and yet surfaces out of a prosodic dissonance. But here we find another problem, which is less one of Heideggers reading practice and more one of how we might reconcile this notion of sounding with poetic technique more generally. The prosodic dissonance that effects the poems sounding is itself engendered by a patterning of Wortlaut: in this case, it would seem that Wortlaut, a derivative form of sounding, is nevertheless that which makes such sounding possible. Or, to see it another way, we could say that Heideggers concern is with how an anterior truth of language its gathering of beings into an open region in which they can be articulated verbally can surface in the words we use, and how we can use words so that the exceed the framework we have at our disposal in order to grasp a linguistic essence that exceeds our linguistic usage and withdraws from it, and yet conditions it. To this end, poetry would employ language as a medium whose possibilities tropological, gestural, prosodic, and so forth would afford us an encounter with this excess. This would be why it is in poetry, Heidegger says, that we hear the broken silence that shapes the mortal speech that sounds in verses and sentences (GA 12: 31/PLT 206): because poetry attends to the limits of its own modes and media of sounding, and thereby probes the moments at which this broken silence shapes the poems speech.

To think in greater detail the relation between Heidegger and poetics as a discipline, I would suggest that the question of how poetrys engagement with its verbal medium might render audible a prior sounding offers a productive starting point.

notes

1 Haar, The Song of the Earth, trans. Reginald Lily (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), 111. 2 Fynsk, Language and Relation (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 27-30. 3 Jacques Derrida, Speech and Phenomena, trans. David B. Allison (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), 12.

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Knowledge and Faith: On Heideggers Reading of Saint Paul


Sophie-Jan Arrien universit laval, qubec,

fundamental, although a bit technical, notions that will sustain the rest of my analysis. First, the notion of formal indication ( formal Anzeige) and second the notion of effectuationsense (Vollzugssinn). 2. I will describe the phenomenon of faith as Heidegger understands it in the light of those two notions (formal indication and effectuationsense). For not only they represent the original bias which Heidegger uses to unfold his phenomenology of life in general, but they provide him the specific criteria that makes it possible to recognize in the experience of faith and originary type of pretheoretical knowledge. 3. I will analyze how this peculiar knowledge of the faith is incarnated by two fundamental Christian ways of behaving, that is to say: serving and waiting. These are, according to Heidegger, the two fundamental modes characterizing the proto-experience of Christianity such as described by Paul. But through them we will also see how the authentic sense of factical life in general shows up.
i.

canada

In this paper, Id like to focus on the experience of faith in the proto-Christian life within the context of the young Heideggers thought. My thesis is that the notion of Faith, within this context, represents the paradigmatic figure of the very type of knowledge Heidegger strives to describe and unfold through his phenomenological hermeneutics of facticity. This specific type of knowledge is called, in young Heideggers words, formal-indicative or based on formal indications and he considers it to be the most originary grounding for any originary and authentic philosophy. In order to understand the philosophical implications and scope of this paradigmatic use of the experience of faith in Heideggers lectures, I will follow three steps: 1. I will first present some important features of Heideggers hermeneutics of factical life. These remarks are important to understand what exactly the proto-Christian experience is a paradigm of. I will mainly insist on two

effectuation -sense and formal indication in the hermeneutics of life

As early as 1919, Heidegger stated the vocation of philosophy to be an originary pre-theoretical science1 capable of accounting for the disquiet mobility of factical life, without fix-

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ing it in advance within a formal and theoretical frame. The whole challenge, in this regard, is to find concepts that express the constantly moving significance of the phenomenon of life; in other words, Heidegger looks for concepts which wont immobilize, devitalize nor de-historicize the lived event of sense (Cf. GA 56-57: 74, 89-90,116; GA 58:77, 78). That doesnt mean that phenomenological interpretation of life is totally open and without any landmarks; it certainly requires anticipations or pre-concept (Vorgriffe), but those ones must possess a dynamic character in order to correspond to their object. The phenomenological interpretation will thus have to progress not by using traditional concepts, of which the meaning is sealed and given once and for all, but using what Heidegger calls formal indications issued from factical life itself and capable of conveying the mobility and dynamism that characterize the intentional cohesion of factical life. Before I go further with the idea of formal indication, Id like to say a few words about this dynamic intentionality of life that formal indications, on the contrary to traditional concepts, are precisely meant to respect. For Heidegger, every phenomenon is part of a lived experience which implies a behavior or comportment, a Sichverhalten. The sense of any given phenomenon is thus always part of a concrete intentional context which participates to the full signification of the phenomenon as such. There isnt such a thing as one definition that could summarize for good the sense of a given phenomenon. Any phenomenon is rather inscribed in a lived experience and to be understood in three different intentional directions which Heidegger calls: the relational-sense, the content-sense and the effectuation-sense (Bezugssinn, Gehaltssinn, Vollzungssinn).

To say things briefly, the relational-sense (or sense of the relation) characterizes the sense of the comportment as it relates to something. This relational-sense is, for instance, what husserlian phenomenology considered to be the core of intentional consciousness. The content-sense, for its part, represents that to which the comportment refers to, it is the what-for [Worauf ] and the where-for [Wozu] of the relation (GA 60: 63). Traditionally, for instance, philosophical concepts mainly aim to discover and fix the content-sense of phenomena, that is to say, to discover what they essentially are (their essence so to speak). Finally, the effectuation-sense is the mode of comportment by which a relational-sense and a content-sense are seized within a historical and concrete horizon of sense thereby unfolding the phenomenon itself as a lived unity of sense always susceptible of a transformation or re-appropriation. This effectuation-sense, i.e. the intrinsic possibility for any phenomenon to undergo a transformation of its contentsense and relational-sense, constitutes the greatest heideggerian innovation in terms of phenomenological description. Through the attention given to the effectuation-sense Heidegger replaces the traditional ideal of objectivity by the factical determination of all phenomenality (factical ie historical and situated character of a phenomenon in relation to a self). Because it preserves the sense of facticity of every signification, the effectuation-sense is the dominant intentional dimension within every lived experience. Not only it helps to extricate the content-sense from the snare of objectivation and brings about new configurations of the lived world, but it also reminds the capacity for the relational-sense to determine new ways of relating to the world, which implies new modes for the self to appropriate itself.

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And it is precisely in order to respect this open intentionality of phenomena that Heidegger will substitute to the concept traditionally understood as a closed determination of something, what he calls a formal indication, understood as the index or indication of an horizon of sense. Horizon which mustnt be fixed or definitely fulfilled, but rather kept open to its manifold possibilities of effectuation. To lay down a formal indication is to lay down a ( pre)-concept (Vorgriff ) which indicates a phenomenon without reducing it to a definition, without shielding it from the constitutive indetermination of its sense of effectuation, without erasing the historical or evential sense of this effectuation. Neither a position nor an intrusion into a reified domain of things, the formal indication is on the contrary a defense, a preliminary precaution to safeguard the accomplishment character [of phenomenon] (GA 60: 64). With formal indications one intentionally affords the concepts a certain lability/ mobility in order to secure their determination in the process of phenomenological study itself (GA60: 82). The emergence of the formal indication marks, in a way, the birth of a possible pretheoretical scicence or originary theorization, i.e. a discourse which, although theoretical, assumes its grounding within a worldly and pre-theoretical horizon of sense2. In the context of a phenomenology of the religious lived experience, the merit of the formal indication lies in its capacity to maintain open the effectuation-sense and in preventing the a priori imposition of only one perspective: A precisely determined constraint resides with formal indication; it implies that I stand in such and such determined initial direction, that following the indication only shows the way, in case it should lead to something proper (GA61: 33).

Formal indications guarantee the originarity of philosophical investigation, firstly by preventing us from anchoring ourselves to a particular point of view (Einstellung) or regional considerations, and secondly by preserving the factical character of the phenomenon it designates. In other words, a formal indication points towards the evential character of sense; the latter brings a potential of mutation so to speak at the heart of the concept, which only then can be grasped as an authentic expression of lived experience. And it is here that the experience of faith in primordial Christianity, such as Heidegger interprets it in his reading of Pauls Letters, can be brought into play as a paradigm that illustrates and reinforces not only the pertinence but the necessity of using his phenomenological tools when the originary sense of a lived experience is at stake. That is what I aim to demonstrate in the next sections.
ii .

the knowledge

of the faith

Heideggers phenomenological interpretation of religious experience in Primordial Christianity consists essentially in a close reading of Pauls Letter where the latter describes and comments the lived experience of faith for him and his fellowbelievers3. We ought to remember to begin with that Heidegger is not trying to do a theological work here. He wants to unfold what he calls a hermeneutical phenomenology of religious life in the proto-Christianity. Now, what does phenomenology care about in general? It doesnt care so much about texts, but about experience itself. What is significant for Heidegger is not really the dogmatic and proto-theological content in Pauls letter; it is rather the fact that Paul, in those letters, describes a

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specific lived experience. That is: his own lived experience and his fellow-believers lived experience as Christians. Heideggers interpretation of Paul is above all a phenomenology of this proto-Christian lived experience of faith. This remark should clarify from the start the choice of Heidegger of quickly leaving behind the interpretation of the Letter to the Galatians in favor of the Letters to the Thessalonians. The Letter to the Galatians, as you may know, contains crucial dogmatic elements of Pauls predication, particularly concerning the opposition between faith and law. To express this opposition in heideggerian terms, one could say that faith is oriented toward a concrete and lived effectuation-sense, whereas law, founded upon theoretical content-senses, finds the horizon of its effectuation in the idea of absolute validity (tradition). And if, from a philosophical perspective, the Letter to the Galatians contains more conceptual elements akin to Heideggers thought, from the perspective of a phenomenological demonstration, the Letters to the Thessalonians offer, as we will see, the possibility of an interpretation directly oriented on the factical experience of Christian life, such as Paul describes it. This being assumed, Id like to suggest that primordial Christian faith, as a factical lived experience, plays and incarnates concretely the very role that Heidegger assigned to formal indication in a philosophical context. As I understand Heideggers interpretation of Paul, faith as a lived experience represents a very specific form of knowledge, a pretheoretical knowledge, whose structures and modes of attestation exemplifies and confirms the originary insights of his hermeneutics of factical life. But lets then go back to Heideggers reading of Paul and see what kind of knowledge were talking about here.

In his letter to the Galatians, Paul recalls his own call to faith: his fervent Judaism, his conversion, his apostolic mission to the gentiles.4 In other words, Pauls factical experience of faith began with an event: his conversion on the road to Damascus. It began by a revelation he received directly from God, and which becomes the meaning and the guide of his existence and human action. In a similar way, in his Letters to the Thessalonians, Paul asks from the start his readers to recall the event of their own conversion as he was among them. Here is the critical verse: Because you know (oidate) that we have been (egenthmen) among you for your own good. And you have become (egenthte) imitators of us and of the Lord, receiving (dexamenoi) the proclamation amid many tribulations (en thlipsei polli) with the joy (meta karas) of the Holy Spirit; as such you have become (egenthte) a model for all the believers in Macedonia and Achaea [].5 What we ought to notice in this quotation is that Paul is preoccupied by the present situation of the faithful but in regards to a past, in regards to their having-become. What characterizes the believers situation is their having become Christian and their actual knowledge of this transformation. For each of them, a proclamation of the Gospel was received and as they embraced the faith, they modified their life to the present. This modification is not just behind them: on the contrary the fact of having-become a Christian still participates in their present experience, it constitutes their actual being (cf. GA60: 94). Thus, having-become a Christian by receiving the faith actualizes itself in the actual life of the believer. Concretely,

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it means that faith received as a gift must also be factically appropriated ( paralambanein) as knowledge of the Christian way of life: You have learned from us how to walk in order to please God.6 In other words, the moment of the conversion is crucial, primarly because it represents the entrance into a new life. But it only truly unfolds itself in its effectuation i.e. on a practical knowledge of how to behave within the faith. Heidegger thus describes having the faith ( pisteuein) not as a holding-true (Frwahrhalten) (as we usually understand the fact of knowing something) but as a structure of effectuation capable of development (steigerungsfhiger Vollzugszusammenhang) (GA 60: 108-109).7 One can say that conversion thus determines a factical existence lead by this atypical knowledge of the faith, or rather co-experienced with this knowledge. With those first remarks, we can already see that Heidegger, as he interprets the phenomenon of faith as a lived and pre-theoretical knowledge which continually refers back to a factical behavior, understands it in the same terms he understands formal indication. And faith clearly does hold this formal indicative role in at least two ways: First by indicating a direction (which is God) to the relational-sense of the Christian existence; second, by characterizing the proper mode of effectuation of this relation to God. I suggest that we keep in mind this reading hypothesis as Heideggers interpretation of Paul becomes more specific. And it does become more specific, for once we have said that faith plays the role of a lived formal indicative knowledge within the proto-Christian existence, we still have to know how this knowledge unfolds itself factically. For formal indication has a philosophical interest if and only if it goes along with the

uncovering of some authentic possibilities of the phenomenon at stake. Therefore, what are the authentic possibilities of effectuation of the proto-Christian existence, opened by the knowledge of the faith? Heidegger identifies at least two of those, that is serving and waiting, which he places at the core of his phenomenology of religious life. Those modes of effectuation are clearly identified in one critical verse that Heidegger comments: you have converted from idols to God, to serve (douleuein) the living and true God and to wait (anamenein) from the heaven his Son Jesus [] who delivered us from the wrath to come.8 In fact, Heideggers whole interpretation of Paul, as I read it, seeks to uncover that serving and waiting are the fundamental directions that determine every other relation of the Christian life (GA60: 97).9 Lets see in what sense serving and waiting confirm the paradigmatic dimension of the protoChristian faith, within the conceptual frame of a phenomenology of factical life.
iii .

serving ( douleuein )

Paul writes, at the beginning of the First Letter to the Thessalonians, the Christian are serving God amid many tribulations (en thlipsei polli) with the joy (meta karas) of the Holy Spirit.10 The obedience to God is a source of tribulations, distress, affliction and simultaneously, joy. Why such distress and where does the joy come from in spite of the affliction, indeed within the affliction? The answer from a phenomenological point of view is given with the specific effectuation-sense of serving in proto-Christian experience. I explain.

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Contrary to ordinary life experiences, the horizon in which proto-Christian life finds the possibility of its effectuation doesnt point to this world but rather to the coming kingdom of God. This world is turned toward the works of the flesh (sarx), (that is to say, as Heidegger explains it, turned toward the sphere of affects not motivated in God). It is therefore a source of tribulation and affliction for the Christian. However, flesh cant simply be denied: it does represent a true part of life, of necessary part of our being in this world11. But the sense of the Christian faith, precisely, doesnt refer to a fulfillment befalling our surrounding world;12 the Christian strives for the life in God, freed from the flesh. The latter thus appears as a being part of Christian life but more as a counter-orientation. Christian life is determined by flesh but in an indirect way. Or so does Heidegger interprets this verse of Paul: Time is short; such that those who have wives should be as though having none [os m]; and those who cry, as not crying [os m]; and those who rejoice, as not rejoicing [os m]; those who buy, as not possessing [os m]; those who use this world, as not using it [os m], because the form of this world passes away.13 Question: is this quote a proof that Christian experience can only be determined negatively from a factical point of view and that it can only finds its authentic sense of effectuation outside of this world? The answer is no. Heidegger reminds us that here, on the contrary, Paul is paradoxically saying something positive about the factical effectuation of faith. For Paul doesnt use the privative or strictly denying form of negation in greek (ouk), but a negative form (s m) which preserves the positive sense of what is at stake in the negation.

Heidegger writes about this verse: it is not a denial of effectuation []. The not refers to the positing of the context of effectuation regarding the relation motivated from it (GA60, 109). Further: One would be tempted to translate s m by as if but it wouldnt work. As if expresses an objective context and suggests the interpretation that Christ should sever his links to the surrounding world. Now this s positively means a new meaning which is added. The m refers to the effectuation context of Christian life (GA 60: 120). In other words, the negation is understood here as a positive way to characterize the effectuation-sense of the relation to the world, without leading it back to an objective contentsense or a fixed representation even a negative one.14 The effectuation-sense of faith is certainly defined in opposition to this world (s m) and in relation with the coming world. But this shift of horizon doesnt mean for the Christian to turn away from his own factical life. On the contrary, it makes him endure this life as self-concern, in regards to salvation. Day after day, for each believer, the factical effectuation of faith recalls paulinian injunction: effectuate your salvation with fear and trembling.15 The cohesion of Christian life thus unfolds in serving God, through the constant struggle against flesh, in the distress of fighting against the world and the self. Not that man might defeat the flesh and effectuate his salvation only through his own strength and will. On the opposite, its precisely at the moment where ones weakness is revealed that the might of God is made manifest: My grace suffices you, says God to Paul, because my might is felt all the better through weakness.16 In other words, the weakness of the believer, by revealing the power of grace, serves the glory of God and thus becomes a

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source of joy. It is precisely from the abyss of his uncertainty and distress that the Christian who serves God receives joy.17 In terms of hermeneutical phenomenology, this dynamic is of real interest. Indeed, we can find in Pauls acceptation of his weakness the acceptation of a fundamental indetermination regarding the objective content-sense of faith and life in favor of the effectuation-sense of his Christian vocation. Christian life doesnt orient itself upon representations or visions characterized by their content-sense; on the contrary, it embraces the indetermination of the content of faith. Its within this open horizon of effectuation in God that the global and intentional sense of proto-Christian religiosity must be understood as a factical experience of faith, constantly renewed and re-appropriated. This is the only way, writes Heidegger, that the significance of [] ones own world [] is possessed and experimented authentically (GA 60: 122). But we still have to understand in what sense, serving God unfolds the constitutive historical senseof life (as formal indication tries to unfold it within the concept itself). In what sense and how is proto-Christian religiosity able to open and grasp in a paradigmatic way the historical character of facticity? The analysis of waiting, which is the second key figure of proto-Christianity experience of the faith, will answer this question and thus fully clarify the paradigmatic relevance of this experience within the frame of Heideggers hermeneutics of life.
iv.

waiting ( anamenein )

What does waiting for Jesus mean factically, as a lived experience of sense? We have to remember again that for the

Christian, to convert, to turn toward God, far from idols, means an inversion of the normal direction of factical life: the horizon of its effectuation-sense is shifted from this world to the coming world, from the reign of idols to the kingdom of God, from corruptible flesh to eternal life. The knowledge of the faith, the knowledge of having become a new creature (kain ktisis)18 is also and always a knowledge of what is to come. Therefore, the temporal horizon of Christian facticitys effectuation isnt only the past, nor the present but the future. The Christian lives in the expectation of Parousia, the glorious return of Christ and day of the Last Judgment. But what kind of future is this? One thing Heidegger sees clearly in Pauls Letters is that the waiting for the return of Christ mustnt be understood towards one specific fulfillment.19 Based on the nature of factical experience of faith itself, Parousia cannot be understood in terms of objective historical representations. This is why Paul, according to Heidegger, doesnt answer directly to the Thessalonians who question him on the when of Parousia, but rather leads them back to the very grounding of their facticity as Christians. Paul doesnt provide temporal indications for the return of Christ, but only speaks of its suddenness: But as for the times [chronn] and the moments [kairn] you very well know the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night.20 The knowledge of the return of Christ, rooted in faith, is an indeterminate certainty. It doesnt manifests itself as the objective truth of an objective content but as an open horizon of sense for the possible effectuations of life.21 In other words, Paul does not answer to the when of Parousia in terms of a worldly knowledge or apprehension of an event. Paul doesnt even use the expression when but sys-

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tematically and conjointly employs the time and the moment (GA 60: 102). For Heidegger, this way of saying disqualifies the temporal sense of when as meaning an objective time. Paul doesnt say when Christ will return but rather provides kairological characters to the faithful. Heidegger distinguishes here the kairos on the one hand and linear objective time or chronological time,22 on the other.23 The kairos is nothing that could be formalized lets say in a mathematical way. It is, for one self, the opportune and crucial instant of a decision oriented toward the future. The kairological character of the return of Christ thus opens a tension in each Christians life. And for Heidegger, this tension which animates the protoChristianity toward a kairological future is paradoxically what grounds the future itself in the actual life. For instance, Heidegger notices that instead of answering the when? of Parousia, Paul refers the Christians back to their own actual knowledge and awareness of the return of Christ (you very well know (ie you already know!) the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night []). Furthermore Paul refers them to the impact of this knowledge upon their actual factical life; the answer they are waiting for is actually a decision dependent of their own life: Because when they will say: Peace and security, upon them will fall a sudden ruin, like the pain of a birthing woman, and they wont escape. For you my brothers, you are not in the darkness, so this day wont surprise you like a thief. [] Let us not sleep like the others but let us be vigilant and sober.24 With Parousia, Heidegger says, quote the answer of when has been transformed in the question of how to live? [answer:] in the mode of wakefulness.25

Those who say Peace and security have set their mind on the significance of this world which tends to obliterate the existences factical disquiet. Those ones indeed live in expectation, but its an expectation turned toward their surrounding world, far from their own self the return of Christ will surprise them like a thief in the night. But there are also those who have heard and understood Pauls predication, those who are wakeful. For them, the when is determined in each instant; Parousia is not so much an event to come as a part of their life.26 But how can Parousia be situated in the believers life, how can it concretely be a part of this life? Firstly, Heidegger recalls, it is not a question of living with the obsession of the day of the Last Judgment and to speculate on the form which the Antichrist will take, nor upon the Apocalypse and the signs announcing the end of the world. Such a worldly attitude remains oriented on the objective determination of present or future events. Nor is it a question of disrupting the surrounding world, or even ones own worldly situation for the coming of Parousia. Paul rather says: May each persevere in the vocation he was in at the time of his calling.27 The waiting of the return of Christ certainly demands a change a radical change but it doesnt primarily concern the relational-sense to this world and even less so the contentsense of existence but its effectuation through a determined comportment. When Paul asks to remain aware, he is referring above all to a comportment turned toward the world of self; the Christians awareness is oriented upon his own life for salvation. He will try, in conformity to the expectations of Christian life, to live within faith and love. But in his weakness, man can

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never be certain if he will be up to the authentic effectuationsense he is aiming for, nor of his capacity to maintain this orientation until the return of Christ. He is thus beset by doubt and he experiences a constant concern for his self: [He] is concerned, says Heidegger, in an authentic sense, as a sign of true preoccupation for his capacity to accomplish to works of faith and love and to persevere until the decisive day (GA60: 107). For the Christian, it is not a matter of evacuating the anguish caused by the temporal horizon specific to his factical situation, but on the contrary, to accentuate it. Authentic Christian life knows no security; constant insecurity and disquiet characterize it as it also characterizes the fundamental significances (Grundbedeutenheiten) of life.28 Thus, from a hermeneutical and phenomenological perspective, Waiting as the authentic way of relating to the world under the knowledge of the faith rejoins serving in the disquiet being-in-the-world, constitutive of the movement of Christian facticity itself (Cf. GA60: 133).29 In the horizon of Parousia, the originary effectuation-sense of life opens up on the originary temporality of factical life itself; it reveals the historicity of factical experience in such away that, again, its paradigmatic character for a broader phenomenology of life comes to the light.
v.

conclusion :

the experience of faith and hermeneutical

phenomenology of life

How can I sum up the results of what I have said up to now? I had previously suggested that in the context of young Heideggers phenomenology of religious life, faith held the role of an originary formal indication. The heideggerians analysis

of waiting and serving, as I understand it, seems to have confirmed this hypothesis. As it clearly appeared indeed, Heidegger in his commentary tries not so much to determine the contents of Christian embryonic dogmas in Saint Paul, as to underline the essential indetermination of this content. It is this very indetermination, claimed in the name of the effectuation-sense specific to Christian life, that transforms the knowledge of the faith into a formal indicative knowledge. Now, I would like to suggest that the result of this phenomenological exercise on the proto-Christian experience can be read in two directions. For someone who is interested in understanding religious life as such, the heideggerian interpretation can be of some worth in the way it underscores the inescapable factical character of the experience of faith and its originary grounding in a temporality oriented towards a future determined as kairos. But one can also consider the consequences of Heideggers phenomenology of religious life from the perspective of his hermeneutics of facticity as such. For it would be incomplete to stay with the idea that proto-Christian life only plays the role of a paradigm or exemplification for a more general phenomenology of factical life. By itself, for instance, the discovery of kairological temporality already transforms the simple use of the Christian paradigm into a resolutely prospective step towards Being and Time where the horizon of future will be completely formalized as the primary temporal extasis of Dasein and the condition of its temporalization. One must also insist on the preeminence granted to the effectuation-sense compared to every other intentional dimension within the experience of faith. Insofar as the phenomenon of Christian faith structurally demands the precedence

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of effectuation-sense over the content-sense and the relationalsense, one can understand the intrinsically paradigmatic or exemplary aspect of Primordial Christianitys lived experience for the heideggerian phenomenology of factical life. Thus if we consider Heideggers phenomenology of religious life as a test so to speak for his formal indicative method within a concrete and historical lived experience (ie the experience of faith), we can consider that it was a successful test, that not only showed that the experience of faith could gain from its formal indicative interpretation but that the latter also gained in this confrontation some crucial insights in regard with what was going to come in Heideggers way of thought.

notes

1 There must be a pre-theoretical or supra-theoretical (bertheoretische) science, in all cases a non-theoretical science, a true originary science, from which the theoretical itself would hold its origin. This science of the origin [] wont be a theory (GA 56/57: 96-97). This preeminence of the theoretical must be broken, [] because the theoretical itself refers back to a pre-theoretical (GA 56/57: 59). 2 The problem of formal indication belongs to the theory of the phenomenological method itself [] (GA 60: 55). But even before considering Heideggers analysis, one could raise an objection which is: Why should the primordial Christian life be a paradigmatic phenomenon in order to get an originary determination of the phenomenon of factical life in general? Isnt such a choice arbitrary? I certainly may seem so at first glance. Why choose an essentially religious experience rather than, say, an esthetic or political experience? Why start precisely from the experience of proto-Christianity rather than any other form of religiosity? Because, Heidegger would say, this religious experience seems to reveal more than any others the world of self (Selbstwelt): in the historical figure of proto-Christianism, says Heidegger, the phenomenon of sharpening, of effective accentuation of the world of self literally jumps to our eyes (GA58: 60). Now, the Selbstwelt is the nexus of lived experience; it is where the historical, expressive and comprehensive possibilities of the lived world gather. Insofar as the inner experience of faith refers in a constitutive way to the world of self, the latter is expressly taken into account by the primordial Christians. Their entire life is indeed dedicated to a work of perpetual betterment of this inner life, which alone will speak for them at the moment of Parousia. This perpetual attention given to the world of self is the first reason, the one raised by Heidegger himself, why one should looks more closely to religious experience rather than, say esthetic experience, when the primordial sense of factical life is at stake. But, in my opinion, there is another reason which I will try to present in this paper more specific and more technical in a way, but of significative relevance in order to grasp the full scope of the heideggerian interpretation of Paul. Cf. Galatians 1, 11-24. I Thessalonians 1, 5-9.

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6 7

I Thessalonians 4, 1. Here Heidegger comments II Thessalonians 1, 3; We ought to unceasingly give thanks to God, my brothers, for your faith is growing ever more and the love you hold for each other is becoming abundant []. On the specificity of the knowledge of the faith, see also GA 60: 310. I Thessalonians 1, 9-10.

16 II Corinthians 12, 5-9 17 This uncertainty, indeed this distress, lived as an extreme weakness and vulnerability, opens up the possibility of a true effectuation in grace, testimony to the divine might. Cf. M. Luther, The Heidelberg Disputation, 18th thesis It is certain that man must utterly despair of his own ability before he is prepared to receive the grace of Christ in Luthers Works: Career of the Reformer, Harold J. Grimm and Helmut T. Lehmann eds. Fortress Press, 1957, pp. 39-58. 18 Cf. Galatians 6, 15 19 In this sense, for example, the Hegelian interpretation, which tries to grasp the appearance of Christ in terms of its content sense, as the revelation of the profundity of substance or Idea is absolutely distant from the truth of Christianity. Cf. O. Pggeler, Martin Heideggers Path of Thinking, translated by Daniel Magurshak and Sigmund Barber, Humanities Press International, 1987, p. 25. 20 I Thessalonians 5, 1-3. 21 Cf. GA60: 150. Und wie bestimmt er [Paul] dieses Wann? Nicht durch objektive Zeitangabe, sondern durch das Wie, und zwar Wie als bezogen gleich auf den Bezug zu dem Wie, denn der Bezug bzw. Vollzug ist das Entscheidende des Wann! 22 Kairos, writes Pggeler, places it on the razors edge in the decision. [Kairological] characteristics do not reckon with and master time; rather they place one into the threat of the future. They belong in lifes history of [effectuation] which cannot be objectified. Cf. Martin Heideggers Path of Thinking, Op. Cit., p. 24 23 This tension which animates proto-Christianity towards a future not chronological but kairological is also what grounds this future itself in the facticity of life. Thus is uncovered, for Heidegger, the initial motivation of history (Geschichte) and originary temporality of factical life. 24 I Thessalonians 5, 3-6 25 F. Dastur, Heidegger et la question du temps, Paris, PUF, 1990, p. 19. 26 For them, says Heidegger: the question of when leads back to com-

9 Douleuein und anamenein bestimmen als Grundrichtungen jeden anderen Bezug. It is worth noticing that a majority of analyses dedicated to the question of primordial Christianity direct their attention to the second term (waiting) which leads to vast perspectives on the question of Daseins originary temporality. The fact that Being and Time echoes this problem directly, as well as the rather fragmented character of the Freiburg analyses of serving, explains in part why this latter notion was neglected in favour of the phenomenon of waiting. And yet, from the perspective of hermeneutical phenomenology of life, I think that the interpretation of serving is indispensable, including if one wishes to understand what is really at stake with waiting. 10 I Thessalonians 1, 6. 11 According to Heidegger, flesh certainly refers to the dynamic effectuation of authentic facticity amid life related to the surrounding world (GA 60: 124). 12 Cf. Philippians 1, 21-24: Because for me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I live in the flesh, I will reap the fruit of my labor; and thus I dont know which to choose. I feel pressed on both sides, desiring to depart and be with Christ, something much better for me; and to remain in the flesh, something necessary for you. 13 I Corinthians 7, 29-31. 14 Heidegger developed many analyses based on a similar interpretation of negation. See amongst others the analysis of the love of truth and its effectuation-sense where Heidegger comments II Thessalonians 2, 10: [] those who perish, since they didnt receive the love of truth in order to be saved (Cf. GA 60: 109 sq.). 15 Philippians 2, 12.

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portment. The way Parousia is situated in life refers to the effectuation of this life as such (GA60, 104). 27 I Corinthians 7, 20. 28 Hence the task befalling the Christian, on the basis of his factical situation, is to become conscious of his own limited being and be concerned with its effectuation, leaving no room for peace and security. 29 Cf. M. Luther, The Heidelberg Disputation, 11th thesis: Arrogance cannot be avoided or true hope be present unless the judgment of condemnation is feared in every work. In Luthers Works: Career of the Reformer, Harold J. Grimm and Helmut T. Lehmann eds. Fortress Press, 1957, pp. 39-58.

Work as Vocation: The Pauline Roots of Earthly Dwelling


Julie Kuhlken
misericordia university

Within the philosophical and conceptual literature on work, there is a tendency to privilege, and in many cases exclusively prefer, vocation, an understanding of work with religious roots. In his analysis, Max Weber quite succinctly describes the protestant work ethic as an attitude which performs the work as though it were an absolute end in itself a calling.1 At the same time, even as he understands the religious origins of vocation (or calling), Weber describes the implications in entirely social terms. As he bluntly puts it, Moneymaking provided it is done legally is, within the modern economic order, the result and expression of diligence in ones calling.2 By comparison, Heidegger in his lectures and writings stays much closer to the religious origins of work as vocation. A close examination of the development of his ideas from early lectures on religious life, through the work-world in Being and Time, and on to his more critical investigation of the earthliness of production, allows one to discover the Pauline roots of earthly dwelling.

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In his early lectures on The Phenomenology of Religious Life, Heidegger describes work being undertaken within the temporality of Pauline proclamation. As having become called, one works in such a way that ones work has significance for ones being. This connection to being is essential and distinguishes him from his contemporary, Hannah Arendt, who takes a more secular approach to work. For Arendt, even though work distinguishes ones life as human, it is action that defines ones being as human.3 By comparison, Heidegger stays closer to the theological understanding of work as ones proper calling, and does not describe vocation implying any particular social or political organization. Quite the contrary, he sees work as ambiguously inserting one into a communal world (Mitwelt), only to isolate one from those others existing in that community. This non-social understanding of work persists through the secularization of work in his mature philosophy. In the work-world of Being and Time, the call to work is no longer a call from beyond, but an appeal from the very ready-to-handedness of equipment itself. And in The Origin of the Work of Art, where the notion of the call explicitly returns, work responds to the silent call of the earth. The earth calls for bringing-forth, for production that safeguards earthly dwelling even as it sets up a world. For Heidegger, work, soconceived, is a way of being that is essential to human Dasein in its historicity. What I want to argue in what follows is first and foremost that Heidegger really does have this ontological understanding of work, and that it retains its Pauline roots even in its mature form of earthly dwelling. To this end, I will start with an investigation of Heideggers early lectures on religious life. I will then consider how the phenomenological description of

the factical life experience of the early Christian is secularized in the everyday experience of Dasein. Finally, I will look at how earthly production is characterized in later writings especially The Origin of the Work of Art and Building Dwelling Thinking in the light of his critical reception of Aristotles productionist metaphysics. Second and much more briefly, I want to suggest that this ontological conception of work as vocation does two things: First, it offers an alternative to the traditional analysis of work as a social phenomenon, which tends to focus on social outcomes as the true product of productive effort. As Heidegger develops at length, work cannot be understood in terms of its products, social or otherwise, but must be conceived more broadly as a productive way of being. Second, it allows us to revisit the impact of work upon the earth. To the extent that work is undertaken in response to the silent call of the earth, its productivity should also be measured in earthly terms.

the historicity of work as vocation

Heideggers reading of Saint Pauls letters to the Galatians and the Thessalonians occurs as an investigation of the historicity of Christian factical life experience. As he observes, the primordial Christian experience lives time itself (GA 60: 83/57). Its attitude of obstinate waiting in the face of a surrounding world that gives no outward sign of the hoped for second coming, undermines any possibility of an overview of the world (or worldview), and instead forces the Christian to experience worldly significance historically (GA 60: 95 and 122/66 and 87).4 As a consequence, rather than engage in the surrounding world in order to achieve goals, the Chris-

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tian engages in the world as a continuous working test of his obstinate faith. Similarly, rather than engage with his community, his communal world, in order to gain praise for his accomplishments, his work humbly subordinates itself to the work of others. As Heidegger puts it, Paul, in his vocation, hands himself over entirely to the fate of the Thessalonians, and their standing firm in their belief (GA 60: 96-7/67). Experienced historically, therefore, the life of a Christian hangs between God andvocation [hngt zwischen Gott und Beruf ], obstinately working alongside others who also await not worldly success (for either themselves or others), but the second coming of God (GA 60: 100/70). So-conceived, work is the way the Christian enacts his struggle with temporal existence.5 Or to put it more directly, work as vocation enacts the temporality of a life whose very belonging in the world is in question. In order to better understand this Heideggerian thesis about work, it is useful to break the structure of enactment into its three phenomenological moments: content [Gehalt], relation [Bezug], and enactment itself [Vollzug] (GA 60: 63/43). The content of the life of work is the historical situation, the fact that one has become called. In the case of the Thessalonians, their having-become [Gewordensein] is the work of Pauls ministry; at the same time, his work is dependent upon the Thessalonians standing firm in his proclamation, and he only knows that they do so to the extent that they too persevere in their work. (Hence, the content of his letters to them). This is the worldly paradox of work as vocation: In all its absoluteness of reorganizing the enactment, everything remains the same in respect to worldly facticity (GA 60: 117/83).6 Each goes on as he did before, unable to com-

municate the historical transformation except by his continued diligence. As such, work links Paul and the Thessalonians at the same time that it isolates them from each other. [T]hey are linked to each other in their having-become in a communal world that relates them not to each other, but to God (GA 60: 94/65). This lived experience of being suspended between God andvocation is the relational structure of work as vocation. Just as ones relation to the surrounding world becomes a struggle and relation to the communal world becomes estranged, ones relation to ones self, sein Selbstwelt, becomes ambivalent. To work is to be like an I (Ichlichkeit wird). Accordingly, when I work, rather than be as I am, I have myself as other: That which is like an I is and has the not-I. The distress of such precarious being enacts a temporality of return, ever again to the point of departure, to the call that is the origin of ones work (GA 60: 91-2/64). One works, therefore, because the ever-re-enacted call means that [t]here remains only yet a little time (GA 60: 119/85). There is no time to postpone what needs to be done, no time for what Paul criticizes as idle loitering, and Heidegger in a foreshadowing of Being and Time calls bustling activity of talk and idling (GA 60: 107/76). The compressed temporality of only-yet is distressing. Nevertheless, just as one should not concern oneself with worldly success, worldly failure is equally unconcerning. What is concerning, rather, is work itself (though not in the ethical sense that Weber, positively, and Nietzsche negatively, take it).7 The work concerns one, because it is what frees one from ones self-importance, ones vanities and passing attachments. For Heidegger, this is true self-concern: taking oneself to be less and less important

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by engaging oneself all the more (GA 60: 241/180).8 Taken with the other two phenomenological moments, true self-concern is a way of being at work that enacts itself historically: First, the historicity of the situation makes continual work the outward sign of ones having-become transformed in the call. Second, this having-become impacts ones self-world such that the I am is placed in question, and forces one to approach the self through the having-relation of that which is like an I. Finally, the distress of ones being is enacted as through a self-concerned (rather than self-important) relation with the surrounding world. Rather than achieve self-importance through worldly achievement, one enacts self-concern by heeding vocation.
the work-world : dwelling in the

towards-which

of production

Given this early characterization of work, what I now want to argue is that the analytic of Dasein in Being and Time is a secularization of the Pauline injunction to work as vocation. Like Descartes, of whom Heidegger is otherwise so critical, Heidegger secularizes human existence by turning it back toward itself. Nevertheless, he does so in such a way that Dasein is not reduced to the ego or I. [A]uthentic Being-ones-Self does not detach Dasein from its world, nor does it isolate it so that it becomes a free-floating I (SZ 298). As in the Pauline community, the Mitwelt remains a place where working alongside and with each other is possible. Even as isolated from others in the singular summons of ones own call of conscience, Dasein is solicitous of others: Resoluteness brings the Self right into its current concernful Being-alongside what

is ready-to-hand, and pushes it into solicitous Being with Others (SZ 298). In this secularization, Heidegger remains closer to the religious origins of vocation than Max Weber, and retains more of the ontological significance of work than Hannah Arendt. Being and Time redescribes much of the phenomenological understanding of work laid out in The Phenomenology of Religious Life, even echoing its threefold phenomenological structure. First, the analytic of Dasein understands being-inthe-world in terms of the facticity of everydayness. Much like the Christian who lives as one who has become called in a world that shows no outward sign of this transformation, Dasein lives in a world of equipment, whose assignments call him to work, but are not themselves present-at-hand. Even when disclosed in the resoluteness of authentic Being-ones-Self, the world which is ready-to-hand does not become another one in its content, nor does the circle of Others get exchanged for a new one (SZ 297-8). Equipment remains in-order-to much as the factical life experience of a Pauline Christian is only-yet.9 Second, in this situation, Dasein, like the early Christian, is plagued by anguish. Faced with the world, the utter insignificance which makes itself knowntells us that entities within-the-world [including ourselves] are of so little importance in themselves (SZ 187). The anguish means that one relates to the world as a being whose being is in question. Dasein experiences its question-worthiness in an engrossment with work, with having to do with something, producing something, attending to something and looking after it, making use of something, giving something up and letting it go (SZ 56). Work does not dissolve the anguish or even distract one from it. Rather, like the stoic early Christian, Dasein be-

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comes disclosed for resoluteness, meaning ready for anxiety (SZ 297). And thus third, as is the case of the urgent anguish of Christian vocation, Daseins resolute anxiety engages it in concernful dealings that point beyond themselves to a towards-which, whose appearance is most often experienced in the negative terms of frustration and delay, much as the enactment of Christian factical life occurs as an enactmental not (GA 60: 109/77). In seeking shelter, sustenance, livelihood, [one does] so for-the-sake-of constant possibilities, which Dasein, as the entity for which its own Being is an issue, has already projected itself, but behind which it always lags (SZ 297 (cf. SZ 284)). In its unceasing diligence, Dasein manifests this lag. Recognizing the Pauline roots of this everyday manner of being-in-the-world makes sense of the centrality of work in Daseins existence. Nevertheless, there is something important that differs between 1919 and 1927. Even though Dasein works much as the Thessalonians were exhorted to, and as such has a way of being essentially constituted by work, its vocation is more implicit. In other words, and in a way comparable to how the Protestant ethic becomes denatured by the capitalist spirit in Webers analysis, Dasein is not called to work so much as it just works. As Heidegger puts it, the kind of Being which belongs to such concernful dealings is not one into which we need to put ourselves first. This is the way in which everyday Dasein always is (SZ 67). Michael Zimmerman marvels at this aspect of Dasein. As he puts it, [a]part from the activity of manipulating and producing things, we are told, the sole alternative is to treat them abstractly,10 and even this abstract, present-athand treatment is itself grounded ontologically in the ready-tohandedness of manipulating and producing. In fact, the most

important manner in which Dasein could be said to hearken to his vocation is negatively.11 In moments when equipment fails on its assignment either by being unusable, missing, or in the way12 the world announces itself (SZ, 75).13 In a negative way, in other words, we catch sight of the towards-this itself, and along with it everything connected with the work the whole workshop as that wherein concern always dwells (SZ 74-5). However, as dwelling in the whole workshop, Dasein abides in the dazu, towards-which, of a totally produced world a problem with Being and Time that Hubert Dreyfus has underscored.14 In Heidegger, as in Weber, therefore, the secularization of the Pauline calling intensifies vocation even as it deroots it. In coming to recognize the danger of a world that appears to man everywhere as his construct (GA 7: 28/27),15 Heidegger in his later writings turns to the notion of the earth as the more original source of ones calling.

the work of das werk

Considering the centrality of the notion of the earth for Heideggers later thought, it is important to note that it stems from two lines of verse by the early 19th century poet, Friederich Hlderlin: Voll Verdienst, doch dichterisch wohnet Der Mensch auf dieser Erde. Heidegger addresses these lines as part of his 1934-35 lectures devoted to Hlderlins poems, Germanien and Der Rhein, and returns to them a year later in Hlderlin and the Essence of Poetry. In both contexts, Heidegger interprets the lines as part of his analysis of the vocation of the poet. In his mind, the vocation of the poet is commonly misunderstood. The misunder-

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standing sees poetry as a cultural achievement, in which the poets success is measured by how well he expresses himself. However, according to this view, poetry is simply a reflection of the linguistic abilities of a single individual. There is merit in such productive achievement, but of a very limited sort when placed beside the task of dwelling on the earth. As it turns out, the distinction that Heidegger makes here, between all that man works and produces and true poetic work, has a long (and theologically significant) history (GA 39: 35-6). In his Confessions, Augustine describes the ambiguity of artistic work, saying that it is suspended between the divine supreme Beauty from which artists derive the principles of production and the human lust for luxury that animates the use men make of arts beauty.16 Accordingly, the appreciation of art indicates a blindness to God [divine principle of Beauty] is there, and they do not see it17 and art itself is a form of carnal temptation. Heidegger echoes Augustines negative analysis in his lectures on the Phenomenology of Religious Life, saying: When it is a matter of measuring the factical significance and the corresponding esteemability and ones own performance, a calling upon a superordinate meaning and value comes alive. But in this, the superordinate meaning itself is placed at the service of bustling activity (GA 60: 220/164). In this light, what Heidegger does in the analyses of Hlderlin, as well as the near contemporary essay The Origin of the Work of Art, is to argue for the liberation of artistic work from its superficial role as an instrument of luxury. To this end, he suggests that it is both possible and necessary to set aside appreciation of a poem as a product i.e. as a thing that consumed time and effort on the part of the artist, and can in turn, be consumed

by others and instead come to experience it as a way of being, as poetically dwelling on the earth. Phenomenologically, poetic dwelling involves the same three moments found in earlier descriptions of work as vocation. The first is Hlderlins situation. In his correspondence, Hlderlin describes his vocation both as the most innocent of occupations and as working with the most dangerous of goods, i.e. language (GA 4:33/54). For Heidegger, these two pictures of poetic work are reconcilable to the extent that the innocence of poetry be understood as a harmless exterior that masks its true work of gathering man upon the ground of his existence (GA 4: 42/62). Very much like the early Christian whose diligence belies his internal spiritual transformation, Hlderlin is characterized by a vast inwardness that is invisible to those who only observe his outward behavior (GA 39: 35).18 Also like the early Christian, Hlderlins internal transformation which, according to Heidegger, is a consequence of his exposure to the gods lightening flashes (GA 4: 41/61) isolates him from others. Hlderlin is, as he puts it, cast out of ordinary life (GA 4: 42/62).19 From this exceptional position, Hlderlin speaks as the poet of poets, which means as one occupied precisely with what the work of poets is for (GA 39: 30). In Heideggers view, this important work addresses the question of being as it regards a people. Poetry, in other words, asks who are we? (GA 39: 48). Like Dasein concerned with its own existence, we are to acknowledge that we do not know who we are, if we truly pose the question our Being historically (GA 39: 50). Unlike Daseins existence, however, a peoples existence plays out in an originary temporality absolutely separate from everydayness. One sign of the separateness is Hlderlins

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own mental anguish. In this light, Hlderlin shares the anxiety of the early Christian troubled by his temporal existence. In another light, however, Hlderlin is much more like Paul himself. He is a firstling, who as Heidegger explains, must be sacrificed (GA 39: 146). What the sacrifice makes possible is the founding of an originary temporality, in which three creators are said to shape the people (GA 39: 51). The philosophically significant element of this account is that the evenemential temporality of sacrifice puts the emphasis on the collective, rather than individual, fate. Thus, even if we do not embrace it in all of its details, we can acknowledge that this characterization of the phenomenology of poetic work shifts the focus of questioning from the self to others, which is absolutely essential to the later concern with earthly dwelling. As for the third element of this phenomenological description, the originary temporality itself, it is described as a return to the beginning, to a waiting and enduring for the event of renewal. Like the early Christian waiting for the second coming, truly questioning who we are in poetic dwelling is to experience time as an only yet (GA 39: 56). If we do so, we truly participate in poetry, and if we truly participate in poetry, it is decided how we are what we do. Heidegger is very explicit that the temporality of everydayness is insufficient to make ones occupation who one is. It is only within originary temporality that our work becomes essential to our Being (GA 39: 57-8). In this way, Heidegger corrects his own focus on everyday productivity in Being and Time, and establishes the critical edge that informs his later thinking about work. As we have already introduced, the key distinction for this critical position is between everyday productivity all that man works and produces and essential vocation. The former

is dominated by the demands of utility, and driven by technological thinking that views nature as resources to be consumed in the production of goods. When placed beside work conceived as vocation, everyday productivity appears as consumption in terms of both its relation to nature and the fate of its products. As for essential vocation, it is not concerned with nature, but rather earth. As we will see, the earthliness of its vocation is developed especially in the essays The Origin of the Work of Art and Building Dwelling Thinking. This important new direction within Heideggers thought on work is already taking shape in the lectures on Hlderlin, where an inkling of the vocation of the poet is shared by the shepherd, who knows nothing but the stony path and spring, the grass and the clouds, the sun and the storm (GA 39: 53).

the silent call of the earth

Vocation as earthly dwelling is Heideggers mature understanding of the essentiality of work to human being. Its continuous roots from Pauline Christianity through Dasein are seen in the temporality of the call. In earthly dwelling, one lives in the origin of the silent call [Zuruf ] of the earth (UK 30/OWA 34),20 ever-returning to it more primordially. Ones work returns to this origin to the extent that it sets forth [herstellen] the earth, just as the Pauline Christian testifies to his transformation by his diligent work. Unlike the Pauline Christian, however, ones return is not in order to enact ones faith in another world, but to set up [aufstellen] the certainty of this one.21 The fact that absolute certainty is unattainable is not an argument against the work, any more than pointing out that Christ had not yet come again was an argument

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against the early Christians faith. As Richard Capobianco puts it, [d]welling is always at risk.22 This is precisely why it is always at work. Ones productive efforts occur as part of a totality of worldly relations over which no one has control. In response, one must work in such a way that one builds (Bauen), which for Heidegger is exemplified by the work of the peasant (Bauer) in its rootedness in place. In Why Do I Stay in the Provinces?, Heidegger describes his own philosophical work in these terms: [Philosophical work] belongs right in the midst of the peasants work [Arbeit den Bauern] (GA 13: 10/28). Unlike Dasein in its world workshop, work that builds is dual both earthly herstellen and worldly aufstellen. Heidegger develops this conception of work in a number of his later essays, in particular in The Origin of the Work of Art and Building Dwelling Thinking. As in the respective vocations of Dasein and the Pauline Christian, earthly vocation is characterized by anxiety by the uncomplaining anxiety as to the certainty of bread (UK 30/OWA 34) and the plight of dwelling (VA 162/PLT, 161).23 At the same time, the anxiety is different. Authentic Dasein (like the Pauline Christian) lives transformed in an unchanged world; however, the beings that populate the later Heidegger live unchanged in a transformed (and transforming) world. Faced with worldly uncertainty, those affected by the post-war housing shortage in Building Dwelling Thinking look to reliable equipment just as the peasant woman does in The Origin of the Work of Art; however, even in the short years between the essays, the increasing reliability of equipment forces Heidegger to address in the later essay the also increased effectiveness of worldly production in concealing the nature of dwelling. In other words, in an era ever-changing

technology, if work is to be historical, it must cultivate and safeguard earthly dwelling even as it transforms the world. Admittedly, it is easier to understand what Heidegger does not mean by the safeguarding of earthly dwelling, than what he does. As rich as the more poetic essays are, they lack the analytical structure that one finds in the lectures on Aristotle from the 1930s, where production and work are also discussed. Looking at them, we know for instance and contrary to some deep ecological readings of Heidegger that he does not mean any kind of back to basics way of living. For Heidegger, the latter ideology reeks of Aristotelian metaphysics, according to which the proper way of dwelling can be discovered by an investigation of natural substances and their ideal ends.24 In other words, on Heideggers reading of Aristotle, wood present in a workshop is in a state of appropriateness for a table (GA 9: 350-1/214). To the extent, therefore, that all matter is characterized by its potential to be produced according to its appropriate use, dwelling in an Aristotelian sense requires simply that we produce according to matters true potential. However, this would also imply that for Aristotle, all beings are ultimately destined for production, and the world is such that man only ever encounters himself and his construct25 i.e., the very opposite of earthly dwelling. Quite the contrary, what earthly dwelling requires is the revealing of the productivity that withdraws even as mans technological capacities advance. This means understanding how production is not just a making, but also a revealing: The work character of the work is determined by its outward appearanceTo pro-duce [Her-stellen] means to make presently available (not just to make). Have been pro-duced implies first of all

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being finished, and secondly, and at one with this, being at this time available. This having been produced is the actuality of the work [Wirklichkeit des Werkes]; that which reveals itself in such a way is (GA 33: 179/154) Thus, earthly dwelling should be conceived in such that the way that how it reveals the world is part of its work. As so defined, the work character of earthly dwelling is not defined by the look or eidos of the final product, as it is for Aristotle.26 Furthermore, as revealing how the world appears, earthly dwelling attends to the coming into being of the way of producing itself: They way [t]hat which beforehand was not there [nicht da war], [comes] to be (GA 33: 189/162).27 In an era when new technologies are constantly being developed, ways of producing must be continuously gathered into new ways of dwelling. This gathering occurs in earthly dwelling. As such, if work is to be historical, it must forge relations to the earth even as it builds a world in it.

the impact of work as historical vocation

If work is indeed historical as Heidegger conceives of it, its productivity is dual: At the same time that it sets up a world in which we can form relations with things and others, it also sets forth the earth in its availability for dwelling. The duality of works production means that any impact in worldly relations will be immediately experienced in how the earth reveals itself, and vice-versa. For instance, even simple changes toward more earthly forms of dwelling, like those predicated on the principle of zero waste, involve changes in worldly relations e.g. a shift toward re-use requires a mutually accepted social

commitment to doing more washing. As a further example and as Andrew Light has noted, if Americans were willing to abandon the world of suburban houses in favor of communal dwellings such as urban apartments, they would not only gain in the earthly terms of energy efficiency, but also in time, through a reduction of the amount of domestic work required per household.28 My own personal firsthand experience with the complex mutual impact of the earthly and worldly came as a young mother, who eschewed car ownership in favor of public transport, only to discover how hard it was to maintain a full-time work schedule and get to a day care before closing time. What all these examples suggest is that to the extent that we only look at work as a social phenomenon, we only see a very limited aspect of it: For Arendt and Weber, washing wouldnt even register as work (it would be labor to Arendt); greater energy efficiency would be valued according to Webers analysis, but not a reduction in domestic work; and given my occupation as a professor, my effort to live locally would have in Arendts view negatively impacted my ability to take meaningful action. Heideggers ontological understanding of work, by contrast, gives us the analytical tools to think about the simultaneous earthiness and worldliness of production. In order to take full advantage of it, however, we would have to question some of our deeply ingrained social evaluations: For example, that work should be measured according to its exchange value, meaning the social prestige and/or remuneration that it can garner. That the reason for greater efficiency is that it is cheaper. That to be at work is to be present in a particular worldly place. These social evaluations are the consequence of the understanding of work in terms of products, and according to it,

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improvements in productivity are measured in the cost of labor, i.e., a strictly social-worldly evaluation of work, which, as Heidegger develops in his criticisms of Marx, is in turn based on a reductive understanding of nature, and not earth.29 By contrast, what Heideggers understanding of work suggests is that productivity is improved even if it only occurs in earthly terms. For Heidegger, safeguarding the earth is dually productive: Both for the dwelling it safeguards now and for the future setting up of worldly possibilities. It encourages forward-thinking design of production along the lines proposed, for instance, by Michael Braungart. Braungart recognizes that more environmentally friendly production is not a matter of reducing the footprint of our activities on this planet. Even though reducing our impact on nature is admittedly less unfriendly, it continues the mode of production, in which [n] ature is set upon [hin gestellt] (GA 15: 129/75).30 Instead what earthly productivity should generate is a hergestellt earth, one where human work is a source of replenishment for those systems that depend on it.31 So-conceived, work is a way of being essential to humans, not just in sustaining their natural life, but in their very historicity.

notes

Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Penguin Books, 2002), 17. Ibid, 12. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998). As she says in conclusion of her discussion of labor in favor of the world-creating capacity of work: But without being at home in the midst of things whose durability makes them fit for use and for erecting a world whose very permanence stands in direct contrast to life, this life would never be human (135). Then, when she discusses action, she describes it as a second life, a second birth by which we insert ourselves into the human world, and become human beings: If action as beginning corresponds to the fact of birth, if it is the actualization of the human condition of natality, then speech corresponds to the fact of distinctness and its the actualization of the human condition of plurality, that is, of living as a distinct and unique being among equals (176 and 178, em). Christian worldview: actually a contradiction!The significance of the worldis given and experienced in a peculiar way through the retrieval of the relational complexes in the authentic enactment [of having-become] (GA 60: 122/ 87). This is Pauls fundamental posture [Grundhaltung], according to Heidegger: Paul finds himself in a struggle. He is pressured to assert the Christian life experience against the surrounding world (GA 60: 72/50). Die christliche faktische Lebenserfahrung ist dadurch historisch bestimmt, dass sie entsteht mit der Verkndigung, die den Menschen in einem Moment trifft und dann stndig mitlebendig ist im Vollzug des LebensDie urchristliche Faktizitt gewinnt bei all ihrer Ursprnglichkeit gar keine Aussordentlichkeit, gar keine Besonderheit. Bei aller Absolutheit der Umbildung des Vollzugs bleibt hinsichtlich der weltlichen Faktizitt alles beim Alten (GA 60: 117). Heidegger explicitly criticizes Nietzsches ethical interpretation of Paul in terms of ressentiment (GA 60:120/86).

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By comparison, a convenient getting-done of the things is mere playfulness. As Heidegger charmingly puts it, those who have a wife, should have her in such a way, that they do not have her (GA 60: 120/ 85).

impression comes to prevail that everything man encounters exists only insofar as it is his construct. 16 It is important to note that when Heidegger argues that poetry is capable of maintaining itself in its higher vocation of dwelling on the earth, it is still suspended between the divine and the human: Thus the essence of poetry is joined to the laws which strive to separate and unite the hints of the gods and the voice of the people (GA 4: 43/64). 17 Saint Augustine, Confessions (New York: Penguin Books, 1986), 241 (X:34). 18 See also p. 53 of these lectures. There he derisively describes the empty curiosity that likes to watch the poet in his studio in the hopes of experiencing how poetry is made. 19 To a notable degree, Heidegger supports his interpretation of Hlderlins situation on the basis of Hlderlins personal biography. He dwells at length on the significance of Hlderlins insanity, and sees it both as evidence for the dangerousness of the poetic vocation as he puts it, [t]he poets own fate tells us everything (GA 4: 41/62) as well as a justification for rejecting a cultural reading of the later poetry, which would see it in terms of cultural influences and individual selfexpression. As Heidegger explains regarding the poem from which the lines concerning dwelling on the earth are taken, it was written after Hlderlin had been deemed uncurable and released from the psychiatric clinic in Tbingen, and thus would not count for a cultural reading (GA 39: 36-7). 20 I am citing from the Reclam edition of Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes (Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam, 1960). The English language reference is to the following: The Origin of the Work of Art, Poetry, Language, Thought. Trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper and Row, 1971). 21 Das Aufstellen einer Welt und das Herstellen der Erde sind zwei Wesenszge im Werksein eines Werkes (UK 49/OWA 48). 22 Richard Capobianco, Engaging Heidegger (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010), 127. 23 Building Dwelling Thinking, in Poetry, Language, Thought. Trans.

10 Michael Zimmerman, Heideggers Confrontation with Modernity Technology, Politics, Art (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990), 152. 11 The role of the call of conscience (Gewissensruf ) relative to work is ambiguous. Even though as already outlined, it transforms Dasein even as it leaves the content of the world untouched, much as Pauline proclamation does, the call of conscience itself is more nearly a call to action lArendt than a vocation, or call to work: To hear the call authentically, signifies bringing oneself into a factical taking-action (SZ 294, cf. SZ 328). As concerned with freeing oneself for ones possibilities, authentic Being-ones-self is a mode of being (i.e. anticipatory resoluteness) that places the self at the center it is as Heidegger puts it, a choice of Self-constancy (SZ 322) in a way opposed to both early Christian self-concern and the self-forgetting constitutive of work: The Self must forget itself if, lost in the world of equipment, it is to be able to actually go to work (SZ 354). 12 Which Heidegger describes phenomenologically as conspicuousness, obtrusiveness and obstinacy (Aufflligkeit, Aufdringlichkeit, Aufsssigkeit). 13 meldet sich die Welt. When speaking of the obstinacy of the unusuable ready-to-hand, Heidegger also describes the Being of that which lies before uscalls [ruft] for our attending to it (SZ, 74). 14 Hubert L. Dreyfus, Between Techne and Technology: The Ambiguous Place of Equipment in Being and Time, Tulane Studies in Philosophy, 32:0 (1984): 25. For Dreyfus, the problem with the work-world of Being and Time is that it is neither pre-technological nor fully technological and as such denies localness, thus removing the last barrier to global totalization. As so conceived, work does not allow for thoughtful dwelling. 15 [W]hen destining reigns in the mode of Enframing [Ge-stell ], the

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Albert Hofstdter (New York: Harper and Row, 1971). German edition: Bauen Wohnen Denken , in Vortrge und Aufstze (Pfullingen: Verlag Gnther Neske, 1959). 24 As he concisely puts it in Contributions to Philosophy, Overcoming of metaphysics means freeing the priority of the question of the truth of being in the face of any ideal, causal, and transcendental and dialectical explanation of beings (GA 65:/354). 25 See Heideggers 1931 lecture course on Aristotles Metaphysics, especially section 14b: What the Greeks conceived as knowledge of production is of fundamental significance for their own understanding of the world. We have to clarify for ourselves what it signifies that man has a relation to the works that he produces (GA 33: /117). 26 In addition to understanding work in terms of eidos, Aristotle makes the further metaphysical misstep of extending it to all beings: Eidos is not restricted to things that have been produced, but rather concern the full array of being (GA 33: 180/154). This extension of eidos conceals the peculiar character of being produced (and thus of work), and establishes the ground for the world of ens creatum, which in spite of its Biblical roots, is at odds with the Pauline temporality of work. 27 Heideggers example, following Aristotle, for this moment of producing is the technological ability to throw pots: one becomes trained in pottery, something which one previously was not. It is also important to note that this moment of producing is the first of three, which also include the enactment of ones technological training in the making of pots, and the finished product itself, i.e. a pot. In Abhandlungen und Entwrfe zur Entstehung der modernen Technik, Heidegger presents this threefold structure in his translation of ergon: 1. das in die Unverborgenheit Her-vor-gebrachte (das Anwesende an sich), 2. effectus einer Operation - Archon, Gemchte und Vorstellen, 3. Gewirktes Wirkendes (Kraft). (Gesamtausgabe: III. Abteilung: Unverffentliche Abhandlungen, Vortrge - Gedachtes, (GA 76: 362). 28 See Urban Ecological Citizenship, Journal of Social Philosophy 34:1 (2003): 44-63. 29 See Seminar in Zhringen 1973 in GA 15: esp. 126-8/74-5. 30 The contrast established here between a reducible, hingestellt nature

on the one hand and historical, hergestellt earth, on the other, is essential to understanding Heideggers criticism of Marx in the Zhringen seminar. 31 Braungart, Michael. http://www.braungart.com/vision_engl.htm (accessed on January 12, 2012).

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thursday, may 3, 2012

8:00-10:00

Welcoming Reception cocktails & light hors doeuvres

Appendix: Conference Program for the 46th Annual Meeting of the Heidegger Circle 2012
Emory University atlanta, ga
friday, may 4, 2012

7:00-9:00

Breakfast in dining room

9:00-9:15 Opening Remarks 9:15-11:00 nature & freedom

From the Facticity of Dasein to the Facticity of Nature: Naturalism, Animality, and the Ontological Difference Raoni Padui (Villanova University) Heideggers Critique of a Causal Understanding of Human Action Hans Pedersen (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) Respondent: Pol Vandevelde (Marquette University) Moderator: John Rose (Goucher College) 11:00-11:15 Coffee Break

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11:15-12:30 Heidegger on Discourse and Idle Talk: The Role of Aristotelian Rhetoric Jess Adrin Escudero (Universidad Autnoma de Barcelona, Spain) Respondent: Catriona Hanley (Loyola University, Maryland) Moderator: Drew Hyland (Trinity College) 12:30-1:30 Lunch

3:30-5:15 derrida and heidegger I, Who Am Still not Dead: Heidegger, Death and Survivance in Derridas The Beast and the Sovereign, vol. 2 Adam Knowles (New School for Social Research) Heidegger and Derrida: The Ex-Appropriation of Responsibility Franois Raffoul (Louisiana State University) Respondent: Geoffrey Bennington (Emory University) Moderator: Hakhamanesh Zangeneh (California State University, Stanislaus) 5:30-6:15 Business Meeting

1:30-3:15 heideggers hermeneutics Preserving Play in The Origin of the Work of Art Catherine Homan (Emory University) Another Look at Heideggers Hermeneutics James Risser (Seattle University) Respondent: Michael Steinmann (Stevens Institute of Technology) Moderator: Robert Stolorow 3:15-3:30 Coffee Break

6:30 Dinner

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saturday, may 5, 2012

7:00-9:00

Breakfast in dining room

2:00-4:00

asking the question of being: on the thought of thomas sheehan

9:00-10:15 Dwelling and the Ontological Difference Christopher Ruth (Villanova University) Respondent: William McNeill (DePaul University) Moderator: Allen Scult (Drake University) 10:15-10:30 10:30-1:00 Coffee Break heideggers philosophy of right

Making Sense of Heidegger: A Paradigm Shift Thomas Sheehan (Stanford University) Respondents: Kate Withy (Georgetown University) Charles Guignon (University of South Florida) Richard Polt (Xavier University) Moderator: Ingvild Torsen (Florida International University) 4:00-4:15 Coffee Break

Heidegger and the Inner Truth of National Socialism: A New Archival Discovery Julia Ireland (Whitman College) Heideggers Philosophy of Right? Christophe Perrin (Universit Paris-Sorbonne, France) Why Hegel? Heidegger and the Political Peter Trawny (Bergische Universitt Wuppertal, Germany) Moderator: Theodore Kisiel (Northern Illinois University) 1:00-2:00 Lunch

4:15-6:00 the 50th anniversary of time and being The Matter of Being in Time and Being Richard Capobianco (Stonehill College) Star-gazing: Time, Being and All That William Richardson (Boston College) Moderator: Tim Hyde (Stony Brook University) 6:30 Transportation to Banquet 7:00- Banquet at South City Kitchen

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sunday, may 6, 2012

7:00-9:00 9:00-10:45

Breakfast in dining room heidegger and language

Event/Language Krzysztof Ziarek (University at Buffalo) Sounding/Silence David Nowell-Smith (Universit-Paris VII, France) Respondent: John Lysaker (Emory University) Moderator: Daniel O. Dahlstrom (Boston University) 10:45-11:00 Coffee Break 11:00-12:45 heidegger and saint paul Knowledge and Faith: On Heideggers Reading of Saint Paul Sophie-Jan Arrien (Universit Laval, Qubec, Canada) Work as Vocation: The Pauline Roots of Earthly Dwelling Julie Kuhlken (Misericordia University) Respondent: Scott Campbell (Nazareth College) Moderator: Arun Iyer (Seattle University)

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