Per Caritatem

In the second part of his essay, Heidegger addresses the question, “What task is reserved for thinking at the end of philosophy?” The thinking that he has in mind is neither science nor metaphysics, but is something new. “This thinking in question here necessarily falls short of the greatness of the philosophers. It is less than philosophy. Less also because the direct or indirect effect of this thinking on the public in the industrial age, formed by technology and science, is decisively less possible for this thinking than it was for philosophy” (p. 436). So this thinking is something that will appear to us as something very humble. It will not have the grandeur of the philosophy of the past. Moreover, in a technological age, it will seem to have no effect. Nonetheless, it is the highest possibility for human thought.

About what will we be thinking? Here Heidegger writes, “When we ask about the task of thinking, this means in the scope of philosophy to determine that which concerns thinking, is still controversial for thinking, and is the controversy. This is what the word Sache [matter] means in the German language. It designates that with which thinking has to do in the case at hand” (p. 437). Usually this leads us to a certain class of objects (e.g., geometry which thinks about figures). But if we take a certain realm of beings, then this will already be some subordinate mode and not the primordial Being.

On pages 437-440, Heidegger says that both Hegel and Husserl fail to think what comes first. After this discussion, Heidegger gives his own answer, viz., the “clearing,” as to the matter that we must think, “But what remains unthought in the matter of philosophy as well as in its method? Speculative dialectic is a mode in which the matter of philosophy comes to appear of itself and for itself, and thus becomes present [Gegenwart]. Such appearance necessarily occurs in luminosity. Only by virtue of some brightness can what shines show itself, that is, radiate. But brightness in its turn rests upon something open, something free, which it might illuminate here and there, now and then. […] We call this openness that grants a possible letting appear and show ‘clearing’” (p. 441). Past philosophy has been speculative dialectics in which the matter of philosophy comes to appear and becomes present. Those from Plato on, have made things become present to themselves. They let something appear, but there is something that has to precede that presencing. So what Heidegger wants to say is that the philosophers of the past were not getting to the highest things. Something had to make present this presencing—this something is the “clearing which allows the movement of speculative thought to become present in the first place. There must be a brightness, a light to come forth in the clearing. Clearing refers to a clearing in the forest—in the clearing, the light can shine in and things can become present.

The problem in Western philosophy is that it will only allow presencing. The clearing, however, is not a thing; it is the openness that allows the rocks and trees to become present. So Heidegger says, “it is necessary for thinking to become aware of the matter here called clearing. […] What the word designates in the connection we are now thinking, free openness, is a ‘primal phenomenon’” (p. 442). Philosophy as metaphysics is trying to make things present to us and that philosophy has reached its natural end in giving itself over to the sciences. The task now is to abandon that type of philosophy and embrace the clearing. As Heidegger points out, the natural sciences and philosophy depend on this “primal phenomenon,” but they are unable to recognize it because they only think of what is present.

According to Heidegger, only Parmenides thought and spoke of the clearing. Heidegger then quotes Parmenides’ poem, On Nature, where the goddess says, “but you should learn all: the untrembling heart of unconcealment, well-rounded, and also the opinions of mortals who lack the ability to trust what is unconcealed” (p. 444). So the goddess advises Parmenides to learn of the unconcealment [aleithia] and the opinion [doxa] of mortals. Heidegger is interested in the unconcealment which is another way of talking about the clearing. Interestingly, these are both negative terms—they are defined by the absence of something. In other words, the clearing is where the trees are not, and likewise unconcealment is the absence of what conceals. Parmenides, Heidegger thinks, made that unconcealment explicit for thought. However after him, it was covered over and we must make it explicit again.

As mentioned previously, the Greek word aleithia means unconcealment, yet it has come to be translated at “truth.” “Why is aletheia translated with the usual name, with the word ‘truth’? […] Insofar as truth is understood in the traditional ‘natural’ sense as the correspondence of knowledge with beings, demonstrated in beings, but also insofar as truth is interpreted as the certainty of the knowledge of Being, aletheia, unconcealment in the sense of the clearing, may not be equated with truth” (p. 446). Truth for us has become associated with the problem of presencing—“the correspondence of knowledge with beings.” So traditionally understood truth is when the knowledge present correspondes to being. However, this is not what unconcealment is. The word truth cannot be used to describe the clearing. In sum, the task of thinking at the end of philosophy is to make explicit what was explicit at the beginning. For Heidegger, the whole course of Western history from Plato onwards is a progressive concealment of what is truly first—what the Being of beings is—this stems from the attempt to make things present to us. One might even say that by the time we get to Kant, presencing is the only thing that we have. So to overcome this, we have to think of something that is not “presence-able”—something not graspable. We have to think about Being in the sense of clearing—the Being which is also a nothing. The clearing is only recognized by the fact that it excludes certain things—like darkness—so that light can be seen.

Well, I finally made it out to a Starbucks, and am checking my email for the first time in three days. Unpacking is going fairly well execpt for the fact that this is the first time in my life that my body is actually sore from moving (ugh). On the bright side, I now have my own office and it is set up and looks great–with all my book completely organized topically.

Below is a continuation of the Heidegger post with more to come, so long as I can find another Starbucks. I begin teaching my summer course tomorrow night, so I probably won’t post again until Thursday.

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Heidegger begins his essay with two questions: (1) To what extent has philosophy in the present age entered into its end? (2) What task is preserved for philosophy?

Regarding the first question, Heidegger begins by stating what he thinks philosophy (i.e., philosophy of being) has been traditionally in the West. Being in the West has been understood in a particular way, not in the most primordial sense, but instead as “presencing.” In the West, we think about what is present to us. That is, we think that things exist when they are present. So being and presence become inextricably bound together. Plato, according to Heidegger, will talk about the most real things being Forms/Ideas (eidos). This term itself indicates presence, i.e., how something looks. In the essay, Heidegger will explore how is it that this term has come to mean presence. This way of being has conditioned all of Western philosophy and has contributed the end of Western philosophy. Something is, when it is present to me.

According to Heidegger, when “presencing” takes over philosophy then turns into science, i.e., the study of beings, not Being. In “presencing,” instead of seeing what is mysteriously beyond us, we study beings and become natural scientists. Though this process begin in ancient Greece, the movement of philosophy into the natural sciences is now almost complete. Consequently, philosophy in present age is moving into its end. In his essay, “Metaphysics,” Heidegger also takes up a variation on this theme when he says that the sciences are interested in beings and nothing else—i.e., they ignore the nothing. However, as philosophers we want to pay attention to the “nothing else” that lies behind the beings. Interestingly, Heidegger explains, “the sciences still speak about the Being of beings in the unavoidable supposition of their regional categories. They only do not say so. They can deny their provenance from philosophy, but never dispense with it. For in the scientific attitude of the sciences the certification of their birth from philosophy still speaks” (p. 435). So the sciences want to talk about beings but they cannot help to derive beings from Being. Being though is never present; it never appears to us—only beings do; hence, philosophy moves toward science. “The end of philosophy proves to be the triumph of the manipulable arrangement of a scientific-technological world and of the social order proper to this world. The end of philosophy means the beginning of the world civilization that is based upon Western European thinking” (p. 435). So what began as a philosophical position, moved the whole of Western thought toward its end. Then Heidegger asks, “Have we seen every possibility for philosophy in Western history? Is there something that was a first possibility that we have not fully realized?” Heidegger will say that there is another task for philosophy—one concealed in the history of philosophy—because we never realized our task and perhaps at the end this can be made explicit (p. 435). So philosophy has entered into its end (its collapse). Is there still a task for it? Yes. What task is it? This is what he will address in part II. More to come…

Human beings always have access to being because we all live in the world. But how is that world understood? Plato articulates the world in the way that it shows itself to the Greek mindset just as Aquinas did in a way understandable to medievals. Instead of emphasizing these as “mere” subjective interpretations of Being, perhaps we should consider the notion that these are diverse ways of Being showing itself in the conceptual categories of particular historical periods. Since Hegel, there is the attempt to take history seriously (time has entered into being). Taking Hegelian insights to heart, our focus moves from asking which view is superior to how did we get from here to there. In other words, we analyze how human beings have access to reality in various historical phases. Here we might say that since Hegel and with many postmodern thinkers, a fundamental shift has occurred in philosophy. Prior to Hegel, each individual philosophy aimed at the articulation of the truth within a system. That is, they present their account of reality, e.g., St. Thomas,’ Summae. The Hegelian insight is that being cannot be understood outside of time. Thus, with thinkers like Heidegger or Nietzsche we do not find the definitive account of reality, but the unfolding of ideas in history. The point of Heidegger’s version of historicism is to read how Being showed itself in the thought of a particular author. E.g., Heidegger transforms the notion of truth—it is unconcealment (aleithia); yet, truth remains the goal. There is no being outside time; being and time are intertwined. Consequently, to study the Western tradition is to understand its unfolding as a whole.

For Heidegger, “mythos” is the unity of everything (it is not myth in the sense of Zeus et al). Mythos was storytelling, which was truth to the people of the time. In other words, mythos opens up or discloses reality. As Heidegger tells the story of the Western tradition, with Plato, though his dialogues employ mythic accounts, we eventually get myth vs. philosophy, and then narrative vs. philosophy. When Aristotle comes on the scene we get extreme divisions of philosophy into various fields and this continues as the Western tradition unfolds. Then in the Middle Ages, philosophy becomes separated from theology. We see this “splitting” accelerated today in the many divisions simply within philosophy itself. We also see this in other fields such as medicine where we have a different doctor for every part of the body. Thus, there is an extreme division of reality into individual fields in order to master reality. As Heidegger tells the story, philosophy comes to its end because it tries swallow up mystery—an extremely insightful observation. Today we have fallen into the illusion of thinking that we grasp things because things today are so specialized. We have forgotten about the whole because there is no longer any mystery. This is what Heidegger means by philosophy “coming to its end.”

More to come…