Heidegger's Philosophy of Science (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy)

Heidegger's Philosophy of Science TRISH GLAZEBROOK

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Fordham University Press New York 2000

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2000 by Fordham University Press

rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other-except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

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Perspectives in Continental Philosophy No. 12 ISSN 1089-3938

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Glazebrook, Trish. Heidegger's philosophy of science I Trish Glazebrook.-1st ed. p. cm.-(Perspectives in continental philosophy; no. 12) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8232-2037-0 (hc)-ISBN 0-8232-2038-9 (pbk.) 1. Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976-{:ontributions in philosophy of science. 2. Science-Philosophy-History-20th century. l. Title. II. Series. B3279.H49 G57 193-<1c21

2000 00-025802

Printed in the United States of America 5 4 3 2 1 00 01 02 03 04 First Edition

For Geoffrey and Norma

CONTENTS Acknowledgments

ix

Abbreviations

xi

Introduction

1

1. Metaphysics, Mathematics, and Science

14

Husser!: Philosophy As Rigorous Science 20 Kant and Metaphysics: Grounding Science 25 Synthetic A Priori Judgments 36 The Thing and Copernican Revolution 41 The A Priori 47 Mathematical Projection: Galileo and Newton 51 Metaphysics and the Mathematical 60 Conclusion 63

2. Experiment and Representation Crucial Experiments 73 Experiment and Experience 84 Violence 96 Setting Up the Real: Exact Science Representation 112 Conclusion 117

65

104

3. Science in the Institution

The Nothing 124 Destiny as Nihilism 131 Self-Assertion: Knowing versus Amassing lnformation 139 The Threat of Science 148 Valuative Thinking and Disillusionment 156 Conclusion 159

119

viii

CONTENTS

4. Ancient Science

uoU; As Truth 165 Aristotle's Analogy of Being 179 Theoretical versus Productive Knowledge

163

184

�uvaflEL ov 191 uoU; and lEXVI') 199 Conclusion 205

5. Science and Technology Epoch and Essence 209

207

"Science Does Not Think" 214 Thinking As Thanking: Being and Being Represented 224 The Theory of the Real 232

Ge-stell

240

Quantum Theory 247 Conclusion 251 Bibliography

255

Index

267

Index of Greek Expressions

277

A CKNOWLEDGMENTS There are many people to thank for their support and assistance during the time I have been working on this book. Research was funded by the University of Toronto, the government of Ontario, and the German government, and further supported by the De­ partment of Philosophy at Auckland University. I could not have done without the productive commentary, advice, and discus­ sion on the entire manuscript that I got from Graeme Nicholson, Rebecca Comay, Will McNeill, and Dan Dahlstrom. Their close readings and prompt responses were indispensable to the devel­ opment of this book. I am further indebted to Will McNeill for his enthusiastic and precise suggestions on translation. I am grateful to Father Joseph Owens for teaching me to love Aris­ totle. Jim Brown's support at the University of Toronto was su­ pererogatory, and lowe Ian Hacking a great deal for his contribution to my understanding of the philosophy of science, despite his dislike of both Heidegger and this project. Jim Wetzel and Marilyn Thie read and commented helpfully on individual chapters. I wish I knew the names of those who asked questions on the chapter on experimentation at the Ontario Philosophical Association meeting at Waterloo University in

1993. Their com­

ments were useful. Likewise my critique of Heidegger's reading of Aristotle was all the better for rigorous scrutiny at the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy in New Orleans in

1993 (on <jl1Jm� and 'tfXV!']) and Georgetown in 1996 (on Aris­

totle's analogy of being). T he chapter on Heidegger and the institution benefited from exposure to the Department of Phi­ losophy at DePaul University in Chicago and at the annual con­ ference of The Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy in Seattle in 1991. The original idea for the book was conceived in conversation with David Wood, and first tried out in the philosophy department at the University of Guelph in

x

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1991. In particular, I wish to thank Jack Caputo, whose ongoing support of this work has been crucial to its completion. On a more personal note, thanks to Brian Hackeson for keep­ ing my computer running, to George Hendry for all those lunches, to Louise Signal for spunk and chocolate biscuits, to Ann Saddlemeyer and the residents of Massey College, to Jac­ ques Bismuth for backgammon, and to Rachel Boyington, who kept things in perspective by sharing the first weeks of her life with me as I completed the original draft. My deepest debts of love and life are to Geoff and Norma Rotenberg, and it is to their memory that I dedicate this book.

ABBREVIATIONS AM

An Post AWP

BC BCP

Aristoteles, Metaphysik IX. 1-3 Posterior Analytics "The Age of the World Picture," in QCT Basic Concepts (G) "On the Being and Conception of <jl1JOU; in Aristotle's Physics B.l"

BdW

"Die Bedrohung der W issenschaft"

BPP BT BW CPR EGT EM EN FCM FD FT G GM GP H HCT IM K KM KPM MAL Met MFL

Basic Problems of Phenomenology (GP) Being and Time (5Z) Basic Writings Critique of Pure Reason Early Greek Thinking Einfiihrung in die Metaphysik (IM) Nicomachean Ethics "On the Essence of Truth," in BW The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics (GM) Die Frage nach dem Ding "The Rectorate 1933/34: Facts and Thoughts," with 5A Grundbegriffe (BC) Die Grundbegrifef der Die Grundprobleme der Phiinomenologie (BPP) Holzwege History of the Concept of Time (PGZ) Introduction to Metaphysics (EM) "Die Kehre" Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (KPM) Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (KM) Metaphysische Anfangsgriinde der Logik (MFL) Metaphysics The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic (MAL)

MNST

"Modem Natural Science and Technology"

ET

xii

ABBREVIATIONS

MSMM

"Modem Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics," in

N NI NIl PA PGZ Phys

BW/FD Nietzsche Nietzsche I Nietzsche II De Partibus Animalium Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs (HCT) Physics

PRS

"Philosophy as Rigorous Science" (Husserl)

QCT

The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays

SA SR SU

"The Self-Assertion of the German University" "Science and Reflection," in QCT "Die Selbstbehauptung der deutschen Universitat; Das Rektorat 1933/34: Tatsachen und Gedanken"

SZ VA W WCT WHD WM ww

Sein und Zeit (BT) Vortriige und Aujsiitze Wegmarken What Is Called Thinking? (WHD) Was heisst Denken? (WCT) What Is Metaphysics? Postscript to What Is Metaphysics? "Vom Wesen der Wahrheit," in W

ZG

"Der Zeitbegriff in der Geschichtswissenschaft"

WMp

Heidegger's Philosophy of Science

INTRODUCTION

"ON THE LONGEST

DAY

he ever Jived," said Father Richardson,

"Heidegger could never be called a philosopher of science"

(1968:511). W hat exactly does it mean, to be a philosopher of science? The label received widespread adoption only in the late

1950s, and one of the few things philosophers of science agree upon is that the discipline is not clearly demarcated. The breadth and diversity of philosophy of science is due in large part to the fact that the term "science" itself covers a wide range of practices and modes of thought. Social science, for example, may be no more scientific than the sociology of science is philo­ sophical, or just as scientific as the latter is philosophicaL One thing is clear: the task of the philosopher of science is, at least in part, to ask what constitutes science. Heidegger is certainly a philosopher of science in this respect. Over several decades he explores the thesis that science is the mathematical projection of nature. From its incipience in "Der Zeitbegriff in der Geschichtswissenschaft," to its full formula­ tion in

Being and Time, to the analysis of representation in "The

Age of the World Picture," to the entanglement with technology in

Wha t Is Called Thinking?, to the setting up of the real in "Sci­

ence and Reflection," the idea that science is the mathematical projection of nature runs throughout Heidegger's work as a background against which his critique of modernity unfolds. This conception of science binds together his

thinking of the

question of science over sixty years. The several analyses of science that Heidegger undertakes during his life have been remarked on and described, but never interpreted as a coherent movement throughout his thought. John Caputo has argued that there are two essences of science in Heidegger's work: a hermeneutic one and a deconstructive one. The former he uncovers in

Being and Time and suggests is an "existential genealogy" (1986:44), inseparably bound to an alleg-

2

INTRODUCTION

edly pure logic of science, that explores the genesis of science in the historical life of the scientist. This essence is subsequently suppressed in Heidegger's thought, Caputo argues, by the de­ constructive sense, "which signifies an entire understanding of man and world, of being and truth" (1986:44). Caputo intends to correct a misunderstanding in which Heidegger is taken as hostile to science by showing instead that Heidegger sought to critique and delimit science in its deconstructive sense. My reading of Heidegger's philosophy of science is sympa­ thetic to Caputo's account. Heidegger was not well versed in science, as Patrick Heelan has underscored (1995:579). Yet I resist apologism. Heidegger's continual rethinking of the question of science is not a naive non-scientist's condemnation, for which greater technical expertise would be necessary to achieve valid­ ity. Rather, his contribution to philosophy of science is his in­ sight into the extent to which science underwrites modernity. By laying out a sustained analysis of Heidegger's philosophy of science, I extend Caputo's reading even further. I expose the hermeneutic and deconstructive essences of science in Heideg­ ger's early and late work, respectively, and furthermore suggest a transitional period in Heidegger's thinking in order to trace how it develops from the former to the latter. Theodore Kisiel has also uncovered several-three, in fact­ essences of science in Heidegger's work. The earliest he calls a logical conception, and I find it in a 1916 text, "Der Zeitbegriff in der Geschichtswissenschaft." He describes two further es­ sences of science from Being and Time: an existential one, which is much like Caputo's hermeneutic; and a metaphysical or ep­ ochal conception, which he locates in the unpublished Part Two of the book and claims is later elaborated under the rubric "over­ coming metaphysics" (Kisiel 1977:163). Heidegger's later analy­ sis of modem science is a critique of the nihilistic metaphysics of subjectivity that he holds is essential to modem science. He holds that science informs modernity, and hence his critique is ultimately, as Kisiel suggests, an attempt to expose, and there­ fore to overcome, the metaphysics of the modem epoch. These different but not discordant accounts of the various es­ sences of science in Heidegger's work uncover the complexity of his thinking on the question of science. His thesis that the es-

INTRODUCfION

3

sence of science is the mathematical projection of nature does not fail so much as it calls for reformulation when he realizes that the relation between thinking and science is not what he had previously taken it to be. That relation was expressed by the thesis that philosophy is itself a science. This claim is not as sim­ ple as it may seem.

Naturwissenschajt

is natural or physical science, for which

physics is paradigmatic. But

wissenschajt,

Wissenschajt also sounds of Geistes­

the arts or humanities. For the early Heidegger,

struggling against the yoke of transcendental idealism, these two conceptions are entangled in his attempt to ground the sci­ ences in metaphysics and his thesis that philosophy is itself a science. When the attempt fails, Heidegger leaves behind that thesis. What remains is a specific, if not always precise and never entirely static, topic: the question of the nature of science. At issue here is

Naturwissenschajt-specifically,

the mathematical

physics of modernity that begins with Galileo, flourishes under Newton, and has its quintessential expression in quantum theory. Yet philosophy of science is more than a battle to draw the borders of science. It is also an inquiry into several sets of ques­ tions: the logic of discovery, proof, and method; the metaphysi­ cal and epistemological suppositions of scientific knowledge; the historical genesis and development of the experiment; the political consequences of institutionalized science; and the na­ ture and limits of theory. Not only can each of these constella­ tions of inquiry be traced throughout Heidegger's work, but also that work can be bridged to the analytic tradition of philosophy of science. How are Kuhn's "paradigms" different from Heideg­ ger's "basic concepts," and from Ge-stell? What conclusions does Heidegger take from his insight, shared with Hacking, that ex­ periments both represent and intervene? Where does Heidegger stand in the realist debate? on the existence of crucial experi­ ments? on the role of mathematics in modem physical science? These are questions that can be answered out of Heidegger's philosophy of science. It would be ludicrous and tedious, however, to suggest that Heidegger has a view on every issue taken up by the analytics. He says almost nothing explicitly, for example, about the prob-

4

INTRODUCTION

lem of induction, the relation between the philosophy and the history of science, the nature of probability, the logical founda­ tions of statistical inference, and the function of explanation. Yet neither does, nor even could, each analytic philosopher of sci­ ence treat every issue that falls under the rubric of philosophy of science. Certainly Heidegger has enough to say on a broad range of topics pertaining to science that I can defend the claim that he has a philosophy of science on the superficial basis of the number and variety of way he addresses the issue. I will, how­ ever, argue more deeply for Heidegger's philosophy of science by mapping its content, and by locating his thinking in the ana­ lytic discourse. Accordingly, I share none of Father Richardson's reluctance to call Heidegger a philosopher of science. The infamous distinc­ tion Father Richardson drew between Heidegger I and Heideg­ ger II was a useful and insightful tool for seeing changes and transitions, breaks, and abandonments in Heidegger's ongoing work. Yet now, some twenty-odd years after Heidegger's death, when Father Richardson himself (1997:18) has grown uncom­ fortable with the division, I emphasize rather the continuity in Heidegger's work: the question of natural science is a constant and continuous support against which Heidegger's thinking de­ velops and grows. Certainly, as Karlfried Grunder has claimed, the "problem of the essence, possibility, and limitations of science pervades all his writings published to date" (1963:18). The earliest entry in the Gesamtausgabe uses the "dazzling results [gliinzenden Erfol­ gen]" ("Realitatsproblem" 3) of scientific practice to press the problem of realism. In reportedly the last thing Heidegger wrote before his death, he questioned the relation between science and technology (MNST 1-2). In the sixty-four years between these two texts, natural science is ubiquitously peripheral and regu­ larly central to his thought. Yet an analysis of the significance of the question of natural science to Heidegger's thought, though overdue, has not been worked out. Indeed, whereas treatments of Heidegger's critique of technology abound, his lifelong entanglement with issues concerning the natural sciences has remained largely neglected. There is a growing body of papers on the topic, but a systematic,

INTRODUCTION

5

sustained account of the development of Heidegger's treatment of science is missing. This book is aimed precisely at addressing that gap by demonstrating both the significance of science to Heidegger's thought and the contribution of that thought to phi­ losophy of science. I show not only that Heidegger works exten­ sively and systematically on questions concerning science, but also that his ongoing consideration of science guides and in­ forms his work on other issues, especially his critique of technol­ ogy. Further, I show that issues crucial to Heidegger's analysis are central in the analytic tradition of philosophy of science, and

I bring his contribution to bear on that tradition. In a word, then, I intend to interpret Heidegger in a radically novel way: accord­ ing to his philosophy of science. The years in which Heidegger wrote can be divided into three distinct phases as philosophy of science: the early view, extend­ ing into the 1930s, in which he held that philosophy is itself scientific; a transitional phase, in which he turns to questions of scientific practice and away from problems of philosophy, that is, from metaphysics to physics; and a later phase, from the 1950s onward, in which he locates the essence of science in the essence of technology. What binds these three periods together, such that they are one path of thinking rather than simply three different inquiries, is the notion that science is projective. In the early years, Heidegger understands such projection as the estab­ lishing of regional ontologies by means of basic concepts. Dur­ ing the transitional phase, he struggles to work out the projective nature of science by looking to the writings of Galileo and New­ ton. He talks not of basic concepts, but of the mathematical, which has been compared to the Kantian a priori (Kisiel 1973), but which Heidegger reformulates away from Kant's idealism.

In the later years, Heidegger names what is projective in technol­ ogy "Ge-stell," and argues that the essence of science is to be found in this essence of technology. Hence the three stages of Heidegger's critical inquiry into science have a unity insofar as each is a different formulation of its projective nature. Heidegger's early inquiries into the projection at work in sci­ ence are made against a Husserlian background. Philosophy is rigorous science for Heidegger, as it was for Husserl, rather than

Weltanschauung

philosophy. By using phenomenology as a sci-

6

INTRODUCTION

entific method for doing ontology, however, Heidegger rejects the bracketing of metaphysical issues for which Husserl's phe­ nomenology called. He accepts Husserl's conception of regional ontology, in which the sciences define some realm of beings as their object by projecting a basic concept. But Heidegger further argues that metaphysics, in contrast to the sciences, takes being as its object. At the root of regional ontologies lies, then, funda­ mental ontology. Hence Heidegger calls scientific philosophy a pleonasm: ontology, as the exploration of the ground of the sci­ ences, is already inherently scientific. Yet this relation of grounding proves problematic to Heideg­ ger as he attempts to understand it more deeply. The ground of science may be the projection of a realm of being, but Heidegger resists that the final word on science is idealism. The projective nature of modem science lies in the fact that the scientist pro­ ceeds on the basis of an idea, a hypothesis, rather than with the object. That is to say, a science that begins with a regional ontol­ ogy is idealistic in that it is founded on an a priori conception of its object rather than on experience. Yet Heidegger no longer holds that such an a priori conception is necessary to all and every science. Rather, it is characteristic for him of

modern

sci­

ence. He looks to uncover other possibilities for the essence of science: to answer how the essence of science can be projective without simply collapsing into idealism.

In the 1930s, Heidegger describes the essence of science as research. He argues that the transition from the ancient experi­ ence of nature to that of Galileo and Newton is the move from a realism in which

qJ'lJOL£,

nature, is a priori-that is, prior to

thought-to an idealism in which the a priori formulation of a hypothesis precedes the investigation of nature. His particular interest is the Cartesian establishing of certainty on the

cogito

that is paradigmatic of representational thinking, such that knowledge in modernity has its foundation in the thinking sub­ ject rather than in the thing known. This thesis is particularly significant as a critique of modem science, since the claim to certainty on the part of scientists surn as Newton and Bacon takes much of its force from the empirical nature of experimen­ tal science. The analysis of the essence of science as research leads Heidegger to argue that the experimental method is a set-

INTRODUCTION

7

ting up of nature on the basis of an a priori conception from which the appeal to the empirical is derivative. During this tran­ sitional phase, his developing insight into the essence of science as projective is that the projection at work in science sets up not only the realm of beings to be investigated, but also the episte­ mic criteria that determine what counts as knowledge in science. In his later writings, Heidegger argues that the essence of sci­ ence lies in the essence of technology. In a nutshell, he holds that the tripartite division of the history of Western thought so pervasive in his work-that is, the division into ancient, medie­ val, and modem epochs--culminates in modernity as the epoch of science and technology. He argues that technology is essen­ tially a reformulation of the essence of science. Since Being and Time, Heidegger has argued that modem science projects an un­ derstanding onto nature. In that understanding, nature consists in spatiotemporally extended bodies subject to efficient causes. In 1940 he teaches that Aristotle held rather that nature is teleo­ logical. Final, much more so than efficient, causes are crucial to understanding nature in Aristotle's Physics. Only once nature has been rendered devoid of final causes-that is, devoid of end and purpose-by the modem scientific confinement to efficient causes, is nature available ideologically for appropriation to human ends and purposes in technology. Accordingly, the re­ vealing of nature as a standing-reserve at the disposal of human being that is the essence of technology, is made possible by mod­ em science. Heidegger's ongoing critique of science is accordingly an ac­ count of the resolution of modernity into technology. It is a novel expression of what it might mean to be postrnodern which goes beyond a metaphysics of subjectivity to other possibilities for thinking and being. Heidegger recognizes that modem sci­ ence is the historical, Western expression of the human desire to know. But he escapes the problem of cultural relativism that haunts post-Kuhnian philosophy of science by thinking it more deeply than the notion of worldview permits. He holds that modem science is a destiny; that is, it is definitive of a historical epoch in which being and human being unfold together in a metaphysics of subjectivity. There are other possibilities for knowledge in Heidegger's view. For example, the ancient inter-

8

INTRODUCTION

pretation of being as qJ1JOL� reveals new beginnings latent in the epoch of science and technology, since that epoch can trace its origin to the ancient Greek world. Beyond representation lie thinking (Denken) and reflection (Besinnung). By dividing Heidegger's analysis of the essence of science into an early, a transitional, and a late period, I will show not that there are several-and especially not two--Heideggers, but rather precisely that his work is an ongoing development. For indeed, these three periods in his thinking are bound together as an analysis of modem science and an uncovering of other possibilities for understanding nature. The role of representa­ tion in modem science-that is, the question of how scientific projection determines its object-is the decisive factor that un­ derlies each account. I will trace the development of his thinking about science in five chapters. The remainder of this introduc­ tion first outlines the movement that binds these five chapters together and then summarizes the internal logic of each chapter. In the first chapter, I explore the relation between metaphys­ ics, mathematics, and science. I show how Heidegger rejects Kant's idealism as the basis on which to understand science. The next chapter lays out his argument that modem science is bound by the experimental method to a subjective metaphysics of rep­ resentation. The third chapter explores his disillusionment with the university as the housing of the sciences and his questioning of the value of knowledge. The fourth chapter reads Heidegger on ancient science. I argue that the loss Heidegger sees in Plato and Aristotle of a pre-Socratic insight into q)'UOL�, nature, pro­ vides him with a place for rethinking the essence of science in terms of possibilities that lie outside modem science. The final chapter analyzes Heidegger's account of the relation between science and technology in order to interpret his claim that the essence of science lies in the essence of technology. I conclude with a brief comment on quantum theory in which I make sense of Heidegger's denial that quantum physics is essentially differ­ ent from Newtonian physics. The first of the following chapters is an explication of Heideg­ ger's early analysis of modem science, by which I mean his thinking in the years from 1916 to the mid-1930s. During these years Heidegger maintains, on the one hand (e.g., in Being and

INTRODUCTION

9

Time), that the essence of science is the mathematical projection of nature, and on the other hand (e.g., in Basic Problems of Phe­ nomenology), that metaphysics is the science of being. The latter thesis becomes for Heidegger problematic as he attempts to ground the sciences in metaphysics in Kantian style. His account of metaphysics is very much tied up in his reading of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Having looked at this text several times already, he asks in 1935 in Die Frage nach dem Ding why it was both possible and necessary for Kant to write such a critique. At precisely the point in the course where he raises this question explicitly, he turns from Kant to Galileo and Newton. Kant's text is directed exactly at securing the certainty of Newton's physics through the synthetic a priori nature of Euclidean geometry. Yet Heidegger's analysis of the mathematical in modem science cuts more deeply than the claim that Newton's physics is mathemati­ cal insofar as it uses Euclidean geometry to describe nature. Rather, Heidegger finds in the mathematical the a priori projec­ tion of certainty. He concludes that science entails a binding to­ gether of a metaphysics and an epistemology; that is, he shows that modem science entails an a priori stance toward what can be known. He explores this stance by looking to the scientific method itself. Hence he turns from a consideration of metaphys­ ics as a science to the sciences themselves. The pivot by means of which Heidegger makes this tum is the experiment. Accordingly, the next chapter looks to the logic of scientific development and methodology. I read Heidegger as arguing that the empirical is not the experiential as qtltELQla was for Aristotle, and that the experimental method is a mathemati­ cal idealism. I raise three specific issues surrounding the experi­ ment and locate Heidegger's treatment of these issues in the analytic debate. First, crucial experiments: is a single experimen­ tal result enough to prove or overturn a theory? Heidegger an­ swers that it is. Second, the theory-Ioadedness of observation: does the informing of fact by theory preclude realism? Heideg­ ger holds that it does not, but he displaces the debate. And third, representation in modem science: how does science represent its objects? Heidegger argues that it does so mathematically, but he radically revises that term. These issues lay a basis for Heideg­ ger's later critique of technology in their treatment of represen-

10

INTRODUCTION

tation. Furthermore, they serve to explicate his claim that the essence of science is research, and to show that his central con­ cerns are thematic in contemporary analytic philosophy of sci­ ence. The chapter on science in the institution investigates the Be­ triebscharakter of science. It is an account of Heidegger's view of the role of the sciences in the university, and of his analysis of the university as the housing of the sciences. His vision is that the German university, grounded in the essence of science, can serve to guide the historical destiny of human being. Since Hei­ degger holds that human being is definitively constituted as in­ quirer, and he takes modem human being to inquire first and foremost as scientist, he envisions the university as the institu­ tion in which human being realizes itself in the modem epoch. His disillusionment with that vision comes with the realization that, whereas he calls for a renewal of science for the sake of the sciences themselves in their service of human being and the history of being, the Nazi call for a renewal of the sciences is toward their own political ends in shaping the destiny of the German people. What little I have to say about Heidegger's involvement with National Socialism is found in this chapter. The next chapter treats Heidegger's view of ancient science. I focus first on Heidegger's uncovering of being as
INTRODUCTION

11

on the basis of an internal drive. An artifact, however, requires something outside itself to bring it to fulfillment: an artist. This distinction echoes, Heidegger argues, the pre-Socratic under­ standing of being as q)1JOL�, since it is as nature that being first and foremost comes to presence. Aristotle's understanding of nature as form and matter, however, despite the priority he as­ signs to form, opens up the possibility of understanding nature by analogy to artifact. As the human artisan imposes form onto matter in the creative act, so nature can be understood as having a creator. Things in nature can be experienced as artifacts of di­ vine origin. This possibility of understanding nature is for Hei­ degger decisive to the subsequent history of the West. He reads Aristotle's Physics to rethink nature as more than an analogue of the artifact. In the final chapter I turn to the question of the relation be­ tween modem science and technology and substantiate my ar­ gument that the ancient distinction between q)1JOL� and 'tEXV1] is not sustained in the modem epoch. In 1966, in a letter to Profes­ sor Schrynemakers, Heidegger suggests three sets of questions to the participants of a symposium on the influence of his think­ ing. The first is the question posed in Being and Time of the mean­ ing of being, whether that question has been taken up, if it is possible to do so, and how it characterizes his relation to the Western tradition of thinking. The second is the question of the limits of Being and Time, what an account of the epochs of being accomplishes as an interpretation of the age of technology. The third raises the issue of the relation of being to modem science. Heidegger hopes the symposium will work out one of these questions. I suggest that these three questions are different for­ mulations of the same issue that cannot be worked out sepa­ rately. Being, science, and technology are bound together in a critique of modernity. Ten years later, in 1976, Heidegger formulates the question of science and technology as one question: "Is modem natural science the foundation of modem technology-as is sup­ posed-or is it, for its part, already the basic form of technologi­ cal thinking, the determining fore-conception and incessant incursion of technological representation into the realized and organized machinations of modem technology?" (MNST 3). In

12

INTRODUCTION

Heidegger's analysis, modem science is not simply the founda­ tion of technology, but rather the basic form of technological thinking. His insight is that what was originally for the Greeks a difference so radical as to preclude identity through analogy is in modernity an unsustainable distinction. Hence Heidegger's claim that the essence of science lies in the essence of technology.

I

trace his account of the relation between the two and show

how he understands the essence of technology to have arisen out of the essence of modem science. For modem science moves much like ancient "tEXVT]: the scientist begins with an idea which is then imposed onto nature. I close with a short comment on Heidegger's view of quantum theory in which I argue that he recognizes no significant distinc­ tion between Newtonian physics and quantum mechanics. Al­ though Heidegger understands the difference between the mathematics of each, he holds that definitive of Newtonian physics is its projection of nature as a coherence of forces calcu­ lable in advance. Quantum physics shares this projection in Hei­ degger's account. I use Bell's inequalities to assess Heidegger's analysis of quantum physics in order to ask whether his view holds beyond the science of his day into more recent develop­ ments in quantum theory. It is impossible to pursue Heidegger's philosophy of science without encountering the questions of metaphysics, technology, and representational thinking. This is not because Heidegger's account of science is derivative upon these other issues, but rather because his developing views on science underlie these issues that are so Significant to his thought. Although a substan­ tial body of literature has developed in recent years on the ques­ tion of Heidegger's analysis of science, no text to date has systematically explored its place in his thinking. Griinder's claim that the problem of science pervades Heidegger's writings continues to hold true beyond

1956

when Griinder made it. I

show that the question of science is foundationally informative of Heidegger's work and is basic to a novel and coherent, sys­ tematic account of his thinking, as well as a contribution to phi­ losophy of science.

This reading of Heidegger is radical. It cuts to the root of his thinking, for I argue that what are taken to be Heidegger's many

INTRODUCTION

13

and significant contributions to philosophy-that is, his over­ coming of metaphysics, his rereading of the ancients, his critique of technology and representational thinking, his vision and revi­ sion of language, truth and thinking-have at their core an in­ quiry into science that drove his thinking for sixty years. I am not arguing for a new reading of a few texts, or for adjustments and refinements of existing readings of Heidegger. Rather, I am bringing to light a new basis on which to interpret his work as a whole. I am not suggesting that there do not exist already in­ sightful and important interpretations of his work. Heidegger may be right that "Every thinker thinks one only thought" (WeT 50/WHD 58), but the richness of the history of philosophy speaks to the multiple possibilities for envisioning such a thought. I read Heidegger's thought as a philosophy of science.

1 Metaphysics, Mathematics, and Science HEIDEGGER'S ACCOUNT of science can be concisely expressed by

the thesis that modem natural science consists in the mathemati­ cal projection of nature. This view is evident as early as 1916 in "Der Zeitbegriff in der Geschichtswissenschaft," where he dis­ tinguishes history from natural science on the basis of the projec­ tion of the time concept in each. It is explicit in §69 of Being and Time, where his analysis of the theoretical attitude echoes the account he gives of Galileo in 1916 and takes up again in 1935. The end of Heidegger's early view of science is evident in that 1935 text, Die Frage nach dem Ding, as well as in Introduction to Metaphysics. In Die Frage nach dem Ding, Heidegger does not re­ linquish the idea that science is the mathematical projection of nature, but he has untangled that thesis from a second thesis central to his early view: that metaphysics is itself a science. Heidegger's philosophy of science from 1916 to the mid-1930s cannot be understood apart from his account of metaphysics as science. Explication of this early view entails laying out his ac­ count of the relation between metaphysics and natural science. Heidegger begins by taking metaphysics to ground the sciences. He does not remain satisfied with this view, but rather eventu­ ally determines the relation between metaphysics and science as the mathematical. For Heidegger, the mathematical is that which is known beforehand and brought to experience by the under­ standing. In Being and Time and in Basic Problems of Phenomenol­ ogy, he begins his inquiry into the question of being with the ontic fact that any understanding of beings entails a prior projec­ tion of being. In Basic Problems of Phenomenology, the object of fundamental ontology as Heidegger envisions it is being, and the task is the investigation of being in order to secure the sci­ ences in their regional ontology.

15

METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE

Regional ontology is the condition for the possibility of any science. Heidegger argues in Basic Problems of Phenomenology that all non-philosophical sciences, that is, the positive sciences, "have as their theme some being or beings, and indeed in such a way that they are in every case antecedently given as beings to those sciences. They are posited by them in advance" (BPP 13/ GP 17). Sciences are positive in the sense that they posit their realm of objects in a regional ontology. Regional ontology is the determination of the subject area of a science by projection of what Heidegger calls, in

29/529).

Being and Time,

"basic concepts"

(BT

By projecting a basic concept, the scientist establishes

a realm of possible objects of inquiry, a "world" in Heidegger's second of the four senses of that term in

52 64-65).

Being and Time (BT 93/

Heidegger suggests that the movement of the sci­

ences happens when their basic concepts "undergo more or less radical revision" (BT 29/529), much as Thomas Kuhn argues that sciences move through paradigm shifts during crises. In The

Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics

in

1929-30,

Heidegger de­

scribes such a situation with respect to the life sciences. Biology, he argues, confronts the task of developing "an entirely new projection of the objects of its enquiry" (FCM 188/GM

278).

In Being and Time, Heidegger argues that the basic concepts of a science are transparent to it, as

Kuhn

holds in his historical

analysis that paradigms shifts come from within the sciences themselves.

In the 1929-30 lectures, however, the situation is not

quite so simple. Heidegger describes a circular interrelatedness between metaphysicS and science. The proposition that ex­ presses the presupposition essential to, in Heidegger's example, zoology, does not come from zoology, yet it cannot be "eluci­ dated independently of zoology either" (FCM 187/GM 276). What is this interrelatedness? Heidegger argues that ordinary understanding finds such circularity objectionable, and he in­ sists that the movement is not dialectic. Later, throughout sev­ eral texts but especially in "Science and Reflection," Heidegger will argue that no science has access to its own essence; he calls a science's basic concept "das Unumgiingliche" (SR 177IVA 60), that which cannot be gotten around. No science can raise the question of the projection of the being of its objects that makes it possible. Yet the move to this blindness on the part of the sci-

16

' HEIDEGGER S PIDLOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

ences--called "one-sidedness" in What Is Called Thinking?-and hence to the problem of whence comes critical thinking of sci­ ence is a development in Heidegger's thinking. In Being and Time and Basic Problems of Phenomenology, Heidegger holds that phe­ nomenology is the method of scientific philosophy that can raise precisely the question of the grounding of the sciences in their a priori projection of being. In Being and Time, Heidegger uses phenomenology as the method for raising the question of being. Both this text and Basic Problems of Phenomenology explore temporality as fundamental to the constitution of Dasein, and both texts are aborted projects. In §69 of Being and Time, Heidegger analyzes the shift in under­ standing from everyday, concernful dealings to the theoretical attitude. He is interested in the change in understanding being that the theoretical attitude involves. As in Basic Problems of Phe­ nomenology, Heidegger holds in Being and Time that an under­ standing of being underwrites the sciences, and his interest is in laying this understanding bare. Hence the theses that philoso­ phy is a science and that science is the mathematical projection of nature are entwined in Heidegger's phenomenology: scien­ tific philosophy raises the question of the projection of being at work in the sciences. That is to say, philosophy is a science for Heidegger insofar as it is metaphysics, and metaphysics unfolds in 1927 in two tasks: first, Being and Time is an attempt at an analytic of Dasein; and second, Basic Problems of Phenomenology is an attempt at grounding the sciences. In 1928, these two tasks coincide in the self-undermining of metaphysics. Heidegger argues in The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic that the concept of metaphYSics consists in fundamental ontology and metontology (MFL IS8/MAL 202). He introduces metontology to characterize the recoil (Umschlag) at the heart of fundamental ontology in which ontology turns back on itself by placing into question the very notion of questioning. In W illiam McNeill's reading of this obscure moment of recoil, Dasein as questioner is unsettled. McNeill argues (1992:76) that the shift (Umschlag) Heidegger describes in §69 of Being and Time, which he attempts to analyze again in Basic Problems of Phenomenology, is this very turning into metontology in which ontology recoils upon itself, and that this moment of recoil is found again in the

METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE

17

interpretation of Antigone in Introduction to Metaphysics. In the former two texts, argues McNeill, the withdrawal of the meaning of being is so radical that the possibility of thematizing the pro­ jection of beings as a whole is "far from assured" (1992:77). In Introduction to Metaphysics, the question of being is displaced by the withdrawal of being which prevails as being's appearance in beings: "because such withdrawal prevails precisely as the appearing of being in beings, being can no longer be thought of as the 'earlier,' the apriori ground of beings" (McNeill 1992:78). The year 1935 is therefore a crucial one in Heidegger's thinking. The thesis that has driven his inquiry into being through Being and Time and Basic Problems of Phenomenology, that being is an a priori project, stands in conflict with the regional ontologies of the sciences. For the apophantic moment in which beings are uncovered is the withdrawal of being, not its presencing for thinking. McNeill's reading of metontology can be applied to the ten­ sion at the heart of the entanglement of scientific philosophy with the sciences understood as the mathematical projection of nature. When the a priori projection of being becomes problem­ atic because it is a withdrawal and not a presence, the projection of being at work in the regional ontology of science becomes likewise awkward. If phenomenological inquiry with being as its object is no longer possible, since the a priori nature of such an understanding of being has been undermined, then the ques­ tion of what metaphysical assumptions underwrite science be­ comes not only sensible but also demanded: if being's withdrawal precludes its aprioricity, then on what basis can the sciences be taken to have a metaphysical grounding? It is pre­ cisely this question that Heidegger asks in Die Frage nach dem Ding, and which he answers with the notion of the mathemat­ ical. Accordingly, the two theses that Heidegger holds until the 1930s with respect to science-that philosophy is itself scientific and that science is the mathematical projection of nature-are entangled insofar as he takes the task of scientific philosophy to be the investigation of being as a means for establishing the re­ gional ontologies of the sciences on sure ground. The possibility of such an investigation is undermined by the realization that

18

' HEIDEGGER S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

the projection of the being of beings is simultaneously a with­ drawal of being. Hence Heidegger is drawn to the question of the metaphysical ground of the sciences, an investigation he un­ dertakes in Die Frage nach dem Ding by uncovering the metaphys­ ics of modem science at work in Galileo and Newton and quintessentially formulated in Descartes's foundation of the sci­ ences upon the self-certainty of the knowing subject. Heidegger's move from philosophy as science to the question of the sciences themselves can be thought through by tracing the separation of the two theses that characterize his early view. Heidegger gives up the thesis that philosophy is scientific, and subsequently goes on to rethink the thesis that science is the mathematical projection of nature. He does not simply tum from metaphysics and thereby come to science. Rather, his thinking is driven by the question of being, and I argue that the failure of his attempt to give the sciences a metaphysical grounding is at the heart of his tum away from metaphysics. To examine Heidegger's thesis that philosophy is itself a science, one must read that thesis against the background of Husserl's conception of rigorously scientific philosophy: phe­ nomenology. Joseph Kockelmans

(1985)

has given an extensive

treatment of the Hegelian and Husserlian background against which Heidegger's thinking of science comes about. Rather than repeat that work, I will point only to the question of philosophy as rigorous science. Heidegger repudiates Husserl's

epoche

and

prefers to make ontology central rather than bracket it. For Hei­ degger argues that whereas ontic sciences proceed on the basis of a regional ontology, taking as object some realm of being, scientific philosophy (i.e., ontology) takes as its object being it­ self. His break with Husser!, despite the apparent ambivalence he shows toward Husserl in

1925 in History of the Concept of Time,

is his insistence that ontology is precisely the issue at stake if philosophy is to be properly scientific. It is the history of ontology that Heidegger wishes to destruct­ ure in Being and

Time, and it is ontology that he names as scien­ Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Yet these

tific philosophy in

texts lead Heidegger to the question, what is metaphysics? Hei­ degger's reading of Husserl leads him to Kant and away from the claim that ontology is the science that has being as its object,

METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE

19

to the claim that being is not an object at all. In his entanglement with Kant, Heidegger fails to distinguish the pure from the a priori in the first Critique. Hence when Heidegger appeals to the notion of certainty in modem science, he calls that certainty mathematical rather than a priori. Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, situated between the in­ quiries into ontology and the 1929 address on metaphysics, is the text wherein Heidegger makes the shift from ontology to metaphysics. Heidegger holds, under the influence of Husserl, that philosophy is a science; and against Husser!, that scientific philosophy is ontology. The latter claim pushes Heidegger back to Kant, wherein he confronts metaphysics. It is Heidegger's overcoming of Kant that constitutes as a single move his aban­ donment of the claim that philosophy is itself a science and his abandonment of metaphysics. That move is the insight in Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics that philosophy cannot provide a ground for the sciences. Philosophy as science had always been intended by Heidegger to do exactly that, and hence in discard­ ing that task he discards the thesis that philosophy is a science. Having worked through the history of philosophy as science, Heidegger is drawn to the sciences. In 1929, in The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, he thematizes the life sciences, specifi­ cally biology and zoology; and in 1935, in Die Frage nach dem Ding, he treats explicitly the physics of Galileo and Newton. In the claim that science consists in the mathematical projection of nature, Heidegger considers science in the narrow sense of natu­ ral science. He examines Galileo's free-fall experiment and New­ ton's first law of motion as a rethinking of the mathematical. On the basis of a radical interpretation, Heidegger proposes that the mathematical is the metaphysical moment of modem science. My strategy is therefore straightforward. I look at how philos­ ophy as rigorous science is different in Heidegger's account from Husserl's, and then assess Heidegger's reading of Kant on metaphysics and the a priori. This will bring me directly to the notion of the mathematical in Heidegger, and I will examine the thesis that physics consists in the mathematical projection of nature in Heidegger's analyses of Galileo and Newton. A con­ cluding section on metaphysics and the mathematical will lay the groundwork for Heidegger's subsequent philosophy of sci-

20

HElDEGGER'S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

ence. Hence this chapter shows how Heidegger moves from phi­ losophy as science to philosophy of science.

HUSSERL: PHILOSOPHY As RIGOROUS SCIENCE

In 1925, Heidegger argues that it was Husserl who founded sci­ entific philosophy as phenomenology in his Logical Investigations (HeT 24/ PG2 30). In Being and Time, Heidegger acknowledges several debts to Husserl. He dedicates the book to him and ap­ propriates his maxim of phenomenology, "To the things them­ selves" (BT 58/52 34). In a footnote, he says that Husserl "enabled us to understand once more the meaning of any genu­ ine philosophical empiricism" (BT 490, n. x/52 50, Anm. x). In another note, he attributes to Husserl the temporal interpreta­ tion of metaphysics as presence that he himself intends to inves­ tigate as an exploration of the ecstatical unity of Dasein (BT 498, n. xxiii/52 363, Anm. xxiii), but which remained unpublished. He further claims that Husserl's Logical Investigations prepared the ground for Being and Time, since it was therein that phenom­ enology first emerged (BT 62/52 38). Yet Heidegger rejects Husserl's phenomenology by arguing that what is essential in phenomenology is not its actuality as a philosophical movement. "Higher than actuality stands possibil­ ity" (BT 63/52 38), and it is the possibility of phenomenology that Heidegger wishes to seize upon. When he distinguishes his project from anthropology, he cites Husserl's "Philosophy as Rigorous Science" for the recognition that a person is not a thing (BT 73, n. v / 52 47-48), that is, Dasein is not simply present-at­ hand. Yet when he argues that the limitation of the anthropologi­ cal inquiry is that "the cogitationes are either left ontologicaliy undetermined, or get tacitly assumed as something 'self-evi­ dently' 'given' whose 'Being' is not to be questioned" (BT 75/ 52 49), he must be referring to Husserl. In Basic Problems of Phe­ nomenology, Heidegger locates this criticism of Husserl-that he fails to question being-in the epoche. Heidegger did not allow the text of his 1927 lecture course on phenomenology to be published until 1975, when it appeared as Volume 24 of the Gesamtausgabe. The explicit acknowledgment

METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE

21

Being and Time is not Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Yet the introduction

of Husserlian phenomenology found in evident in

appears to have been cribbed from Husser!'s contribution to the first volume of

Logos in 1911, "Philosophy as R igorous Science."

Here Husser! distinguishes phenomenology as scientific philos­ ophy from Weltanschauung philosophy, precisely the distinction at work in Heidegger's introduction to Basic Problems of Phenome­

nology. Husser! argues in "Philosophy as Rigorous Science" for a phi­ losophy that is scientific, rather than either naturalism or Weltan­

schauung

philosophy. Naturalism in his account naturalizes

consciousness and ideas on the basis of empirical science. The naturalist, Husser! claims, seeks to lay out the natural laws of thinking and "believes that through natural science and through a philosophy based on the same science the goal has for the most part been attained" (PRS 169). Like contemporary cognitive sci­ ence, naturalism looks for laws of nature to describe thought. But, criticizes Husser!, this position is self-refuting since it be­ gins with a theoretical absurdity. Since it binds itself to empirical science, which deals only in bodies, and consciousness is not a body, Husser! sees implicit in naturalism the preclusion of the very thing it seeks to investigate. Insofar as contemporary cogni­ tive science looks to the brain to explain the mind, it is suscepti­ ble to the same criticism. Husser! suggests "a phenomenology of consciousness as opposed to a natural science about con­ sciousness" (PRS 173). This phenomenology investigates the intentional correlates of consciousness and hence clarifies all fundamental kinds of objec­ tivities. It pursues the relation between consciousness and being not as the relation between mind and bodies but rather as the relation between subjective consciousness and intentional ob­ jects within consciousness. Hence it is related to psychology, but whereas psychology concerns itself with empirical conscious­ ness, phenomenology in Husser!'s sense deals with pure con­ sciousness, that is, essences and essential relations. It "makes no use of the existential positing of nature" (PRS 183) but seeks to investigate what the psychic is. Psychology, on the other hand, begins with a supposition of the psychic, and hence Husser! calls absurd its hope to "give scientific value to the designation of the

22

' HEIDEGGER S PIDLOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

psychical" (PRS 184). Hence Husserl's philosophy as rigorous science can be neither naturalism nor psychology. Furthermore, Husserl is not arguing for Weltanschauung phi­ losophy. The latter seeks the wisdom of the age, he claims, that "according to the situation of the time, harmoniously satisfies both intellect and feeling" (PRS 194). Scientific philosophy, on the other hand, is impersonal and requires not wisdom but theo­ retical talent by means of which it "increases a treasure of eter­ nal validities" (PRS 195). It bears the stamp of eternity, and hence it "alone is capable of providing a foundation for a philos­ ophy of spirit" (PRS 189). Indeed, this is what scientific philoso­ phy is about in Husserl's view: it is radical and foundational, a science of true beginnings, of origins, and it "must not rest until it has attained its own absolutely clear beginnings" (PRS 196) . Husserl envisions this philosophy as a scientific critique of rea­ son that has a rigorous method of proceeding and which pro­ vides a sure foundation both for itself and for cultural practices like the sciences. Likewise, Heidegger rejects worldview philosophy as inade­ quately radical in Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Like Husser!, he finds that worldview philosophy is limited by its belonging to "the particular contemporary Dasein at any given time" (BPP 6/GP 7). It arises for a particular factical Dasein. Although Hei­ degger is interested precisely in the scientific construction of a worldview, his philosophy "must define what in general consti­ tutes the structure of a worldview" (BPP lO/GP 13). Hence that philosophy is not directed at the formation of a particular world­ view, but nonetheless remains at the foundation of worldview formation. Accordingly, Heidegger's phenomenology is, like Husserl's, an alternative to Weltanschauung philosophy. But Hei­ degger's conception of phenomenology is fundamentally at odds with Husserl's. For both Heidegger and Husser!, phenomenology is a method, and for each it begins with a reduction. Yet their reductions move in opposite directions. Husserl turns away from the ques­ tion of being. He is prepared, at §148 to §150 of Ideas, for exam­ ple, to take up the questions of formal and regional ontology. But he disregards the question of being by suggesting that for his inquiry, fantasies such as "winged horses, white ravens,

METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE

23

golden mountains, and the like" (Hussed 1983:356/Ideen 310) serve just as well as examples of physical objects as things in actual experience. Hussed is interested in physical objects as in­ tentional correlates of consciousness and not as bodies consti­ tuted outside of consciousness. Subsequently, he claims at §59 of Cartesian Meditations that the task of an ontology of the real wodd is, though necessary, not philosophical, and at §60 of the same text that the results of his inquiry are metaphysical only as "anything but metaphysics in the customary sense" (1960:139; 1950:166). Hussed's concern is meaning, not being. And indeed, Heidegger repudiates Hussed in 1929 precisely for his idealistic epistemology, for failing to "ask the question about the being constituted as consciousness" (MFL 133/MAL 167). Whereas Hussed's epoche is the bracketing of ontology, for Heidegger "phenomenological reduction means leading phe­ nomenological vision back from the apprehension of a being . . . to the understanding of the being of this being" (BPP 21/GP 29). Heidegger's reduction is precisely to the question of being. It is first a negative move away from the particular being, and second a positive construction of being that brings it into view "in a free projection" (BPP 22/ GP 29). This projection is free in that it does not reduce being by making it accessible as a being. These two basic components of Heidegger's method, combined with the destruction of traditional use of concepts as the third, are "phi­ losophy as science, . . . the concept of phenomenological investi­ gation" (BPP 23/GP 31). Phenomenology is for Heidegger the scientific method of ontology, and he therefore rejects Hussed's phenomenology, which begins by precluding the question of being. Heidegger's criticism of Hussed here leads him directly to Kant, and indeed Heidegger's focal criticism of Hussed is that he is neo-Kantian. He charges Hussed with following Kant in taking existence to mean extantness (BPP 28/GP 36), and later with using Descartes's distinction between res cogitans and res extensa in order to characterize subjectivity (BPP 124-25/GP 175-76). Hence Hussed's separation of beings into subjectivity and objectivity presses the question of the unity of being. Yet, as Hofstadter notes in the introduction to his translation, Heidegger chooses Kant, not Hussed, "as the most suitable rep-

24

' HEIDEGGER S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

resentative of the problem" (BPP xvi). Heidegger has already argued in 1925, in History of the Concept of Time, that the Marburg school misinterprets Kant by appropriating him to psychology, that is, by reading him as "working out the constitutive mo­ ments of knowledge in the form of a science of consciousness" (HCT 16/PGZ 18). For Heidegger, reading Kant is an opportu­ nity to think his work as metaphysics rather than epistemology, and to retrieve a "philosophy of science" (HCT 16/PGZ 18), as he called it in 1925, that is obscured by Husserlian psychologistic subjectivism. In his investigation into the thesis of logic, the "is" of the cop­ ula, Heidegger commends Husserl for bringing logic to light. But he "did not succeed in conceiving logic philosophically" (BPP 178/GP 253), rather tending to develop it as a separate science in the conceptual schemata of neo-Kantianism. Heideg­ ger takes such preoccupation with propositional logic in ques­ tioning truth and being to be a "principal criterion of neo­ Kantianism" (BPP 201/GP 286) and argues that it was Husserl who first drew the distinction between making a judgment and its factual content that makes such an approach possible. Hus­ serl is accordingly not only neo-Kantian for Heidegger, but fur­ ther, a basis for neo-Kantianism. Hence Heidegger's treatment of Husserl in Basic Problems of Phenomenology brings him face-to­ face with Kant. Indeed, in his rejection of worldview philosophy, Heidegger pinpoints the entry of the word "Weltanschauung" into philoso­ phy in Kant's Critique of Judgment. Here it means "a beholding of the world as simple apprehension of nature in the broadest sense" (BPP 4/GP 6). He says that this usage dies out, but he attempts to retrieve something of it by appealing to Kant's dis­ tinction between the academic and cosmic concepts of philoso­ phy. The latter investigates the end of human reason, that for the sake of which reason is what it is, while the former is "the whole of all the formal and material fundamental concepts and principles of rational knowledge" (BPP 8/GP 10). This gets at the distinction Heidegger wants to draw between scientific and worldview philosophy, since in making his distinction Kant brings the question of the end of human reason to the center of the question of philosophy. But it is an inadequate distinction

METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE

25

for Heidegger, since philosophy in the cosmic sense does not have as its task the question of the development of a worldview, and Heidegger's inquiry, though not directed at the formation of a particular worldview, is aimed at the foundation of worldview formation. Accordingly, Heidegger does not set his task in the early years differently from Husserl's vision of his task. Both seek to investi­ gate what is foundational and hence prior to a worldview, and both resist naturalism, psychology, and the entrenchment of philosophy in a worldview. Yet the two are in fundamental dis­ agreement about what the scientific philosophy is that pursues their chosen task. Each calls his method phenomenology, but whereas for Husser! that means the radical investigation of con­ sciousness and not being, for Heidegger it means precisely the question of being. So formulated, Heidegger's phenomenology leads him from Husser! back to Kant.

KANT AND METAPHYSICS: GROUNDING SCIENCE Heidegger's ear!y view of the sciences is colored by his commit­ ment to metaphysics, which is for him philosophy proper be­ cause he holds that metaphysics is itself a science: the science of being. Basic Problems of Phenomenology operates within a tension in which metaphysics understood as ontology is a science, yet thoroughly distinct in Heidegger's view from the sciences. He separates them on the basis that the sciences are positive, that is, they work with some realm of beings whose being is posited. Metaphysics, however, has as its object being rather than a par­ ticular realm of beings. Whereas sciences proceed on the basis of regional ontology, scientific philosophy is fundamental on­ tology. In 1929, two years after Being and Time, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics was published. This text begins the separation of philosophy and the sciences that will serve as the basis for Hei­ degger's critique of representational thinking. His abandonment of metaphysics as the science of being and his later critique of the sciences both arise from a tension in his reading of Kant: on the one hand, ontology is the science of being; on the other hand,

26

' HEIDEGGER S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

it is not a positive science. This cmoQLa dissolves in the claim that being is not an object of cognition. But therefore philosophical thinking cannot be for Heidegger a positive science. His inter­ pretation of Kant plays a key role in his thinking on the relation between and subsequent separation of metaphysics and science. In Being and Time, Heidegger distinguishes everyday under­ standing from the theoretical attitude. Basic Problems of Phenome­ nology aligns ontology with the theoretical attitude since Heidegger argues that philosophy is itself a science, "the science of being" (BPP Ilff. /GP 15). Ontology is so scientific that "the expression 'scientific philosophy' contains a pleonasm" (BPP 4/ GP 4). Heidegger's concern in Basic Problems of Phenomenology is to show that scientific philosophy is ontology, and thereby to retrieve the question of being from its history. Yet ontology occu­ pies the ambiguous position here that, though a science, it is distinguished from the positive sciences. The difference between the positive sciences and ontology is that whereas positive sci­ ences "deal with that which is, with beings . . . with specific domains, for instance, nature" (BPP 13/GP 17), philosophy has being as its object. The positive sciences are grounded in re­ gional ontology and are only possible on the basis of that prior understanding of being. The task of ontology is precisely the inquiry into that prior understanding. Heidegger rejects ontotheology in his ubiquitous claim that being is not itself a being. In both Basic Problems of Phenomenology and Being and Time, he attributes to Kant the thesis that "being is not a real predicate" (BPP 27ff./GP 35; BT 127/5Z 94). In the latter text, he explains that this claim means exactly that being is not accessible as an entity (BT 127/5Z 94; d. BT 23/5Z 4). In the former, he explains further that the claim that being is not a real predicate means "that something like existence does not belong to the determinateness of a concept at all" (BPP 32/GP 42). The distinction at work here between existence and reality is one he draws from Kant. Heidegger argues that reality for Kant is synonymous with Leibniz's term possibilitas. Realities are "the what-contents of possible things in general without regard to whether or not they are actual" (BPP 34/GP 45). Reality belongs to the category of quality, whereas existence belongs to the category of modality.

' HEIDEGGER S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

28

For, argues Heidegger, extantness belongs to an existent thing whether it is perceived or not, since it is only on the basis of a prior extantness that a thing can be perceived

(BPP 49, 70ff. /GP 66, 98-99). Extantness is a sufficient but not necessary condition for being perceived. Accordingly, Heidegger objects that "posi­ tion in the sense of positedness is not the being of beings . . . rather, it is at most the

how of being apprehended of something (BPP 49 /GP 49). Kant's account of being falls short. Although in 1925, in History of the Concept of Time, Heidegger posited"

saw the possibility of a retrieval of Kant away from epistemology and toward metaphysics, and the promise in Kant of a treatment of the question of being, in 1927 he finds the latter hope disap­ pointed. Yet Kant's metaphysics is the location Heidegger chooses to begin his laying bare of the basic problems of phenomenology. For Kant's claim that existence is added synthetically to the con­ cept is food for thought about being. In fact, Kant's synthetic a priori cannot but be intriguing to the thinker who argues in

Being and Time that the understanding which discloses entities in their possibility has a projective fore-structure that understands being

(BT 192-93/5Z 151).

Heidegger asks whether simply to

say that this "fore" is "a priori" is to conceive adequately of its character. And he finds that it is not, for the a priori project is of meaning, which characterizes Dasein, and he instead wishes "to make the scientific theme secure by working out these fore­ structures in terms of the things themselves"

(BT 195/5Z 153).

In other words, the inquiry of Being and Time is scientific insofar as it investigates not transcendental subjectivity, but rather the question of being. Hence the eventual abandonment of the project of

Time.

Being and

As long as Heidegger undertakes his journey around the

hermeneutic circle as an analytic of Dasein, he will remain in an idealist metaphysics. But he is not yet ready to give up the at­ tempt to retrieve philosophy from that history of metaphysics as idealism. Instead, he goes at the problem differently in

Problems of Phenomenology.

Basic

He seeks still a scientific philosophy

for which the basic issue is the question of being, but in this text he explores the relation between ontology and the sciences. The positive sciences provide Heidegger with a different access to

METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE

29

the question of the projection of being, since each positive sci­ ence is grounded in a regional ontology, precisely such a projec­ tion. Hence the grounding of the positive sciences is a perfect location for scrutinizing the a priori nature of understanding in which being is that a priori. Early in

Basic Problems of Phenomenology, Heidegger raises the (BPP 20/GP 27).

question of being as a problem of the a priori

Being is always prior to beings in understanding. It is not prior in the sense of clock time, but in the sense that "it is implicit in the basic constitution of the Dasein itself that, in existing, the Dasein also already understands the mode of being of the ex­ tant" (BPP 71 /GP 100). Likewise, in Being and Time, Heidegger notes the a priori nature of being in a world for Dasein (BT 144/

5Z 110; d. BT 249/5Z 206). Furthermore, in Basic Problems of Phenomenology, he comes back to the question of the a priori in his closing statement. Plato is "the discoverer of the a priori"

(BPP 326 /GP 463-64)

who expresses that discovery in his doc­

(BPP 326/ GP 464-65). Demythologizing this claim, Heidegger interprets it

trine that "learning itself is nothing but recollection"

to mean that "being has the character of the prius which the human being, who is familiar first and foremost with beings, has forgotten" (BPP 326 /GP 465). Liberation from Plato's cave is precisely the retrieval of the a priori (i.e., being) from this obliv­ ion in forgottenness. What is at stake in Basic Problems of Phenom­

enology

is how being stands as an a priori in the ontological

difference.

On this basis,

Heidegger argues that there is a twofold possi­

bility of objectivity and therefore two possible types of science: "objectification of beings as positive science; objectification of being as Temporal or transcendental science"

(BPP 327/GP 466).

That is, there are positive sciences whose grounds are laid in regional ontologies, the objectification of beings, and there is in Heidegger's account a further science that objectifies being yet is not grounded in a regional ontology. This is the science of being, and it is not positive for Heidegger. It does not posit being, but rather seeks to explain "why the ontological determi­ nations of being have the character of apriority" (BPP 325/GP means of an inquiry into the temporality of the under­ standing of being.

462) by

' HEIDEGGER S PIDLOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

30

Hence under Heidegger's reading, Kant, rather than denying the possibility of metaphysics, "is in search precisely of a scien­ tific metaphysics, a scientific ontology"

(BPP 30/GP 39).

Yet in

that reading, Kant's search fails. Kant speaks of the concept of being, but in

Der einzig miigliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstra­ tion des Daseins Gottes (5.78) he declares it an unanalyzable con­

cept. The suggestion "that the concept of 'Being' is indefinable"

(BT 23/52 4)

is one of the three presuppositions against which

Heidegger argues for the necessity of raising the question of being in the opening pages of

Being and Time.

The meaning of

being is not eliminated as a question by the indefinability of the concept. The latter shows, rather, that this question must be faced. Kant never faces it, argues Heidegger in Basic Problems

nomenology,

of Phe­

since he does not go beyond understanding being

as position to the analysis called for by the indefinability of the concept. Likewise, Heidegger argues in Being and Time that Kant failed to achieve insight into the problem of temporality because "he altogether neglected the problem of Being . . . [and] failed to provide an ontology with Dasein as its theme"

(BT 45/52 24).

Heidegger does recognize that the problems of a theory of knowledge and of the question of being are related. He argues that attempts to solve the problem of reality "in ways which arc just 'epistemological' ''

(BT 252/52 208)

show that the problem,

as ontological, must be taken back to an existential analytic of Dasein. But Heidegger's call to an analytic of Dasein toward a renewed metaphysics is a question of emphasis and a shift away from neo-Kantian interpretations. That is, it is an attempt to do ontology by means of an inquiry into human understanding that does not reduce the issue to idealism. Heidegger sees himself in Being and

Phenomenology

Time and Basic Problems of

as a revisionist. He is undertaking the Kantian

task of grounding knowledge, but revising that task to achieve it successfully through an analysis of temporality. Kant's Coper­ nican revolution can be truly revolutionary-in fact, scientific­ for Heidegger only as an analytic of Dasein that does not lose sight of the question of being.

Basic Problems of Phenomenology is Time, an attempt to retrieve

then for Heidegger, as was Being and

the question of ontology from its collapse into epistemology

31

METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE

through an analytic of Dasein. He reads Kant as undertaking also precisely that task, but failing in that he does not see beyond being as position. Heidegger of course fails also insofar as both these texts remain incomplete. He undertakes the task again in

Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics.

Once again he locates his

inquiry in the relation between philosophy and the sciences, spe­ cifically, metaphysics and physics. The development of Heideg­ ger's thinking from the earlier two attempts is that now he denies that relation is one of ground, and on this basis he argues that his inquiry is into being, not knowledge. Heidegger argues in 1929 in Kant and the Problem ofMetaphysics that there is a specific sense in which Kant's first

Critique

is not

about knowledge. That is to say, "ontology in no way refers pri­ marily to the laying of the ground for the positive sciences" (KPM 8/ KM 12), but rather serves a "higher interest" of reason. This claim is a shift in Heidegger's thinking. It is a rejection of the Husserlian thesis that philosophy is a rigorous science in the sense that its primary task is a securing of the epistemological foundation of the sciences. Heidegger argues in 1929, as he has consistently argued before, that Kant's

Critique of Pure Reason

is

to be read as a ground-laying of the problem of metaphysics, not as a question of epistemology. He again takes exception to neo­ Kantian readings of the

Critique

as a theory of knowledge. But

for the first time he voices his discomfort with the neo-Kantians as the suggestion that the relation between metaphysics and the sciences is not one of ground. The question of being is for Kant, he argues, rather a transcendental inquiry. It is formulated on the assumption that objects must conform to our knowledge (KPM 8/KM 12-13). The issue is not What must things be like such that we can know them?, but What are the structures of knowledge to which objects must conform in order to be known? This is taken as Kant's Copernican revolution precisely in that it rewrites the question of knowledge as the question of the constitution of the transcendental subject rather than as the question of the constitution of things. But, Heidegger argues, Kant's inquiry does not shake the tra­ ditional account of truth as correspondence. Rather, foreshad­ owing "On the Essence of Truth," Heidegger argues that Kant's inquiry "actually presupposes it, indeed even grounds it for the

32

' HEIDEGGER S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

first time" (KPM 8/ KM 13), by showing that ontic truth can only achieve such correspondence if the being as a being is already apparent in its being, that is, on the basis of ontological truth. Kant's thinking is not revolutionary for Heidegger because it shifts the focus of the question of truth to the subject. Yet Hei­ degger sees in Kant's Copernican revolution the forcing of the question of ontology. He says the year before that reading an epistemological intent in Kant as a Copernican revolution is a misunderstanding (MFL 142/MAL 179). For Heidegger reads Kant as turning back the question of knowledge to its ground in the pre-understanding of being that makes any knowledge of particular beings possible (KPM l1 /KM 17). Accordingly, the knowledge of beings that is the sciences, for which an object is given in its being beforehand in a regional ontology, is exactly what Heidegger does not wish to pursue and does not see pursued in Kant's first Critique. Heidegger's claim that the purpose of the Critique is not primarily to ground the positive sciences is in essence the argument that ontology is not Simply propaedeutic to the positive sciences. In 1929 Heideg­ ger is concerned to distinguish ontology from the positive sci­ ences, that is, metaphysics from physics, as he was in Basic Problems of Phenomenology. In 1929 metaphysics is taken as ground-laying for the sciences, but ground-laying is now under­ stood as "elucidation of the essence of comporting toward be­ ings in which this essence shows itself in itself so that all assertions about it become provable on the basis of it" (KPM 7/ KM 10). Metaphysics establishes a comportment toward beings on the basis of which hypotheses can be proven. This change in view came about the year before. In fact, in 1928 Heidegger ar­ gued, contrary to his earlier view, that ontology is not a science. In 1928 Heidegger gave the lecture course that is published under the title The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic. Here he thought through the conjunction of the idea of being with the idea of ground. He argues that the problem of ground is also the central problem of logic (MFL 117/ MAL 144-45). But for Heidegger, "logic is nothing other than the metaphysics of truth" (MFL 213/ MAL 275). Truth is already thought in this text as the presence of being that makes possible the assertion and its correspondence. Ground is thus understood by Heidegger in

METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE

33

terms of Dasein's transcendence. Because Dasein transcends, it is free to think toward ends and reasons, hence to ask, why? Heidegger formulates ground as "essence, cause, truth or argu­ ment, intention" (MFL lIS/MAL 143). In taking beings as their object, the positive sciences obviously then inquire into grounds. But what of their ground? Heidegger argues that ontology­ that is, the question of beings as a whole-is not "a summary ontic in the sense of a general science that empirically assembles the results of the individual sciences" (MFL 157/ MAL 199-200). One cannot simply combine the regional ontologies of the sci­ ences to get at ontology. Accordingly, Heidegger argues for the first time, in what for him is a radical change from his earlier view, that "nonsensical at bottom is the expression 'scientific philosophy,' because philosophy is prior to all science, and can be so only because it is already, in an eminent sense, what 'sci­ ence' can be only in a derived sense" (MFL ISO/MAL 199-231). In his supplement, Heidegger again explicitly rejects the thesis that philosophy is a science. His claim is that in order to ground the sciences, philosophy must be something quite different from them. The thesis that philosophy is a science is given up pre­ cisely in order to argue that the task of philosophy, albeit not its only or primary task, is the grounding of the sciences. In

Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics,

when Heidegger again

takes up the question of the metaphysical grounding of the sci­ ences, he argues that metaphysics lays the ground for the sci­ ences by establishing a comportment toward beings that is secure in its own truth. The possibility of such comporting lies in the method of the natural sciences, upon which, according to Kant, "a light broke. . . . They realized that reason has insight only into what it produces itself according to its own design"

(CPR

Bxiii; KPM 7/KM 10). Heidegger interprets this observa­

tion as the recognition of a preliminary understanding of being at work in the sciences, and he focuses on the fact that it is being that is understood rather than on the a priori nature of such understanding. Since what makes the sciences possible is their preliminary understanding of being, ontology stands in relation to the sciences. Regional ontologies, not fundamental ontology, ground the sciences. Fundamental ontology is an inquiry into

34

' HEIDEGGER S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Dasein, as, for example, in Being and

Time. A regional ontology,

and not metaphysics, grounds physics in Heidegger's account. For, he argues, the relation between the two is such that one only comes to metaphysics through physics. Heidegger quotes Heinze on metaphysics: "It is a science that is, so to speak, out­ side of the field of physics, which lies on the other side of it"

(KPM 4/ KM 7). Metaphysics is meta precisely in that it is beyond physics, not prior to it. One does not, as the history of science shows, have first to do ontology to make scientific investigation possible.

In Being and Time

Heidegger argued that the sciences

cannot and should not wait for philosophy to do its ontological work before they proceed

(BT 76/5Z 51).

He argued there that

the task of philosophy is not one of grounding, but of recapitulat­

ing ontic

discovery in greater ontological transparency. The in­

sight that reason can be certain only of what it itself projects is an indication of a "fundamental conditional connection between ontic experience and ontological knowledge"

(KPM 7/KM 12).

One comes to the problem of fundamental ontology only when the sciences have done their work such that a pre1iminary under­ standing of being is evident. Metaphysics understood as funda­ mental

ontology

cannot

ground

the

sciences

because

it

necessarily follows upon them. Yet neither is metaphysics grounded in physics in Heidegger's account. Mathematical natural science is exhausted at the point at which a pre1iminary understanding of being is uncovered. The connection between ontic experience and ontological knowledge does not solve the problem of the pre1iminary under­ standing of being, but rather only points to it

(KPM 7/ KM 12).

To proceed with the task of laying a ground for metaphysics, the inner possibility of ontology must be shown. This could hardly be construed as the task of the positive sciences.

In Heidegger's

account, then, in 1925, the sciences do not ground metaphysics any more than metaphysics grounds them. Hence Heidegger ex­ plicitly separates scientific philosophy from the positive sciences radically in

Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics.

This is the sense for Heidegger in which Kant's first Critique is not about knowledge (KPM l1/KM 17). It is rather a ground­ laying for metaphysics. Heidegger understands !-lETa Ta qJUOLXU as "the title of a fundamental philosophical difficulty"

(KPM 4/

35

METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE

KM 7). Under Aristotle's much earlier analysis, Heidegger sug­ gests, a doubling is uncovered in metaphysics.

On the one hand,

it is knowledge of beings as beings; on the other hand, it is knowledge about the region of beings from which being as a whole determines itself. This doubling is reflected in a division of metaphysics into

metaphysica generalis, which is knowledge metaphysica specialis, knowledge of the

of beings in general, and

principal divisions of the former, that is, God, nature, and hu­ mankind.

An inquiry into metaphysica specialis is brought to the question of what makes possible such ontic knowledge, that is, knowl­ edge about particular beings, whether supreme, natural, or human. The fundamental philosophical difficulty that is meta­ physics consists in the fact that a being is always encountered with a previous understanding of its being. This preliminary un­ derstanding of being, questioned in metaphysica generalis, makes metaphysica specialis possible. The inquiry into metaphysica spe­ cialis is thus led back to metaphysica generalis, which is in the broadest sense the problem of ontological knowledge.

On this basis,

Heidegger argues that "transcendental knowl­

edge does not investigate the being itself, but rather the possibil­ ity of the preliminary understanding of Being" (KPM lO/KM

16). In Heidegger's account, Kant's inquiry in the first Critique is not simply a theory of experience or a theory of knowledge, but rather a laying of the groundwork for the problem of metaphys­ ics that is ontology. Kant's text "signifies . . . the working out of a complete determination of the 'whole contour' and the 'whole internal, articular structure' of ontology" (KPM l1 /KM 16). What is at stake under Heidegger's reading of the

Pure Reason

Critique of

is the inner possibility of ontology.

The task Heidegger envisions for Kant's text is to secure the possibility of questioning being, the a priori in knowledge. "How are synthetic a priori judgments possible?" is the question Heidegger acknowledges explicitly as that for the whole sake of which the

Critique is undertaken (KPM 10/KM 15).

But Heideg­

ger has dislocated Kant's question "How are synthetic a priori judgments possible?" from transcendental subjectivity, that is, from neo-Kantian accounts, and relocated it in ontology. What,

METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE

35

KM 7). Under Aristotle's much earlier analysis, Heidegger sug­ gests, a doubling is uncovered in metaphysics. On the one hand, it is knowledge of beings as beings; on the other hand, it is knowledge about the region of beings from which being as a whole determines itself. This doubling is reflected in a division of metaphysics into metaphysica generalis, which is knowledge of beings in general, and metaphysica specialis, knowledge of the principal divisions of the former, that is, God, nature, and hu­ mankind. An inquiry into metaphysica specialis is brought to the question of what makes possible such ontic knowledge, that is, knowl­ edge about particular beings, whether supreme, natural, or human. The fundamental philosophical difficulty that is meta­ physics consists in the fact that a being is always encountered with a previous understanding of its being. This preliminary un­ derstanding of being, questioned in metaphysica generalis, makes metaphysica specialis possible. The inquiry into metaphysica spe­ cialis is thus led back to metaphysica generalis, which is in the broadest sense the problem of ontological knowledge. On this basis, Heidegger argues that "transcendental knowl­ edge does not investigate the being itself, but rather the possibil­ ity of the preliminary understanding of Being" (KPM lO/KM 16). In Heidegger's account, Kant's inquiry in the first Critique is not simply a theory of experience or a theory of knowledge, but rather a laying of the groundwork for the problem of metaphys­ ics that is ontology. Kant's text "signifies . . . the working out of a complete determination of the 'whole contour' and the 'whole internal, articular structure' of ontology" (KPM l1 /KM 16). What is at stake under Heidegger's reading of the Critique of Pure Reason is the inner possibility of ontology. The task Heidegger envisions for Kant's text is to secure the possibility of questioning being, the a priori in knowledge. "How are synthetic a priori judgments possible?" is the question Heidegger acknowledges explicitly as that for the whole sake of which the Critique is undertaken (KPM 10/KM 15). But Heideg­ ger has dislocated Kant's question "How are synthetic a priori judgments possible?" from transcendental subjectivity, that is, from neo-Kantian accounts, and relocated it in ontology. What,

36

' HEIDEGGER S PHILOSOPHY

OF

SCIENCE

then, of that question? How are synthetic a priori judgments possible in Heidegger's account?

SYNTHETIC A PRIORI JUDGMENTS

In Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, Heidegger finds many senses of "synthetic" at work in the first Critique. Initially, he defines the synthetic nature of judgments in a twofold sense: "first, as judgments in general [which synthesize-i.e., con­ nect-subject and predicate]; and second, insofar as the legiti­ macy of the 'connection' (synthesis) of the representation is 'brought forth' (synthesis) from the being itself with which the judgment is concerned" (KPM 10/KM 15). These are the senses in which synthetic a posteriori judgments are synthetic. There is, however, a further sense of "synthetic" at work in synthetic a priori judgments. Because it is a priori, a synthetic a priori judg­ ment "should bring forth something about the being which was not derived experientially from it" (KPM lO/KM 15). These three senses of "synthesis" are complicated by a further distinction of synthesis into three kinds: veritative, predicative, and apophantic (KPM 19/ KM 29). Veritative synthesis is a medi­ ation between thinking and its object by intuition which makes judgments true or evident and is recognizable as the second of the syntheses defined earlier. In veritative synthesis lies also the predicative synthesis: the unification of various representations into a single concept. Predicative synthesis did not appear in the earlier account. Although the name suggests it is the synthesis of predicate and subject, it is defined here differently, and here Heidegger calls that synthesis of subject and predicate apophan­ tic. In yet a further synthesis (one could call it a meta-synthesis), predicative and apophantic synthesis are "joined together into a structural unity of syntheses" (KPM 19/ KM 29). Furthermore, the thrust of Heidegger's reading of Kant is that Kant's insight in the first Critique is that sensibility and understanding are syn­ thesized by imagination, which is not simply another faculty among the three but rather the basis for their structural unity. Now Heidegger's reading becomes interesting, rather than simply an explOSion of "synthesis" into more senses than one

METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE

37

can keep clear. Heidegger explicates in Section 31 the difference between the A and B editions of the first Critique. He argues that in the former Kant makes his insight into imagination as the synthesis of intuition and understanding, an insight that shows how understanding is inherently finite through its inseparability from possible experience, its bond to intuition. But, argues Hei­ degger, in the B edition Kant shrank back from that insight and instead gave priority to the understanding. As "pure reason as reason drew him increasingly under its spell" (KPM 115/KM 168), Kant shrank back from the idea that sensibility constituted the essence of reason insofar as the synthesis of imagination ren­ ders a structural unity of sensibility and understanding. Heideg­ ger accuses Kant of being unable to stomach his own insight into the finitude of human understanding and therefore of giving logic primacy in his B edition. Heidegger rejects the "already long-established" (KPM 116/KM 170) reading of the two edi­ tions as a move from a psychological interpretation to a logical one by suggesting that the more exclusive orientation to pure reason of the B edition is, in fact, more psychological than the earlier account. Heidegger argues that Kant fell back from his insight into imagination as the unity of a pure, sensible reason because his inquiry into the subjectivity of the subject led into "darkness . . . the abyss of metaphysics" (KPM 146/KM 214-15). In this in­ quiry, "the manner of questioning regarding human beings be­ comes questionable" (KPM 146/KM 214). The manner of questioning leads into anthropology. The question, What is being?, asked by means of the subjectivity of the subject, unveils the more original question: "What does Being mean, which is al­ ready understood in advance in every question?" (KPM 152/KM 223). The latter question is anthropological because it poses the question of being via the nature of human being as questioner. What the anthropological question asks about is the possibil­ ity of comprehending what is always already understood. The Cri­ tique undermines itself by uncovering the finitude of Dasein, for the A edition, under Heidegger's reading, uncovers as necessary for understanding what it seeks to show is possible. This is the sense of synthesis that is crucial to Heidegger's inquiry: ontolog­ ical synthesis, the synthesis of being and the object of thought in

38

' HEIDEGGER S PIDLOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

the prior understanding of being that is present in all human understanding. Kant's turn from anthropology to logic in the move from the A to the B edition is, in Heidegger's view, an attempt to remedy this collapse of the question of being into the finitude of human understanding. But the second edition, as a preference for the synthetic power of understanding over imagi­ nation, is a move in the wrong direction. 1his is to say that Heidegger is dissatisfied with Kant's Coper­ nican revolution. Kant was unable to sustain the analytic of Da­ sein requisite for the grounding of metaphysics. And Heidegger himself attempts to retrieve the ground-laying of metaphysics in such an inquiry. He does this by retrieving the insight that the question of being is the finitude of human understanding. He rethinks the Critique into the terminology of Being and Time and concludes that "in the ground of its essence Dasein holds itself into the Nothing" (KPM 162/KM 238). 1his is Dasein's anxiety, the basic disposition that places the thinker before the nothing, and presumably this anxiety is expressed by Kant precisely in his falling back from the question of human finitude and appeal­ ing to the understanding over intuition. In the same year he published Kant and the Problem of Meta­ physics, Heidegger gave the lecture What Is Metaphysics? In this lecture the question of the nothing and a shrinking back before that question in anxiety are explored, albeit not as an inquiry into Kant. Here Heidegger is drawn back to the question of the relation between metaphysics and the sciences, but unlike in his earlier texts, Heidegger no longer argues that metaphysics is propaedeutic to the sciences. Rather, he suggests that its func­ tion with respect to the sciences is unification and guidance. In the technical organization of the universities, he argues, "the practical establishment of goals by each discipline provides the only meaningful source of unity" (WM 96/W 104). But, he adds, the root of the sciences has therein atrophied. The sciences want to know nothing of the nothing in spite of the fact that "scientific existence is possible only if in advance it holds itself out into the nothing" (WM 1 1 1 / W 121). Rather, the sciences lose themselves in beings, a move Heidegger will later call, in "On the Essence of Truth," errancy, the insistent holding fast to beings and the inessential. Hence "man goes wrong as regards the essential

METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE

genuineness of his standards"

39

(ET 135/W 195-96). Likewise, in

What Is Metaphysics?

Heidegger suggests that the question of metaphysics is, "Why are there beings at all, and not rather nothing?" (WM 112/W 122). Since metaphysics asks about the nothing, into which the sciences hold themselves out, "Only if science exists on the base of metaphysics can it advance further in its essential task, which is not to amass and classify bits of knowledge but to disclose in ever-renewed fashion the entire region of truth in nature and history" (WM l11/W 121). The relation between the sciences and metaphysics goes deeper than it did for Heidegger in his earlier accounts. Metaphysics is not simply a ground for the sciences, but, as the inquiry into their root, has a guiding function to perform. If science determines the existence of modern Dasein, then its guidance from the mere amassing of information to knowledge is a crucial function that the sciences cannot perform themselves. For the sciences are a shrinking back in anxiety from the very thing Kant shrank be­ fore: the nothing. Heidegger, however, in Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, holds fast in the face of such anxiety and pursues the question of the finitude of human understanding. He finds there the "what always already was" (KPM 164/KM 240), evident in the history of metaphysics as early as the ancients in their metaphysics of presence. Being has always had an alreadiness, its a priori, and for Heidegger this is the synthesis at stake in the ground-laying of metaphysics. It is what he calls ontological synthesis, the prior understanding of being that makes all questioning and under­ standing possible. But the "earlier" at work here has nothing to do with time if time is taken in the common sense of sequential moments measured by clocks. Rather, time is to be understood in a more fundamental sense, as the horizon of understanding constitutive of Dasein. That is to say, the retrieval of Kant's insight in the A edition of the Critique is exactly the task Heidegger understands himself to have undertaken in Being and Time. But having done the groundwork necessary to the question of being, both in Being and Time and now again in Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, neither text then undertakes the question. The former was never completed, and the latter simply ends with a citation from Aris­ totle's Metaphysics 7.1, the question of what being is. Heidegger

40

' HEIDEGGER S PIDLOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

has argued that the ground for this question (i.e., metaphysics) is precisely Kant's question, "How are synthetic a priori judg­ ments possible?"-and read that question as, "How is being al­ ways understood a priori?" But no answer is forthcoming. Heidegger takes up Kant's account of synthetic a priori judg­ ments again in the lecture course from 1935-36 published as Die Frage nach dem Ding. Heidegger explains here the background against which Kant makes the claim that there are synthetic a priori judgments (FD 129-31). In the tradition, analytic judg­ ments were always taken to be a priori, whereas synthetic judg­ ments were a posteriori. Kant's account of the difference between synthetic and analytic judgments is consistent with this history, for Kant argues that while analytic judgments fail to go beyond the concept in question, synthetic judgments are syn­ thetic precisely in that they add something beyond what is con­ tained in the concept. This is a straightforward reading of the first Critique (A6-7/B10-11). Synthetic judgments are what Kant calls "ampliative" in that they bring to a concept something extra. The "something extra" of synthetic judgments was accord­ ingly taken to entail that such judgments are a posteriori, for if the source of this "something extra" is not the concept, then it must be the thing encountered in experience. Only analytic judgments could be a priori, since they do not exceed the con­ cept, and synthetic judgments were taken to be a posteriori, since they add to the concept what is not already there and hence require experience for their verification. Kant's task is to break that correlation in order to show that synthetic a priori judgments are possible. Heidegger argues that the "something extra" of synthetic judgments is the object (Gegenstand) (FD 142). As he argued in Basic Problems of Phenomenology that, for Kant, being is position as a relation between an object and thought, so he argues again here that synthesis is the relation between an object and a con­ cept that is an "alongsideness" (Beistellen) (FD 142). He asks not simply, "How are synthetic a priori judgments possible?", but, "How are they necessary?" He answers that they are necessary for the possibility of human knowledge as experience (FD 132). U knowledge had no "something extra," it would be knowledge

41

METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE

only of reason itself and not of what is other to reason, the object which the thinker understands as alongside but precisely other to the thinker. He takes this point to be precisely the thrust of Kant's highest principle of synthetic knowledge: that the condi­ tions for the possibility of experience are at the same time the conditions for the possibility of the objects of experience

(FD

143). Heidegger argues that to understand this highest principle of synthetic judgments is not just to understand Kant's text as a book, but is to master the starting point of historical Dasein which cannot be avoided, skipped, or in any other way denied

(FD 143). But, he claims, this principle must be brought to an appropriate transformation for delivery into the future. This appropriate transformation is recognition of the between (Zwischen). Die Frage nach dem Ding concludes with the claim that the highest principle of synthetic judgments-that the condi­ tions for the possibility of experience are at the same time the conditions for the possibility of the objectivity of the objects of experience-points to what moves between human being and thing. Kant's question concerning the thing is tied up with the question of human being, since knowledge takes place precisely between the two.

THE THING AND COPERNICAN REVOLUTION

Die Frage nach dem Ding

is then precisely the kind of retrieval Heidegger called for earlier, that of a grounding of metaphysics

in the finitude of human understanding. But Heidegger reads Kant here with an openness not earlier evident. Rather than at­ tempt to adapt the

Being and Time,

Critique

into the project and terminology of

this text seeks to explore what Kant's thought

makes possible in the history of metaphysics. Kant opens up a dimension between thinker and thing in which to raise the ques­ tion of being. Metaphysics need neither confine itself to a naive inquiry into the nature of things nor collapse into idealism in an entanglement with subjectivity. Heidegger concludes in Introduction

to Metaphysics

that the a

priori was originally for the Greeks being as q)1J<JL�, nature.

42

' HEIDEGGER S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

UOL� is not experienced free of empirical admixture, but is pre­ cisely what is experienced as empirical content. Accordingly, Heidegger could not have raised the question of being without a long struggle with Kant. That struggle began as an analytic of Dasein and hence as a transcendental inquiry in the Kantian sense: an inquiry into the structures of understanding. Yet Hei­ degger's reading of Kant is complicated and tedious, as much because Heidegger must dig deeply into the assumptions that inform his thinking in order to retrieve the question of being from its forgottenness in idealism, as because in his reading of Kant, it has been a struggle to confine Kant to metaphysics rather than epistemology. Heidegger's reading of Kant contains an ongoing tension.

On

the one hand, Heidegger rejects neo-Kantian accounts, espe­ cially the Marburg school, and his aim is to retrieve Kant from their reading.

On the other hand, Kant is not to

be retrieved as

misread. He is simply too committed to psychologistic subjectiv­ ism and idealism by the transition in his thinking from the A to the

B edition of the first Critique. Heidegger wants to make both

claims: Kant has been misread, and his project fails. For Heideg­ ger, the Critique of Pure

Reason

is an exercise in metaphysics, but

one that fails to avoid the trap of idealism. Heidegger's existen­ tial analytic of Dasein is an attempt to achieve the aim of the first

Critique. Being and Time

grounds and

limits

the sciences

by showing that the theoretical attitude is a modification of everyday understanding, and it shows how synthetic a priori judgments are possible by investigating the structure of under­ standing. Heidegger's attempt to undertake Kant's project more successfully is in a sense an attempt at the Kantian Copernican revolution without entrapment in idealism.

In 1938,

however, Marjorie Grene argued that Heidegger's

thinking is no Copernican revolution. She argues that there is simply nothing revolutionary in it (Grene 1976:39), and agrees with Camap's analysis (1931) of

What Is Metaphysics?-that Hei­

degger's arguments "depend to a large extent on syntactical misconstructions" (Grene 1976:45). Expressions such as "world worlds" or "nothing nothings," she argues, are meaningless. For her, Heidegger fails in his attempt to write the Kantian Coperni­ can revolution more successfully.

43

METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE

In 1967, Charles

Sherover described Kant's Copernican revo­

lution as the insight "that all knowledge of the particular things in our field of cognitive vision, is dependent on the prerequisite for something to be, to be knowable, for us" (1967:561), precisely the formulation of Kant's Copernican revolution that Heidegger rejects. Sherover described Heidegger's work as a move from Kant's philosophy to ontology, whereas the move to ontology is what Heidegger attributes to Kant. Sherover read Heidegger not as a return to Aristotle's thinking but as a continuation of Kant's thinking. While Heidegger has remained faithful to the Kantian problematic of transcendental subjectivity, his "aim has been the unification of [human being] with the world as it appears to [one], the unification of [human being's] structure in order to account for the coherence of human experience" (1967:572).

In

Sherover's account, Heidegger's thinking is implicitly a Coperni­ can revolution in exactly the sense in which Heidegger sees such a thing in Kant. Unlike Grene, Sherover takes Heidegger to be successfully revisionist of Kant.

In 1971, George Vick argued that Heidegger's philosophy is a new Copernican revolution that stands "to

overturn

the

commonsense and linguistic structures on which depend alike the earlier Kantian 'revolution' and most philosophy since"

(1971:630). Kant made the subject the measure of truth, whereas Heidegger seeks to make apprehension constitutive of human being. Vick takes Heidegger as not simply revisionist but as a radical revolutionary, novel in his account of knowledge. Whereas Grene saw such expressions as "world worlds" or "nothing nothings" as meaningless, Vick viewed the parallel construction of his own coinage, "manifestation manifests," as a call for a new syntax to express the radical meaning contained therein. While Grene attacked Heidegger as an arrogant poseur, Sherover supported Heidegger's response to the Kantian prob­ lematic, and Vick lauded the "radically different syntax"

(1971:630) implied by Heidegger's work. Grene wrote on the basis of Being and Time and lectures given in 1931 and 1932. Sher­ over's preoccupation was almost exclusively with Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Vick focused on Introduction to Metaphys­ ics. Heidegger is or is not a revolutionary or non-sensical thinker

44

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depending upon which texts one chooses as focus and how one chooses to read them. Certainly, taking the later of these texts as a culmination of Heidegger's view on the question of transcendental subjectivity, it is clear that Heidegger separates the transcendental from the subject. He explains in Introduction to Metaphysics that insofar as Being and Time is an exposition of a transcendental horizon, "the 'transcendental' there intended is not that of the subjective con­ sciousness; rather, it defines itself in terms of the existential-ec­ static temporality of human Dasein" (1M 18/EM 14). Likewise, at §l1(a) of The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, Heidegger re­ fuses to read transcendence for Kant as psychologistic. Rather, it is based on "the immediate relation a subject has to the being itself" (MFL 164/MAL 210). In fact, argues Heidegger, transcen­ dence is being-in-the-world. His aim is to extricate the question of being from its entanglement in subjectivity by arguing that being is prior to understanding. Heidegger's reading of Kant allows him to do precisely that. In his reading of the A edition of the Critique, Heidegger argues that in the ontological synthesis of imagination, the finitude of human understanding is not a collapse into subjectivity and ide­ alism but rather the very condition for the possibility of knowl­ edge of things. If philosophical Copernican revolution is a move from metaphysics to epistemology, from the question of the thing to the question of knowledge, then Heidegger does not achieve it, for to do so would be to fall into idealism. If, however, the revolution takes up the question of human understanding in the relation between the thinker and the thing, then Heidegger does achieve it. But then Marjorie Grene is right: Heidegger's thinking is not novel, for it is simply an exposition of Kant, a retrieval of the first Critique from neo-Kantian interpretations. The metaphor of Copernican revolution has become, however, a strange way to describe Kant. Copernicus's revolutionary in­ sight is that human being is not central to the universe. The neo­ Kantian commitment to idealism is precisely the reverse in that idealism puts human consciousness at the center of all that is known. Yet Heidegger's insight into Kant on imagination is pre­ cisely such a revolution, for it culminates in a rejection of ideal­ ism in the claim made in 1935 in Introduction to Metaphysics and

METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE

45

again in the Beitrage, that for the Greeks being is <:pUOL�. This claim is a location of the question of the human understanding of being precisely in the relation between thinking and the things it thinks about. And it is a Copernican revolution in the sense that, by rejecting idealism, it removes human being from the center of the issue and places the thing there instead. In 1938, in §111 of the Beitrage, Heidegger argues that being was <:pUOL� for the Greeks and prior to any understanding. Tran­ sitional to this text are Introduction to Metaphysics and Heideg­ ger's reading of Kant entitled Die Frage nach dem Ding, both from 1935. In Introduction to Metaphysics, Heidegger dispenses with the term "ontology," which marks the traditional doctrine of taking the question of the thing to be a branch in a philosophical system. There is an alternative: "we can also take the word 'on­ tology' in the 'broadest sense,' . . . [which) Signifies the endeavor to make being manifest itself, and to do so by way of the ques­ tion 'how does it stand with being?' (and not only with the es­ sent as such)" (1M 41/EM 31). The terms "ontology" and "ontological" should be abandoned, argues Heidegger, since this question has been rejected by the schools of academic phi­ losophy, which "strive for an 'ontology' in the traditional sense" (1M 41/EM 31). The purpose is not to set up a traditional ontol­ ogy, or to criticize the mistakes of the tradition, but to reestablish a historical relation to being. Heidegger therefore asks in Intro­ duction to Metaphysics whether philosophy and metaphysics are historical sciences capable of such a task. His answer is that they "are not sciences at all" (1M 43/EM 33). In fact, it is only philoso­ phy, "as distinguished from all science" (1M 44/EM 33), that can determine a fundamental relation to history in which that rela­ tion itself is historical. Heidegger's rejection of neo-Kantianism has led him to reject the thesis that philosophy is a science. Yet as long as Heidegger raises the question of being as a ques­ tion of human understanding-specifically, as the a priori pro­ jected in scientific understanding-he cannot extricate the question of being from the history of idealism, from Kant's a priori. If being is taken as a concept, metaphysics remains em­ broiled in the web of transcendental subjectivity in which con­ cepts are to be found. That Being and Time and Basic Problems of Phenomenology were never completed is not symptomatic of

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Heidegger's failure, but of his eventual insight that being is not simply prior in human understanding, but rather prior to human understanding. In What Is Called Thinking? Heidegger argues that Kant's claim that being is among the almost unanalyzable concepts is justified only if one assumes that being can be grasped by a concept (WCT 179/WHD 167). What counted as evidence in The Basic Problems of Phenomenology that ontology is a misunderstood sci­ ence, because its object is for Kant the concept of being reduced to unanalyzability by the tradition of metaphysics (BPP 4/GP 60), stands as evidence almost thirty years later that being is unanalyzable because it is not a concept (WCT 179/WHD 167). To be grasped as a concept is to be an object of cognition, that is, represented. Accordingly, What Is Called Thinking? is a cri­ tique of representational thinking and thereby a critique of the sciences, for which representation of an object is definitive. Hei­ degger argues that beings could not appear as objects unless the being of beings first prevailed (WCT 234/WHD 142), as he has always held. But his later work is predicated on the insight that being cannot be represented and analyzed as beings can. He has by 1952 given up his commitment to metaphysics and aban­ doned the assumption that being can be grasped as a concept. Philosophy is therefore not a science in Heidegger's later view, such that he suggests in What Is Called Thinking? that philosophy take as its model not the sciences, but ancient tEXVT] (WCT 22/

WHD 10). Die Frage nach dem Ding is the first instance wherein Heidegger takes up the question of metaphysics as a historical question without an explicit intention to extricate the question from its history through a destruction. Dissatisfied with the attempted destructions found in Being and Time, Basic Problems of Phenome­ nology, and Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, Heidegger ap­ proaches metaphysics in What Is Metaphysics? and Introduction to Metaphysics as an explicitly nonhistorical inquiry, wherein he prefers instead to pursue a specific question: "Why are there beings at all, and not rather nothing?" What Is Metaphysics? con­ cludes by introducing this question, and the lectures in the sum­ mer semester of 1935 begin with it. By 1935 Heidegger has given up the thesis that philosophy is a science. When he raises the

METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE

47

question of metaphysics in the winter semester of 1935-36 in Die Frage nach dem Ding, he undertakes the question of the thing as explicitly historical, but no longer as scientific. Heidegger's reading of Kant in his 1935-36 lecture course stands in marked contrast to his earlier accounts. It is here that Heidegger makes his final break with Kant, precisely because he has abandoned the thesis that philosophy is a science. This move arises out of Heidegger's critique of Kant. Yet it does not bring him directly to his later account of thinking. Before he asks about the task of thinking at the end of philosophy, he raises questions about the sciences. The attempt to establish philoso­ phy as science leads Heidegger to the sciences themselves, that is, the history of physics. The issue that draws him there is the a priori.

THE A PRIORI

What interested Heidegger about Kant, he read as ontology. He sought to take up Kant's question "How are synthetic a priori judgments possible?" as an ontological inquiry. Thus he read the question as "How is it possible that in any inquiry, being is always already understood?" He took "synthetic" to mean that being is brought to, not uncovered in, experience. Aprioricity he understood as the "alreadiness" of being. His fascination with being is accordingly located in the fact that being is found in experience only because it is first brought to it. Hence being be­ longs neither to things nor to thought but to the relation between the two; it is prior to both understanding and its object. Heidegger has always taken investigation of aprioricity to be fundamental to philosophy. In Being and Time he claims that a priori analysis of scientific disciplines is what he is after, and he adds in a footnote that " 'A-priorism' is the method of every scientific philosophy which understands itself" (BT 490/5Z 50, n. x). In Basic Problems of Phenomenology he cites the second task of phenomenology as the clearing up of the meaning of this a priori. He wants to understand how being belongs to beings a priori, that is, how being always belongs to beings yet is prior to their experience. Yet Heidegger never quite cleared up the mean-

48

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ing of the a priori, for he missed Kant's separation of the a priori from the pure. Kant argued that there are judgments that have empirical con­ tent but are not dependent on experience. Indeed, the task of the

Critique oj Pure Reason

was precisely to rupture the correlation

between analytic and a priori judgments on the one hand, and synthetic a posteriori judgments on the other. Kant sets up this rupture by distinguishing the a priori from the pure. Judgments are pure for Kant "when there is no admixture of anything em­ pirical" (B3). A "pure" representation is one "in which there is nothing that belongs to sensation" (A20/B34). A priori judg­ ments, on the other hand, Kant does not characterize solely in terms of whether or not they have empirical content. Rather, ne­ cessity and universality are the hallmarks of aprioricity for him, such that he claims that when one is found, the other need not be proven because they always belong together (B4). At B3 Kant gives the example of the judgment "every alteration has its cause" as a priori but not pure, "because alteration is a concept which can be derived only from experience." At A9/B13 he ex­ plains further, using a similar example, "Everything which hap­ pens has its cause," by asking how it is that the understanding finds support for this claim when the predicate (cause) is foreign to the concept (everything which happens), yet considered con­ nected to it. Kant answers that the source of this connection cannot be ex­ perience "because the suggested principle has connected the second representation with the first, not only with greater uni­ versality, but also with the character of necessity, and therefore completely a priori" (A9/B13). A posteriori judgments never contain such epistemic certitude, since there could always be some possible experience that would show them to be false. For instance, in claiming " All swans are white," one can never be absolutely certain that there is not some black swan somewhere that has simply not been encountered. That everything has a cause, however, carries an epistemic force that the understand­ ing takes to be universal such that it could not be any other way. It thus follows for Kant that all pure judgments are a priori, for their freedom from the empirical gives them universality and necessity; but it does not follow that all a priori judgments are

METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE

49

pure. Some a priori judgments have empirical content, even though they are not founded on experience. Accordingly, the a priori for Kant is not simply prior to experience, but rather car­ ries a certainty, the certainty of universality and necessity. This is precisely Kant's point in arguing that there are synthetic a priori judgments, and that the laws of Newton's physics are ex­ actly such claims. He seeks to show that Newtonian physics in­ volves judgments that are not analytic, but nonetheless certain. In Heidegger's reading, what is added to the concept in a syn­ thetic judgment is a relation between the concept and the thing. Being is the synthetic a priori in that it brings to the concept what is not contained in it already, and it does so with a logical priority in experience. Herein lies Heidegger struggle with being, which he has himself positioned neither in the concept nor in experience. In thinking through Kant's account of synthetic a priori judgments, Heidegger has always been preoc­ cupied with their synthetic nature. In Basic Problems of Phenome­ nology, for example, the thrust of his analysis of Kant was the synthesis of being with an object that positions that object in actuality. Hence he read Kant's metaphysics as committed to being as position. And the discussions of the a priori in Die Frage nach dem Ding revert quickly to consideration of the synthetic moment in which being is projected onto things, rather than sticking with the a priori, for Heidegger's claim, evident as early as Being and Time, that being is always already understood, col­ lapses this "alreadiness" of being with the synthesis of being and object. SynthesiS and aprioricity come together in Heideg­ ger's understanding that being is projected, that it is found in things because it is placed there by the thinker. Accordingly, Heidegger's claim that a synthetic a priori judg­ ment "should bring forth something about the being which was not derived experientially from it" (KPM 10/KM 15) fails to ac­ knowledge Kant's distinction between a priori and pure. He rec­ ognizes that Kant's a priori coincides precisely with what he wants to say about being: it pertains to beings without being experientially derived. Yet Heidegger neglects the episternic cer­ tainty that is definitive for Kant of a priori judgments. He con­ flates the pure and the a priori in his reading of Kant. The cause of this conflation in Heidegger's assessment of Kant

50

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is his preference for the A edition of the first Critique. The exam­ ple "every alteration has a cause," which Kant used to distin­ guish a priori from pure, appears there only once, yet twice in the B edition, at A9/B13 and at B3. Elsewhere where the text is common to both editions and Kant defines the pure, at All/ B24 and A20/B34, he uses it interchangeably with the a priori. Heidegger clearly understands in Kilnt and the Problem of Meta­ physics that the A edition argues for the inseparability of sensa­ tion and understanding, while the B edition prioritizes reason in its freedom from sensation. Hence it makes perfect sense that Kant's emphasis on the pure would become apparent in the B edition, and that Heidegger would miss it. After ail, what he is interested in is precisely how being is a priori, but hardly pure, since it must for Heidegger belong to beings. He attempts there­ fore to retrieve the a priori from pure reason, and in doing so he fails to see the definitive characteristic of the a priori for Kant. What he takes Kant to mean by "a priori," Kant in fact conveys by "pure." Since purity and aprioricity often go hand in hand, this oversight would have little impact on many readers of Kant who might fail prey to it. But the consequences are severe for Heidegger, for he is intent on the question of being, and what is pure can never figure in the question of being. Rather, since the pure contains "no admixture of anything empirical" (B3), it is bound to transcendental idealism. Hence when Heidegger wishes in Die Frage nach dem Ding to pursue the question of what is already given and therefore cer­ tain in any knowledge, he does not do so on the basis of Kant's a priori. Rather he turns to the Greeks and the mathematical, despite the fact that Kant is the subject of the course and that the Kantian a priori is the obvious candidate for such a discussion. Heidegger intends the mathematical to do exactly the job Kant assigned to the a priori. As the a priori carried the epistemic force of certainty for Kant, so the mathematical entails the cer­ tainty of givenness in Heidegger's analysis. Accordingly, Theo­ dore Kisiel (1973) is right to identify the mathematical in Heidegger with the Kantian a priori. Yet Heidegger himself did not see this. He looks not to Kant but to the ancients to raise the issue of epistemic certitude, and he raises that issue not as the question of the a priori, but as the question of the mathematical.

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51

MATHEMATICAL PROJECTION: GALILEO AND NEWTON

John Sallis understands Heidegger's mathematical in terms of Kant's a priori, as does Theodore Kisiel, insofar as it means what is projected by the understanding onto things, that is, insofar as the mathematical is prior to experience (Sallis 1970:145ff.). Yet if Heidegger intends merely that the mathematical is projective, then his phrase "the mathematical projection of nature" is re­ dundant. Heidegger wants more out of the mathematical than simply that it is projective. For Heidegger, the mathematical pro­ jection of nature determines both beings and knowledge. In Die Frage nach dem Ding, Heidegger tackles the question of what is modem science, as opposed to ancient. He argues that the claims that modem science is factual, that it is experimental, and that it is a measuring science are inadequate to distinguish it from ancient science, for these claims do not capture the fun­ damental feature that rules and determines the movement of modem science. This fundamental feature is its "manner of working with the things and the metaphysical projection of the thingness of the things" (MSMM 249/FD 52). This feature is, according to Heidegger, the mathematical. Heidegger argues that modem science is not mathematical simply by virtue of the fact that it is calculative and uses num­ bers. He notes the modem preoccupation with the calculable and reckonable. But, Heidegger argues, the mathematical is not exhausted by numbers. Rather, calculation is a particular form of the mathematical that has come to dominance because num­ bers are its most familiar form (MSMM 253/FD 58). He suggests that the Greek understanding of "tel �ae��U"ta, in which the modem mathematical has its etymological root, was much broader. Which Greeks Heidegger is referring to here, he does not say. The ensuing discussion, however, echoes Plato's Meno. Heidegger suggests that for the Greeks, a thing could be known in different respects: insofar as it is self-moving ("tel q)"UOLXU), insofar as it is made by people ("tel :rtOL01J�eva), insofar as it can be in use ("tel XQ��U"ta), insofar as one can have anything to do with it at all ("tel :rtQuy�a"ta), and insofar as it is learnable and teachable ("tel �ae��a"ta) (MSMM 250/FD 53-54). The mathematical is learnable and teachable because it is what about

52

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the thing is

already known: "The J!uOiuwtu are the things insofar

as we take cognizance of them as what we already know them to be in advance, the body as bodily, the plant-like of the plant, the animal-like of the animal, the thingness of the thing, and so on"

(MSMM 251/FD 56). The mathematical is the basis on

which we encounter things as already given. It is "the funda­ mental presupposition of the knowledge

des Wissens]

of things"

[Grundvoraussetzung

(MSMM 254/FD 58).

For Heidegger, a number is an instance of the mathematical. He argues early in Die Frage

nach dem Ding that although a num­ (FD 3),

ber-5, for example---can be called a thing in some sense

it is not a thing in the narrow sense of what is graspable and visible (FD 4-5). It is not a spatiotemporally extended body. Rather, it is brought to the thing by the understanding. Numbers are found in things not because they are already there, but be­ cause the understanding brings them to things as an aspect that can be known about the thing. Numbers therefore carry episte­ mic certainty insofar as they are found in experience by being first projected there. Reason is certain of its own creation. Hei­ degger means by the mathematical not just what is projective, but also what carries epistemic force. His phrase "the mathemat­ ical projection of nature" can be read as "the epistemically cer­ tain projection of nature." He is interested in showing how nature is projected in modem physics as something about which certainty can be had. Later, in "The Age of the World Picture" Heidegger will call this projection of certainty "rigor" (AWP

119/H 79) and once more appeal to what to. J!uOT)J!UtU meant for the again unspecified Greeks. The rigor of science is exactitude, numerical precision. The relation between things and numbers as one of epistemic force clearly holds in the case of measurement. Things are mea­ surable insofar as they stand in time and space. But a clock, which measures time, cannot tell or show one what time is. This

Die Frage nach dem Ding (FD 17) and in Basic Problems of Phenomenology, where Heidegger argues that

point is made both in

clock usage-that is, measurement of time-is possible only be­ cause of an original having of time

(BPP 245/GP 347-48).

Hei­

degger argues that we assign time to clocks. The measurement of time is "a modification from the primary comportment

METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE

53

toward time as guiding oneself according to it" (BPP 258/GP 365). Because things stand in space and time, they can be measured. That mathematics is numerical and calculative is derivative from its originary meaning as "tCt J.Lu8iU.ta"tu, the respect in which cer­ tainty can be established concerning things. In Die Frage nach dem Ding, Heidegger characterizes the es­ sence of the mathematical in its modem formulation by looking to Galileo and Newton. His early conception of science is in fact framed by two readings of Galileo, this one from 1935-36, and "Der Zeitbegriff in der Geschichtswissenschaft" from 1916. In both texts, Heidegger construes the essence of science as the mathematical projection of nature. In the earlier one he uses Gal­ ileo's formula for the acceleration of bodies in free-fall as the definitive example of the projection of the grounding concepts (time and space) of natural science (ZG 415-33). In Die Frage nach dem Ding he uses Galileo's free-fall experiment and New­ ton's law of inertia to raise the question of the justification and limits of the mathematicaL These two analyses of modem science are remarkably similar. In both cases what is noted is the projection of space and time, and therefore also of things, as uniform and homogenous. But the significance of these texts remains obscure unless read against the discussion of the theoretical attitude at §69 of Being and Time. There, the mathematical projection of nature is the hallmark of the modem scientific, theoretical attitude. The de­ velopment of Heidegger's account of the mathematical essence of modem science can be laid out over these three texts. In "Der Zeitbegriff in der Geschichtswissenschaft," Heideg­ ger's intent is to distinguish physics from history on the basis of the projection of the time concept at work in each. He argues that the mathematical projection in Galileo's free-fall experiment is of the concepts of space and time. Space is understood as "endless, each space-point equal to any other, likewise each di­ rection to any other.'" Time also "has become a homogenous positional order-a scale, a parameter."2 Space and time in mod1 "unendlich, jeder Raumpunkt mit jedem gleichwertig, desgleichen jede Richtung mit jeder anderen" (ZG 422). 2 "ist zu einer homogenen Stellenordnung geworden, zur Skala, zum Param­ eter" (ZG 424).

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em science are a coordinate system in which objects are located. From CaWean physics on, then, the "object of physics-we can now say, in brief-is the lawfulness of motion.'" CaWeo is ac­ cordingly the origin of modem physics for Heidegger in that thereafter, "physics strives towards equations, in which are laid down the most general, lawlike relations with regard to the processes in the relevant areas [of physics].'" CaWeo's experi­ ment in free-fall is decisive for modem science in the sense that he establishes physics as the search for laws of nature. Heidegger argues that this distinctive character of modem sci­ ence comes about on the basis of a difference in method between the ancients and the moderns: The old contemplation of nature would have proceeded with the problem of fall such that it would have tried through observation of individual cases of falling phenomena to bring out what was now common in all cases, in order then starting from here to draw conclusions about the essence of falling. Galileo does not start with the observation of individual falling phenomena, on the con­ trary with a general assumption (hypothesis) which goes: bodies fall-robbed of their support-so that their velocity increases pro­ portional to time (v = g . t), that is, bodies fall in uniformly accel­ erated motion.'

Whereas Aristotle proceeded by making generalizations on the basis of a series of observations, CaWeo's method is instead to hypothesize a universal law. He makes an assumption, and then seeks its validation in experimentation. Heidegger develops this 3 "Gegenstand der Physik ist-so konnen wir jetzt kurz sagen-die Geset­ zlichkeit der Bewegung" (ZG 421). ' ''strebt rlie Physik nach Gleichungen, in denen allgemeinste gesetzliche Be­ ziehungen beztiglich der Vorgiinge auf den betreffenden Gebieten niedergelegt sind" (ZG 420). ' ''Die alte Naturbetrachtung ware bei dem Fallproblem so vorgegangen, daIS sie durch Beobachtung einzelner Faile von Fallerscheinungen herauszu­ bringen versucht hatte, was denn nun allen Fallerscheinungen gemeinsam sei, urn dann von hier aus auf das Wesen des Falles zu schlielSen. Galilei setzt nicht mit der Beobachtung von einzelnen Pallerscheinungen ein, sondem mit einer allgemein Annahme (Hypothese), rlie lautet: rlie Korper fallen-ihrer Unter­ lage beraubt-so, daB ihre Geschwindigkeit proportional der Zeit wachst (v = g • t), d.h. die Korper fallen in gleichma/Sig beschleunigter Bewegung" (ZG 419).

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55

view in Being and Time by exploring its metaphysical conse­ quences. Heidegger argues at §69(b) of Being and Time that the theoreti­ cal attitude is a changeover in the projection of being at work in concernful dealings. He claims that the only way entities can be discovered is by prior projection of their state of being. What is significant about the theoretical attitude is not that it relies on mathematics, in the ordinary sense of calculation, and hence achieves a precision and exactness, or that the facts which it ex­ poses hold for every knower (BT 414/5Z 362). That is to say, the significance of the theoretical attitude is not to be uncovered on the basis of the precision of mathematics, or as a Kantian analy­ sis of the universality of transcendental subjectivity. Rather, what is decisive is the way in which theoretical understanding projects the being of nature. In concernful dealings, where Dasein first has a world, things are constituted by the context of equipmentality and their involvement. In the theoretical attitude, such involvement does not belong to beings. Rather, a thing is encountered as "an entity with 'mass' . . . a corporeal Thing subject to the law of gravity" (BT 412/5Z 361). Whereas in concernful dealings, nature is pro­ jected in its readiness-to-hand, in the theoretical attitude the being of nature is projected in another way. In the theoretical attitude, nature consists in bodies that are governed by the laws of physics. Heidegger argues, as he did in "Der Zeitbegriff in der Gesch­ ichtswissenschaft," that in modem scientific projection, place "becomes a matter of indifference . . . a spatio-temporal position, a 'world-point,' which is in no way distinguished from any other" (BT 413/5Z 361-62). But in Being and Time he deepens that insight. He argues that a thing's relation to its place changes in the theoretical attitude. The law of gravity holds for all beings regardless of their place, and hence no thing has any special place by which it can be distinguished from other things. The theoretical attitude homogenizes not just space and time but also the bodies that are the objects of physicS. It homogenizes the objects of physics by projecting their thinghood alike. For it is the thinghood of things that is understood beforehand in the theoretical attitude.

' HEIDEGGER S PillLOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

56

It is on the basis of this prior projection of thinghood that

(BT 192/52 151) by In the theoretical attitude, a thing

"entities are disclosed in their possibility" the theoretical understanding.

is projected in its possibility as a spatiotemporally extended body constrained by laws such as the law of gravity. A hammer, for example, when not used circumspectly as a tool, regarded in the theoretical attitude as an entity with mass, is looked at in a new way, "as a corporeal Thing subject to the law of gravity"

(BT 412/52 361).

The thingness of the thing is its extension in

space and time. The genesis of modem science lies in its revision of the thinghood of the things investigated by physics. Hence the genesis of modem science is precisely a metaphysical moment.

In the 1916 text, Heidegger found modem physics to be meth­ odologically distinct from ancient in that Galileo investigates laws of nature that are determined a priori. Here in Being and Time, he recognizes the metaphysical implications of this lawful­ ness of nature. The homogenization of space and time, and therefore of the bodies taken as object, has implications for the being of the beings investigated. In Die Frage nach dem Ding, Hei­ degger develops this account further by determining that meta­ physical moment as the mathematical.

In Die Frage nach dem Ding

Heidegger repeats his claim that

the projection of space and time in modem science entails a ho­ mogenization of things. The thinghood of things consists in their bodily occupation of and movement between spatiotemporal co­ ordinates. Heidegger observes that when Galileo argues that the difference in time it takes two bodies to fall is due to the air's resistance, not the inner nature of the bodies, he is understand­ ing all bodies to be alike: "All determinations of bodies have one basic blueprint, according to which the natural process is noth­ ing but the space-time determination of the motion of points of mass"

(MSMM 267/FD 71). Modem physics is the study of bod­

ies in motion. It is this homogenization of the objects of physics that makes it possible to construe their behavior according to universal laws. Since both Galileo and Newton investigate physics in terms of universal laws, Heidegger recognizes in this text no significant distinction here between them, except insofar as Newton gives explicit formulation to what was implicit in Galileo's physics.

METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE

57

Heidegger tTanslates Newton's Latin: "Every body continues in its state of rest, or uniform motion in a stTaight line, unless it is compelled to change that state by force impressed upon it" (MSMM 256/FD 60; cf. Newton 1960:13; Thayer 1953:25). And he argues that Newton's First Law of Motion, the law of inertia, was discovered by Galileo, who, however, "applied it only in his last works and did not even express it as such" (MSMM 256/ FD 61). He quotes from Galileo's Discorsi (giving no more precise reference): "I think of a body thrown on a horizontal plane and every obstacle excluded. This results in what has been given a detailed account in another place, that the motion of the body over this plane would be uniform and perpetual if the plane were extended infinitely" (MSMM 266-67/FD 70), and consid­ ers this the antecedent of Newton's law. There is an explicit claim in Galileo's Two New Sciences that is very similar to Newton's law: "we may remark that any velocity once imparted to a moving body will be rigidly maintained as long as the external causes of acceleration or retardation are re­ moved" (1914:243). For Galileo, however, this claim is not the point at stake. He explains that the perpetual motion here al­ luded to is only possible on a horizontal plane, since any inclina­ tion of the plane would be an external (i.e., external to the moving thing) cause of acceleration or retardation. This claim is therefore supportive to a corollary of his beliefs about falling bodies. That motion is determined in Galileo's primitive formulation and thematically by Newton on the basis of external force is, however, decisive for modem science. Heidegger contTasts the modem mathematical projection of nature with Aristotle's view. For Aristotle, "ouva!-tL�, the capacity for [a body's] motion, lies in the nature of the body itself" (MSMM 261/FD 66). Fiery things move upward, toward the heavens, and earthly things move downward, toward the center. Heavenly motion is circular and complete, whereas earthly motion is incomplete because it does not achieve the perfection of the circle. There are for Aris­ totle different kinds of motion based on different kinds of things. In modem science, on the other hand, nature is projected differ­ ently: "Nature is no longer the inner principle out of which the motion of the body follows; rather, nature is the mode of the

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variety of the changing relative positions of bodies, the manner in which they are present in space and time, which themselves are domains of possible positional orders and determinations of order and have no special traits anywhere" (MSMM 264/FD 68). This is the case, according to Heidegger, in the physics of both Galileo and Newton, whose law of inertia is about every body and makes no distinction between the motion of different kinds of bodies. On the basis of this analysis of Galilean and Newtonian phys­ ics, Heidegger summarizes the mathematical essence of modem science in six points. First, it is "a project of thingness which, as it were, skips over the things" (MSMM 267-68/FD 71). The mathematical projection of nature establishes the domain of physics as the realm of moving bodies. This determination of the thingness of things "skips over" the things by approaching them on the basis of a prior understanding. There is no opportu­ nity for things to speak for themselves, that is, to show them­ selves other than as bodies in motion. Hence modem science proceeds on the basis of a metaphysical projection into which it is not the task of that science to inquire. Later in several texts, but especially in "Science and Reflection" and What Is Called Thinking?, Heidegger will argue that such self-critique is impos­ sible for the sciences. The second point is that the essence of the mathematical is axiomatic. The mathematical project posits beforehand "that which things are taken as, what and how they are to be evalu­ ated" (MSMM 268/FD 71). Heidegger argues that the Greek word for such conceptualization and evaluation was aSLoOl and that such anticipatory determinations and assertions were called aSUl>Ilm:a. This is why Newton's laws of motion are entitled "Axiomata." His axioms are fundamental propositions that set things up in advance upon their foundation as things. The next three points follow from the fact that the essence of the mathe­ matical in modem science is axiomatic. First, insofar as modem science is axiomatic, the essence of things is anticipated and their structure and relation to other things are sketched in advance in the mathematical project. Second, the axiomatic project recons­ trues nature as "the realm of the uniform space-time context of motion" (MSMM 268/FD 71). Third, such an axiomatically

METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE

59

determined realm of nature requires an appropriate mode of ac­ cess for the things within it. Heidegger argues that because modem science is mathemati­ cal in this sense of axiomatic, things are now no more than what they are prefigured to show themselves as within the realm of nature. They show themselves "only in the relations of places and time points and in the measures of mass and working forces" (MSMM 268/FD 72). Accordingly, the project deter­ mines the experience of things by establishing the conditions under which nature can provide answers to questions. Rather than looking to ordinary experience for such answers, the mod­ em scientist therefore looks to the experiment. The sixth and final point summarizing the essence of the mathematical is that numerical measurement becomes possible and in fact requisite in the mathematical projection of nature. Modem science is necessarily mathematical in the ordinary, nar­ row sense of calculative and numerical because it is mathemati­ cal in Heidegger's broader sense. Because the project entails a uniformity among bodies, in which all alike are governed by relations of space, time, and motion, "a universal uniform mea­ sure [is required] as an essential determinant of things" (MSMM 269/ FD 72). Only on the basis of the mathematical projection of nature, suggests Heidegger, does Descartes develop analytical geometry, Newton, infinitesimal calculus, and Leibniz, simulta­ neously, differential calculus. The narrow sense of the mathematical, and even much of modem mathematics, is derivative for Heidegger from his broader sense of 1:(1 l-luST)l-lm:u. Modem science is mathemati­ cal-that is, calculative--in a way it never could have been for Aristotle, because the essence of modem science is the mathe­ matical projection of nature. Accordingly, Heidegger argues in 1938 in "The Age of the World Picture"; "If we come across three apples on the table, we recognize that there are three of them. But the number three, threeness, we already know. This means that number is something mathematical. Only because numbers represent, as it were, the most striking of always-al­ ready-knowns, and thus offer the most familiar instance of the mathematical, is 'mathematical' promptly reserved as a name for the numerical" (AWP 118-19/H 78). The mathematical is

60

' HEIDEGGER S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

wh at is al ready known beforeh and in any understanding. Therefore it is a commitment to wh at counts as knowledge. On th e basis of h is account of th e math ematical, Heidegger reads th e directive over th e door of Plato's Academy: "aYEUl!LE ­ 'tQT]'t oC; !LT]bEi.C; ELaL'tUl!" This is not th e order th at only th ose wh o know geometry in the sense of knowing certain rel ations be­ tween lines and figures can enter th e Academy. Rath er, Heideg­ ger reads it as the cl aim th at only th ose wh o know th e math ematical in its originary sense may enter. Only th ose wh o h ave grasped " th e fundamental condition for th e proper possi­ bil ity of knowing" (MSMM 254/ FD 58) have a pl ace in the Acad­ emy. This condition for th e possibility of knowing is " th e knowledge o f th e fundamental presuppositions o f all knowl ­ edge and th e position we take based on such knowl edge" (MSMM 254/ FD 58). P ut more simpl y, knowledge is conditional upon its explicit foundation and awareness of its limits. In th is sense, th e h istory of metaph ysics bel ongs to th e math emati cal .

METAPHYSICS AND THE MATHEMATICAL

In Die Frage nach dem Ding, th e h istory of modem metaph ysics is so tied up with ph ysics forHeidegger th at h e l ooks to th e h istory of science precisely with th e intention of understandin g modem metaph ysics. It is wh en he wants to understand " th e possibility and necessity of such a th ing as Kant's Critique of Pure Reason"· (FD 50) th at he turns to G al ileo and N ewton. He explores mod­ em metaph ysics by tryin g to bring to l igh t the essential feature of modem knowledge as it is evident in ph ysics. Indeed, th e cl aims Heidegger makes in Being and Time about th e sh ift from concemful dealings to th e th eoretical attitude of ph ysics can be understood as exactly an anal ysis of th e h istorical devel opment of modem physics. Heidegger describes the transition from concem ful dealin gs to th e th eoretical attitude as a sh ift in wh ich th e understanding of bein g ch anges over at §69(b) . At §16 he discusses how th e • "die Moglichkeit und Notwendigkeit von so etwas wie Kants reinen Vermmft«" (FD 50).

»Kritik

der

METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE

61

worldly character of the environment announces itself by way of conspicuousness, obtrusiveness, and obstinacy, the modes of concern in which what is ready-to-hand is brought to the fore as present-at-hand, in which utility becomes thinghood. It seems in both these places that the changeover from concemful deal­ ings to the theoretical attitude belongs to individual Dasein. Yet at §69(b), this move is not characterized as a transition in the attitude of individual Dasein so much as a moment in the history of science. Heidegger explores the theoretical attitude as "the rise of mathematical physics" (BT 413/52 362). This ambi­ guity, whether the move to the theoretical attitude is to be un­ derstood as made by an individual or as a moment in the history of science, can be resolved by simply answering that it is both. The definitive moments of the history of science take place in the thinking of individual scientists. Given Heidegger's treatment of Galileo as definitively characteristic of modem science in the texts from 1916 and 1935, Galileo is for Heidegger, although con­ spicuously absent from §69(b) of Being and Time, precisely the individual scientist in whose thinking mathematical physics first arose. Accordingly, the historical rise of modem physics is for Heidegger not just a moment in the history of physics, but also a moment in the history of metaphysics. In Die Frage nach dem Ding he develops this insight into the relation between physics and metaphysics by pinpointing the mathematical. Heidegger argues that "modem natural science, modem mathematics, and modem metaphysics sprang from the same root of the mathematical in the broader sense" (MSMM 272-73/ FD 75). Because metaphysics reaches the farthest, to beings as a whole, and the deepest into the being of beings as such, it is metaphysics that must inquire into its mathematical basis. The locus Heidegger chooses for this inquiry is the beginning of modem philosophy in Descartes. Heidegger tells a story about Descartes that he calls "at best . . . only a bad novel" (MSMM 274/FD 77). In this account, Des­ cartes liberated philosophy from the disgraceful petrification of academic knowledge which failed to concern human being or illuminate reality. Through a process of doubt, Descartes even­ tually came to the indubitable foundation of the ego cogito, for doubting has the doubter as its condition. This is the insight that

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a theory of the world must follow upon a theory of knowledge: that philosophy begins with reflection upon knowledge and its possibility. Accordingly, epistemology became through Des­ cartes the foundation of philosophy. Heidegger has a different story to tell. He argues that Des­ cartes's central work is

prima philosophia

is the

Meditationes de prima philosophia and that :rtQUrtl] tpLAoootpla of Aristotle. Such first

philosophy says nothing about a theory of knowledge but con­ cerns rather the being of beings. As he argued that Kant was a metaphysician and not an epistemologist, so Heidegger argues in

1935 that Descartes's inquiry is metaphysical rather than epis­

temological. For what Descartes doubts, he suggests, is precisely the being of beings. Descartes's work came about in a time when "mathematics had already been emerging more and more as the foundation of thought and was pressing toward clarity" (MSMM

275/FD 77). Knowledge has in Descartes's day, Heideg­

ger holds, a sure foundation in mathematics, and it is rather being that is in doubt. Heidegger therefore reads Descartes's method of doubting as not in the least bit skeptical. Rather, it comes about in a time of passion to clarify and show the fundaments of knowledge. Heidegger interprets this passion as the will of the mathematical "to explicate itself as the standard of all thought and to establish the rules which thereby arise" (MSMM 275/FD 78). Descartes's Meditations are a "reflection upon the fundamental meaning of the mathematical" (MSMM

275/FD 78) that concern the totality

of beings and knowledge thereof. Hence they are necessarily a reflection upon metaphysics in Heidegger's sense of the mathe­ matical. They are an argument to ground the being of beings in certainty. Heidegger looks for further evidence of his reading of Des­ cartes in an unfinished, early work published posthumously, Re­

gulae ad directionem ingenii. In

this work, mathematics submits

itself to its own essence in order to become "the measure of the enquiring mind" (MSMM 276/FD 78). The essence of the mathe­ matical is the fundamental presupposition of knowledge, and in this text Descartes enunciates the rules of thinking. This is the sense in which, for Heidegger, Descartes submits the mathemat­ ical to its own essence. It is here, Heidegger argues, that Des-

METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE

63

cartes coins the modem concept of science, for he "grasps the idea of a scientia universalis, to which everything must be di­ rected and ordered as the one authoritative science" (MSMM 276/FD 78). This is the mathematical in the sense of mathesis

universalis. If the mathematical in this sense is to ground knowledge, it requires the formulation of special axioms that must be abso­ lutely certain and that must determine in advance the thingness of things. Descartes is thus in search of "the very first and high­ est basic principle for the Being of beings in general" (MSMM 278/FD 80). As a truly mathematical principle, it must require no further ground, that is, it must be self-grounding. Descartes's cogito ergo sum is precisely this principle. Accordingly, the foundation of modem science is the subjec­ tivity of the subject. Heidegger makes the connection between modem science and metaphysics on the basis of the mathemati­ cal. For in his view, the "question about the thing is now an­ chored in pure reason, i.e., in the mathematical unfolding of its principles" (MSMM 282/FD 83). The mathematical provides a bridge by means of which metaphysical assumptions find their expression in science. Assumptions about the object of science are not separated from the question of the possibility of knowl­ edge in the modem epoch. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is there­ fore the necessary formulation of the question of the thing in that epoch.

CONCLUSION In his early writings, prior to "The Age of the World Picture," Heidegger consistently maintains that the essence of science is the mathematical projection of nature. This point is entangled, however, in his further argument that philosophy is itself a sci­ ence. He first takes metaphysics as science to ground the positive sciences, since it is the task of metaphysics to show how a re­ gional ontology is possible. By 1929 he holds that the task of metaphysics is not the grounding of science in regional ontology, but rather the establishing of goals for the sciences to give them a meaningful unity. In 1935 the question of regional ontology

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and of meaningfulness come together in Heidegger's insight that the meaningfulness of physics lies precisely in its projection of the being of beings, in its mathematical projection of nature. Rather than suggesting that metaphysics has a critical task to perform in scrutinizing science, he argues that modem science is in its mathematical essence precisely metaphysical. Metaphysics is no longer a science for Heidegger so much as a determining aspect of modem physics. Heidegger disentangles the claim that philosophy is a science from the claim that science is the mathe­ matical projection of nature such that he rethinks the relations among metaphysics, physics, and mathematics in a way that will prove crucial to his later account of technology. Only under­ standing his early view of physics so developed makes it possible to understand his later view of both phYSics and technology. Accordingly, Heidegger's early account of physics as science is a view that develops over a twenty-year period. It begins in 1916 when he notes that Galileo projects space and time as uniform and homogeneous and determines the lawfulness of motion on that basis. It develops in Being and Time when he rec­ ognizes that this projection is a metaphysical determination of beings, a projection of the being of the beings under inquiry. And it culminates in Die Frage nach dem Ding when he argues that modem science is metaphysical insofar as its determination of its object brings with it a mathematical grounding of knowl­ edge. Heidegger's later account of technology, that it is not just a collection of equipment but rather a truth, a way of revealing, would not be possible without the development of his account of science in these early years, for it is in these years that Heideg­ ger sees that the mathematical projection of nature at work in physics is not just a methodology but a metaphysics. In Heidegger's later view, philosophy's task is to think being, which it cannot do scientifically; and the essence of science lies in the essence of technology. The mathematical projection of na­ ture remains in this later account of science, but the question of the essence of science is reformulated. The ground upon which this reformulation becomes necessary is Heidegger's tum from the question of philosophy as science to the sciences themselves. That turning point has been laid out as an inquiry into Galileo and Newton. Heidegger develops it further by looking to the scientific method: experimentation.

2 Experiment and Representation is c onc ern ed in l arge part with the logic and epistemol ogy of sc ientific theory and prac tic e. Heideg­ ger is c ertainl y a philosopher of sc ienc e in this sense, for his analysis of the experimental method is an ongoi ng c onsideration of the epistemologic al assumptions underl yi ng sc ientific ratio­ nal ity, as wel l as a historic al acc ount of the prac tic e of sc ienc e by Gal ileo and N ewton in c ontrast to A ristotle. In the 1930s, Heidegger' s anal ysis of the experimental method is the begin­ ni ng of his c ritique of representational thinkin g, for the c ul mi­ nating question he poses is that of the role of mathematic al representation in sc ienc e. He unc overs a metaphysic s of subjec­ tivity in whic h the c ertainty of the experimental method is founded upon the self- assertion of the thinkin g subjec t. Experi­ mentati on is therefore underwritten in Heidegger's acc ount by an epistemology seeking the c larity a nd disti nc tness of subjec ­ tive representations, a C artesian l ogic that sec ures in suc h repre­ sentations truths from whic h other truths can foll ow. S ir Karl Popper (1959) argues that the logic of sc ientific devel ­ opment is not one of verific ation, not one of establ ishin g c ert ain ­ ties and sec uring truths, but of the falsific ati on of hypotheses. Kuhn (1970) mai ntains that the history of sc ienc e c onsists in shi fts between inc ommensurabl e paradigms, from, for example, P tolemy'S geoc entric universe to C opernican hel ioc entrism. T he history of sc ienc e ca nnot be c onsidered c umul ative under Kuhn's acc oun t, sinc e there is no l ogic al c onti nuity throughout suc h a shift. L akatos (1970) defends the notion of progress against the K uhnian view by arguing that rational rec onstruc ­ tion of paradigm shifts is possibl e. F eyerabend (1975) c laims that " anythin g goes, " that is, sc ientific progress best takes pl ac e when c onfl ic ting or i nc ommensurabl e paradigms c oexist in theTHE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

' HEIDEGGER S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

66

oretical anarchism.

In fact, he suggests, the history of science is

filled with idiosyncratic and irrational moments, such that the logic and rationality held essential to science are more myth than truth. Heidegger, unlike these analytics, is not strictly interested in the history of science. Rather, his concern is with the history of being, and with human being as the location of such a history. He

thinks that history as a sequence of three epochs: the ancient,

the medieval, and the modem. The latter is determined by sci­ ence, as the Greeks were by philosophy and the medievals by religion. Heidegger's work in the 1930s on the experimental method will move him toward this conclusion. Hence his contri­ bution to the history and philosophy of science is not an analysis of the epochal history of science, but rather of the epochs of being. His analysis of experimentation shows that representa­ tional thinking, definitive of modernity, is first and foremost found in scientific method. For this reason, Heidegger is inter­ ested in the differences between ancient and modem science; that is, he treats the history of science in order to think the place of science in modernity and not as a historian of science. Unlike the analytics, whose aim is an analysis of science itself, Heideg­ ger seeks to understand science toward a further end. He lays bare the role of science in determining modernity in the West. Heidegger's conception of the logic and epistemology of sci­ entific theory and practice is not easily positioned in relation to the analytic tradition. Whereas the analytics uncover a logic within the history and practice of science, for Heidegger science is part of a larger logic. The logic by which he reads the history of science is ultimately a historical dialectic, despite his explicit repudiation of dialectic in, for example, his

The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics.

1928

lecture course,

There he argues that

"all dialectic in philosophy is only the expression of an embar­ rassment"

(FCM 187/GM 276),

but in 1940 he will argue that

Aristotle is decisive for what emerges in modem metaphysics as the collapse of science and technology. I will lay out Heidegger's reading of Aristotle in the penultimate chapter of this book, and

I will argue in the final chapter that for Heidegger, the history of the West is the history of the collapse of what were for Aris­ totle clearly demarcated branches of knowledge. Theoretical and

EXPERIMENT AND REPRESENTATION

67

productive knowledge merge in the common essence of modem science and technology. This is a picture in which the history of the West is reduced to a reconciliation within knowledge, a reconciliation for which negative dialectic is now called, if other possibilities for human knowledge are to be opened. There are also for Heidegger smaller moments of dialectic in the history of the West. I will examine these moments more closely in a chapter on ancient science, for the accounts Heideg­ ger gives of Plato and Aristotle are the clearest examples of a logic of dialectic at work in the history of human knowledge of nature. Heidegger argues in Introduction

to Metaphysics that Plato

is a pivotal figure, both preserving and irretrievably changing pre-Socratic insight into being. When Plato interprets being as

'L&Ea (IM 180ff./ EM 137f£.), he preserves the pre-Socratic notion of being as presence, but abolishes being as (jllJ OL�, such that the stability of the l:&Ea over and against the transience of (jruau; con­ tains the origin of the medieval distinction between existentia and essentia (1M 181/EM 138). Plato reconciles being with idea in essence, a synthesis out of which existence emerges as antithesis. Heidegger argues in 1940 that Aristotle's

Physics is a similarly

destructive and preservative moment in the history of the West, preserving an echo of the pre-Socratic experience of being, while planting the seed that will flower as the distinction between na­ ture and spirit (BCP 224/W 243). Aristotle is the site of the origi­ nal reconciliation of nature and production that determines a common essence for science and technology in modernity. Hence it is not clear whether Plato or Aristotle is to be read as the crucial figure in the transformation of the ancient into the medieval epoch. For indeed, an account of the relation between Plato's and Aristotle's thinking is sorely lacking in Heidegger's work. In the 1930s Heidegger seems to have been looking for an account of that transformation. He attempted to find it in Plato in "Plato's Doctrine of Truth" and

Introduction to Metaphysics,

but he subsequently located the end of ancient metaphysics in Aristotle. Heidegger reads the history of being as a sequence of epochs-the ancient, the medieval, and the modem-which are radically distinct, yet bound inextricably to prior epochs by a logic of intellectual history. Science, as part of that history, falls into the same tripartite

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epochal division, yet it also plays a special role only beginning to be visible to Heidegger in the 1930s. In this decade, he ac­ knowledge the significance of physics in ancient thought. He argues in 1935, in

Introduction to Metaphysics,

that CPU<JL�, nature,

the object of physics, is the original determination of being for the pre-Socratics. Physics is not just a discipline within a taxon­ omy of knowledge, but informative of the pre-Socratic experi­ ence of being. Furthermore, it is in 1938, in "The Age of the World Picture," that Heidegger first sees that science is decisive for the modem epoch insofar as representational thinking in­ forms modernity. The experiment is the 1:6lto� wherein Heideg­ ger develops the latter thesis.

On the one hand, then, Heidegger can be aligned with Kuhn: there are epochs in the history of science which are radically distinct. On the other hand, Heidegger's continual retrieval of Greek concepts as a strategy for understanding the modem demonstrates his Lakatosian commitment to the intelligibility and rationality of shifts between epochs. Accordingly, Heideg­ ger could not be aligned with Feyerabend, despite their shared nostalgia for the Greeks. Feyerabend argues that science is not as rational as has been supposed, whereas Heidegger's intent with respect to science is to investigate it as the yardstick of ra­ tionality in modernity, that is, as the paradigm of representa­ tional thinking. Unlike the analytics, Heidegger is not concerned with whether or not science is rational, for he holds that science is the determination of rationality for the modems. In analytic terms, then, he is an anti-realist.

In 1938 Heidegger argues that the modem epoch is the age of the world as picture, that is, that representational thinking is the hallmark of modernity. Furthermore, he argues in the

Beitrnge

that representational thinking is a condition for the possibility of the experimental method. I will expose those theses within these and other of his writings, but also support the stronger interpretation of Heidegger's position: modem science is not just symptomatic of, but rather essential to and informative of, the modem epoch. Indeed, Heidegger's account of representation in experimentation points to Descartes as the origin of the meta­ physics of modem subjectivity, and hence of representation. Descartes's method in philosophy, as he himself points out in

EXPERIMENT AND REPRESENTATION

69

the preface to his Meditations on First Philosophy, is borrowed from the sciences, where it has been for him successful (Des­ cartes 1986:4). The sciences set the standard for truth and knowl­ edge in modernity. Heidegger is, then, preoccupied with the sciences not in order to understand better their logic and devel­ opment, but in order better to understand the rationality of the modem epoch. Hence it can be argued, with Father Richardson (1968:511), that Heidegger is not a philosopher of science, since his interest in science is on the way to analysis of the history of being. Yet it can also be argued, with Karlfried Griinder, that issues of sci­ ence pervade Heidegger's writings (1963:18). Heidegger is in­ tensely preoccupied with questions of scientific practice and theory, with its logic and epistemological assumptions and con­ sequences, for he reads science as the determining ground of the metaphysical epoch of nihilism. This argument will come to fruition in the Nietzsche volumes. In the 1930s, on the way to that argument, Heidegger continues to develop his earlier concep­ tion of modem science by looking to the experimental method. Heidegger's conception of science is traceable back to his earli­ est work, that is, to his clear if superficial commitment to scien­ tific realism explicit in 1912 in his discussion of the problem of realism in modem philosophy, and to his interest in 1916 in con­ trasting Aristotle's scientific methodology with Galileo's. In the earlier text, Heidegger argues that philosophy must be able to answer the question of realism, since the sciences are so success­ ful. His assumption is that the success of the sciences depends upon the truthfulness of their account of physical reality. In 1916, however, he argues that modem science is projective. This thesis is typical of anti-realism. Is Heidegger, then, a realist or an anti-realist? I argue that he does not reduce to the either/ or of realism and anti-realism, for he holds that the experiment is projective in its understanding, yet that it gets at truths about physical reality. Heidegger's view that the essence of science lies in the mathe­ matical projection of nature was first evident in 1916 in "Der Zeitbegriff in der Geschichtswissenschaft." Here he considers the projection of the concept of time in the physics of Aristotle and Galileo in contrast to time in the historical sciences. Using

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Galileo's law of free-fall acceleration, he characterizes modem science as the a priori formulation of hypotheses which are then tested in experimentation. TIUs account is based on the popular view of the scientific method. It is naively misconceived in that Newton describes himself as working in the reverse order: he experimented in order to uncover phenomena which he general­ ized by induction into universal law. Yet it is some twenty years

Principia on method (MSMM 259/FD 63). In Being and Time the account is more sophisticated than it was

until Heidegger will cite Newton's

in 1916. Heidegger argues in §69 that more than the time concept is projected onto nature in the theoretical attitude: the projection of the being of beings gives the theoretical attitude its stance. Anticipating the analytic debate about the theory-loadedness of observation, Heidegger suggests in §69(b) of

Being and Time that

only in the light of such a projection of the being of beings can a fact be found and set up for an experiment. There are no bare facts without a prior ontological commitment. Heidegger's ac­ count has developed since 1916, but he holds fast to the question of the role of the mathematical projection of nature in the sci­ ences.

In fact, it is in the decade

following

Being and Time that he

first develops this question. Heidegger develops the question by contextualizing it in a dis­

Die Frage nach dem Ding, the Beitriige, and "The Age of the World Picture." cussion of the experimental method. The focal texts are

Three particular issues, all of which revolve around the question of the projective nature of the scientific method, can be traced throughout these texts. First, how is nature projected in the sci­ entific method such that certainty can come from a single experi­ mental result? That a single result can be decisive is a point made in the

Beitriige.'

Analytic philosophy of science has raised

the same issue as the question of the crucial experiment. I use the Michelson-Morley experiment, which disproves the aether hypothesis, by way of a case study, to see whether Heidegger's claim that a condition for the possibility of the modem experi­ ment is the decisiveness of a single result is justified. ' All translations from this text are my own, with the generous guidance, assistance, and advice of Will McNeill. The original will be given in footnotes.

EXPERIMENT AND REPRESENTATION

71

Second, the Beitriige raises the question of the experiment by drawing a distinction between empirical evidence and ordinary experience. nus is not a new issue to Heidegger. He first sepa­ rates the empirical evidence of the experiment from experience in Die Frage nach dem Ding, where he suggests that Galileo and Newton argue against the evidence of experience (MSMM 265-66/FD 69) . In the Beitriige he asks whether observation in experiment creates or observes the phenomena at issue. In "The Age of the World Picture" he argues that research in physics stipulates in advance "that which must henceforth . . . be nature" (AWP 1 1 9 /H 78). Is nature thus investigated discovered or cre­ ated as an object of knowledge? For analytic philosophers of science, this problem takes the form of the worry that the theory-loadedness of observation brings a threat of vicious circularity: the theory may determine what counts as the facts, which in tum support the theory. Hei­ degger's answer in "The Age of the World Picture" is that sci­ ence does not necessarily create phantasms in its account of nature. But, Heidegger argues (and still maintains in 1954 in "Science and Reflection"), in establishing its sphere of objects, science determines the real within reductive limitations. Hence Heidegger treads a middle ground within the realist/ anti-realist debate in which theoretical entities are to be taken either literally or as fictional. He holds that science does not make up but rather sets up its object. TIUrd, I address the question of representation in science inso­ far as that representation is mathematical. In the Beitriige, the question of calculation is brought into Heidegger's account of the mathematical nature of modem science. Whereas pre­ viously, in Die Frage nach dem Ding, Heidegger redefined the mathematical to mean the a priori (MSMM 251-53/FD 56-58), in the Beitriige he asks about the numerical aspect of science. The calculative representation of nature is also an issue in "The Age of the World Picture," where Heidegger rethinks the mathemati­ cal projection of nature by arguing that the rigor of mathemati­ cal, physical science is exactitude. It is on the basis of the conclusions about representation drawn in this text that he will later argue that the essence of science is to be found in the es­ sence of technology. Accordingly, the work Heidegger does on

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representation and the scientific method in the 1930s is founda­ tional to his later critique of technology. These issues demonstrate three things. First, that Heidegger's analysis of the experiment is a study of the logic and epistemol­ ogy of science in the traditional sense of philosophy of science. Second, that his account of science can be put into dialogue with the analytic tradition of the philosophy of science. And third, that the experiment is the bridge by means of which Heidegger moves from his early analysis of the essence of science as the mathematical projection of nature to his later analysis of the es­ sence of science as the essence of technology. Accordingly, the experiment plays a more significant role in Heidegger's analysis of modem science than may be readily ap­ parent. He claims, after all, in 1935 that the fact that modem science is experimental is inadequate to distinguish it from an­ cient and medieval science (MSMM 248/FD 51-52), and that to call modem science experimental is to miss its fundamental fea­ ture (MSMM 249/FD 52). He goes on to identify the fundamen­ tal feature of modem science as the mathematical. It is only through Heidegger's analysis of the mathematical, at work in his ongoing conception of science as the mathematical projection of nature, that his account of the role of the experiment in modem science can be grasped. For the experiment, it seems, is an ap­ peal to the facts. It ensures in experience, as Kant's first Critique demanded, what reason adduces. Heidegger argues, however, that the experimental method is a projection of a priori concep­ tions onto nature, rather than observation and experience. This is Heidegger's insight into the scientific method in the 1930s: experimentation is a methodological idealism. It begins with an idea to which nature is then confined. Hence the experi­ ment is mathematical in the strong sense Heidegger develops in Die Frage nach dem Ding. When he says in those lectures that the experiment is not a fundamental feature of modem science, he is denying that experimentation establishes modem science as the science of facts in contrast to medieval superstition. He will go on to argue that the fundamental feature of modem science is the mathematical, which means that it is projective (MSMM 251-53/FD 56-57). When this text is read in conjunction with those written three years later, the Beitriige and "The Age of the

EXPERIMENT AND REPRESENTATION

73

World Picture," it is clear that the projective essence of modem science lies in its experimental method. Nature is conceived and represented in the experiment.

CRUCIAL EXPERIMENTS Some twelve years after Galileo's death, and sixty years after the event supposedly took place, Viviani recorded that Galileo climbed the tower of Pisa and let fall two objects. This moment began modem science, it is commonly believed, by establishing the revolutionary experimental method. It is odd that such a groundbreaking event took so long to be mentioned in print; so odd, in fact, that Favaro, chief editor of the National Edition of Galileo's works, suggests that it must be true, despite the lack of remark in the literature of the time, because Viviani must have heard it from Galileo himself. Lane Cooper suggests rather that the story is a myth (1935:13ff.). Ernest Moody argues further that even if the event did take place, "we may be assured on the incontestable authority of Galileo himself that its physical mean­ ing was totally different from that which is ascribed to it by the tradition of our physics books" (1951:163). Galileo does refer twice in De Motu, written while he was at Pisa between 1589 and 1592 but unpublished until the late eigh­ teenth century, to experiments involving throwing spheres from towers (1960:31, n. 12; 107). Both references are strange in that Galileo describes how, when two weights are thrown simultane­ ously from a height, the lighter initially descends ahead of the heavier, which then catches up and passes the lighter. His expla­ nation is that the heavier must overcome more inertia to begin its descent. That the heavier should initially descend more slowly is so unexpected a claim that presumably its source must be observation. Yet this evidence that Galileo performed the experi­ ment is not conclusive. At this point in De Motu, Galileo inserts a marginal note: "Borrius, part 3. ch. 12" (1960:106, n. 2). Borri taught at Pisa while Galileo was a student there, and in his De Motu Gravium et Levium he describes throwing weights from his window with the result that the lighter descended more quickly. He explains this observation along the lines of Galileo's later

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reasoning. It could very well be that rather than performing the experiment himself, Galileo borrowed the account from Borri. Whether or not Galileo actually performed the experiment seems, however, irrelevant. Borri did similar experiments, and Simon Stevin of Bruges claims in 1605 that he and John Grotius had long before performed experiments involving dropping weights thirty feet (Cooper 1935:14). Renieri actually dropped weights from the tower of Pisa in 1641, which he reported to Galileo as part of an exchange of correspondence that makes no mention of Galileo's performing similar experiments (Cooper 1935:30). Such experiments clearly took place in Galileo's day. That Galileo has been recorded as the daring groundbreaker perhaps says more about Galileo's personality and reputation than it does about the history of science. For, if the story is a myth, then it is a founding myth, and Galileo is its hero. He founds modern science by the radical introduction of a novel method. The hallmark of modern science is precisely that method: ex­ perimentation. Experimentation is a break with the medieval, scholastic tradition. It is a turn toward nature to uncover truths that can be used toward practical ends. In 1620 in the Great In­ stauration, the introduction to his Novum Organum, Francis Bacon called for science to "conquer [vincitur] nature in action" (1980:21). For him, that conquest was the noblest work of natural philosophy, over and against the merely speculative science of the ancients. He seeks "the true ends of knowledge," which are "the benefit and use of life" (1980:16). In the Novum Organum he classified the many different kinds of experiments that set the active scientist apart from the contemplative spectator. The suc­ cess Bacon anticipated for the experimental method is evidently reached in technological achievements that have only in recent years succumbed to criticism-environmental, social, and other­ wise. Later in the seventeenth century, in his Principia, Newton pre­ sented his theory of gravity as established by the scientific method. He writes to Oldenburg that his theory was evinced to him "not by deducing it only from a confusion of contrary suppositions, but by deriving it from experiments concluding positively and directly" (Thayer 1953:7). He deduces proposi-

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tions from phenomena uncovered in experimentation, and then makes them general by induction. This method seems sound, for it is arguable that there has never been a more successful theory than Newton's theory of gravity. Indeed, the scientific method, however several its formulations, has again and again proven itself successful in the human understanding and con­ quest of nature. Accordingly, it is not surprising that when Heidegger turns in the 1930s from the question of philosophy as science to the sci­ ences themselves, experimentation is the pivotal issue. The Gali­ lean founding myth of modem science shows not so much that bodies of different weight fall at the same rate as that the experi­ ment is methodologically decisive for modem science. Not only is experimentation definitively modem, but the story of Galileo and the tower indicates that a single experimental result can be adequate to establish or overturn a hypothesis. In Galileo's case, the toss from the tower overturns a belief apparently held by Aristotle. Scholars of the sixteenth century took Aristotle to hold that rate of free-fall is proportional to weight, and Galileo's he­ roic audacity is his refusal to accept this traditional view of his superiors in favor of the evidence of his eyes. One only has to see once that a ten-pound weight does not fall the same distance as a one-pound weight falls in one-tenth the time. What is sig­ nificantly new with Galileo is not so much a belief as it is a method. Although Heidegger was in 1916 ignorant of Newton's account of method, for there is a step of generalization to hy­ pothesis from several observed instances, his reading of Galileo is filtered by the common conception of that method. In 1935 Heidegger reads Newton on method in Die Frage nach dmz Ding, and his concerns about the experiment lie elsewhere. He is inter­ ested in the conditions for the possibility of the experiment in modem science. In the Beitriige, Heidegger cites "the conditions for the possi­ bility of the modem experiment": "1. the mathematical projec­ tion of nature, objectivity, representedness; 2. the transformation of the essence of reality from essentiality to individuality. Only under this prerequisite can an individual result claim strength of

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ground and proof of validity.'" The first condition is the claim that experimentation is not possible until nature has already been projected as representable numerically. The second is the claim that whereas ancient methodology involved generalizing about essences on the basis of experience and thus could not proceed with but a single instance, modern science establishes its evidence on the basis of an individual experimental result. I will return to the first condition below. Here I wish to under­ stand and evaluate the second condition for the possibility of the modern experiment. Is Heidegger's claim that experiments are not repeated? Or that repeatability validates the already successful result? Can a single experimental result carry the weight Hei­ degger attributes to it? For indeed, repeatability is a criterion of success in experimentation. Heidegger's analysis appears wrongheaded from the start, since repeatability and the validity of a single result are not consistent demands to make upon the experiment. I show that in fact repeatability and decisiveness for a single result are only superficially inconsistent, and really two sides of the same coin: realism. Repeatability as such a criterion has been a focal issue in the analytic tradition of the philosophy of science. Analytic philoso­ phers of science question repeatability in a different context than that in which Heidegger makes his claim for the decisiveness of a single result. Ian Hacking, for example, is interested in the logic of scientific practice, while Heidegger is thinking through in a much more abstract way the logic of scientific ideology. Now it is certainly the case that the analytic focus on the practice of science has brought more insight into the genesis, develop­ ment, and logic of the sciences than abstract considerations of ideology. Indeed, Paul Feyerabend has shown that the gap be­ tween ideology and practice in the sciences is large, and perni­ cious (1975:295-309). Yet it cannot be denied that the impact of the sciences on their larger social context is as much a result of 2 "Grundbedingungen der Moglichkeit des neuzeitlichen Experimentes: l . der mathematische Entwurf der Natur, Gegenstandlichkeit, Vor-gestelltheit; 2. die Umwancllung des Wesen der Wirklichkeit von der Wesenheit zur Einzeln­ heit. Nur unter dieser Voraussetzung kann ein Einze/ergebnis Begriindungsk­ raft und Bewahrung beanspruchen" (Beitrage 164).

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beliefs about science as of its actual practice. By putting Heideg­ ger's analysis of the ideology of modem science against Hack­ ing's practically based account of repeatability, and against Duhem's and Lakatos's denial that there are single decisive ex­ periments in the history of science, I use Heidegger's account to resolve an apparent discrepancy in the analytic tradition of philosophy of science. That discrepancy lies in the fact that what are called crucial experiments are not necessarily accepted by the scientific community before many repetitions. To begin, then, does the criterion of repeatability for successful experi­ ments undermine Heidegger's claim that a single experimental result can be decisive? Ian Hacking suggests that talk of repeatability is misleading, since much repetition happens by way of improving experi­ ments. Relying on the "paradoxical generalization . . . that most experiments don't work most of the time"

(1983:230), he sug­

gests that repetition is a way of learning when experiments are working, or, more importantly, an attempt "to produce a more stable, less noisy version of the phenomenon" (1983:231). Exper­ imental science is difficult, argues Hacking, because the phe­ nomena are difficult to produce as stable. Repetition can be a case of advancing technically beyond earlier versions of the ex­ periment, as repetition of the experiment to test the Bell inequal­ ity in quantum physics has been. This experiment involves separating particles that have interacted, the further apart the better, and then measuring their spin. Repetition has produced technically superior versions of what was originally a thought experiment. One recent version, performed by Dr. Nicolas Gisin at the University of Geneva in July

1997, is noteworthy in that

the photons were measured ten kilometers apart, whereas previ­ ous versions covered distances of one hundred meters or less. The original reason the Royal Society demanded repeatability was to conduce honesty and discourage the fudging of results. Once this concern is satisfied, however, repeatability does seem a strange criterion of success for an experiment. Is it a more than trivial demand scientifically? Newton made it a rule of reason­ ing that his experimental results could be generalized univer­ sally (Thayer 1953:3); having established experimental evidence of his hypotheses, he brought that knowledge a priori to further

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objects without needing experimental evidence to understand them. Indeed, he claims explicitly that he requires "the proof of but one experiment" (Thayer 1953:4) in order to conclude that bodies are infinitely divisible. Given that an experiment estab­ lishes controlled conditions within which results can be pre­ dicted, it seems, to borrow a metaphor, that repeatability as a criterion of success is much like buying several copies of a news­ paper in order to see if the first one is true. Yet the historical fact is that significant experiments regularly get done officially more than once. The experiment described above, for example, which pits quantum physics against local realism by means of the Bell inequality, was performed at least seven times between 1972 and 1976 alone. Not all those repeti­ tions are cases of different scientists wishing to see for them­ selves. John Clauser at the University of California at Berkeley did it officially twice (d'Espagnat 1979:166). Against Heidegger's claim that an individual result can claim validity, and Newton's claim that the proof of but one experiment is adequate to sup­ port a universal hypothesis, the question must be asked: Why have the results of Significant experiments in the history of sci­ ence failed to get accepted without multiple repetition? This question has been taken up in philosophy of science as the debate concerning "crucial experiments." Such experiments produce the Single experimental result that Heidegger argues has the strength of proof in modem science. The term comes from Francis Bacon, who included in his taxonomy of experi­ mentation in the Novum Organum what he called Instantiae crucis. This expression means literally "instances of crossroads" and describes experiments that are crucial in the sense that they are decisive in choosing between competing theories. Whether or not there are such experiments is a matter of debate, however. Heidegger argues in the Beitriige not only the weaker claim that such experiments exist, but also the stronger claim that their possibility in principle is a condition for the modem scientific method. Pierre Duhem denies that there are crucial experiments in physics. He argues that the scientist tests not an isolated hypoth­ esis but groups of hypotheses. In response to a result that was not predicted, the scientist must revise, replace, or abandon at

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least one of those hypotheses, but "the experiment does not des­ ignate which one should be changed"

(1954:187). Likewise, Irnre

Lakatos rejects crucial experiments because there is no "instant rationality"

Within a scientific research program, ex­

(1970:154).

periments that decide between similar versions of a theory are common. But a research program is defeated only "with long hindsight"

(1970:173). Science advances by means of painstaking

and thorough labor, not sudden, theory-shattering experimental results. Science is simply not that transparent to scientists, ar­ gues Lakatos. Only long after the fact is it possible to see what was significant, what pedestrian, in the progress of knowledge. Hacking argues against Lakatos's view, suggesting that in a crucial experiment one

can

see at the time that one is at a cross­

roads. "Crucial experiment" is perhaps too strong a term, he qualifies, but nonetheless, some kinds of experimental result "serve as benchmarks, permanent facts about phenomena which any future theory must accommodate, and which, in conjunction with compatible theoretical benchmarks, pretty permanently force us in one direction"

(1983:254).

The Michelson-Morley ex­

periment produced just such a result, and is in fact the standard case study of a crucial experiment in the debate among analytic philosophers of science. It is an experiment designed to test the hypothesis that a subluminiferous aether permeates all space. The truth of the matter is that the Michelson-Morley experi­ ment was not a onetime affair. It was first performed in The most famous version was in ment five times, the last in

1925,

1881. 1887. Michelson did the experi­ and it has been done officially

many times since. Do the many instances of this experiment, decisive for subsequent science, count as evidence against the crucial experiment, and thus also threaten Heidegger's claim that the individual result can "claim strength of ground and proof of validity"? The idea of an all-pervading aether was long-standing and embedded in several other theories. Thomas Young's wave the­ ory of light and

G. G.

Stokes's account of astronomical aberra­

tion, for example, depended upon it. Further corroboration seemed evident in Maxwell's combining of electromagnetism with the theory of light, and in Hertz's work on radio waves. Lakatos describes a logic of discovery in which a scientific re-

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search program consists of a "hard core" surrounded by a pro­ tective belt of auxiliary hypotheses

(1970:133). The latter bear

the brunt of adjustment when evidence contrary to the theory becomes apparent. The aether hypothesis was truly hard core.

In the late nineteenth century, Albert Michelson devised

an ex­

periment to test it. The experiment can be outlined quite briefly.3 Michelson split a beam of light using a half-silvered mirror such that half the rays were sent in the direction of the earth's motion, half at right angles to it. What he wanted to do was measure the motion of the earth relative to the aether on the basis of the interference effect of the reunited rays. The aether should have a drag effect on one beam of light, and the resulting velocities once recombined would produce a phase change evi­ dent in an interference effect. The experiment produced a negative result: there was no in­ terference. Hence, concluded Michelson, there is no stationary subluminiferous aether. He did not think that his experiment failed because it gave a negative result. Rather, in publishing his results, he expressed no doubt that the experiment was entirely successful. He concluded strongly: "The interpretation of these results is that there is no displacement of the interference bands. The result of the hypothesis of a stationary ether is thus shown to be incorrect, and the necessary conclusion follows that the hypothesis is erroneous"

(1881:128). He further takes his results

as contradictory to Stokes's explanation of astronomical aberra­ tion, and thus allows his experiment to topple two, albeit inter­ related, theories. Why, then, was the experiment performed repeatedly by Michelson, both with and without Morley, and by others? One reason was suggested by Hacking: to improve the experi­ ment technically. It was a difficult experiment to perform.

In the

original experiment, Michelson had to leave the city and float his equipment in vats of mercury to escape interfering vibra­ tions. Horses passing the building were enough to disturb the experiment. Repetition can be, as Hacking points out, a way of 3 Cf. Hacking 1983:254-61; see also Michelson 1881 and Resnik 1968:chapter 1 .5-7 for an account of the experiment and attempts to preserve aether through adding additional hypotheses.

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improving the experiment, yet that is not the case here. Michel­ son had what he considered an adequate and satisfactory ar­ rangement of the apparatus before he published his results. And despite the availability of the technology to improve experimen­ tal conditions beyond any question, the experiment continued to be repeated well into this century. Repeating experiments may be about producing more stable, less noisy phenomena, or it may be an indication that equipment is the first thing at which to point the finger when awkward results are produced. Awkward results like the negative result of Michelson-Morley threaten hypotheses that have a history of success in a research program and that rightly should not be thrown over too quickly. To aban­ don a core hypothesis is to open a hole at the center of a group of theories that may fall down without its support. Indeed, one reason the experiment was so often repeated was a reluctance on the part of the scientific community to relinquish the aether theory, which had done quite well as a theory for so long and figured prominently in other theories. Scientists resist giving up such hard-core hypotheses because to do so threatens other elements in a coherence of theory. This means, however, that it was not the case that the experiment was repeated be­ cause it was not yet clear that it was decisive. It did not become decisive through repetition. Rather, the experiment was redone

precisely because its decisive nature was already recognized and

re­

sisted.

Kuhn argues likewise that crucial experiments are recognized for their decisiveness, but he suggests that they do not in fact illuminate scientists' decision-making processes, except as a ve­ hicle for illustrating criteria of choice. "By the time they were performed," he argues, meaning Foucault's pendulum, Caven­ dish's demonstration of gravitational attraction, and Fizeau's measurement of the relative speed of sound in air and water, "no scientist still needed to be convinced of the validity of the theory their outcome is now used to demonstrate"

(1977:327).

Crucial experiments are, he suggests, pedagogical tools that demonstrate criteria of choice long after the choices have been made. They would only be relevant to theory choice if they pro­ duced an unexpected result. It is certainly the case, however, that the Michelson-Morley experiment produced such an unex-

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pected result. As a crucial experiment, it does precisely what Kuhn denies crucial experiments do: it provides a decisive, if unexpected, result. Heidegger's claim that an individual result is decisive is con­ sistent with the ongoing repetition of the Michelson-Morley ex­ periment. Its individual result has the strength of proof. That a phase change should be detectable is the principle on which the experiment succeeds, even if that success is a negative result. Michelson-Morley was a starting point for Einstein's special rel­ ativity long before people stopped repeating the experiment. Michelson's result only became accepted when there were other means available-for example, relativity theory-to explain things for which the aether hypothesis had previously ac­ counted. Refusal to accept Michelson's results in 1881 without resistance is more a reflection of human nature than it is of ad­ herence to the criterion of repeatability for experiments. Per­ fectly good explanations are simply difficult to give up when they lose their perfection, until better explanations come along. Heidegger can accordingly be used to reconcile the fact that experiments are intended to have decisive results with the fact that their decisiveness does not prevent their repetition from being more than triviaL If Michelson-Morley is a crucial experi­ ment, it is not because it decides between competing theories. One could say that there are two theories: one, that there is a stationary subluminiferous aether permeating all space; the other, that there is not. But this analysis is at best ad hoc and at worst triviaL Rather, there is a single fact at stake at a crossroads where one way holds to that fact and the other way does not. The fact of a luminiferous aether topples in the single experiment of 1881. It simply takes several decades before the scientific com­ munity will relinquish such a powerful explanatory tooL If cru­ cial experiments are "instances of crossroads," then Michelson­ Morley shows that they are decisive in pointing out which ways are blind alleys. Michelson-Morley falsifies the hypothesis of subluminiferous aether decisively; it proves no positive thesis. Is it the case, however, that crucial experiments can have a positive function-that is, are there experiments that do not just topple a theory, but that decisively establish a competing theory? Modem science has as its founding myth Galileo's free-fall ex-

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periment, which is considered decisive between the Aristotelian and modem worldviews. It would seem that if there ever were a crucial experiment, Galileo's free-fall experiment would be it. Yet it seems unlikely that it was ever performed. As a founding myth, however, it is completely consistent with the scientific strategy of taking truth from a single result rather than from generalization over multiple instances. The myth founds a meth­ odology in which a single production of an observed result can topple a theory. Heidegger claims in the Beitriige that a condition for the possi­ bility of the modem experiment is a transition of the essence of reality from essentiality to individuality. In Being and Time he claims that in the theoretical attitude, the "understanding of Being . . . has changed over" (BT 412/52 361). This claim can easily be understood as referring to the gestalt switch on the part of the individual scientist. Or the claim can be read historically by means of the Beitriige, which I have situated in the context of the analytic debate about crucial experiments. To take Heidegger to be saying that modem science is committed ideologically to the crucial experiment (i.e., to the effectiveness in principle of a single result) is to use analytic philosophy of science to read the transition described in §69 of Being and Time as historicaL There Heidegger claims to have left hanging the "question of the gene­ sis of theoretical behavior" (BT 412/52 360). If this point is taken on the basis of the Beitriige as historical rather than existential (i.e., as concerning the history of science and not the conscious­ ness of the scientist), then the question of the genesis of theoreti­ cal behavior can be answered: a condition for the possibility of the experimental method is precisely the transformation of the experience of reality from essentiality to individuality. Reality is no longer experienced as essences, knowledge of which requires several instances; rather, it can be experienced decisively in a single experimental result on the basis of a priori formulation of hypotheses. Michelson-Morley is a crucial experi­ ment exemplifying precisely the decisiveness of a single result. Indeed, more than a theory is thrown over by the toss from the tower. A cosmology falls. And, more significantly, a new way of doing science supplants previous methodologies. Galileo's free­ fall experiment is methodologically crucial. It rejects the specula-

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tive metaphysics of medieval science in favor of the empirical evidence of experience. Or does it? Heidegger argues that the experiment does not in fact rely on the evidence of experience. The contrast between Aristotle's method and the modem experi­ ment is central to the distinction Heidegger draws between ordi­ nary experience and the empirical evidence of experimentation. Experience is simply not the same thing for Aristotle and for the experimental physicist.

EXPERIMENT AND EXPERIENCE

Heidegger argues in §78 of the Beitriige that the experiment does not take its validity and force of proof from ordinary, everyday experience. Rather, it constructs empirical findings outside the realm of such experience. Indeed, were the quotidian an ade­ quate forum for scientific proof, one would not need a laboratory in which to experiment. In Die Frage nach dem Ding, Heidegger argues the stronger thesis that the experiment argues against ex­ perience (MSMM 265-66/FD 69). He comes to these claims through a long-standing inquiry into the differences between Aristotle's physics and Galleo's. The focal contrast he uncovers is that Aristotle's physics takes its evidence from experience, Galileo's from the empirical. The distinction between experience and the empirical is a Heideggerian innovation that warrants careful attention. It flies in the face of a scientific ideology that collapses the two in the experiment by taking the empirical re­ sults of experimentation to be precisely proof in experience. Aristotle is renowned as a realist, and Heidegger himself ar­ gues as early as 1916 that Aristotle's method is to generalize on the basis of experience (ZG 419). Yet Aristotle did not experi­ ment. Why not? Because he lacked the right technology? He could surely have come up with two weights and a height from which to throw them. The modem experiment is different from any test Aristotle may have performed in that his explanations in terms of essences, generalized over many instances, are re­ placed by the observation of single instances that can support or undermine a hypothesis which is held by the scientist in ad-

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vance. Experimentation is not central to Aristotle's method be­ cause he does not proceed on the basis of such hypotheses. The experimental method is peculiarly modem. As such, it establishes a novel experience of nature for the scientist. Moody speculates that "the most decisive factor in Galileo's achieve­ ments in physics" (1951:414) may have been the "ideal of axio­ matic formulation of a physical theory, in which the physical postulates involved in the theory are made fully explicit, and their consequences derived by rigorous mathematical deduc­ tion" (1951:413). What's new with Galileo's science is the scien­ tific method, not insofar as it is experimental, but in that it entails the formulation of a priori hypotheses whose conse­ quences can be mathematically derived. Moody argues that Gal­ ileo took the ideal of a mathematically demonstrated dynamics from Archimedes (1951:413). His method has its roots not in Ar­ istotle's realism, but in mathematical idealism. For the modem scientist, reality no longer consists of essences whose nature can be generalized over several experiences, but rather in entities that can be thoroughly described mathematically. Indeed, in modem science the ideal world of mathematics overlays physi­ cal reality unproblematically, until quantum theorists raise the question of physical interpretation of their mathematical for­ malism. Heidegger argues in the Beitrage that the experiment is an ar­ gumentum ex re that develops against the argumentum ex verbo of the Middle Ages. In the same year, in "The Age of the World Picture," he claims that when Bacon demands the experiment, he wants "the argumentum ex re instead of the argumentum ex verbo" (AWP 122/H 82). For the latter the ground of certainty is divine revelation, the question is one of interpretation of author­ ity, and the cardinal rule is that against contradiction (Beitrage 162-63). The medieval preoccupation with textual interpretation is replaced in modem science by a concern for the phenomena. One can easily construe this shift as a move toward realism, a tum from word to world, as indeed the shift from Aristotle's Ef1:7tELQla to medieval doctrina was the reverse move, from world to word. Indeed, Moody argues that one must "concede a healthy measure of Platonist and Alexandrian character to the western medieval tradition" (1951:389). That is, medieval science

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is determined by the abstract and generalized terms in which a problem is formulated, rather than by the commonsense empiri­ cism of Aristotle. But, Heidegger argues, the transition from medieval

doctrina to modem

science, though a move away from

the word, is not a return to the world of experience. The question of the relation and difference between ancient

Beitriige. He 1916 in "Der Zeitbegriff in der Geschichts­ wissenschaft," and returned to it twenty years later in Die Frage nach dem Ding. He observed in 1916 that the modem scientific and modem science is not new to Heidegger in the raised it originally in

method of testing an a priori and universal law stands in opposi­ tion to Aristotle's method of generalization on the basis of expe­ rience. But, whereas Heidegger read the difference between Galileo and Aristotle as methodological in

1916,

twenty year

later he does not locate the difference between Newton and Aris­ totle in methodology.

In 1935 Heidegger argues that for both Newton and Aristotle, the process of knowledge comes to a halt in the phenomenon experienced, in the thing known. He lifts this methodological principle out of Newton's Principia, Book ill, and he cites Regulae

IV: "In experimental philosophy we are to look upon proposi­ tions inferred by general induction from phenomena as accurate or very nearly true, notwithstanding contrary hypotheses that may be imagined, till such times as other phenomena occur, by which they may either be made more accurate, or liable to excep­ tions"

(MSMM 259/ FD 63). Newton's method is an appeal to the

phenomenon that holds a proposition to be true until contrary evidence is uncovered. Hence it is compatible with Aristotle's method in that both look to the phenomenon as the final arbiter of scientific knowledge. The difference between Heidegger's views in

1916 and in 1935

does not arise, however, because he views Galileo and Newton as methodologically distinct. Rather, it is his own thinking that

1935 that both Newton and against the evidence of ordinary experience. When

has changed. Heidegger notes in Galileo argue

dropped from the tower of Pisa, a lead weight does in fact fall faster than a feather. Galileo's task is precisely to account for that difference such that his law of uniform acceleration can be held valid. He achieves this end by appealing to something that

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is not itself visible: the air's resistance (MSMM 266/FD 69). Like­ wise, Newton's law of inertia applies to something that does not exist: a body not impressed by any external force. There is no such body (MSMM 265/FD 69). Although modem science ap­ peals to the empirical in the experiment, it does not in fact ap­ peal to ordinary experience. Rather, it appeals to an isolated, controllable empirical situation. Modem science returns to the empirical only insofar as it separates the empirical from ordi­ nary experience. Heidegger's claim that the empirical is distinct from ordinary experience is in accord with Bacon's proposal of the experimen­ tal method. Bacon based his method precisely on this difference, arguing that "sense fails in two ways" (1980:24): by rendering either no information or false information. The purpose of ex­ periment was precisely to rectify the senses. Rather than use the senses to judge nature, he suggested that "the office of the sense shall be only to judge of the experiment, and that the experiment itself shall judge of the thing" (1980:24). The empirical data pro­ duced in an experiment are different-better, in fact-than ordi­ nary experience. The argument that the experiment is a separation of the em­ pirical from ordinary experience can be found in the analytic tradition of philosophy of science some fifty years after Heideg­ ger first made it in Die Frage nach dem Ding. Ian Hacking argues that experiments do not observe so much as they "create, pro­ duce, refine and stabilize phenomena" (1983:230)-phenomena that are not plentifully available in nature. He is not suggesting that experiments create phenomena that exist nowhere else, but rather that they produce phenomena that are easier to work with than their counterparts in nature. At least that seems to be the claim. But his analysis, despite its regular focus on examples from quantum physics, overlooks the fact that many experi­ ments produce phenomena not found in experience outside the laboratory. In what sense does an experimental scientist produce what she or he examines? Thomas Kuhn argues in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions that science works on the basis of paradigms. The latter are much like what Heidegger called ''basic concepts" (BT 29/ SZ 9): the structures that demarcate and fix the area of subject matter

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of a science. Heidegger claims that the real movement of the sciences takes place when these basic concepts undergo radical revision; Kuhn calls such radical revision "scientific revolution." Kuhn argues that paradigms do not create data so much as they determine what gets picked out as the data and how it is orga­ nized. We may wish to say that "after a revolution scientists are responding to a different world" (Kuhn 1970:1 1 1). But, using Dalton as an example, Kuhn argues that really a new paradigm is "an index to a quite different aspect of nature's regularity" (Kuhn 1970:130). A revolution in science is a gestalt switch, after which different features of reality appear for the scientist as the observable data. Hence different paradigms are incommensura­ ble. They have different data, rather than common data upon which they disagree. Accordingly, whereas Hacking holds that experiments repro­ duce phenomena, Kuhn argues that paradigms determine selec­ tion of what count as phenomena. Hacking is a realist in Representing and Intervening: he holds that experiments produce as more stable phenomena what could otherwise be found in nature. Experiments in particle physics do not fit this account quite so neatly. Not only has realism been further undermined in quantum theory by the Bell inequality, but even the most committed quantum realist surely would not suggest that one could meet quantum particles in ordinary experience. Kuhn's position is more subtle: scientists looking at the same world through different paradigms simply don't see the same data. What about Heidegger? Does his claim in Die Frage nach dern Ding that experimentation is a separation of the empirical from ordinary experience commit him to holding that the experiment creates reality? The earliest piece in Heidegger's Gesamtausgabe is called "Das Realitatsproblem in der modemen Philosophie." In this 1912 text, Heidegger's inclination is readily toward realism. He rejects a Husserlian philosophy of immanent consciousness and phe­ nomenalism on the grounds that a rejection of both these posi­ tions makes the establishing and determination of realism possible.' Heidegger is committed to realism at this early point • "Mit der Zuriickweisung des Konscientialismus und Phiinomenalismus sind Setzung und Bestimmung von Realitaten als moglich dargetan" ("Realitat­ sproblem" 11).

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in his life for two reasons. First, because the "healthy realism" of empirical, natural science has produced such "dazzling re­ sults" that science stands as an "irrefutable, epoch-making fact."s Second, he believes that the "establishing of a conscious­ ness-transcendent reality is above all demanded through the fact that one and the same object is directly communicable to differ­ ent individuals."· The success of the sciences and the intersub­ jective availability of objects lead Heidegger to want to ground the validity of scientific realism philosophically. Accordingly, he asks whether first an establishing (Setzung), and second a determination (Bestimmung), of the real are possi­ ble. He answers that an establishing of the real is possible only on the basis of both thinking and sensation. Neither alone can suffice to establish the existence of an outer world (der Auflen­ welt) ("Realitatsproblem" 13). And he further suggests that the determination of the real-that is, the determination of the na­ ture of the outer world above and beyond the establishing of its' existence-is in fact the goal of the sciences themselves.' He suggests that the history of science shows movement toward this goal unambiguously.s Hence Heidegger holds as early as 1912 that the relation between philosophy and the sciences is such that the assumption of realism by the latter can be validated by the former. But Heidegger's early realism is a naive realism. His interest in and concern with the sciences is an unreflective commitment to their success, of which he will only later begin to be critical. Finding evidence of consciousness-transcendent objects on the basis of their intersubjective availability, and in large part through an account of nerves and physiology, is a position only possible on the basis of realist assumptions. It is Heidegger's 5 "gesunden Realismus . . . glanzenden Erfolge . . . unabweisbare, epochema­ chende Tatbestand" ("Realitatsproblem" 3-4). ' ''Die Setzung von bewuiltseinstranszendenten Realitaten wird vor allem durch die Tatsache gefordert, daB ein und dasselbe Objekt verschiedenen In­ dividuen urunittelbar kommuikabel ist" ("Realitatsproblem" 12). 7 "Eine vollgiiltige, adequate Bestimmung der gesetzten Realitaten wird fur die Realwissenschaften ein ideales Ziel bleiben" (Realitatsproblem" 14). 8 "Neben dem materialen Fortschritt weist die Geschichte der Wissenschaf­ ten unzweideutig ein Vorwartsdrangen in der normalen Bestimmung der Ob­ jekte auf" ("Realitatsproblem" 14).

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faith in science that leads him to reject Kant's attempt to ground physics in phenomenalism as inadequate. The struggle to secure the sciences on the foundation of meta­ physics remains the cornerstone of Heidegger's philosophical inquiry until Being and Time. Heidegger begins with a commit­ ment to realism because of the success of the sciences, and hence he can give realism immanent critique. Yet he also begins very much under the influence of transcendental idealism, which he also thinks critically from within. This is the background out of which his analysis of experimentation emerges. His critique of the experiment is not that it creates its objects ex nihilo. Nor is he any longer a naive realist, however. He has come to a position that can no longer be characterized in term of realism and ideal­ ism. The complexity and subtlety of his position consists in his insight that the experiment is a separation of the empirical from experience. In the Beitriige, Heidegger comes back to the question of the separation of experience and the empirical in the experiment. He notes that experimentation is a return in some sense to Aris­ totle's Ef.ll'tELQla. If the origin of modernity is to be traced back to the Middle Ages, it must be further traced back to Aristotle's interest in the empiricaL On this basis he criticizes Walther Ger­ lach's argument-albeit cryptically, in "Theorie und Experiment in der exacten W issenschaft"-that modem science had already begun already in the Middle Ages: "If already [begun], then back to the origin of this medieval 'modernity': Aristotle's Ef.ll'tELQla."9 I interpret him to mean that modem science has more in common with Aristotle than with medieval doctrina. Heidegger's view, like that of Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, is that the history of science moves forward with radical breaks. Yet, like Lakatos, Heidegger believes that a thoughtful analysis can make rational sense of such radical breaks. Indeed, for Heidegger the logic at work in the progress of science is dialectical more than anything else. Epochal trans­ formations are Aujhebungen, in which something is cast off and something maintained, something abolished and something 9 "Wenn schon, dann zurtick auf die QueUe dieser mitteialterlichen »Mod­ emitiit«: Aristoteies, EJmEt.Qla" (Beitritge 164).

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raised up. Therefore no epoch is for Heidegger free of its history. Something of Aristotle's E!lJtELQla remains in modernity in the experiment. Medieval doctrina is radically different from both ancient science and modem science. A trace of Aristotle's EI!1tELQla remains in what distinguishes modem science radi­ cally from medieval doctrina: the experimental method. In Heidegger's view, the experiment belongs in modem sci­ ence because the latter can only establish its certainty through experience. He argues that "in order that the concept of scientific experiment in the sense of the modem science of today can be provided with adequate certainty, it needs a view through the steps and ways of experience, in which context belongs the ex­ periment."l0 The experiment brings the assurance of experience to results. Yet one should be wary of finding experience in the experiment, even etymologically. The etymological connection does not guarantee that the earlier words contain anything like the modem experiment: "The long history of the word (and that is at the same time of the thing), that sounds with the name 'experiment: should not encourage that in addition there, where experimentum and experiri and experientia are found, now also already knowledge of the 'experiment' of today [is found), or even just the immediately prior preliminary stages."" There is something essentially different to be found in the modem exper­ iment: the intent to order by means of a lawlike hypothesis. In §77 of the Beitriige, Heidegger raises the question of the ex­ periment as a method of gathering knowledge. He argues that there are two possibilities for the collection of information on the basis of the preconception at work in experimentation. One is "an indiscriminate collection of observations merely on the basis of their interminable diversity and conspicuousness."12 \0 "Urn dem Begriff des wissenschaftlichen Experimentes im 5inne der heuti­ gen, neuzeitlichen Wissenschaft die hinreichende Bestimmtheit verschaffen zu konnen, bedarf es eines Durchblicks durch die 5tufen und Weisen des »Erfah­ rens«, in deren Zusammenhang das » Experiment« gehort" (Beitriige 159). 11 "Die lange Geschichte des Wortes (und d. h. zugleich der Sache) das mit dem Namen »experiment« anklingt, dad nicht dazu verleiten, dort, wo experi­ mentum und experiri und experientia vorkommen, nun auch schon die Kennt­ nis des heutigen » Experimentes« oder auch nur die unmittelbaren Vorstufen dazu finden zu wollen" (Beitriige 159). " "eine wahllose Ansammlung von Beobachtungen lediglich auf Grund ihrer unabsehbaren Mannigfaltigkeit und Auffalligkeit" (Beitriige 161).

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The second is "a collection with the intention of an order in which [the) principle is still not at all taken from the observed objects."'3 The latter emphasizes regularity and is an anticipa­ tion of the imposition of a rule, that is, of a constant recurrence in the same conditions. What the understanding brings to things and therefore finds there, Heidegger called in 1935 "the mathematical." The mathe­ matical is for him not simply the numerical. Rather, it is under­ stood in contrast to the empirical insofar as the mathematical has its source in the thinker rather than experience. The number 3, for example, is found in things only because it is first brought to things by the understanding (MSMM 252-63/FD 57-58). Ac­ cordingly, the claim that the ordering principle is "not at all taken from the observed objects" is the claim that the ordering principle is placed there by the scientist. The intent upon a rule is what, according to Heidegger, deter­ mines objectivity beforehand in a given area of science." The experiment is in fact only possible where an area of objectivity is determined that sticks to rules, that is, which exhibits measur­ able regularities. This is the sense in which the experiment is mathematical for Heidegger: a hypothesis is formulated before­ hand of the regularities nature will exhibit under experimenta­ tion. Only because it is mathematical in this broader sense does modem science have what Heidegger calls, in "The Age of the World Picture," the rigor of exactitude. He suggests there that mathematical research into nature is not exact because it calcu­ lates with precision; rather, "it must calculate in this way be­ cause its adherence to its object-sphere has the character of exactitude" (AWP 120/H 79). Its prior projection of its object as reckonable gives sense to the rigor of precision. In the Beitriige, Heidegger argues that the experiment is neces­ sary to modem science precisely because physics "is mathemati­ cal (not empirical), therefore is it necessarily experimental in the sense of the measuring experiment."1S The mathematical projec13 "eine Sammlung in der Absicht auf eine Ordnung, deren »Prinzip« noch gar rticht aus den beobachteten Gegenstanden entnommen ist" (Beitrage 161) . .. "dall iiberhaupt das Regelhafte und nur dieses das Gegenstandliche in seinem Bereich im voraus bestimmt" (Beitrage 162). 15 "Wei! die neuzeitliche »Wissenschaft« (Physik) mathematisch (rticht em-

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tion of nature is, he claims, "precisely the prerequisite for the necessity and possibility of the 'experiment' as measuring."!6 Later he argues that because modem science is exact, therefore the experiment (Beitriige 166). The experimental method is cru­ cial to modem science, Heidegger is arguing, because modem science demands precision. It is mathematical in the narrow sense of using measurement and calculation because it projects nature as reckonable. Nature is projected as something that will demonstrate regularities, regularities that can be predicted pre­ cisely and measured. Across several texts from the second half of the decade follow­ ing Being and Time, then, Heidegger holds that measurement in experimental methodology is definitive of modem science. Yet he acknowledges as early as 1916, in "Der Zeitbegriff in der Geschichtswissenschaft" (418, n. 1), that experimentation as a methodology was known before the modem epoch. In 1935, in Die Frage nach dem Ding, he is prepared to distinguish the mod­ em experiment from older versions. In making the distinction, "what matters is not the experiment as such in the wide sense of testing through observation but the manner of setting up the test and the intent with which it is undertaken and in which it is grounded" (MSMM 248/FD 52). What is this difference in the manner of setting up the test and its intent? Heidegger noted in 1916 that a difference between ancient nat­ ural philosophy and modem natural science is that the former "searched for the metaphysical essence and hidden causes aris­ ing in immediate actuality."17 This is the sense in which Aristotle is an empiricist. He generalizes on the basis of observations, and therefore his account of natural phenomena begins with experi­ ence. But he does not begin with the experiment, which sets up the test in a different way and with a different intent than the pirisch) ist, deshalb ist sie notwendig experimentell im Sinne des

perimentes" (Beitrage 163). 16

messenden Ex­

"Gerade der Entwurf der Natur im mathematischen Sinne ist die Vorausset­ zung fur die Notwendigkeit und Moglichkeit des »Experimentes« als des mes­ senden" (Beitrage 163). 11 " suchte das metaphysische Wesen der in der unmittelbaren Wirklichkeit sich aufdrangenden Erscheinungen und deren verborgene Ursache zu erfor­ schen" (ZG 418-19).

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ancient reliance on experience: the modem intent is to appeal to the empirical under controlled conditions. By the 1930s Heidegger has thought explicitly the difference between experience and experiment. In Die Frage nach dem Ding he laid the difference out as a contrast between Aristotle on the one hand and Galileo and Newton on the other. In the Beitriige he argues that it is "without the pursuit of the history of the word, that the issue concerning a development of experience and of the empirical is sketched toward a preparation of a de­ limiting of the essence of the experiment."'· The essence of the experiment is to be found in the relation between experience and the empirical, not in etymology. Etymology points to continuit­ ies, and Heidegger wants to point to discontinuities. What, then, are those discontinuities? In "The Age of the World Picture," originally read as a lecture in 1938, Heidegger describes Aristotle as the first empirical sci­ entist: "To be sure, it was Aristotle who first understood what Ef.LltELQla (experientia) means: the observation of things them­ selves, their qualities and modifications under changing condi­ tions, and consequently the knowledge of the way in which things as a rule behave" (AWP 121/H 80-81). Experience is that which happens to one without one's doing, argues Heidegger. Aristotle understood this. Observation in his sense is different from what it is in the research experiment, and would be even if Aristotle's observations had worked with numbers, measure­ ments, apparatus, and equipment. For what is essential to the research experiment is missing in Aristotle's method: "Experiment begins with the laying down of a law as a basis" (AWP 121/H 81). As Heidegger already knew in 1916, Aristotle generalizes the fact from observation. But mod­ em science comes to experience after the fact, as it were, since its fore-structure entails a universal law which the scientist then investigates in the ongoing activity of research. This ongoing research is what Kuhn called "normal science," in opposition to revolutionary science, in which a paradigm is overthrown in 18 "Es sei hier, ohne historischen Verfolg der Wortgeschichte, der Sache nach eine Stufenfolge des » Erfahrens« und des »Empirischen« aufgezeichnet zur Vorbereitung einer Wesensumgrenzung des »Experimentes«" (Beitriige 159-

60).

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favor of a new one. The modem experimental method entails observation, but observation follows behind and is determined by theory. This arrangement precludes the possibility of inter­ pretation according to the Aristotelian model Heidegger charac­ terizes, in which the phenomena themselves are the basis for generalization. Likewise in the Beitriige, Heidegger argues that the modem scientific experiment is more than the "looking around" of Aris­ totle's style of observation. As a going toward something (Zu­ gehen auf etwas) and a testing (Erprabung), the experience gained through experiment is already what he calls a seeking (Ges­ uchtes). Experience has in this account a kind of "letting be"­ reminiscent of the maxim of phenomenology Heidegger proclaimed in §7 of Being and Time that an active seeking does not, since it risks overdetermination. The modem scientist pur­ sues (verfalgt) the encounter with the thing. Scientific observa­ tion is not simply an inspection but a determination of the conditions under which a thing is encountered precisely through interventions (Eingriffe). In the experiment, "we provide ourselves with definite experiences through definite interven­ tions and under application of definite conditions of a more pre­ cise seeing and determination."'· The word used here, Eingriff shares its root with the German Begriff meaning "concept." Both German words are derived from greifen, which means to grasp or lay hold of. The experiment is an active laying hold of its object through intervention rather than a passive, in the sense of non-interventionist, observing of how things behave when left to themselves. The magnifying glass and the microscope are exam­ ples Heidegger gives of such adaptation of the conditions of ob­ servation. But the decisive factor in the modem experiment is not the apparatus as such. It is the placing of the question, that is, the concept of nature (Beitriige 166). It is the way nature is projected such that it makes sense to adapt the conditions of observation through intervention. Indeed, that experiments in­ tervene is a central thesis in Hacking's book, Representing and -

Intervening. 19 "verschaffen wir uns bestinunte Erfahrungen durch bestinunte Eingriffe und unter Anwendung bestinunter Bedingungen des genaueren Sehens und Bestinunens" (Beitrage 160).

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Accordingly, the modem experiment stands not only in oppo­ sition to the (medieval) argumentum

ex verbo and (ancient) specu­

lative thinking, but in opposition to simple experience itself.20 The distinction between modem science and medieval

doctrina

is not therefore a contrast of observation and experiment against words, opinions, and authorities, but rather of projection and intervention against description, grasping, and discovery with­ out a predetermining concept.21 Likewise, the contrast between ancient and modem science is between experience as observa­ tion and the empirical as determined by the intervening of experimentation.

In

both cases, the contrast is between herme­

neutic openness and a determining preconception.

VIOLENCE This distinction is not as simple as it sounds, however. It has never been made clear in Heidegger's work what it would mean for an act of interpretation to be "open." The argument of "On the Essence of Truth" hinges on a discussion of freedom in which the latter is "letting beings be," "das Seinlassen von Seiendem"

(BW 127/W 188).

The account is of truth as uncon­

cealment, for which Heidegger uses the Greek term

a"T)eELU,

such that the interpretation of beings that is ontic truth is deriva­ tive from their originary unconcealment. The point is to ac­ knowledge beings in that unconcealment as what makes the truth of correspondence possible. Likewise, in §7(c) of

Being and Time

the reader is presented

with the slogan "To the things themselves!" as the maxim of phenomenology which is explained as the call "to let that which shows itself be seen from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself "

(BT 58/5Z 34).

It is not entirely clear what

20 "Jetzt das Experiment nicht mehr nur gegen bioSes argumentum ex verba und gegen »5pekulation«, sondem gegen alles bloSe experiri" (Beitrage 163). Cf. "Jetzt das Experiment gegen das experiri" (Beitrage 164). 21 "Jetzt der Unterschied nicht mehr gegen blojJes Reden und Zusammensetzen von Meinungen, »Autoritaten« tiber einen 5achverhalt, sondeTn gegen nur Besch­ reiben und Aufnehmen und Feststellen, was sich bietet, ohne den bestimmten, das Vorgehen vorzeichnenden Vorgriff" (Beitrage 166).

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this means, but evidently natural science is the home of such a phenomenology. For it is when Heidegger comes to his discus­ sion of natural science in §69(b) of Being and Time that he says his preliminary conception of phenomenology "will be devel­ oped for the first time" (BT 408/52 357). Despite the fact that phenomenology is for Heidegger explicitly a method for philos­ ophy, for an existential analytic of Dasein, nonetheless it is in his discussion of the theoretical attitude that he himself sees his conception of phenomenology being developed. This indicates a naivete about science in Being and Time. Heidegger holds in 1927 that the sciences treat their object, beings, while letting those beings be. I have shown that by 1938 he holds no such view: experimentation does not let beings be at all. Yet that Heidegger in 1927 understands his account of science to be the place where his conception of phenomenology will be developed for the first time is a clear indication that the question of science is central rather than peripheral to his thinking. Of course he takes phenomenology to be scientific philosophy dur­ ing these early years, so it could be the case that he here connects phenomenology to science on that basis rather than taking "sci­ ence" to mean natural science. Yet his subsequent discussion at §69(b) is explicitly of the mathematical projection of nature in natural science. Phenomenology is to be developed in the con­ text of natural science, not in the context of philosophy as a sci­ ence. Heidegger is doing ontology in Being and Time according to his conception of the phenomenological method. But his dis­ cussion turns to natural science in §69 because he holds that the sciences are phenomenological: he sees the theoretical attitude as a disinterested interruption of concemful dealings. He will later find himself wrong on this point, both through the Nazi appropriation of scientific knowledge and through its appropri­ ation toward human ends in technology. Indeed, Heidegger chooses natural science as the place to de­ velop a phenomenology of "letting beings be" because he con­ strues scientific research as a modification of everyday circumspective concern. In everyday circumspective concern, things appear in the context of equipmentality as ready-to-hand. In the theoretical attitude, however, entities are stripped of that readiness-to-hand and appear instead as present-at-hand: they

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are discovered " 'merely' by looking at them"

(BT 402/52 351).

The theoretical attitude is free of the interpretive fore-structure essential to everyday understanding, which is characterized by

(BT 191/52 150). Being and Time seems to hold that natural science

fore-having, fore-sight, and fore-conception Heidegger in

is phenomenological in the sense that it can be hermeneutically open: it engages in non-interventionist observation, rather than setting up its object on the basis of a prior determination. The description in the

Beitriige of Aristotle's method of pursuing sci­

ence is of just such a "looking around." Yet in

Being and Time,

Heidegger was already aware of the

hermeneutic nature of experimentation. The evidence appealed to in support of a theory through experimentation ("the facts") is hermeneutically determined: "Only 'in the light' of a Nature which has been projected in this fashion can anything like a 'fact' be found and set up for an experiment regulated and de­ limited in terms of this projection. The 'grounding' of 'factual science' was possible only because the researchers understood that in principle there are no 'bare facts' "

(BT 414/52 362). John

Caputo argues that this insight "is one of the most significant points of contact between Heidegger and the recent rereading of the history and philosophy of science. There are no facts except within the pre-given horizon which enables them to appear in the first place"

(1986:52).

Indeed, both Heidegger and more re­

cent philosophers of science have had to come to terms with the fact that the price paid for the self-grounding of the sciences is a hermeneutic circularity. Yet this circularity is not necessarily vicious in the sense that the things uncovered in experimentation need be phantasms, al­ though fictitious entities can readily be found in the history of science. Caloric and phlogiston are the most popularly cited ex­ amples. Nor does this circularity entail necessarily that false hypotheses can be contrived to be true, although the first place the scientist looks to place the blame in a failed experiment is often the laboratory equipment rather than the inadequacy or falsity of the theory. Rather, hermeneutic circularity is a limita­ tion on understanding, for in the closure of the hermeneutic cir­ cle of objectivity it may well seem that beings are in fact nothing more than objects, that nature is nothing more than a coherence

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of forces that can be reckoned, calculated, and arranged to be­ have in a predictable manner. Accordingly, while it may be the case for Heidegger that Aris­ totle's inquiry into nature was phenomenological in the sense that it did not impose a fore-conception onto the things it inves­ tigated, but drew rather its conception from them, Heidegger cannot continue to maintain the thesis that modem science is phenomenological, that it lets beings be rather than determining them by prior conception. His subsequent work on the experi­ mental method develops what appears as a tension in Being and Time: on the one hand, Heidegger claims that the theoretical atti­ tude is the place to develop phenomenology; on the other hand, the theoretical attitude simply shifts circumspective concern to the mathematical projection of nature. Heidegger fails to see in Being and Time that the shift to the theoretical attitude is not itself interest-free, that theory is not value-neutral. It is, however, in Being and Time that Heidegger argues that no understanding is possible without some kind of fore-structure. Nature is accessible to the modem scientist only as mathemati­ cally projected in objectivity. In §80 of the Beitrage, Heidegger develops that thesis to argue further that there is not even de­ scription without interpretation, since something is interpreted as color, or as sound, or as large, for example, in description. Yet this circularity is the hermeneutic nature of any understanding. It is not necessarily hermeneutic violence which would preclude that the thing known play a role in that knowledge by overdeter­ mining the thing in an a priori conception. The necessary fore­ structure of any understanding is not the hermeneutic violence at work in experimentation in Heidegger's account. Another sense of violence is to be found in What Is Metaphys­ ics? and Introduction to Metaphysics, both texts that are subse­ quent to Being and Time. In the former, Heidegger considers human being's pursuit of science: "In this 'pursuit' nothing less transpires than the irruption by one being called 'man' into the whole of beings, indeed in such a way that in and through this irruption beings break open and show what they are and how they are" (WM 97/ W 105). Here interpretive violence is the vio­ lent bursting of human being into the whole of beings, the very condition for understanding beings. Science is a rupture for Hei-

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degger in which beings are exposed as what and how they are. Hermeneutic violence and phenomenology are reconciled in that Heidegger holds that an act of conceptual rupture is needed to make scientific investigation possible. Likewise, Heidegger's account of 1tOAElwc:; in Introduction to Metaphysics is of such a rupture that opens up a world. He con­ siders Heraclitus's Fragment 53, in which Heraclitus says that 1tOAEf-WC:; is the father and king of all. Heidegger translates the fragment from Greek as "Auseinandersetzung ist allem (Anwes­ enden) zwar Erzeuger (der aufgehen laBt), allem aber (auch) waltender Bewahrer. Sie laBt namlich die einen als Gotter er­ scheinen, die anderen als Menschen, die einen stellt sich her (aus) als Knechte, die anderen aber als Freie"

(EM 47).

Manheim

translates Heidegger's translation into English as "Conflict is for all (that is present) the creator that causes to emerge, but (also) for all the dominant preseIVer. For it makes some to appear as gods, others as men; it creates (shows) some as slaves, others as freemen"

(1M 61-62). Robinson renders the fragment in a more

standard translation as "War is father of all, and king of all. He renders some gods, others men; he makes some slaves, others free"

(1987:37).

Heidegger has in his translation a very specific

purpose. He reads Heraclitus not as commenting on war in the ordinary sense, but as suggesting that the struggle that opens a world for human understanding determines both human being and the beings that appear in that world. Heidegger argues that in this fragment 1tOAEIWC:; "is not a mere assault on something already there"; rather, it "constitutes unity, it is a binding-together"

(1M 62/EM 47). IIoAEfwc:;

is not a

forcing apart so much as it is a collecting together of the being into its unity in being. The struggle that opens a world makes visible beings in their being, for beings are only encountered in Heidegger's account within a world. Here too a kind of violence is the condition for understanding, but it is not a violent assault on beings so much as it is the ground of their possibility for that understanding. The struggle to open a world is not an assault, but in the case of scientific understanding it is preparatory to an assault. For the question of the violence of scientific understand­ ing is not exhausted by this account of 1tOAEfWC:;. A third sense of violence can be found in

Die Frage nach dem

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Ding. Here Heidegger argues that there was for Aristotle a dis­ tinction between what is "natural and [what is] against nature, i.e. violent" (MSMM 264/FD 68). This difference has disap­ peared in Newton's doctrine of motion. Heidegger argues that for Aristotle, violence (�la) consists in making something do what goes against its nature, that is, what it would not do ac­ cording to its own nature. It is, for example, in the nature of rocks to move toward the center of the earth. To throw a rock upward is violent in this sense. Indeed, Aristotle distinguishes at Physics 5.6.230a32 what happens as a result of natural neces­ sity from what happens violently. Heidegger's claim is that since for Newton "force [is] only a measure of the change of motion and is no longer special in kind" (MSMM 264/FD 68), the Greek distinction between natu­ ral and violent motion can no longer be drawn in Newton's physics. The implication of this argument is that there is an in­ herent tendency to violence in modern science which itself re­ mains concealed. The separation Heidegger draws in the Beitriige between ordinary experience and the empirical nature of the modern experiment also implies that the experiment is violent in the sense of �la. The experiment seeks its object by constrain­ ing it to behave in ways it in fact would not when left to itself. Indeed, an experiment is performed in a laboratory precisely because one attempts to establish the conditions under which a thing will behave in a certain way, a way in which it would not behave outside those determined conditions. The problem of falling bodies, for example, is central to mod­ ern physics. But, as Lane Cooper points out, "Aristotle in his writings on physics never once used the word 'fall' in relation to speed" (1935:14). It does not occur at all in De Cae/a, and appears in the Physics as an example of the term "automatic" (197b3032). IIi.:rtTELv, to fall, and its nominal form, JtT&OL�, are terms Ar­ istotle uses in grammar, logic, and mathematics. Applying Heidegger's insights to the question of why this is the case, Aris­ totle's lack of interest in the physics of falling bodies is due to the fact that bodies simply do not fall regularly enough to make free-fall an issue. Aristotle is more interested in how they do regularly behave-for example, growth. Experience does not present him with the problem of free-fall. That free-fall is a cen-

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tral issue in modem physics is evidence for Heidegger's claim that its concepts are formulated a priori rather than generalized from experience. The scientific method, based on the principles and qualities of bodies formulated a priori-that is, prior to the empirical evidence of experiment-is an establishing a priori of what questions it makes sense to ask. Aristotle's questions re­ spond to experience. Galileo's are formulated prior to experi­ ence and then established by demonstration. Galileo's science is accordingly not phenomenologicaL It does not let beings be, but manipulates them, not just in answering its questions, but in asking them. There are, then, three senses of violence to be found in Hei­ degger's account of science. The first is hermeneutic violence, in which any understanding must impose structures upon the ob­ ject it seeks to understand. Modem science is violent in this sense, not just because it imposes an interpretive structure nec­ essary even for description, but because it imposes on nature an objectivity that determines it as obeying laws formulated a pri­ ori. Second, science is a violent rupture into the whole of beings that makes beings available for human inquiry. In this sense sci­ ence is definitive for modernity as the way the modem world is first and foremost opened up. Third, modem science is violent in the sense of �la. It forces nature to behave in ways it would not when left to itself. Indeed, Bacon himself tells us in his Great Instauration, in which he propounds his experimental method, that he intends that method as "a history not only of nature free and at large . . . but much more of nature under constraint and vexed; that is to say, when by art and the hand of man she is forced out of her natural state, and squeezed and moulded" (1980:27). Modem science is violent in all three senses in Heideg­ ger's account. In a lecture read to a small group in 1954, "Science and Re­ flection," Heidegger argues that there is a possibility for science other than violence. He traces the word "theory" to the Greek eEWQELV. 0EWQELV can thus be understood as "to look attentively on the outward appearance wherein what presences becomes visible and, through such sight-seeing-to linger with it" (SR 163/VA 48), or, alternately, as "the beholding that watches over truth" (SR 165/VA 49). Modem truth has its roots in a respectful

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viewing, Heidegger argues, and there is a shadow of the earlier meaning of

8EWgELV in the modem "theory." What this alterna­ In the

tive means for modem science is less than clear, however.

Rektoratsrede, and again in 1937 in "Die Bedrohung der Wissen­ schaft," Heidegger spoke of breaking down departmental barri­ ers and bringing to the sciences a meaningful unity.

In 1955,

in

"Science and Reflection," he does not make this idea more con­ crete. Yet it seems that the alternative to modem scientific the­ ory-that is, reflection-must entail the unity of knowledge over and against its fragmentation, since his tracing of the history of "theory" points explicitly to the dividing of knowledge into specialized disciplines. Heidegger argues that the modem term has been handed

conternplari. The core of this word, templurn, comes from the Greek "tEf.tVELV, which means to cut or divide: "In 8Ewg[a transformed into conternplatio there comes to down through the Roman

the fore the impulse, already prepared in Greek thinking, of a

1661VA 50-51). Theory entails an aggressive division of beings into spe­ looking-at that sunders and compartmentalizes" (SR

cialized objects. Specialization brings together the various senses of violence at work in Heidegger's account of science. The prior determination of its object, which sets apart a specialized sci­ ence, establishes the hermeneutic circle within which that sci­ ence proceeds. Specialization is a rupture that opens a world in which beings are visible in their being. And, furthermore, spe­ cialization determines the object of a science that can then be interrogated under controlled conditions. Heidegger uses

Betrachtung to translate the Latin conternplatio,

and Lovitt uses "observation" to translate Betrachtung. Heideg­ ger asks what this observation is. Trachten is from the Latin tract­

are,

which can be translated into English as "to deal with, to

treat," or "to consider, discuss," but can also mean "to maul." Heidegger translates tractare with bearbeiten: "to manipulate, to work over or refine" (SR

167 I VA 51).

Thus Heidegger under­

stands observation as "an entrapping and securing refining of the real" (SR

167 IVA 51-52). As Edward Ballard puts it, Heideg­

ger "interprets his definition [of science] to mean that a science of facts acquires its object by 'working it over' until it can be viewed as present and 'real' ''

(1971:42).

Heidegger holds that

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scientific observation sets upon its object when it sets it apart in specialized, experimental science. Samuel Weber rightly points to the discussion of technology in "The Question Concerning Technology" to show, on the basis of Heidegger's use of "nachstellen," that Heidegger character­ izes the human relation to nature as one of pursuit and hunting down (1989:981). The technology essay was published in the same year the lecture "Science and Reflection" was given, and it is my contention that Heidegger's account of technology arises from his thinking about science. For

I have shown that his ac­

count of science as a setting up and entrapment of nature is evi­ dent in his thinking in the 1930s, some twenty years prior to the critique of technology, in the discussion of �la in Die Frage nach

dem Ding and in his critique of the

experiment in the

Beitriige. In

Heidegger's view, the experiment is a setup. It is violent in that it sets beings up to behave in ways they would not when left to themselves.

SETIING Up THE REAL: EXACT SCIENCE Philosophers of science in the analytic tradition have shared Hei­ degger's concern that science is a setup. Here the debate takes the form of the worry that observation is theory-loaded. The term "theory-loaded" was coined by N. R. Hanson in his Pat­

terns of Discovery

in 1958. He intended to establish a historicist

approach to science, and his point was more about language usage than about the ensuing problem of realism. Nonetheless, philosophers of science recognized the implications of his argu­ ment: that there is no such thing as observation free of theoreti­ cal import. This is a problem for the realist in that, if the scientist does not encounter an object uncontaminated by the projection of theory, then the entities that figure in the theory may not be real at all but merely theoretical constructs. Accordingly, such theories may not be true in the sense of accurately describing physical reality. Joseph Kockelmans offers a Heideggerian solution to the problem of truth in the sciences. He argues that "one can say legitimately that scientific claims made on the basis of univer-

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sally accepted theories and adequatel y supported by the rele­ vant scientific empirical evidence are indeed true" (1986:22). His poin t is that, viewed from the perspective of the scientific con­ ceptual framework, the state of affairs is how it is claimed to be in the theory, reg ardless of how theory- laden the empirical evidence is. His account shows how cl osely Heidegg er's account of truth compares with what Hil ary P utnam wil l later call, in Representing and Reality, internal real ism: within a conceptual scheme, the entities tha t figure in that scheme are real . B ut that, of course, is precisel y the probl em: scientific theories are sup­ posed to describe reg ularities in nature, not g round consistent fantasies. T he concern about observation is that even observation statements may be hermeneuticall y suspect, much as Heidegg er pointed out about description in §80 of the Beitriige. Ian Hacking's response to th is concern in Representing and In­ tervening is worth sing ling out because the position he advances is similar to Heidegger's anal ysis. B oth rej ect the view that ob­ servation is disin terested, and both focus their critique of science on representation. Hacking arg ues that observation can not be theory- loaded in a way that compromises all observation, be­ cause " [ there] have been important observations in the history of science, wh ich have in cluded no theoretical assumptions at all" (1983:176), such as Herschel's discovery of radiant heat. S im­ ilarl y, Heidegger arg ues in the Beitriige that a naive description is more certain than an ex act ex periment because a description requires l ess theory (Beitriige 166). Furthermore, arg ues Hacking, it may be the case that technicians, who neither know nor under­ stand the theory, are better at reading resul ts than scientists (1983:179). B eing g ood at observing is being g ood at noticing th ings, not being adept at the theoretical manipul ation of dubi­ ous data. In response to the question of the origin of two ideas, real ity and representation, Hacking arg ues, "T here may be more truth in the averag e a priori fantasy about the human min d than in the supposedly disinterested observations and mathematical model­ building of cognitive science" (1983:131), in an astute collapse of cognitive psycholog y with the problem that theories may just be g ood stories, that is, fictions told with an ulterior motive. C ogni­ tive psycholog y may be just such a story. Hacking takes reality

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to be "just a byproduct of an anthropological fact," where "anthro­ pology" means "the bogus nineteenth-century science of 'Man' " (1983:131). Advancing a theory not of Homo faber, but of Homo depictor, Hacking argues that people make representations and that theories are representations. It is only when theories begin to compete that worries about what is real come into play (1983:139). Reality is therefore for Hacking an idea that comes about in a particular tradition of thought, but nonetheless a good idea for a place to do experiments, and "our notions of reality are formed from our ability to change the world" (1983:146). Philos­ ophy can "catch up to three centuries of our own past" when it recognizes that reality as representation and reality as interven­ tion mesh together in modem science, which is "the adventure of the interlocking of representing and intervening" (1983:146). For Hacking, things are not necessarily real because they figure in experiments as theoretical entities. But, when things can be used to achieve some other end, then they are reaL For example, electrons are not necessarily real when predic­ tions about them turn out right, because of the underdetermina­ tion of theory by evidence. Results can show that a certain explanation containing some entity is wrong; but when results support an account, there could still be some other account, the true one, in which the theoretical entity does not figure at all. But if the scientist can use some entity to do something, this control speaks to the reality of the entity. With electrons, for example, "if you can spray them, then they are real" (Hacking 1983:22-23); that is, in an experiment on quarks, if electrons can be sprayed to affect the charge of a large drop of niobium, then electrons, but not necessarily quarks, have a secure status as reaL They have been set up. Heidegger's realism is evident in what "Science and Reflec­ tion" adds to the thinking on experimentation in the Beitrage. He too takes exception to the modem idea that science is disinter­ ested, that "it does not encroach upon the real in order to change it" (SR 167 IVA 52). But what for Hacking is simply a good basis for being a realist contains for Heidegger a further worry. Exper­ imentation-"intervention," as Hacking calls it-is in Heideg­ ger's view an encroachment. Science encroaches upon the real,

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not by making it up, but by setting it up. Heidegger's worry, like Hacking's, is not that experiments simply construct reality ex nihilo such that theories are merely stories about fictitious enti­ ties. The experiment has access to the real, but science sets up the real to show itself in a certain and limited way: objectively. As object, the real appears and is represented by the scientist as a coherence of forces to be reckoned in advance. The real is constrained in modem science to "exhibit itself as an interacting network, i.e., in surveyable series of related causes" (SR 168/ VA 52). The real is the object that can be reckoned and secured, precisely in the way Hacking describes the securing of the elec­ tron as real in the experiment on quarks. Hacking's analysis is consistent with Heidegger's. In modem science, the real is put at the disposal of human being. But Hei­ degger's point is criticaL The fact that modem science puts na­ ture at the disposal of human being does not mean for Heidegger that herein we have a ground on which to claim suc­ cess in our scientific results, that science actually does describe nature accurately. For Heidegger, physics is an encroachment in that "nature has in advance to set itself in place for the entrapp­ ing securing that science, as theory, accomplishes" (SR 172-73/ VA 57). The picture painted in science is reductive and never complete. Scientific representation "is never able to encompass the coming to presence of nature; for the objectness of nature is, antecedently, only one way in which nature exhibits itself" (SR 174/VA 58). Science as research is the forcible confinement of beings in objecthood. Heidegger's argument in Die Frage nach dem Ding, the Beitriige, "The Age of the World Picture," and "Science and Reflection" is that the experiment forces beings to behave in a way they would not when left to themselves: as objects. In this sense, it is violent. The "new assault upon reality" (MSMM 275/FD 77) which Hei­ degger attributes to Descartes's age in Die Frage nach dem Ding goes beyond the rupture described in What Is Metaphysics? and Introduction to Metaphysics. The scientific reduction of things to objects opens a world, as Heidegger argues in the latter two texts. Here "world" should be taken in the second sense laid out in Being and Time: in the sense that there is, for example, a "world of a mathematician" (BT93/SZ 64-65). A realm of possi-

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ble objects is defined in a regional ontology. But further, in Hei­ degger's view, this opening of a world in modem science is an assault upon reality that confines beings reductively to such a world. This assault is the reduction of nature to calculability. In 1943 Heidegger added a postscript to What Is Metaphysics? He argued here that calculation is the culprit in the modem as­ sault upon reality: "Calculation uses everything that 'is' as units of computation, in advance, and, in the computation, uses up its stock of units . . . it is of the prime essence of calculation, and not merely in its results, to assert what-is only in the form of something that can be arranged and used up. Calculative thought places itself under compulsion to master everything in the logical terms of its procedure" (WMp 357/W 309). The es­ sence of calculation is, for Heidegger, anticipating his later cri­ tique of technology, the will to master everything as something that can be calculated. In Heidegger's analysis, modem science is violent in its demand that all beings can be accounted for in exactitude. Harold Alderman argues in "Heidegger's Critique of Science and Technology" that technology and science are possible in a way that does not simply assault nature aggressively. He sug­ gests that the problem is not that they are calculative but rather "their insistent and aggressive spirit" (1978:50). For Heidegger, however, this aggressive spirit is not incidental to calculation but at its essence. The problem of a benign alternative is hinted at throughout his discussion of phenomenology in Being and Time, in the enigmatic "saving-power" that remains so opaque in "The Question Concerning Technology," and in the equally un­ fleshed-out notion of Besinnung in "Science and Reflection." Hei­ degger's call for thinking gives that thinking a scanty account. Indeed, his readers are only now beginning to think through the possibilities, witnessed by the 1997 volume of Heidegger Studies entitled The Critical Threshold for Thinking at the End of Philosophy. An alternative would entail a clear understanding of how scien­ tific theory and practice are violent. I have laid out already three senses in which experimental science is violent. Mathematical, calculative science is violent in all three ways. It imposes struc­ tures on beings in order to understand them. This impOSition of structure is a rupture, an opening up of a world as a basis for

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understanding. It reckons on the basis of experiments that track the behavior of beings in artificial situations. Calculation is fur­ ther violent in a fourth way in Heidegger's account. He argues in "The Age of the World Picture" that calculation represents beings reductively as objects. Heidegger begins his account of science in "The Age of the World Picture" as he has often done: with a contrast between ancient and modem natural science. Specifically, he suggests that we cannot construe Aristotle's doctrine that light bodies strive upward as false in the light of Galileo's doctrine of falling bodies. The latter is not true in some sense in which the former would be false. Each is an interpretation that rests on a different interpretation of beings, and thus a different approach to the questioning of natural events. Nor can we speak of Galileo's sci­ ence as an advance any more than we would consider Shake­ speare's poetry more advanced than that of Aeschylus (AWP

117/H 77).

Likewise, one of the more controversial points im­

plied by Kuhn's

Structure of Scientific Revolutions is that progress

in science is a meaningless notion. A new paradigm is not a revision or improvement of existing theory but is rather incom­ mensurable with the old paradigm. Given the radicalness of a shift, science cannot be construed as cumulative, and therefore talk of progress loses its meaning. Heidegger questions the no­ tion of progress in science in order to say that it is "impossible to say that the modem understanding of whatever is, is more correct than that of the Greeks" (AWP

117/ H 77).

Other philosophers of science are horrified by the loss of the notion of progress in the history of science. Lakatos, for example, takes it as his task to oppose the notion of paradigm shift, prefer­ ring instead "rational reconstructions"

(1970:177-80).

If para­

digms are ways in which reality is mapped, then Lakatos's rational reconstructions map the route from the old map to the new one. The necessity for rational reconstruction arises because Lakatos does not want to concede that the history of science is itself irrational. Heidegger agrees with Kuhn that the notion of progress is useless for comparative evaluation of the correctness of hypotheses across epochs. Yet he need not hold that Kuhn's view precludes the rationality of science; rather, it implies that

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the very meaning of "rationality" can undergo epochal transfor­ mation. Accordingly, Heidegger asks what, if not this notion of prog­ ress, distinguishes modern science from ancient. The former is exact, whereas ancient E1tLO't�ftT] was not. But, argues Heidegger, "Greek science was never exact, precisely because, in keeping with its essence, it could not be exact and did not need to be exact. Hence it makes no sense whatever to suppose that modern science is more exact than that of antiquity" (AWP 117/H 77). The essence of Greek science is not herein further elucidated, but Heidegger's point remains clear: exactitude is unique to modern science and thus serves as no measuring rod for comparison with ancient science. This idea is not new to Heidegger. He argued in 1929 in What Is Metaphysics? that science is no more rigorous than history, even though its rigor has the character of exactness (WM 96/ W 104). He there understood the scientist as researcher. In 1938 he formulates this idea more strongly by arguing that what distin­ guishes modern science is that "the essence of what we today call science is research" (AWP 118/H 77). He argues that the essence of research consists in "the fact that knowing establishes itself as a procedure within some realm of what is, in nature or in history" (AWP 118/H 77). The fundamental event in research is the opening up of an object-sphere by means of projection. A research area is defined-that is, both opened up and de­ limited-by such projection of the "what" of an area of study. For example, "the corporeality of bodies, the vegetable character of plants, the animality of animals, the humanness of man" (AWP 118/ H 78) are projections that determine the objects stud­ ied in physics, botany, zoology, and anthropology, respectively. Accordingly, in modern physics a ground plan of nature is projected: nature is "the self-contained system of motion of units of mass related spatiotemporally" (AWP 119/ H 78). Such a pro­ jection determines in advance the way in which knowledge re­ lates itself to its objects. This relation which binds knowing to known, Heidegger calls "rigor" (AWP 118/H 79). The rigor of scientific research is exactitude. On the basis of its rigor, science can be contrasted with historiography. The latter projects a ground plan of history in such a way that it binds itself to its

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objects through source criticism. History gets at its objects through its sources: "Because historiography as research proj­ ects and objectifies the past in the sense of an explicable and surveyable nexus of actions and consequences, it requires source criticism as its instrument of objectification" (AWP 123/H 83). Correspondingly, physics proceeds by means of the experiment. It objectifies bodies in their corporeality, and thus it binds itself to its objects with the rigor of exactitude. Because physics has as its object spatiotemporally extended bodies, it concerns itself with extension, with the quantifiable properties of those bodies. Accordingly, Heidegger argues that scientific research into na­ ture is not exact because it calculates with precision; rather, it must calculate with precision because its rigorous demand as research is for exactitude (AWP 119-20/H 79). Calculation is accordingly a necessary part of the projection of nature in mathematical physics. Heidegger's insight is to point out the relation between the two senses in which science is math­ ematical, an insight he previously laid out in Die Frage nach dem Ding. The broader sense is that science is projective; the nar­ rower sense is that it relies upon mathematics. In Heidegger's account, science is quantitative-that is, experiments measure and scientists calculate-because science is mathematical in the broader sense, rather than it being the case that science is mathe­ matical in the sense of projective because it measures. Science does not project because it measures; rather, it measures because it projects nature as quantifiable. Likewise, science is not essen­ tially research because it performs experiments; rather, the con­ verse is true: "experiment first becomes possible where and only where the knowledge of nature has been transformed into re­ search" (AWP 121/H 80). The medieval scholar is replaced by the research scientist in the modem epoch because knowledge has been transformed into research (AWP 125/H 85). Research in science is the investigation into the quantifiable properties of bodies. In research, then, in Heidegger's view, there is a prior deter­ mination of what counts as an object for a particular science. For example, in the case of physics the scientific method has a prior­ ity over nature, for physics as a specialized science entails the determination in advance of what nature is. Nature is repre-

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sented beforehand and, "being calculated in advance, . . . [is] 'set in place' " (AWP 127/ H 87). It is, as Heidegger puts it in "The Question Concerning Technology," represented before research begins as "a coherence of forces calculable in advance" (QCT 21 / VA 25). According to Heidegger, this conception of nature underwrites modem physics. Such representation was thought in Basic Problems of Phenome­ nology as the genesis of a science through the establishing of a regional ontology. Subsequent analysis has taken that line of thinking further to explore how nature is represented in modem physics. The representation that grounds modem science is ob­ jectification, and for Heidegger objectification changes the very nature of representation itself.

REPRESENTATION Heidegger gives an extensive definition of representation in an appendix to "The Age of the World Picture": To represent means here: of oneself to set something before one­ self and to make secure what has been set in place, as something set in place. This making secure must be a calculating, for calcula­ bility alone guarantees being certain in advance, and firmly and constantly, of that which is to be represented. Representing is no longer the apprehending of that which presences, within whose unconcealrnent apprehending itself belongs, belongs indeed as a unique kind of presencing toward that which presences that is unconcealed. Representing is no longer a self-unconcealing for, . . . but is a laying hold and grasping of. . . . What presences does not hold sway, but rather assault rules . . . . Representing is making-stand-over-against, an objectifying that goes forward and masters. (AWP Appendix 9, 149-S0/H 108)

Modem science is not phenomenological: it does not let beings be and allow them to reveal themselves as they are. Rather, the experiment sets upon, lays hold of, controls, and masters nature. Hence Heidegger argues that the "fundamental event of the modem age is the conquest of the world as picture" (AWP 134/ H 94). Modem representing is in this sense different from Greek ap-

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prehending. The Greek thinker apprehends what is, but for the modem researcher, "to represent [vor-stellen] means to bring what is present at hand [das Vor-handene] before oneself as some­ thing standing over against, to relate it to oneself, to the one representing it, and to force it back into this relationship to one­ self as the normative realm" (AWP 131/H 91). Beings as objects must conform to the requirements of the modem researching mind. Likewise, Heidegger argued earlier in "On the Essence of Truth" that propositional truth is possible only on the basis of the adequacy of the thing to the intellect (adaequatio rei ad intel­ lecturn) rather than the adequacy of the intellect to its object (ad­ aequatio intellectus ad rem) (BW 120/W 181). In this sense, human being places itself in the scientific, experimental picture in prece­ dence over whatever is. The transcendental tum is the threat of representational thinking to nature. For this "setting before" is an objectification in representation that secures for the researcher a certainty with respect to the objects so represented. Representation is complicit in science as research, for the representation of nature as a calculable coher­ ence of forces determines the rigor of science as exactitude. The representation of the objects of science determines the object­ sphere of each specialized science and the certainty with which those objects are known. Heidegger argues that science becomes research "when and only when truth has been transformed into the certainty of representation" (AWP 127/H 87). This certainty of representation is secured, Heidegger argues, and subsequently demanded by Cartesian metaphysics, in which that which is, is defined as the objectness of representing (AWP 127/H 87). There is no truth for Descartes about the exter­ nal world-that is, the world of nature which includes even the bodily subject-until the subject has first secured itself in the cogito. In such an account, truth lies in the certainty of the sub­ ject's representation of its object. That is to say, truth is taken to be the correspondence of subject and object in representation. Representational certainty in modem science is attained in the experiment, for experimentation is precisely the method by which science represents: "To set up an experiment means to represent or conceive [vorstellen] the conditions under which a specific series of motions can be made susceptible of being fol-

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lowed in its necessary progression, i. e. , of being controlled in ad vance by calculation" ( AWP 121/ H 81). T he experiment repre­ sents by establishing a measurable picture of the movements of a thing, geometrically, as in G alileo's Two New Sciences, or statis­ tically, as in quantum theory. In §80 of the Beitriige Heid egger ask s whether the experiment d etermines a thing as a such and such, or whether it d etermines a relation, specifically a cause- effect relation. He ask s further whether this cause- effect relation alread y d etermines quantita­ tively, as an " if so much- then so much (wenn so viel---dann so vie/)" (Beitriige 165) relation. U nd er the account offered in "The A ge of the World P icture," the answer is that the experiment d oes d etermine a quantitative causal relation. To k now remains to k now the cause, as it was for A ristotle, but " cause" is con­ strued here, as is motion, much more narrowly than in A ristot­ le's account. T he cause is efficient, and the motion is a change of place in N ewtonian mechanics. To be able to pred ict measurable results successfully is to und erstand and control causes. Heid egger has alread y argued in Die Frage nach dern Ding that all d eterminations of bod ies in mod ern science have one basic blueprint, accord ing to which the natural process is nothing but the d etermination in space and tim e of the motion of points of mass ( MSMM 267/FD 71). In Introduction to Metaphysics he ar­ gued that " appearance in the large sense of the epipha ny of a world , is now the d emonstrable visibility of things present at hand " (1M 63).22 These two claims come together in "T he A ge of the World P icture" in Heid egger's argument that the mod ern world is opened on the basis of the scientific d etermination of things as quantifiable objects, that is, bod ies in motion. In Hei­ d egger's analysis, the scientific representation of beings is the key to the mod ern world as picture. Heid egger cannot accept the id ea that a med ieval world pic­ ture changed into a mod ern one. Nor could the world be as pic­ ture for the G reeks. He claims that " the fact that the world becomes picture at all is what d istinguishes the essence of the 22 I have used my own translation here, since Manheim's terminology is not clear out of context. The German reads: "Erscheinen im grossen 5inne der Epiphanie einer Welt, wird jetzt zur herzeigbaren 5ichtbarkeit vorhandener Dinge" (EM 48).

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modem age [der Neuzeit]" (AWP 130/H 90). But, argues Heideg­ ger, the world as picture has its origin in Plato's dlio<;: "that the beingness of whatever is, is defined for Plato as dlio<; [aspect, view] is the presupposition, destined far in advance and long ruling indirectly in concealment, for the world's having to be­ come picture" (AWP 131/H 91). The dlio<; is transformed in the history of thought into the idea. In the precedence of the idea over its object, the aspect or view a thing reveals of itself ceases to belong to the thing as U:TtOXELf.tEVOV. Heidegger defines U:TtOxElf.tEVOV as "that-which-lies-before, which, as ground, gathers everything onto itself" (AWP 128/H 88). Originally, Heidegger suggests, this gathering was consti­ tuted by the unity of the thing under inquiry. The subject was the thing under question and had no special relation to human being or the "I" of Cartesian subjectivity. In the modem age, however, human being becomes the subject and the ground of the synthetic unity of the object in Descartes's assertion of the ego cogito as the ground of knowledge. That human being becomes subject and the thing object are simultaneous events for Heideg­ ger (AWP 133, 151/H 93, 109). The essence of the modem epoch is, for Heidegger, the world picture. It is not a picture of the world, but "the world conceived and grasped as picture" (AWP 129/H 89). For everything that is, is only to the extent that human being sets it up and represents it, that is, only to the extent that it is picturable. Likewise, what is not available to be represented in experiment, simply is not for science. Silvio Vietta recounts: "While I was still in school Heidegger took me along on a walk and explained to me in per­ ceiving the colors of one of the branches hanging over a garden fence, the tendency of modem science and especially physics to resolve its object into abstract measurements, here the frequency of light waves"23 (1977:234). Color is as light waves for the scien­ tist. Other possibilities, such as those for the artist or the person strolling along a country lane, do not exist in the scientist's 23 "Noch wahrend meiner Schulzeit nahm Heidegger mich einmal auf einen Spaziergang mit und eriauterte mir an der Wahrnehmung der Farben eines iiber einen Gartenzaun hiniiberhangenden Zweiges die Tendenz modemer Naturwissenschaft und insbesondere der Physik, ihren Gegenstand in abs­ trakte Messgrossen, hier die Frequenzwerte der Lichtwellen, aufzulosen."

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shrunken world. This limited view of color is not an isolated interpretation of a tree, but rather part of an interpretation of an entire world. Vietta's example is pertinent not only to show how modern scientists pursue their science on the basis of a represen­ tation of nature, for the scientific representation of beings is deci­ sive for the modern age in Heidegger's account. Against that ground, against the world as picture, Heidegger argues that what is "does not come into being at all through the fact that [human being] first looks upon it, in the sense of a representing" (AWP 131/H 90). The thing is in being before human being makes it into an object of understanding. Heideg­ ger argues in Introduction to Metaphysics that qn)OU; is much richer than the modern concept of nature, that it was, in fact, being itself for the Greeks. He makes a similar point in the Bei­ triige, where he suggests that qnJOL� is the a priori, for it is that which is earliest and first in coming to presence.2'
"Das FrOheste, Erst-Anwesende, die Anwesung ist die 'Il1JliL<; selbst"

triige 222).

(Bei­

25 "Das Apriori wandelt sich mit der WEa zur perceptio, d.h. das Apriori wird dem ego percipio und damit dem »5ubjekt« zugewiesen; es kommt zur Vorgan­ gigkeit des Vor-steIlens" (Beitriige 223).

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ing being in the early pages of Basic Problems of Phenomenology (BPP 13/GP 18). In his later years, in What Is Called Thinking?, he holds to his claim that being cannot be grasped as a concept: "If we stop for a moment and attempt, directly and precisely and without subterfuge, to represent in our minds what the terms 'being' and 'to be' state, we find that such an examination has nothing to hold onto" (WCT 225/WHD 137). The German for "concept" is Begriff from greijen, meaning to grasp or lay hold of. Heidegger's argument that being is not a concept is the claim that an examination of being has nothing to hold onto. Being cannot be set up and mastered as a picture, a representation. Hence its forgottenness in the age of the world picture. And hence in particular its forgottenness in modern science: the ex­ perimental method, so successful in physics, is useless in meta­ physics. For beings can be set up in an experiment, but being cannot. CONCLUSION Heidegger's critique of the experimental method is therefore sig­ nificant for both the analytic and the Continental traditions of philosophy. It promises a bridge to the analytic tradition, a bridge that is long overdue across a distinction that is more of a hindrance than an asset to contemporary thinkers. I have pointed to some of the places where connections can be forged, both to treat concerns from Heidegger in analytic terms and to respond to analytic philosophy of science with a Heideggerian view. Furthermore, Heidegger's critique of experimentation proves foundational to his later critique of the modern epoch. His cri­ tique of technology would not corne into being without the ac­ count of representational thinking he gives in the context of the experimental method in science. Heidegger's treatment of the experiment reveals that the modern epoch, in its determination by representation, is determined by science. Modern science is not just one aspect of the modern age among others, but rather the basis from which Heidegger brings the modern epoch as a whole to light critically in "The Age of the World Picture." For

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representational thinking, which underwrites modernity, has its genesis in the scientific method. Modem science is not just symptomatic of the age of representation. That is to say, it is not the case that representation informs modem science because it informs modernity and modem science is therein located. Rather, modem science determines the modem epoch as the age of representation. The experiment is the "t()Jto<; where Heidegger develops his account of representational thinking that stands at the basis of his critique of modernity.

3 Science in the Institution AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO is to be found Massey College, a residence housing about sixty graduate students, with three rooms set aside for the Canadian Institute of Theoretical Astro­ physics. At breakfast, residents regularly meet physicists of in­ ternational repute or postdoctoral fellows. Among the latter, a common worry is expressed: when the one-year postdoc runs out, "Should I take a job teaching high school physics, with al­ most no prestige, not much of money, and no future in research? Or should I take a well-paid, prestigious research job working for the American military?" What happens to knowledge when scientists face such a choice? Who decides the direction and focus of research? The Nazi appropriation of the German university toward po­ litical ends presented academics of that day with such a di­ lemma. Heidegger's analysis of science in the institution is a developing critique of the university when it is thus appro­ priated. In his account, the sciences stand at the core of the mod­ em university, and the latter is a place in which to unify knowledge and evaluate it by asking the question, What is worth knowing? Heidegger's eye-opening experience as rector in Frei­ burg disillusioned him with respect to the possibility of raising such a question within the academy. He objected to the political appropriation of the university and its conversion into profes­ sional schools. And he witnessed his university in the 1930s powerless to resist its appropriation to a political program. Heidegger's involvement with the Nazis began with his elec­ tion to the post of rector of the university in Freiburg. His infa­ mous Rectoral Address upon assuming that position is central to his critique of the Betriebscharakter of the sciences in the uni­ versity. Accordingly, there are ethical and political reasons for coming to grips with the question of science in the institution in Heidegger's thinking. But I do not intend to contribute to the

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burgeoning body of literature prompted by Farias's condemna­ tion of Heidegger in 1987. Hugo Ott, Karsten Harries, Luc Ferry and Alain Renault, Richard Wolin, Julian Young, GUnther Neske and Emil Kettering, Pascal David, Thomas Sheehan, and Ernst Nolte, to name but a few, have established the debate concerning the historical, ethical, and political consequences of Heidegger's Nazism, and I leave the implications of his critique of the univer­ sity in the context of his Nazism to them. My concern is rather to understand Heidegger's conception of the place and role of the sciences in the university. I intend to show that for Heideg­ ger, the sciences are a human destiny realized as nihilism in the fate of the university. The texts that must be read to lay bare Heidegger's view of the sciences in the university are Wiult Is Metaphysics? and the Rektoratsrede. In both, Heidegger attributes to the university a role in human destiny. He suggests that the university can over­ come the fragmentation of knowledge into particular disciplines by asking what it is valuable to know. If this question, What is worth knowing?, is set up as a context in which to interpret Heidegger on nihilism, then the sciences are central to his cri­ tique of modernity and his suggestion of an alternative task and conception for thinking. Heidegger's analysis of science in the institution thus raises the question that will drive his later thought, while underscoring his political naIvete with respect to the task and power of the university. First, I trace Heidegger's account of the nothing. In Being and Time and Basic Problems oj Phenomenology, Heidegger argues that the nothing is at the core of Dasein. Since this core is Dasein's temporality, his readings of Hegel and Aristotle on time in these texts are crucial moments in understanding the connection for Heidegger between the sciences and the nothing in the very structure of human understanding. The nothing is for Heidegger both the possibility of ontology, in that Dasein's temporality opens the question of being, and the condition for the possibility of the ontic sciences. Subsequent to Being and Time and Basic Problems oj Phenome­ nology, Heidegger argues in What Is Metaphysics? that the sci­ ences are a project erected in the face of the nothing. With the intent of shedding new light on Heidegger's account of nihilism

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by reading it with respect to the sciences, I show that Heidegger takes the sciences to be a human destiny and that this destiny is nihilism. This line of thought culminates in his treatment of ni­ hilism in the Nietzsche lectures. Here nihilism is read not just as a philosophical position in modernity, but rather a destiny that began with Plato. This account is absurdly reductionist of the history of philosophy, yet it contains the analysis that is the basis for Heidegger's later critique of modernity, for his various previ­ ous destructions and reconstructions of the history of philoso­ phy are superseded here by a single broad sketch of that history. The significance of this sketch is not as an account of the history of philosophy. Rather, it lies in the fact that in these lectures Heidegger first comes to the question of technology, and it is this vision of quintessentially modem nihilism that sets the stage for his analysis of the poverty of representational thinking. Sandwiched between the earlier treatments of the nothing and the later discussion of nihilism are to be found Heidegger's claims about the sciences institutionalized in the university. Against the background of the nothing and nihilism, I examine what Heidegger says about the university in

ics?

and the

Rektoratsrede:

What Is Metaphys­

the task of the university is to unify

the sciences in order to ask what it is valuable to know. By 1937 Heidegger is disillusioned and no longer sees the university as the place to raise the question of what is worth knowing, yet this question stays with him and remains for him a question of reflection upon the sciences. I conclude by arguing that an alternative possibility to the nihilism of representational

think­

ing-an alternative that grows in Heidegger's work to an explicit call for thinking and reflection, and which is recognized among his readers as the possibility of thinking beyond the confines of the history of metaphysics-is for Heidegger, insofar as he explains it at all, possible only through and as reflection upon the sciences. The significance of Heidegger's critique of institutionalized science to his philosophy of science is his insight that the sci­ ences are not value-free.

In Being and Time he argued

in §69 that

the movement to the theoretical attitude is a move away from the involvement of readiness-to-hand, that the scientific object is freed in its objectivity from concemful dealings. Heidegger's

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critique of the university renders it impossible to hold that scien­ tific objectivity is free of social, political, and historical interests. His philosophy of science owes its critique of representational thinking in large part to his resistance to the notion of objectivity in the sciences. In 1927 he accepted the objectivity of the sciences easily. Beginning in 1929, his critique of institutionalized science in the face of the political appropriation of the university con­ tains the insight that the sciences are a politically and historically situated hermeneutic project rather than the interest-free pursuit of objectivity. Heidegger argues in What Is Metaphysics? that the university is determined by science. He suggests that this is because science has become the passion that determines the existence, in a com­ munity of researchers, teachers, and students, of those who at­ tend his address (WM 96/ W 103). There are two points that must be made about this claim. First, Heidegger here envisions sci­ ence not as simply an existential project, that is, not as the under­ standing of particular, individual Dasein that was described in §69 of Being and Time as switching over from concemful dealings to the theoretical attitude. Rather, he takes scientific understand­ ing to constitute and in turn be constituted by a community of thinkers. Imre Lakatos claims likewise that science progresses in "re­ search programs" (1970:132), communities of scientists, rather than through the work of individual scientists. Thomas Kuhn argues that paradigms provide "membership in the particular scientific community with which [the scientist] will later prac­ tice" (1962:110). Science is not the project of an individual scien­ tist so much as of a community of researchers. For Lakatos this insight is significant for his claims about the historical character of science (1970:120), and likewise for Kuhn it is the basis for a historical analysis of science. Patrick Heelan goes so far as to argue that contemporary problems in quantum physics cannot be solved without an adequate philosophical understanding ac­ knowledging social and historical processes and requiring "a perspective of the kind provided by Heidegger" (1995:581), a perspective in which science is understood to take place in a historically and politically situated community. Although I can­ not readily accept that every quantum measurement is "a social

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and historical intervention" (Heelan 1995:581)---since it seems to me a fallacy to draw such a conclusion from the fact that quan­ tum theory is itself a historically situated project, and nor do I hold that theoretical problems in quantum physics can necessar­ ily be solved by historical analysis-nonetheless acknowledg­ ment of the hermeneutic nature of science, of the fact that science is a communal project not free from a basis in history, is an insight whose impact is not yet complete. Enlightenment and positivistic ideals of transhistorical truth have been superseded by, for example, the feminist analyses of Sandra Harding's standpoint theory, and Nancy Tuana. They argue not just that gender has an impact on the history of science, but also that the history of science is gender-biased (d. Harding 1991:28ff.; Tuana 1989:147ff.). Heidegger's hermeneutic account of truth, evident as early as §44 of Being and Time and explicit in "On the Essence of Truth," conduces a sense of the historical and political situat­ edness of the science. It is not surprising, then, that Heidegger recognized that science happens in a community of researchers in 1929 when he claimed that science determines the existence of his audience in a community. That the sciences and the uni­ versity are socially, politically, and historically situated is, in fact, the basis for Heidegger's critique of the university. Second, Heidegger understands the university in terms of the sciences, not the humanities where he himself teaches. This seems a much different view from his later claims about the im­ potence of the sciences (SR 176/VA 60), and the claim made re­ peatedly in What Is Called Thinking? that "science does not think." In the latter text, however, this claim is made against the background that "most thought-provoking in our thought­ provoking time is that we are still not thinking" (WCT 4/WHD 2). It is not just science which does not think here, but an unspec­ ified "we." I read that "we" as "we academics." The later Hei­ degger is disillusioned not just with the sciences, compared to his view of their significance and power in 1929, but also with the university. I suggest that for Heidegger the sciences and the university remain inextricably tied, for the university is the home of knowledge in modernity, and the sciences are para­ digmatic and determinative for that knowledge. Heidegger gives priority in the university to the sciences in 1929 because by 1929

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his insight that the sciences are definitive of modernity is incip­ ient.

THE NOTHING

Heidegger argues that reflection on the fact that the university is determined by science uncovers a controversy: the controversy of the nothing. The question of the nothing arises because "sci­ entific existence is possible only if in advance it holds itself out into the nothing" (WM 111/W 121). The sciences always take a particular realm of being as their object, and therefore they deal only with beings and want to know nothing of the nothing. As Heidegger puts it in 1935, one "who wishes truly to speak about nothing must of necessity become unscientific" (1M 25/EM 1920), for nothingness remains inaccessible to science. To proceed with a science, one must assume its object in a denial of nothing­ ness. Nonetheless, reflection on the sciences comes to the ques­ tion of the nothing (WM 98/W 106). The university, in its essence as science, is founded on the nothing. What sense can be made of this claim? Heidegger offers three propositions to illuminate the existence of the thinker in the university, whom he calls "the scientific man (der wissenschaftliche Mensch)": That to which the relation to the world refers are beings them­ selves-and nothing besides. That from which every attitude takes its guidance are beings themselves-and nothing further. That with which the scientific confrontation . . . occurs are beings themselves-and beyond that nothing. (WM 97/W 105)

The sciences are such that beyond, further, and besides the be­ ings they investigate, there is nothing. Knowledge questions be­ ings in opposition to the nothing, and, further, is grounded in that very opposition. For it is only in the face of the nothing that one wonders about beings and questions them. For, Heidegger argues, the human pursuit of science is "the irruption of one being called 'man' into the whole of beings . . . in such a way that in and through this irruption beings break

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open and show what they are and how they are" (WM 97/W 105). He has already held in Being and Time that human being has an understanding of being which grounds it existentially. In Basic Problems of Phenomenology he expressed this claim as the thesis that human being stands in the ontological difference, that is, the difference between being and beings. Here, in What Is Metaphysics?, Heidegger claims that beyond beings, there is nothing. This claim stands in marked contrast to his earlier claim that beyond beings, there is being. In 1929 Heidegger has taken to heart the Hegelian proposition that "Pure Being and pure Nothing are therefore the same" (qtd. at WM 1l0/W 120). The nothing, he suggests, belongs to the being of beings such that the problem of being is not so much expressed in the old proposition that ex nihil nihilo fit (nothing comes from nothing) as in the proposition that ex nihilo omne ens qua ens fit (from nothing comes every being as a being). The cen­ tral question of metaphysics is then for Heidegger in 1929, "Why are there beings at all, and why not rather nothing?" (WM 112/ W 122). This question is so central for him that he poses it in 1935 in Introduction to Metaphysics as the fundamental question of metaphysics. Heidegger has long been critical of accounts of the nothing that take it to be derivative. In Basic Problems of Phenomenology he criticizes Kant for taking negation to be the opposite of reality (BPP 35/GP 47). He argues that the Kantian thesis that being is not a real predicate renders possible a positive determination of being only as position. Heidegger wishes to read the question of being more deeply than the claim that "perception and absolute position are the sole character of actuality" (BPP 47/GP 64). He further objects to the logical conception that a negative judgment is derivative upon a positive one, arguing that such interpreta­ tions of the copula suffer a want of radical inquiry (BPP 201ff./ GP 286). In both cases the complaint is the same: interpreting negation as determined primordially by affirmation, the nothing as derivative upon being, forecloses upon the inquiry into being. Heidegger calls instead for a radical inquiry. There is, he sug­ gests, a deeper sense of the nothing. In both Basic Problems of Phenomenology and Being and Time, he uncovers the nothing in the constitution of Dasein itself. In the former text he argues

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that negation can only be taken as derivative upon affirmation because absence is a modification of presence. He does not in­ tend to make presence prior to absence when he calls the latter a modification of the former, but rather to suggest that absence and presence belong together at the core of Dasein's under­ standing of being. This is only possible, he argues, through Da­ sein's temporality (BPP 311 /GP 442). In Basic Problems of Phenomenology, reading Aristotle's treatise on time at Physics 4.10-14, Heidegger quotes Aristotle's claim that time is the "number of a motion with respect to the prior and the posterior" (Phys 4.11.219b1). Time is for Aristotle contin­ uous, and within that continuity the "now" functions not as a discrete moment of some particular duration, but as the demar­ cation of the past from the future. Accordingly, Aristotle holds that the "now" is not time, but rather an attribute of time. Hence Heidegger claims that time is for Aristotle horizonal in nature: "time is this, namely, something counted which shows itself in and for regard to the before and after in motion or, in short, something counted in connection with motion as encountered in the horizon of earlier and later" (BPP 235/GP 353). Indeed, for Aristotle, time is a measure of motion, which always happens in the present. The latter, as the "now," serves to distinguish the past from the future. If time is then a manifold of "nows," it is a manifold of non­ existent nows, that is, of the no-longer-now of the past which is prior, and the not-yet-now of the future which is posterior (BPP 247/GP 349). Most of the nows that make up the manifold of time are non-existent. Accordingly, "time . . . has two arms which it stretches out in different directions of non-being" (BPP 233/GP 331). It is this reading of Aristotle on time that begins Heidegger's account of the nothing at the core of Dasein, for Aristotle's definition of time gets at Dasein's temporality, which stretches horizontally between past and future. What is described in Aristotle's account of time is therefore more originary in Heidegger's view than the common concep­ tion of time that is found in clock usage. Aristotle's account of time is certainly historically prior to clock usage. But Heidegger is more interested in a logical priority: time in the common sense of what is measured by clocks is derivative upon the more ori-

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ginary experience of time which is Dasein's temporality. Dasein has time, Heidegger argues, in the following sense: Dasein takes time into account in its daily activities. It projects itself into a future. For instance, Heidegger explains, when he looks at his watch during the lecture, it is to see how much time is left until the scheduled end at nine o'clock. Reckoning time with a clock is "a modification from the primary comportment toward time as guiding oneself according to it" (BPP 258/GP 365). One can guide oneself according to time by using a clock only because time is the horizon from which Dasein understands being. Tem­ porality is the basis for understanding time in clock usage be­ cause temporality is what makes any understanding at all possible. Furthermore, clock usage gives temporality a publicness. Here Heidegger finds something to time that he claims Aristotle and the tradition of philosophy have overlooked (BPP 262/GP 370). Time has "the character of significance" (BPP 262/GP 370) in a sense Heidegger says he already had in view in another context, by which I take it he intends Being and Time, where significance is described in much the same terms and is also said to make up the structure of the world (BT 120/52 87) and to be the ontologi­ cal condition of language (BT 121/52 87). Significance is the "to­ tality of relations of the in-order-to, for-the-sake-of, for-that­ purpose, to-that-end" (BPP 262/GP 370). This feature of time, significance, characterizes, he argues, the world as world in gen­ eral, and hence, although time is originally as temporality con­ stitutive of Dasein, it is reckoned as world-time. Temporality, then, as a horizon from the no-longer of the past to the not-yet of the future, is fundamental to Dasein's being in a world and to its being with others publicly. Heidegger argues in Basic Problems of Phenomenology that it is only on the basis of Dasein's temporality that Dasein can find something missing. Dasein's being has as its essential character­ istic transcendence, Heidegger argues, its overstepping and going beyond that makes Dasein "exactly not the immanent" (BPP 299/GP 425). Transcendence means to understand oneself from a world, to exist beyond the here and now of the present, to be already outside oneself among other beings. Dasein is in a world only because Dasein anticipates a future and, in doing so,

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stands outside itself. Hence the ecstatic nature of temporality, from the Latin ex, meaning "out of," and sto, stare, stiti, statum, meaning "to stand." The nothing that is Dasein's temporality is constitutive of Dasein's very existence. Heidegger argues late in Basic Problems of Phenomenology that Hegel is "on the track of a fundamental truth when he says that being and nothing are identical, that is, belong together" (BPP 31l-12/GP 443). This brief reference to Hegel is less than en­ lightening, and only makes sense if both being and the nothing are understood to be at the core of Dasein in its temporality. That the nothing is at the core of Dasein is abundantly clear from Basic Problems of Phenomenology. But how is it the case that being is also at the core of Dasein such that being and nothing can be taken to belong together? In Being and Time, Heidegger argues that the nothing is consti­ tutive of Dasein's temporality, and hence of Dasein, in a further sense. He argues that in anxiety, Dasein "finds itself face to face with the 'nothing' of the possible impossibility of its existence" (BT 310/52 266). Being-towards-death is precisely this anxiety. Later he says that anxiety in the face of the nothing "unveils the nullity by which Dasein, in its very basis, is defined" (BT 356/52 308). This nullity is faced authentically in anticipatory resolute­ ness, that is, in Dasein's unflinching thinking toward its own death. Hence Heidegger answers "Certainly" to the question, "does not anxiety get constituted by a future?" (BT 393/52 343). Anxiety, and therefore authenticity too, is temporal and experi­ enced through Dasein's self-aware finitude, that is, through its absolutely certain yet thoroughly indefinite death. The nothing­ ness at Dasein's core is its own potential nonbeing. But in au­ thenticity lies for Dasein also the possibility of the question of being. In its temporality, then, Dasein encounters its own finitude, in the face of which it experiences anxiety. In §82 of Being and Time, Heidegger explicates Hegel's interpretation of time by arguing that for Hegel time is experienced fundamentally as the possibil­ ity of one's own nonbeing. He sees Hegel as making much the same move he did himself earlier in Being and Time when he argued that the nullity by which Dasein is defined in its very basis is as thrownness toward death (BT 356/52 308). Dasein's

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temporality is both its authenticity, its being toward its own death that makes inquiry into the question of being possible, and its anxiety, in the face of which it loses itself among beings in the sciences. According to Debra Bergoffen's Lacanian account, the scientific passion for knowledge is an Oedipal response to the nothing, that is, "the emptiness of the Thing" (1995:575). In­ deed, Heidegger argues in 1929 that the sciences institutional­ ized in the university are made possible by their opposition to the nothing. Hence temporality singles out Dasein as the one who stands in the ontological difference: the difference between being and beings. Being is not a being: it is the nothing in the face of which Dasein holds itself out in a stance toward beings. The sciences, Heidegger argues in What Is Metaphysics?, are precisely such a taking of a stance toward beings. The nothing is at the very core of Dasein's temporality and is the condition for the possibility of understanding. Against the background of his interpretation of Aristotle and Hegel on time in Being and Time and Basic Prob­ lems of Phenomenology, Heidegger makes the claim in What Is Metaphysics? that the sciences hold themselves out into the nothing. Accordingly, the nothing at the core of Dasein has both onto­ logical and ontic significance. At the very heart of Dasein's exis­ tence is the possibility of ontology in that Dasein's own possibility of nonbeing is its authenticity, its access to the ques­ tion of being. At the same time, however, Dasein's existence is inseparable from what Heidegger calls, in "On the Essence of Truth," insistence, its preoccupation with beings that is manifest as the ontic sciences. The nothing constitutes Dasein's temporal­ ity pivotally: Dasein can embrace the nothing in the question of being, or flee the nothing by busying itself with the sciences. Heidegger maintains explicitly in What Is Metaphysics? that only because the nothing is manifest in the ground of Dasein can the strangeness of beings overwhelm human being (WM l11 / W 121). I n Being and Time Heidegger spoke of this strangeness as an uncanniness: Dasein is unheimlich, thrown into the world as the "not-at-home" (BT 321/5Z 276-77). Dasein calls silently to being in the face of its own anxiety of being-towards-death. In Dasein's everyday existence, argues Heidegger, this uncanniness

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is covered up. It is only the silent call of being, which Dasein calls to itself, that retrieves Dasein to authentic existence, that is, to the question of being. In Being and Time Heidegger argues that Dasein flees in the face of the anxiety of encountering the noth­ ing, that this fleeing is not a turning away so much as a turning thither "towards entities within-the-world by absorbing itself in them" (BT 230/52 186). In What Is Metaphysics? Heidegger suggests that Dasein loses itself among beings in pursuing the sciences, and that only the exploration of the sciences that uncovers the nothing upon which they are founded comes to this strangeness. This strange­ ness evokes wonder, he argues, such that then the "why?" looms before human being, which responds by inquiring into grounds (WM 1 1 1 / W 121)-but as a metaphysician, not as a scientist. The possibility of ontology and the possibility of the ontic sciences are interruptions of each other. Each can only be pursued to the exclusion of the other. Here, in What Is Metaphysics?, lies the ori­ gin of the claim of which Heidegger will later make so much: there are questions that the sciences cannot ask, questions about their own being. The sciences investigate some realm of beings at the expense of the question of their own regional ontology. Evidence that Heidegger's claim about the impotence of any science with respect to itself has its origin in What Is Metaphysics? is to be found at the end of the essay. Heidegger appeals there to the Hegelian thesis that being and nothing are the same. On­ tology is therefore precluded by the sciences in their exclusion of the question of the nothing. Heidegger argues explicitly from early in What Is Metaphysics? that the sciences wish to know nothing of the nothing, and instead turn toward beings. As human beings, "we usually lose ourselves altogether among be­ ings in a certain way" (WM 106/W 116), a movement he will call "erring" (ET 135/W 196) in "On the Essence of Truth." The sciences, he holds in What Is Metaphysics?, are precisely such a way in which we lose ourselves among beings. In 1929, then, the sciences are for Heidegger a human project set up in opposition to the nothing. On the one hand, the noth­ ing is what makes scientific inquiry possible, as it is the source of Dasein's existence as inquirer; on the other hand, the sciences are Dasein's refusal to face the nothing as the question of being

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in its preference for inquiry into beings. Accordingly, Heideg­ ger's interest in science in 1929 is accounted for by the fact that he sees reflection on the sciences as the route to the question of being. Since the sciences are the way in which modem human being loses itself among beings, they are precisely what must be thought through to reach the question of the nothing that is being. The route to ontology is the thoughtful recognition of its preclusion by the sciences. Yet how is this vision of science one which scientists would take seriously? Those best equipped for the reflection suggested by Heidegger may not readily agree that they are driven to their inquiry as a means to flee to beings in response to the anxiety of facing the nothing. Heidegger is claiming to have a deeper ac­ count of the sciences than scientists theInselves, a psychologistic account in which he attributes to the scientist a false conscious­ ness, an unconscious response to the fear of death and the noth­ ingness it implies to human existence. Against such criticism, however, Heidegger has a bigger pic­ ture in view. He is not so much interested in the psychology of the individual scientist as he is in the human project of knowing manifest as the sciences in his contemporary university. Indeed, in a later analysis of Nietzsche he suggests that in the age of the devaluation of all values, "the need to establish a truth concern­ ing beings simply grows more pronounced" (N 3:204/NII 248). The story he tells in What Is Metaphysics? about the sciences and the nothing is not the story of any particular scientist, but the story of the destiny of nihilism. By reading the claims made about destiny, in both What Is Metaphysics? and the Rektoratsrede four years later, against the accounts of destiny found earlier in Being and Time and later in the Nietzsche lectures, this story of nihilism as human destiny can be told.

DESTINY AS NIHILISM

Aristotle maintained in the opening line of the Metaphysics that all human beings by nature desire knowledge (980a22). Like­ wise, Heidegger argues in Being and Time that Dasein has inquiry as a mode of its being (BT 26-27/SZ 7). In fact, he takes Dasein

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to be "ontically distinguished by the fact that, in its very Being, that Being is an issue for it" (BT 32/5Z 12), and that this having its own being as an issue is a constitutive state of Dasein. Dasein is essentially that being which inquires, particularly into its own being. Yet he argues at exactly that point in Being and Time that "Sci­ entific research is not the only manner of Being which this entity can have, nor is it the one which lies closest" (BT 32/5Z 11). The sciences are for Heidegger in Being and Time simply one possible kind of inquiry for human being. Only two years later, in What Is Metaphysics?, Heidegger treats the university as the institu­ tionalized expression of the human desire to know. The sciences housed in the university have become for him more than simply a possible way for human being to manifest its nature as in­ quirer. Science is no longer for Heidegger in 1929 what it was in 1927. It is not one way among others in which human being realizes its essence as inquirer. Rather, it is the essential determi­ nation of what it means to be a knower in the modem epoch. It is a destiny. The issue of destiny first appeared in Heidegger's thought in Being and Time in his account of facticity. Dasein's facticity is that its existence is for it a fact. It understands its being as present­ at-hand. Yet its presence-at-hand is different from the presence­ at-hand of other things in the world. For this facticity "implies that an entity 'within the world' has Being-in-the-world in such a way that it can understand itself as bound up in its 'destiny' [Geschick] with the Being of those entities which it encounters within its own world" (BT 82/5Z 56). Dasein's existence is dif­ ferent from the being of other things in the world. Dasein is constituted by being-in-the-world, by finding itself always al­ ready thrown in among and involved with beings. Dasein is sin­ gled out as the being that is so involved with other beings. How is this a destiny? Dasein is the being which definitively questions its own being. Its essential tendency is to be the inquirer (BT 27/ 5Z 7). In Intro­ duction to Metaphysics, Heidegger calls questioning "a funda­ mental human force [ursprilngliche Macht]" (1M 6/EM 5). It is through self-inquiry that Dasein comes to the question of being. Heidegger's strategy for getting at the question of being in Being

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and Time is the hermeneutic circle from a particular being, Da­ sein, to being. The destiny of human being is for Heidegger its historical situation in an epoch of the history of being. In §74 of Being and Time, Heidegger draws a distinction be­ tween Dasein's destiny (Geschick) and the fate (5chicksal) of indi­ vidual Dasein. He explicates Dasein's fate in its connection with the fate of other Dasein (BT 435-37/52 384-85). Dasein's fate lies in its historizing, in its giving itself over to a tradition that it both inherits and chooses. Once Dasein understands that its being is essentially a being with others, "its historizing is a co­ historizing and is determinative for it as destiny [Geschick]" (BT 436/52 384). But, Heidegger argues, this destiny is not a putting together of individual fates. Rather, individual fates "have al­ ready been guided in advance" (BT 436/52 384) by that destiny. The question of being, whether asked or neglected, is for Hei­ degger a destiny that determines the existence of any particular Dasein. That destiny (Geschick) is a sending, playing on schicken, "to send," from being. Dasein's destiny is the history of being, and its fate is its location within that history. The history of being is a destiny of being to which human being is in Heidegger's account essential. In "On Time and Being," that destiny is de­ scribed as neither accidental nor necessary, but historical, for the destiny of being is the history of being that unfolds in a sequence of epochs (On Time and Being 9). This notion of destiny is behind Heidegger's account of the university at issue in What Is Metaphysics?, for in Heidegger's view the fate of the researcher in the modem university is guided by destiny, is determined within an epoch of the history of being. Dasein as inquirer questions itself, and it questions other beings. Its destiny in modernity is tied to that of other beings which it determines for questioning as objects of science. The destiny of beings in modernity is to be the objects of scien­ tific research in the context of the university, and the destiny of Dasein as knower is research. Heidegger makes explicit that the essence of science is research in "The Age of the World Picture" in 1938. This is the sense in which Heidegger argues in What Is Metaphysics? that "only because we can enquire and ground is the destiny of our existence placed in the hands of the re­ searcher" (WM l11/W 121). Yet how this destiny is a nihilism,

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despite its entanglement with the nothing in Dasein's flight away from the nothing toward objects of science, does not be­ come explicit for Heidegger until the Nietzsche lectures. It is there that he connects the nothing at the core of Dasein to nihil­ ism as destiny. For in 1940 he argues on the basis of reading Nietzsche that the history of being is the history of nihilism. In the lecture course entitled "European Nihilism," Heidegger argues that the nothing at the heart of being and human being goes much deeper than the superficial analyses of his day con­ ceive. He suggests that his contemporaries do not wish to see the concealed essential connection between being and time as a destiny of nihilism, because to do so would be "to admit that the foundations on which they continue to build one form of metaphysics after another are no foundations at all" (N 4:163/NII 195). Nietzsche, Heidegger argues, understands a deeper sense of nihilism, one in which nihilism is a history. This nihilism "constitutes the essence of Western history because it co-deter­ mines the lawfulness of the fundamental metaphysical positions and their relationships" (N 4:53/NII 79). It is not the cause of the decline of values in modem Europe, but rather the inner logic of that decline. For European nihilism "is not simply one historical movement among others [but] the fundamental impulse of our history" (N 4:74/NII 100). It is not peculiar to modernity, Hei­ degger argues, but rather belongs always and essentially to the history of metaphysics. Yet it has a formulation that is peculiar to modernity. That history begins for Heidegger with Plato. He suggests that the essence of nihilism is concealed in Plato and that it comes completely to appearance in Nietzsche. Plato began that history when he thought "the aya60v as tl)ea, as the idea of ideas" (N 4:168/NII 201). Heidegger reads this move by Plato as the first moment in a history of valuative thinking whereby Plato inter­ prets aya60v to mean "the suitable, what is good for something and itself makes something else worthwhile . . . . Being comes to be what makes a being fit to be a being" (N 4:169/NII 201). Such valuative thinking conceals nihilism, Heidegger argues, in that the fulfillment of such thinking puts into question the notion of value itself: the devaluation of the uppermost values and the call for their revaluation by Nietzsche is the culmination of a history

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of metaphysics as valuative thinking. Hence Plato took a deci­ sive step for the history of metaphysics in Heidegger's account. Heidegger traces valuative thinking through Descartes and Kant to argue that Nietzsche's call for the revaluation of all val­ ues is the unfolding of the innermost possibility of metaphysics. Nietzsche is the culmination and fulfillment of the history of metaphysics for Heidegger, for Nietzsche's claim that truth is a necessary fiction brings nihilism to a new stage: "outright disbe­ lief in anything like a meta physical world" (N 4:34/NII 58). The supersensuous world can no longer be appealed to in the face of the valuelessness of the world of becoming, and that world of becoming shows itself to be the only reality. The uppermost val­ ues are devalued, and being is revealed as an empty concept. Yet if being is, as Heidegger maintained in Being and Time, the most universal and hence the emptiest concept, Heidegger himself resists an interpretation of being such that it is an empty and huge receptacle, arguing instead that "Being is what is emp­ tiest and at the same time it is abundance" (N 4:192/NII 224). This is how Hegel's thesis that being is nothing was read by Heidegger in 1929 as the thesis ex nihilo omne ens qua ens fit. Being is the nothing from which every being takes its being. This thesis has come to its most explicit culmination in "European Ni­ hilism." Nietzsche's thinking is therefore for Heidegger the fulfillm ent of the history of metaphysics that began with Plato. The history of the West is the history of metaphysics, and of metaphysics as nihilism at that. Between 1944 and 1946 Heidegger filled this account out in a lecture not published until 1961, "Nihilism as Determined by the History of Being." He argues explicitly here that "Metaphysics as metaphysics is nihilism proper" (N 4:205/NII 309). And he traces the path of metaphysics to its formulation in Leib­ niz as the question that Heidegger took in What Is Metaphysics? and Introduction to Metaphysics to be basic: "Why are there beings at all, and why not rather nothing?" (N 4:208/NII 313). This central question of metaphysics hinges on holding that beyond beings, there is only nothing. Heidegger has held fast since Being and Time and Basic Problems of Phenomenology to the Hegelian thesis that being is nothing, but now he is interested in that thesis as the history of being. Rather than simply conceding the thesis, he -

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is now concerned with an irrunanent critique of metaphysics as a history in which there is essentially nothing to being itself. In this history, being is absent. It stays away, withdraws. And metaphysics fails to see this withdrawal of being. Hence the his­ tory of metaphysics is for Heidegger a double omission. First, the withdrawal of being; second, the omission of the thinking of this withdrawal from the history of metaphysics (N 4:219/NII 324-25). For this withdrawal cannot be thought from within metaphysics itself. Heidegger argues that since there is nothing to being for metaphysical thought, the "very path into the experi­ ence of the essence of nihilism is therefore barred to metaphysics" (N 4:220/NII 326). U this text is read against What Is Metaphysics?, where the destiny of Dasein in modernity is as researcher, while beings are researched as objects of science, Heidegger is arguing in 1940 that modern science is a destiny of metaphysics upon which metaphysics is powerless to reflect, as he suggested in 1929 that the sciences are incapable of self-reflection. In "European Nihilism," as in Being and Time, Heidegger talks of the homelessness of historical human being within beings as a whole (N 4:248/NII 358). In the latter he suggested that Dasein is "fascinated by . . . its naked uncanniness [UnheimlichkeitJ" (BT 394/5Z 344), which, from an existential-ontological point of view, is the "more primordial phenomenon" (BT 234/5Z 189) than being-in-a-world. It is in such uncanniness that Dasein un­ derstands that authenticity and inauthenticity are possibilities for it, and ultimately that Dasein is "the caller of the call of con­ science" (BT 321/ 5Z 276). Put less obscurely, in uncanniness lies Dasein's possibility of thinking the question of being, of doing metaphysics, under the account of Being and Time. Likewise, here in the mid-1940s Heidegger argues that there is a possibility for human being other than homelessness among beings. Being needs human being as its abode (N 4:244/NII 354). Also in 1946, he wrote to Jean Beaufret that "Language is the house of being. In its home man dwells" (BW 193/W 313). For Heidegger, the truth of being can unfold for human being, even in its default. But he speaks of a danger, the danger of what he calls the nonessence of nihilism, in which the omission of being from metaphysics remains concealed "in the age of the darken­ ing of beings, our age of confusion, of violence and despair in

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human culture, of disruption and impotence of willing" (N 4:245/NII 355). This is the nihilism diagnosed by Heidegger's contemporaries that he sees as superficial. Against that nihilism, the nihilism Heidegger has described as the history of being is precisely the possibility of thinking the nothing of being as its withdrawal. Heidegger's nihilism is thoughtful, but it stands outside the history of metaphysics. Heidegger privileges his own position as thinker. Capable of immanent critique but not confined to the metaphysics of his epoch, he takes himself to have a destiny that reaches beyond the fate of the researcher. Yet Heidegger himself will experience the tension between fate and destiny, the confinement of the thinker within history, precisely in his administrative involve­ ment in the university. The Betriebscharakter of the sciences within the university is their politicization in a destiny Heideg­ ger will experience as not just human, but also peculiarly Ger­ man, as not philosophical, metaphysical, or even nihilistic, but simply bureaucratic. The insights to which Heidegger privileged himself have not overcome the effect of his Nazism on his recep­ tion as a thinker. He is as much a victim as a product of his time. Nor can the withdrawal of being be reached from within any science. Heidegger concludes "European Nihilism" by arguing that such a thinking of the withdrawal of being "is neither grounded on science nor can it ever find its way by setting itself off against science" (N 4:249/NII 359-60). Any thinking that thinks nihilism as the destiny of human being in modernity must for Heidegger be radically different from the sciences, for the sciences are nihilism's concealment. They are nihilistic for Heidegger in the same way as for Nietzsche, who is immersed in the history of metaphysics. They take as their object what is empirically available for study, that is, the world of becoming and not some supersensuous world of being. The sciences are too busy with beings to see past them to nihilism. Hence Heideg­ ger claims that in his "today," his historical epoch, "indifference to Being in the midst of the greatest passion for beings testifies to the thoroughly metaphysical character of the age" (N 4:195/ NIl 228). That great passion for beings has been thought again and again in Heidegger's work in the domination of the sciences in this age. In "On the Essence of Truth," Heidegger called Da-

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sein insistent: it "holds fast to what is offered by beings" (ET

135/W 196).

The sciences are exactly such insistence. They are

the human form of knowing in modernity that not only mani­ fests the withdrawal of being by occupying itself with beings, but that also overlooks that very withdrawal in favor of the cer­ tainty of scientific knowledge.

In

the modem epoch the scientific object is complicit in the

default of being. The unconcealment of beings that is scientific study goes hand in hand with the concealing of being and its forgottenness. Beings are revealed and held fast in the modem epoch as the objects of science. This is why Heidegger looks to the history of science in

Die Frage nach dem Ding to understand

why it was possible and necessary for Kant to write his first

Critique (FD 50),

and why Heidegger singles out science from

the five essential phenomena of the modem age as the ground from which the essence of the modem age is to be apprehended (AWP

117/H 76). The sciences are not just one cultural phenom­

enon among others, but rather are the realization of Dasein's essential possibility as knower in modernity. And hence the sci­ ences are the realization of the intertwined destiny of being, be­ ings, and human being as nihilism. Within that destiny, Heidegger envisions a task for the university.

In What Is Metaphysics?, Heidegger holds that the university is the structure that holds the specialized sciences together in their determination and pursuit of their object. Since knowledge is housed in the university, and science determines the university in Heidegger's view, the knowledge that questions beings in modernity is in his view scientific. Hence "our contemporary existence [is] determined by science"

(WM 98/W 106). And thus

Heidegger's contention is that "the destiny of our existence [is] placed in the hands of the researcher"

(WM 111/W 121).

Not

because some researcher holds the destiny of human being in her or his hand, but because knowledge itself has become re­ search in the university. This situation of the sciences in the uni­ versity sets a task before the university in Heidegger's view. The sciences are a human destiny, and the task that Heidegger envi­ sions for the university is that of bringing the sciences a mean­ ingful unity. Heidegger questions how the university serves the function of

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unifying the sciences. The sciences are held together by a techni­ cal organization in the university. Their unificatory function has atrophied, Heidegger says, to a merely superficial technical or­ ganization. There can be a deeper unity: "the only meaningful source of unity [is] . . . the practical establishment of goals by each discipline" (WM 96/W 104). Heidegger does not see this task as one of only internal concern to the institution. Rather, science and its institution have an obligation that extends be­ yond the walls of the university. For the question of the scientific essence of the university is for Heidegger, I have argued, the question of human destiny. Heidegger holds that the university is in a position of service, which "evolves in such a way as to become the ground of the possibility of a proper though limited leadership in the whole of human existence" (WM 97/W 104-5). The university can suc­ cumb to its fate by housing the sciences in a meaningless and endless technical organization of disciplines, or it can function by providing a place for the unified pursuit of knowledge to fulfil the destiny of Dasein, the inquirer. The university can lead human existence in Heidegger's account because it is a place of knowledge. He holds that knowledge has become fragmentary and meaningless insofar as the individual disciplines have lost any goal that would tie them together meaningfully. His call in

1929 is to reestablish that unity of purpose such that the univer­ sity can guide human destiny.

SELF-AsSERTION: KNOWING VERSUS AMASSING INFORMATION Heidegger argues again in the Rektoratsrede of 1933 that the uni­ versity has the task of providing leadership and direction to the community wherein it exists. Whereas Lakatos and

Kuhn argue

that science takes places in a community of researchers, Feyera­ bend argues further that the scientific community exists in a larger community and is under obligation to that larger group (1975:307). Heidegger argues likewise in 1933 that science exists

''for us and through us" (SA 471 /SU 11). Despite the absolutely unclear scope and reference of the "us," it is clear through the Rectoral Address that Heidegger is considering the question of

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science in its relation to the larger community, beyond the uni­ versity's walls. He asks under what conditions science can exist if it is to be

'jor us and through

us," and he answers that it can

only exist "if we again place ourselves under the power of the

beginning of our spiritual-historical

being

[DaseinJ"

(SA 471/SU

11). This beginning i s Greek philosophy. Heidegger does not change his mind on this point. From 1933 onward his thinking is permeated by a nostalgia for the Greeks. This nostalgia is not merely sentimentalism, however, but is based on the view that the Greeks are the origin of the intellec­ tual history of the West. Heidegger still claims in "Science and Reflection" that modem knowing "needs the Greek knowing in order to become, over against it, another kind of knowing" (SR 157/VA 43). He sees science as a destiny of being as early as

1929, but it is in the Rectoral Address that he points to the origin of that destiny in Greek thinking. The overcoming of the frag­ mentation of modem science into specialized disciplines is only possible when its coming to be is understood. There will be no change, progress, or alternative to modem science, in Heideg­ ger's view, until its essence is made clear in a dialogue with ancient thinking. For the origin of modem knowing lies in the Greek experience of knowledge, which cannot be overcome until it is thought through. In Heidegger's account, it is in Greek philosophy that human being first stood up to the totality of what is. He argues in 1933 that "[all] science is philosophy, whether it knows and wills it-or not. All science remains bound to that beginning of phi­ losophy" (SA 472/SU 11). Heidegger's intent with this claim is not to blur the distinction between philosophy and the sciences,

The Basic Problems of Phe­ nomenology that philosophy is a science. Rather, his point is that

as he did with his earlier argument in

the sciences and philosophy both have their beginning in ancient Greek thinking. The sciences are philosophy for Heidegger in the sense that Greek thinking, which in its origin made no dis­ tinction between philosophy and science, is the beginning of both what is known in modernity as philosophy and what has come to be the sciences. There are, Heidegger argues, two distinguishing properties of the original Greek essence of science that must be regained if

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modern science is to live up to its task of leadership in human destiny. The first characteristic of science to be retrieved from Greek thinking is the acknowledgment of the impotence of knowledge, that "all knowing about things has always already been delivered over to overpowering fate and fails before it" (SA

472/SU 11). This is the fate of human being to become re­ searcher and to lose her-or himself in research rather than ques­ tioning its end, for no science is capable of questioning its own essence. Its essence is what Heidegger will later call, in "Science and Reflection,"

das Unumgiingliche, that which is not to be got­

ten around (SR 175ff. / VA 60). For example, no experiment in physics can show what physics is; nor can what mathematics is itself be calculated. The essence of a science is inaccessible from within that science. To regain the Greek sense of the impotence of knowledge would be to recognize that knowledge needs a purposive guidance that no science can give itself. The second of the two distinguishing properties to be re­ trieved from the Greeks is questioning as the highest form of knowing, rather than Simply as a transitional step that immedi­ ately gives way to an answer. The pursuit of theoretical knowl­ edge is for Heidegger an activity, and presumably the point at stake in calling for a retrieval of this property of the Greek es­ sence of science is the recognition that knowing is something that human being does first and foremost. Knowing is an activ­ ity distinct from the mere collection of information. In fact, Hei­ degger argues that without the retrieval of these two points from the Greek account of knowledge, science serves "to further a mere progress of information" (SA 474/SU 13) rather than a genuine knowing. He contrasts knowing in this sense with the mere amassing of information by the sciences. This contrast between knowing and the meaningless collec­ tion of information appears in one form or another in many other places in Heidegger's work.

In "The Turning" he contrasts In "The

thinking with mere wanting to know (QCT 42/K 71-72).

Question Concerning Technology" the contrast is between "catching sight of what comes to presence in technology . . . [and] merely staring at the technological" (QCT 32/VA 36). Even observations, Heidegger suggests in the Beitriige, can be gathered on the basis of their interminable diversity and conspicuousness;

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or they can be collected according to an ordering principle (Bei­ trage 161). In "The Age of the World Picture," Heidegger distin­ guishes ongoing activity from mere busyness, which it can nonetheless become: "Ongoing activity becomes mere busyness whenever, in the pursuing of its methodology, it no longer keeps itself open on the basis of an ever-new accomplishing of its pro­ jection-plan, but only leaves that plan behind itself as a given; never again confirms and verifies its own self-accumulating re­ sults and the calculation of them, but simply chases after such results and calculations" (AWP Appendix 2, 138/H 97). An in­ herent danger in ongoing research is that the scientist will cease to question the projection and method that ground some object sphere, instead simply collecting results. Ongoing activity con­ tinually runs the risk of becoming mere industriousness, as in, for example, Kuhn's "normal science." What makes science as research capable of enduring is, in Heidegger's account, pre­ cisely the forgetting of the distinction between ongoing activity and mere busyness such that the scientist remains uncritical of the science itself. Specialization and the meaningless binding to­ gether of the sciences on an institutional basis alone conduce precisely a preoccupation with results that remains uncritical. A year before Heidegger gave this analysis in "The Age of the World Picture," he described just such a preoccupation with the superficial, a blind reckoning and frenzy of explanations (BdW 16) in the German university. It would seem, then, that the uni­ versity of Heidegger's day has fallen into precisely this danger of allowing research to become busyness. In the third of the Nietzsche volumes, Heidegger makes this contrast in terms of two possibilities for the sciences: "The sci­ ences can take shape in the direction of an increasingly compre­ hensive and secure mastery of objects, can arrange their mode of procedure accordingly and find satisfaction in that. Yet at the same time the sciences can develop as genuine knowledge and on that basis set for themselves the limits of what it is scientifically valuable to know" (N 3:42/NI 469). It is here that the alternative that the university can offer can be given a concrete account. Rather than providing the sciences with a superficial, technical organization, the university can provide them with an organiza­ tion in which researchers can determine what it is valuable to

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know. In 1929 Heidegger argues that the essential task of science is "not to amass and classify bits of knowledge but to disclose in an ever-renewed fashion the entire region of truth in nature and history" (WM l 1 1 / W 121). Providing evaluation of and di­ rection for knowledge by asking what it is valuable to know would be precisely to perform such a decisive task for human destiny if that destiny is taken, as Heidegger takes it, as the des­ tiny of knowledge to become scientific research in the university. Science is political in Heidegger's account in the sense that its direction and worth are to be determined in the context of the 1t6A.L�. Rather than providing an almost monastic withdrawal from life and its activities, the university, Heidegger holds, be­ longs to life. He is calling in the Rektoratsrede, as he did in 1929, for a knowing on the part of the university that he later calls "for the Greeks, �lo� eEWQT]LLX.6�, the life of beholding, [which] is, especially in its purest form as thinking, the highest doing"

(QCT 164/VA 48). Reflection, this "purest form of thinking," is not simply theorizing, but the highest activity. The German uni­ versity of 1933 remains unable, in Heidegger's view, to engage in such activity, to draw the distinction between knowing and the mere collecting of information, until it retrieves this Greek insight. What Heidegger wants to retrieve science from in 1933 is spe­ cialization. He argues that questioning understood as the high­ est form of knowing "shatters the division of the sciences into rigidly separated specialties, carries them back from their end­ less and aimless dispersal into isolated fields and comers, and exposes science once again to the fertility and the blessing be­ stowed by all the world-shaping powers of human-historical being [Dasein]" (SA 474/SU 13). The purpose of overcoming the division of knowledge into fragmentary specialties and disci­ plines is to bind the sciences together into a science that is an authentic knowing rather than simply a directionless gathering of information. He sees the sciences as obligated not only to ob­ jectivity but also to the larger spiritual-historical world of the community outside the university. For the sake of binding the sciences together into meaningful knowledge, Heidegger calls for spiritual legislation by the faculty, and he asks that the spe­ cialized sciences submit to that legislation in order to tear down

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departmental barriers and overcome "what lets professional training lose itself in what is stale and counterfeit" (SA 478/SU 17). He is after the essence of science as a retrieval of knowledge from the mere amassing of information on the part of fragmen­ tary disciplines for the sake of training professionals. Hence he argues that knowledge does not serve the professions; rather, "the professions effect and administer that highest and essential knowledge of the people concerning its entire being" (SA 477/ S U 16). Heidegger's claims about the role of the university in human destiny arise, then, not, as J. S. Porter recently suggested, because "Heidegger sought philosopher-king status in service to his Fiih­ rer" (1998:D10), but precisely because he attributes to the uni­ versity the highest authority and social responsibility in determining the function and direction of knowledge. He is in­ terested in an academy that determines human destiny on the basis of its own paternalistic authority and not that of a govern­ ment or military. Accordingly, what is worth knowing for Heidegger is not sim­ ply what has immediate practical application in technology for the sake of utility. In 1941, in the lecture course entitled Basic Concepts, Heidegger takes up this question of the claim (Ansp­ ruch) on humanity to which humanity must attend (BC 3/G 4). He argues that there are two claims upon human being, the claim of needs and requirement and the claim upon the essence of historical human being. Human being responds to what is needed and has utility, or to what can be done without. In re­ sponse to the second claim, human being "does not calculate under the compulsion of utility and from the unrest of consump­ tion" (BC 4/G 5). It is only in the domain of the second claim, the exhortation (An-sprechung) to human being to attend to what can be done without, that Heidegger suggests a "realm" (Reich) can be founded (BC 4-5/G 5). This claim is the claim upon human being from being. It is the exhortation to stand in the ontological difference and reflect upon being. The task of the university that Heidegger envisions is the realization of the full essence of science in precisely that sense. He wishes the univer­ sity to respond to this claim rather than the claims of utility. In confirmation of this reading, Heidegger argues in the Der Spiegel interview of September 1966, not published until after

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his death ten years later, that the Rektoratsrede was an argument against the devaluation of science in favor of the practical needs of the people. He sees himself as having argued that a new meaning for the university could come out of reflection on the tradition of Western European thought. He did argue so in the Rektoratsrede (SA 470/SU 9). In 1966 he says that what was needed was "above all a discussion of the relationship between philosophy and the sciences, for the technical and practical suc­ cesses of the sciences make thinking in the sense of philosophy appear today to be more and more superfluous" ("Only a God . . . " 283). Echoing his claims against utility in 1941, he is calling here for a different kind of thinking, one that does not take philosophy to be superfluous in the face of the practical success of the sciences. In his 1945 retrospective essay on the rectorate, "Facts and Thoughts," written shortly after the collapse of National Social­ ism and first published in a bilingual French-German edition of the Rektoratsrede in 1982, Heidegger suggests again that he wanted to ground the sciences in the experience of the essential region of their subject matter (FT 487/ SU 27). He argues that "reflection on the realm to which science belongs by its essence, reflection that also confronts that essence, must take place in every science if that 'science' is not to be without knowing" (FT 489/SU 29). For the sciences to achieve knowledge meaning­ fully, questions about the essence of science must be raised. He explains the Rektoratsrede as the argument that "by returning to the essence of truth itself instead of persisting in a technical or­ ganization-institutional pseudo-unity, [the university] was to re­ cover the primordial living unity that joins those who question and those who know" (FT 482/SU 22). Thus he saw his task as rector of Freiburg University to be the retrieval of knowledge from its fragmentation under a superficial organization, a return to a living unity of questioner and knower. What is common to and clear in What Is Metaphysics? and the Rektoratsrede is that Heidegger sees himself as offering the university an alternative to its superficial organization into specialized disciplines. Likewise, in "Facts and Thoughts" Heidegger argues that there is a danger in the old view, that is, the commitment to specialty. He became rector, he suggests, with the hope of pro­ viding the inner self-collection of the people with a measure (FT

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483/SU 23), and I take it he means here that his intention was to achieve a meaningful unity of the knowledge in the university. But no such hope was realized: the address "had been spoken into the wind and was forgotten the day after the inaugural cele­ bration" (FT 493/SU 34). No colleagues discussed it with him. Rather, the university was to become split into professional schools (FT 494/SU 35). He describes the experience of the rec­ torate as "a sign of the metaphysical state of the essence of sci­ ence, a science that can no longer be influenced by attempts at its renewal" (FT 4971SU 39). In other words, his time as rector of Freiburg University showed that his hope for the retrieval of science had failed. There are therefore adequate grounds to believe that Heideg­ ger objected to the Nazi appropriation of the university into the service of the people. His concern is the larger destiny of being and human being rather than global conquest. There is a sense in which he sees the university in the service of humanity, but this sense is not one in which he envisions the university in the service of the German people. Rather, he sees the university as the locus for a turning to reflection on being that would retrieve for knowledge a meaningfulness. That his vision for the univer­ sity is distinct from the Nazi vision is further evident in his at­ tack on the notion of worldview. Heidegger attacks the notion of worldview originally in Basic Problems of Phenomenology, where he argues that philosophy must be scientific rather than worldview philosophy. He says that the notion of a worldview first appeared in Kant's Critique of Judgment, where it was "a beholding of the world as simple apprehension of nature in the broadest sense" (BPP 4/CP 5-6). Schelling shifted the meaning from sense-perception to intelli­ gence, Heidegger argues, such that "the meaning we are familiar with today [is] a self-realized, productive as well as conscious way of apprehending and interpreting the universe of beings" (BPP S/CP 6). After citing several usages of the term, Heidegger concludes that "what is meant by this term is not only a concep­ tion of the contexture of natural things but at the same time an interpretation of the sense and purpose of the human Dasein" (BPP S/CP 7). The notion of worldview is for Heidegger an ac­ tive understanding rather than a passive apprehension. It impli­ cates both beings and human being in a world.

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Following Robert Bernasconi's analysis, then, to say with Hei­ degger that he had answered the question of the relation be­ tween philosophy and worldview would no doubt be to say too much. But Heidegger displaces the opposition between scientific philosophy and worldview philosophy in such a way that a place is found for ethics whereby it is no longer simply subordi­ nated to ontology and so reduced to some kind of supplement or appendage (Bernasconi 1988:54). Heidegger's treatment in Basic Problems ofPhenomenology of the question whether philosophy is worldview or scientific is an early stirring of the answer he will give to Jean Beaufret in

1946 when the latter asks about the rela­

tion between ethics and ontology. Heidegger answers in "Letter on Humanism" that ontology is always already an ethical move­ ment (BW 234-35/ W 356). Indeed, Heidegger argues in

Basic Problems of Phenomenology

that positing-that is, the positing of a being which is-is the essence of a worldview. Sciences are positive because they relate positively to beings in this way. Since philosophy does not relate positively to beings, but instead to being, philosophy cannot be worldview philosophy (BPP lO-ll/GP 15). As a worldview is ontical, so philosophy is ontologicaL It would seem, then, that Heidegger's insistence on a separation of philosophy and world­ view in

1929 is at the same time a conjunction of the sciences and

worldview. The positive sciences are in this account precisely at the essence of worldview. This is the second sense of "world" in the four given in

Being and Time,

in which the world of the

mathematician "signifies the realm of possible objects of mathe­ matics"

(BT 93/52 64-65).

The positive sciences are ontical in

that they begin with a regional ontology that is a setting up of a worldview. But less than ten years later, Heidegger is no longer prepared to support the conjunction of the sciences and worldview as a sufficient account of the sciences. His thinking on theory as a human activity has brought him to the conclusion that the sci­ ences are part of, and not a withdrawal from, life. They are not a theoretical pursuit free of practical interests, goals, and con­ cerns. Indeed, by

1937

Heidegger will recognize through the

Nazi appropriation of the university that the sciences determine their world within the world of his third account in

Being and

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HEIDEGGER'S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Time: the world " 'wherein' a factical Dasein as such can be said to 'live' " (BT 93/52 65). He will corne to understand the situa­ tion of the sciences within the larger political realm of his day as posing a political threat. But Heidegger has not yet made this critical move in 1933. In 1933 the specialization of the sciences means for him that the sciences succumb to errancy. He evaluates the sciences not in terms of their truth or falsity, but on other grounds. Maria Lu­ gones and Elizabeth Spelman offer a feminist evaluation of the­ ory in which they likewise claim that a theory is not just the kind of thing that can be true or false. They suggest that theories can be true, but also bad insofar as they are, for example, "useless, arrogant, disrespectful, ignorant, ethno-centric, imperialistic" (1993:26). Decisions need to be made about what it is valuable and worthwhile to know versus what is useless, arrogant, and so forth, if science is to be directed. For Lugones and Spelman, however, the threat is not just that unevaluated theory is a mean­ ingless collection of information, but that it can be imperialist and, in short, dangerous. Heidegger holds that the university is the place where science can be evaluated and directed, but in 1933 his interest is still intellectually innocent. His concern is to guard science against errancy, not its use as a tool of domination or oppression. By 1937 that has changed.

THE THREAT OF SCIENCE

In 1937, Heidegger read a paper entitled "Die Bedrohung der Wissenschaft" ("The Threat to Science"), published in 1991, to the Faculty of Natural Science and Medicine at Freiburg Univer­ sity. In this text he again attacks the notion of worldview, but here specifically in the context of the Nazi account of science and their program for the university. Just as worldview was inade­ quate to philosophy understood as science in the analysis given in Basic Problems oj Phenomenology, so here it is inadequate in the case of science in general. For Heidegger maintains that an account of science on the basis of the notion of worldview blocks the possibility of science itself. In 1937 worldview is central to

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the threat to science he lays bare. That threat is the National Socialist appropriation of the sciences and the university. The idea that science is grounded in a worldview is simply inadequate in Heidegger's analysis. The notion of worldview gets, he claims, at nothing essential in science.' If science is car­ ried by a worldview and is nothing in itself, he asks, then what does this ground carry-that is, for what is it a ground?2 He argues that the beliefs that science is valid in itself, happy to have a worldview behind it, or that a worldview grounds a sci­ ence that is valid only for that worldview, are both confused (verworren) conceptions that make neither science nor worldview clear in their relation to each other. If science is not able to work as law-making and opening with respect to the essence of truth, then it has no more meaning as intellectual power and becomes instead a technology (Technik) of knowing and the training in different techniques (Techniken) and practices.3 I suggest that for science to work as law-making and opening with respect to the essence of truth, a decision must be made as to what is worth researching. In his retrospective essay on the · rectorate, "Facts and Thoughts," Heidegger speaks of an incompatibility between his philosophy and the National Socialist worldview. He claims that "a rift separated the National Socialist conception of university and science from [his] own, which could not be bridged" (FT 497/ SU 38). In the Der Spiegel interview he says that in the lectures on Nietzsche, anyone "with ears to hear heard in these lectures a confrontation with National Socialism" ("Only a God . . . " 274). Those lectures, from 1936 to 1940, conclude with an attack on metaphysics as worldview. What distinguishes the latter is that in metaphysics as worldview "the differentiation of Being and beings which sustains metaphysics itself essentially and necessarily remains an unquestioned matter, a matter of indif1 "Man gibt Weltanschauung zu, aber halt sie fur die Wissenschaft an sich nicht wesentlich" (BdW 16). 2 "Aber wenn das, was getragen werden sol1, nichts ist in sich, was sol1 dann der Grund denn tragen und wozu Grund sein?" (BdW 16). 3 "Wenn die 'Wissenschaft' nicht in der Hinsicht der Wesenswahrheit geset­ zgebend und ertiffnend zu wirken vermag, hat sie keinen Sinn als geistige Macht; sie wird eine Technik des Kennens und der Abrichtung in den verschie­ denen Techniken und Practiken" (BdW 22).

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HEIDEGGER'S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

ference" (N 4:196/NII 229).

In 1937 Heidegger connects world­

view explicitly with the Nazi program for the university and the renewal of the sciences. Against the Nazi program for a renewal of science in the ser­ vice of the people as part of the German worldview, there is a need for a renewal of science in Heidegger's view also. Yet in spite of this agreement that renewal is called for, Heidegger ar­ gues that a National Socialist worldview should not be brought to bear on science.' He sees the manufacture of fertilizer and grenades as proof of the fact that science stands in the service of the people, but objects that such production does not do any­ thing for science or for the people, as a historical knowing would and could do.5 He objects vehemently to the Nazi program of a new science because it deals in worldviews which stand in the way of the desire to question. He argues that "the balance be­ tween science as pure theory and science as world-view has . . . above all prevented all powers of willing questions,'"

and it

glosses over the confusion surrounding the possibility of a new beginning and a change. He is critical of the Nazi appropriation of science and the university for the people, which he sees as an abolition of philosophy for the sake of popularity, and a world­ historical suicide.' The criticism of science and worldview in this text is clearly politically directed. The text is reminiscent of

What Is Metaphys­

ics?

and the Rektoratsrede, where Heidegger's concern is the role of science in the university, and of the university in the cultural life of Germany. But by 1937, "the dreaded picture that Heideg­ ger saw," as Patrick Heelan puts it, was "that science was and would remain essentially a form of social control unless it were

, "Soli 'die' nationalsozialistische Weltanschauung auf 'die' Wissenschaft an­ gewendet werden?" (BdW 16). 5 "DaB sie " die Wissenschaft« in den Dienst des Volkes stellen, ist richtig. Das gilt von der Herstellung der Diingemittel und der Granaten ebenso! Nur ist damit ja nicht bewiesen, daB sie irgend etwas fur »die Wissenschaft«, und d.h. fur das Yolk als ein geschichtlich wissendes tun und tun k6nnen" (BdW 27). 6 "der Ausgleich hat . . . vor aIlem aile Krafte des Fragenwollens unterbun­ den" (BdW 24). 7 "Die Deutschen bei der Abschaffung der Philosophie-in Absicht auf die Gewinnung des v6lkischen Wesens!-weltgeschichtlicher Selbstmord" (BdW 27).

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able to discover or recover its 'saving power' " (1995:586). Hei­ degger has lost his faith in the university as a cultural-political leader and a source of renewal and change. He continues to hold, as late as the text "Science and Reflection," that the sci­ ences offer the possibility of an alternative to the mere amassing of information, that they offer human being the possibility of knowing in a definitively human sense, of reflection (Besinnung), but he gives up the idea that the university is the institution within which the sciences can fulfill this role. He argues instead that the university is at an end, neither luckily nor unluckily, but rather necessarily, in that a new beginning is now possible." Heidegger calls for this new beginning against the Nazi call in which the power of the sciences unified into an institution can be appropriated. He suggests that the university is not under obligation to wider ends and uses, but rather that science has its real creativity in having to do with knowledge itself.' Under­ stood on this basis, science has nothing to do with the German university contemporary to Heidegger. Once it is politically ap­ propriated, the university can serve no creative function with respect to knowledge itself. Heidegger's demands for the uni­ versity thus fall into a tension that he is unable ever to resolve. On the one hand, the sciences institutionalized in the university should serve the people; on the other hand, there is danger in their serving the state. Heidegger does not answer how the uni­ versity can serve the one and not the other. But he retains his call for a renewal of science, while abandoning the idea that the university is the place for his vision of science to become a re­ ality. Heidegger has realized that the saving power of the university with respect to historical destiny carries the danger of political appropriation. For if the threat of science is that it can be used as a tool for social control, likewise the threat is to science itself, 8 "Es ist weder ein Ungliick noch ein Gliick, dall die Universitiit zu Ende ist, sondem nur eine Notwendigkeit und eine lang vorbereitete; heute wird ihr nur eine verbesserte Gelegenheit gegeben, an den Tag zu korrunen" (BdW 25). 9 "An der Universitiit: nicht sich nehmen lassen als die noeh Geduldeten, als die, die man fur das Weitere noeh braucht und ausnutzt oder mit denen man gele­ gentlieh sieh zeigt, sondem als die eigentlieh Schaffenden, die mit der Univers­ itiit niehls zu tun haben, aber mit dem Wissen" (BdW 25).

152

OSOPHY OF

HEIDEGGER'S PHIL

SCIENCE

that science so appropriated to the goals of the state is no longer science in its fullest sense of definitively human knowing. His envisioned task for the university culminates in his assumption of the rectorate in 1933, but his resignation less than a year later is evidence of the failure of his attempt to retrieve the university from its fragmentation into specialized disciplines and of the appropriation of the university by the Nazis. The thrust of "Die Bedrohung der Wissenschaft" is that the fragmentation of the sciences, in which specialized disciplines do not unite to think through and set goals for the sciences, leaves the sciences vulner­ able to political appropriation. True to his claim that the univer­ sity is at an end, Heidegger ceases to discuss the university, but he still remains preoccupied with institutionalized science. This is in fact the theme he pursues when he seeks out the essence of the modem age in "The Age of the World Picture" soon after his address to the Faculty of Medicine at Freiburg. In 1938, in "The Age of the World Picture," Heidegger ques­ tions the demarcation of subject area on the part of the sciences in a way that is different from his earlier complaisance about the specialization of the sciences. In The Basic Problems of Phenome­ nology, he argued that "Historically, the actual partitioning of domains comes about . . . in conformity with the current re­ search problems of the positive sciences" (BPP 13/GP 18). The uncovering of new research problems brings with it further spe­ cialization of the sciences under this earlier account. In "Age of the World Picture," however, Heidegger does not argue that research and specialization go hand in hand in modem science, or that research is the basis for subsequent specialization. Rather he argues the reverse, that research takes place as a direct conse­ quence of specialization. The move from accepting specialization as a historical fact in the history of science, much as it appears in the descriptive anal­ ysis of §3 of Being and Time, to interpreting it as at the very es­ sence of science, as he will in What Is Called Thinking?, is very much under way here in "The Age of the World Picture." For Heidegger argues in 1938 that science is essentially an ongoing activity of research that is thus capable of being institutionalized under specialized disciplines. Specialization makes research pOSSible, which in tum makes the organization of disCiplines

SCIENCE IN THE INSTITUTION

153

in the university possible. Accordingly, Heidegger argues that "institutions are necessary because science, intrinsically as re­ search, has the character of on-going activity" (AWP 124/ H 83-

84). Heidegger, however, having ceased to specify the university as the institution that houses science, offers no alternative. Instead of pursuing the question of the organization of the sciences, and their bureaucratic arrangement in the university, Heidegger moves to the issue of ideology, that is, to representa­ tion and the construction of the thinking subject as scientist. He argues that to do experimental science is "to get into the picture . . . to set whatever is, itself, in place before oneself just in the way that it stands with it, and to have it fixedly before oneself as set up in this way" (AWP 129/H 89). The representation stands before the scientist with a being at its focus, a being set up in certain conditions that map out a system. The specialization of the sciences entails representations that, in placing nature into the picture, also place the scientist "into the picture." Heideg­ ger's comments here are about representation in general. Since the lecture has, however, modem science as its specific focus (AWP 117/H 76), I apply the arguments directly to the topic. This "getting into the picture" is much more than just having a worldview. Continuing the critique of worldview established in "Die Bedrohung der Wissenschaft," Heidegger argues that the scientist does not simply grasp a picture of the world in rep­ resenting the object of a science. Rather, the scientist is estab­ lished in the picture only insofar as "the world is conceived and grasped as picture" (AWP 129/H 89). Human being can only have a worldview when the world for it becomes picture. Science as research "is an absolutely necessary form of this establishing of self in the world" (AWP 135/H 94). Thus the modem world is established as a picture in which both the scientist and her or his object appear. This establishing of the self in the world is, for Heidegger, one of the ways the modem age is fulfilled. Fulfillment here entails the notion of destiny, not in the nationalistic sense, but in the sense in which the destiny of human being is determined by the history of being. As the destiny of being is to withdraw in the unconcealment of beings, so the destiny of human being is a

154

HEIDEGGER'S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

metaphysics of subjectivity in which human being is itself put in the picture as the representing subject. The scientist does not ultimately enter as the individual know­ ing subject, however, in Heidegger's account. Heidegger argues explicitly that he is not talking about a subjectivism in the sense of individualism. Rather, betraying the fact that he still holds that science is an activity within a human community, he claims to be arguing "against individualism and for the community as the sphere of those goals that govern all achievement and usefulness" (AWP 133/ H 92-93). The establishing of knowledge by science is understood by Heidegger not in terms of the indi­ vidual scientist, who is dwarfed by the institution, but in terms of a system (AWP 129/ H 89), an organized institution. In that system, physics is necessarily experimental insofar as it pictures its objects as measurable. The institutionalization of science, necessary because of specialization, is complicit in the representation of nature in an experiment. What appears in the experiment is what has been determined as object in specializa­ tion. A science determines its particular object, and on the basis of representing that object devises its experiments. Heidegger argues later, in "The Question Concerning Technology," that physics is not experimental because it questions nature using apparatus, but rather that it questions nature using apparatus because it is experimental in the sense that it understands nature as calculable (QCT 21 /VA 25). Heidegger views the experimental method as representational in that it proceeds on the basis of a representation of its object. He does not see institutionalization as Simply a more efficient way to do science, but rather as essential to the way science de­ termines the modem epoch. It is in institutionalized and special­ ized science, for which physics is paradigmatic, that the world first becomes picture such that nature can then be the object of human control in technology. In Heidegger's analysis of science and the university, his later critique of science and technology is incipient. His attitude toward the university is always critical. He initially sees a possi­ bility for a change in the university, a retrieval of the sciences from debilitation through fragmentation. His entanglement with the Nazis during his brief time as rector and the years following

SCIENCE IN THE INSTITUTION

155

demonstrated how naive his early beliefs were. In later years he continues to hold that no science takes its meaning from within itself, but he abandons the idea that the university can provide that source of meaning. Heidegger still sees specialization in an institutional arrangement as a threat. When science takes the world as picture, he argues, "an essential decision takes place regarding what is, in its entirety" (AWP 130/H 89-90). That the sciences stand in a position of historical decisiveness remains his claim, both before and after his infamous tum. In fact, the only real change in Heidegger's account of science and the institution is his later abstention from political claims about the university. Heidegger's vision of the university was not that it be appro­ priated to the political ends of designing better hand grenades and researching better fertilizers. Once he experienced the politi­ cal appropriation of the university, he continued to hold that a decision must be made as to what it is valuable to know. Heideg­ ger holds, however, that the question of what it is valuable to know cannot be answered through the ongoing research of spe­ cialized diSCiplines. For such disciplines have no access to their essence, which is precisely the topic at stake. Rather, decisions are called for about the relation between human being and na­ ture; whether, for example, nature is exhausted by human re­ source and analysis, or whether weapons technology should be the largest economic motivation for research in theoretical phys­ ics. The questions of being and of human being cannot be sepa­ rated in Heidegger's view, and they may tum out to be that simple, providing the question of being remains open. The laws of physics do not distinguish the falling apple from the falling bomb. Heidegger has argued from 1929 until 1937 that the task of the university is precisely to ask such questions: to evaluate what is worth knowing. Yet in the text where the issue of the reevaluation is precisely the focal issue, that is, in the Nietzsche volumes, the sciences are given little and passing reference. He mentions them to claim they are not the solution to the homelessness of modem human­ ity, but they escape the thematic critique to which they have previously been subject. Heidegger holds explicitly in 1929 and in 1933 that the university has a role to play in human destiny in that it is the place in which to evaluate what is worth knowing.

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HEIDEGGER' S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

And he holds equally explicitly that the sciences are the modem form of human knowledge. Yet he does not raise the question of science in his lectures on Nietzsche in 1940. These lectures ad­ dress exactly the question of valuative thought. I argue that in the lecture course of 1940, Heidegger withdraws his attention from the sciences because his earlier accounts-his call for deci­ sion about value in 1929 and 1933-are embroiled in the very destiny of nihilism these lectures describe. His call for the reeval­ uation of what is worth knowing is an expression of his immer­ sion in the metaphysics and hence destiny of his age, a valuative thinking of which he is by 1940 critical. Heidegger is disillu­ sioned with respect to his earlier vision, yet he never gives up the call for reflection upon the sciences.

VALUATIVE THINKING AND DISILLUSIONMENT

Heidegger has in 1940 recognized the sciences as the fulfillrnent of the destiny of the West as nihilism. He sees the sciences as inherently metaphysical, and he himself struggles with an over­ coming of metaphysics. In an essay written from 1944 to 1946, "Nihilism as Determined by the History of Being," Heidegger explains what "overcoming" means: "To overcome signifies: to bring something under oneself, and at the same to put what is thus placed under oneself behind one as something that will henceforth have no determining power. Even if overcoming does not aim at sheer removal, it remains an attack against some­ thing" (N 4:223/NII 330). Leaving out the question of the sci­ ences is not therefore to have overcome them, but to experience their nihilism inauthentically. He suggests that "metaphysics' utmost entanglement in the inauthenticity of nihilism" (N 4:231 /NII 339) comes to language in the desire to overcome. To seek to overcome the sciences is to remain entangled in the meta­ physical stance toward beings that they embody. Any struggle over nihilism, he suggests later, whether for or against it, will decide nothing, but rather "will merely seal the predominance of the inauthentic in nihilism" (N 4:240/NII 348). Since the des­ tiny of being is for Heidegger nihilism, it cannot be overcome. For to overcome nihilism would be to overcome being, and the

157

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human being who overcomes being is no longer human since being is a destiny precisely for human being (N 4:223/NII 330). Hence it cannot be that Heidegger neglects the sciences because he has overcome the determination of the metaphysics of his age. Another answer to the question of the omission of the sciences from the discussion of nihilism is that the question of the value of the sciences has already been answered by their application in and subservience to technology. Heidegger argued in 1940, in

Basic Concepts, that the claim upon human being can be taken as the claim of utility, or as a claim upon the historical essence of human being. The latter is what human being can do without, for it is the question of being and leads to nothing useful. Under the former, human being "ca1culate[sl under the compulsion of utility and from the unrest of consumption"

(BC

4/G 5). The

human being who responds to this claim has determined what is valuable to know as that which can be applied in machine technology. The sciences give way to practical application in technology when human knowing responds to the claim of util­ ity. Heidegger leaves out the question of the sciences when he analyzes valuative thinking, not because they are inherently metaphysical in their nihilistic evaluation, but because the thought is incipient to him that the sciences are already deter­ mined on the basis of a valuation: the value of knowledge is its applicability in technology. The academy is not the place to ask what it is valuable to know, since this decision has already been made. Yet Heidegger does not yet see the thesis he will come to in the 1950s: the essence of science lies in the essence of tech­ nology. Heidegger hence finds in his academy of 1940 that knowledge is suffering from decay, a degeneration that arises from "chasing after what is necessary for the most convenient possible arrange­ ment of professional training"

(BC 12/G 14). The academy is not

a place for knowledge for the sake of knowledge, what Aristotle called

8EWQLU and under which he classified metaphysics, math­

ematics, and the study of nature; rather, it has become a training gTOund for pTOfessionals, and a research institute to support technological development. Indeed, Heidegger suggested seven years earlier, in the Rektor-

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HEIDEGGER' S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

atsrede, that students "who have dared to act as men" (SA 476/ SU 16) will no longer permit their bond to the spiritual mission of the German people, known as "Knowledge Service" (Wissens­ dienst), to be "the dull and quick training for a distinguished profession" (SA 477/SU 16). The Greeks took three centuries "just to put the question of what knowledge is upon the right basis and on a secure path" (SA 478/SU 17-18), so Heidegger does not expect the question of knowledge to be asked and an­ swered in one or two semesters. Nonetheless, if the German uni­ versity is to establish what Heidegger is herein calling for as an essence of science, it will do so, he suggests, in a battle of wills between the faculty and the student body. This battle is the self­ examination and assertion of the university. It is a willing of the essence of the university as science, against its decay into a train­ ing ground for the professions. In "Facts and Thoughts," Heidegger explains that notion of battle by reference to Heraclitus's Fragment 53 (FT 488/SU 2829), a text he also looked to in Introduction to Metaphysics, where he argues that this struggle is the conflict wherein human being first stands up to beings as a whole and opens up a world (1M 62/EM 47-48). This struggle could remedy the atmosphere of confusion in his university, wherein "the most diverse political power constellations and interest groups intervened in the uni­ versity with their claims and demands" (FT 492/SU 32). This was a different kind of struggle, a struggle for political power, in which the Ministry of Education struggled to secure an auton­ omy against Berlin, professional associations demanded the re­ moval of professors they found troublesome (FT 492/ SU 32), and Heidegger himself struggled against the Nazis' and students' demands for the posting of the Jewish proclamation ("Only a God . . . " 269) and for book burnings ("Only a God . . ." 271), faculty power plays for promotion, and the education minister's request for the dismissal of Jewish professors, over which Hei­ degger subsequently resigned ("Only a God . . . " 273-74). Hei­ degger understands these political struggles in opposition to the struggle he was calling for: "reflection on the ethos that should govern the pursuit of knowledge and on the essence of teach­ ing" (FT 492/SU 32). He loses the administrative and political battle, and gives up discussion of the task of the university and

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159

its role in the larger human community. But he has come to the question of ethical and evaluative reflection upon the sciences, and the question of the relation between science and technology is now incipient.

CONCLUSION

In the 1930s, Heidegger watches the university become compro­ mised by mundane politicization. He finds the university power­ less to renew a conception of the sciences that goes deeper than worldview to a meaningful confrontation with the essence of human being as knower. It is impotent to raise the question of what is worth knowing, since its faculty, students, and govern­ mental ministry are complicit in its conversion into professional schools and have already answered that what is worth knowing is what has immediate application in technology. It is not clear that the contemporary university is any more capable of raising such a question than was Heidegger's, nor that it can resist the function of providing job training to profes­ sionals, and appropriation by government toward cultural pro­ paganda. The contemporary university faces in fact a double threat of appropriation: on one side by the state; on the other, by industry. In 1919 the Twentieth Century Fund was founded and endowed in New York by Edward Filene as an independent research foundation to undertake policy studies of economic, political, and social institutions. In 1984 the fund assembled a task force chaired by Robert Sproull, president of the University of Rochester, in order to question whether funding arrange­ ments "threaten the independence and the special values of the university" (Rossant et a1. 1984:v). The "special values" at stake were the freedom and independence of ideas and information such that individuals can "pursue knowledge for its own sake" (Rossant et a1. 1984:3). The report produced by the task force uncovered that federal funds make up about two-thirds of the total spent on research in the United States since the 1960s, and that the era of government support for basic research on cam­ puses was ushered in by the successful development of radar and advanced weapons by university-trained scientists in World

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HEIDEGGER' S PIDLOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

War II. The report argues that since the remaining third of the research funds carne from industry, and since corporate ties "provide useful leverage in dealing with the government" (Ros­ sant et aI. 1984:7), corporate support helps preserve the tradi­ tional independence of the university. To what tradition, however, is the Twentieth Century Fund's report referring? The history of church, government, and corpo­ rate involvement in the university renders unclear exactly when researchers in the university were ever free to pursue "knowl­ edge for its own sake," or even what this phrase could mean in the contemporary academy. Research is today driven by compet­ ing interests, those of government, including the military, and corporations whose concerns are of financial return in the age of consumer culture. As Ursula Franklin has pointed out, there "seems to be an increasing crossbreeding and drift towards mo­ noculture in our institutions" (1994:10): universities are judged in market terms and try to act like business enterprises, while banks speak out on education and the future of research. The university is itself both a competing interest and a mediator be­ tween researchers and their funding sources. Heidegger holds by 1938 that the university is no longer the place where it is possible to raise the issues of the ends and value of knowledge. Reflection upon such questions reveals them as homeless. They cannot be raised from within the sciences, but the larger forum of the university also proved inadequate. Such questions do find a horne in Heidegger's work, but the results are largely unsatisfying. Heidegger faces bureaucratic issues about the organization and institutionalization of science in the 1930s, and he recognizes that the sciences are institutionalized in "research programs," as Lakatos will name them in 1970. But he leaves these insights to dissipate into claims about the institu­ tionalization of science as research. Heidegger has raised, de­ spite his unsatisfying treatment of it, what remains a largely untouched question in philosophy of science: who should deter­ mine the goals of the sciences? For, if Heidegger's talk of the "saving power" of the sciences was unsatisfying in 1937 in that he does not go on to say what the saving power of the sciences is, what is saved, and how, then nonetheless he does not relinquish the issue. But the role of the

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sciences in that "saving power" will change for Heidegger upon reflection. In What Is Called Thinking? he says that thinking is not practically useful like the sciences (WCT 159/WHD 161), but he is clear that what is called for is thinking about the sciences. Like­ wise in "Science and Reflection," he argues that reflection on the sciences is needed to get at that "which is worthy of question­ ing" (SR 182/VA 66). Whereas in the 1930s Heidegger saw a worth in the sciences themselves as the location of the defini­ tively human desire to know, his questioning of the setting of goals for the sciences led him to the insight that reflection upon the sciences is called for, reflection they are incapable of under­ taking themselves. The question of establishing goals for the sciences is now just as pressing as it was when Heidegger raised it. The phrase "knowledge for its own sake" is at best unclear. It has its origin in Aristotle's taxonomy of knowledge, of which three kinds­ metaphysics, mathematics, and physics-had neither action nor production as their goal. Their purpose was simply to become one with the thing known. In the Rektoratsrede, Heidegger ar­ gued for a retrieval of two properties of the original essence of Greek science: the impotence of knowledge and the value of questions over answers, without specifying whom he intends by "the Greeks." I argue that he is suggesting a retrieval of Aristot­ le's notion of knowledge for the sake of knowledge. But is his account of knowledge for its own sake any less unthought, any less empty and unexplored rhetoric, than it is in the "Report of the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on the Commercializa­ tion of Scientific Research," for whom it is an unexplained and seemingly empty intention? Certainly in the 1930s, Heidegger's consideration of what is worth knowing comes to the fore as a question in his thought. In the years to come he will continue to raise this question, not just as the question of the Betriebscharakter, the institutionaliza­ tion and bureaucratization of the sciences, but as an ideological concern for what is worth knowing. It will remain for him al­ ways the question of reflection upon the sciences, and will be taken as one of his most thought-provoking and significant con­ tributions to philosophy: that there is something for thinking at the end of modernity that is radical in the sense of going to the

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very root of both thinking and human being. This possibility is a new thinking, a deep reflection beyond science and beyond metaphysics. Heidegger will call it both thinking (Denken) and reflection (Besinnung). He will come to this possibility through an analysis of modem science in contrast to ancient science, an analysis that began for him in 1916 when he contrasted Aristotle with Galileo.

4 Ancient Science HEIDEGGER'S ACCOUNT of ancient science is a crucial moment in

his philosophy of science, for it is in Parmenides' and Heracli­ tus's understanding of nature that Heidegger sees another possi­ bility to the metaphysics of modernity. He interprets the pre­ Socratics to hold that being is qJ1)OL�. Accordingly, the represen­ tational thinking of modern science stands in marked contrast to its origin in Greek thought. Heidegger's analysis of science is thus clarified as a critique of modern science: it is only over and against ancient science that representation in exact science is the hallmark of modern science for Heidegger. Differences between ancient-particularly Aristotelian-and modern thinking have always figured in Heidegger's work, but it is his analysis of an­ cient science from 1935 to 1940 that consolidates those insights into a reading of the history of the West, and hence into a basis for critiquing modern science and technology. On the basis of his vision of the ancient interpretation of q)"UOL� in Parmenides and Heraclitus, with its last echo in Aristotle, Hei­ degger envisions alternative possibilities for being and thinking. These possibilities underwrite his later call to thinking. That in­ sight into ancient qJ1)OL� is a ground upon which an environmen­ talist philosophy of nature can be erected that goes well beyond Heidegger's project itself. For Heidegger's reading of the Greeks on nature is a two-sided vision: on the one hand, the exposition of an incipient logic of domination; on the other hand, the possi­ bility of another relation to nature. It could be argued that no environmental phenomenology is free of Heidegger's influence, but certainly Robert Corrington's ecstatic naturalism has a basis in Heidegger's early works, Val Plumwood's feminist ecology draws on Heidegger's analysis of technology, and John Llewel­ lyn's environmentalist insights have Heideggerian roots. Yet a full-fledged Heideggerian eco-logic has still to be written, and can only be sketched here in broad strokes. His interpretation of

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the ancient experience of qJ1JOL£ is a basis for a philosophy of nature that asks the contemporary thinker to revise our under­ standing of nature: nature is not a small part of a human world filled with technology, to which it can be understood analo­ gously, but rather the ground upon which technology is possi­ ble, and the basis from which it is derived. Hence Heidegger's account critically opposes a postmodern obliviousness to what precedes and exceeds the technological. Heidegger finds his vision of alternative possibility in Heracli­ tus and Parmenides. He first argues in Introduction to Metaphysics that for these pre-Socratics, being was
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Time in order to uncover Heidegger's dissatisfaction with locat­ ing truth in the assertion. Focusing on Introduction to Metaphys­ ics, but treating texts that discuss Myo<; from 1930 to 1944, I show that in Heidegger's analysis, Heraclitus and Parmenides understand being as qJUOL<;, and that therefore qJUOL<; is the origi­ nal Greek experience of truth. Heidegger here reads Myo<; in terms of t..EYELV as precisely the laying of qJUOL<; before the thinker, its appearance for thought. I show how in Heidegger's account, Plato's idealism transformed Myo<; into language and reason, which belong not to being but to the thinker. Against that background, I argue that Heidegger, reading Aristotle's analogy of being in terms of actuality and potentiality, is a last echo of the pre-Socratic insight that being is qJUOL<; as well as the origin of the decay of theoretical physics into technology. uOL<; As TRUTH In Being and Time, Heidegger offers a new interpretation of the

traditional Aristotelian claim that the locus of truth is the asser­ tion. He argues that the truth of the assertion is derivative upon unconcealment; that is, the apophantic nature of the assertion lies in the logically prior revealing of beings. Coupled with a rejection of transcendental subjectivity, this novel account of truth provides Heidegger with a basis on which to rethink Myo<;. He argues in 1935 that in the pre-Socratic experience of truth, 1-.oyo<; is qJUOL<;, the gathering of a being into being. He further connects Myo<; with doo<; in the argument that both terms belong to being, and only to the thinker insofar as the thinker thinks and talks about beings. The argument culminates in the claim that for the pre-Socratics, A.6yo<; is &1-.�eeLa in that it is the truth of being. Heidegger's analysis of truth begins in Being and Time as a rejection of the traditional reading of Aristotle, and it brings him to what he claims is the original Greek experience of truth. In his account, the Greek experience of nature as truth was prior to propositional truth and was displaced to human subjectivity by Plato's interpretation of being as toea. Thus is made possible truth as correspondence, the traditional account of truth at work

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in the sciences. Heidegger's interpretation of truth in antiquity is accordingly fundamental to his philosophy of science, for he holds that the original Greek experience of <jl1JOU; is the basis for the modem experience of truth in the sciences. In §44 of Being and Time, Heidegger analyzes the connection between being and truth in Parmenides and Aristotle by divid­ ing this task into three parts: to lay bare the ontological founda­ tions of the traditional concept of truth; to show how that concept is derivative from the primordial phenomenon of truth; and to clarify both what it means that there is truth and the necessity of the presupposition that there is truth. He character­ izes the traditional concept of truth by three theses: "(1) that the 'locus' of truth is assertion Gudgment); (2) that the essence of truth lies in the 'agreement' of the judgment with its object; (3) that Aristotle, the father of logic, not only has assigned truth to the judgment as its primordial locus but has set going the defi­ nition of 'truth' as 'agreement' '' (BT 257/ 5Z 214). The theses boil down to the claim that Aristotle is responsible for establish­ ing truth as an assertion's agreement with its object. But Heideg­ ger argues that there is another way to read Aristotle on truth. He reinterprets Aristotle by arguing that propositional truth is derivative upon a more originary phenomenon. Certainly at Metaphysics 9.10, Aristotle speaks about truth as belonging to statements and assertions. And he holds that truth is agreement, as evident in his claim that "he who thinks that what is divided is divided, or that what is united is united, is right; while he whose thought is contrary to the real condition of the objects is in error" (1051b4-5). Truth unites or separates in thought what is united or separated in experience, while falsity unites in thought what is separated in experience, or separates what is united. In order to have truth, then, thinking must agree with what it thinks about. But, Heidegger argues, it is not at all clear what the agreement of an t6ea content of judgment with a thing means. He suggests that this relationship of agreement may become clear in the con­ text of demonstration. What is demonstrated, however, in the example of someone with his back to the wall making the true assertion that "the picture on the wall is hanging askew" (BT 260-61 /5Z 217-18), is simply the "Being-uncovering of the as-

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sertion" (BT 261/52 218). That is to say, all that is shown is that the assertion points to and uncovers some entity as askew. The assertion is true only on the basis of the entity's showing itself as askew. Assertion is simply one way of being toward entities in which entities are revealed. It is apophantic. If there were no unconcealment of entities, the truth of an assertion would not be possible. Hence for Heidegger, the phenomenon of truth is only possible on the basis of being in a world, wherein entities are revealed to Dasein. Thus Heidegger argues that the correspondence theory of truth is derivative from this primordial and original phenome­ non of unconcealment. He develops this claim more fully in the 1931 essay "On the Essence of Truth." Heidegger appeals in both texts to the Greek word commonly translated as "truth": aA�eELa. The alternative translation he suggests is Unverborgen­ heit, which Sallis translates as "unconcealment" in "On the Essence of Truth," while Macquarrie and Robinson use "unhid­ denness" in Being and Time. Heidegger argues that to translate aA�eELa with Unverborgenheit is to show how Dasein is in the truth, that is, that Dasein is the being to which entities in the world are uncovered. Dasein is existentially constituted as the being who is in the truth. Dasein can also, however, be in untruth. Heidegger develops the view over three decades that truth has untruth at its very essence. In §44(b) of Being and Time, Dasein is in untruth in fall­ enness (BT 264/52 221-22). What is uncovered is disguised and closed off by idle talk, curiosity, and ambiguity, wherein beings show themselves in the mode of semblance. Dasein's falling is not some accidental feature but rather an essential part of factic­ ity: it is "a basic kind of Being which belongs to everydayness" (BT 219/52 175). Heidegger argues that in Parmenides' poem, the goddess of Truth offers two pathways precisely to signify that Dasein stands in both truth and untruth. In 1930 the belonging together of truth and untruth is thought in "On the Essence of Truth" as a double concealment. In the disclosure of particular beings, being is concealed. This conceal­ ment of being is itself concealed in errancy, which is the "insis­ tent turning toward what is readily available" (BW 135/WW 196), the preoccupation with beings which precludes the ques-

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tion of being. This wandering around in beings, which is etymo­ logically betrayed by error's root in the Latin erro, errare, is not "like a ditch into which [human being] occasionally stumbles," but rather "belongs to the inner constitution of the Da-sein into which historical man is admitted" (BW 135-36/WW 196). But now Heidegger argues that necessity of untruth to Dasein's exis­ tence lies in the very relation of being to human being, that is, in the very nature of understanding. The condition for the possibil­ ity of the unconcealment of particular beings is the concealment of being. Hence Heidegger does not read the " a " of a-AT)e£W as privative. Concealment is not a privation, but rather is logically prior to unconcealment. For Heidegger, truth and untruth be­ long together fundamentally. This thesis comes to its fullest expression in "Nihilism as De­ termined by the History of Being," written between 1944 and 1946 but first published in 1961. Here Heidegger argues again that the concealment of being is itself concealed in the uncon­ cealment of beings. Hence "Being itself remains unthought, [and] the unconcealment of beings too remains unthought" (N 4:212/NII 317). When human being "lapses into beings" (N 4:233/NII 342), sets them up as object, orders them, and se­ cures them as stockpiles, both being and truth defer to beings. This is not for Heidegger an accident of history, but rather the destiny of metaphysics. He privileges himself as able to uncover this destiny, despite its withdrawal from the history of thinking. In Being and Time, Heidegger offered a novel reading of Aristotle. In "Nihilism as Determined by the History of Being," he credits himself with an insight apparently precluded by the history of metaphysics: he can ask the questions of being and truth. I sug­ gest that the latter is contingent upon the former: Heidegger privileges himself as seeing through the history of metaphysics precisely because he thinks anew the origin of that history in Greek thinking. The idea that the primordial phenomenon of truth is covered over in the history of metaphysics is not new to Heidegger in 1944. In §44(b) of Being and Time he argues that the history of metaphysics in its incipience covered up truth. A metaphysics of presence covers over the primordial phenomenon of truth by rendering it an agreement of two things present-at-hand: the as-

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sertion and the entity under discussion. He suggests that this way of understanding being was first mastered and developed as a branch of knowledge by the Greeks. He must here mean Aristotle, for it was Aristotle who first defined metaphysics as a branch of knowledge (d. Met 4.1, 6.1). Indeed, Heidegger argues that "the primordial understanding of truth was simultaneously alive among [the Greeks] . . .-at least in Aristotle" (BT 268/5Z 225), for Aristotle, rather than simply holding truth to be the agreement of an assertion with a state of affairs, understands the derivative nature of propositional truth. He claims for Aristotle that the "most primordial 'truth' is the 'locus' of assertion; it is the ontological condition for the possibility that assertions can be either true or false--that they may uncover or cover things up" (BT 269/ 5Z 226). In other words, it is only because Aristotle understands that truth is unconcealment and concealment that he can take assertions to be paradigmatic and hence explanato­ rily effective for truth and falsity. Aristotle is accordingly an ambiguous figure for Heidegger. He both establishes and resists truth as propositional, both con­ ceals and acknowledges unconcealment. This tension in Aristot­ le's metaphysics appears again for Heidegger in 1940 in his reading of the Physics, where he argues that Aristotle contains both the last echo of the pre-Socratic insight into q)1JOL� and the origin of the reduction of q)1JOL� to 1:EXVT] through analogy. But the significance of Aristotle to Heidegger's thought does not end here. Heidegger's reading of Aristotle on truth in 1927 already contains his move away from transcendental subjectivity, and hence Aristotle presents to Heidegger in 1940 an opportunity to retrieve something of the history of the thinking of being that is prior to Plato's idealism. Although Aristotle follows Plato in that history, his Physics resonate for Heidegger with the pre-Socratic experience of being as !puaL�. In Being and Time, Heidegger sees his phenomenological in­ vestigations as "veritas transcendentalis" in that their inquiry is into being, and "Being is the transcendens pure and simple [das transcendens schlechthinj" (BT 62/5Z 38). The transcendence of being was the first reason Heidegger gave for the trivialization and forgottenness of the question of the meaning of being: being is the most universal concept. It belongs to every being, but lies

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beyond every being, beyond every characteristic a being may possess, beyond every class and genus. Heidegger intends to re­ think the universality of being such that rather than rendering being the emptiest concept, it is grounds for a retrieval of Aris­ totle's analogy of being, that is, for the problem of the unity of being. Heidegger's inquiry is transcendental in that he wants to un­ cover the question of the meaning of being. And his strategy is to do so through an investigation of a particular being, Dasein. But Heidegger rejects a move to transcendental subjectivity. In §44(c) he resists the ideal subject because it is "a fanciful ideal­ ization" (BT 272/52 229). Rather than accepting accounts of the a priori in terms of a "pure I" or "consciousness in general," Heidegger argues that the "Being of truth is connected primor­ dially with Dasein" (BT 272/52 230). He holds that Dasein is in the truth, but he does not want to take the traditional route of transcendental idealism to explain its being there. In fact, Dasein is literally for Heidegger precisely such a "being-there," and he says explicitly in Introduction to Metaphysics that the "transcen­ dental" intended in Being and Time "is not that of the subjective consciousness" (1M 18/EM 14). In the early 1930s Heidegger twice rejects transcendental sub­ jectivism, specifically in the context of truth. In "Plato's Doctrine of Truth" he argues that "No attempt to ground the essence of unhiddenness in 'reason,' 'spirit,' 'thinking,' ',,-oyor;,' or in any kind of 'subjectivity,' can ever rescue the essence of unhid­ denness" (Pathmarks 182/W 238). In "On the Essence of Truth" the crucial move for understanding a,,-ij8ELu is in Section 4, "The Essence of Freedom." Here Heidegger places the essence of truth in freedom, but not the freedom of subjectivity; rather, "freedom now reveals itself as letting beings be" (BW 127/WW 188). Beings reveal themselves to human beings, and freedom consists in allowing beings to do so. This account of the essence of freedom echoes the maxim of phenomenology cited in Being and Time at §7(c): "To the things themselves!" For Heidegger, the freedom at the essence of truth does not belong to the transcen­ dental subject, but rather is the freedom the thinker must allow to the object of thought if the thinker is to stand in the truth. This issue of freedom appears again in 1938 in "The Age of

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the World Picture." Here Heidegger diagnoses that in modem thought, which begins with Descartes, freedom belongs to the transcendental subject. He argues that Descartes's metaphysical task was "to create the metaphysical foundation for the freeing of man to freedom as the self-determination that is certain of itself. That foundation, however, had not only to be itself one that was certain, but since every standard of measure from any other sphere was forbidden, it had at the same time to be of such a kind that through it the essence of the freedom claimed would be posited as self-certainty" (AWP Appendix

9, 148-49/H 107).

The Cartesian truth is founded on the truth of the indubitable

cogito,

and therefore the subject assumes a special role in the

truth. The

ego cogito

is the basis of truth insofar as all truth is

founded on its self-certainty. The self-certainty of the subject is not one truth among others, but sets the measure for all truth. Heidegger's argument for an alternative conception of freedom, in which it belongs to beings rather than the self-certain subject, is a rejection of the claim that human being is the source of truth. Heidegger is again resisting in

1938

the distinctively modem

1935 cogito sum in Die Frage nach dem Ding (FD 76-82/MSMM 273-80). Heidegger reveals

move to transcendental subjectivity, a move he laid bare in as Cartesian through an analysis of the

the medieval influence on his thinking by holding that truth is transcendental not in the modem sense of having its source in the structure of human understanding, but in the sense of hav­ ing its source in being and therefore transcending any particular being, including Dasein. This is the source of his critical resis­ tance to Descartes found in "The Age of the World Picture" and

Die Frage nach dem Ding.

It is a rejection of idealism which, Hei­

degger argued (in the same year as the latter text), has its roots

!;n changes Plato made to A.6yo<; when he interpreted being as Lbeu.

Heidegger's rethinking of A.6yo<; is a long-term project.

Being and Time he argues that A.6yo<; is apophantic.

In

Truth tradi­

tionally belongs to A.6yo<; in that it belongs in language, in the assertion. Aoyo<; is a "mode of making manifest in the sense of

(BT 56/52 32). In as things, and this apophantic­

letting something be seen by pointing it out" language, things are pointed out

as-structure is the basis for the synthesis in virtue of which state-

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ments are true or false. Heidegger finds this interpretation in Being and Time of apophantical discourse sufficient "to clarify the primary function of the f...6yor:," (BT 58/52 34). The inadequacy of this clarification, however, and the depth and complexity of the question of f...6yor:, are evidenced by Hei­ degger's return to the issue in Introduction to Metaphysics, again in the lecture course on Aristotle's Physics in 1940, and again in "Logic" in 1944. The most significant conclusion Heidegger draws from rethinking f...6yor:, is that qJ1JOLr:, is originally ul:rj6ELU. This move is tied to his rejection of transcendental idealism, for he makes it by displacing f...6yor:, from the transcendental subject to nature. By tracing t..oyor:, back to the verb t..EYELV, Heidegger argues that nature is where f...6yor:, began in the Greek experience of being. He first makes this connection in Being and Time, but it is in Introduction to Metaphysics that the significant development takes place. In Being and Time, Heidegger was content to connect f...6yor:, to {lJtOXEl�Evov through AEYELV. 'YJtoxEl�EVOV is the subject: it "lies at the bottom of any procedure addressing oneself to it or dis­ cussing it" (BT 58/52 34). As subject in the sense of what is spoken about, it belongs to the subject in the sense of the thinker who is the speaker. The ambiguity in the word "subject" is ap­ parent in this text implicitly. In "The Age of the World Picture" in 1938, Heidegger argues that "man becomes subject" (AWP 128/H 88) when {lJtOxEl�Evov becomes subiectum. By 1952, when he gives the lectures that make up What Is Called Thinking?, Hei­ degger has explicitly rethought UJtOXEl�Evov such that the sub­ ject has been pulled away from transcendence. Here he takes UJtOXEl�Evov to mean for the Greeks "what lies before us" (WCT 200/WHD 117): it is neither the thinking nor the speaking, but the thing that figures in and therefore is prior to both. Heidegger is careful to make explicitly clear that, of such things that lie before human beings, only a minute fraction is laid down by human being. In fact, even what human being does create de­ pends on the presence of some other being beforehand: the "stones from which the house is built come from the natural rock" (WCT 200/WHD 117). Most of what lies before human being, to be thought and spoken about, is natural, that is, is qJ1JOLr:,.

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In Introduction to Metaphysics, Heidegger argues that for Par­ menides and Heraclitus, A6yo<; and CPUOL<; are the same. Aoyo<; and CPUOL<; are the same in that A6yo<; is the "steady gathering, the intrinsic togetherness of the essent, i.e. being" (1M 130/EM 100). Aoyo<; and CPUOL<; are the gathering of a being into being. Heidegger asks how this can be the case, when A6yo<; means "word" and "reason," both human capacities and functions, and says nothing about nature beyond human nature. He looks to Heraclitus for an answer. Heidegger interprets Heraclitus's doctrine of the ,,-oyo<; on the basis of Fragments 1 and 2. He argues that for Heraclitus, A6yo<; means gathering together into being, and only on this basis can it mean anything to do with speaking or hearing. uoU; and ,,-oyo<; are the same for Heraclitus (1M 130-31/EM 100), Heideg­ ger says, in that both are being. He argues that the tradition has falsified Heraclitus's doctrine of the A6yo<; and that likewise Par­ menides has been misunderstood (IM 136/EM 104). In the case of Heraclitus, Heidegger argues that Christianity is responsible for the interpretation of A6yo<; as word, in particular the word of Christ (IM 126-27/EM 97). In the case of Parmenides, the "fa­ miliar German view [Iandltiufige AuffassungJ" (1M 137/EM 105) reads Parmenides' claim that thinking and being are the same as an anticipation of idealism. Heidegger wants not to collapse being into thinking and therefore into subjectivism in interpret­ ing Parmenides, but rather to understand A6yo<; in relation to being. That is, in Heidegger's reading, cpUOU; and A6yo<; have in both Heraclitus and Parmenides an original unity. In the lectures from 1940 on Aristotle's Physics, Heidegger again pulls both doo<; and A.6yo<; away from transcendental ide­ alism, precisely as he did earlier for truth. E1oo<; does not mean originally the 'Low in the mind of the subject in Heidegger's ac­ count. Rather, it means what presents itself to be seen, the aspect or appearance that a thing offers as visible: "E100<; means the appearance of a thing and of a being in general, but appearance in the sense of the aspect, the 'looks: the view, 'Low, which it offers and only can offer because the being has been put forth into this appearance and, standing in it, becomes present of it­ self-in a word, is. "low is 'the seen: but not in the sense that it becomes such only through man's seeing. Rather, 'Low is what

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something visible offers to the seeing, it is that which offers a view, the sightable" (BCP 249/ W 275). Echoing the account he gave of phenomena as appearances in §7(a) of Being and Time, Heidegger is arguing that a thing offers an appearance, but not in the sense of a seeming. The tow is originally for the Greeks, he claims, the visible aspect a thing offers, whether or not some­ one is there to see it. He connects this reading of doo� to A6yo� by means of his retrieval of f...f.yf'.Lv. Heidegger argues that doo� is understood only when one re­ alizes the role of a thing's appearance in the thing being what it is for language. AEYELV means "to bring together into a unity and to bringforth this unity as gathered, i.e., above all as becom­ ing present; thus it means the same as to reveal what was for­ merly hidden, to let it be manifest in its becoming-present" (BCP 252/ W 279). A6yo� is precisely this bringing together into a unity. A thing presents an appearance when it is gathered to­ gether into a unified thing that lies before the speaker such that it can be spoken about as that thing. Laying (t..EYELV) and saying (A6yo�) belong together, for one speaks about what lies present; indeed, speaking about something is a way of bringing it to pres­ ence. Heidegger has known this since he called language apo­ phantic in Being and Time. He retains this insight into the connection between laying and saying, and in fact repeats it in lectures as late as 1952 (WCT 200/ WHD 117). Both A6yo� and t..EYELV belong with doo� in that what lies before the speaker, the thing spoken about, is present for the speaker in the visible as­ pect it proffers. In 1944 Heidegger gave a lecture course on A6yo� entitled "Logic." It was never published, but a brief, revised account was read to the Bremen Club in 1951 and published that same year in the Festschrift for Hans Jantzen. It is found in Vortriige und Auf­ siitze, and appears in translation in Early Greek Thinking under the title "Logos (Heraclitus, Fragment B 50)." Here Heidegger argues that A6yo� is the same as &t..�ef'.La: disclosure (EGT 70/ VA 212). He again traces its etymology to f...f.YELV, and again he asks how something that means to lay can come to mean saying and talking (EGT 61/VA 200). The answer he gives was incipient as early as 1926 in his lectures on Heraclitus wherein he ex­ plained A6yo� as the principle of beings by connecting it with

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AEYELV and UnOXELI!EVOV (Gesarntausgabe, Band 22:59). In 1940 he argued that "eI<'\o� is genuinely understood as eI<'\o� only when it appears within the horizon of the immediate statement about the being" (BCP 250/ W 275). In 1944 the account of Myo� is explicit against the background of truth as aA�eELa, unconceal­ ment, in the argument on the basis of Heraclitus's Fragment B 50 that Myo� is aA�eELa. A6yo� is, under Heidegger's assessment of the pre-Socratics, the distinguishing characteristic of human being, but only inso­ far as human being stands in relation to being. It is not a prop­ erty among others but definitive in that human being is precisely the one that stands in the truth. It can be so in Heidegger's view only because Myo� was for the pre-Socratics not just the human capacity for language or reason, but rather was being as qJ'\JO�. Heidegger has not simply redefined words in his explanation of aA�eELa. Rather, he has inscribed eI<'\o�, Myo�, and q:J1JOL� in a new constellation. His claim is that this constellation of mean­ ings is the original Greek experience of truth. That truth is the unconcealment of what already lies present, that is, of beings as a whole as q:)'UOL�, and the concealment of that presencing in the assertion. Traditional truth as correspondence overlooks its ground in aA�eELa, just as traditional accounts of nature over­ look its fundamental significance to human being. For they un­ derstand nature as a particular sphere of beings, not as being. This originary moment in Greek philosophy, in which being, q:J1JOL�, A6yo�, and aA�eELa are thought together, is, however, quickly eclipsed in the history of philosophy. In Introduction to Metaphysics, Heidegger calls Plato "the completion of the begin­ ning" (IM 182/EM 139), and in his analysis of nihilism in the Nietzsche volumes he reads Plato as the beginning of Western metaphysics. As the beginning of that history, Plato is an end of the pre-Socratic insight into being as CPUOL� and the interpreta­ tion of being as eI<'\o�. Heidegger argues that in this transition lies the origin of the medieval distinction between essentia and existentia, since a thing's whatness is more decisive for its being than its thatness. For being as t<'\ea is a model, an ideal model at that. Hence 1:0 cpuoLxa are taken as mere copies. This certainly accords with Plato's account in Book II of the Republic, and Plato has no place for the study of nature in his education system,

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since the natural realm is the realm of becorning, whose instabil­ ity precludes truth. A few years prior to Introduction to Metaphysics, in "Plato's Doctrine of Truth," Heidegger argues that education and truth belong together in an original and essential unity (Pathmarks 167/W 124). Reading the cave analogy, he interprets the task of the teacher in Plato's view to be education of the soul in order that it might properly see. Accordingly, with Plato, "at..Tj8ELa comes under the yoke of the tow"; it becomes "the correctness of apprehending and asserting" (Pathmarks 176-77/W 136). Rather than belonging to beings themselves, Heidegger argues, truth has thus become a characteristic of human comportment toward beings. Plato's idealism is for Heidegger subjectivistic. Likewise in Introduction to Metaphysics, Heidegger argues that Plato's interpretation of being as tow is a crucial moment in the history of being. That moment is "a decline [Abfall] from the first beginning" (IM 189/EM 144). The decline is the transformation of q)1Jm� and t..6yo�, decisive not because q)1Jm� becomes charac­ terized as tow, but insofar as tow becomes "the sole and deci­ sive interpretation of being" (IM 182/ EM 139), an interpretation again described as a decline, an Abfall. It is a decline into ideal­ ism, in which "vision makes the thing" (IM 183/EM 140) such that vision is more decisive than the thing in constituting its whatness. Plato is for Heidegger the originary tum to idealism, which has consequences for truth. Plato transforms truth from unconcealment into correctness. He is therefore the origin of the truth that Heidegger will uncover at the essence of representa­ tional thinking, that is, at the essence of modem science. Parmenides has a role in the tum to idealism in Heidegger's account. His connection of t..6yo� with XQlVELV interprets t..6yo� in opposition to qnJa�, Heidegger argues, for herein "t..6yo� as gathering becomes the ground of being-human [Menschsein]" (IM 174/EM 133). Hence the question of being is inextricably bound with human being, for "at the very beginning of Western philosophy it became evident that the question of being neces­ sarily embraces the foundations of being-there" (IM 174/EM l33). There is herein already a trace of the double essence of being Heidegger will make so much of in the Nietzsche lectures on nihilism. For it seems that from its beginning in Greek think-

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ing, the opening of the possibility of the question of being is in each case the opening of the possibility of its interpretation according to transcendental subjectivism. Taken to its fullest ex­ treme, that possibility unfolds as the nihilism of representational thinking at the essence of science and technology. Aristotle, however, chooses realism over idealism. He is an ambiguous figure for Heidegger. On the one hand, he is respon­ sible for locating truth in the assertion. The movement in which truth is no longer the event of unconcealment, but has come to mean "to say something about something," is a transition of Myor;, from c:pumr;, to language that culminates, Heidegger says, in "Aristotle's proposition to the effect that Myor;, as statement is that which can be true or false" (1M 186/EM 1 42). Yet on the other hand, Aristotle stands, with his strong interest in the sci­ ences, especially biology, in marked contrast to Plato's denigra­ tion of the sciences. Heidegger has already argued in Being and Time that Aristotle can be interpreted on truth differently than he has been traditionally in the history of philosophy. In fact, I suggest that Heidegger's rethinking of Aristotle on truth in Being and Time aligns Aristotle with the opening claim of "Letter on Humanism," that "Language is the house of being," rather than with the traditional claim that truth belongs to the assertion. It would seem, then, that there is something to Aristotle on c:pumr;, that warrants further thought, given the tension between the rereading of Aristotle on truth and Myor;, found in Being and Time and the claim made eight years later that he is the culmina­ tion of Plato's move to idealism. In "Plato's Doctrine of Truth," Heidegger likewise found Aristotle to be ambiguous. On the one hand, at Metaphysics 9.1O.1051a34 Aristotle thinks truth as the fundamental trait of beings. On the other hand, he claims at Metaphysics 6.4.1027b25 that truth and falsity are not in things but in the intellect (Pathmarks 178/W 138). Heidegger subse­ quently turns to Aristotle, and interestingly enough, it is the Physics to which he moves. In summary, in the interpretation that Heidegger gives the pre-Socratics, especially Heraclitus, being is c:pUOLr;,. As early as 1930, Heidegger suggests that when human being first experi­ enced unconcealment for the first time by asking what beings are, then "being as a whole reveals itself as c:pumr;" 'nature,'

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which here does not yet mean a particular sphere of beings but rather beings as such as a whole, specifically in the sense of emerging presence" (BW 129/WW 189-90). This notion of emer­ gence in connection with UOL� is not simply nature under this account, but the power by which things come to be, by which they are available to be encountered in their presence for human being. It is in this sense of "phys­ ics," the thinking of UOL� in this sense is, how­ ever, much more than is denoted by the contemporary word "nature." For the history of human thinking about nature is for Heidegger one of reduction, such that "the actual philosophical force of the Greek word [
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at..Tj8ELa, t..6yor;, door;, and qJ1Jmr; is the background against which Heidegger reads Aristotle's Physics in 1940. In "On the Being and Conception of qJ1Jmr; in Aristotle's Physics, B.1," Hei­ degger interprets Aristotle's ouoLa as the focal instance of being in the Greek sense of t..EYELV, a laying before the speaker of an appearance, an door; But ouoLa is not qJ1JOLr; for Aristotle, in Heidegger's account. Both are being, but the conception of being is not the same. For Aristotle, there are many ways a thing can be said to be. Truth belongs to the assertion-derivatively so, Heidegger has argued-but it belongs there nonetheless. For Heraclitus, on the other hand, "umr; is at..Tj 8ELa" (BCP 269/ W 301). On the basis of this account of truth, Heidegger argues in 1940 that QJumr; cannot be understood by analogy with 'tEXVT]. That is to say, in his 1940 lecture course on Aristotle's Physics, Heidegger explains how Aristotle narrows the pre-Socratic ac­ count of QJumr;. Heidegger argues that the pre-Socratic view has its last echo in Aristotle. Yet Aristotle also brings about a transition in the history of being that is decisive for all subsequent metaphysics, in fact for the subsequent relation between physics and meta­ physics. For, if for the pre-Socratics being was QJumr;, and hence physics and metaphysics know herein no distinction, Aristotle's account of being in terms of form and matter reduces nature to an analogue of the artifact. Heidegger looks for an alternative by giving QJumr; a priority over 'tEXVT] on the basis of Aristotle's ac­ count of actuality and potentiality, that is, in terms of one of the many ways a thing can be said to be according to Aristotle's analogy of being. .

ARISTOTLE'S ANALOGY OF BEING Heidegger argues in 1940, reading Aristotle's Physics, that the pre-Socratic interpretation of QJumr; is narrowed in Aristotle's conception. For Aristotle, Heidegger suggests, QJumr; is ambigu­ ous. On the one hand, the pre-Socratic vision is echoed in Aris­ totle's claim that QJumr; is that which moves of its own accord. On the other hand, Aristotle's claim that QJumr; is both form and matter, with priority given to form, narrows the pre-Socratic

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conception and lays the basis for understanding natural things by analogy to artifacts. The latter are produced by an artist, and things in nature are simply self-created, or divinely crafted arti­ facts. Heidegger claims, however, that qnJOU; cannot be understood by analogy with "tEXVT], that is, artifacts. If one interprets Aris­ totle in the light of the claim that being is first and foremost form, then the coming into being of a thing can be construed as the imposition of form onto matter. Although this is an adequate account of production, Heidegger argues that the coming into being of nature distinguishes it in Aristotle's thought from pro­ duction. Heidegger lays out an alternative reading of the Physics by thinking through Aristotle's analogy of being in terms of actuality and potentiality. There is a marked difference between this account and the view Heidegger struggled with in the 1920s and early 1930s. There he took metaphysics to ground physics. Here, in his ac­ count of Aristotle, the demarcation between the two is for Hei­ degger more than blurred. In fact, in reading Aristotle's Physics he argues that "meta-physics is 'physics' " (Bep 223/W 241). Heidegger's ear is attuned in reading Aristotle to an echo of a pre-Socratic insight: being is (jJum�. This is the crucial point that makes Aristotle's analogy of being Significant for Heidegger. Heidegger's acquaintance with and understanding of Aristot­ le's analogy of being goes well beyond Brentano's reading by way of the categories. Heidegger reads the analogy in 1940 in terms of actuality and potentiality. Aristotle's taxonomy of knowledge, in which he distinguishes theory from production, serves as an initial demarcation of (jJum� from "tEXVT] since they are ends of different branches of knowledge. Against that back­ ground, the Aristotelian distinction between (jJum� and "tEXVT] can be drawn as a difference between the relation of matter to form in each. In Heidegger's interpretation of Aristotle, (jJum� takes a priority over "tEXVT] since that relation is one of appropria­ tion in production, but appropriateness in nature. That is, form and matter belong together necessarily in (jJum�, but incidentally in "tEXVT]. In Heidegger's analysis, however, the distinction between (jJum� and "tEXVT] is unsustainable in modernity. In fact, accord-

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ing to Heidegger, what were for Aristotle clearly demarcated branches of knowledge are subsequently collapsed. Modem sci­ ence is essentially technological. Heidegger's view of Aristotle's Physics therefore not only stands on its own as an account of the early stages of the history of science, but also serves as the foundation upon which his critique of modem science unfolds. It is preparatory to that critique. And it hinges upon Heidegger's reading of Aristotle's analogy of being. In Aristotle's analogy, one of the many ways a thing can be said to be is actually or potentially. A further analogy, between qJ1JOL<; and 'tEJ(VT], is either implied or precluded, Heidegger ar­ gues, depending upon how Aristotle's notion of potentiality­ that is, the Mvu!!EL ov-is interpreted. Under Heidegger's reading of the Physics, the potential, matter, stands in a different relation to actuality in the case of nature and in the case of things produced. To understand form in all cases as an imposition upon matter is to preclude interpreting the relation between matter and form in the case of nature. This relation is one of necessity. Trees, for example, must be made of wood. To fail to see that form and matter are inseparable and equally necessary in nature is to fail to grasp the difference between nature and artifacts. Aristotle's distinction between theoretical and produc­ tive knowledge is based precisely on that difference. Heidegger's intent in "On the Being and Conception of UOL<; in Aristotle's Physics B.l" is to show that Aristotle's account of the many ways in which a thing can be said to be contains both the possibility of interpretation of
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An analogy between Ql'lJOL<; and 'tEXVT] is conspicuously absent from the list. Thus it is apparent that Heidegger has his own agenda in choosing to lecture on Aristotle's Physics. His intent is not simply to teach his students to read Aristotle, but to show how the Stagirite is a founding moment in the history of Western thought, which subsequently interprets nature by analogy with production. Yet this is not to say that Heidegger's reading of Aristotle is superficial or concocted. The move from Aristotle's many ways a thing can be said to be to Heidegger's claim that on this basis Ql1JOU; and 'tEXVT] are subsequently understood to be analogous in the history of Western thought, is a move that re­ quires careful explication, the focus of which is the fourth way in which a thing can be said to be: potentially or actually. For Heidegger will argue that understanding matter as the potential onto which an actualizing form is imposed is the basis for the analogy between CPUOL<; and 'tEXVT]. The Aristotelian problem of the analogy of being is not new to Heidegger in 1940. According to Thomas Sheehan (1975:87), it is common knowledge that the analogy, first encountered by Heidegger in 1907 in reading Brentano's dissertation, On the Manifold Sense of Being According to Aristotle, served as the driv­ ing force behind Being and Time twenty years later. Heidegger confirms this fact in "The Understanding of Time in Phenome­ nology and in the Thinking of the Being-Question" (Southwest­ ern Journal of Philosophy 10:210) and in his inaugural address to the Heidelberg Academy of Science, where he says that the "quest for the unity in the multiplicity of Being . . . remained, through many upsets, wanderings, and perplexities, the cease­ less impetus for the treatise Being and Time" (Seigfried 1970:4). The analogy of being was a central issue in Heidegger's philo­ sophical development. Furthermore, in his lectures on Metaphysics 9.1-3 in 1931, Hei­ degger's explication of 1tQo<; �v equivocals (AM 26-48, esp. 3840) makes it clear that he understands how the analogy of being works. Aristotle explains at Metaphysics 4.2.1003a34-b1 the many senses in which a thing can be said to be by analogy with the many ways a thing can be said to be healthy. One thing is called healthy because it preserves health, another in that it pro­ duces health, another is symptomatic of health, and another be-

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cause it is capable of health. Heidegger explains that the different meanings of "healthy" stand in their difference none­ theless in a unity, and he asks what the character of that unity is (AM 40). All these uses of "healthy" take their meaning from and refer back to a single thing: health. Their meaning comes by analogy to this focal instance. Likewise, Aristotle continues, there are different senses in which a thing can be said to be medical, but all are relative to the medical art. One possesses the art, another is naturally adapted to it, another is a function of it. There are other words used similarly to these, says Aristotle, and likewise "there are many senses in which a thing is said to be, but all refer to one starting-point" (1003b6). All senses in which a thing can be said to be take their meaning from a focal instance: substance (ouola). Aristotle makes his point on the way to arguing that there is one science to investigate being qua being (1003bll-19). That single science is metaphysics. Heidegger's discomfort with metaphysics is well evident by 1940. He has ceased to talk of metaphysics as scientific philoso­ phy. He does not stand at the incipience of metaphysics, as does Aristotle, whose interest is precisely in establishing metaphysics as a science. Rather, Heidegger stands at the end of a problem­ atic tradition. He is in 1940 uncomfortable with the analogy of being that determines the science for Aristotle, for substance (ouoLa) is not just the focal instance by which all senses in which a thing can be said to be take their meaning. A quick review of these senses shows that one of them is by way of the categories, of which one is the "what." Substance is itself a category. There­ fore all the other senses in which a thing can be said to be must take their meaning from this category. This is to say that potenti­ ality and actuality, as well as being in the sense of being true, have their meaning from the category of substance. Some twenty-five years after reading Brentano on the subject, Heideg­ ger can argue that nineteenth-century thinkers, above all Bren­ tano, therefore had a tendency to recognize potentiality and actuality as categories (AM 45). And he concludes himself that the analogy of being is the title for the most difficult anoQLa within which ancient and all subsequent philosophy is enwalled (AM 46).

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Several years ago, Father Joseph Owens asked me if Heidegger read anyone other than Brentano on Aristotle's analogy of being. It is clear on the basis of Heidegger's lecture course in 1940 on the Physics that Heidegger did not follow Brentano and read the analogy solely by way of the categories. Rather, the lecture is a painstaking reading of the analogy in terms of actuality and potentiality. It comes out of a long and critical acquaintance with the analogy on Heidegger's part. Against that background, the late and unexplained reference to Aristotle's many ways a thing can be said to be in the 1940 lecture is not as obscure as it at first seems. The lecture is explic­ itly about breaking the analogy of <jJ1JOU; to 'tEXVll, and on the way to that rupture, it is a rethinking of the relation between on the one side ouola, and on the other, actuality and potentiality. It is an attempt to raise the question of being by way of <jlUOL<;. Aristotle's interpretation of <jlUOL� is more systematized than the pre-Socratic, since <jlUOL� is for him what is studied in natural science in distinction to other branches of knowledge. What is under discussion, however, in Heidegger's account is the things, not the ways of knowing that get at those things. Potentiality and actuality are that by which <jlUOL� and 'tEXVll are to be sepa­ rated in Heidegger's reading. The implications of that separation concern the possibility of another beginning for thinking beyond representational thinking. In Heidegger's reading of Aristotle's analogy of being lies the possibility of a reconception of nature, an alternative to science and technology, a thinking beyond mo­ dernity. THEORETICAL VERSUS PRODUCTIVE KNOWLEDGE

Heidegger has previously attributed the account he has of <jlUOL� to "the Greeks." Although he sometimes treats Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Anaximander explicitly, at other times he refers to "the Greeks" as if they constitute a unified whole. On the basis of context it seems that he usually means the pre-Socratics, but little evidence is available in most instances to pin the term down any further. The effect of this term is to give Heidegger's reading of ancient philosophy on occasion the feel of a "once

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upon a time" rather than careful and diligent analysis. Where there is no evidence to do otherwise, one must simply and un­ comfortably reproduce his generalization. Heidegger's treat­ ment of Aristotle shows, however, that his reductionist generalizations about "the Greeks" are not always hermeneutic hand-waving so much as moments of interpretive synthesis aris­ ing from years of detailed analysis. His reading of Aristotle is an example of such sustained interpretation. In 1931 he reads Metaphysics 9.1-3 in a semester-long course, and in 1940 he does the same with Physics 2.1. In this lecture course, the reason Heidegger gives for his inter­ est in Aristotle is that the Stagirite is both a culmination and a foundation in the history of Western philosophy. In the Physics is found the "first explanation of the Being of (jlUOL£ where the way of questioning effected a coherence of thought . . . [the ful­ fillment and] last echo of the original (and thus supreme) thoughtful projection of the Being of (jlUOL£ as this is still pre­ served for us in the fragments of Anaximander, Heraclitus and Parmenides" (BCP 224/W 242). Aristotle's interpretation of (jlUOL£ both captures the pre-Socratic understanding, insofar as it constitutes a unity, and "sustains and guides all succeeding interpretations of the Being of 'nature' " (BCP 224/W 243). In that earlier interpretation, "(jlUOL£ is uATj8ELU, unconcealment" (BCP 269/W 301). It is truth understood not as the correctness of a proposition, but as the unconcealment of beings on the basis of which propositional truth is possible. UOL£ is to be wondered about, contemplated in j3lo£ 8EWQT]"tLXO£, because, to use Heideg­ ger's formulation of the question of metaphysics at the closing of What Is Metaphysics? and the opening of Introduction to Meta­ physics, (jlUOL£ is the source of the beings in the question, "Why are there beings at all, and not rather nothing?" For it is from (jlUOL£ that beings, including that being for whom its being is an issue, first and foremost come into being. In Heidegger's account of the Greeks, (jlUOL£ is not simply "na­ ture" but rather the power by which things come into being and remain in unconcealment to be encountered by human beings. In 1935 Heidegger defines it as "the emerging and arising, the spontaneous unfolding that lingers" (1M 61/EM 47). This read­ ing of (jlUOL£ stays with Heidegger such that twenty years later,

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upon a time" rather than careful and diligent analysis. Where there is no evidence to do otherwise, one must simply and un­ comfortably reproduce his generalization. Heidegger's treat­ ment of Aristotle shows, however, that his reductionist generalizations about "the Greeks" are not always hermeneutic hand-waving so much as moments of interpretive synthesis aris­ ing from years of detailed analysis. His reading of Aristotle is an example of such sustained interpretation. In 1931 he reads Metaphysics 9.1-3 in a semester-long course, and in 1940 he does the same with Physics 2.1. In this lecture course, the reason Heidegger gives for his inter­ est in Aristotle is that the Stagirite is both a culmination and a foundation in the history of Western philosophy. In the Physics is found the "first explanation of the Being of (jlUOL£ where the way of questioning effected a coherence of thought . . . [the ful­ fillment and] last echo of the original (and thus supreme) thoughtful projection of the Being of (jlUOL£ as this is still pre­ served for us in the fragments of Anaximander, Heraclitus and Parmenides" (BCP 224/W 242). Aristotle's interpretation of (jlUOL£ both captures the pre-Socratic understanding, insofar as it constitutes a unity, and "sustains and guides all succeeding interpretations of the Being of 'nature' " (BCP 224/W 243). In that earlier interpretation, "(jlUOL£ is uATj8ELU, unconcealment" (BCP 269/W 301). It is truth understood not as the correctness of a proposition, but as the unconcealment of beings on the basis of which propositional truth is possible. UOL£ is to be wondered about, contemplated in j3lo£ 8EWQT]"tLXO£, because, to use Heideg­ ger's formulation of the question of metaphysics at the closing of What Is Metaphysics? and the opening of Introduction to Meta­ physics, (jlUOL£ is the source of the beings in the question, "Why are there beings at all, and not rather nothing?" For it is from (jlUOL£ that beings, including that being for whom its being is an issue, first and foremost come into being. In Heidegger's account of the Greeks, (jlUOL£ is not simply "na­ ture" but rather the power by which things come into being and remain in unconcealment to be encountered by human beings. In 1935 Heidegger defines it as "the emerging and arising, the spontaneous unfolding that lingers" (1M 61/EM 47). This read­ ing of (jlUOL£ stays with Heidegger such that twenty years later,

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physics as knowledge at all (Cornford 1941:236), since knowl­ edge is of the eternal and not of transient TU eooQLa has as its end the thing known. It is knowledge for the sake of knowledge, and seeks only to become one with its object. I1QU1;L£ is practical knowledge, consisting in ethics and politics, and has its end in action. TEXVT] is productive knowledge under which fall, for example, the knowledge of the craftsperson and the art of the doctor. TEXVT] has its end in the thing produced: the work. A carpenter produces a house, a doctor, health. Aris­ totle makes a further threefold division within 8eooQLu. Since the end of all 8eooQLu is the thing, the end serves to distinguish its three branches on the basis of a further distinction between kinds of things that are known. This strategy of separating knowledge on the basis of its end also appears in De Anima, where Aristotle distinguishes intellection from perception on the basis of the difference between intelligible and sensible ob­ jects, and the five senses on the basis of their different objects. The object of hearing is sound, of sight is color, and so forth. In the case of the three branches of 8eooQLu, the objects of the branches differ according to their motion. But motion does not mean simply change of place for Aristotle. Rather, it means change in general, including change of place but also growth, decrease, and qualitative difference, and the special case of gen­ eration and destruction. Aristotle explains at Physics 198a29-31 that "there are three branches of study, one of things which are incapable of motion, the second of things in motion, but indestructible, the third of destructible things." The first branch is metaphysics, and its ob­ ject is that which does not move, separate substance. The second is mathematics, including astronomy, and its objects move, but not in the sense of generation and destruction. The final branch of 8eooQLu is the study of nature (
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taken for granted by physicists, because it "is indeed made plain by induction" (185a14). They come into being, grow, change their place and qualities, and eventually are destroyed. The claim that 1:<1 UOL£ is analogous to "snub," for "snub" cannot be defined without reference to matter (Met 6.1.1025b32-1026a6). What is snub is a concave nose, whereas concavity itself "is independent of perceptible matter" (1025b33): its definition does not require mention of a nose. If something is
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ence, both the skill of the craftsperson and the knowledge of the student of science have their source (981a1). For in experience the universal is stabilized within the soul as a single identity. Scientific knowledge is accordingly of what is necessary, ungen­ erated, and imperishable-that is, the universal-in that which is itself neither necessary nor eternal but constantly changing. So although Aristotle insists that natural science is knowledge of that which has matter, he cannot be called a materialist. Furthermore, Aristotle argues in the Metaphysics that natural science must fall into one of three classes-practical, productive, or theoretical-and that it cannot be either of the former two (1064a19). Natural science is, then, theoretical (102Sb2S), in con­ trast to "tEXVTJ, which is productive. The most obvious distinction between qJ1JOU; and "tEXVTJ is readily discernible in Aristotle's tax­ onomy of knowledge. TEXVTJ is a division of knowledge, as are 8EWQLU and JtQul;u;. uou;, on the other hand, is the end, the object of a particular branch of 8EWQLU; it is the thing under study. Yet this difference, between a way of knowing and a thing known some other way, plays a role in neither Aristotle's nor Heidegger's account. In The Basic Works of Aristotle, Hardie and Gaye translate Physics 2.1.193a31 as follows: "For the word 'na­ ture' is applied to what is according to nature and the natural in the same way as 'art' is applied to what is artistic or a work of art." Heidegger translates this passage his own way: "Just as we (loosely) call by the name "tEXVTJ those things which are pro­ duced in accordance with such a know-how, as well as those which belong to this kind of being, so also we (loosely) call by the name qJuou; those things which are in accordance with qJUOL£ and hence belong to beings of this kind" (BCP 2S0/W 276). Hei­ degger has added the word "loosely" parenthetically to his translation. Although one recoils at the thought of a translator simply adding words to render the desired interpretation of the text under scrutiny, Heidegger's move here cannot be taken as cavalier. For indeed, to Aristotle, physics and productive knowl­ edge are different ways of knowing precisely in virtue of the fact that they are directed at differing things. The distinction be­ tween knowledge and its object is Simply not as crucial to Aris­ totle as to modern philosophers. In fact, for Aristotle, when one

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knows, one becomes one with the thing known. Exactly what that means is unclear, particularly under the influence of a mod­ em epistemology in which the knowing subject remains op­ posed by the object known: the thing remains other. Aristotle's explanation is that in knowing one receives the form without the matter. This is not overly helpful, although in the case of perception, it is further explained by the analogy of a signet ring impressing its form but not its matter into wax (De Anima 2.12.424a17-24). In Aristotle's account, knowledge consists in having the form in the soul, and different kinds of knowledge do so differently because they have different ends. In fact, that the form is stabilized in the soul through experience in physics, whereas in production the artist has the form in the soul prior to production, is the crucial distinction between q)1Jm� and "tEXVT] for both Aristotle and Heidegger. Accordingly, I accept Heidegger's addition of the word "loosely" to his translation of 193a31 as pedagogical. He is high­ lighting Aristotle's point. For when Heidegger, following Aris­ totle, uses the terms "tEXVT] and cpua�, he is talking about things and not kinds of knowledge. What is at stake in Heidegger's discussion is the distinction between natural things and things that are produced: it is the difference between things that both Heidegger and Aristotle wish to elucidate. This is why Aristotle is the philosopher at stake in Heidegger's account of ancient sci­ ence. It is Aristotle whose taxonomy of knowledge makes possi­ ble a clear distinction between cpum� and "tEXVT] when he distinguishes both theoretical and productive knowledge from practical knowledge. The separation of the applied arts from practical knowledge-whose end is an action, not a thing­ grounds Heidegger's analysis not of knowledge, but of things. Accordingly, I cannot follow Dennis Schmidt, who argues that Heidegger is after an economy of production in his 1940 lecture course on the Physics. Heidegger's intent is not to distinguish kinds of knowledge. His point is precisely that cpum� cannot be understood by economies of production, that is, by analogy with "tEXVT]. Schmidt, reinvesting in an economy of production, is in­ terested in a retrieval of ftlftT]m� from representation to repeti­ tion. This question of ftlftT]m� is a thoroughly interesting issue, and to pursue it is a task worth doing; in fact, Schmidt's account

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does the job well. Yet, Heidegger's task in 1940 is not to complete that task. His critique of representational thinking will come in the 1950s. The reading of Aristotle in 1940 is one of the building blocks on the basis of which that later critique will be made. Hence, Schmidt's interest in this text confirms the lectures as a significant development in Heidegger's thinking toward that end. But Schmidt mistakes the preparatory for the substantial, and prematurely reads the incipient as the expressed. Indeed, Heidegger's explicit purpose in the 1940 lecture is not a critique of representational thinking, but rather the severing of an analogy between
In "On the Being and Conception of
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(BCP 267 jW 298). This is Thomas Sheehan's translation of Hei­ degger's lecture. The translation of das Geeignete as "the appro­ priated" is helpful to the reader of Heidegger in that it suggests a connection with Ereignis, which appears in Heidegger's think­ ing in the 1960s as the event of being, and is often translated as "Appropriation." Yet it is a problematic translation for my purposes. I wish to retain the notion of appropriateness and suitability, but I wish also to avoid a certain confusion. The dif­ ference between qJ1Jm� and "tEXVT] lies in the different relation of form to matter in each. The distinction is between what is appropriate (Le., suitable and proper) and what is appropriated (Le., borrowed or taken). This distinction cannot be made if das Geeignete is translated as "the appropriated," for it is here that appropriateness but not appropriation is called for. Accordingly, I translate differently the charge against Anti­ phon: his view is grounded "in a misinterpretation of the Mva­ fleL QV, of the appropriate [des Geeigneten], as a mere thing at one's disposal and on hand" (W 298). Antiphon's position on the nature of things has as its basis a construal of the relation between form and matter that does not acknowledge a differ­ ence in that relation for nature versus artifacts. Heidegger's in­ tent in his 1940 lecture course is to explicate a different view of the relation between matter and form in Aristotle's Physics by means of a different account of potentiality. Under this account the potential is not simply matter that is on hand or at one's disposal to be ordered by some form, but rather matter is the potential that is appropriate to some form. The question of poten­ tiality and actuality is inseparable from the question of matter and form. Heidegger will use this different account of potentiality to call for an interpretation of q)"uaL� that does not reduce it to tEXVT] by analogy. The difference between the criticized interpretation and the view that Heidegger finds as only an echo in Aristotle is the difference between a relation of matter and form that is an imposition or an appropriateness, respectively. Before the ques­ tion of what this appropriateness consists in can be answered, a reading of Aristotle on potentiality and actuality must be laid out. Though the role of matter in ql1Jm� is crucial in Aristotle's ac-

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count, he assigns to form a priority over matter. Heidegger ana­ lyzes this move on the basis of "the basic notion of Western metaphysics" (BCP 255): EV"tEAEXELU. 'EV"tEAEXELU, commonly rendered in English as "actuality," is the subject of no little de­ bate among scholars. The issue of what "actuality" means is fur­ ther complicated by the fact that Aristotle uses EV"tEAEXELU virtually interchangeably with EVEQYELU. Heidegger separates the two words perhaps more cleanly than Aristotle did, for he argues in his lectures on Physics 2.1 that the EQYOV at the core of EVEQYELU distinguishes the work, what is produced, from EV"tEAE­ XELU, which has "tEAO<; at its core. Hence he uses the words to capture the difference between qJ1JOL<; and "tEXVTJ. Yet, as George Blair notes, "every single instance of EV"tEAEXELU has a use of EVEQYELU that exactly parallels it" (1978:110). There are two words. And further, neither of these words is found in Greek before Aristotle, contrary to his usual strategy of appro­ priating existing words. He must have had a specific purpose in mind to coin these words. Blair's work on these two words establishes a basis on which to understand Aristotle's notion of actuality such that what Heidegger is after for the sister term, potentiality, can become clear. 'EVEQYELU is the earlier word, first appearing apparently in the Protrepticus before Aristotle left the Academy, although this is not an extant text. Blair translates it as "activity" rather than "actuality" on the basis of etymology. As did Heidegger, Blair seeks to understand the word by looking to the "work" (EQYOV) contained within. He suggests that Aristotle uses the word to stress the idea of "doing" and theorizes that Aristotle intro­ duced the word precisely in opposition to Plato's static sense of form (1978:109). Quite intentionally, Aristotle never defines EVEQYELU explicitly, stressing instead that it must be grasped by analogy: Actuality, then, is the existence of a thing not in the way which we express by "potentially"; we say that potentially, for instance, a statue of Hermes is in the block of wood and the half-line is in the whole, because it might be separated out, and we call even the man who is not studying a man of science, if he is capable of studying; the thing that stands in contrast to each of these exists actually . . . it is as that which is building is to that which is capa-

194

HEIDEGGER' S PIDLOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

ble of building, and the waking to the sleeping, and that which is seeing to that which has its eyes shut but has sight, and that which has been wrought to the unwrought. Let actuality be defined by one member of this antithesis, and the potential by the other. (Met 9.6.1048a31-b5)

For the sake of clarity, I offer the following list of potentialities set against their corresponding actualities:

Potentiality

Actuality

block of wood half-line scientist not studying builder not building sleeping person seer with eyes closed the unwrought

statue of Hermes line scientist studying builder building person awake seer seeing the wrought

It is pretty clear how the actualities of the scientist studying, the builder building, the seer seeing, and even the person who is awake are cases of activities-of "doing," as Blair wishes to un­ derstand EVEQYELU. But a statue of Hermes, a line, and something that has been wrought are actualities that do not give themselves so easily to a contrast against the static form. Statues, lines, and things wrought just do not seem to do much. Blair's suggestion is that Aristotle coined the word EvtEt..EXELU precisely to look after this problem. For, if EV"tEt..EXELU means "having its end in­ side it," as Blair suggests (1978:114), then the actuality of a thing that does not in fact do much is easier to grasp: "a statue is a statue when it contains the end ("tEA.O�) of a statue" is perhaps more apt than "a statue is a statue when it does what statues do." Yet the explanatory victory here is perhaps Pyrrhic. It is still unclear how being a statue, a line, or a thing wrought is an activity. Furthermore, once Blair has explained why the second word is introduced, he is faced with the question of why this use of EvtEA.EXELU is subsequently superseded by EVEQYELU, the earlier term. For apparently Aristotle introduced the second word only to discover eventually, by slipping into using EVEQYELU in pre­ Cisely the way he intended EvtEt..EXELU, that in fact a thing's hav-

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195

ing its end inside it is a kind of activity. If it is the case that EVEQY€L
196

' HEIDEGGER S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

tween motion and rest to be that between the fleeting and the eternal (BCP 243/ W 266-67). Eternal are the elements, which are the material substratum of the ever-changing things encoun­ tered in experience. But, points out Heidegger, the process of growth and decay happens without interruption. The substra­ tum may be permanent, but that does not distinguish it from the changeable, because change is also a constant for the Greeks (BCP 245/W 270).

An alternative interpretation of motion is put forward in Hei­ degger's enigmatic claim that the Greeks conceived motion in terms of rest (BCP 255/W 283): "The purest manifestation of being-moved is to be sought where rest does not mean the breaking off and stopping of movement, but rather where being­ moved gathers itself up into standing still, and where this ingath­ ering, far from excluding being-moved, includes and for the first time discloses it" (BCP 256/W 284). Rest does not happen when movement stops, but rather is a fulfillment of being moved. This is the sense in which for Aristotle having its end in itself is an activity on the part of a thing. 'EV"tE"-EXELU is an activity that is also a stillness, a gathering up of movement into an end. The activity that is movement toward an end does not cease when that thing reaches its end. The end is a tension that gathers that very movement together in the thing, and thus includes and dis­ closes what that movement is a movement toward. Almost ten years earlier, in his lectures on 9.1-3 of the Metaphysics, Heideg­ ger gave the example of a runner at the starting line immediately prior to a race in order to explain this notion of a stillness that is a gathering together into movement. The runner is still, but the stance and composure of the runner are a gathering together that can only be dissipated by subsequently running. It is in this moment of tension in stillness immediately prior to running that the runner is most clearly actualized (AM 218). True to Aristot­ le's refusal to account for EVEgYELU other than in conjunction with the MVUf.lEL QV, it is by way of the latter that Heidegger has reached his account of the former. Heidegger's adeptness with this topic is perhaps due to the fact that 1940 is not the first time he works with MVUf.lL<; in a lecture course. The earlier lectures on the Metaphysics from the summer semester of 1931, from which I took the example of the

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runner, deal exclusively with the concept of Mvuf,LL<; xU'!:a XLVT]­ OLV. Heidegger deals first with the question of the human power to create, JtOLT]OL�, but his ultimate concern is with the power of a thing to move itself, that is, to become what it is in the sense that an acorn becomes an oak tree. These two senses of "power" capture precisely the difference at stake in the 1940 lecture course. For the difference between an artifact and nature is the difference between what needs an artist to come into being and what does not. Heidegger will in 1940 pick up the thread of a thought he previously put down in 1931. In the third and final section of the lectures on the Metaphysics, Heidegger deals with Aristotle's rejection of the Megarian thesis that reality consists not in potentialities but rather only in actual­ ities. Heidegger argues that OUVUf,L� is also real: beings can be potentially. In 1940 he argues that beings can be potentially, but further, that EVEQYELU and EvtEAEXELU, in contrast to OUVUf,LL�, are real in a way that is prior. He focuses on Aristotle's claim at Metaphysics 9.8.1049b5: "actuality is prior to potency." This is Ross's translation, found in The Basic Works of Aristotle. Heidegger offers an alternative translation and explanation of this claim: EVEQYELU more originally fulfills what pure becoming-present is insofar as it means the having-itself-in-the-end such as has left behind all the "not-yet-ness" of [appropriateness] for . . . , or bet­ ter, has precisely brought it forth along with it into the realization of the fulfilled appearance. The basic thesis that Aristotle has put forth concerning the hierarchy of Ev�EAEXELa and Mvaf.lL<; can be expressed briefly as follows: EvtEAEXELa is ouoLa "to a greater de­ gree" than MVUf.lL, is. EvtEAEXELa fulfills the conditions of Being, as constantly and of itself becoming present, more fundamentally than Mvaf.lL<; does. (Bep 258) �UVUf,L� is always a "not-yet" in that the potential does not ap­ pear in unhiddenness the way the actual does. The actual is quite simply more present than the potential in that the potential is on the way but not yet present. Heidegger reads the priority Aristotle assigns EVEQYELU over the MVUf,LEL OV consistently with Aristotle's claim that "there are many senses in which a thing may be said to 'be' " (Met 4.2.

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HEIDEGGER'S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

1003a32). Heidegger attempts to put those ways into a hierarchi­ cal rather than linear relation. His account of the priority of actu­ ality is simply his reading that actuality better fulfills the conditions of substance (oUOLa) than potentiality does. Revealing a commitment to a metaphysics of presence, Heidegger argues that the presence of the potential is not the same as the presence of the actual. Aristotle's account is about talking about things. It is about when a thing can be said to be. What is present for language is ouoLa, often translated as "substance." Heidegger has insisted that ouoLa be read as "becoming-present" throughout the 1940 lecture course. The understanding of ouoLa herein called for must be based on the opposition between unhiddenness and seeming. In fact, Heidegger claims that understanding this dif­ ference is "the condition for understanding at all Aristotle's in­ terpretation of q)'tJOL�" (BCP 245/W 270). For Antiphon, a thing is made present in semblance. The real is matter onto which a form has imposed an appearance that is a semblance, a passing shape. For Aristotle, on the other hand, ouoLa is a making present in unhiddenness, in truth. A thing that appears in unconcealment, that can be spoken about as what it is, is an appearance, but not a semblance, Heidegger argues, much as he distinguished appearance from semblance in §7(a) of Being and Time. To be unhidden is to appear, but not to seem. It is the unhiddenness of a thing in the stillness that is EVTEAeXELa that "most perfectly fulfills what ouoLa is: the becom­ ing-present in the appearance, constantly and of itself" (BCP 257 /W 286). Heidegger's claim, then, is that the priority of EVEQYELa and EVTEAeXELa over Mva�tL� consists in the fact that EVEQYELa and EVTEA.EXELa fulfill becoming-present (ouoLa) better than MVa!lL� does. For, consistent with Physics 2.1.193b6-8, "a thing is more properly said to be what it is when it has attained to fulfillment than when it exists potentially." A piece of bronze is not called a statue, other than potentially, until it looks like one. An acorn can in some sense be called a oak tree, but one says "oak tree" properly when an oak tree presents itself. Likewise, a collection of wood, concrete, nails, and rebar can be in some sense called a house when these things are on the way to becoming a house,

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but the completed house, which stands present as a fulfillment of what a house's appearance (d()o�) is, is more properly called a house. One talks about a house when the thing being talked about looks like a house. This is the sense in which the form (f!oQ(jl�) "is not an ontic property present in matter, but a mode of Being. . . . [It is1 the act of standing in and placing itself into the appearance, in general: placing into the appearance" (BCP 250/W 276). The form, then, has a priority with respect to EVEQ­ YEUI, for it is the form which governs a being's actuality. And it does so first and foremost in (jlUOL�, for it is (jlUOL� that this plac­ ing into appearance brings itself about. It is in this relation of form to being that Heidegger sees in Aristotle the possibility of interpreting (jlUOL� not by reduction to 'tEXV1] by analogy.

Heidegger argued in 1935 in Introduction to Metaphysics that for "the Greeks . . . (jlUOL� is being itself" (IM 13-14/EM 10-11). In the 1940 lecture course on Aristotle's Physics he holds to this interpretation, arguing that for Aristotle, (jlUOU; is ouola: "(jlUOU; is ouota, beingness-that which distinguishes a being as such; in a word: Being" (BCP 238/W 260). He suggests further that the "decisive principle which guides Aristotle's interpretation of (jlUOL� declares that (jlUOL� must be understood as ouota, a man­ ner and mode of becoming-present" (BCP 239/W 261). In the "beCOming-present" that is ouota, form and matter together present the thing which can be encountered in experience. Both 'tEXV1] and (jlUOL� are fulfilled in the activity that is EVEQYELa, but it is only (jlUOL� that moves itself and is always so moving toward its end. In Heidegger's analysis, (jlUOL� has a priority over 'tEXV1]: (jlUOL� is definitively Ev'tEAEXELa and definitively ouota. It is the relation between matter and form that determines this priority. As Aristotle makes clear in the first chapter of the Metaphysics, to know is to understand the cause. In the Physics, (jlUOL� is "a source or cause of being moved or at rest" (192b22-23). And it is a generative cause, for of things that exist, "some exist by (jlUOL�, some from other causes" (192b8). TExvT] is precisely an­ other such cause. Heidegger notes that these are not efficient

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' HEIDEGGER S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

causes, for "cause" here does not mean "the manner and mode in which one thing 'acts on' another" (BCP 227/W 245). Each is an aQX� but not in the sense of "the starting-point of a push, which pushes the thing away and leaves it to itself" (BCP 233/ W 254). Rather, q:nJa� and "tEXVT] are generative causes in that each is a starting point and governing principle from which a thing comes to be what it is, whether it be a thing in nature such as a tree, for example, or an artifact such as a house. UOL� and "tEXVT] are generative causes: they cause yEVWL�. Hence, as aQXaL they bring into being and determine development. That is to say, they stand in a special relation to the final cause. In fact, in the case of both qJUOL� and "tEXVT], the aQX� is also the final cause ("tEAO�). The end of qJUOL� is qJUOL� in that things that come from nature move toward other things that are specifically identical. Things in nature reproduce. Likewise in the case of "tEXVT], the final cause is the aQX�, for, as put clearly in Parts of Animals, the final cause "is the reason, and the reason forms the starting-point, alike in the works of art and in works of nature" (639b15). The origin of "tEXVT] is the d1\o� in the head of the artist. The end of "tEXVT] is the thing made in conformity with that d1\o� Accordingly, Aristotle claims that "Art indeed consists in the conception of the result to be produced before its realization in the material" (640a32; cf. EN 1140a13). The difference between qJua� and "tEXVT] is that in the case of qJua�, the aQX� and "tEAO� are qJua� itself. But when something is produced, it is the thing that is both aQX� and "tEAO�, and not "tEXVT] itself. A doctor produces health, not medicine, and a builder produces a house, not carpentry. In some sense, doctors do produce medicine and builders, carpentry, for they can teach or learn more about their craft. But they do so toward the further ends of health and houses, respectively. On the other hand, a tree comes about from a tree, and tends toward generating other trees. This difference is tied to the fact that in the case of "tEXVT], the efficient cause is external to the thing produced. It is the artist who has the thing in mind before its realization in the material. Natural things come to be analogously from a moving cause, but in their case this cause is internal (cf. PA 641b12-16). The externality of the efficient cause of an artifact has crucial implications for the relation between matter and form in an arti.

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fact versus that relation in a natural thing. Aristotle's claim in the

Physics is that the artist chooses material "with a view to the

function, whereas in the products of nature the matter is there all along" (194b7-8). The "matter is there all along" in that the process of growth in which the form shapes the matter is contin­ uous. One does not find the matter without or prior to the form. Trees are always already growing. on the way to

qiUOL�.

uOL<;

is, as it were, always

Accordingly, wood is not incidental to a

tree, which cannot but be of wood. A statue, on the other hand, is made by a sculptor, not by a statue. The matter is incidental to the statue, for not only could a statue be made from other material-bronze, for example---but also wood that is made into a statue could just as easily have been made into something else, such as a shield or a house. Form and matter belong together necessarily in nature, but incidentally in art. Matter is potentiality in Aristotle's account, but Heidegger's developed account of potentiality gives him access to a reading of Aristotle's

Physics

in which

qiUOL<;

is not analogous with but

rather prior to 1:EXVT]. His thinking underwent substantial formu­ lation in the lectures on the Metaphysics from 1931. Here Heideg­ ger uses the traditional translation into German of

MVaf.lL�:

Kraft. Kraft is usually rendered into English as "power," and thus Heidegger's translation is consistent with the English trans­ lation of

MVaf.lL� as "potentiality." In 1940, however, Heidegger Eignung and Geeignetheit to translate

chooses not Kraft but

MVaf.lL�. Both these words translate comfortably into English as "suitability" or "appropriateness." Heidegger chooses Eignung and Geeignetheit, I suggest, because they better capture the dif­ ference between the relation of matter to form in qiUOL� and in 1:EXVT]. There is a suitability or appropriateness of wood to trees, for example, that is different from the appropriation of wood to a ship, or bronze to a statue. Because in artifacts there is no necessary relation between form and matter, an artifact has no tendency to growth and decay within itself, except insofar as it is made of some natural material. Wood rots because it is wood, not because of but rather in spite of the fact that it has been made into a bed. Art does not destroy the original relation between matter and form; rather, the tendency of nature toward its own end persists throughout

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has a special kind of rest . . . characterized as having-been-com­ pleted, having-been-produced, and, on the basis of these deter­ minations, as standing-'forth' and lying present before us" (BCP

230/W 250). This is indeed a crucial distinction between qn)OL� and "tEXVl]. At 9.6 of the Metaphysics, Aristotle distinguishes "mo­

(%LvtlaEL�) from "actualities" (EVEQYElu�) on the basis that (Cl"tEt..EU;), that is, do not contain their ("tEt..O�). The examples he gives of incomplete motions are

tions"

the former are incomplete end

the processes of thinning, becoming healthy, learning, walking, and building. derstand

In contrast, he argues, "we see and have seen, un­

and have understood,

think

and have thought"

(1048b23). His point is reflected nicely in the ambiguity of the English word "end," which means both "goal" and "finish." Some processes finish when they reach their end, others do not. Dieting stops when the goal is reached; likewise, building.

In

both of these examples, the activity is a means to the goal. But not so with thinking and seeing: the actualization

is the activity.

With artifacts, production is incomplete in the sense that once the end is reached, production stops. The activity and the actual­ ization are not the same. Heidegger, citing point to distinguish

qJ1)OL� from "tEXVl]

(BCP

1048b23, uses this 256/W 284).

And I suggest that this is precisely the point Heidegger has in mind when he reads

Physics 2. 1. 192b20.

He argues that for

Aristotle, "the issue here is to show that artifacts

are what

they

are and how they are precisely in the being-moved of production and thus in the rest of having-been-produced" (BCP 230-31/W 251). Artifacts move-that is, reach their end-differently than nature. Where the matter is incidental to the shape, as in the case of an artifact, the shape guides production but does not itself do the producing (BCP

260-61/W 290). Rather, the artist does.

Hence the artist requires something beforehand: an idea or model of what is to be made a

nUQuoELYflU,

(nuQuoELYflU).

If

qJ1JOL�

required

"an animal could not reproduce itself without

mastering the science of its own zoology" (BCP 261/ W 290). De­ finitive of "tEXVl] is that the appearance

produced precedes its appearance

(doo�) of the thing to be (YEVEOL�) as a thing in that the

idea exists in the mind of the craftsperson prior to production. Production is the imposition of form on matter.

TEXVl]

knowledge of how to bring things into being this way.

is the

ua�,

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HEIDEGGER'S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

on the other hand, is that which comes into being of its own accord. 1his is for Heidegger the original Greek distinction be­ tween qnJoL<; and 1:EXVl']. In Antiphon's account, however, nature and artifacts are un­ derstood in the same terms. Nature is simply a self-making arti­ fact. Heidegger's reading of the history of Western metaphysics is the story of the failure of Antiphon's analogy between qnJOU; and 1:EXVl'] to break down, the failure of the insight that nature moves differently from the artifact. According to Heidegger, the distinction between qnJOL<; and 1:EXVl'] is simply not sustained in the Western tradition of thought. It is not even sustained in Aris­ totle's thinking. For even though Metaphysics 4.1 raises the ques­ tion of the being of beings as such in totality, 4.3 gives the same information about qnJOL<; as the Physics: "<jlUOL<; is one kind of ouota" (BCP 268/W 299). As one kind of being among others, it is on a level with those others, such that it can be understood by analogy. TEXVl'] consists in the imposition of form onto matter, and <jJUOL<; as a parallel kind of being can be understood as form imposed on matter. The only difference is that in 1:EXVl'], the artist imposes the form on the matter, whereas in <jJUOU;, the form is imposed on the matter by nature. Heidegger's criticism is that this view falls short of what the thinking of the pre-Socratics had already achieved. It encourages a reduction of <jJUOU; to 1:EXVl'] by analogy. The older conception of <jJUOL<; would preclude an analogy to artifacts, rather than con­ ducing one. Such an analogy "fails from roery conceivable point of view. That means: we must understand the Being of <jJUOU; en­ tirely from itself, and we should not detract from the astonishing fact of <jJUOL<; . . . by overhasty analogies and explanations" (BCP 262-63/W 292). In Heidegger's account, <jJUOU; is not simply a self-making artifact but rather the self-placing into appearance of what is encountered as already there. It is the astounding fact that there are beings rather than nothing at all. Therefore <jJUOU; must be understood for Heidegger on its own terms, not by re­ duction to a derivative kind of being by analogy. It is Heidegger's contention that the history of the concept of nature since the Greeks is sustained and guided by Aristotle's interpretation of <jJUOU;. Aristotle's assertion that being is <jJUOU; is "barely expressed . . . an echo of the great origin of Greek

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philosophy" (BCP 268/W 300). What is heard more loudly, however, from -Aristotle's Physics is the twofold nature of CPUOL� as both matter and form. And accordingly, the analogy rather than the separation of CPUOL� and aA�eELa comes to hold sway in, for instance, the 'LOEa that nature is a creation of a divine craftsperson. Hence Aristotle is a cusp, a thinking of nature that is a peak in Heidegger's account. He is the culmination toward which the pre-Socratics rose, and the height from which subsequent meta­ physics are decadent. Since 1915 Heidegger has been consider­ ing Aristotle's natural philosophy in contrast to modem science. In 1940 he leaves the contrast aside and looks to Aristotle alone. He spends, in fact, an entire lecture course on one chapter of the Physics, drawing upon the Metaphysics only when he seeks to buttress his thesis that CPUOL� is being. The significance of this account of ancient science to Heidegger's thinking is easy to overlook. Yet now Heidegger's phenomenology has found something to hold onto. In Basic Problems of Phenomenology, one of the compo­ nents of the phenomenological method was destruction: "a criti­ cal process in which the traditional concepts . . . are deconstructed down to the sources from which they were drawn" (BPP 23/W 31). The 1940 lecture course on Aristotle does exactly that with the concept "nature." Heidegger finds that Aristotle's account of nature is determinative for the subse­ quent history of metaphysics. He finds in that account both the groundwork for a reduction by analogy of nature to production, and the possibility of the retrieval of something else.

CONCLUSION

Heidegger's preoccupation and concern with natural science­ that is, physics-after 1940 is a critical thinking of the modem relation of human being to nature. In those subsequent years, he will argue that the essence of science is the essence of technol­ ogy. I suggest that Aristotle's taxonomy of knowledge and the insight that the subsequent tradition of thinking in the West re­ duces CPUOL� to tEXVT] by analogy are at the basis of this claim.

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HEIDEGGER'S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Hence 1 argue in the following chapter that in Heidegger's anal­ ysis, modernity is determined by the essence of science, which lies in the essence of technology. In Heidegger's analysis, the history of Western metaphysics is a collapse of theoretical sci­ ence into productive technology. The logic by which that history moves is a dialectic, but of decay, not elevation, into representa­ tional thinking. Heidegger's critique of modernity is a negative dialectic that seeks to open up possibilities for thinking beyond representation in reflection. Heidegger's reading of the Physics is persuasive as a piece of Aristotle scholarship, but it is also compelling as a basis for an environmental phenomenology, a philosophy of nature. Why Heidegger's account of qnJOL<; is compelling is evident in the fol­ lowing anecdote. I recently led an informal discussion entitled "Nature versus Technology." A colleague joked before we began, "I put my money on technology." Overwhelmed by tech­ nology and underwhelmed by nature, the modem thinker can readily favor the powers of technology. Yet, under Heidegger's reading of Aristotle, technology can never win. For nature is the very ground on which technology stands. Nature is simply prior, and technology derivative. The priority of nature does not consist just in the fact that nature provides the materials that technology appropriates, although it must come first as material resource. To see nature in this way as resource is already to see from within technology, as Heidegger makes clear in "The Question Concerning Technology." Rather, to see nature through eyes opened by Heidegger's account of ancient science is to retrieve the claim that nature is that which moves of its own accord. It is at best borrowed, not overcome by technology. And hence modem science, in its essence as technology, threatens not to destroy nature, but to destroy human being.

5 Science and Technology IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTERS I have traced Heidegger's analysis of science from its incipience in phenomenology, through its treat­ ment of experimentation and its entanglement with the political, to its vision of latent new beginnings in the ancient legacy. The logic of that movement is governed by the notion of projection. In this chapter I focus on writings from the 1950s What Is Called Thinking?, "Science and Reflection," and "The Question Con­ cerning Technology"-in order to explore the relation between science and technology that still preoccupied Heidegger in 1976. In reading Aristotle, Heidegger uncovered projection not in physics, but in "tEXVT]. In the 1950s he argues that the essence of science lies in the essence of technology because a trace of an­ cient "tEXVT] remains in modem science. That trace is the mecha­ nism of a priori projection that Heidegger names "Ge-stell." The relation between ancient "tEXVT] and modem technology is medi­ ated by science. Accordingly, science plays a much more sig­ nificant role in Heidegger's critique of modernity than has been acknowledged by his critics, for science informs the modem age, and Heidegger's description of its limits is also a vision of what lies beyond them. In "The Age of the World Picture," Heidegger identifies five phenomena that are essential to the modem age: machine tech­ nology, science, aesthetics, culture, and the loss of the gods. He asks what interpretation of truth, what understanding of what is, lies at the foundation of science. He argues that if he can uncover the ground of science, "the entire essence of the modem age will have to let itself be apprehended from out of that ground" (AWP 117/H 76). The modem epoch can be under­ stood by means of an account of science. Heidegger chooses sci­ ence here to uncover the metaphysics of modernity, since science stands in a crucial position with respect to that metaphysics. As early as 1935, Heidegger attributes the genesis of modem -

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HEIDEGGER' S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

metaphysics to Descartes, a scientist who applied his method, so successful in the sciences, to philosophy (Descartes 1986:4). For Heidegger, science is not just one phenomenon among several: it is the determination of the metaphysics of modernity. It is in this same text, "The Age of the World Picture," that Heidegger first considers science in its relation to technology: "Machine technology is itself an autonomous transformation of praxis, a transformation wherein praxis first demands the em­ ployment of mathematical physical science" (AWP 116/H 75). Here is Aristotle's threefold division of knowledge into 6EWQLU,

:n:QaSL�, and 'tEXVT] in a modem constellation. Technology trans­ forms practice such that for the first time it deploys theoretical science. Thomas

Kuhn

also argues that science and technology come

together in modernity: "[they) had been separate enterprises be­ fore Bacon announced their marriage in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and they continued separate for almost three centuries more" (1977:142). Like Heidegger, who objects in "The Question Concerning Technology" to the idea that technol­ ogy is simply applied science,

Kuhn

complains that historians

tend to conflate science and technology. Yet, suggests

Kuhn,

something happened in the late nineteenth century. Until then, technological innovation almost never came from scientists. Rather, it came from practitioners and craftspeople, to whom the inventor was a bit of a joke. In fact, "almost no historical society has managed successfully to nurture both [science and technology) at the same time" (1977:143). Yet there have been three kinds of interaction. First, scientists have sometimes gained a better understanding of nature by looking to practices established by technologists. Second, on occasion technologists have borrowed method from the sciences. And third, scientific research results in products and processes that require further development by people with scientific training. A transforma­ tion in the history of science has taken place,

Kuhn

argues, at

the third point of interaction. The coming together of science and technology has turned science into a socioeconomic force. Accordingly, both Heidegger and

Kuhn

are interested in the

impact of science on human experience. And certainly, both ac­ knowledge that in modernity, science itself becomes a tool for

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209

industry, capitalism, and politics. Yet for Heidegger this analysis is not enough. In "The Question Concerning Technology" he finds the modem conception of technology as applied science disquietingly inadequate, even dangerous because of the com­ placency it conduces. The analysis Heidegger gives of the rela­ tion between science and technology can be explored by means of two claims he makes throughout What Is Called Thinking?: sci­ ence does not think, and the essence of science lies in the essence of technology. I explicate the first claim by showing first that for Heidegger, science is essential to the modem epoch. Hence the claim that science does not think is a critique of modernity that looks be­ yond the limitations of representational thinking. Thinking is not reducible for Heidegger to the latter, the scientific paradigm of knowledge that has contaminated modem philosophy. Next I explicate the claim that the essence of science lies in the essence of technology by looking first to the essence of science as set out in "Science and Reflection," and then to the essence of technol­ ogy treated in "The Question Concerning Technology." I argue that each has its Ge-stell, its a priori projection of the being of beings. I conclude by showing that for Heidegger, quantum physics remains within the essence of modem science. My central thesis is that for Heidegger, the essence of science is the essence of technology. The "is" here is an "is" of identity, but an identity of structure, not content. I argue that science and technology are both essentially Ge-stell: projective revelation of beings. But whereas technology reveals beings as standing-re­ serve, science reveals them first as object. This reading of Hei­ degger is radical. I am arguing that what is taken to be one of Heidegger's most significant contributions to philosophy, his critique of technology, derives from a thinking through of the question of science that drove his thinking for sixty years. In­ deed, for Heidegger, the essence of technology arises out of the essence of modem science. EpOCH AND ESSENCE

Heidegger claims in What Is Called Thinking? that he is not speak­ ing against the sciences, but in fact for them, that is, "for clarity

210

HEIDEGGER'S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

concerning their essential nature" (WCT 14/WHD 49). That es­ sential nature is found in the essence of technology. With this suggestion, Heidegger is recognizing in science a deeper sig­ nificance than that by which it is construed as a cultural phe­ nomenon: "When we decide to look for the essential nature of contemporary science in the essence of modem technology, this approach posits science as something in the highest sense wor­ thy of thought. The significance of science is ranked higher here than in the traditional views which see in science merely a phe­ nomenon of human civilization" (WCT 22/WHD 53). Heidegger lays the groundwork for the decision to look for the essence of science in the essence of technology by considering science in its worthiness for thought. Science has for Heidegger a significance so fundamental that he himself only begins to recognize it in 1952. In Being and Time, Heidegger says in §69(b), when he lays bare the theoretical attitude, that his idea of phenomenology is now to be developed for the first time. In 1935 Heidegger looked to the history of science in order to be able to understand modem knowledge and metaphysics (FD 50). In 1938 he chose science as that aspect of the modem age from which to analyze the whole (AWP 117/H 76). That science should warrant attention in these places shows that it is not incidental to modernity for Heidegger. Rather, science is essentially modem; that is, the modem era holds sway in science. Modem science is for Heidegger the cul­ mination of the history of metaphysics. That history comes to its final configuration in nihilism. Hei­ degger reads the latter as the default of being in which being's withdrawal pushes beings to the forefront. In the second of the volumes on Nietzsche, the fourth in the English translation, in "Nihilism as Determined by the History of Being," Heidegger argues that "being remains unthought in metaphysics because metaphysics thinks the being as such. What does it mean to say the being as such is thought? It implies that the being itself comes to the fore. It stands in the light. The being is illumined, is itself unconcealed. The being stands in unconcealment" (N 4:211 /NII 316). In his earlier years, especially in Basic Problems of Phenomenology, Heidegger called the difference between being and beings the ontological difference. The not new-for it is evi-

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

211

dent in Heidegger's treatment of the theoretical attitude in §69 of Being and Time-but now rethought proposal is that in the modem epoch, beings are determined as object by science. Sci­ ence inquires not into being, but into beings. The modem epoch is for Heidegger nihilistic precisely in its preoccupation with be­ ings understood as the objects of science, and the concurrent forgetting of the question of being. Accordingly, the sciences are not incidental, and nor is their consideration supplementary to the question of what calls for thinking. The sciences are at the heart of this question; for they are central to modem thoughtlessness, and, in company with modem philosophy, they are blind to the question of being. The question of the essence of science is the question of the history of metaphysics in its modem epoch. Accordingly, a consider­ ation of science is crucial to a reading of Heidegger's account of that history. And likewise, he considers science essentiaL But what Heidegger means by "essential" here needs explanation. Given that Heidegger's doctoral work was on medieval phi­ losophy, it makes sense that he first thinks the question of es­ sence in the context of the medieval distinction between essentia and existentia. This is the difference between what and that some­ thing is. In Basic Problems of Phenomenology Heidegger attempts to search out the common origin of these two terms in Greek thinking by understanding "the Greeks better than they under­ stood themselves" (BPP 111 /GP 157). He suggests that essentia refers back to "productive comportment toward beings" (BPP 110/GP 155), in contrast to "pure beholding [which] is fixed as the proper access to a being in its being-in-itself" (BPP 110/GP 155). This contrast mirrors the difference between things that are produced and "the being of that which is already extant" (BPP 116/GP 163-64). In a move that foreshadows his 1940 reading of Aristotle's Physics, Heidegger suggests that production always makes use of material which is already there. In the 1940 account he takes that to mean that
HEIDEGGER'S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

212

something exists already which can be made into something else. Heidegger's subsequent thinking will, however, cease to take the distinction between essence and existence for granted.

In Introduction to Metaphysics, Heidegger argues that "es­ sence" becomes ambiguous when Plato interprets being as tIiEU.

that something is what something is, the ambiguity that makes the distinction between essentia and existentia possible. But, argues Heidegger, It is with Plato that "essence" comes to mean

and

the "substantive 'Wesen' did not originally mean 'whatness: quiddity, but enduring as presence" (IM 72/EM 55). When Plato changes its meaning to "whatness," !jJ1JOU; no longer means what is, but rather means a copy, a mere appearance

183-84/EM 140).

(IM

Heidegger seeks to retrieve the earlier mean­

ing of !jJU<JL�, and hence an earlier possibility for essence, in the notion of enduring presence. This account of essence figures prominently in "The Question Concerning Technology." Here he argues that technology "makes the demand on us to think in another way what is usu­ ally understood by 'essence' "

(QCT 3D/VA 34).

This usual un­

derstanding is essence in the medieval sense of

quidditas,

whatness. The essence of "tree," for example, is the whatness of trees, that is, "treeness." The latter is the genus under which all trees fall and which captures the whatness that belongs to every tree. But the essence of a tree is not itself a tree. Heidegger ob­ jects to the generic account of essence and resists its universality.

In

place of the traditional, generic understanding of essence,

Heidegger suggests what he described already in

Metaphysics.

Introduction to

He wants an account of essence that contains a no­

tion of endurance, but not the permanence in which an essence is what something is, always has been, and always will be. He draws his alternative meaning from the German word for es­ sence,

Wesen, which is derived from the

obsolete verb

wesen.

He

argues that this verb has the same meaning as wiihren, which means "to last or endure." Thus in the case, for example, of the essence of a house or a state, Heidegger does not mean the ge­ neric type, but rather "the ways in which house and state hold sway, administer themselves, develop and decay-the way in

[Wesen]" (QCT 3D/VA 34). That essence (Wesen) belongs with lasting or enduring (wiihren) is something

which they 'essence'

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213

Heidegger holds to in "Science and Reflection" in 1954 and in his 1957-58 lecture course published as "The Nature of Lan­ guage" in On the Way to Language (Unterwegs zur Sprache 201/

On the Way to Language 94-95). Under such an account, essence no longer has the permanence of the eternal universal. It is not what a thing is, always has been, and always will be. Rather, "essence" has for Heidegger a historical fluidity. An essence is a coming to presence that then endures. It is the determination, not of an eternal truth, but rather of a historical epoch. The essence of technology is for Hei­ degger the way in which technology comes to presence and en­ dures in the modem epoch. It is the holding sway of technology in modernity. Likewise, the essence of science is the way in which science holds sway in the modem epoch. Heidegger's claim that the essence of science lies in the essence of technology is the claim that science and technology hold sway in the same way: they reveal beings in the same way. Heidegger argues in "The Age of the World Picture" that sci­ ence does not simply happen to appear in modernity. Rather, it is grounded in the metaphysics that determines the modem epoch: science is based on the understandings of what is and of truth that are the basis on which the modem age is formed (AWP 115-17/H 75-76). The question of the essence of science is therefore for Heidegger the question of an epoch in the history of being. This is the epoch of nihilism, in which being is forgot­ ten in the face of scientific and technological success with beings. Accordingly, the essence of science cannot be understood through some definition that would be applicable to all instances of science, be they ancient, medieval, or modem. The question of the essence of science seeks no such definition. Rather, the essence of science is particular to the modem epoch, for it is in the modem epoch that science holds sway in the determination of the being of beings as nihilism. Heidegger's account of the essence of science is his critique of modernity, his account of how modem human being's projection of its world comes about and endures. It is in this sense that "essence" must be under­ stood in Heidegger's analysis of the essence of science. And it is in this sense that science is essential for Heidegger: it is forma­ tive of the modem epoch.

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HEIDEGGER' S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Given this historical notion of essence, such that science is, for Heidegger, essential to modernity, his claim in What Is Called Thinking? that "science does not think is a critique of the mod­ ern epoch. Indeed, it is a critique of representational thinking. Heidegger's distinction between thinking and the sciences corre­ sponds to a distinction between being and being represented. He offers an alternative account of thinking that relies upon an etymological connection with thanking. Once the difference be­ tween thinking and thanking, and hence between being and being represented, is laid out in order to make sense of the claim that science does not think the second claim, that the essence of science lies at the essence of technology, can also be explicated. I treat the first claim by reading What Is Called Thinking?, and the second by looking to Heidegger's account of science in "Science and Reflection," and of technology in "The Question Concern­ ing Technology." I argue that the essence of science is Ge-stell, and that it is on this basis that the relation between science and technology is, in Heidegger's view, one of essential identity. "

,

"SCIENCE DOES NOT THINK"

In the first lecture course he gave since 1944 and the last before his formal retirement, at Freiburg in the winter and summer se­ mesters of 1951 and 1952, Heidegger argued that science does not think. That this claim is a disparagement is "emphatically not the case" (WCT 13/WHD 49). It certainly sounds like one, however, and the scanty consideration given to science by Hei­ degger's readers is consistent with its being taken so. Likewise, Efraim Shmueli's (1975) reading is very much that technology is an evil spirit for Heidegger. Cyril Welch claims that Heidegger and, following him, Macomber, in The Anatomy of Disillusion, both "see in science and technology something of the devil's work" (1970:145). Macomber claims, however, that Heidegger does not oppose science and technology so much as he seeks to understand them (1967:208). Both are right insofar as Heidegger wants to understand science and technology, but also he under­ stands them as something that threatens human being. He certainly opposes the blind progress of either without consider-

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

215

ation of their essence and implications to human being. To see Heidegger's critique of science and technology as simply con­ demnation and alarmism is to neglect his reference to Holderlin in "The Question Concerning Technology": "But where danger is, grows

/

The saving power also." Heidegger holds that tech­

nology is neither good nor evil, but certainly never indifferent. The danger is not technology, but an unthinking relation to it on the part of human being. The claim that science does not think is more often than not followed by the statement that "most thought-provoking in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking" (WCT

6/WHD 3).

Heidegger's view is not that the sciences are some­

how deficient in comparison to philosophy, but rather that nei­ ther science nor philosophy is thinking in the modem epoch. Kockelmans contrasts science with philosophy in Heidegger's thought on the basis that science does not "think radically," whereas philosophy does

(1970:147-49). It is not precisely clear

what thinking radically would mean here, but it seems Kockel­ mans intends the phrase to convey an alternative to the one­ sidedness of science Heidegger describes in What Is Called Think­ ing? (WCT 32/WHD 56). To fail to see the thoughtlessness of the modem epoch in both science and philosophy is to overlook the significance Heidegger attributes to science in the history of the West. He does not see science as a symptom or consequence of the modem epoch. Rather, it is essential to modernity: it is the basis on which modernity holds sway. Kockelmans begins by noting that the "prevailing world-view of our contemporary Western civilization is largely controlled by the sciences"

(1970:147), but he goes on to read Heidegger's

philosophy as one that simply cannot ignore science if it wishes to make the fundamental problems of the modem epoch its theme. I argue the stronger position that Heidegger makes sci­ ence his theme because he finds it not only symptomatic but also formative of the modem epoch. Modem philosophy is also therefore grounded in the essence of science rather than offering an alternative. I believe Heidegger sees himself to be in the Auge­

nblick he speaks of in Being and Time (BT 437/SZ 385);

that is to

say, he offers insight into his age. His insight is that modem human being is determined by the essence of science.

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HEIDEGGER' S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Heidegger is convinced that the sciences are essential to mo­ dernity, but that their essence is different from what is imagined in the university, the locus of organization of scientific disci­ plines. Modem science, institutionalized in the university, does not think but "nonetheless science always and in its own fash­ ion has to do with thinking" (WCT 8/WHO 4). Thinking is a leap for the sciences: between them and it lies an unbridgeable gap, traversed by contemporary human being only with "makeshift ties and asses' bridges" (WCT 8/WHO 5). The question to be addressed in the first half of What Is Called Thinking? is precisely what the sciences have to do with thinking. Heidegger argues that "all the sciences have leapt from the womb of philosophy" (WCT 18/WHO 52). They have come out of philosophy and, having parted from it, they cannot by their own power as sciences make the leap back into their source. Nonetheless, it is arrogant, Heidegger maintains, to believe that thinking knows more than the sciences. The latter have infinitely more knowledge than thinking. Yet the sciences have a limit: heavy on knowledge, light on self-scrutiny, they are one-sided insofar as no science has access to its own essential nature. His­ tory can explore a historical period, but by way of history, one cannot say what history is. Nor can a mathematician say mathe­ matically what mathematics is. This is not a new claim for Heidegger. In 1937, in an address given to the Faculty of Medicine at Freiburg University, he ar­ gued that "[with] respect to the question of the character of re­ flection on science is above all to be noticed a basic fact, which we cannot think through often enough. Namely: no science can know from itself about its own fulfilled form of knowing. We cannot reflect on physics as a science with the help of the procedure of physics. The essence of mathematics lets itself neither determine mathematically nor at all raise questions about mathematical methods. Geology does not let itself be investigated geologically, as little as [does] philology philologically.'" The strongest for,

"Hinsitlich der Frage nach dem Charakter der Besinnung auf die Wissen­ ist vor allem eine Grundtatsache zu beachten, die wir nicht oft genug durchdenken kllnnen. NamJich: Keine Wissenschajt leann von sich selbst wissen von der von ihr selbst vollzogenen Wis5ensJorm. Auf die Physik als Wissenschaft ktinnen wir uns nicht besinnen mit Hilfe des Vorgehens der Physik. Das Wesen I

schaft

217

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

mulation of this point is in "Science and Reflection," where Hei­ degger calls it "that which is not to be gotten around

(das

Unumgiingliche)"

(SR 177/VA 60). In What Is Called Thinking?, he calls it one-sidedness. A science can know the objects that ap­ pear in its sphere, but every science has another side which it cannot reach: "the essential nature and origin of its sphere, the essence and essential origin of the manner of knowing which it cultivates"

(WCT 33/WHD 57).

Heidegger's claim is that when

the one-sidedness of the sciences is lost to sight, then the other side is also lost. On the other side is being. The one-sidedness of the sciences is a preoccupation with but a single side of the ontological difference: beings. The erection of a science consists in the delimitation of its sphere of objects,

In Being and Time, Heidegger calls that which is determined in such regional ontologies the "basic concepts (Grundbegriffe)" (BT 29/ 5Z 9) of the sciences. Such basic concepts establish a world in the second sense of the term Heidegger elaborates in §14 of Being and Time: "indeed 'world' can become a term for any realm that is, in Husserlian terminology, in a regional ontology.

which encompasses a multiplicity of entities: for instance, when one talks of the 'world' of a mathematician, 'world' signifies the realm of possible objects of mathematics" (BT 93/5Z 64-65). Once a commitment to a specialized area of object is made, a science looks only to that world. The other side of the ontological difference, being, is the con­ cern of thinking. Since the sciences have no access to this con­ cern, Heidegger claims that the sciences do not think (WCT 33/ WHD 57), and further, that it is the good fortune-understood as "meaning the assurance of its own appointed course" (WCT 8/WHD 4)-of each science not to think. For sciences investigate beings, and cannot get started without a prior determination of their object. The delimitation of a sphere of objects is a necessary condition for a science to be able to proceed. It is thus essential to a science precisely not to think, that is, not to question being, but rather to proceed with the investigation of its objects. Thinkder Mathematik Hill! sich weder mathematisch bestimmen noch iiberhaup! nach mathematischer Methode zur Fragen machen. Die Geologie lall! sich nich! geologish erforschen, sowenig wie die Philologie philologisch" (BdW

12).

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HEIDEGGER' S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

ing is, however, more than simply the determination of the ob­ jects of the sciences prior to their investigation. For Heidegger, thinking is a craft and skill. It can be learned. The lectures that make up What Is Called Thinking? are in fact his attempt to teach thinking. Heidegger characterizes thinking as what the Greeks called TExvTj-that is, it is a producing. Yet he is not attempting here simply to reinscribe thinking in an economy of production. Thinking is a producing that is not the produc­ tion of an artifact. A builder produces houses, but not all things produced are quite so tangible. Aristotle, for example, fre­ quently used medicine as an example of TEXVT]. A doctor pro­ duces health. If thinking is human being's "simplest, and for

(WCT 16-17/WHD 51), and (WCT 23/WHD 53), then the ques­

that reason hardest, handiwork" "the handicraft par excellence"

tion arises of what, exactly, thinking produces in Heidegger's view. I argue that for Heidegger, thinking produces neither being nor ideas. He explicitly rejected the suggestion that thinking produces being in 1943 in the postscript he added to What Is Metaphysics?, where he argues that it is more likely that thinking is an occurrence of being than that being is a product of thinking (WMp 356/W 308). Indeed, being calls for thinking in What Is Called Thinking?, and it could hardly call for what will produce it. Furthermore, since Introduction to Metaphysics in 1935, Heideg­ ger has held that being is the a priori, that is, prior to thinking. Nor does thinking produce ideas. In

What Is Called Thinking?,

Heidegger argues explicitly that thinking does not produce rep­ resentational ideas. The question of what calls for thinking can, he argues, easily be heard as "what is this-to form a represen­ tational idea

[das Vorstellen]?" (WCT 44/WHD 60),

since this is

the traditional view of thinking. Further, producing ideas is "the universally prevailing basic characteristic of traditional think­ ing"

(WCT 54-55/WHD 62),

and "the long since dominant kind

of thinking . . . [is] ideational or representational thinking" (WCT 64/WHD 63). Accordingly, the traditional answer to the question of what thinking produces is representational ideas. Heidegger rethinks the relation between production and repre­ sentational ideas. In Aristotle's thought, which Heidegger laid bare on the topic

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

of production in

1940,

219

the role of the idea (d6o�) in 'tEXVT] is

clear. Production begins with the d6o�. The craftsperson has an idea beforehand of what is to be made, and this idea is the origin of what is to be produced. The origin of that d6o� is another question. It is precisely what, in fact, for Heidegger, gives food for thought

(WeT 45/ WHD 60).

Heidegger problematizes the

relation between production and ideas quite rightly; even for the clear-thinking Stagirite, production is not the origin of the idea, but rather the idea is the origin of production. It is no accident, however, that production enters the question of the sciences. To argue that the essence of science can be found in the essence of technology is to experience the first glimmering of the sugges­ tion that something of that ancient notion of 'tEXVT] remains for the sciences. The delimitation of a sphere of objects consists pre­ cisely in the determination of an d6o�, an appearance that repre­ sents the object then to be investigated. The sciences operate on the basis of an a priori determination of their object, as did an­ cient 'tEXVT]. Yet for Heidegger, an account of thinking in terms of ideas will always be inadequate: "we must not imagine it to be enough for [anyone] merely to inhabit the world of [their] own represen­ tational ideas, and to express only them. For the world of this expression is shot through with blindly adopted and un-reexam­ ined ideas and concepts" (WeT 231 / WHD 140). It is not the case that one lives only in the world of one's ideas. On the contrary, "as concerns thinking, we are living in the domain of a two-and­ one-half-thousand year old tradition"

(WeT 231/ WHD 140).

This is the tradition of Western thinking that has its origin in Greek thought, whose legacy must be examined if it is to be overcome. To overcome does not mean to be done with, such that one could then set this tradition aside or somehow begin again. It means rather to question the meaning and truth of being, and also, therefore, the being of truth in that tradition. Overcoming is a refusal to remain complacent about, and therefore deter­ mined by, traditional answers. In "The Age of the World Pic­ ture," Heidegger explained what it would mean to overcome Descartes: "Overcoming means here, however, the primal ask­ ing of the question concerning the meaning, i.e., concerning the

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HEIDEGGER'S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

realm of the projection or delineation, and thus concerning the truth, of Being-which question simultaneously unveils itself as the question concerning the Being of truth" (AWP

100).

140-41/H

To overcome Descartes would be to work through his as­

sumptions in order to retrieve the question of being and truth. Heidegger elucidates further in a lecture course in

1940

on

Nietzsche and nihilism: "To overcome signifies: to bring some­ thing under oneself, and at the same time to put what is thus placed under oneself behind one as something that will hence­ forth have no determining power. Even if overcoming does not aim at sheer removal, it remains an attack on something"

4:223/NII 330).

Heidegger

seeks

to

disempower

(N

tradition

through understanding, to unveil what remains unthought in thinking: assumptions. Heidegger holds that the thoughtlessness of the modern age can only be questioned through the taking up and reconsidera­ tion of the Greek legacy. Hence his preoccupation with the Greeks is not a nostalgic Hellenism, but rather an attempt to see where human being stands in the modern epoch. He looks to the dawn of Western thinking to come to terms with das

Abend­ land, the West. The leap to thinking is therefore a leap "onto the soil on which we really stand" (WCT 41/WHD 17). Human being does not stand on representational ideas, but within a tra­ dition that makes the very notion of an idea possible. Heideg­

ger's intent in

What Is Called Thinking? is to overcome the idea of

"idea." To think is not to form representational ideas, each for oneself; rather, thinking entails understanding what thinking has pro­ duced. This is not a question about the solitary thinker; on the contrary, it is a historical question. It is an inquiry into what thinking has produced historically.

On

the basis that Heidegger

argues that the sciences cannot leap back into

their source,

and

that the move from science to thinking would be such a leap, I conclude that his answer to the question, asked historically, of what thinking has produced is that thinking has produced the sciences. Historically, the sciences arise out of thinking. Greek philosophy is for Heidegger the origin of the modern sciences.

In

"The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking," Heideg­

ger speaks precisely of "the sciences into which philosophy dis-

solves"

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221

(BW 387/Zur Sache des Oenkens 74).

The appearance of

the sciences is accordingly neither incidental nor any great sur­ prise in both the history of metaphysics and his account. The sciences are the culmination of a path of thinking upon which the Greeks set the West. Yet at the end of philosophy understood as this history, a task remains for thinking. What thinking means here is laid out in

What Is Called Thinking?

Heidegger's claim that thinking is a craft is played out in an analogy between thinking and cabinetmaking. It may seem odd that he wants to account for thinking by means of such an anal­ ogy to production, but what he is getting at here is that thinking

In 1943, in the postscript ap­ Is Metaphysics?, Heidegger called "essential 359) an activity. In What Is Called Thinking? he

is, as Aristotle knew, an activity. pended to What thinking" (WMp

wants his students to learn how to do this activity that is think­ ing. He uses the example of cabinetmaking to explain what it means to learn. Heidegger argues that we learn nothing from teachers, "if by 'learning' we now suddenly understand merely the procure­ ment of useful information" (WCT IS/WHO

50). Nor is learning (WCT 14/

"mere practice, to gain facility in the use of tools"

WHO 49-50), or collecting knowledge about the forms of things that could be made. Rather, to learn means "to make everything we do answer to whatever essentials address themselves to us at a given time"

(WCT 14/WHO 49).

Learning pays attention to

what is essential, and in cabinetmaking it is a relatedness to wood that determines this craft (WCT 23/WHO 54). The cabinet­ maker must "answer and respond above all to the different kinds of wood and to the shapes slumbering within wood-to wood as it enters into [human] dwelling with all the hidden riches of its nature" (WCT 14/WHO 50). A good cabinetmaker understands wood not just as the material to be worked over, but as something that emerges into the human world and to which human being has a relation. If what maintains the craft of cabinetmaking is a relation to wood, likewise, what maintains thinking is a relatedness to being: "We are thinking . . . we are attempting to let ourselves become involved in this relatedness to Being" (WCT 86/WHO 75). Accordingly, for Heidegger, the single question that tradi-

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HEIDEGGER' S PIDLOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

tional thinking must be brought to face is precisely "this relation existing between man's nature and the Being of beings" (WCT 79/ WHD 74). To learn thinking, therefore, Heidegger's students are asked to "unlearn what thinking has been traditionally" (WCT 8/WHD 5). They must unlearn the history of metaphysics. To call thinking TEXVT] is not, however, to say that it is technol­ ogy. In the history of metaphysics, the withdrawal of being arises in conjunction with the domination of the sciences and the overrunning of the globe by technology. Most thought-pro­ voking in Heidegger's account of what calls for thinking is the withdrawal of being, and because this withdrawal prevails, the essence of technology remains hidden (WCT 25 / WHD 55). A fog also surrounds the essence of the sciences, such that "we still seem afraid of facing the exciting fact that today's sciences be­ long in the realm of the essence of modem technology, and no­ where else" (WCT 14/WHD 49). The question of what calls for thinking is the question of the essence of the sciences. This in tum belongs in the essence of technology. The obscurity of both these questions is their belonging together in the history of metaphysics, in the withdrawal of being. The task in What Is Called Thinking? is precisely to think the withdrawal of being in the belonging together of science and technology, in opposition to the standing apart of thinking and the sciences. In the modem epoch thinking is definitively repre­ sentational, and it is in representational thinking that science and technology coincide. The problem with representational thinking is its limitation to the object. For example, approached as an object, a tree appears in a severely limited way. When we face a tree in bloom, the sciences tell us that what we see is not a tree, but "in reality a void, thinly sprinkled with electric charges here and there that race hither and yon at enormous speeds" (WCT 43/WHD 18). To admit that one is simply stand­ ing before a tree is to admit a naive, pre-scientific view. This view, Heidegger argues, only confirms "that those sciences do in fact decide what of the tree in bloom may or may not be con­ sidered valid reality" (WCT 43/WHD 18). Likewise, Heidegger commented in 1940 in "Logos" on the scientific analysis of sound: "One can demonstrate that periodic oscillations in air pressure of a certain frequency are experienced

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SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

as tones. From such kinds of determinations concerning what is heard, an investigation can be launched which eventually only specialists in the physiology of the senses can conduct.

In

con­

trast to this, perhaps only a little can be said concerning proper hearing"

(EGT

"Logos"

65/VA 206).

The sciences say nothing

about hearing in the everyday, practical sense. Heidegger asks in

What Is Called Thinking?,

"Whence do the sciences-which

necessarily are always in the dark about the origin of their own nature-derive the authority to pronounce such verdicts? Whence do the sciences derive the right to decide what [human being's] place is, and to offer themselves as the standard that justifies such decisions?"

(WCT 43/ WHD 18). His question is, by

what right do the sciences, which cannot even raise the question of their own origin, determine the real? This is no trivial ques­ tion, and it is complicated by the relation between science and technology. It is science that determines the thing as object; and it is the object that figures in representational thinking. Technology as a way of revealing depends on representational thinking, that is, on scientific objectivity. Heidegger argues that technology is possible only by means of scientific objectivity: "only by such objectivity do [beings] become available to the ideas and propo­ sitions in the positing and disposing of nature by which we con­ stantly take inventory of the energies we can wrest from nature"

(WCT 234/WHD 142). The point here is not Simply that the mod­ em approach to nature has as its necessary condition scientific objectification, but rather that human being's relation to nature in modernity has its source in the essence of technology. In the first lecture course of What Is Called Thinking?, Heidegger holds that the essence of science lies in the essence of technology, but he offers neither explanation nor justification for this insight. Thinking has been uncovered as tEXVT], but also sharply distin­ guished from the sciences. Nonetheless, a clue to the essence of science has been uncovered in that the delimitation of the sphere of objects of a science provides each science beforehand with its doo�, much in the same way that Aristotle suggests "tEXVT] proceeds. An echo of ancient "tEXVT] remains in modem science. Before laying bare, however, that trace of ancient "tEXVT] which remains in modem science in Heidegger's view, I will give sub-

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stance to Heidegger's vision of what thinking is beyond the rep­ resentational thinking of the sciences. THINKING

As THANKING: BEING AND BEING REPRESENTED

The second lecture course in What Is Called Thinking? "makes clear, though only indirectly, the relation between philosophy and the sciences" (WCT 132/WHD 90). Heidegger recapitulates that the sciences rest on presuppositions that cannot be estab­ lished scientifically, but only demonstrated philosophically (WCT 131 / WHD 90). Philosophy can investigate the regional on­ tology that establishes a science by determining its sphere of objects, a moment in the genesis of a science to which the science itself has no access. This is, however, now called "the lesser re­ latedness of thought to the sciences" (WCT 135/WHD 155). There is also for Heidegger an essential relatedness which is de­ termined by a basic trait of the modem era: "It might be briefly described as follows: that which is, appears today predomi­ nantly in that object-materiality which is established and main­ tained in power by the scientific objectification of all fields and areas" (WCT 135/ WHD 155). In the first lecture, Heidegger asked by what right the sciences determine the real. Here he thinks that determination through and argues that scientific ob­ jectification determines the real as material object. Given the account of the measuring experiment and experi­ ence in Die Frage nach dem Ding and the Beitriige, this is not a naive position on empiricism. Rather, it is a claim about how human being opens up its world in understanding. Heidegger argues that a preoccupation with the material as real does not originate in any "separate and peculiar power-bid on the part of the sciences" (WCT 135/ WHD 155), but that the power of scien­ tific objectification arises from something in the nature of things that modem thinkers still do not want to see. He indicates it by means of three propositions: 1. Modem science is grounded in the nature of technology. 2. The nature of technology is itself nothing technological. 3. The nature of technology is not a merely human fabrication which, given an appropriate moral constitution, could be sub-

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dued by superior human wisdom and judgment. (WeT 135-36/ WHD 155)

The second, and for Heidegger more important, relatedness of thinking to the sciences is for thinking to question how the mod­ em sciences are grounded in the essence of technology and how that essence, itself nothing technological, is not merely a human fabrication. In Heidegger's account, to think is to be gathered and concen­ trated on what is most thought-provoking (WeT 143/WHD 94). Proper use of a thing "brings the thing to its essential nature and keeps it there" (WeT 187/WHD 114); it is "to let a thing be what it is and how it is" (WeT 191/ WHD 168). The proper use of the human capacity to think is not a mere utilization but an essential human activity. Neither technology nor science nor thinking can be understood simply as a human activity. As A6yo<; was definitive of human being for Aristotle, so thinking is a definitive human activity for Heidegger. Technology, science, and thinking are things that people do, but for Heidegger it is crucial to see that they are also more. They are a relation to being, what he called in Being and Time and the Nietzsche vol­ umes "a destiny." For in Heidegger's account the origin of thinking, and therefore of both science and technology, is being. Heidegger suggests that the dominance of the sciences in the modem epoch arises because the demands set for traditional thinking have become untenable. He specifies four weaknesses on the part of thinking: it does not bring about knowledge, as do the sciences; it does not produce usable, practical wisdom; it solves no cosmic riddles; and it does not endow one directly with the power to act (WeT 159/WHD 161). Because thinking has failed traditionally to meet these demands, the sciences have gained a dominance in the modem epoch through their ability to do so. The sciences do bring about knowledge, produce us­ able wisdom, solve cosmic riddles, and give one the power to act. In 1937 Heidegger called this very success a threat to science: "The sharpest threat to modem science arises in that it goes so well for it as never before, that is, it is confirmed and encouraged

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in its usefulness and obtaining of progress."2 It is a threat in 1937 because the success of science is so readily appropriable for the Nazi program of a new science for the people. The threat in What Is Called Thinking? is not so politically situated, but it is equally historical. That threat is thoughtlessness, rampant in the epoch of nihilism. For Heidegger argues that the success of the sciences is conducive to the refusal of human being to acknowledge that science is determined by the essence of technology. That essence is representational thinking. Representational thinking, which thinks by means of subject and object, conceals the fact that something more originary than the idea calls to human being, that human being itself is that gathering of subject and object (WCT 144/WHD 157). Heidegger explains thinking in terms of its etymological root: thane. The etymological relations in German between denken and danken are mirrored in English by "think " and "thank," which in fact share their root with the German words. Compared to thane, which is at the root of "thank" and danken, "thought in the sense of logi­ cal-rational representations turns out to be a reduction and an impoverishment of the word that beggar the imagination" (WCT 139/WHD 92). Representational thinking reduces thinking to ideas. Through the root thane, Heidegger explicates thinking as thanking and memory. Thought needs "memory, the gathering of thought [das Gediiehtnis]" (WCT 138/WHD 91). How is mem­ ory to be understood here? Early in the first lecture, Heidegger distinguished memory from "merely the psychologically de­ monstrable ability to retain a mental representation, an idea, of something which is past" (WCT l1/WHD 7). Rather, memory belongs with "original thanking [which] is the thanks owed for being [das Siehverdanken]" (WCT 141 / WHD 93). Memory is an "inclination with which the inmost meditation of the heart turns toward all that is in being" (WCT 141 / WHD 93). Thinking as thanking and memory is, for Heidegger, the thinking of being. 2 "Die scharfste Bedrohung der heutigen Wissenschaft besteht darin, daB es ihr so gut geht wie noch nie, d.h. in ihrem Nutzen und ihrer Fortschrittbeschaf­ tung bestatigt und ermuntert wird" (BdW 7).

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z27

The sciences, however, cannot think in this sense of thanking and memory. Based on a regional ontology, to which it has no access, a science is never in a position to think being. It may be entirely unclear what Heidegger means by "inmost meditation of the heart," as often his suggestions for an alternative to repre­ sentational thinking appear mystical and largely unexplained. Yet it seems clear that, whatever inmost meditation of the heart entails, the sciences, preoccupied as they are with results and the production of facts, are incapable of it. Indeed, the paradigm of rationality in the sciences is objectivity, the indifferent appli­ cation of the mind from which the heart has been rigorously excluded. This model of rationality has in recent years been criti­ cized on an international and interdisciplinary basis. Heidegger's criticism of scientific rationality is explicit as early as 1930, when, in "On the Essence of Truth," he calls "insistent" the "turning toward what is readily available" (ET 135/WW 196). As insistent, Dasein turns away from being toward beings. This essay characterizes precisely the human preoccupation with the sciences in modernity. Heidegger describes the opened­ ness of beings as prevailing precisely "where beings are not very familiar to man and are scarcely and only roughly known by science" (ET 131/WW 192). It is precisely at the limits of a sci­ ence that beings, and therefore being, is open to thinking. Mod­ em philosophy can think being through thanking and memory where the sciences cannot, at their limit. Yet modem philosophy does not take up the task of thinking being in Heidegger's account. It looks rather, he argues, for the presuppositionless question. Think, for example, of the Carte­ sian method wherein one searches for the thought that requires no further ground; or of Husserl's transcendental phenomenol­ ogy that attempts tp rethink the Cartesian Meditations in order to ground thinking radically. The thought discovered as self­ grounding and hence requiring no presupposition is the cogito ergo sum. To hold, however, that thinking begins with doubting obscures its origin in Heidegger's account (WCT 211 / WHD 127). He argues that the question of what calls for thinking is never a presuppositionless inquiry. He suggested earlier that the very task is precisely to go toward and become involved in the pre­ suppositions that belong to thinking (WeT 160/WHD 162). The

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idea, for example, that Parmenides can be read objectively with no imported presuppositions "rests on the stubborn and wide­ spread prior assumption that one can enter into dialogue with a thinker by addressing him out of thoughtlessness" (WeT 176/ WHO 109). The task is to uncover the suppositions that make a thinker's thinking possible, not to purge thought of its assump­ tions. That is, the task of interpretation of a thinker is the uncov­ ering of the thinker's relation to being. Representational thinking, whether in science or philosophy, can never think being in Heidegger's view. For a being can be represented, but being cannot. Kant's claim that being is among the almost unanalyzable concepts is based on the assumption that being is graspable as concept (WeT 179/ WHO 167). Heideg­ ger argues that being is not a graspable concept: "If we stop for a moment and attempt, directly and precisely and without subterfuge, to represent in our minds what the terms 'being' and 'to be' state, we find that such an examination has nothing to hold onto" (WeT 225/WHO 137). Being is not a thing that can appear as a representation. Since Heidegger has argued that thinking is a relatedness to being, and being cannot be grasped in a repre­ sentation, he concludes that thinking is not a grasping: it is "nei­ ther the grasp of what lies before us, nor an attack upon it . . . thinking knows nothing of the grasping concept (Begrifj)" (WeT

211/WHO 128). Representational thinking, fundamental to science which grasps the thing as object, can therefore never think being. The success of the sciences stands in the way of raising this question of their inadequacy. They progress successfully in their inquiry into beings. Accordingly, it is "our modem way of representa­ tional ideas [that] blocks its own access to the beginning and thus to the fundamental characteristic of Western thinking" (WeT 213/WHO 129). That fundamental characteristic of West­ ern thinking that is its origin is being. Hence the epoch domi­ nated by representational thinking is the epoch of the withdrawal of being, its default in nihilism. Heidegger holds that human being succumbs to the default of being in modernity. In the modem epoch, human being prefers the accumulation of facts about beings to the task of thinking. For Heidegger, that task is reflection on the question of being.

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He distinguishes reflection from the chatter of the sciences: "What is demanded here is not the nimble tongue chattering away of all and everything, but a f..EYELV of the f..6yor;, and only through these the XQlVELV: to discriminate one thing from an­ other, to bring out one thing and put another into the back­ ground"

(WCT 199-200/ WHO 122). This f..EYELV, "saying" in the

Greek sense, is a laying before the thinker, and does not herein make its first appearance in Heidegger's thought. It received full attention in a lecture course called "Logic" in

1944

which was eventually published as "Logos" in

too long before

What Is Called Thinking?

1951,

not

What lies before the

thinker is there for the thinker to address, both to think and to talk about. Reflection discriminates what is to be reflected upon, what is thought-provoking, only through addressing the ques­ tion of what lies before the thinker. The gathering of thought that is thanking and memory for Heidegger distinguishes what provokes thought in its lying before the thinker from the mere accumulation of facts about beings. Thinking sees beyond be­ ings to being. But only a small part of what lies before human being is laid down by human being, "and even then only with the aid of what was lying there before"

(WCT 200/WHO 122).

What was lying

there beforehand, according to Heidegger, the Greeks called q:J1JCl"Lr;. Heidegger argued as early as 1935, in Introduction to Meta­ physics, that qJ1JOLr; is being for the Greeks. In What Is Called Thinking?, that which lies before the thinker that the thinker must address in reflection is nothing other than being. What lies before human being as something already there is what makes technology-as well as Christianity, the Enlighten­ ment, and the definitive aspect of any age-possible in Heideg­ ger's account

(WCT 204/WHO 170).

These epochs of human

history are only possible insofar as human being stands in rela­ tion to being, whether the question of being is taken up or left in its withdrawal. To think is to address the modem age from within the ontological difference, to respond to the question of being as the Greeks did from Parmenides to Aristotle

WHO 143).

(WCT 235/

Heidegger's call for a retrieval from the Greeks is

the call to understand the modem epoch by addressing what is

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definitive for Heidegger of any epoch: its response to the ques­ tion of being. The development of Western thinking is, however, a limitation and confinement of that rich origin of Greek thinking. In the account given in Introduction to Metaphysics, Heidegger argued that Plato confined being to doo<;. This move "led to the seces­ sion of the logos, which became the starting point for the domi­ nation of reason" (IM 179/EM 137). Plato's narrowing of the thinking of the pre-Socratics was a confinement of being to which Heidegger attributes responsibility for bringing about the end of Greek philosophy. Plato is an ambiguous character in the history of philosophy: he is a beginning for Western philosophy as the origin of the domination of reason over being. But he is a beginning that conceals a more original beginning in which being is thought as qJUOL<;. And further, he begins the end of that originary thinking. The account given of Aristotle in 1940 makes him equally am­ biguous in the history of philosophy. In "On the Being and Con­ ception of qJu<JU; in Aristotle's Physics B.1," Heidegger describes how Aristotle's Physics on the one hand contains the last echo of the pre-Socratic thinking of qJUOL<;, that is, being, yet on the other hand exhibits explicitly a narrowing of the notion of qJUOL<;. UOL<; is taken as Simply one kind of being among others. Hence "ta qJU<JLXU are understandable by analogy to another kind of being: "tEXVT], that which is produced. Aristotle narrowed the rich thinking of the pre-Socratics when he reduced qJUOL<; to "tEXVT] by analogy. Heidegger describes another confinement of thinking wherein the Greek ahla becomes the causa efficiens. He discusses this transition in "The Question Concerning Technology" (QCT 6-10/VA 11-14) and goes on to point out the continued shrink­ ing of causality in technology (QCT 23/VA 26-27). Modem sci­ ence and technology, in fact, deal with an impoverished conception of both causality and motion. Whereas Aristotle held that there were four kinds of cause (material, formal, efficient, and final), Newton's physics concerns itself with one kind: the efficient cause. Whereas Aristotle held that there were four kinds of motion (alteration, growth or decrease, locomotion, and the special cases of generation or destruction), Newton's physics

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concerns itself with one kind: locomotion. Modem science is a narrow configuration of the rich thinking of the Greeks about causation and motion.

In What Is Called Thinking?,

Heidegger raises the question of

the narrowing of thinking itself. The conjunction of 'A.eYELv and voELv was not a grasping, an attack, or a manipulation. It knew nothing of the concept. The history of thinking is, however, its

restriction to representational ideas. This confinement of think­ ing "is then, of course, not considered a loss or defect, but rather the sole gain that thinking has to offer once its work is accom­ plished by means of the concept"

(WCT 212/WHD 128). For the

sciences succeed where thinking has shown its inadequacies. Hence the paradigm of successful science is Newtonian physics, which construes motion and causation in an impoverished way. Yet, argues Heidegger, the success of the sciences is only pos­ sible because being prevails in the presence of the object. He supports this claim with the argument that if being did not therein prevail, then the question of the object's objectivity could not even be asked

(WCT 234/WHD 142).

There must be beings

for their objectivity to be a problem. The development of system­ atic philosophy is, in Heidegger's analysis, an assurance in the face of the questionable. The objectivity of the object can be left unquestioned in the face of the success of representational think­ ing in the sciences. Systematic philosophy promotes a quietude in the assurance that questions are answered and thinking has secured itself. Heidegger wishes to disrupt that quietude and to leave the question of being open, as it remained open for Aris­ totle

(WCT 212/WHD 128).

The second half of What Is Called Thinking? poses the question of the relation between the sciences and thinking only indirectly, for Heidegger's immediate concern is the relation between thinking and being. What has been established is that represen­ tational thinking, in which the sciences have their success through the positing of their object, is a narrowing and con­ finement of the much richer thinking of the Greeks. Further, that modem philosophy, which takes thinking to be the forming of representational ideas, has been as it were "scientized" in Hei­ degger's view. That is to say, philosophy is dominated in moder­ nity by precisely what belongs not to thinking but to the

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sciences: representational ideas. Hence science is not just one occurrence among others in the modem epoch, but rather deter­ minative of that epoch. How, then, does the scientific determina­ tion of the real as object dominate the modem epoch? The answer to this question lies in the essence of technology. Heidegger first treats the essence of technology by arguing in What Is Called Thinking? that the essence of science lies in the essence of technology. In 1954 and 1955 he read two papers that explore this claim: "Science and Reflection," in which he raises and responds to the question of the essence of science, and "The Question Concerning Technology," in which he does the same with the essence of technology.

THE THEORY OF THE REAL

In 1954, Heidegger read "Science and Reflection" ("Wissen­ schaft und Besinnung") to a small group in preparation for a conference in Munich the following year. William Lovitt trans­ lates Besinnung as "reflection," but he issues a caveat as to how the word should be understood. He notes the inadequacy of the English "reflection," which does not connote directionality or following after, and he excludes the connotation of thought turning back on itself from his use of the word. Rather, Besin­ nung means "recollection, reflection, consideration, deliberation . . . [and the] reflexive verb, sich besinnen, means to recollect, to remember, to call to mind, to think on, to hit upon" (SR 155, n. 1). He therefore defines "reflection" as "a recollecting thinking­ on that, as though scenting it out, follows after what is thought. It involves itself with sense [Sinn] and meaning, and is at the same time a 'calm, self-possessed surrender to that which is wor­ thy of questioning' " (SR 155, n. 1; quotation from SR ISO/VA 64). In "Science and Reflection," Heidegger draws a distinction between science and this thinking that is reflection. He is calling, much as he did in What Is Called Thinking?, for reflection on sci­ ence. Heidegger argues that it is not enough to consider science simply a cultural activity, as if one day human being could once again dismantle it. Rather, it must be recognized how reality is

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"determined on an increasing scale by and in conjunction with that which we call Western European science" (SR 1561VA 41). Much in the same vein as he in 1928 first described technology, "which rages about in the 'world' today like an unshackled beast" (MFL 215 I MAL 279), Heidegger argues in 1954 that West­ ern European science has a power never previously met as it spreads over the entire globe. Something rules in science that is larger than a mere wanting to know on the part of human being. Hence to be clear about what science is, it is not enough to de­ scribe the scientific enterprise of the day, Heidegger argues (SR 157 I VA 42). To see how science intersects with all organizational forms of life, first it is necessary to experience its essence. Hei­ degger expresses that essence in a single statement: "Science is the theory of the real" (SR 157I VA 42). Heidegger points out that he intends modem science, not medieval doctrina or ancient ErtLo'tiU!T], with the word "science" (Wissenschaft). Nonetheless, he maintains that modem science is grounded in the ancient knowledge of the Greeks: "the distinc­ tive character of modem knowing [Wissens] consists in the deci­ sive working out of a tendency that still remains concealed in the essence of knowing as the Greeks experienced it, and that precisely needs the Greek knowing in order to become, over against it, another kind of knowing" (SR 157 I VA 43). Hence the question of modem science has once again drawn Heidegger back to Greek thought. The overcoming of modem science is only possible when its coming to be is understood. There will be no change, progress, or alternative to modem science, in Heideg­ ger's view, until its essence is made clear in a dialogue with ancient thinking. For the origin of modem knowing lies in the Greek experience of knowledge, which cannot be overcome until it is thought through. Heidegger suggests that ancient thinking is still present today "in the rule of modem technology" (SR 1581 VA 44). In "Science and Reflection," as in What Is Called Thinking?, there is both iden­ tity and difference between modem technology and science, and between ancient and modem knowing. The question is precisely how the rootedness of modem knowing in ancient determines the modem relation between science and technology. Heidegger explicates this ancient tendency, still concealed in modem

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234

knowing yet being worked out decisively, in the history of knowing by examining how "theory" and "real" belong to­ gether essentially in the claim that science is the theory of the real. He does this in two etymological accounts, first of "real" and then of "theory," that serve both to retrieve an originary meaning and to explain its decay. First, the real

(das Wirkliche)

connects etymologically in Ger­

[des Wirkenden], of that which [wirkt]" (SR 159 I VA 44). It is unfortunate that a translation do no justice to that etymology. Heidegger traces wirken

man with "the realm of working works can

through the Middle Ages, when it meant "the producing of

houses, tools, pictures" (SR

160/VA 45), and through its narrow­

ing to producing in the sense of sewing, embroidery, or weaving. He argues that to work in this sense means to do shares its etymological root, the Indo-Germanic

(tun). To "do" dhe, with the

SeoL>;, which Heidegger translates as "setting, place, posi­ 159/ VA 45). He distinguishes this from human agency, arguing that "the holding-sway of nature (qruoL>;), is a doing, and that in the strict sense of SeoL>;" (SR 159/VA 45): "CPUOL>; is SeOL<;:

Greek

tion" (SR

from out of itself to lay something before, to place it here, to

[her- und vor-bringen], that is, into pre­ 159/VA 45). Neither the argument that SeOL<; is a

bring it hither and forth sencing" (SR

laying before, a setting in position distinct from human agency, nor the priority here given to thinking. In What Is

CPUOL<;

is new to Heidegger's

Called Thinking? Heidegger argued that SeoL>; "does

not mean primarily the act of setting up, instating, but that which is set up; that which has set itself up, has settled, and as such lies before us" (WCT 200/WHD 122). He claims that ac­ cordingly lJJ1;6SEOL>; is "that which is already given to and lies before the mathematicians: the odd, the even, the shapes, the angles"

(WCT 201 /WHD 122-23). eeoL>;

is then what is set up,

and first and foremost, that which sets itself up. Furthermore, in

1935

Introduction to Metaphysics that CPUOL>; (1M 61/EM 47). His work on Aristotle's conception of CPUOL>; at Physics 2.1 is the clearest statement of Heidegger's claim that for the Greeks, CPUOL<; presences, that is, is, more fundamentally than anything else. In "Science and Re­ Heidegger argued in

was being for the Greeks

flection" these two thoughts are brought together in the claim

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that

qJ1JOL�

is

eEOL�.

For to work is to bring something forth, and

it is q>UOL� that does that originally. Only later do q>UOL� and

eEOL�

come into opposition. Heidegger contrasts this bringing into presence that is work with the Latin efficere and effectus. Even when Aristotle speaks of what the Romans call the

causa efficiens,

he does not mean the

bringing about of an effect. What brings itself forth in the Greek

EQYOV is what presents itself "in the genuine and highest sense" 160/VA 46), that is, in actuality. Aristotle names this pres­ ence EVEQYELa and EV"tEAEXELa. Accordingly, EVEQYELa can only be properly translated, Heidegger argues, as Wirklichkeit (reality) when wirken is understood in this sense of a bringing forth into (SR

unconcealment. The work can be brought forth by a human being, but the self-bringing-forth of

q>UOL�

of "work" for Heidegger. The possibility of this meaning of

is the primary sense

EVEQYELa,

the real as the

work, has been suppressed in favor of the Romanized usage. Heidegger's claim that the Romanization of

ciens

ahla into causa effi­

is a narrowing of the rich Greek understanding of causa­

tion has already been pointed out. "Science and Reflection" adds little insight into the Romanization of thinking, since Hei­

(aQXT] ahla) belongs in the Greek experience. Ground and cause, principium and causa, are the ways in which these notions have degger puts off the question of how the notion of cause

and

come down to us. W B. Macomber comments on the translation of Greek into Latin that the "loss of its linguistic roots is the fate of the Western tradition"

(1967:154).

Heidegger argues in "The

Origin of the Work of Art" that "this translation of Greek names into Latin is in no way the innocent process it is considered to this day. Beneath the seemingly literal and thus faithful transla­ tion there is concealed, rather, a translation of Greek experience

Roman thought takes over the Greek words without a corresponding, equally authentic experience of what they say, without the Greek word. The rootlessness of Western thought begins with this translation" (23/H 8). Concealed in the German wirken is the Romanization of the real into Wirklichkeit. into a different way of thinking.

The real "is now that which has followed as consequence" (SR

161/ VA 46). In

Heidegger's account, the real in

this sense of

causes and effects that follow after one another comes to the

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foreground in the history of Western thought. What follows after a determinate and determinable cause in this sense is factual: "now the real presents itself in the taking place of consequences. The consequence demonstrates that that which presences has, through it, come to a secured stand, and that it encounters as such a stand [Stand]. The real now shows itself as object, that which stands over against [Gegen-stand]" (SR 162/VA 47). In modern science, the real is what has been secured as object. The second etymological account of the relation between the­ ory and the real is to show how objectivity is a representing. Heidegger traces "theory" to the Greek eewQElv and gives two accounts of this word. First he examines the word as built from eta and oQuw. The latter means to look at something attentively, to view it closely. The former is the outward appearance in which something shows itself, which Plato names eIbo�. 0ewQelv can thus be understood as "to look attentively on the outward appearance wherein what presences becomes visible and, through such sight-seeing-to linger with it" (SR 163/VA 48). To theorize in this sense is to remain with something by looking at it. This is for the Greeks a way of life-that is, �lo� eewQTrnx6�-that is the highest doing of which human being is capable. The second account of eewQElv is given in terms that share etymological roots with the first: eeu and wQa. The former is a goddess whose name is found in &":rjeeLa. Heidegger has argued since Being and Time, most notably in "On the Essence of Truth," that &A.�eeLa is a more originary notion of truth than correspon­ dence theories. It is unconcealment, which is the very thing that makes correspondence possible. In "Science and Reflection" he suggests that it is as the goddess 'AA.�eELa that unconcealment­ that is, truth-appears to Parmenides. At what in the Greek ex­ perience of truth is Heidegger trying to get in tracing the modern word "theory" back to the goddess 'AA.�eeLa? Heidegger spoke of the goddess 'AA.�eeLa in "Moira (Parmen­ ides VIII, 34-41)." He argued there that what is given to "the thinker to think remains at the same time veiled with respect to its essential origins" (EGT 94/VA 240). Those origins are being in Heidegger's account. The goddess should not therefore be un­ derstood as the abstract personification of a concept, he sug-

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gests, but as the disclosure of the duality of being and beings, that is, of the ontological difference, in which thinking is a rela­ tion not just to beings but to being. If this account is brought to bear on "Science and Reflection," then Heidegger's reference there to eECt and 'AA�6ELa can be read against the claim that truth has a veiled origin: being. Heidegger is suggesting, then, that theory takes its truth from an obscure source, a source that remains veiled to science. That source is being. Heidegger explains wQa in terms of respect, honor, and es­ teem. Thus he defines 6EWQElv as "the beholding that watches over truth" (SR 165/VA 49), and he connects the German Wahrheit with both wQa and oQCtw. Modem truth has its roots in a respect­ ful viewing, but its rootlessness consists precisely in the fact that science left those roots behind when the real became established as object in the age of representational thinking. eEWQElv is not representational thinking; it is not speculation about that which stands over and against the subject as object. Rather, eEWQElv belonged to the Greeks in their �lo£ 6EWQTj1:LXO£, not to modem human being's way of approaching its object in representational thinking. Under both etymologies, 6EWQElv is not simply a with­ drawal from activity into speculation. It is in fact precisely an activity, but of a very particular kind. It is the activity of standing in the truth, of holding back action to allow what is revealed to show itself. It is a relation to being that does not simply grasp beings by way of a concept. Heidegger attempts to retrieve ancient 6EWQElV with the mod­ em word "reflection" (Besinnung). His claim is that reflection is in a sense useless, that is, it does not endow one with the power to act as do the sciences, which produce knowledge that can then be applied. But the very uselessness of reflection is a prom­ ise of further wealth (SR 181 / VA 66) in that reflection promises something that can never be encompassed in scientific reckon­ ing. Reflection approaches that which is worthy of question (SR 182/VA 66). In opposition to the sciences, it can hold out in the questionable. This is precisely the task that was elucidated for thinking in 1951-52 and remains at the end of philosophy in the account from 1966: "the surrender of previous thinking to the determination of the matter for thinking" (BW 392/ Zur Sache des Denkens 80). The task is not to remain complacent in the face of

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what has been thought, but to surrender it, to give it up to fur­ ther reflection. Such reflection determines that the matter for thinking-that is, what calls for thinking-is being. "Reflection" in "Science and Reflection" gets at the same thing as "thinking" in What Is Called Thinking? Both turn toward a matter that is constricted, confined, and closed off in the modem epoch: being. Likewise, theory is a stunted development of something that was much richer in the thinking of the Greeks. There is, Heidegger claims, nonetheless a shadow of the ear­ lier meaning of 8EWQELV in the modem "theory." The modem term has come to us, however, through the Roman contemplari. The core of this word, templum, comes from the Greek 'tEftVELV, which means to cut or divide: "In 8EWQLU transformed into contemplatio there comes to the fore the impulse, already pre­ pared in Greek thinking, of a looking-at that sunders and com­ partmentalizes. A type of encroaching advance by successive interrelated steps toward that which is to be grasped by the eye makes itself normative in knowing" (SR 166/VA 51). This im­ pulse to division is prepared for in Aristotle's division of knowl­ edge and in his account of the many ways for a thing to be, of which !pUOL£ is only one, in Heidegger's view. The specialization of the sciences is already prepared for in Greek thinking. The tendency toward division in Romanized contemplation is an assault upon its object, a manipulation that determines that object by confining it in a particular realm of beings determined as the object-area of a specialized science. Such a limited view of nature is, however, necessary insofar as a science such as phys­ ics, for example, requires a determined realm of objects in order to then proceed with investigation of that realm. It investigates through observation. Hence Heidegger understands observation as "an entrapping and securing refining of the real" (SR 167/VA 51-52). It orders nature in such a way that "at any given time the real will exhibit itself as an interacting network, i.e., in sur­ veyable series of related causes" (SR 168/VA 52). This is the a priori determination of nature by modem science. Nature is accordingly for physics "das Unumgiingliche": "that which cannot be gotten around" (SR 174; d. 177/VA 59/ VA 61). Physics takes nature as its object, and it remains directed at that object and cannot pass it by. Furthermore, "objectness as such

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prevents the representing and securing that correspond to it from ever being able to encompass the essential fullness of na­

ture" (SR 174/VA 58). Physics cannot even ask if nature is with­

drawing rather than appearing in scientific representation, for physics has already undertaken its task with respect to an area determined by objectness to the preclusion of such a question. Likewise, all sciences are directed at that which they cannot get around and which they cannot encompass, for in each case a science cannot determine what it is directed at in any fullness beyond objectivity. Were it the case that the sciences could find within themselves what is not to be gotten around, then "they would have before all else to be in a position to conceive and represent their own essence" (SR 176/VA 61). They can-in fact,

must-represent their object in order to be able to proceed, but as Heidegger has argued in What Is Called Thinking?, where he called it one-sidedness, the sciences are never in a position to represent their own essence: "Physics as physics can make no assertions about physics. All the assertions of physics speak after the manner of physics. Physics itself is not a possible object of a

physical experiment" (SR l76/VA 61). Physics can proceed with the investigation of its object, but to

think

critically about the

object of physics, one must first step outside physics. The inaccessibility of what cannot be got around in a science is itself constantly passed over, for the sciences proceed in the modem epoch more securely than ever. The inaccessibility of what they cannot get around remains inconspicuous. The sci­ ences lie in such inconspicuousness, Heidegger argues, "as a river lies in its source" (SR l79/VA 63). This source is that which is worthy of question in reflection. Reflection

(Besinnung)

is

"calm, self-possessed surrender to that which is worthy of ques­

tioning" (SR l80/VA 64). It is different from the knowing of the sciences. Heidegger's argument is that the poverty of the use­ lessness of reflection on what cannot be got around can become a rich treasure when that which is worthy of question is taken up. Heidegger suggests that even though reflection on any par­ ticular science is impossible from within that science, still "every researcher and teacher of the sciences, every man pursuing a way through a science, can move, as a thinking being, on various levels of reflection" (SR l8l-82/VA 66). The task of thinking

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herein set for both philosophers and scientists is reflection upon the sciences. "Science and Reflection" is therefore a development beyond

What Is Called Thinking? In the latter text, Heidegger claimed that science does not think In "Science and Reflection" he suggests that practitioners of science can and presumably should think .

,

that is, reflect on their science. This means not simply evaluating the science in terms of results and usefulness in practical appli­ cation, but reflecting on how the science determines its object. The task for the scientist is to pause from science and raise the question of its origin and essence: the a priori determination of its object. Heidegger had held explicitly since Basic Problems of Phenome­

nology that

sciences proceed through a regional ontology-that is, a science investigates an object that has been determined be­

forehand. In this prior determination of its object, a science has its source and its essence. On this basis, Heidegger's claim in

What Is Called Thinking? that the "sciences belong in the realm of the essence of technology" (WCT 14/WHD 50) can be interpre­ ted. The essence of technology is Ge-stell. Science too has its Ge­ explicating this claim, I show how it is only on the basis

stell. In

of the scientific object that modem technology is possible for Heidegger. That is, the essence of technology arises from the

Ge­

stell of science. GE-STELL Much work has been done on Heidegger's critique of technol­ ogy, but the question of the relation between science and tech­ nology in his thinking has been neglected. This question seemed to have been answered by Heidegger in What Is Called Thinking?, where he argues that "science is grounded in the nature of tech­

nology" (WCT 135/WHD 155). Yet he also argues that technol­ ogy is only possible because of science (WCT 234/WHD 142).

Furthermore, in reportedly the last text Heidegger wrote, read at the tenth annual Heidegger Conference at DePaul University only two weeks before his death, he raised precisely the question of the relation between science and technology: "Is modem nat-

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ural science the foundation (Grundlage) of modern technol­ ogy-as is supposed-or is it, for its part, already the basic form of technological thinking, the determining fore-conception and incessant incursion of technological representation into the real­ ized and organized machinations of modern technology?" (MNST 3). "Foundation" (Grundlage) means literally "ground­ laying." Heidegger is asking whether modem science lays the ground for technology, or whether science is already essentially technology. I will show that Heidegger holds the latter thesis: the essence of science is the essence of technology. I will thus argue that Ge-stell is not just the essence of technology for Hei­ degger, but also the essence of science. Further, that Heidegger holds that technology is only possible because beings are first set up as objects in the epoch of science. And lastly, that science is made possible by the trace of ancient TEXVT] that remains in representational thinking. Hence the relation between science and technology sounds muddled: science is grounded in technology, yet science makes technology possible. Yet it is a simple historical relation: modem technology is possible because its essence is already to be found in science. That is, a trace of ancient TEXVI1 remains in modem science, and that trace makes technology possible. That trace is projection. As ancient TEXVI1 began with the idea in the mind of the artist prior to production, so modem science and technology both have their a priori projection of being. That projection Hei­ degger names Ge-stell. The Ge-stell of technology is standing-re­ serve---beings appear as resource. The Ge-stell of science is objectivity-beings appear as object. I will support this interpre­ tation by reading "The Question Concerning Technology." In this text, read in 1955 in Munich as part of a series called "The Arts in the Technological Age," Heidegger insists that the claims that "Technology is a means to an end" and that "Tech­ nology is a human activity" belong together as the instrumental, anthropological definition of technology. He argues against this view, suggesting that it is not wrong, but rather inadequate. He claims instead that technology is "a way of revealing" (QCT 12/ VA 16). This claim is best read against "On the Essence of Truth" from 1930. In that essay, Heidegger retrieves the Greek word for truth, aA.�eELa. He translates aA.�eELa as Unverborgenheit, uncon-

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cealment, and argues that truth is a question of essence in the difficult claim that "the essence of truth is the truth of essence" (BW 140/WW 201). What he means is that what truth is, is a question of historical epoch. He undermines the notion of a uni­ versal, transhistorical truth and gives instead an account in which truth is a stance human being takes toward being, an at­ tunement that informs an epoch and evolves over time, an open­ ing of an understanding in which being is concealed as human being loses itself among beings. Heidegger's claim in 1954 about technology, that it is a way of revealing, is hence the claim that technology is a truth. That is, it is a human stance toward being by means of which beings are revealed. But beings are not revealed in just any way. Rather, technology is a "challenging [Herausfordern]" (QCT 14/VA 18). It "sets upon [steIlen] nature" (QCT IS/VA 18) to unlock and ex­ pose its energy for stockpiling. Technology sets up beings as standing-reserve. The inadequacy of the instrumental and an­ thropological definition of technology is its failure to acknowl­ edge how human being is implicated in technology as the one who sets up the reaL Human being determines how a thing can reveal itself. Technology is a way of allowing things to appear, or making them appear. This is not to say, however, that human being creates all that is. Heidegger distinguishes technology from creation: "the re­ vealing that holds sway throughout modem technology does not unfold into a bringing-forth in the sense of JWLT]OL<;" (QCT 14/ VA 18). Modem technology does not reveal as does ancient Jto LT] oU;, the creative act in which something is brought into being. Hence technology, though etymologically connected to "tEXVT], the branch of knowledge that was for Aristotle produc­ tion, is different from that ancient way of bringing things forth into being. Technology does not bring forth in Heidegger's ac­ count, yet nor does it reveal things on their own terms, as it were. Rather, technology challenges forth. In that challenging forth, a claim is made upon human being to order what is: "We now name that challenging claim which gathers [human being] thither to order the self-revealing as standing-reserve: 'Ge-stell' [enframingJ" (QCT 19/ VA 23). Wil­ liam Lovitt, who translates Ge-stell as "Enframing" in "The

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Question Concerning Technology," argues elsewhere that the term is impossible to translate (1973:52). Ge-stell is for Heidegger the essence of technology. It is a way of revealing things in which things are challenged to show themselves in a particular way: as a standing-reserve at human being's disposal. In tech­ nology, then, human being orders the real. Yet the control thus felt by human being is illusory. Rather than being the master of technology, human being is called upon in Heidegger's view by technology to be the one who orders the real. Technology, then, although a human creation, is a claim upon human being. Heidegger argues that "the herald of Ge-stell, a herald whose origin is still unknown" (QCT 22/VA 25), is modem physics. Physics is the herald of Ge-stell in that it prepares the way not simply for technology, but for its essence. The ordering attitude and behavior at work in technology was first visible in modem science as exact, experimental science: "Because physics, indeed already as pure theory, sets nature up to exhibit itself as a coher­ ence of forces calculable in advance, it therefore orders its exper­ iments precisely for the purpose of asking whether and how nature reports itself when set up in this way" (QCT 21/VA 25). This view of nature, that it is available for human being to set it up in some determined way, is what makes possible the further ordering of nature as standing-reserve. Without the scientific ob­ ject, therefore, technology would not be possible. I would add to this argument. In Aristotle's account, nature is teleological (199b31). Tu qJUOLXU are for him those things which move of their own accord, that is, by some internal impulse (192b15). Motion he defines as the realization of that potential to change (202a6). Hence Aristotle's world is filled by things that are on the way to self-fulfillment, by 1:U qJUOLXU which propel themselves toward their own ends. Newtonian physics, how­ ever, reduces motion to locomotion, and causation to efficient causes. Hence it has no conception of motion as actualization, and it renders nature purposeless. That is, the purposiveness attributed by Aristotle to 1:U <jlUOLXU no longer figures in the modem scientific account of nature. Hence the modem scientific conception of nature renders things in nature available to be ap­ propriated toward human purposes, goals, and uses. Physics is

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the herald of Ge-stell in this sense: it appears first and announces what is to follow. Accordingly, Heidegger argues that science is chronologically prior to technology. Modem physical science began in the seven­ teenth century, whereas technology developed only in the sec­ ond half of the eighteenth century (QCT 22/VA 26). Earlier, Heidegger says that "mathematical physics arose almost two centuries before technology" (QCT 21 / VA 25). One cannot help but ask at this point, what does Heidegger mean by "technol­ ogy"? It is fairly clear throughout Heidegger's writings that by "modem science" he means mathematical and experimental physics, for which Galileo is a beginning, Newton a culmination, and quantum theory an extension. But what he means by "tech­ nology" is at best opaque. The earliest discussion, for example, in the Nietzsche volumes, is of "machine technology," and it makes sense given the dating relative to science that for Heideg­ ger technology begins with the industrial revolution. Thomas Kuhn would dispute this view. He talks of technology as if it has always existed, or at least as long as there has been science. He argues that they were separate enterprises until late in the nine­ teenth century. Developments in the organic-chemical dye in­ dustry in the 1870s and in electric power in the 1890s, argues Kuhn, made science suddenly "a prime mover in socioeconomic development" (1977:142) and brought technology and science together. Previously science and technology interacted in three ways, he argues. First, scientists advanced their understanding of nature-for example, of magnetism, chemistry, and thermo­ dynamics-by looking at the practice of craftspeople. Second, starting in the eighteenth century, methods, and sometimes sci­ entists, borrowed from sciences have been deployed in the prac­ tical arts, but with unclear effectiveness. Third, the continuing development of products and processes from prior scientific re­ search is a locus of interaction between science and technology. In fact, argues Kuhn, technology flourished without substantial input from the sciences until the late nineteenth century. Heidegger's account is consistent with Kuhn's in that both pinpoint a significant and dramatic change in the relation be­ tween science and technology in the late nineteenth century. For Kuhn, this is the beginning of science as a socioeconomic force.

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For Heidegger, it is the emergence of technology as that which is commonly and superficially understood to be applied science, and which he wishes to understand in its essence. Kuhn, then, holds the instrumental, anthropological definition of technology which Heidegger wishes to reject. Nor is Kuhn interested in the genesis and implications of technology. Indeed, Heidegger's in­ terest with science and technology is ultimately concern with nihilism. In the Nietzsche volumes, where he first spoke of ma­ chine technology, he described nihilism as the devaluation of all values. Certainly, Kuhn is interested in the logic and history of science, both theory and practice; but the value or threat of sci­ ence and technology is not an issue for him . Heidegger spoke of threat in the context of science in 1937 in "Die Bedrohung der Wissenschaft," and of technology in 1955 in "The Question Con­ cerning Technology." Although the latter issue has been a cen­ tral focus for Heidegger scholars, the former point has been neglected. In 1955 Heidegger argues that the threat of technol­ ogy-that it sets upon nature and "drives out every other possi­ bility of revealing" (QCT 27I VA 31) until even human being is reduced to standing-reserve-is made possible by modem sci­ ence. It is the ordering of nature into scientific object that pre­ pares the way for its further ordering into standing-reserve. Heidegger's point is that modem science has as its essence

already in its very beginning,

the essence of technology. This is

not to say simply that modem science is technological, although scientists do not get far, even as undergraduates, without access to a fair amount of technology. Heidegger's claim that the es­ sence of science lies in the essence of technology does not take its basis from the fact that the sciences are technological, because for Heidegger the essence of technology is itself nothing techno­ logical. Ge-stell is nothing technological: it is not a thing at all, but a way of revealing. Likewise, modem science has its

Ge-stell;

object. Science is also a way of revealing, and only because mod­ em science reveals as object can technology reveal as standing­ reserve. Heidegger's claim about such foundational notions for knowl­ edge as nature, motion, causation, and theory has consistently been that they have their origin in Greek thinking, and that the Greek legacy has come down to the modem era severely nar-

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rowed. Some trace of the Greek interpretation and understand­ ing remains in the modem era. This is true also of technology. Heidegger's analysis is that a trace of "tEXVT] remains in the mod­ em epoch in Ge-stell. For Aristotle, the ancient craftsperson began work with an idea of what was to be made (PA 640a32;EN 1 140a13). This was in fact definitive of "tEXVT]. Modem science likewise begins with an idea that establishes its object beforehand. In physics, nature is represented as "a coherence of forces calculable in advance" (QCT 21 / VA 25), and on this basis is pursued and entrapped. Heidegger has pinpointed the essence of technology in Ge-stell, in the challenging forth of nature that lets what presences come forth into unconcealment by ordering it. In technology, nature is challenged forth and ordered as a standing-reserve at the dis­ posal of human being, which extracts and stores its energy. In modem science, nature is ordered as a calculable coherence of forces, and as such set up to reveal itself in the experiment. Sci­ ence and technology both have their Ge-stell, their challenging of nature to reveal itself in a determined way. Projection of an a priori determination of beings is at the essence of both. Hence Heidegger's claim originally made in 1949, that the es­ sence of technology is Ge-stell, and his much earlier claim from Being and Time, that science is the mathematical projection of nature, can be read together in the claim from What Is Called Thinking? that the essence of science lies in the essence of tech­ nology. Both science and technology belong essentially to the modem epoch, the age of the world picture. I argue that the age of the world picture is determined by science, since scientific objectivity is the formative moment in representational thinking. Science is not symptomatic of modernity, but determinative. Sci­ entific representation in objectivity makes technology possible. Modem science precedes technology in history, in Heideg­ ger's account, and makes it possible in that the essence of tech­ nology is already found in the modem epoch in the essence of science. Technology got under way only when it could be sup­ ported by modem exact science (QCT 21-22/ VA 25); but the es­ sence of that science was already the essence of technology. The projective representation definitive of ancient "tEXVT] is present in the essence of modem science. It projects an understanding and

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determination onto nature in its representational thinking, basic concepts, and experimental method. Only because the essence of science is thus already collapsed into the essence of technol­ ogy can technology present the illusion that it is applied science. It is in fact much more. It is the human response to the default of being, in which beings are revealed as objects for science, and resources for technology.

QuANTUM THEORY

The most technolOgical science of all is quantum physics. Father Richardson's central argument for his claim that Heidegger is not a philosopher of science is that Heidegger's conception of science is based on Newtonian physics and is not adequate to the new science: quantum theory. Richardson argues that Hei­ degger's notion of the subject-object relation "seems to be basi­ cally that of spatial exteriority and separateness of parts outside of parts" (1968:535). But quantum theory has different concerns, in Richardson's analysis, such that what is decisive in the sub­ ject-object relation "is not opposition and separation (i.e. spatial separation) but interdependence between subject and object, therefore unity with distinction" (1968:535). He cites Heisenb­ erg's uncertainty principle as a classic example of this interde­ pendence. There are a few responses to this criticism of Heidegger. First of all, the notion of exteriority is not so clearly basic to Heideg­ ger's account of the subject-object relation. He argues in The Basic Problems of Phenomenology that for Dasein, "there is no out­ side" (BPP 66/GP 93), and this "outside" would be precisely the exteriority of object to subject that Richardson finds basic to his account. Heidegger finds the traditional account of intentional­ ity "inadequate and external" (BPP 161/GP 230) because it does not conceive the belonging together of subject and object radi­ cally enough. He disallows discussion of an inner and outer in attempting to understand Dasein's commerce with things, for this precludes understanding being in a world as fundamental to Dasein. Likewise, in Die Frage nach dem Ding, Heidegger ob­ jects to the determination of a thing as a "this," here and now,

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248

such that space and time are construed as containers for the thing

(FD 11-24). In characterizing the thing, the interiority and

exteriority of space and time are simply not adequate. Furthermore, Heidegger objects in

nomenology

The Basic Problems of Phe­

to Kant's separation of subject and object in his ac­

count of perception because "it does not make possible any access to the unity of the phenomenon"

(BPP 314/GP 447). And correlation,

Heidegger argues that the subject-object relation is a

and that the concepts of subject and object require each other

(BPP 156-57/ GP 222-23). Accordingly, it is not so clear that Hei­ degger's account of the subject-object relation focuses on opposi­ tion and separation rather than unity and interdependence. Second, Heidegger was not completely uninformed on the topic of quantum theory. Joseph Kockelmans points out with reference to Carl von Weizsacker's report on his meeting with Heidegger, Heisenberg, and his uncle, Victor von Weizsacker, that "it becomes clear that Heidegger had a remarkable knowl­ edge of both physics and biology and that he was able to con­ duct a penetrating discussion on important topics with leading scientists" (1985:17).3

In the young

von Weizsacker's account of

that meeting, Heisenberg finds Heidegger's insights satisfactory, when the issue at stake is precisely how the subject-object rela­ tion is to be understood in quantum theory. Finally, it is not the case that Heidegger fails to address the question of quantum theory in his analysis of science.

In

his

writing he cites Heisenberg, Bohr, and Planck. His comments are sparse, but this is not because he has nothing to say on the issue. Rather, it is because what he does have to say makes it clear that he sees no essential difference between Newtonian physics and quantum theory. He recognizes that they are not identical. For example, in

Die Frage nach dem Ding,

as early as

1935, Heidegger suggests that in quantum theory, the relation between matter and space is not so simple as in Newtonian physics, but nor is it fundamentally different

(FD 15).

And in

"Science and Reflection" he acknowledges that the geometrical point mechanics of Newtonian physics is different from the sta3 Kockelmans's reference is to von Weizsacker, 1977, but see also von Weiz­ sacker, 1977a.

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tistical mechanics of quantum theory. In both texts Heidegger sees differences between Newtonian physics and quantum the­ ory, but he also makes it clear that he recognizes no essential difference. They have the same Ge-stell, the same preconception of nature. For Heidegger, nature is confined in modem science to its in­ terpretation as a coherence of forces calculable in advance. Not only Newtonian physics, but also quantum mechanics pursues its object as such a calculable coherence of forces for the pur­ poses of making the energy contained within the atom available to be extracted, stored, and at the disposal of human being. Hei­ degger's reflections upon the atomic age found in The Principle of Reason make this explicitly clear. In this lecture course from 1955-56, Heidegger argues that the "unleashing of this natural energy occurs through the work of the most modem natural sci­ ences that ever more unequivocally prove to have the normative function and form of the essence of modem technology" (123). Accordingly, he recognizes no essential difference between Newtonian and quantum physics. If modem science is, as Hei­ degger argues, essentially technological, then quantum physics is nothing different, but rather an intensification of that essential identity. Under Heidegger's view, the mathematical projection of na­ ture as the essence of science is first evident in the work of Gali­ leo, who was the crucial figure in the transition from Aristotle's method of generalization on the basis of observation to the mod­ em method of formulating universal hypotheses which can then be tested in experimentation. In "Science and Reflection," Hei­ degger maintains that quantum theory is simply a narrowing of the realm of validity of Galileo's and Newton's physics. This narrowing also confirms "the objectness normative for the the­ ory of nature, in accordance with which nature presents itself for representation as a spatiotemporal coherence of motion cal­ culable in some way or other" (SR 169/VA 54). Method-that is, how a science entraps and secures its object-is of decisive con­ cern, and in quantum theory as in Newtonian physics the method is to secure the object in measurement. This is particularly evident in Bohr's view of quantum me­ chanics. Bohr introduces the principle of completeness: a prop-

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erty of a quantum particle or photon (e.g., position, momentum, or spin) has no definite value until it is measured. Prior to mea­ surement, the quantity is represented by a wave packet describ­ ing a super-position in which all possible outcomes of measurement are to be found. Measurement collapses the wave function and only a single outcome remains, the one measured. Only on such a basis can what is called the measurement prob­ lem come about in quantum theory: if what is measured is in an indefinite state, a super-position, prior to measurement, how can measurement collapse the wave function that describes that super-position such that a single value is measured? Wigner deals with this problem by maintaining that the intervention of consciousness is what collapses the wave function (Wheeler and Zurek 1983:324-41), and he gives a convenient overview of other solutions (Wheeler and Zurek 1983:288-94). It seems that Hei­ degger's claim that Newtonian physics and quantum physics are essentially the same-that is, they share a mathematical pro­ jection of nature in which the real is quantifiable, measurable, and calculable in advance-is neither uninformed nor unreason­ able. In fact, the crucial experiment to decide between Bohr's quantum theory and Einstein's realism, which led Einstein to argue that quantum theory is incomplete, is based precisely on obtaining predictions under each account and showing that the realist predictions of Bell's inequality are violated. An outcome is predicted for each account, and Bohr's account is vindicated experimentally. The claim in quantum physics is not, then, simply that the real is measurable, but that it is measured. Heidegger follows the weaker reading, and he cites Max Planck's statement: "That is real which can be measured" (SR 169 / VA 54). Heidegger takes Planck to mean that the real can be reckoned, that is, set up as an object of expectation, consistent with his view that the essence of modem science is Ge-stell. In quantum theory, in fact, the real is what has been measured. But this point only strengthens Heideg­ ger's argument that the essence of science is the mathematical projection of nature. Heidegger does, however, recognize that Newtonian physics and quantum theory are not identical. In physics, "nature mani­ fests itself as a coherence of motion on material bodies" (SR 171/

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VA 56). The difference between classical physics and quantum theory is that the latter represents its objects with reference to a nucleus or field, whereas the former represents its objects by means of geometrical point mechanics.

In

classical physics all

aspects of an object's motion can be calculated in advance, but in quantum theory the coherence of knowledge with its object is of a statistical nature. The objectness of material nature is differ­ ent in each case, but they both remain for Heidegger "physicS, i.e., science, i.e., theory, which entraps objects belonging to the real in their objectness, in order to secure them in the unity of objectness"

(SR 172/VA 56).

Heidegger quotes Heisenberg, who seeks to write "one single fundamental equation from which the properties of all elemen­ tary particles, and therewith the behaviour of all matter what­ ever, follow"

(SR 172/VA 57).4 Heisenberg's method is therefore

not for Heidegger distinct from Galileo's. It is in fact more Gali­ lean than Galileo, for if Galileo proceeds on the basis of universal a priori hypotheses, Heisenberg seeks the ultimate such hypoth­ esis. What has not changed in quantum theory is that "nature has in advance to set itself in place for the entrapping securing that science, as theory, accomplishes"

(SR 172-73/ VA 57). Both

Newtonian physics and quantum theory have their essence in the essence of technology:

Ge-stell.

CONCLUSION Hence one might wish to ask Heidegger if he holds that the modem epoch is over.

On

the one hand, it is no longer science

but rather technology that is the essential determination of the age and of human being in the late twentieth century. Yet tech­ nology is not essentially different from science in Heidegger's account. His diagnosis and critique of technology began as early as the

1940 lecture course on European nihilism. His anticipation

of the global dominion of technology has proven astute. The question remains: Does human being stand at the cusp of an epoch? Heidegger argues that science and technology belong to•

Heidegger is quoting Heisenberg 1948:98.

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gether essentially, such that the modem epoch is the age of sci­ ence and technology. Under this account, the postmodem is not novel, but simply a devolved and quintessential modernity. In 1976 Heidegger raised the following question during his last public address: "Is modem natural science the foundation of modem technology-as is supposed-or is it, for its part, al­ ready the basic form of technological thinking, the determining fore-conception and incessant incursion of technological repre­ sentation into the realized and organized machinations of mod­ em technology?" (MNST 3). An account of the development of Heidegger's thinking over the sixty years from 1916 until his death in 1976 answers this question: Modern natural science is al­ ready the basic form of technological thinking. Science shares its es­ sence with technology such that technological representation, Ge-stell, can intervene in modem technology. Science is not sim­ ply the foundation of modem technology, but rather its essence and origin. Heidegger himself comes to this view only after long and careful struggle with the question of science. He began with two theses: that philosophy is a science, and that natural science is the mathematical projection of nature. Through resisting neo­ Kantianism, Heidegger began an extensive critique of subjectiv­ ity which led him to reject both Kantian idealism and the former of his two theses. He developed the second thesis by reflecting on the experimental method, and discovered therein that the thesis characterizes modem, not ancient, science. Looking back to ancient philosophy, he confirmed his rejection of subjectivist metaphysics by thinking being as the a priori, that which is prior in understanding. The thesis that modem science is the mathe­ matical projection of nature remained with Heidegger and from 1950 onward informed his account of technology. Ge-stell, in fact, captures precisely the notion of projection at work in Hei­ degger's account of modem science, such that he argues that science and technology are essentially one. His critique of sci­ ence is the background against which his understanding of the history of metaphysics unfolds. Heidegger's analysis of the projection at the core of science leads him from basic concepts to representation to Ge-stell. It is a development that flourishes as a critique of representational

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253

thinking's determination of modernity. The pre-Socratic experi­ ence of nature witnesses the possibility for other human rela­ tions to nature than a reductive appropriation of nature as resource. Heidegger can be put into a dialogue with the analytic tradition of science concerning issues about the nature and method of scientific theory and practice. Furthermore, the con­ temporary environmental crisis suggests that the significance of Heidegger's thinking to philosophy of science is to raise such questions as, for example, who determines what is worth know­ ing? how do science and technology underwrite the human rela­ tion to nature reductively? and to establish a ,oJto<; for envisioning other possibilities for science. Thinking through Heidegger's philosophy of science is preparation for an ecologi­ cal ethic. Heidegger's philosophy of science has its roots in the philo­ sophical project of securing the sciences upon a certain founda­ tion. The collapse of this Enlightenment project is the anti-realist recognition that understanding is always hermeneutic, that sci­ ence is always interpretive. Heidegger's questions are therefore of the limits and possibilities for such interpretation. Questions concerning science run so deeply in Heidegger's thinking that their Significance is not easy to see. I have argued that issues pertaining to science lie behind Heidegger's rejection of meta­ physics, his entanglement with the university, his nostalgia for the Greeks, and his critique of modernity. I have further shown that Heidegger's thinking can be put constructively into dia­ logue with the analytic tradition of philosophy of science. I do not believe that I have said all there is to be said on such topics in Heidegger's thinking. Rather, I hope to have awakened in oth­ ers an interest in Heidegger's philosophy of science.

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INDEX abandonment, 19, 28 acceleration, 53, 57, 70, 86 actuality, 10, 20, 49, 93, 125, 165, 179-81, 183-84, 191-93, 195, 197-99, 203, 235 aether, 70, 79-82, 107 "Age of the World Picture, The," 1, 52, 59, 63, 68, 70-73, 85, 92, 94, 109-17, 138, 142, 152-55, 170-72, 207-8, 213, 219-20 Alderman, H., 108 analogy of being, 10, 165, 170, 179-84 analytic judgments, 40, 48-49 analytic philosophy/ analytic phi­ losophers, 3-5, 9-10, 70-72, 7677, 79, 83, 87, 104, 117, 253 ancient science, 8, 10, 51, 91, 96, 109-10, 162-63, 252 Anima, De, 187-88, 190 anthropology / anthropological, 20, 37-38 Antigone, 17 Antiphon, 191-92, 195, 198, 202, 204 anti-realism/ anti-realist, 68-69, 71, 253 arociety, 38-39, 128-31 a priori, 5-6, 9, 17, 19, 28-29, 3536, 39-41, 45, 47-50, 102, 105, 116, 170, 200 209, 218-19, 238, 240, 246, 251-52 Aristoteles' Metaphysik IX.1-3,

182-83, 196

Aristotle/Aristotelian, 7-11, 35, 39, 43, 54, 57, 59, 62, 65-67, 69, 75, 83-86, 90, 93-95, 99, 101-2, 109, 114, 120, 126, 131, 157, 16166, 168-70, 172, 177, 179-207, 211, 218, 221, 223, 225, 229-31, 234-35, 238, 242-43, 246, 249 artifact, 10-11, 179-81, 192, 197, 200-204, 218 axiom/axiomatic, 58-59, 63, 85 Bacon, E, 6, 74, 78, 85, 87, 102, 208 Ballard, E. G., 103 Basic Concepts, 144, 157, 217 basic concepts, 3, 5-6, 15, 87-88, 247, 252 Basic Problems of Phenomenology, 9, 14-18, 20-30, 40, 45-40 49, 5253, 112, 117, 120, 125-29, 135, 140, 146-48, 152, 205, 210-11, 240, 247-48 Basic Works of Aristotle, The, 189, 197 Basic Writings, 96, 113, 136, 147, 167-68, 178, 186, 221, 237, 242 Beaufret, J., 136, 147 becoming-present/presence/ presences, 11, 17, 20, 32, 39, 67, 116, 126, 164, 168, 174, 178, 186, 198-99, 212-13, 231, 234-36 "Bedrohung der Wissenschaft, Die," 103, 148-53, 216-17, 226, 245 being, 2, 6-11, 14, 16-20, 23-25,

268

INDEX

28-35, 38-42, 44-40 49, 55-56, 60-64, 66-70, 83, 100, 103, 11617, 120, 125-38, 140, 144, 149, 155-50 163-65, 167-70, 172-73, 175-80, 183, 185-86, 195, 199, 202-5, 209-11, 214, 217-18, 220-22, 225-31, 236-37, 242, 247, 252 "Being and Conception of qnJOLC; in Aristotle's Physics B.1, On the," 174-75, 179-81, 185, 189, 191-93, 195-200, 202-5, 230 Being and Time, 1-2, 7-9, 11, 14, 16-18, 20-21, 25-30, 34, 38-39, 42-47, 49, 53, 55-56, 60-61, 64, 70, 83, 87, 90, 93, 95-99, 107-8, 120-23, 125, 127-28, 133, 13536, 147-48, 152, 164-67, 169-70, 172, 174, 177, 182, 210-11, 215, 217, 225, 236, 246 Beitriige, 45, 68, 70-72, 75-76, 78, 83-86, 90-96, 98-99, 101, 104-7, 114, 116, 141-42, 224 Bell's inequalities/the Bell inequality, 12, 77-78, 88, 250 Bergoffen, D., 129 Bernasconi, R, 147 Besinnung, 2, 108, 151, 162, 232, 237, 239 Betrachtung, 103 Betriebscharakter, 10, 119, 137, 161 Blair, G., 193-94 Bohr, N., 248-50 Brentano, E, 10, 180, 183-84

93, 107, 113-14, 200, 202, 230, 235, 238, 243, 245 circular motion, 57 cogito, 6, 61, 63, 113, 115, 171, 227 Cooper, L., 73-74, 101 Copernican revolution, 30-32, 38, 41-47 Cornford, E, 187 Corrington, R S., 163 Critique of Judgement, 24, 146 Critique of Pure Reason, 9, 19, 27, 31-32, 35-40, 42-44, 48-50, 60, 63, 72, 138 crucial experiments, 3, 9, 70, 7384, 250

Cae/o, De, 101

Einfiihrung in die Metaphysik, 44-

calculation, 108-9, 111, 142 Caputo, J., 1-2, 98 Camap, R, 42 Cartesian Meditations, 23 cause/ causes/ causation, 7, 33, 50,

45, 67, 100, 114, 124, 132, 158, 170, 173, 175-77, 178, 185, 199, 212, 230 Einstein, 82 empirical! empiricism, 7, 21, 42,

Dasein, 16, 20, 22, 29-31, 33-34, 37-39, 42, 44, 55, 61, 97, 120, 122, 126-34, 136-40, 143, 146, 148, 167-68, 170-71, 220 247 David, P., 120 death, 128-29, 145 default of being, 138, 228 Denken, 8, 162 Descartes, R, 18, 23, 27, 59, 61-63, 68-69, 107, 113, 115, 135, 171, 208, 219-20 destiny, 7, 10, 120-21, 131-34, 136-41, 143-44, 146, 151, 153, 155-56, 168, 225 Duhem, P., 77-78 Early Greek Thinking, 174, 223, 236

ecology / ecological, 163, 253 Eignung, 201

INDEX

48-50, 71, 84, 87-92, 94, 96, 101-2, 105, 224 "End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking, The," 220, 237 environment/ environmental, 163, 206, 253 epistemology / epistemological, 23-24, 28, 30-32, 42, 44, 62, 65, 190 epoch, 7, ll, 63, 67, 69, 91, 93, 109, lll, l l5, ll7, 132-33, 137-38, 154, 200 209, 211, 213-15, 220, 225-26, 228-30, 232, 238-39, 241-42, 246, 251-52 epoche, 18, 20, 23, 68 Ereignis, 192 errancy, 38, 148, 167 essence/essences, 33, 76, 83-85, 93-94, 110, 114-15, 132, 134, 139-40, 144-45, 147, 149, 155, 158-59, 164, 166, 170, 176, 178, 205-0 209, 212-15, 217, 233, 239-40, 242, 246 essence of science, 1-3, 5-10, 12, 53, 58, 63-64, 60 69, 71-73, 141, 144-46, 152, 157-58, 205-7, 209, 211, 213-15, 219, 222-23, 23233, 241, 245-40 250, 252 essence of technology, 5, 7, 12, 64, 60 71-72, 157, 206-7, 209-10, 213-14, 219, 222-23, 225-26, 232, 240-41, 243, 245-47, 251-52 "Essence of Truth, On the," 31, 38-39, 96, 113, 123, 129-30, 137-38, 160 170, 220 236, 241 essentia, 60 175, 211-12 existence, 26-28, 67, 129-33, 138, 168, 188 existentia, 67, 175, 2ll-12 experience, 23, 37, 40-41, 47-49, 52, 71-72, 76, 83-84, 86-88, 90-

269

96, 101-2, ll6, 127, 136-37, 145-46, 188-89, 191, 199, 208, 212, 224, 235 experiment/ experimentation/ experimental, 6, 8-9, 53-54, 59, 64-66, 68-88, 90-91, 93-90 99, 101-2, 104-7, 109, 111-15, 11718, 141, 154, 224, 239, 243-44, 247, 250, 252 extantness, 27-28 facticity, 132, 167 Farias, v., 120 fate, 133, 137, 141 Ferry, L., 120 Feyerabend, P. K., 65, 68, 76 finitude, 37-39, 41, 44, 128 form, ll, 179, 181-82, 186, 190-93, 195, 198-205, 221 Fr"o'e nach dem Ding, Die, 9, 14, 1719, 40-41, 46-47, 49-53, 56-59, 61-64, 70-72, 84, 86-88, 92-94, 100-101, 104, 107, lll, l l4, 138, 171, 210, 224, 247-48 Franklin, u., 160 free/freedom, 96, 122, 159, 170-71 free-fall, 19, 53-54, 70, 75, 82-83, 101 Fundamental Concepts of Metaphys­ ics, The, 15, 19, 66 fundamental ontology, 6, 14, 16, 25, 33-34

Galileo, 3, 5-6, 9, 14, 18-19, 51, 53-54, 56-58, 60-61, 64-65, 6971, 73-75, 82-86, 94, 102, 109, 114, 162, 244, 249, 251 Geeignete, das/Geeignetheit, die, 192, 201 Geisteswissenschaft, 3 geometry, 9 Gesamtausgabe, 4, 20, 88, 175

270

INDEX

Ge-stell, 3, 5, 207, 209, 214, 240, 242-46, 249-52 gravity, 74-75 Great Instauration, 74, 102 Greeks, the, 12, 41, 45, 50-52, 66, 68, 109, 1 14, 116, 140, 143, 158, 163, 169, 172, 174, 178, 184-85, 196, 199, 204, 211, 220-21, 229, 231, 233-34, 236, 238, 253 Grene, M., 42-44 ground/grounding, 6, 9, 14, 1619, 25, 29, 31-34, 38-42, 53, 6264, 98, 100, 105, 110, 115, 125, 138, 142, 145-46, 149, 206-7, 227, 235, 240 Grundbegriffe, 144, 157 Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik, Die,

15, 66 GrUnder, K., 4, 12, 69 Grundprobleme der Phiinomenologie, Die, 15, 22-24, 26-30, 46, 52-53,

117, 125-28, 146-47, 152, 211, 247-48 Hacking, I., 3, 76-77, 79-80, 8788, 95, 105-7 Hanson, N. R., 104 Harding, S., 123 Harries, K., 120 Heelen, P, 2, 122-23, 150 Hegel, G. W E, 18, 120, 125, 128, 130, 135 Heidegger Studies, 108 Heisenberg, W, 247-48, 251 Heraclitus, 100, 158, 163-65, 173, 174-75, 177, 179, 185 history, 4, 14, 26, 39, 53, 61, 65-69, 74, 77, 89-91, 94, 98, 103, 11011, 115, 121, 123, 133-37, 140, 143, 152-53, 156, 160, 168-69, 177-79, 181-82, 185, 187, 204, 206, 208, 210-11, 215-16, 221-

22, 230-31, 234, 236, 245-46, 252 History of the Concept of Time, 18, 20, 24, 28 Hofstadter, 23 H6lderlin, 215 Holzwege, 52, 59, 71, 92, 94, 109-16, 138, 142, 153-55, 171-72, 207-8, 210, 213, 220 horizon, 39, 44, 98, 126-27, 175 Husser!, E., 5-6, 18-25, 31, 88, 217, 227 idealisrn, 5-6, 8-9, 28, 30, 41-42, 44-45, 50, 72, 85, 90, 164-65, 169, 170-73, 176-7� 191, 252 Ideas, 22-23 Ideen, 23

irnagination, 36-38, 44 inertia/law of inertia, 57-58, 73, 87 Introduction to Metaphysics, 14, 17, 41, 43-46, 67-68, 99-100, 107, 1 14, 116, 124-25, 132, 135, 158, 164-65, 170, 172-73, 175-78, 185, 199, 212, 218, 229-30, 234 intuition, 36-38 irruption, 99, 124 Kant, 1., 5, 8-9, 18-19, 23-28, 3051, 55, 60, 62-63, 72, 90, 125, 135, 138, 228, 252 Kant and the Problem of Metaphys­ ics, 25, 31-38, 43, 46, 49-50 Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, 19, 31-38, 49 "Kehre, Die," 141 Kettering, E., 120 Kisiel, T., 2, 5, 50-51 Kockelrnans, J., 18, 104, 215, 248 Kuhn, T., 3, 7, 15, 65, 68, 81-82,

INDEX

87-88, 90, 94, 109, 122, 139, 142, 208, 244-45 Lakatos, L, 65, 68, 77, 79, 90, 109, 122, 139, 160 language, 13, 127, 136, 156, 16465, 171, 174-75, 170 198 law of gravity, 55-56 law of motion/laws of motion, 19, 58 laws/lawfulness, 19, 21, 54-58, 64, 73, 87, 94, 102, 134, 155 laws of nature, 21, 54, 56 Leibniz, G. w., 26, 59, 135 "Letter on Humanism," 147, 177 Llewellyn, J., 163 logic, 2-3, 8-9, 24, 32, 37-38, 6667, 69, 72, 79, 90, 101, 134, 163, 166, 206, 245 "Logic," 172, 174 Logical Investigations, 20 "Logos," 174, 223, 229 Logos, 21 Lovitt, w., 103, 232 Lbwith, K., 178 Lugones, M. c., 148 Macomber, W. B., 214, 235 Macquarrie, J., 167 Manheim, R, 100, 114 Marburg school, 24, 42 mathematical, the, 5, 9, 14, 17, 19, 50-53, 56, 59-64, 72, 92, 108, 111 mathematical projection of na­ ture, 1 , 3, 9, 14, 16-19, 51-60, 64, 69-72, 75, 92-93, 97, 99, 246, 249-50, 252 mathematics/mathematical, 3, 8, 12, 53, 55, 62, 64, 101, 111, 141, 147, 157, 161, 186-87, 208, 216-17

271

mathesis universalis, 63 matter, 11, 55, 78-79, 87, 145, 149, 179-82, 186, 188-93, 195, 198-205 McNeill, w., 16-17, 70 measurement/measuring, 52, 59, 81, 92-94, 122, 249-50 Meditations on First Philosophy, 62, 69, 227 metaphysica generalis, 35 Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, Th� 16, 23, 32-33, 44, 233 metaphysica specialis, 35 Metaphysics, 39, 131, 166, 169, 177, 181-82, 185-89, 194-95, 199, 201, 203-5 metaphysics, 2-3, 5-6, 8-9, 12-13, 14-20, 25-28, 30-35, 30 39-42, 44-46, 49, 60-68, 84, 90, 113, 117, 121, 125, 134-37, 149, 154, 156-57, 161-64, 168-69, 175, 178-80, 183, 185-87, 193, 19598, 204-5, 207-8, 210-11, 213, 221-22, 252-53 Metaphysische Anfangsgriinde der Logi� 16, 23, 32-33, 44, 233 metontology, 16-17 Michelson, A A, 80-81 Michelson-Morley experiment, 70, 79, 81-83 modernity, 1-2, 11, 66-69, 90-91, 102, 118, 120-21, 123-24, 13334, 136-38, 140, 161, 163, 180, 184, 206-10, 213-16, 227-28, 231, 246, 252 "Modem Natural Science and Technology," 4, 11, 241, 252-53 "Modem Science, Metaphysics and Mathematics," 51-52, 5663, 70-72, 84, 86-87, 92-93, 101, 107, 1 14, 171 Moody, E. A, 73, 85

272

INDEX

motion, 19, 54, 57-58, 101, 110, 1 13-14, 126, 186-88, 195-96, 203, 230-31, 243, 245, 249-51 Motu, De, 73 National Socialism/Socialist, 10, 145, 149-50 nature, 6-8, 10-12, 24, 26, 39, 41, 55-59, 67-68, 70-76, 87-88, 9293, 95, 98-99, 101-2, 104-5, 107-8, 1 10-13, 116, 143, 146, 153-55, 157, 163-65, 169, 172, 175, 178, 180-81, 184-85, 187, 189, 191-92, 195, 200-202, 204-6, 208, 223-25, 238-39, 243-47, 249-50, 253 Naturwissenschaft, 3, 115 Nazi/Nazism, 10, 97, 1 19-20, 137, 146-48, 150-52, 154, 158, 226 Neske, G., 120 Newton, I., 3, 5-6, 8-9, 18-19, 49, 51, 53, 56-60, 64-65, 70-71, 7475, 77-78, 86-87, 94, 101, 1 14, 230-31, 243-44, 247-50 Nicomachean Ethics, 188, 200, 246 Nietzsche, F. W, 131, 134-35, 137, 149, 156, 164, 210, 220 Nietzsche, 69, 121, 131, 134-37, 142, 150, 155-57, 164, 168, 17576, 210, 220, 225, 244-45 Nietzsche I, 142 Nietzsche II, 131, 134-37, 150, 15657, 168, 210, 220 nihilism, 69, 120-21, 131, 133-38, 156-57, 164, 175-77, 210, 213, 220, 226, 228, 245, 251 "Nihilism as Determined by the History of Being," 135-37, 168, 210 Nolte, E., 120 nothing, the, 38-39, 120-21, 12426, 128-31, 134-35, 137 Novum Organum, 74, 78

object, 6, 8, 18-19, 21, 25-27, 3132, 36-3� 40-41, 46-47, 56, 63, 68, 78, 95, 98, 107, 109-11, 113, 1 15-16, 124, 134, 137, 142, 150, 154, 166, 168, 190, 217-19, 22324, 226, 228, 231-32, 238, 240, 243, 245, 247-49, 251 objectivity, 21, 23, 29, 41, 75, 92, 98-99, 102, 121-22, 136, 143, 209, 223, 227, 231, 236, 239, 241, 246 observation, 9, 70-73, 84, 91, 9396, 98, 103-5, 238 "Only a God Can Save Us," 145, 149, 158 ontological difference, 29, 125, 129, 144, 210, 217, 229, 237 ontology/ ontological, 6, 14, 16, 18-19, 23, 25-35, 43, 45, 47, 97, 120, 130-31, 14� 166 "Origin of the Work of Art, The," 235 Ott, H., 120 overcoming, 2, 140, 143, 156, 219, 233 paradigm, 3, 15, 65, 68, 87-88, 109, 122, 209, 227, 231 Parrnenides, 163-67, 173, 176, 178, 185, 228-29, 236 Parts of Animals, The, 200, 246 Pathmarks, 170, 176-77 perception, 27, 125, 146, 187-88, 190 phenomenology /phenomeno­ logical, 5-6, 16, 18, 20-23, 25, 28, 47, 95-97, 100, 102, 108, 163, 169-70, 182, 205-� 210 "Philosophy as Rigorous Sci­ ence," 20-22 philosophy of natuIe, 163-64 philosophy of science, 1, 3-5, 12-

273

INDEX

13, 65, 72, 98, 121-22, 163, 166, 253 Physics, 7, 11, 67, 101, 126, 169, 172-73, 17� 179-82, 184-86, 188-90, 192-93, 195, 198-99, 201-6, 211, 230, 234, 243 physics, 3, 5, 19, 31-32, 34, 47, 49, 53-56, 58, 60-61, 64, 68-69, 71, 73, 84-85, 92, 101-2, 107, 11112, 117, 119, 141, 154, 161, 165, 178, 180, 186-87, 189-90, 207, 216, 230-31, 238-39, 243-44, 246-48, 250-51 Pisa, 73-74, 86 place, 55, 59, 187 Planck, M., 248, 250 Plato, 8, 29, 51, 60, 67, 115-16, 121, 134-35, 164, 169, 171, 175-77, 186, 193, 212, 230, 236 "Plato's Doctrine of Truth," 67, 170, 176-77 Plumwood, v., 163 Poetry, Language, and Thought, 186 Popper, Sir Karl, 65 Porter, J. S., 144 position, 27, 30-31, 40, 49, 58, 125, 227, 234, 239, 250 positive sciences, 15, 25-29, 3134, 63, 147, 152 Posterior Analytics, 188 potentiality, 10, 165, 180, 183-84, 191, 192-94, 197-98, 201 presence/presences/becorning­ present, 11, 17, 20, 32, 39, 67, 116, 126, 164, 168, 174, 178, 186, 198-99, 212-13, 231, 234-36 present-at-hand, 61, 97, 132, 168 Principia, 70, 74, 86 Principle of Reason, The, 249 production, 6� 180, 182, 190, 202-3, 205, 211, 218-19, 221, 227, 241-42

projection, 5-8, 14-17, 51-53, 5559, 63-64, 70, 72, 96, 98, 104, 110-11, 142, 207, 209, 213, 241, 246, 252 Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs, 20, 24 pure, 48-50 Putnam, H., 105

quantum theory/quantum phys­ ics/quantum mechanics, 3, 8, 12, 77-78, 85, 87-88, 1 14, 12223, 209, 244, 247-51 "Question Concerning Technol­ ogy, The," 104, 108, 112, 141, 154, 186, 206-9, 212, 230, 232, 241-46 Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, The, 112, 141,

143, 154, 186, 212, 214-15, 230, 241-46 ready-to-hand/readiness-to­ hand, 55, 61, 97, 121 real, 26-27, 89, 104-7, 125, 202, 223-24, 232, 234-38, 242-43, 250-51 realism/realist, 4, 6, 9, 69, 71, 76, 78, 84-85, 88-90, 104-5, 164, 177, 250 "Realitatsproblem in der moder­ nen Philosophie, Das," 4, 88-89 reality, 26-2� 69, 83, 104-8, 135, 232, 235 reason, 37, 50, 173, 175, 200, 230, 249 recoil, 16 "Rectoral Address," 139-40 "Rectorate 1933/34: Facts and Thoughts, The," 145, 149, 158 reflection, 8, 103, 119, 121, 131,

274

INDEX

136, 143, 146, 151, 161-62, 206, 216, 228-29, 232, 237, 239-40 regional ontology, 5-6, 14-15, 1718, 22, 25, 29, 32-34, 63, 108, 112, 130, 147, 217, 224, 227, 240 Rektoratsrede, 103, 120-21, 131, 139, 143, 145-46, 150, 157-58, 161 relativity, 82 Renault, A., 120 repeatability, 76-77, 82 representation, 1, 8-10, 36, 46, 48, 65, 68, 71-72, 105-7, 112, 11618, 153-54, 163, 190, 206, 226, 228, 239-41, 249, 252 representational thinking, 6, 1213, 25, 46, 65-66, 68, 113, 11718, 121-22, 163, 176-7� 184, 191, 206, 209, 214, 218, 222-24, 226-28, 231, 237, 241, 246-47, 252-53 research, 6, 10, 71, 79-81, 94, 97, 1 10-13, 116, 133, 138, 141-42, 152-53, 159-60 Resnick, R., 80 resource, 206, 241, 24� 253 Richardson, W. J., 1, 4, 69, 186, 247 rigor, 52, 71, 92, 110-11, 113 Robinson, E., 167 Robinson, T. M., 100 Rossant, M. J., 159-60 Sache des Denkens, Zur, 221, 237

Sallis, J., 51 Schelling, 146 Sclunidt, D., 190 Schrynemakers, 1 1 "Science and Reflection," 1, 15, 58, 71, 102-4, 106-8, 123, 14041, 143, 151, 161, 207, 209, 21314, 21� 232-40, 249-51 scientific method, 9, 66, 70, 72, 75, 85, 102, 111, 1 18, 208, 249

Seigfried, H., 182 Sein und Zeit, 15, 20, 26-30, 34,

55-56, 61, 83, 87, 96-98, 107, 127-33, 136, 147, 166-67, 16970, 172, 215, 217 "Selbstbehauptung der deutschen Universitat, Die," 139-41, 14345, 158 "Self-Assertion of the German University, The," 139-41, 14345, 158 sensation, 50, 89 Sheehan, T., 120, 182 Sherover, C. M., 43 Shmueli, E., 214 space, 53-54, 56, 64, 1 14, 248 specialization, 103, 142-43, 148, 152-54, 238 Spiegel, Der, 144, 149 Spelman, E., 148 standing-reserve, 7, 209, 241-43, 245-46 Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The, 87, 90, 109

subjectivity /subjectivism, 2, 7, 41, 42, 44, 63, 65, 68, 115, 154, 16465, 170, 252 substance, 183, 187-88, 195, 198 synthesis, 36-37, 39-40, 44, 49, 171, 185 synthetic a priori judgments, 3542, 47, 48-49 synthetic judgments, 40-41 technology, 1, 4-5, 7-9, 1 1-13, 64, 66-67, 72, 81, 84, 9� 104, 108, 117, 121, 141, 144, 154-55, 157, 159, 163-65, 17� 184, 205, 20710, 212-15, 222-26, 230, 232-33, 240-47, 249, 251-53 temporality, 16, 29, 30, 44, 120, 126-29

INDEX

thank/thanking, 224, 226-27, 229 Thayer, H. S., 57, 74, 77-78 theoretical attitude, 14, 16, 26, 53, 55-56, 60-61, 70, 83, 97-99, 121-22, 210 theory /theoretical, 3, 9, 30-31, 35, 62, 65-66, 69, 70-71, 74-75, 7982, 95, 99, 102-7, 109, 147-48, 150, 180, 184, 186-87, 189-90, 206, 208, 232, 234, 236-38, 243, 245, 249, 251, 253 thinking, 3, 7-8, 12-13, 47, 89, 108, 120-21, 137, 143, 145, 161-63, 169-70, 173, 178, 182, 184, 209, 211, 214, 216-19, 221-32, 234, 237-39, 241, 252-53 threat, 148, 155, 159, 225-26, 245 time, 14, 39, 52-56, 59, 64, 69-70, 114, 120, 126-28, 182, 248 Time and Being, On, 133 Topics, 186 transcendence / transcendental, 28-29, 31, 33, 35, 42, 44-45, 50, 113, 127, 169, 170-72, 177 transcendental idealism, 3, 50, 173 transcendental subject/transcen­ dental subjectivity, 28, 31, 35, 43-45, 55, 165, 169, 170-72 truth, 2, 13, 24, 31-33, 43, 64, 66, 69, 83, 96, 102, 104, 113, 128, 135-36, 143, 145, 148-49, 16467, 169, 170-71, 173, 175-77, 179, 185, 198, 213, 219-20, 23637, 242 Tuana, N., 123 "Turning, The," 141 Twentieth Century Fund, 159-61 Two New Sciences, 57, 114 Urnschlag, 16 unconcealment, 96, 153, 165, 16769, 175-77, 185, 198, 210, 236, 241-42, 246

275

understanding, 37-39, 41-42, 4445, 48, 50, 58, 75, 99-100, 109, 116, 120, 125-26, 129, 164, 16869, 171, 182, 195, 198, 224, 244, 246-47 university, 8, 10, 38, 119-24, 129, 132-33, 137-40, 142-46, 14855, 158-60, 216, 253 Unterwegs zur Sprache, 213 Unumgangliche, das, 15, 141, 217, 238 Unverborgenheit, 167, 241 valuative thinking, 134-35, 15657, 164 value/valuable, 8, 120-21, 13435, 142-43, 148, 155-50 159-60 Vick, G., 43 Vietta, S., 1 15-16 violence/violent, 96, 99, 100-102, 104, 107-9, 136 von Weizsacker, C. E, 248 Vortriige und Aujsiitze, 15, 102-3, 106-7, 123, 140-41, 143, 154, 161, 174, 186, 212, 210 223, 230, 233-39, 241-46, 249-51 Was heiflt Denken?, 13, 46, 117, 123,

161, 172, 174, 210, 214-29, 231, 234, 240 Way to Language, On the, 213 Weber, S., 104 Wegmarken, 38-39, 96, 99, 110, 113, 122, 124-25, 129-30, 133, 136, 138-39, 143, 140 170, 174, 17677, 180, 185, 189, 191-92, 19596, 198-200, 202-5, 218 Welch, c., 214 Weltanschauung, 5, 21-22, 24 Wesen, 76, 93, 150, 212 "Wesen der Wahrheit, Vom," 167-68, 178, 227, 242 What Is Called Thinking?, 1, 13, 16, 46, 58, 117, 123, 152, 161, 172,

276

INDEX

174, 207, 209-10, 214-29, 23134, 238-40 "What Is Metaphysics?," 38-39, 42, 46, 99, 10� 110, 120-22, 12425, 129-33, 135-36, 138-39, 143, 145, 150, 185 "What Is Metaphysics?: Postscript," 108, 218, 221 Wheeler, J., 250 Wigner, E., 250 Wissenschaft, 3, 90, 103, 148-50,

152-53, 216-17, 226, 232-33, 245 withdrawal of being, 17-18, 13638, 168, 210, 222, 228-29

Wolin, R., 120 world, 8, 15, 43-44, 55, 68, 85, 88-

89, 100, 102-3, 106-8, 112-17, 124, 127, 130, 132, 136-37, 14647, 153, 158, 167, 217, 219, 221, 233, 246-47 worldview Iworld-view, 22, 2425, 83, 146-50, 153, 215 Young, T., 120 "Zeitbegriff in der Geschichtswis­ senschaft, Der," 1-2, 14, 53-56,

69, 84, 86, 93 Zurek, W., 250

INDEX OF GREEK EXPRESSIONS aya8ov, 134 aYEWJ.L£�QTjW' IlTjbE� EEal�w, 60 ahla, 230, 235 aAtj8EL<1, 96, 165, 167-68, 170, 172, 174-76, 179, 185, 205, 236, 241 'AAi)8ELll, 236-37 a!;L6w, a!;uiJlla�a, 58 anoala, 26, 183 aQxi), aQxm, 200, 202, 235 a�EAEU;, 203 �la, 101-2, 104 �lo, 8EWOT]HXO" 143, 185, 236-37 YEVEo�, 195, 200, 203 MvallEL QV, viii, 181, 191-92, 196-97 buvall�, 5� 196-98, 201 Mvall� xa�a XlVTjOLV, 197

8EWQLa, 103, 157, 186-87, 189, 208, 238 8EWQELV, 102-3, 236-38 tbw, 67, 116, 134, 164-66, 173-76, 205, 212 xlVT]a�. XLvT)aEL" 195, 203 XQlVELV, 176, 229 AEYELV, 165, 172, 174, 179, 229, 231 AOYO" 164-65, 170-77, 179, 187, 225, 229 �a lla8tjlla�a, 51-53, 59 IlEm�oAi), 195 IlE�a �a qJuOLxa, 34 Il4LTja�, 190 lloQqJT], 199 VOELV, 231

ELbo,, 115, 165, 173-75, 179, 199200, 203, 219, 223, 230, 236 Efl!tE4)la, 9, 85, 90-91, 94 EvEQYELll, EvEQYELa" 193-99, 235, 254

ETIEAEXELll, 193-98, 235, 254 EmmtjllTj, 110, 233 EQYOV, 193 8Ea, 236-37 8Ea, 236 8EO�, 234-35

oQaw, 236-37 ouala, 179, 183-84, 197-99, 204 naQabELYlla, 203 nunELv, 101 nOAEllo" 100 nolTjOL" 186, 197, 242 �a nOLOullEva, 51 nOA�, 143 �a nQaYlla�a, 51 nQa!;�, 186-87, 189, 208

278

INDEX OF GREEK EXPRESSIONS

JtQoo ijv, 182 JtQoJ't1'] <jJLAooo
qJLAOOo
iJJto8eOl�, 234

uJtoxeL!tevov, 115, 172, 175

WQu, 236-37