Martin Heidegger

MARTIN HEIDEGGER

' Timothy Clar k's Martin H eidegger is an inte lligent, highly access ible introdu cti on to th e Ge rma n philosopher 's com ple x intellectual traject or y. In it s focu s on H eid egger ' s engagement w ith art and langu age, Clar k's book will be of particul ar inter est t o stude nts of aesthetics, lit er ature, and th eory . ' Michael Eskin , Colu mbia Uni versity ' He idegger was a uniquely gifte d practition er of th e difficult ar t of r eading . But his achievements have been overloo ke d or drastically mi sunderstood by m ainstream lit er ar y th eor ists and critics. Timothy Clar k's acces sible, neat and reliabl e introducti on goes a long way t owards setting th e r ecord st raight.' Jon ath an Ree, Mid dlesex Uni versity Many CrItICS conside r Martin Heid egger th e m ost influ ential , elusive and contro ver sial figure in m od ern poeti cs and criticism . How ever , few st ude nts of lit er ature have b een direct ed t o his writings on ar t and poetry. Thi s volume offers such students a bridge t o thi s cr ucial w ork . Timothy Clark immers es r ead ers in a new way of thinking , appro aching Heid eggeri an ideas on th e limits of' th eor y' and of W estern th ought , his hist or y of being , th e origin and death of ar t, langu age, lit er ature and poetics . H e also covers th e contro versy of H eid egger ' s Nazi inv olv em ent . Accessible and engag ing through out , thi s b ook will enable r ead er s t o take new critical approaches not only to lit er ar y texts , but also to th e end uring tradition s of W est ern th ought .

Timothy Clark is a specialist in Romantic and post -Romant ic poetics , based at Durham University . He is co-e dito r of th e Oiford Literary Review and autho r of Derrid a, Heidegger, Blan chot: Sources if Derrida 's Notion and Practice if Literatur e (1992 ) and The Theory if Inspirati on (2000 ).

ROUTLEDGE CRITICAL THINKERS essential guides for literary studies Series Editor: Robe rt Eaglestone, Royal Holloway, Univers ity of London Routledpe Critica l Thinkers is a ser ies of acc essible introdu cti on s to key figures in contempo rary critical tho ught .

W ith a un iqu e focus on historical and int ellectual cont exts, each volum e exam ine s a key th eorist 's : • • • •

significanc e motivat ion key ideas and th eir sources impact on oth er th inkers

Co ncl udi ng w ith exte nsively annotated guid es to fur th er r eadi ng, Routledpe Criti cal Thinkers ar e th e lit erature stud ent's passport to today 's

most exciting critical tho ught . Alr eady available : Ma rtin Heideaaer by Tim oth y Clar k Gilles De1euze by Clair e Co lebrook Fredric J ameson by Adam Rob er ts Jea n Baudri llard by Richard J. Lane Paul de Man by Martin McQuillan Siamund Freud by Pam ela Thurs chwell Edward Said by Bill Ashcroft and Pal Ahluwalia Mauri ce Blan chot by Ull rich Haase and W illiam Larg e

Forthcoming : Judith But ler

For fur th er details on this seri es, see www .literatur e. ro utl edg e.com /rct

MARTIN HEIDEGGER

Timothy Clark

London and New York

First publi shed 2002 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simu ltaneously pub lished in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Str eet , New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

© 2002 Timothy Clark Typeset in Perpetua by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh , Devon Printed and bound in Great Britain by T J International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reprod uced or utilized in any form or by any elect ronic, mechanical , or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Brit ish Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Clark , Timothy, 1958Martin Heidegger / Timothy Clark . p. cm . - (Routledge critical thinkers) Includes bibliographical references (p.) and inde x. 1. Heidegger, Martin , 1889-1976. I. Title . II Series.

B3279.H49 C53 2002 193-dc21 200131919 ISBN G-415-22928-6 (hbk) ISBN G-415-22929-4 (pb k)

For K itty 'One can learn to ski only on the slopes and for the slopes' (Heidegger)

CONTENTS

Series edito r's preface A bbreviation s

ix xiii

WHY HEIDEGGER? 1 The limits of the theoretical 2 Deep history (Geschichte) 3 'The Origin of the Work of Art' 4 T he death of art? 5 Language , tradition and the craft of thinking Quizzical interlude: what is a literary work? 6 Heidegger and the poet ic 7 Nazism, poetry and the political

121

AFTER HEIDEGGER

139

FURTHER READING

155

Works cited In dex

167 177

9 27 41 61 71

93 97

SERIES EDITOR'S PREFACE

Th e books in thi s series offe r intro ductio ns to major critica l thinker s who have influ en ced lit er ar y studies and th e humanities. Th e Routledge Criti cal Thinkers series provid es th e books you can turn t o first when a new nam e or concept appears in your studies. Each b ook will equip you to approach a key thinker' s original text s by explaining her or hi s key ideas, pu tting th em into context and, perhaps m ost importantly, sho w ing you why thi s thinker is consider ed to b e significant . Th e em pha sis is on concise , clearly written guides which do not pr esuppose a specialist kn owledge . Alth ough th e focus is on particul ar figures, th e series str esses th at no critical thinker ever existe d in a vacuum but, instead , emerged from a broad er intellectual , cult ural and soci al hi stor y . Finally, th ese book s will act as a bridge b etween you and th e thinker' s original t exts: not repl acing them but rath er complem enting wh at she or he wrot e . Th ese books ar e necessar y for a number of r eason s. In hi s 1997 auto biography, Not Enti tled, th e lit er ar y critic Frank Kermod e wrot e of a tim e in th e 196 0s: On beautif ul sum mer lawns, young people lay toget her all night. recovering from thei r daytime exertions and listening to a t roupe of Balinese musicians . Under thei r blankets or their sleeping bags, they would chat drowsily about the gurus of the ti me. ... What they repeated was largely hearsay; hence my

X

SER IES EDITOR'S PREFACE

lunchtime suggestion, quite impromptu, for a series of short , very cheap books offeri ng authoritative but intelligible introd uctions to such figu res.

Th er e is still a need for 'a uthoritative and intelligibl e introducti on s' . But thi s series r eflects a differ ent w orld fr om th e 1960s. N ew thinker s have emerged and th e r eputati on s of other s have ris en and fallen , as new r esear ch has develop ed . N ew m ethod ologies and challenging id eas have spr ead through th e ar ts and humanities. Th e study of lit er ature is no longer - if it ever was - sim ply the study and evaluation of poems, novels and plays. It is also th e study of th e id eas, issues, and difficulties whi ch arise in any lit er ar y t ext and in it s inter pretation . O ther ar ts and humanities subjects have change d in analogous ways. With th ese chang es, new probl ems have emerge d . Th e id eas and issues behind th ese radical chang es in th e humanities ar e oft en presented without r efer en ce to wider conte xts or as th eori es which you can sim ply 'add on ' to th e texts you r ead . Cer tainly , th er e ' s nothing wrong with picking out selected ideas or using what come s to hand - indeed , som e thinker s have arg ued th at thi s is, in fact, all w e can do . However , it is som et im es forgotten that each new id ea comes fr om th e patt ern and development of som ebo dy ' s th ought and it is important to study th e range and context of th eir ideas. Again st th eori es ' floating in space', th e Routledge Criti cal Thinkers series places key thinker s and th eir ideas firml y back in th eir conte xts. Mor e th an thi s, th ese books r eflect th e need t o go back t o th e thinker 's ow n t exts and ideas. Every interpret ati on of an idea, even th e most seemingly inn ocent one, offers it s own ' spin' , implicitl y or explicitly . T o r ead only book s on a thinker , rath er th an t exts by th at thinker , is to den y yourself a chance of makin g up your ow n mind . Som et im es wh at m akes a significant figure ' s w ork hard to appro ach is not so m uch its style or conte nt as th e feelin g of not kn owing wh er e to start . Th e purpose of th ese books is to give you a ' wa y in ' by offer ing an accessible over view of a th ese th inker s' ideas and w orks and by guiding your furth er r eading , starting with each thinker ' s own texts. T o use a m etapho r fro m th e phil osoph er Ludwig Wittgen stein ( 1889- 195 1) , th ese b ook s are ladder s, to be thrown away after you have climbed to th e next level. No t only, th en , do they equip you to appr oach new ideas, but also th ey em power you , by leading you back t o a th eori st' s own texts and encouraging you to develop your own informed opinions .

Finally, th ese book s ar e necessar y because , just as intellectual need s have change d, the education syst ems aro und the w orld - th e contexts in whi ch introductor y book s ar e usually r ead - have chang ed radi cally, too . What was suitab le for th e m ino rity high er ed ucation syst em of the 1960s is not suitable for the larger , wider , m or e div er se, high tech nology education syst ems of th e tw enty -first century . Th ese change s call not ju st for new , up -to-dat e , introducti on s bu t new m et ho ds of pr esentati on. Th e presen tation al aspects of Routledge Criti cal Thinkers have been develop ed with tod ay's students in mind . Each book in the seri es has a sim ilar str ucture . Th ey b egin with a section offering an overview of th e life and id eas of each thinker and explain why she or he is im po rtant . Th e centra l section of each book discusses th e thinker' s key id eas, their conte xt, evolution and recep tion. Each book concl udes w ith a survey of th e thinker' s imp act , outlining how th eir ideas have been taken up and develop ed by ot hers . In addition , th ere is a det ailed final sectio n sugg esting and describing b ook s for fur th er r eading. Thi s is not a ' tacked -on' sectio n bu t an integra l part of each volum e. In th e first part of thi s sectio n you will find brief description s of th e thinker' s key w orks: follo wing thi s, information on th e m ost useful critica l w orks and, in some cases, on r elevant w eb sites. Thi s sectio n will guide you in your r eading , enabling you to foll ow your inter ests and develo p your ow n project s. Throu ghout each b ook , r efer enc es ar e given in wh at is kn own as th e Harv ar d syst em (th e autho r and th e dat e of a w orks cited ar e given in th e t ext and you can look up th e full details in th e bibli ograph y at th e back) . Thi s offers a lot of informati on in ver y little space . Th e book s also explain tech nical terms and use bo xes to describ e events or ideas in m or e detail , away from th e m ain em phasis of th e discu ssion . Box es are also used at tim es t o highlight definiti on s of t er m s fr equently used or coine d by a thinker . In thi s w ay, th e box es serv e as a kind of gloss ary , easily iden tified wh en flicking throu gh th e book. Th e thinker s in th e series are ' critic al' for three reason s. First , th ey ar e exam ine d in th e light of subjects whi ch inv olve criticism : principally lit er ar y st udies or English and cult ural studies , but also oth er di sciplines wh ich r ely on th e criticism of b ook s, id eas, theories and unquesti on ed assumptions . Seco nd, they are critica l because st udying their w ork will provide you with a ' t ool kit' for your ow n informed critical r eading and th ou ght , which will ma ke you critical. Th ird , th ese thinkers ar e critical because th ey are cr ucially important : they deal with SER IES EDITOR ·S PREFACE

xi

xii

SERIES ED ITOR'S PREFACE

ideas and questions which can overturn conv entional un der standings of th e w orl d , of texts, of ever yth ing w e take for granted, leaving us with a deep er under standin g of what w e alr eady kn ew and wi th new ideas. No introducti on can tell you ever yth ing . However , by offering a way int o critical thinking , thi s series hop es to begin to engage you in an activity which is productiv e, constr uctive and po t entially life-changing.

ABBREVIATIONS

TEXTS BY HEIDEGGER GA BP BT C

o E EP H H eb

H er.

Gesamtau sgabe [Collected Works] Frankfurt: Klost erman , 197 5- . The Basic Problems if Phenomenology , tran s. Alb ert Ho fstadt er,

r ev . ed., Bloomingt on: Indiana Univ er sit y Press, 1982. Being and Time, tran s. John Macqu arrie and Edward Rob inson , O xford : Basil Blackwell , 1980. Contribu tions to Philosophy (From En 0 wning), tran s. Parvi s Em ad and Kenn eth Maly, Bloomingt on: Indi ana Uni ver sity Pr ess, 1999. Discourse on Think ing , tran s. John M . And erso n and E. Hans Fr eun d , New York, NY: Harp er & Row , 1966 . Elu cidations if H olderlin 's Poetry , tran s. Keith Hoeller, New York: Humanity Books, 2000 . The End if Philosophy , trans. Joan Stambaugh, Londo n : Souvenir Pr ess, 197 5 . History if th e Concept if Time: Prolegomena , tran s. Th eod or e Kisiel , Bloomingt on : Indiana Univ er sity Press, 1992 . ' He bel - Friend of th e H ou se' , trans . Bru ce V. Foltz and Michael H eim , Contemporary German Phil osophy 3 ( 198 3) , pp . 89- 10 1. (w ith Eugen Fink) Heraclitus Seminars, tran s. Charles H . Seibert, Evanston , Ill.: No rthwestern Uni ver sity Pr ess, 1993 .

xiv

HK

1M 1st . Log .

O nly

N P Par. PLT PR QCT Rec. Self

TB U WL WT

A B B REV I A T ION S

' De r Herkunft der Kun st un d Die Best imm ung des Denk en s", in Distan z und N dhe: RqIexionen und Analj'sen zu r Kunst der Geaenwart , eds Petra Jaeger and Rud olf Liith e , Wiirzburg: K6n igshausen und Neumann, 1983, pp. 11- 22. Intr oduction to Metaphy sics, trans. Gr egory Fried and Richard Polt, New Haven : Yale Uni ver sity Pr ess, 2000. H olderlin 's Hymn 'The lster' ; trans . William M cN eill and Juli a Davis, Bloo m ington : Indiana Uni ver sity Pr ess, 1996 . ' Logos (Heraclitus , Fragm ent B 50) ', Earlj' Greek Thinkina , trans. David Farr ell Kr ell and Frank A. Capuzzi, N ew York, NY.: Harp er & Row, 1975, pp . 59- 78. ' O nly a God Can Save Us' , in Richard W olin ed ., The Heideaa er Cont roversy: A Criti cal Reader, Cambridg e Massachu setts: MIT , 1993, pp . 9 1- 116. Nietzsche, 4 vols. , trans. David Farrell Kr ell , and (vol. 4) Frank A. Capuzzi, New York: Harp er & Row , 1979- 82. Pathmarks, trans. Frank A. Capuzz i et al . , ed . William M cN eill , Cambridg e: Cambridg e Univ er sity Pr ess, 1998 . Parmenides, trans . Andr e Schuw er and Richard Rojcew icz, Bloomingt on : Indiana Univ er sity Pr ess, 1992. Poetry , Lana uaa e, Thouqh t ; trans. Alb ert H ofstadter , New York, NY: Harp er & Row , 1971. The Prin ciple if Reason , tran s. Reginald Lilly, Bloo m ington : Indiana Univ er sity Pr ess, 1996. The Q!1CStion Conceminq Technoloay and Other Essays, trans. William Lovitt, New York, NY, Harp er & Row , 1977. 'The Rector at e 1933/ 34 : Facts and Th ought s' , trans . Kar sten Harries, Review qf Metaphysics 38 ( 1985) , pp. 479-5 02 . 'The Self-Assertion of th e German Univ er sity' , trans . William S. Lewi s, in W olin ed., Th e Heideaaer Controversy: A Critical Reader , pp . 29- 39 . On Time and Beina , trans. Joan Stambaugh , New York, N Y: Harp er and Row, 1972 . Uberliiferte Sprache und Techni sche Sprache, Switz erland : Erker Verlag, 1989 . On th e Way to Lana uaa e, trans. Pet er D . H ertz, San Francisco , Ca .: Harp er & Row , 1971 . What is Called Thi nk ina, trans . J. Glenn Gra y, New York, N Y: Harp er & Row, 1968.

OTHER TEXT Pet .

H einrich Wi egand Pet zet , Encounters and Dialog ues with Ma rtin Heideqqer 1929-1 976 , tra ns . Parvi s Emad and Kenn eth Maly, Chicago : Univ er sity of Chicago Pr ess, 1993 .

A B B REV I A T ION S

XV

WHY HEIDEGGER?

Martin H eid egger is th e hid den m aster of m od ern th ought . Hi s influ ence on thinker s in th e seco nd half of th e twentieth century, th ough often un spok en , is all per vasive , espe cially in th at m elange in th e human iti es kn own curiously as ' theory' . H eid egger ' s w ork t ou ches th e deep est , usually un con sider ed assum ptio ns of all w ork of th ought, forming a r eassessm ent of the drive to kn owl edge it self. In th e second half of th e twentieth cent ur y it w as oft en under H eid egger ' s direct or indir ect influ en ce th at th e tradition al view th at int ellectual and scientific inquir y, th e search for truth , is inh er ently disinter est ed , or even critical of un w ar rant ed forms of auth ority, gave way to arg um ents th at th e drive to kn ow is often com pro m ised by elem ents of d ominati on and contro l. H eid egger died in 197 6 at th e age of eighty- six, and hi s w ork has becom e even m or e prominent since th at time, espe cially in contine ntal Euro pe wher e th e declin e of Marxism has brought H eid egger ' s radi cal critique of W est ern th ought to a new prominen ce. H eid egger 's thinking concerns things so fundam ental th at th ose com ing t o H eid egger for th e first time should be w arned th at th e bases of just abo ut ever yth ing th ey think, assum e, or take for grant ed are at stake in his texts. Imagin e th at th e wh ole of W est ern th ought, since th e time of th e first philosoph ers in ancient Gr eece, has been in th e grip of a prejudice affecting all it s aspects and even what seem s selfevide nt. Thi s is something so deep and all- pe r vasive th at it should not

2

WHY HEIDEGGER?

even be calle d a prejudice if th at word implies cho ice and individual mi sjud gem ent rath er th an an un avoid abl e heritage into which peopl e are b orn and r eceive th eir m ost seem ingly immediat e sense of th emselves . Thi s is H eid egger ' s m assive claim, and his view of ' W estern m et aph ysics' as being constitut ed in t erms th at call for 'deconstr ucti on ' has sinc e become amplified in the w ork of th e contem po ra ry Fr ench thinker Jacqu es Derrida (1930- ) . Heidegg er 's thinking is b oth a pr ofound phil osophy and a radical critique of th e fund am ental assum ptions of m od ernity, under standing ' m ode rnit y' with th e critic Lawren ce E. Cahoone as: The positive self-image modern Western cultu re has often given to itself, a picture born in the eighteen th-century Enlightenment

of a civilization

founded on scientific knowledge of the world and rational knowledge of value, which places the highest premium on individual human life and freedom, and believes that such freedom and rationality will lead to social progress through virtuous self-controlled work, creating a better material , political and intellectual life for all. (Cahoone 1996: 12)

Heidegg er is deepl y r eacti onar y in th e prop er , not necessaril y condemning sense of th e w ord. Hi s thinking aligns him with th ose who ' see modernity in stead as a m ovem en t of ethnic and class dominati on , Euro pean imper ialism , anthropocentrism , th e destructi on of nature , th e dissolut ion of community and tradition, th e rise of alienation, th e death of individuality in bureaucracy' (ibid) . Altho ugh the term post -dat es him , Heid egger is also a major thinker of 'globalization' . Heidegger was a phil osoph er who gave suprem e im po r tance t o so m e poet ic texts. He r etained , however , a phil osopher ' s cont empt for th e field of lit er ar y criticism , with its m ix of m oralism and ama t eur phil osophizing . If the lit er ar y takes on a new importan ce for H eid egger , it is becau se his thinking also disputes what ' philosophy' has alw ays m eant sinc e classical Greece . In Rein er Schiir ma nn's words : The responsibility traditionally incumbent on the philosophe r, his true mission , consisted in securing ultimate referents or principles. Whether he analyzed substance and its attributes or consciousness and its intentional acts , he spoke as the expert on deep anchorage : an anchorage that guaranteed meaning in

discourse, soundness of mind, objectivity of knowledge, value of life, if not possible redemption from infractions. (Schurrnann 1990 : 286)

H eid egger pulls up th e ancho r. Against th e aggr essive drive of human r eason to ju stify and under stand hu m an existe nce by r eferenc e to its autho rity alo ne, Heid egger in sists on th e limits and fragility of human kn owledge . Perv ading all of Heid egger ' s w ork is an inten se sense of crisis, of living at a grim ly decisive time for th e future of humanity. Thi s sense gr ew initially out of th e collapse and humiliati on of Germa ny after its defeat in Th e First W orld W ar . H eid egger ' s respon se w as one shar ed by m any Germa ns at th e tim e, a sense of th e utter bankruptcy of th e old civilized values and mo des of life . Hans Georg Gadam er ( 1900- ), who was to becom e Heidegger 's m ost famous stud ent , r em ember s th e immen se shock of first encounte ring Heidegger ' s t eachin g in th e 192 0s: A generation shattered by the collapse of an epoch wanted to begin completely anew ; it did not want to retain anything that had formerly been held valid . Even in the intensification of the German language that took place in its concepts , Heidegger's thought seemed to defy any comparison with what philosophy had previously meant. (Gadamer 1994: 69)

H eidegger ' s thinking embraced not just th e phil osophical and social crisis of Ger m any at thi s time, but becam e a power ful reassessm ent of the m ost basic values and assum ptions of W estern civilizatio n sinc e anci ent Gr eece . Gadam er describes th e m assive impact of Heidegger in lectures whi ch encom pa ssed anci ent Gr eek th ou ght and contem po rary issues within th e sam e powerful over-v iew : 'It was like a new break thro ugh into the unknown th at posed som eth ing radically new as com par ed with all th e mo vements and counter mo vem ents of th e Christian Occident' (Gadam er 1994 , 69). While other thinker s of crisis fr om thi s tim e, such as Os wald Spengler and his onc e fam ou s The Declin e if th e West ( 19 18), have becom e of m er ely hist ori cal inter est , H eid egger ' s th ought retain s an impact which is still w orking it self out . Many intellectual positi on s oft en lab elled ' pos t mo derri' inh abit th e space opened up by Heid egger ' s attacks on the abso lutism of

WHY HEIDEGGER?

3

4

WHY H E I D E G G E R ?

m od ernity' s drive to kn ow. H eid egger ' s effect has been to r elease a sense of th e fragility of th e gro unds of human th ou ght , ar t and cult ure generally, an effect r einfor ced by th e influ en ce of H eid egger ' s m ost fam ou s contem po rary foll ower , Jacqu es Der rida. It is ir oni c th er efor e th at neither w ould endorse th e r elativi sm associ at ed with th e slog an ' post m ode rn' t o th e exte nt of abandoning th e claims of truth and objectivity, by arguing , for exam ple , th at m od ern ph ysics is no m or e valid or invalid than anci ent Chinese astr onom y, or th at phil osophy, scienc e and r eligion all need to be thus ' relativized ' as 'c ult ural constr ucts ' (see Der rida 1999 : 77- 9; Polt 1999: 71-2 ,103- 6) . Both are conc ern ed to take r eceived m od es of phil osophizing and th ought t o th eir limits, yet not with a view to m er ely discr editing or m aking th em all on a level , but to trace th e deep est assum ptions of W est ern th ought , its m arg ins and boundari es, opening th emselves in th e pr ocess to what other m odes of b eing and thinking , if any, might b e conceived b eyond it . It is in thi s context th at Heidegg er turned to th e poet ic , not m erely as one cult ural discourse am ong oth ers , or as an are na for com pe ting histor ical for ces, but as a singular m od e of ' t ruth ' and ' knowledge ' , m eaning th ese no longer in th e sense th ese have in phil osophy or scienc e traditionally under st ood , but precisely as m odes of tho ught clos ed off and repressed by th e W est ern tradition. It is cust omar y in a bri ef introducti on like thi s to cover th e biograph y of th e thinker at issue . Thi s is an appr oach Heid egger himself despi sed as a w ay of evading th e one thing th at m atter s in any thinker , th e life of th eir th ought. In any case , except for one issue, H eid egger ' s bi ogr aph y is ped estrian reading . H e w as born of a provin cial Catho lic family in Messkir ch , in Swabia, Sout hern Germa ny in 1889 . H e turned from b eing t rained as a cleric to th e sciences and m ath emati cs and th en t o philosophy, becom ing th e star pupil and th en m ain foll ower of Edm und Hu sserl (18 59-1 938), founder of th e schoo l kn own as ' phe nomenology'. Heid egg er ' s m agnum opus, Beina and Time ( 1927), on which his r eputati on w as largely based , is dedi cat ed t o Husserl , wh ose th ought it non e th e less drastically under cut s. H eid egger b ecam e Hu sserl' s successo r, living the un eventful , slightly self-enclosed life of a professor of phil osophy at Fr eiburg . H e never left his nativ e are a of Ger ma ny, t o wh ich he felt deepl y attache d. He w as buried in his hom e town in 1976. Th e one exception to th is un eventful sto ry threat en s to remain better kn own th an anyth ing of H eid egger ' s th ought itself. In 1933, a

few months after it had com e to power in Germa ny, Heidegger join ed th e Nazi party . Fro m 1933 to 1934 he gave th e Nazis his suppo r t as Rect or of Fr eiburg Univ er sit y . Th e exte nt of H eid egger ' s inv olv ement is cont ro versial, and it seems th at som e sor t of disillu sion set in swiftly fr om 1934 . It w as sufficient, however , for him to b e banned fr om t eaching for five years aft er the end of th e Seco nd W orld W ar. So r eader s of H eid egger have had to hold in th eir minds two almost irreconci lable facts . Th at H eidegger is widely r egarded as th e gr eatest philosopher of th e twen ti eth century: th at , for an un certain time , he w as a suppo r ter of th e Nazis . Th ese issues are visited in Chapter 7 .

CONTEXT The temp late for t he Rout ledge Crit ical Th inkers Series , imposed on every study with in it, promises to put these cr ucial thinkers 'back' into t heir historical conte xt. Th is is no doubt main ly an appeal to a current intellectual cliche with the aim of attracting readers . It raises, neverthe less, a vital quest ion : what is the 'context' for a t hin ker like Heidegger, and what would it mean, assuming it were possib le, to put him 'back' into it (as if he were some sort of escaped rabb it)? The problem here is easily stated : a reading or arg ument by Heidegger, his wor k on the poet Rainer Maira Rilke

(1875~1926)

for instance (PLT:

91-142) , will often fi nd that understanding a specific term or issue means unravelling modes of thought that may have first been formed more tha n two millenn ia before (with the anc ient t hinker Parme nides in this case). Gadamer wr ites of Heidegger as having 't he determination of a t hinker who saw the present and t he past. the fut ure and the Greeks as a tota lity' (Gadamer 1994, 11 4). So when Heidegger opens up Rilke's poetry w ith a view to ancient assumptions about huma nity and being t hat still encompass the modern West , the 'context' at issue is not a 'historical' one in the norma l, comfortable sense (as for a conve ntional crit ic who wou ld open up the text by way of the context of Rilke's life , his politics, his social prej udices , religio us debates and so on). Heidegger' s is, at the very least, a context wh ich modern people still inhabit - or wh ich rather inhabits us to the extent that we will never be able to see it who le. Th e aim of putting Heidegger 'back' into his 'context' in that sense is t hus incoherent , nonsensical. 'When people claim to be "against" Heidegger- or even "for " him - t hen t hey make fools of themselves. One cannot circ umvent t hink ing so easily ' (Gadamer 1994: 112).

WHY HEIDEGGER?

5

6

WHY HEIDEGGER?

Heidegger' s refusal to be histor icized in th is contain ing way is the reason w hy his t houg ht cont inues to impact and to be reread , Yet it is also the reason w hy the major feature of Heidegger's own immediate 'context ' , his engageme nt wit h t he Nazis in t he early 1930s, becomes so imponderabl e and disturb ing (see Chapter 7), Of all the questions Heidegger's Nazi episode raises perhaps t he most difficu lt is t his one: how far may fasc ism also be integral to the broad context that the West still inhabits, but which it does not see?

Thi s book is primaril y an introducti on to Heid egger for students of lit er ature . Heid egger was a phil osopher of m any sides, but thi s b ook is abo ut his thinking on qu esti on s of lit er ature and criticism. Altho ugh th er e are several acc essible introducti on s to Heid egger , focused on Beina and Time (1 9 27 ), thi s th e first such w ork on Heid egger ' s poeti cs and lit er ar y th eor y, which alm ost entir ely postd at e th at work. Th e first two chapte rs will focu s on th e cr ucial elem ents of th e earlier Heidegger th at continued into hi s turn to ar t and poetry in th e mid-1 930s. Chapters 3 and 4 are devot ed almost entir ely t o Heid egger ' s great lecture . 'The O rigin of th e W ork of Art', deliv er ed in th e mid-1 930s and published in 1950 . Chapt er 5 look s at Heid egger ' s pr ofound and counter- int uitive thinking abo ut langu age , and Heid egger ' s ow n expe r im en ts with writin g in dialogu e for m and his other expe rim ents with differ ent ways of writing in phil osophy. Thi s chapt er also st udies in som e detail th e kin d of clos e r eading H eidegg er gives to a traditi on al phil osophical text , in thi s case ju st one cr ucia l t erm fro m th e anci ent Gr eek thinker Her aclitus. At tentio n to how H eidegger r eads prepar es th e gro und for under standing his distinctiv e approach t o poet ic texts, th e detailed conc ern of Chapt er 6 . Her e th e focus t urns to th e significanc e Heid egger grants one extraordinar y writer , th e Germa n r omanti c poet Fri edrich H old erlin ( 177 0- 1843) . Th e seco nd half of thi s chapt er takes th e read er throu gh the main m oves of Heid egger ' s r eading of H old erlins ode ' Ge r mania'. Chapter 7 conc erns th e scandal of Heid egger ' s inv olv em ent with th e Naz is in th e mid-1930s, and th e fraught qu esti on of how thi s must affect th e r eception of his th ought . Is it possible to answ er claims th at Heid egger 's thinking r emains essen tially fascist or th at it is m er ely reacti on ar y in th e narrow sense? Finally, a last chapt er surveys H eidegger ' s all- per vasive if often un spok en influence up on lit er ar y study sinc e th e 1940s, espe cially his legacy in r elati on

t o th e continuing ' deconstr uction' of W est ern th ou ght engaged by D errida and oth ers . H eid egger ' s influ en ce has been m assive and incalcul abl e on qu esti on s of poetic langu age, th e nature of interpretati on , th e place of art and th e crisis endured by th e m od ern artist . However , th e inaccessible and r ecalcitrant m od e of H eid egger ' s writings m akes any attem pt to r elat e H eid egger clearl y bu t also nonreductiv ely to lit er ar y and critical debat e a considerable labour of r e-description and elucidation . So, even if it did not wi sh t o b e so , thi s book cannot bu t be original in th e eluci dations and redepl oym ent s it m akes . H eid egger ' s com plet e w orks ar e still being edite d and translat ed . His great est w ork on poet ics, th e influ ential st udy of H old erlin , only appear ed in English while thi s b ook was being written , a full fift y years lat e . N ew texts in th e Complete Works appear each year and th e tracing of Heid egger' s path s continually inv olv es new m aps. So, thi s introdu cti on also offers a respon se to th e emerging implication s and surprises of an extraordinar y b ody of th ou ght th at is still appearing .

WHY HEIDEGGER?

7

1 THE LIMITS OF THE THEORETICAL

It requires a very un usual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvio us. (A. N. Whitehead)

H eid egger is oft en ackno wledg ed as th e m ost decisive and m ost influ ential thinker of th e second half of th e twentieth century. All th e sam e it is not hard t o see why no intr oducti on to Heid eggeri an poetics exist s. Many assum ptions usually at w ork in an introduct or y volu m e of thi s kind are exactly those H eidegger spent his lifetime attacking - the assum ption th at philosophical th ought or lit er ar y r eading are a m atter of 'having a th eor y' and then pu tting it into practice, th at th er e are ' key id eas' in th e sense of conceptual packages th at can be transferred lik e so m any commodities acr oss a counter , th at a wo r k of th ou ght is in the bu siness of making its matter available in the 'quickest and che ape st w ay' (0: 45) . Heid egger ' s injuncti on to fr ee ourselves fro m ' th e techn ical interpretation of thinking ' wh ose origins ' re ach back to Plato and Aristo tl e' (P : 240) includes th e noti on that thinking is a kind of inn er tool kit , containing 'ide as' t o be pi cked up and employed on ' problem s' as occasion r equires. An introducti on t o H eid egger ' s thinking th at does not at once r egist er th ese issu es has already failed t o give a sense of it s challe nge and fundam ental disturban ce . N everthel ess , H eid egger need not be hard to un der stand , onc e one acce pts th at he is qu esti oning wh at ' unde rstanding' or ' kno wing ' usually

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m ean. H eid egger ' s top ic is in fact th e obvious, things so basic as to seem beyond qu esti on and self-evident . Heid egger 's claim is th at th e cours e of European and incr easingly global histor y has b een largely det ermined as th e hitherto un seen w orking out of utterl y basic but usually un con sider ed m od es of thinking and b eing , dating back to anci ent Greece . Th ese ar e now culm inating in a global technoscientific civilization th at H eid egger saw as a threat not ju st to th e ear th it self but to th e essence of humanit y, for such a ' civilization' is perfectl y capable of r egarding peopl e as m er ely ano th er econom ic r esource or even a waste pr oduct . Fr eedo m from th is m on olith is th e conc ern of Heid egger ' s thinking . His book s, said Heid egger , ' have only a single task, nam ely to let th e being th at w e ourselves are b ecom e a r eal distress and a r eal lib er ati on ' (Pet: 100 ) . Th e issue is ' be ing' , a conc ept dismissed by some phil osoph er s as an em pty abstractio n , or th e broadest generalization possible, for the least th at one can say of anyth ing, is tha t it 'is'. For Heid egger , it is neither pointlessly em pt y nor vacu ou sly general: it is th e neglected issue of W estern th ought , secr etly det er m ining its possibiliti es and its destructiv en ess. ' D o w e in our tim e have an answ er t o th e qu esti on of what w e r eally m ean by th e w ord 'be ing '? Not at all ' (BT : 19) . Yet any time w e think or speak of any entity at all, from a galaxy to a poet ic tex t , w e are alre ady w orking , albeit un con sciou sly, within a set of assum ptions ab out wh at is m eant m er ely by saying of someth ing th at it 'is' . Heidegg er 's 'history of b eing ' can conveni ently be th ought of as a history if the obvious, which m ean s not an obvious hi stor y but an attenti on to how th e ver y hori zon within which all things ar e un con cealed for us has changed, is itsel f hist ori cal. Th e surprising fact is that the obvio us has a hist or y and so b ecom es, as w e r ead H eidegg er, newly qu esti on abl e . For a cer tain under standing of being has com e , unnoti ced but all per vading , t o attune all of W est ern th inking and also ' com m on sense' . Heid egger nam es thi s 'the determinati on of being as presen ce'. Th e ' de te r m ination of being as presen ce ' is a lot to swallo w at onc e . However , a basic poin t can be m ad e quite briefly . W estern th ought , sinc e th e in cep tion of phil osophical qu esti oning in anci ent Athens, is driven towards a kn owled ge th at w ould be a timeless un condition ed truth about th e univ er se and human life, a kn owledge based not on dogm a, r eligiou s or oth er w ise, bu t on wh at is at test ed to hu m an r eason alone . Th e 'determ ination of being as presen ce ' nam es, crudely

speaking, th e kind of thing th at th e w orld m ust be taken to be in order for it to cor respo nd t o and justify such an ideal of th eor etical kn owledge, a kn owled ge disengaged fr om it s object and positin g it neutrally, fr om th e outs ide as it w er e . Such a stance on things, on b eing , inter r ogat es th em with a view to what can b e const rued as univ er sally t rue, perpetually extant/ pre sent as an object of cont em plat ion for th e intellect . Thi s is the suppos edly ' tr ue ' w orld , per ceivabl e with difficulty by th e mind alone , as oppos ed th e 'lesser' im m edi ate wo rld of sensa tions, passion s and inter ests in whi ch w e find ourselves . For Heidegger , this whole two and a half mill ennia pr oject of m eta physics and scienc e need s to be drastically qu alified. Thi s is not in order to affirm som e crass and vagu ely ' postm ode rn' noti on th at all kn owl edge is ' mer ely relativ e ' , but t o r eaw aken a fundam ental questio ning into th e conditions , sour ces and limi ts of hu m an kn owl edge . H er e is just one issue to begin wi th . Th e drive to attain some r ealm of un changing essential truths ben eath ph enom ena is also, necessaril y, th e positing of human r eason as th e capable b ear er of such a timeless stanc e . Is thi s, Heid egger w ould ask , a deni al of our m ortalit y, and of th e hi stor ical nature of our existe nce?

METAPHYSICS Metaphysics is trad it iona lly the field of philosop hy wh ich asks the most f undame nta l quest ions about what t hings are. By 'f undamental ' here is meant not j ust quest ions of t he emp irical kind that coul d in princ iple be resolved by exper ime nt (such as t hat of t he ult imate com posit ion of matter, or the energy conte nt of the universe) but questions w hic h wou ld remain even after all suc h issues were answered . Metaphysical quest ions would be: 'w hat is the nat ure of nu mber?' ; 'what is the dist inct ion betwee n the mater ial and t he non-material?' ; 'w hat is cause and effect? ' ; 'why is there anyth ing at all rather tha n noth ing?' and , fi nally , 'wh at do we mean anyway when we say of someth ing that it "is" or ask "wh at is . , .?"?'. In Heidegger the term 'metaphysics' usua lly bears a negat ive infl ect ion, 'Metaphysical' are t hose deepest , inherited decisions about w hat t hings are wit hin w hic h Weste rn people immediately live, These are all-pervad ing , fi nding t heir most explicit expressio n in ph ilosop hers' writ ings on 'metaphysics ' in t he generic sense, In other words, Western humanity has lived wit hin a certa in understanding of fundamental questions since t he ancie nt Greeks, assumptions it is now urgent to quest ion ,

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Heidegger 's is a thinking of th e finitude of human life . Th ou ght cannot tra nsc end its own hist ori city, or achieve , except in fantasy, th at kin d of assured un -w orlded ' tr uth ' id ealized in W estern cult ures . Yet W est ern life sinc e th e Gr eeks seems det ermined as a deni al of thi s finitude , in a drive t owards th eor etical kn owledge that is now culm inating in th e globalization of techn o-scien ce and bureaucrati cally m apped and contro lled forms of life . Thi s drive w oul d culm inate, or self-dest ruc t, writes Heid egger , when hu m an rati onalit y comes to build up a th eor eti c rep r esen tati on of it s ow n w orking so seem ingly assure d as t o enable it t o build its appare nt duplicat e . ' Sometime s it seems as if m odern human it y is ru shing headl ong toward thi s goa l of produciriq itself technoloqically' (P : 197) . Thi s is a ' nihilism' , the drive th at hu m an th inking , im poss ibly or em ptily, justifies itself with r efer en ce only to its own procedures , r esting on ' value s' only of its own positing . ' If humanity achieves this, it will have explode d itself ... ' (ibid) . In directing his life ' s w ork against nih ilism , Heid egger ' s thinking attem pts to un cover a mor e fundam en tal , pre-r eflective non -appropriativ e relati on t o bein g . Thi s he saw at wo r k in th e kind of kn owledge of things sho w n by traditional craftsm en, such as in a car pent er 's deep , non -theor etical un der standing of w ood , or in the life of peasants or finally, to a degr ee, in ar t and poetry . To m ake a star t, I will turn t o one in stan ce of Heid eggeri an thinking at w ork . Thi s conc er ns a contem po rary project to achieve an un con diti on ed and uni ver sally valid th eor etical kn owl edge .

THE PRE-THEORETICAL CONDITIONS OF THEORY For some thirty years, Hubert Dreyfus has drawn on Heid eggeri an thinking t o m ake fundam ental criticism of project s in Ar tificial Int elli genc e (AI), under st ood in th e sense of th e attem pt to r epr esent - and hen ce for so m e t o ' explain' - intelligent hu m an behaviour by m odelling it on a comput er, th at is as th e operation of a com plex bu t lim it ed set of pr ecise algo rith ms. Th e important poin t for us her e is not com puter scienc e per se but the w ay in which assum ptio ns in AI are a supr emely clear exam ple and a putting t o the test of cr uci al features of th e 2,5 00 year phil osophical tradition th at H eid egger attacks (what he terms ' Weste rn m etaphysics '), a tradition he saw as culm inating in cybernetics and infor m ation th eor y . Since Socrat es and Plato phil osopher s and lat er scientists have assum ed th at to have a rati on ally gro unded kn owledge of som eth ing

m eans t o have a transp ar ent and self-consistent formulation of its under lying principles. It is held th at rational inquiry should set out to defin e th e univ er sally applicable conc epts and precise logical relati ons th at should ground th e per ception and understanding of things. Ren e Descart es (1596-16 50) , writing at th e time of th e emergence of m od ern scienc e, argue d th at any problem might be analysed into basic elements and all human kn owledge deduced fr om first principles. Th e prop osi ti on becam e almost axiom atic th at wh at is truly real is onl y what w e can know with th e intell ect and with m ath em atic al cer tainty . Phil osophy comes t o be under sto od as a foundati on al ente r prise - th e securing of foundati ons th at perman ently gro und inquiry and ancho r cult ure in th e truth , b ecoming ideally a tribunal of r eason and final arbiter of com peting claim s to truth or to right . Pulling up th at ancho r, Heid egg er turns to a r econsider ati on of our day-t o-day ordinary , taken -for -gr anted understanding ofthings and each other. Tradition takes it as r ead th at understanding th e w orld and being com petent in its activities dep ends up on having an effective inn er m od el of th e w orld and fluen cy in m anipulating it from one context to ano ther. At issue is what can be calle d ' the ore ticism ' - th e cr ucial assum ption th at under standing consists in havin g an implicit or explicit th eor y of what is bein g under stood, that all human behaviour is a kind of kn owing in som e sense . Thus th e m or e efficient your inn er logic , th e better your com pet enci es and th e m or e you under stand th e w orld . Co m puter m od elling and th e building of w ould-be intelligent m achines put th ese seemingly innocuou s assum ptions into practi ce . If w e can state our r elati on to things in a clear self-consist ent th eor y, it is argued , th en w e can also embody th at th eor y in a device ; cor relatively, trying to build such a device may be th e b est way to construct a w orkabl e th eor y . Thi s may seem all ver y reason abl e, bu t th e fact is th at AI in th is sense w as a dism al failure . T o unravel wh y is t o appro ach several cr ucial H eid eggeri an argume nts. Lat er , th ese will open up issues far broad er th an th at of com peting m od els of human rati on alit y. For AI, th e probl em is th e everyday, th at is, th e non -r eflectiv e under standing of things th at peopl e take for granted . Co m puter science r em ain s far less daunted in progr amming a com puter to play chess at gra nd-master level th an m od elling even th e basic task of r ecogni zing and pi cking out th e vari ous chess pieces from th e box or fr om a jumbled heap . Why is thi s? Let' s take a hyp oth eti cal case, th e th eor eti cal m od elling of th e under standing of a straightfor ward English sentence : THE

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Because of the strike , she was unable to repair the lock in time to be able to leave f or her hal iday.

Th e issue her e is th at wh at is obvious for us is act ually multiplicit ou s and ext raordinarily subtle wh en it com es to th em atizing it in a way that spells out ever y elem ent inv olv ed in th e way a com puter w ould require . For instance , let us unp ack th e simple words ' unable' and 'able' (' . . . she was un abl e t o rep air th e lock in tim e to be able to leave for her holi day ') . Th e normal understanding of th e senten ce - though nowher e explicit in its terms - w ould include th e fact th at th e w om an canno t r epair th e lo ck herself. W e kn ow th at this job usu ally requires a lo ck smith , and also th at most peopl e ar e not lo cksmiths . So w e probably r ead th e verb ' unable' in th e sense of her not succeeding in findin g a qu alified per son in time (' she was un abl e to r ep air th e lock in time to be able to leave . . . ' ) . W e w ould probably r eject th e pos sible m eaning th at th e strike som eho w hinder ed her own skill in r epairing locks her self. Our understanding of th e senten ce is confir m ed, without our even thinking about it, by r efer en ce t o a ' st rike' : w e infer, again without being t old explicitl y, thi s m eans a strike of peopl e qu alified to effect th e r epair , or of peopl e necessar y to th em in some w ay . In fact , wh en w e paus e to unravel it , even th e m ost mundane sent enc e or acti on draw s on a vast and inchoat e m ass of assum ed under standing that gets bigg er th e m or e one tries to explicate it . Thus , when w e com e to th e w ord 'able' lat er in th e sam e senten ce w e understand at onc e that it r efer s to a differ ent sort of capability, not a ph ysical one but a psychological one: she is doubtless perfectly capable ofl eaving for her holiday with th e door brok en if she wanted to , but is not 'able ' in th e sens e of feeling she cannot risk it . Understanding thi s inability also requires an ind efinite amo unt of ba ckgr ound kn owled ge abo ut how human beings live, for instance ab out housing, abo ut ri sk of th eft, which in turns implies under standing of noti on s of prop erty, oflaw , etc . This analysis co uld go on , unravelling furth er and furth er layer s of wh at for us is obvious in thi s obvio us sent enc e - th at th e w om an is dealing with th e hou se she lives in for instance . Th e point is th at all of th ese things are evide nt to us, even to th e exte nt th at this spelling th em out seems slightly absurd, yet , decisively, this also sho ws th at th e m od es of understanding at issue ar e so subtl e and multi -layer ed th at th ey could probably never be m od ell ed in th e kind of self-contain ed formalized th eor y r equired by a digit al com puter .

What ar e th e implication s of thi s for th eor eti cism ? Quite sim ply th at it is wrong . Co m pet enc e in get ting abo ut th e w orld is not necessaril y th e application of som e inn er th eor y of it . Mu ch human under standing dep ends up on an implicit , non -th em ati zed shared mode of b eing - to r ecognize what a holid ay is inv olv es a sense of wh at w ork m ean s, and t o need a holid ay or to feel tired . Thi s inv olv es not som e th eor y of th e conc ept 'holiday' but an em pathetic sens e of th e embodied human w orld , its limits, its w eariness and its r ecr eat ions . Thi s sense is not a theory at all. In fact , if one unravels it , ever yth ing in th e sent enc e involv es th at sor t of under standing at som e level. Fear of th eft relat es t o th e need for bodil y shel ter , for provision s and equipment for life . Th ese in turn r elat e, along with th e need for a holid ay, to a sense of a finit e life ' s day to day ene rgies and goals, its ' care ' in H eid egger ' s sens e of its conc ern for its own existe nce , and alw ays, implicit bu t fund am ental , th e possibility of death , th at life is not infinite . ' [I]n th e last analysis all int elligibility and all intelligen t behaviour must hark back to our sense of wh at w e are, wh ich is, necessaril y, on pain of regr ess, som ething w e can never explicitl y kno w' (Dreyfus and Dreyfus 198 6: 81 ) . H eid egger' s nam e for what w e are in thi s sens e is Dasein . Th e t erm is colloquial Germa n, m eaning 'e xiste nce ' , liter ally ' be ing th er e ' , th ough its mi sfortune is t o so und in English lik e a t echn ical t erm. A ' vague aver age under standing of being ' (BT : 25) is given us in advanc e, for it is wh at ma kes up our existence in th e first place . (T o anticipate, such non -r eflectiv e , non -th eor eti cal under standing is th e elem ent of poetic langu age , e. g. how, for instan ce , w ould AI m od el Sophocles ' lin e , in th e dram ati st T om Sto ppard 's ver sion : ' Love , said Sophocles, is lik e th e ice held in th e hand by childr en ' (Sto ppard 1997 : 4 3)?) Even as w e go abo ut such m undane activities as locking and clos ing door s w e are not necessaril y em ploying any sor t of theo ry as t o wh at w e ar e do ing any m or e , say, th an walkin g or r eading a lin e of poetry is th e exte rnalization of a th eor y of locomoti on or a th eor y of poet ics. Surprisingly, th en , it is such utterl y obvio us, unthinking under standing that m akes up what is essential and mys terious abo ut hu m an intelli genc e, not th ose complex operatio ns of arithm etic or symbo lic th ought w e valu e so much . (See Beth Pr est on ( 1993) for a furth er develop m ent of Hubert Dreyfus' s Heid eggeri an arg um ent .) It is tim e to intro duc e some H eid egger m or e dir ectl y. What do es thi s failure of AI sho w ? First, th at human existe nce involv es a vast range THE

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of conte xtual kn owledge whi ch is inh er ently unformalizabl e , i.e . not ju st som eth ing ver y com plicated but not th e kin d of thing th at could ever b e tot alized into a set of algorith ms in th e first place . It is in Heid egger 's w ords a 'ba ckground of ... prim ar y famili arity, which it self is not conscio us and intended but is rath er present in [an] unprominen t w ay' (H: 189) . W e bring with us, even in the sim plest kinds of task or statem ent, a sense of a ' w orld ' . 'World ' is one of th e majo r ter ms in Heid egger ' s th inking, in th e early w ork often clos e in m eaning to 'be ing'. It m eans no particul ar entity (it is not th e plan et or th e glob e itself) bu t is th at presupposed and disr egar ded space of famili arity and recognition within which all th e beings around us sho w th em selves, are for us. Th at is t o say, Heidegg er 's conc ept of ' w orld' is close to th e common m eaning of th e term wh en w e talk abo ut ' the w orld ' of th e Bible , or the ' w orld' of the modern Chinese or m od ern English - i .e , th e fundam ental under standing within which indi vidu al things, peopl e , hist or y, texts, buildings, project s cohere togeth er within a shar ed hori zon of significances , purposes and connotations. O ne mi ght use th e t erm ' w orld- view ' , but thi s falsely sugg ests th at a ' w orld' is a par ticul ar stance th at peopl e or individuals hold inside th eir head s, as r epresentati on s, rath er th an the m or e fundam ental shar ed disclosur e of things wi thin which th ey find th em selv es in all th eir th oughts, practices and beliefs, providing the basis even of th eir self-conceptio ns and suppos itio ns . O ur sense of th e w orld is not at hear t a 'theo r y' of it , even implicitl y : it is som ething w e ' know' in a non -r eflective way sim ply fr om our ever yday existe nce. Recountin g his vari ou s confr ontations with w orkers in AI over th e years , Huber t Dreyfus r ecalls: ' Explaining H eid egger , I continue d to assert th at w e ar e able to under stand what a chair or a hammer is only because it fits into a whole set of cult ura l pr actices in wh ich w e gro w up and wi th which w e gra dually become famili ar ' (Dreyfus and Dreyfus 1986: 5) . Ano th er way to pu t th is w ould be in terms of th e pre-th eor etical conditions of th eor y . Heidegger 's criticism is of th e dominan ce and primacy of th e theoreti cal in W estern life . Thi s does not r efer only to th e m akin g of th eori es. Its target is th e fundam ental attitude on which th eori zing is based - th e noti on of ' theoria' in its original Gr eek sense of a neutral , det ached , impartial obs er vati on , th e so-called ' view from nowher e ' . Thi s seems inn ocent eno ugh , even desirabl e , but H eid egger ' s inter est is in th e way th e would -be

th eor eti cist sta nc e arises out of anothe r m od e of un der standing whi ch it yet deni es: thi s is th e practi cal , pre-reflectiv e under standing of the w orl d and each oth er in whi ch w e actually live, as engaged beings go ing abo ut our daily tasks.

THE VIEW FROM NOWHERE? W e can dr aw on th e exam ple of AI again to insta ntiat e another st ro ng feature of much of W est ern m etaph ysics, one th at has again come to perv ad e com mon sens e . If w e talk of th e nature of kn owing , or of thinking about or per ceiving som e object, w e almost alw ays pose th e issues in th e foll owing way: that th ere is a m ind or consciousne ss on the one side and a r ealm of things and oth er m inds on th e oth er , and that kn owing or per ceiving m ean th e takin g of r epr esentatio ns of things 'out th er e' into the realm of th e mind. Thi s is a ver y famili ar du alism , one of ' m ind' and ' re ality' , ' subject' and ' obje ct'. Most of the m ajor qu esti on s of episte m ology (th e th eor y of kn owledge) ar e abo ut negotiating thi s divide - how for instance, can w e be assured th at our r epresentati on s of things, wh ether in th ought or language , r eally do cor respo nd to wh at is ' out th er e?' After all, it seems, all w e ever kn ow of r ealit y is our own r epresentati on of it . In AI, th e issue, of cours e, b ecom es how to give th e com puter cog nitive representati on s th at do corr espo nd t o things and which it can also m anipulat e in such a w ay as to give it a secure under standing of th em . H eidegg er 's aim is not to pr ovid e yet another arg um ent ab out such probl ems in th e philosoph y of per cepti on or of language . He disputes the basis up on wh ich th ey seem to emerge as intractabl e probl ems in th e first place . In thi s w ay, H eid egger ' s thinking is ' therape utic ' in the sense given by Ludwig Wittgen stein ( 1889- 195 1) when he claim ed th at the poin t was often not to addr ess the ' pro blems of phil osophy' on th eir ow n ter m s , bu t to undo th e m ental entanglement s th at had led som e t o conceive th at th er e w as a ' problem' in th e first place (W ittgenst ein 1974a : 133) . In r elati on to th e du alist episte m ology carried over by AI - according t o wh ich kn owled ge is a m atter of elem ents 'in ' th e mind r epresenting things ' out' th er e - th e point is t o get away fr om th e star ting place , th e false picture of a m ind on one side facing a w orld on th e oth er. As consideratio n of th e prer eflectiv e kin ds of ' knowledge' and ' unde r standing' t ells us, thi s starting

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place is alre ady an impossibly abstra ct and distorted im age of wh at our situation actually is. Heid egger ' s conc eption of existe nce sidest eps such du alism at once. A piv otal arg um ent of Beina and Time is that to exist m ean s to have , t o b e in , a w orld - alway s already . Th e human self is not som e enclosed inn er r ealm on th e one hand facing an outer w orld on th e oth er. Dasein is sim ply ' Beina in the w orl d ' : ' self and w orld are th e basic determinati on of th e Dasein itself in th e uni ty of th e str ucture of being-in -th e-w orld ' (BP: 297). It is not spectating consciousne ss which m akes up our primar y r elati on to entities . W e often, ind eed usually, act or speak without an espe cially focu sed consciousness of wh at w e ar e do ing (w alkin g , conver sing , using som e tool) . O ur being in th e w orld is never prim aril y th e objective, decontextualized th eor eti cal gaze of th e phil osophi cal traditi on . O ur under standing always arises out of a specific situatio n, and always brings with it som e attune ment or oth er. By 'a ttune ment' (S timmuna) , H eid egger does not m ean some fleetin g em otional state, but a gene ral unthem atized sense of things as a wh ole , th e perv asive colouring under which th ey sho w up as m attering or not mattering. Such attune ment is a basic co nstit uent of our w orld-hood - it is im pos sible, if one is alive , not t o be attune d in som e way or ano ther. It is why cer tain featur es of th e envir onment stand out for us as r elevant , while others are just not noticed . In th e case of th e brok en lock , for instance , it is a mil d sense of fear that attune s or highlights th e w om an ' s famili ar w orld , det ermining her decision not to leave her hou se yet (see BT 179-82 ). Heid egger' s thinking has som e counte r- intuitive effects - hardly surprising if one acce pts th at his target is wh at seems to th e m od ern W est self-evident or obvious . O ne thing th at m ay seem obvio us is th at understand ing any ph en om ena, such as th e w orkings of th e brain , speaking a langu age or locking door s, inv olves breakin g down the thing to be under st ood int o smaller elem ents and th e law s of th eir interaction . Thi s hardly seems cont roversial : takin g som ething apar t to under stand how it is put together now seems like com mon sense, at least to any m od ern w esterner. Th e pertinent term her e is reductionism. As a philosoph er of AI writes: ' the overall intelligen ce is explaine d by analysing th e system into smaller (less int elligent) com pone nts. .. . Th at' s th e paradigm of cog nitive science ' (H augeland 198 5: 117). Ho w do es H eid egger conte st this basic assum ption? In one of his early lectures, of February 1919 at Freiburg, H eid egger brings th e

attentio n of his audience to th e m ost commo nplace expe rience , th at of com ing into the room wher e th e lecture is now happ ening: You come to this lecture room as usual, at the usual hour, and go to your usual place. You hold on to this experience of your 'seeing your place', or else you can likewise put yourself in my place : entering the lect ure room I see the lectern . . . . What do I see: brown surfaces intersecting at right angles? No, I see something different - a box, moreover a biggish box, with a smaller one built upon it. No, that's not it at all, I see the lectern at which I am to speak.

Thi s litany of th e obvio us soo n explains itself. Heid egger is attacking the reducti oni st , m ind-as- data -processo r m od el of per ception . Th e custom ary theo r et icist per spective is th at th er e is a neutral per cepti on , a set of discr et e sense data (size, colo ur , distance, etc. ) and th at the m ind qu ickl y correlates and w orks on th ese to interpr et , say, 'br own surfaces inter secting at right angles ' as a lectern or that particul ar configuration of colo urs and shapes as m y fri en d Henry and so on . But in fact , w e do not per ceive in th at w ay: it is not as if I first saw brown intersecting surfaces, which subseq uently present themselves to me as a box, then as a speaker's desk, and next as an academic speaker's desk, a lectern, as if, in a manner of speaking, I were sticking the lectern element on the box like a label. All that is bad, misinterpreting interpretation, a deviation from purely gazing into the experience . I see the lectern at a single stroke, as it were.

I see first ' lecte rn ' : I can th en , if I wi sh , subs equently analyse thi s into sense data, r elation s etc . W e live in a w orld in whi ch th e m ean ings of things are available t o us first . Co unter -intuitively (at least for the reducti on ism now taken as normal), a sense of th e whole in som e sort precedes th e parts of which it might seem constr uct ed. Heid egger ' s view is a holism, i. e . th e sense of things overa ll preced es and m akes possibl e a gras p of th e r elevan ce or th e implicati on of specific par ts. Th e individual per ception is alre ady par t of an encom passing implicit under standing of the whole context : I don't see it in isolation, I see the lectern adjusted too high for me. I see a book lying on it, directly dist urbing to me .. . I see the lectern in an orientation, THE

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in a lighting , against a background. .. In this experience of the lectern-seeing, something presents itself to me from an immediate environment. . . . Living in an environment, it means to me everywhere and always, it is all of this world, it is worlding . (GA 56(7: 71-2; trans . from Safranksi 1998: 94-5)

Thi s is esse ntially th e point ma de earlier, that th e ' w orld ' is wh at is overloo ked, even as it is presupposed , by the th eor eti cist stanc e : World is understood beforehand when objects encounter us. It was for this reason we said that the world is in a certain sense further outside than all objects, that it is more objective than all objects but, nevertheless, does not have the mode of being of objects .

(BP 299)

So, w e do not face a lot of neu tral data, some purely object ive 'o uts ide ', fr om which w e the n build a w orld . By the sam e tok en , w e canno t withdraw ourselves into some purely 'inside' realm of det ached consciousness from which w e might look out at our involvem ents from a distan ce . T o see th at hu m an existe nce is necessaril y 'B eing -inth e-w orld ' m akes non sen se of such an oppos itio n of inn er and out er. Such holism , as w e shall see, informs Heid egger ' s turn to art as a non -th eor eti cal m od e of kn owledge . A lecture cours e of 1955- 6 argues : ' O f course w e hear a Bach fugue with our ears, bu t if w e leave wh at is heard only at thi s, with what st rikes th e tympanum as sound waves, th en w e can never hear a Bach fugu e . We hear , not th e ear' (PR: 47) . Co ntrast thi s pre-r eflectiv e noti on of w orld with the reducti oni st th eor eti cism of AI, th at is, with its effor ts to build som e m od el of human under standing out of th e combined w orkings of sim pler mo dels of bits of it . Such effor ts lead to an in sup erabl e im passe . Dreyfus crit icizes Roger Schank 's effort s to m od el hu man under standing and learning as th e application of a set of precisely defined ' m ini scripts' , concl uding : Any learning presupposes [aJ background of implicit know-how which gives significance to details . Since Schank admits that he cannot see how this background can be made explicit so as to be given to a computer, and since the background is presupposed for the kind of script learning Schank has in mind,

it seems that his project of using preanalysed primitives to capt ure com mon sense understanding is doomed . (Dreyfus 1981 : 191 -2)

W e encounte r a circ ularity kn own as th e ' he r mene utic circle ' , i. e . a circ ularity in th e act of interpret ati on . It w orks lik e this : how can you recogni ze and judge some specific fact or in a situation or t ext without a general sens e of th e situation or t ext overall, yet how can you have thi s overall sens e without som eho w first ascer taining its parts? AI finds itself in a cul de sac of circ ularity : in order t o take even it s first st ep it need s to assume th e very thing it w ant s t o explain . Dreyfus writes: ' what co unts as r elevant dep ends on th e current context. But how w e classify th e cur rent context itself dep ends on th e r elevant infor m ati on . Thi s circ ularity d oes not seem t o be a probl em amenable to successive appro xima tions sinc e th e probl em is how t o get star ted at all ' (Dreyfus 1998 : 209) . How could a com puter b e progr ammed to pick out what is relevant or not in an ever yday sit uat ion, such as th at instantiat ed in th e sentence about th e brok en lock ? For a human b eing , however , th e pr obl em of ' how to get star ted ' does not arise in thi s w ay : w e are necessaril y, as Dasein , alw ays alr eady in som e sit uat ion , attune d t o som e things m attering and oth ers not. Thi s sho uld not be r ead as an at tac k on th e natural sciences. H eid egger ' s early training was partly in scienc e and m ath em atics. Th e target is scientism, th e noti on th at th e natural sciences offer th e only genuine form of under standing , and ought to b e sole gro und of any other . Heid egger is attacking th e ' unjustified absolutization of th e th eor etical' (GA 56 /7 : 88 ), its objectification of a m or e fundam ental acce ss t o things which it actually presupposes even as it deni es th at it does so . Scientific objectivity rem ain s intact , but as the m ethod ological standard appropriate for some kinds of inv estigati on , not as th e sole m easure of legitimat e kn owledge .

TRUTH AS CORRECTNESS AND TRUTH AS UNCONCEALMENT A cr ucial issue , of co urs e, is ' t ruth '. Since Aristo tl e, truth has b een taken to nam e, sim ply , th e relati on of a judgement or pr op osition to r ealit y. A stat em ent is true if it cor re sponds t o th e stat e of affairs it describes (' Th e lock is br ok en ' is true if it r efer s to a situatio n that THE L IM I T S 0 F THE THE 0 RET I CAL

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sho ws a brok en lock) . Thi s is all ver y un surpri sing but in fact, as Heid egger sho ws , a decisive elem ent of th e qu esti on has already b een overloo ked. Thi s so-called corr espo ndenc e th eor y of truth cor relates judgem ents on th e one hand and a realm of objects on th e oth er : Truth means today and has long meant the agreement or conformity of knowledge with fact. However, the fact must show itself to be fact if knowledge and the proposition that forms and expresses knowledge are to be able to conform to the fact. (pLT : 51)

In ot her w ords, how co uld ther e b e any per cep tion of th e correspo n dence of a judgement and things unl ess ' t ruth' in another , deep er sense w er e not alr eady available to us, unnoticed . Th e poin t is sim ple. W e could not judge if th e prop ositi on 'x is y' w er e either true or false if neith er x nor y w er e not mad e appare nt to us, un con cealed in some way as such or such , and thi s disclosur e is a necessar y condition for any cor relatio n of objects and judgem en ts ab out them : With all our correct representations we would get nowhere , we could not even presuppose that there already is manifest something to which we can conform ourselves, unless the unconcealed ness of beings had already exposed us to, placed us in that lighted realm in which every being stands for us and from whic h it withdraws . (pL T: 52)

In oth er w ords, truth in th e sense of cor r ectness is seco ndary in r espect of truth as wh at Heid egger calls aletheia, the Greek w or d gener ally r ender ed as ' tr uth' bu t mo r e lit er ally ' uncovere dne ss", ' unconce alm ent' . H eid egger points out the privativ e alpha in th e anci ent Gr eek w ord , a-letheia, design ating lack of lethe or concealm ent . Thi s is not pedantry about ancient Greece : rath er ' We are reminding oursel ves of wh at , un experi en ced and unthought , underli es our famili ar and th er efor e outworn noti on of truth in th e sense of corr ectness ' (PLT: 5 2). W er e no thing unrevealed for us th er e co uld b e no ' t ruth ' in th e accepted sense of co rrespo ndence . Thi s un conc ealm ent of things is not of co urs e som eth ing human beings m ake , it is wh er e they find th emselves:

it is not we who presuppose the unconcealedness of beings; rather, the unconcealed ness of beings (Being) puts us into such a condition of being that in our representation we always remain installed within and in attendance upon unconcealedness . (PL T 52)

Yet in th e philosoph ical t radition it is th at seco ndary noti on of truth that dominat es: 'T r uth as disclosedness and as being-t ow ard un cover ed entities . . . has becom e truth as agr eem ent b etween things which ar e present-at -hand-within-th e-w orld ' (BT : 267- 8). By the m er e fact of existing, w e alr eady ' unde r stand somethi ng like Being ' (BT 39) . So ' being', for Heid egger , nam es thi s openedness, or ' clearing' , th at realm of un con cealm ent wh er eby a w orl d of particul ar b eings appe ar to us. Being , provision ally defined , is ' that on th e basis of which entities are alr eady under st ood ' (BT , 25-6). all [human] comportment is distinguished by the fact that, standing in the open region, it in each case adheres to something opened up as such . What is thus opened up, solely in this strict sense, was experienced early in Western thinking as 'what is present' and for a long time has been named 'being' . (P : 141)

It is within thi s openedness th at t ru th in the sense of un con cealed ness (of aletheia) hold s sw ay . O n th e other hand , truth in th e sens e of corr espo ndenc e is a cor relate of th e false abstracted conc eption of the w orld as a r ealm of neutral objects which th e mind then ' re pre sent s' or processes . Truth so conc eived is r emoved from our pre-r eflective r elati on to the w orld and technicized into a logical prop er ty of cer tain sort of prop ositi on s. Thus a prop ositi on like 'The lock is broken ' abstracts fr om th e wh ole cont ext th at ma kes a lock wh at it is - the door , th e building, noti on s of security , practices of living etc . - as w ell as any sense of why it sho uld m atter wh ether a lock is br ok en or not . It is thi s un -w orlded , techn ical noti on of t ruth th at dominat es th e kin d of analysis of prop ositi on s th at m akes up th e so -called 'analytic phil osophy ' still so powerful in th e Anglophon e academ ies. H eid egger is not den ying th en ' tha t truth exists' , nor is he arguing that natural scienc e has no m or e th an th e stat us of one cult ura l pr actic e am ongst ot hers, or that all systems of th ought or interpretations of life are ' me r ely r elativ e ' etc . or oth er cliches of so-called THE L IM I T S 0 F THE THE 0 RET I CAL

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postmod ernism. But he is arguing th at all th eories of human life ar e m ade possibl e by a pre-theor et ical r elati on to being th at must always be assum ed but whi ch co uld never b e full y conc eptualized . Even as it seeks t o undermine th e claims of traditional phil osophy or th e dogm atisms of som e natural scientists , Heid egger 's thinking is clearl y com m itted to th e som e interpretati on s b eing m or e valid th an oth ers. Heid egger is a ' re alist' in th e t echni cal philosophical sen se of assum ing a r ealit y th at preced es all human formulati on s (for Heidegger , it is one of th e egotistical absurdities of phil osophical r eason to im agin e th at th e existe nce of an 'e xte rnal w orld ' som eho w requir es it s proof). However , his relentless at tack on th e fantasy of our achieving a truth whi ch w ould be ahisto rica l and self-gro unding m ean s th at no int erpretati on , including his ow n , can or sho uld b e called final.

SUMMARY Western thoug ht and 'common sense' tend to assume t hat our pre-reflect ive everyday understanding of t hings , precise ly because it cannot be f ully forma lized, is somehow inadequate or merely irrat ional, to be j ustified by redescript ion in pure ly t heoretical terms as soon as possib le. Hence we hear cr ies such as 't he problem w ith consc iousness is t hat we don 't yet have a compre hens ive t heory of how it wor ks' etc . Heidegger argues against a who le tendency of Western thoug ht to valor ize theoret ical understanding as t he only true mode of understanding . He homes in on w hat actua lly happens in t he most ordinary everyday experience, demonstrat ing that our basic forms of know ledge are non-conceptual. Simp ly by exist ing a human being has a mode of access to t he wor ld that could never be rendered fully explic it in a theory . Suc h understanding is holistic , i.e. it is give n all together or not at all . It can not be grasped by the dominant tech nolog ical assumption that understandin g someth ing means breaking it down into its components - this is why, for instance , in Hubert Dreyf us's application of Heidegger's arguments to the fie ld of Art ific ial Intelli gence, a dig ital computer could never be constructed with the kind of holist ic, everyday understand ing of contexts and situat ions that huma n beings take for granted . The theoretica l attitude, contemp lating the world, tries to posit it neutrally, as just there, somet hing simply present at hand w hose elements

can be measured and their prec ise laws of interaction determined. Yet Heidegger demonstrates that suc h a not ion of objectivity is already an interpretation: it abstracts only certain aspects from the wor ld we inhabit and then posits t hem as more tr uly real t han t he others . Suc h a stance instantiates a mode of interpreting what beings really are that has been dom inant in Western life since the Greeks (what Heidegger terms 't he determ inat ion of being as presence '). Heidegger's aim is to quest ion and undo t his , demo nstrat ing its unacknowledged dependence on the kind of prereflective holist ic understanding it purports to explain . Heidegger does not offer a new systemat ic t heory of the worl d, according to t he eng ineering model of un derstanding. He wor ks to render explic it what we already understa nd prereflectively , invisible merely because so deeply taken for gra nted , even by centuries of philosophers and scient ists . A s later chapters will consider, it is by working at th is normally unconsidered but utt erly f undamental level of the pre-reflective and the 'obvio us' that art, for Heidegger, acq uires its power and importance.

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2 DEEP HISTORY (GESCHICHTE)

Human beings ar e essentially histor ical. Th ey are b orn into an envir onment alr eady formed by multiple layer s of interpret ati on and tradi ti on , even down to th e m ost seemingly immedi at e sense of things and of th e 'I' th at per ceives and thinks th em . H eid egger ' s sum ma ry stat em ent th at ' The essence
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histori ogr aph y or hist ori ology - th e sequenc e of event s and facts th at have com e and gone. It det ermines hist or y as ' a m er e chro nicle . . . an unfolding sequenc e of un ambigu ou s r ealiti es th at ar e now over and don e with ' (Rce 1998 : 4 8) . Thi s is also th e sens e of hist or y dominant , for instance, in much cont em po rary lit er ar y criticism (D ick en s and hi s age, W ordsw orth and th e Fr ench Revolution , or innumer abl e such projects th at pu t a text back into its co nt ext as into a box ) . Geschichte, on th e oth er hand , nam es so m ethi ng less fam iliar and more pr ofound. Geschichte m eans ' histo ry' as wh en w e say in English th at such or such an event or decision w as 'historical' : i. e . it alt er ed things in such a w ay th at w e are still living inside th e spac e it opened up , ju st as, say, th e modern W est still inh abit s a w orld in whi ch Christianity has been a decisive , ' hist orical' for ce, wh ether one b elieves in Jesus or not. Historical in th is way are (n ot ' we re' ) thos e fun dam en tal ways of thinking and b eing in which W estern humanity has dwelled and under stood itself sinc e ancient Greece . For Heid egger , ar chaic and classical Gr eece was sim ply the 'beginning' , and w e ar e still living out the consequ en ces of th e fund am ental m od es of th ought establishe d th er e. 'The histor y of b eing is never past but stands ever b efor e us; it sustains and defines ever y condition et situ ation h umaine' (P : 240) . Th e beginning th en is not som e databl e point in time th at hist ori ograph y mi ght map out as a star ting poin t long left behind , as if tim e w er e an unfolding r oad or race tra ck . 'The b eginning exists still . It does not lie behind us, as som ething long past , but it stands bifore us' (Self: 32) . Within th is essential unity of W est ern destiny, however , hu ge shifts must still be r ecognized . Th e w orld in its cr uci al features 'is' in a differ ent way for an ancie nt Greek, for a m edi eval m onk and for a m od ern W est erner. What each sees and under stands in th e sim plest object such as a ri ver will differ , for th e w orld - th e whole sens e of being hu m an - in relati on to which th e river appears will differ dr asti cally b etween one epoch and ano ther. Each epoch is dominat ed by fundam ental assum ptions abo ut things, principl es so deep th at are usually not even appar ent - except r etrospect ively from anothe r age. H eid egger ' s decon structi on of th ese epochs m eans th e destabili zing of th eir 'givenne ss' or self-evidenc e . What r eally matter s hist ori cally th en , is the unthought, seem ing obviousness of things at vari ou s times. Th e truly decisive event s in hist or y (Geschichte) are not battles and th e ri se and fall of dynasties. Th ey ar e little not iced changes, behind our backs bu t affecting everything, in

our taken for gr anted sens e of what things fund am entally are or , to put it differ ently, 'The rar e and simple decisions of history spring from th e way th e original essence of truth essentially unfolds ' (P : 146) . Such shifts are not something any individual or soci et y can direct : th ey ar e wh er e th ey alre ady find th eir existe nce. Although, th er e is no human contr ol over deep history in this sens e , its change s do in r etro spect form a gen er al t enden cy, culminating for Heid egger in th e per vasive nihilism and spiritual em ptine ss of th e modern W est . H eid egger schematizes this t enden cy as ' the oblivion of being' .

NIHILISM The sustained pu rpose of Heidegger' s work was t he overcom ing of nih ilism. The term is fr om t he Lati n nihil , meaning 'not hing ' , Th e nineteent h-cent ury t hinker Friedrich Niet zsche, in making the famous

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nouncement t hat 'God is dead ', was making explic it t he increasing ly dom inant sense that the universe, and human life, are inherent ly point less: t here is no 't rue wor ld ' for our know ledge to discover and no perma nent values beneat h the show of appeara nces. All the hig hest values now devalue themselves . Heidegger gives his version of the history of nihilism in N ietzsche vol. 4, N ih ilism (N), These lectures on Nietzsch e of the late 1930s make up

Heidegger' s most explic it engageme nt wit h nih ilism (and indirect ly, w it h Nazism, as it had come to misappropriate Nietzsche's t hink ing) , Nietzsc he's own attem pt to overcome nihilism involved, in a sense, t he accepting of it , taking it not as a counse l of despa ir but in order to affirm the view that huma nity alone must remake itself accord ing to t he measure it chooses, and t hus to impose itself upon t hings . Such a transformed huma nity is w hat Nietzsch e called t he super-man (Ubermensch) . Heidegger' s analysis of nih ilism strove to be even more comprehensive t han Nietzsch e's, For Heidegger, it is production ist metaphysics, t he basis of Western life and t houg ht , t hat is nih ilist ic, Contemporary nih ilism is only t he most overt man ifestation of an anthropoce ntr ic , explo itat ive t hinking t hat has been entrenc hing itself for over two t housa nd years. Nietzsche's doct rine of t he super-man , far from being some kind of answer to nih ilism, is an instance of it. It renders explicit t he destructive te nde ncy of Weste rn t houg ht to conce ive t he worl d merely in terms that serve to enha nce the appare nt power and mastery of the th inker.

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Only, Heidegger argued , a th inking t hat goes bac k throug h the most basic dec ision s that structure W estern tho ught , right bac k to t he Greeks, w ill be abl e to dise nta ngl e itsel f from ways of being and t hinking t hat are inherent ly nih ilisti c ,

Heid egger traces in th e cours e of philosophy and European civilization ' s basic sense of things sinc e Greece an int ensificatio n and hardening of ' theore ticism ', th e dri ve towards techn ical and objectifying m od es of kn owledge and, with it , th e oblivio n of any m or e primordial or m or e rever ential kind of existe nce : ' th e famili ar and w ell -kn own has becom e boundless, and nothing is any longer able t o withstand the business of kn owing , since techni cal m aster y over things bear s it self wi th ou t limit' (P : 147 ). Thi s culm inates in th e globa lized , techn ological civilizatio n th at Heidegger saw as a threat to the very essence of humanity. 'The limi t less dominati on of m od ern t echn ology in every corner of thi s plan et is only th e lat e conseque nce of a ver y old t echn ical interpretati on of th e w orld , th e int er pr etatio n th at is usually called m etaph ysics ' (GA 52 : 9 1). What th en is th e feat ure of W est ern th ought , even two and a half m illennia ago, which harb ours such lat en t violen ce? Michael Zim m erman , glossing Heid egger , coins th e inv aluabl e phrase , 'p roductionist m eta physics ' (emphasis adde d): The metaphysical schemes of Plato and Aristotle , Heidegger argued, were based on the view that the str uct ure of all things is akin to the structure of products or artif acts, Aristotle's metaphysics, for example, is 'productionist' insofar as he conceived of all things , incl uding animals, as 'formed matt er', The most obvious example of such 'formed matt er' is the work produced by an artisan who gives for m to material. Plato and Aristot le seemingly projected onto all entities the structu re of artifacts. (Zimmerman 1990: 157)

Zimmer m an ' s summ ary highlights H eid egger' s basic poin t : th e hidden anthro pocentrism of W estern th ought, its un ackn owledged pr ojecti on of in strumentalist or techn ological m od es of th inking up on th e cosmos as who le. Plat o ' s and Ari st otle 's thinking still b or e th e traces of old er, pre-m et aph ysical w ays of thinking . Thi s was lost as Plat oni sm and Arist ot eliani sm harden ed to m od es of thinking abo ut th e

cosm os in ter m s th at rest , inexpli clitly, on th e w ay peopl e tho ught abo ut fam iliar human artefacts , i. e . all thi ngs are held to be intelli gible if analysed in ter m s of noti on s of basic design s and th eir co pies (Plato nism), or in terms of constitutive for m s and the mater ial they shape (Aristo telianism) . Plat o 's w ork , far fr om b eing th e guiding spirit of W est ern th inking as usually consider ed, becomes alr eady sym pto ma tic of declin e. After Plato emerge d a decisiv e but det rim ental distinction between th e 'sensible' and the 'supe rsensible' or 'inte lligible' (i. e . a r ealm addressed solely to some noti on of th e intellect) . This set up basic habits of tho ught from which the W est has never emerge d : th e distinctio n b etween th e r ealm of ' mere' chang e, the incon stan cy of th ings as given to th e senses, and what is taken to b e th eir un derl ying essence, th e non -changing tem plat e or m asterplan, so to speak, of which ph en om ena are m erely th e copy, th e sensib le ma nifesta tio n (PR: 159) . T o th ink in thi s w ay is to abstract ' t ruth' from th e holistic , un thought expe rience th at encompasses it . Thi s is the determinatio n of b eing as presence, driven towards an (im possi ble) stanc e th at , den ying its own finitu de and condi tio nality, would establish a secure view of th e bases of r eality whi ch ar e taken as perm an ent , continually presen t beneath th e flux of things. It is a kn ow ledge whos e id eal is that of th e per spective fro m a sup pos edly tim eless r ealm . Such a fantasy of pow er and invulner abili ty culmi nates in th e era of techno logy, one in which trut h becomes at b est a procedural noti on , i. e . a calculable che ck-list sort of thi ng .

WHAT HAPPENS IN DEEP HISTORY (GESC HIe H TE)? Hi stor y (Geschicht e) for Heidegger is seldo m (E : 77 ) . Th e Seco nd W orld W ar , he claim ed cont roversially, decid ed nothing (W T : 66) . Th e sam e dominan ce of pr oducti oni st m eta physics rem ain ed as befor e , it s nihili sm intensifying with th e globalizatio n of W estern m od es of rati onalit y . In H eid egger ' s hist or y of being , perhaps only three events emerge as t ruly ' hist orical' (geschi cht lich) in th e guis e of a change in th e fun dam ental sense of th e w orld, in th e 'e ssence of truth' . First is th e tran slati on of th e Gr eek w orld into Rom an Latin. Th e tran slati on of th e Gr eek langu age and w orld into Roman Latin was is - a decisive event in th e unfolding of pr odu cti oni st th inking. Th e Gr eeks , H eidegger argues, had lived still a r elati on t o being in whi ch DEE PH I S TOR Y (G £ 5 C H / C H T £ )

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human thinking did not take itself as th e sole ar bite r t o wh ich ot her things had to ju stify th em selv es but r etain ed elem ents of a non appro priative, non -con ceptual r elati on t o being . Th ese are still legibl e in th e surviving fragments of th e ar chaic , Pr e-Socratic phil osopher s and in th e tragedi es of Sopho cles . Thi s pr e-r eflectiv e expe rience of being was not explicitl y tho ught in classical Gr eek phil osophy, yet it is th e unthematized expe rience fr om wh ich th at thinking drew . Thi s is why a m or e or iginary relatio n to things is still legibl e in th e Gr eek langu age , as in ' aletheia', th e w or d for truth , which is m or e lit er ally ' unc oncealme nt' as w e have seen, or th e w or d ' physis' , com m only translat ed as ' nat ure ' (cf. ' physics' ) but m or e precisely th e ' self-unfolding eme rgenc e' in wh ich individual things come forth from obscurity . In Latin , however , wher e ' phy sis' becomes 'natura', this sense w as lost and anothe r m anner of w orl d held sway : the basic comportment of the Romans toward beings in general is governed by the rule of the imperium . Imperium says im-parare, to establish, to make arrangements : oree-cipere, to occupy something in advance, and by this occ upation to hold command over it, and so have t he occupied as territory. (Par: 44)

For Heid egger , th e Rom an em pire never cam e to an end : it entrench ed it self , invisibly and insidiou sly, as common sens e and th e un ex amined principl es of W est ern thinking . Thi s sort of change is th e least visibl e : it conc er ns not wh at w e see bu t how w e see . For th e sam e r eason it is also ' the m ost danger ou s but also the m ost enduring, form of domination ' (Par : 46) . In Latin is effecte d a decisive change in th e basic senses of truth , falsehood and kn owledge, and th e W est has lived in and from th em ever sinc e : What we usually call 'knowing' is being acq uainted with something and its qualities. In virt ue of these cognitions we 'master' t hings . This mastering 'knowledge' is given over to a being at hand , to its struct ure and its usefulness. Such 'knowledge' seizes t he being, 'dominates' it, and t hereby goes beyond it and constantly surpasses it. (Par: 3)

'W hen Being has change d to actualitas (r eality), beings alone are wh at is r eal' and 'be ing', if it m eans anything, can m ean only ' be ingness',

i. e . no longer th e general world or horizon within which things eme rge as such or such , but m er ely wh at each being or entity has in com mon. Th e play of conc ealing and un con cealing in emergence (phy sis) is for go tten in favour of th e things emerged . Th e holi stic nature of human existe nce is forgotten and cover ed over. Thi s is the oblivion of 'be ing ' as distin ct from particular b eings: ' the openedness of b eings [i. e . being] gets flatten ed out into th e appar ent nothingn ess of what is no longer even a m atter of indiffer en ce, but rath er is sim ply for gotten ' (P : 147) . Thi s interpretati on of r ealit y as actua li tas 'a ttains an assumed selfevide nce which has remain ed decisive ever since ' (EP : 14). So ' all W estern hist or y sinc e is in a m anifold sens e Roman , and never Gr eek ' (EP : 13) , even wher e th er e has been an explicit revival of th e Gr eeks, as in th e Renaissance or in th e H elleni sm of lat er ar t-theorists like J. J. Winckelman (1717- 68), Friedric h Nietzsc he (1844-1 900 ) and oth ers : Under t he infl uence of t he imperial, verum [ 'true'] becomes forthwit h 'beingabove', directive for what is right : veritas is then rectitudo, 'correctness', we would say. This originally Roman stamp given to the essence of tr uth .. . solidly establishes the all-pervading basic character of the essence of tr uth in the Occident. (Par: 48-9)

A seco nd cr ucia l shift in th e hist or y of being occurs as the ent re nchm ent and tran sfor m ati on of th at Roman stam p in m edi eval Christianity . With Christianity a th eological slant is given to th e productioni st basis of W est ern th ought . God is seen as th e great autho r and ' ma nufacturing cause' (C : 172 [24 3-4]) and ' nat ure' is not physis or th e openness of un con cealm ent, but God's cre ate d product : that which is, is the ens creatum, that which is created by the personal CreatorGod as the highest cause. Here, to be in being means to belong within a specific rank of the order of what has been created - a rank appointed fro m the beginning - and as thus caused, to correspond to the cause of creation. (OCT 130)

Th ese noti on s of th e ' Cre ator' and ' creation' still b etray th e deepl y anth ro pocentric bias of producti onist thinking . Finally, th er e is th e emerge nce of th e m odern m et aph ysics and scienc e in th e sevent eenth century, th e dominance of qu esti on s of D E E P H I STOR Y (GE SCH/CHTE)

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m ethod in all pursuit of truth , and th e w ould-b e math em atizati on of nature . T o thi s m od e of un con cealing , b eing appea rs as no m or e th an th e totality of objects to b e m aster ed by th e technics of human kn owledge , driven by it s qu est for certainty . Th e overall shifting of epochs is not liabl e t o human cont ro l, nor can th er e be any sort of logic of th e transiti on s from one epoch to ano ther, nor , certainly, can th ey b e said t o progr ess. Heid egger arg ues th at ' the seque nc e of epochs in th e dest iny of Being is not accidental, nor can it b e calculated as necessar y' (T B: 9). Phrases H eid egger uses such as ' being withdraw s' or 'histor y of b eing ' m ake it sound as if 'b eing' w er e som e kind of in scrutabl e non -human agent , even God, but th is is an accid ent of langu age . ' Being withdraws' is analogo us not to a sent enc e like ' God hid him self' but to one like ' the apple fell ' or ' the w ind vee re d ' . Th ere is no underl ying rati on ale or m otive for histor y . O f cours e, vari ou s conting enci es and events can b e traced as to how , say, the Rom an w orld supplanted th e Gre ek - as Heid egger writes such things ar e ' no t accidental' - but th at is not to find som e hidden law of hist or y. Ultimat ely, lik e human existe nce itself , it is withou t a ' why' (has nothing w e mi ght r ecognize as a m eaning) : it happ en ed becau se it happ en ed .

THE EPOCH OF TECHNO-SCIENCE Th e rest of thi s chapter will conc ern th e modern epoch as Heid egger conc eives it . In Der Satz von Grund [The Principle if Reason] ( 1957) Heid egger considers a crucia l principl e of th ought, one implicit alr eady in Gr eek tho ught, but coming to open expre ssion only in th e w ork of th e lat e sevent eenth and early eighteenth- century phil osopher G. W . Leibniz (1646-171 6) . Leibniz for mulat ed th e so-calle d prin ciple if reason: th e principl e , sim ply, th at for ever yth ing som e reason or gro und can or must be r ender ed . For H eid egger , th e principl e nam es th e imper ativ e th at directs our epoch of techn o-scien ce . Thi s is not only to r equire of th e things th at encounte r us th at th ey yield up th eir gro unds, but it is also , of co urs e, to posit human thinking as th at to whi ch things must b e brou ght to give r eason . For all its seeming dethron ement of th e importance of ' m an ' , with , for exam ple , th e r em oval of th e ear th fro m the centr e of th e univ er se, or th e humiliation of Darwin ' s th eory of evolution , m odern scienc e at hear t exalt s human ration alit y to a degr ee never befor e conc eived . Mod ern

hi stori ogr aph y and m od ern scienc e go hand in hand with th e principl e of r eason : Knowing, as research, calls whatever is to account with regard to the way in which and the extent to which it lets itself be put at the disposal of representation. Research has disposal over anything that is when it can either calculate it in its future course in advance or verify a calculation about it as past. Nature, as being calculated in advance, and history, in being historiographically verified as past, become, as it were, 'set in place' [gestellt]. Nature and history become the objects of a representing that explains . (OCT : 126-7)

According to H eid egger , the qu esti on is not one of scienc e consid ere d as sim ply representing an object -wo rld bu t more fund am entally of a general stance t owards entities: th e decision in favour of certainty in r epr esentatio n, calculability and hen ce contr ol of nature, which corre spondingly appe ars under th e guise of th e tot alit y of exploitable objects . T o r espond to th e call of the principl e of r eason is to ' re nde r r eason ' , to explain effects throu gh causes , to gro und , t o justify, to account for on th e basis of principl es or law s.

EXPLANATION? With t he pr incip le of reason com e certain models of what it is to 'explain' something . We can understand and expla in a plant , for example , by refer ence to the laws of biolog y and evolut ion, and ult imat ely perha ps in terms of th e more basic laws of physics . Heideggerian t hink ing does not dispute the vali dit y of botan ical and anot her scie nces as specifi c modes of capt ur ing the world in repres enta t ion, mapping out its const it uents throug h a fi xed set- up of repeatab le exper ime nts w hic h sift and elim inate co ntrad ictions betw een compet ing t heori es and fact s. However, it reminds us of t he distinction betw een t his tech nica l mapp ing out and the more elementary unco ncealment in w hich any such notio n of trut h must move, and yet w hich, as always presupp osed , is itself not subject to t he pr incip le of reason. 'So, w hat's going on here wit h the prineip ium reddendae rationis [th e pr incip le of reason]? It holds in the case of the rose [as on object of botany etc .] but not for the rose; in the

case of the rose insofar as it the obje ct of our cognit ion ; not for t he rose as

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it si m p ly sta nds in its elf an d is sim ply a rose ' (PR 38; trans . mo dified) . A s recent debat es ab out a so-ca lle d' 't heory of everyt hing' show, at some point , t he giving of expla nat io ns comes to an en d, an d co nfronts someth ing w ithout reaso n (e.g , 'w hy is there someth ing rat her t han nothing') , From t his perspect ive, after all the botanical facts and con dit ions have been adduced, the rose has no 'reason' : it blooms because it blooms . Heideg ger quotes Goet he: " 'Seek noth in g be hind the p he nomena: t hey t hemselves are t he lesson"

(TB : 65). Heideg ger was astonished and

d ismayed to learn that ma ny modern poets also sought to exp lain the ir poems (Pet: 108), Com pare here the th inking of a contemporary cosmolog ist, Pau l Davies: Yet it has to be admitted that our concept of rational explanation probably derives from our observations of the world and our evolutionary inhe ritance. Is it clear that this provides adequate guidance when we are tangling with ulti mate questions? Might it not be the case that the reason for existence has no explanation in the usual sense? This does not mean that the universe is absu rd or meaningless, only that an understanding of its existence and properties lies outside the usual categories of rational human tho ught. (Davies 1993: 225)

Th e age of m od ern m et aph ysics is necessaril y an epoch of t ech nology : Modern tech nology pushes towards the greatest possible perfection. Perfection is based on the thoroughgoing calculability of objects. The calculability of objects presupposes the unqualified validity of the principium rationis [the principle of reason]. It is in this way that the authority of the principle of reason, so understood, determines the essence of the modern , tech nological age. (pR 121)

Despite appearances, thi s is not an attack on techn ology per se. Th e anci ent and th e m edi eval w orld kn ew techn ology . As Juli an Young pu t s it : ' River s, for in stan ce , th ose m ajesti c, living , sem i-divinities th at help ed m easure out th e differ ent places of human dwelling , might be bridged . Yet th e ancient wooden bridge unlike th e hydro-electric dam typical of m od ernity did not chang e th e essential cours e or nature of th e river' (Young 1997 : 175) . Th e issue is the m ode of w orld wh ich

m od ern techn ology project s. In m od ern cities, sur ro unded on ever y side by m echanism and regim ented space , H eid egger oft en felt ph ysically sick, r esponding to th e envir onment as a kind of violen ce . For H eid egger , techn ology in th e famili ar sense is an effect of th at general str ucture of r e-presenting th e w orld wh ich has com e to go vern the epoch in whi ch w e live. Thi s det ermines th e presen cing of things to human b eings as wh at Heid egger terms th e Ge-Stell, enfram ing . H e m eans by th is th at th e w orld sta nds enframed as an object oppos ed to us, a ' standing- re ser ve ' of m at eri al and ene rgy t o be calculate d and di sposed of. Thi s enfra ming effects wh at H eid egger calls a univ er sal expe ditem ent, th e dem and that all things be challeng ed towards a m aximized yield of ene rgy for th e ben efit of humanity: This setting-forth that challenges forth the energies of nature is an expediting

[Fdrdern], and in two ways . It expedites in that it unlocks and exposes. Yet that expediting is always itself directed fro m the beginning toward f urthering something else, i.e., towa rd driving on to the ma ximum yield at the mini mum expense. (OCT 15)

T echn ology, on thi s interpretati on , is not th e application of scienc e. Th er e is not th eor y on th e one side and its practi cal implem entation on th e oth er . Rath er , scienc e is one m anifestati on of th e techn ological stanc e towards entities. Th e essence of t echno logy, in a fam ou s ph rase , is it self nothing 'techno logica l' (QCT : 4) . It is th e Gestell, th e m od e in which th e w orld hold s sw ay in th e culmination of producti oni st m etaph ysics. H eidegg er r ep eat edl y deni ed that he w anted to develop an eth ics fr om his thinking, under standing ethics in th e rath er narrow sense as th e formulati on of rules of guidance for relati on s between hu m an beings (P: 269; see Hodge 1995) . Yet one co uld say th at Heid egger 's thinking m ay not have an eth ics but, in a sense, is one . Th e attack on the deepl y anth ro pocentric assum ptions of W estern th ought and r eligion gives his w ork an ethical for ce. It is chastening to human pride in a w ay com parabl e to th e eth ics of the ' deep ecology' m ovem ent . Again st the t raditional m et aph ysical drive to wa rds a timeless per spective, a view fr om nowher e, H eid egger ' s thinking is based on an acceptance of human finitude. Th e Heid egger scho lar Joanna Hod ge writes th at D E E PH I S TO R Y (G £ 5 C H / C H T £ )

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'The unrest ricted conce ptio n of ethics needed is conce rned not ju st with th e relati on of human bein gs to b eing human but with a r elati on to differ en ce, to oth erness and t o being in general' (H odge 1995 : 27) . What of th e futur e? H eid egger believed th at th e modern epoch might endure for cent uries befor e ano ther m od e of being mi ght emerge . No indi vidu al thinker or any kind of politi cal progr amme co uld achieve th e kind of shift in th e hist or y of being Heid egger hop es for - after all, how anyo ne could affect by dikt at what st rikes th e vast prep on der an ce of peopl e m er ely as obvious in th e least thing ? However , Heid egger does find slight cause for hop e in an instabili ty in the essence of th e techn ological. While hist or y (Geschichte) is not under human contro l and ' only a go d can save us' (O nly : 107 ), perhaps th e gr eat danger of techn ology also harbours a saving power. For th e m or e appare nt it becom es th at techno-scienc e and the m od es of socia l organizat ion th at go with it are not at our cont ro l, th en th e mor e th e dominant mode of b eing in which w e find ourselves - th e Gestell as th e aggre ssive objectification of th e w orld as a r esource for human consum ption and aggrandizem ent - will emerge as an object of th ou ght in itself. Losing it s seeming naturaln ess and inevitability, th e dominan ce of thi s m od e of bein g m ay perhap s become less obvio us for m or e and m or e peopl e , opening th e possibility of a new turn in th e hist or y of being . Thinking , with th e help of resources to be found in ar t and poetic langu age (Dichtuna ), cannot effect th is change . It may nevertheless prepar e for it .

SUMMARY Heidegger's is a diagnostic reading not just of w hat is wrong with tradit iona l thin king about human rationality (as we examined in the first chapter) but , deeper tha n th is, of what it means for anyth ing to be, and for us to approach it in know ledge. In short, Heidegger sees the modes of knowing and being that are taken as obvio us in the West as inherent ly also a matter of dom inat ion and control , modes that have come to set up t he wor ld as t he totalizable object for a humanity conceived as the self-certain possessor of knowledge . How have we been broug ht to this situation? Heidegger wor ks back to a bias that was unw itt ingly present in the th inking of t he class ical Greek philosophers at the beg inning of Weste rn thought, a bias w hich has become more and more dom inant ever since . In Aristotle and Plato t he

most fu ndamental categor ies of t hei r ph ilosophy draw upon ways of tho ug ht suited to understandin g t he t hings most fam iliar to us, our tools and artefacts . Ap plied to the cosmos as a whole , suc h thin king about what it means for anything to be is unw itting ly beg inning to pre-determ ine all th ings as if they were meant solely for our use or mastery . This 'product ionist' bias was reinforced in t he cruc ial translation of Greek modes of tho ug ht and being into Roman ones, losing in t he process t he vestige of a nonappropriative

~

or non ant hropocentric

~

relation to t hings t hat remained

at work, if unt hought, in Greek practice and language. In the mode rn epoc h, suc h an exploitat ive att itu de is explic it in the dr ive to concept ual and tec hnological mastery . Despite the variety of modes of life in Europe over the past two and half millen nia, Heidegger traces a fundamental cont inuity in the kind of tec hnic ist , productionist thin king ina ugurated in Greece, consolidated by t he Romans, perpet uated by the relig ion of t he Middle A ges and culm inat ing in our epoch of glo balized tech no-science. Even t he Chr ist ian God offers no real alternative to t he anthropocentric bias of such th inking , for Christian notio ns of nature as God' s create d product, of God as maker, and even notions of cause and effect, all bear the hallmarks of an unacknow ledged interpretation in product ionist terms . Th is conception of the 'history of being ' is the conte xt for all Heidegger 's t hink ing about art and the poetic . Do these keep open t he faint possibil ity of modes of being that resist t he dominant prod uct ionist modes of understand ing?

D E E P H ISTORY (GESCH/CHTE)

39

3 'THE ORIGIN OF THE WORK OF ART'

Thi s chapte r devotes it self entir ely to a r eading of H eid egger ' s lecture, ' The O rigin of th e W ork of Ar t' , described as sim ply ' the m ost radical tran smutati on of aesthe tics' , or th e phil osophy of ar t , ' since th e Gr eeks ' (Haar 1993 : 95) . Th e t ext published in Holzweqe ( 195 0) (PLT : 17- 87) is based on three lectures given in N ovember and D ecember 1936 (see Taminiaux 1993). Th e tex t explicitly r ejects th e ter m s th at usually dominate discu ssion of thi s kin d . It refuses to speak of art in t er m s of ' for m' and 'c onte nt', 'individ ual cre ativity', ' meaning', 'a r tist' s int en tion ' , ' aesthetic expe rience' or ' aesthetic judgem ent' or ' ta ste' . Th e essay is a r ejecti on of th e W est ern tradition of aesthe tics and a retrieval of its for gotten sour ces . Instead of th e fam iliar t erms of aesthetic or critical debat e, Heid egger 's essay presents a seemi ngly obscure set of neologisms, ' w orld' , 'e arth', 'strife ' , ' Saying'. Th e r eader must resist b eing too hast y to translat e th ese into ter m s alre ady fam iliar. H eid egger 's fund am ental criticism of r eceived m od es of thinking demand s a new and radical star t . At issue through out ' The O rigin of th e W ork of Ar t' and not fully r esolv ed by th e end is the nature and pot ential of ar t w orks in th e time of th e dominance of techn ological thinking . M etaph ysical reason is driven to place every th ing under the aegis of logic and int elligibili ty . For such thinking - ends-oriented, in strumentalist - ar t is left with th e spher e of m er e aesthetic feelin g, th e consum erism of per sonal tast e and,

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at best , only a m argin al relati on t o truth . Th e very m eaning of th e term 'art' in th e m od ern epoch t estifies to thi s: it is a r ealm of aesth etic expe rience considered sep arat ely fr om th e sph er es of kn owledge and ethics. For H eid egger , art for art's sake is th e death kn ell of ar t . So, ir on ically, is th e ver y discipline of aesthetics, formed in th e eighteenth century as th e separate philosophical st udy of sensuo us feelin g. Heid egger 's essay is in debat e with th e claim of his gr eat pred ecessor in phil osophy, G . W . F. H egel (1770-18 31 ), m ade in th e 1820s, th at ' ar t is and r em ain s for us, on th e side of its high est destiny, a thing of th e past' (H egel 1993 : 13) . Thi s was not t o den y th at art w ould continue to chang e and develop , producing accom plished new w ork, but an ackno wledgm ent that th e overall place of ar t in peopl e ' s lives is now a minor one , dooming even a m asterpiece lik e, say Joyce ' s Ulysses, to r elati ve insignificance . Compar ed to th e w orlds of the classical Greek t emple or th e m edi eval cathe dra l, or (perhaps) Elizabeth an dram a, ar t is no longer for m ativ e of our ver y sense of ourselves and th e realit y w e inh abit . Ar t , for Heid egger , is finit e and som et hing th at can die . Dying , it can lose it s pow er of di sclosur e and appear m er ely as an attractive object to be hung in museum , or toured on holid ay; or it may b e r educed to a sma ll elem ent of th e education syst em or appr opriate d as a cult ural asset , as 'heritage ' . So, th e ver y possibility of effective art in m od ern soci ety is qu estionable for H eidegger . Is it t echno-scien ce , not art, th at is now fundam ental to th e W est' s outlook on every th ing? Thi s qu esti on will exte nd to th e ver y end of Heid egger ' s career. ' He ide gge r , far from insisting th at ar t plays a decisive r ole in every epoch , as m any r eader s of "Th e O rigin of th e W ork of Ar t" have suppos ed , is in fact seeking to draw our at tention to its failure t o do th at' (Bernasconi 198 5 : 36) . Heid egger ' s lecture in th e m id - 193 0s for m s an attem pt to rescu e th e possibility of ar t from aesthetics , i.e , to hearken to ar t as th e site of a r esistan ce to th e subjugatio n of being to th eor eti cal kn owledge. A sub text, which w oul d have b een obvious to th e original hear er s of th e lecture, is also th e possibility th at art m ay offer th e possibility of a genuine r efounding of hi stor y for th e Ger m an peopl e, one th at mi ght r edirect th e National Socialist r evolu ti on , then three yea rs old , in lin e with H eid egger ' s hop es for an active decon structi on of industrial soci ety and of m etaph ysical thinking - som e hop e! He w ould com e to acknowledg e N azism as irredeem abl e , anothe r ma nifestatio n of th e tot alizing will -to-power he so ught t o qu esti on .

H eid egger is in lin e with other m odern th ink er s in r eassessing art' s ver y m ar ginalit y in th e m od ern w orld as a place of critic al insight , a spac e th at , if not placing it outs ide producti oni st m etaph ysics, at least delimits it . A series of strang e id eas confro nts th e r ead er : th at th e power of a gr eat ar t-work arises, in a sens e, out of nothing ; th at it is superficial to see it as th e product of an ar tist or as a r eflecti on of it s tim es; th at art possesses a radi cally non -hist ori cal , acult ur al elem ent ; th at it s so urce is not prim aril y th e human will and th at it does not ' have a m eaning' in th e acce pte d w ay . Art, in sho r t ; do es not m ake sense in any of th e ways philosophy m ight wish it to . It foll ow s th at criticism and aesth etics, as subs ets of phil osoph y, must b e taken apar t , th or ou ghly decon struct ed , if justice is t o b e don e to th e perplexing otherness of th e ar t-wor k .

THE REJECTION OF MIMESIS H eid egger ' s essay r ejects a view of art so deepl y r oot ed th at it is oft en passed over as self-evident: nam ely th at th e art w ork is t o be under stood under th e cat ego ry of r epresentati on , or imitati on (mi mesis) , as when w e say th at a play or a novel ' re -pre sents' or ' m ir r ors' a particular soci ety or th at it expre sses or stands for th e opinions or em otions of it s autho r. Th e under standing of ar t as imitati on , mimesis, a view establishe d in anci ent Greece, is so powerful th at it is almost impossible to think of art , espe cially lit er ature , without it : try discussing any familiar w ork wi th out using th e w ords ' re pre sent' , 'im itate' or ' stand for ' . Yet, if one considers it , it is absurd to assum e th at som eth ing as com plicate d and m edi at ed as Middlemarch , say, can be under stood by analogy with a mirror , a bit of reflectiv e glass! Instead , w e must exam ine how for H eid egger , th e w ork does not st rictly refer t o som ething else , is not a sign or even a symbo l. Instead it presents its own unique and ultim at ely inexplicabl e m od e of being , someth ing for the r eader , beh old er or listen er to dwell within and not m er ely som eth ing t o de-cod e. Hubert Dreyfus again offers some initial help . H eid egger , in his arg um ent with th e dominan ce of th eor eti cist thinking , 'holds open', writes Dreyfus: the possibility t hat there still exists in our mic ro-practices an undercu rrent of a pretechnological understanding of the meaning of Being

involving

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'THE ORIG IN OF THE WORK OF ART' nonobjectifiying and nonsubjectifying ways of relating to nature, material objects, and human beings . (Dreyfus 1985: 244)

A lit er ar y work may be a micro-practice of thi s so rt : To take examples close to home, Faulkner personifies the wilderness, Pirsig speaks with respect of the quality even of technological things such as motorcycles, and Melville opposes Ishmael as mortal and preserver to Ahab as the willful mobilizer of all beings to his arbitrary ends . (Dreyfus 1985: 245)

Thi s is vagu e, but it is easy to agree th at one can under stand m or e abo ut nin et eenth-century London from th e non -r ealist t exts of Dick en s th an one can fr om m any straightfor wa rdly 'historical' studies, or m or e abo ut Augu stan Rome fr om Vir gil' s Aeneid th an fr om Rom an hist ori ans. O ne can also agree th at th at under standing co uld not b e turned into series of prop ositi on al statem ents without immedi at ely neutralizing th e way th e text projects an idi om atic m od e of being. Of co urse, Heid egger 's arg um ent go es furth er th an thi s. His conc ern is to establish how w orks of ar t m ay offer a m od e of truth and kn owledge m or e fundam ental th an wh at is tradition ally under stood by th ose terms . As w e saw in th e first chapter, Heid egger 's criticism of th e tradition al noti on of truth (and corre spondingly th e noti on of ficti on whi ch it defin es) is th at it is essentially deriv ativ e fr om something m or e basic. It is thi s m or e basic unders tanding th at is engaged by ar t. Great art, for Heid egger , is inv olv ed with truth , not in th e sens e of th e confor m ity of a prop ositi on to a given state of affairs, but as aletheia . un con cealment . It influ en ces th e ver y w ay r ealit y is un con cealed or appears for us in th e first place, pri or t o b ein g m erely r e-presented. T o use a term often depl oyed by H eid egger in thi s lecture, th e art work is not jus t som eth ing th at com es into th e open, next to other things, it chang es th e Open in whi ch it appears . Th e inad equacy of th e cor respo ndenc e idea of truth in relation to art appears fr om a simple thought expe riment. Let us take a r ecog niz ed lit er ar y masterpiece . Eith er a text lik e Haml et can admit, if only in principle, of b ein g r estat ed as an exhaustive set of clear proposition s abo ut th e w orld , or it canno t. Such a seri es of stat em ents mi ght consist of such senten ces of decoding as: ' Hamlet gives a close analysis of th e

nature of kingship , it sho ws that kin gship is a kind of perfor man ce , the conditio ns of this performan ce b eing valid are . . .. ' If such stat em ents can continue un til th e t ext itself leaves no more to b e said, th en clearly that rephrasing is w orth m or e in t er ms of truth , conventio nally under stood, than the langu age it clarifies, for oth er w ise one w ould not need to clarify it . H ow ever , it is not hard to agree th at Haml et cannot be so r ephrased : th e series of possible stat em ents deriv ed fr om it w oul d b e pot en tially endless. In th at case w e might r ecko n th at th e ' un clarified' version excee ds th e m od e of m er ely prop ositi on al truth , without being m erely un true or false .

DEFAMILIARIZING THE WORLD Art th en , is not a matter of description or r epresentati on. Thi s is one r eason wh y ar chitecture is given such prominen ce in the essay . A building clearly cannot be seen as a re-pr esentati on of anyth ing whatsoever : A building, a Greek temple, portrays not hing. It simply stands the re in the middle of the rock-cleft valley . The building encloses the fig ure of t he god, and in this concealment lets it stand out in the holy precinct thro ugh the open portico . By means of the temple , the god is present in the temple. This presence of the god is in itself the extension and delimitation of the precinct as a holy precinct. The temple and its precinct, however, do not fade away into t he indefinite. It is the temple work that f irst fits together and at the same time gathe rs around itself t he unity of those paths and relations in which birt h and death , disaster and blessing , victory and disg race, endurance and decline acq uire t he shape of destiny for human being . The all-governing expanse of this open relational context is the world of this historical people. (p LT : 41-2)

In oth er w ords, th e wh ole ' w orld' of the classical Gr eeks - how all things appea re d t o th em - is projected by th e t emple, som et hing w e m ay sense even now , tho ugh th at w orld has peri shed . Th e fact that ar chitecture provid es basic shelt er alr eady suggests the profound seri ousness of art in general for Heid egger , as opening th e spac e in whi ch peopl e dwell and under stand things . Art her e is not consider ed as a r ealm of cult ural achievem ent, or th e basis for a cano n of gr eat m onum ents or example s of ' creativity' , nor as a m anifesta tion of th e human spirit , nor as an hist or ical documen t of unusual interest , nor as a cult ural 'THE ORIG I N OF THE W O RK OF A R T '

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for ce eithe r supportive or subv ersive of dominant ideolog ies . Heidegger sees th e essential power of ar t - st ifled in th e mo dern w orl d - as th e setti ng up of the overa ll ' w orld ' within whi ch and afte r whi ch all th ese oth er views of art could alo ne becom e thinkabl e . Th e first exam ple given in H eid egger ' s lecture had b een a painting by Van Gogh, a mo dern w ork. Th e painting is of a pair of sho es that Heid egger takes to be from th e w orl d of a peasant w om an . No rma lly such sho es w oul d be an unregarded if necessar y piece of equipment in th e life of thi s w oman , a ser viceable but t rivial part of her w orl d . In th e painting how ever , th e sho es, accurately im aged , are also trans formed. Th eir usually unregarded status is alte re d. Th e painting makes appar ent th e ' w orld' in whi ch th e sho es find their significanc e : From the dark opening of the worn insides of the shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth . In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accum ulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform f urrows of the field swept by a raw wind . On the leather lies the dampness and richness of the soil. Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-pat h as evening falls . ... This equipment is pervaded by uncomplaining anxiety as to the certainty of bread, the wordless joy of having once more withstood want, the trembling before the impending childbed and shivering at the surrounding menace of death. (PLT 33--4)

Thi s rhapso dic exam ple has been controv ersial (see Bernstein 1992: 140ft) , but th e basic argument is clear: ar t tran sforms the sho es so as to for egr ound th e whole mode of being when ce th eir particul ar nature arises. Heidegg er 's argument seems aligned at first sight wi th m odernist ideals of art as ' m aking it new' , or to the Ru ssian formalist th esis th at lit er ariness inher es in th e defamili arizati on or th e ma king stra ng e of ordinary langu age , letting things be seen ane w rath er than r outinely, or to th e dram ati st and poet Ber t olt Brecht' s (1898-1 956) th eor y of art's 'e stra nge ment effect' . Th er e is a cr ucial distin cti on , however. In Jay Bernstein ' s w ords: For Heidegger, the effect of great works is equally one of defamiliarization, but only fo r him the movement is not to a mere renewed vision of some partic ular

· .. but [a movement] from the ordinary and particular to that which lets the ordinary and particular have their peculiar shape and meaning. (Bernstein 1992: 88)

A world , in other words . Heid eggeri an defamili ariz ation has a hol isti c ' transcende ntal' aspect, i. e . in seeing its obj ect ane w it transforms our sens e of th e whole conte xt of practices and per ceptions in which th at obj ect inh er es. Art is com parable her e to th e overwhelming experi en ce described in Intr oduction to Metaphysics, th e un canny r evel ati on ane w of all beings under th e overwhel m ing qu esti on, ' W hy are th er e b eings at all instead of nothing?' (1M: 1) . Th e shoes, in th e Van Gogh painting , are defamili arized in a way th at lets emerge th e whole w ay of life to whi ch th ey bel ong . Without thi s w orld-soliciting for ce , such defamili arizati on w oul d r em ain m er ely aesthetic.

THE SI NGUL A RIT Y OF THE WORI< As a site of pot ential r esistance to th eor eticism , art necessaril y eludes tradition al conce pts of interpretati on or explanation. H ow is thi s? Three aspects to an answer can be schem ati zed.

2

Th e r esistance of a w ork to th eor eti cal understanding lies in th e fact th at , cr udely speaking, it has m or e th e m od e of existe nce of a kind of actio n or of practise th an of a static object. So one canno t give ' the m eaning ' of a w ork lik e Bleak House any m or e th an one can give 'the m eaning ' of a dan ce , or a particul ar way of life . T o ask for ' the m eaning ' of th e w ork is a kin d of category mi stake : it is like asking for th e height of an id ea or for th e m eaning of th e Fre nch langu age . It is rath er a matter of a singular m od e of 'b eing ' . Heid egger 's arg ument is at odds with any int erpretati on of th e w ork th at w ould under stand it by r efer en ce to it s autho r and his or her con-scious or un cons cious intention s. Inst ead , he affir ms th e singularit y of th e w ork as exceeding th e planning or int en ti onal labour of th e writer .

Let us turn again to an example, one taken fr om wh at is usually called th e psychology of com posi tion, th ou gh ' psycho logy' is a mi sleading term her e , as w e shall see . Th e Fren ch writer Maurice Blanchot (1907- )

'T H E 0 RIG I N 0 F THE W 0 R K 0 FAR T '

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'T HE ORIG IN OF THE WORK OF ART'

pub lished in 1955 his influential The Space <1 Literature ( 1982a), a text beari ng everywhe re th e ma r ks of a deep r eading of H eid egger' s essay . Blan chot is partly arg uing with H eidegger but much of what he w rites is often very useful for clar ifying him . Blanchot' s study of ' inspiration' offers a clos e acco unt of com pos itio n from a writer' s view . Homing in on the writer' s act of compos itio n, he highlights a cr ucial moment in th e emerge nce of a possible w ork: th at m om ent when fragm ents or scraps of th e w ork-in -process begin to b ecom e fascinating to th eir ow n autho r, sugg est ing possible directi on s or significanc es wh ich th e writer had not for eseen but whi ch m ay b e r ead and perhap s foll owed throu gh in th e emerge nt w ork . Th e m om ent is th at at which that which is glorified in the work is the work, when t he work ceases in some way to have been made, to refer back to someone who made it, but gathers all the essence of the work in the fact that now there is a work - a beginning and initial decision - this moment which cancels the author. (Blanchet 1982a: 200)

Thi s m om ent r efut es at a st ro ke naively r epresentati on alist view s of art as th e re-presentati on of som eth ing already given. Th e ar tist' s task for Blancho t is t o try to let th e w ork emerge on its ow n singular terms. Thi s is less a m atter of his or her technical skill , th ough th at is also r equir ed , th an of th e intuiting the pot en tial di sclosive for ce of th e w ork. Thi s seeing or ' kno wledg e ' is Heid egger' s under standing of th e anci ent Gr eek techne, th e kn owledge implicit in any craft or art . A lat er lecture insists: 'A r t is techne, but not techno logy . Th e artist is technitis, but neith er a techni cian nor a handworker' (HK: 13) . Blanchot says th at it is thi s ability to see th e pot ential disclosive for ce of a w ork, and to foll ow it through , not techni cal skill as such, th at distingui shes the tr ue artist or writer. Blanchot also follows H eidegger's rejectio n of r epresentati on alist th eori es of art . Th e artist, even whil e gazing at th e environment with a view to th e ar t- w ork , does not see a realm of things already th er e and waiting t o be copied . If th ey are 'inspirational' in any w ay it is in sofar as th e demands of a possible w ork are alr eady in play, determining what th e ar tist sees in th e first place : it is because, through a radical reversal, he already belongs to the work's req uirements that, looking at a certain object, he is by no means content to

see it as it m ight be if it were out of use, but makes of the object the point t hro ugh whic h the work's requirements pass and, conse quently .. . the given world 'dissolves' . (Blanchot 1982a: 47)

Thi s m ean s ' t o r em ove it' , as H eid egger had written , 'fr om all r elati on s t o someth ing oth er th an itself. . . . Th e w ork is to b e r eleased by [th e artist ] into pure self-subsistenc e . It is pr ecisely in gr eat ar t and only such art is under consideration her e - that th e artist r em ain s in con sequential as compar ed with th e w ork, alm ost like a passagew ay that destroys itself in th e cre ative process for th e w ork t o eme rge' (PLT : 40) . Th e w ork takes on a certain for ce of speaking for itself, an autho rity wh ose law m ay dictat e , imper sonally, th e w ork' s futur e unfolding. Som e writer ' s acco unts of what has b een ' inspiration' bear out Heid egger , as does E. M . For ste r' s apho rism , ' H ow do I kn ow what I think till I see wh at I say' (quo ted by Saul Bellow in Plimpt on 1967 : 184 ). All H eid eggeri ans (such as Blanchot or D errida) w ould demur from the view th at the w ork b e seen as a projecti on of th e psychology of the writer. To view th e ar t- w ork as the product of some cr eative state in th e ar tist is only superficially cor re ct . Rem ember th e cr ucial but initially counte r- intuitive poin t abo ut truth as aletheia or un cover ed ness: 'Man can r epresent , no m atter how, only wh at has previou sly come to light of its ow n accord and has sho wn it self to him in th e light it brought with it . ' (PLT : 171 ) . Applied to th e issue of th e sources of ar t th is m eans th at even as it presents to the r eader or spect ato r a new sense of things overall, a gr eat poem or painting , as it w orks itself out for th e artist on th e page or the canvas, is itself r esponding to an emergent vision - an insightful love poem foll ows, not cre ate s, the nature of love. Writer s at w ork often speak of som eth ing ' the re' waiting or str uggling to b e said , t o com e into the open . So th e emergent ar t w ork opens to th e ar tist a new aspect: things sho w th em selves differ ently within th e w orld th at th e text, or pi ece of fine art, is beginning to pr oject , and th e ar tist foll ows th at disclosur e . So th e power of disclosur e itself is not our own - it is not a human cre ation - but it m ay be harnessed and harmoni zed as it sho ws it self differ ently in vary ing kinds of emergent w ork . Mich el Haar writes that the ar tist ' can com pos e only what of it self gath ers together and com poses it self. Heid egger cites a letter written by M ozar t: "I seek 'THE ORIG IN OF THE WORK OF ART '

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not es that love one another'" (H aar 1993: 98) . Thi s in turn sugg ests Andre Br eto n 's r em ark of 1924 , in the mi dst of surr ealist expe riments with chanc e and ' aut omatic writing ' , th at ' the w ords make love ' on th e page (Br eton 1988 : 286) . It is in thi s sense, as th e artist r esp onds to , gath ers or harnesses th e for ce in th e emergent t ext, music or brush st ro kes, th at the m ost fundam ental sour ce of ar t is non -hu man , just as it is not w e who bring abo ut ' the un con cealedness of beings' (PLT : 52) . Th e poet m ay only nach-sprechen , ' spe ak after ' a sounding out latent in langu age it self. Heidegg er th en r ejects Rom antic idealizatio ns of th e ar tist as prim e source of the w ork . H e is clos er to th e ancient noti on of inspirati on as th e di ctation of an oth er . Th e writer ' s per sonal psychology is of little r elevance her e, for the w ork in it s singularity ceases to be intel ligibl e by r eferen ce back to per son al effor t or expre ssion , b ecoming instead something to wh ose emergent possibiliti es and for ce the writ er listen s and respo nds . Again Blan chot , although he differ s from Heid egger in som e respects, clarifies th e seeming parad oxy of Heid eggeri an poet ics. H e w rites of Herman Melvill e ' s Moby Dick : ' It is quite tr ue th at Ahab only enc ounte rs Mob y Di ck in Melville ' s novel. But it is equally cor re ct to say th at such an encounte r is wh at enables Melvill e to write hi s novel' (Blancho t 1982b: 63) . Heidegger ' s th en is a theo ry of cre ation , not by an ar tist as cre ator , but from out of ' noth ing' - if nothing is under st ood lit er ally as no-thing: Does truth, then, arise out of nothing? It does indeed if by nothing is meant the mere not of that which is, and if we here think of that which is as an object present in the ordinary way. ... Trut h [aletheia as a disclosive power] is never gathered from objects that are present and ordinary. Rat her, the opening up of the Open, and the clea ring of what is, happens only as the openness is projected, sketched out. (pLT : 71)

3

A w ork also eludes traditi on al forms of explanation and int erpretation b ecause its nature is one of singularity. As he homes in on th e specific nature of a w ork of art th at distin gui shes it fr om a piece of equipme nt, H eid egger refer s severa l tim es to it s ' selfsufficient presen ce ' . Unlike tools such as a spade or a piece of furniture , an art- w or k is someth ing which is not abso rbed completely in its fun ction. It insists on presen cing as som et hing in

itself. In this r egar d , ' th e work of art is simil ar rath er to th e m er e thing whi ch has taken shap e by itself and is self-contain ed ' (PLT : 29). Th e essay' s st ress on th e singularity of th e w ork leads to som e striking conclusions : no explanation - wh ether in t erms of th e cr eative psychology of an author, th e formal possibilities of language and genre, nor th e ideologies of its socia l context - can provide a cause or principl e fr om whi ch th e w ork co uld be deduced as an effect . Thi s is b ecaus e th e w ork, for H eid egger , is singul ar in alone projecting th e t erms wh er eb y it co uld b e r eceived , so necessaril y breakin g from any pre-given fram ew ork: The setting-into-work of truth thrusts up the unfamiliar and extraordinary and at the same time thrusts down the ordinary and what we believe to be such . The truth that discloses itself in the work can never be proved or derived from what went before . What went before is refuted in its exclusive real ity by the work. (PL T 75)

Writing on th e topi c of transl ati on , Heid egger affir ms som eth ing th at applies m or e generally : ' the blind obstinacy of habitual opinion must be shattered and abando ned if th e truth of a w ork is to unv eil it self' (1st 63) . In its singul arity, th e w ork r esist s 'having a m eaning ' or being tot ally describabl e in any t erminology alr eady at hand .

THE ' EAR TH' : HEIDEGGER'S 'NON-FOUNDATIONAL THINI
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( 1775- 1854) and others, that un consciou s power th at differ entiates and ma kes up th e leap of 'inspiration ' wher eby th e work excee ds b oth th e conscio us planning of th e artist and th e exhaustive or totalizing ambitions of anyone act of under standing (see Clar k 1997). Th is element of thing-like opacity and th e unplannabl e is matched by a new and crucial ter m in Heid egger ' s lecture : th e 'e ar th'. Th e w ork, Heid egger argues, does not just a set up [ar:ifstellt] a wo rld bu t also sets fo rth [herstellt] the ear th . It is site of struggle between th ese two complem entary bu t adverse pow er s. W orld and ear th ar e essentially differ ent from one ano ther and yet cannot be separat ed. What do es all thi s m ean ? Again, a good starting poin t lies sim ply in clos e attentio n to wh at th e work do es when one r esponds to it wi th ou t presupposition . Let us ret urn t o Heid egger ' s account of th e Gr eek temple . As th e w orl d projected in th e temple is allo w ed to affirm it self, so it brings into relief th e ' earth' as it wi thdraw s and resists. Heid egger is r efer ring both to th e mat eri al fr om which th e t em ple is m ade and th e ph ysical things aro und it: [T ]he temple-work , in setti ng up a world , does not cause the material to disappear, but rat her causes it to come forth fo r the very first time and to come into the Open [Offenen] of the work's world : t he rock comes to bear and rest and so first becomes rock; metals come to glitter and shimmer, colours to glow, tones to sing, t he word to speak. All this comes fort h as the work sets itself back into the massiveness and heaviness of stone, into the firmness and pliancy of wood, into the hardness and lustre of metal, into t he lig hting and darkening of colour, into the clang of tone and into the naming power of the word . (pL T 46)

Th e received dich ot om y of form and m at erial is being subtly un der mined in this description . Th e ar t w ork, th e temple , do es not sim ply impose its ow n form on the m aterial fro m which it is mad e . It ente rs int o a subtl e and elusive r elati on ship with th at m at eri al , so th at the m atter - r ock , air, colo urs - is both affir me d and yet rem ain s sepa rat e in its oth erness . ' The work lets the earth be an earth' (PLT : 4 6) . Th e 'ear th ' is not ju st ' matter ' as oppos ed to 'for m '. Th ese traditional terms fr om ' aesthe tics' do not w ork her e. Again an in stan ce from th e graphic arts m ay be helpful - thi s time a ver y sim ple exam ple of m y own . Imagin e a lin e traced across a backgr ound of mottl ed pap er. Completed , it brings into being two distinct shapes on either side, one

looking , say, a bit lik e a human profile with hints of other features in th e m ottling, th e oth er perhaps like th e silho uette of a jug with a r ou gh surface . Th e picture as a wh ole now may seem m er ely t o dep ict or represent th ese for m s, as if th ey had alre ady been th er e and had now sim ply b een highlighted by a lin e traced alo ng their edges. Clearly, in one sense th e forms were alr eady th er e - w e ar e not talkin g abo ut m agic her e - bu t in ano th er th ey w er e not . T o use H eid egger ' s terms, fr om out of th e opaque bu t not shapel ess r ealm of th e earth - a substratum of lat ent but not -pred etermined for m s, r eal but non actualized - have emerged two elem ents of a world . H eid egger ' s own exam ple gives a m or e subtl e instance of th e defianc e of befor e and afte r in th e process of eme rgence . H e qu ot es Albrecht Durer: ' For in truth , ar t lies hidden within nature ; he wh o can wrest it from her , has it' : 'Wrest" means here to draw out the rift and to draw the design with the drawingpen on the drawing board . But we at once raise the counterquestion: how can the rift-design be drawn out if it is not brought into the Open by the creative sketch as a rift, which is to say, brought out beforehand as a conflict as measure and unmeasure? True, there lies hidden in nature a rift-design , a measure and a boundary and, tied to it, a capacity for bringing forth - that is, art. But it is equally certain that this art hidden in nature becomes manifest only through the work, because it lies originally in the work . (PLT 70)

Th e art w ork then is not sim ply the cr eat ive projecti on th at un con ceals a w orld , nor , equally, does it sim ply arise out of th e ear th (as it does in Romantic ideas th at art is th e high est m anifestati on of som e cre ative for ce alr eady at w ork in nature) . Th e w ork sets up (atifstellt ) the w orld: th e w orld w as not alre ady th er e and is now founded . Th e w ork sets for th (h erstellt ) th e earth: th e ear th was alr eady th er e bu t w as not m anifest . Th e w orld is formed out of and set against th e ear th but is other to it and is not sim ply derived fr om it . Art need s b oth earth and w orld : it is th e setting forth of th eir r elati on , which is one of antago nism or strife . Th e subtl ety her e (if only expre ssed analogously in th ese exam ples) is Heid egger 's practice of non-joundational thinki n8, i. e . he does not arg ue in th e t raditio nal way by taking one of th e two ter m s at issue, earth or w orld , as th e first to be th ou ght throu gh , and th en go on to 'THE ORIG IN OF THE WORK OF ART '

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det ermine th e other on th e basis of it, as its modification or its oppo site . Th e need is to think th eir r elati on first and to think both terms if the relation f rom out if the relation itself. Heid egger' s w ord for th at relati on is ' Biss' (which is bar ely translat ed by w ords like ' cleft' or (as abo ve) ' rift' ) , one of severa l w ords he uses for m ed from th e verb ' reissen " , m eaning t o pull or draw as w ell as to tear. Th e relati on , the Riss is th e t earing apart and drawing together wh er eb y ear th and w orld com e into being throu gh th eir antagonism. It can only b e elusiv e becau se , tho ugh all-deter m inant, in it self it is no-thing , only the differ ence fr om out of whi ch 'e ar th' and ' w orld' becom e manifest . Thi s thinking withou t m akin g a false gro und - a why - out of one t erm or th e oth er is wh at m akes Heidegg er's holisti c thinking non -foundati on al.

'EARTH' AND LANGUAGE Im ages from th e graphic ar ts are not too hard to foll ow , bu t what exactly is th e 'ear th ' dimen sion of a lit er ar y w ork, som ething m ade not of sto ne, but of langu age , surely ver y differ en t? And wh at is th e ' w orld' dimen sion ? Th er e was so m eth ing about thi s in th e passage abo ut th e Gr eek temple : the rock comes to bear and rest and so first becomes rock; metals come to glitter and shim mer, colours to glow, tones to sing, the word to speak, All this comes forth as the work sets itself back into t he massiveness and heaviness of stone, into the firmness and pliancy of wood, into the hardness and lustre of metal, into the lighting and darkening of colour, into the clang of tone and into the naming power of the word. (pL T: 46)

So H eid egger clearly correlat es th e 'e ar th ly' side of langu age with 'Saae n ' or ' the naming power of th e w ord ' . Thi s is not surprising . Ear th in r elati on t o th e w ork of ar t is th e m at eri al out of whi ch it is m ad e, and a lit er ar y w ork is m ade fr om langu age . Th e strife of w orld and ear th w ould thus be th e strife of wh at th e w orld projects, discloses , and th e m at erial of language itself , newly striking and opaque , self-secluding. Th e H eid egger scho lar Gianni Vattimo writes: ' W hile the w orl d is th e system of m eanings wh ich are r ead as th ey unfold in th e w ork, th e earth

is th at elem ent of th e w ork which com es forth as ever conc ealing itself anew , like a sor t of nucleu s th at is never used up by interpret ati on s and never exhauste d by m eanings ' (Vattimo 1988: 7 1). Thus, as th e strife of w orld and ear th , th e poem w ould affir m th e earth in th e sens e of th e obsc ure, r esistant w eight of langu age . Thi s m eans partly wh at is m or e com monly called th e m at eri al elem ent of langu age , it s aco ustic ph ysical , non -signifying realit y, so unding out in th e particul ar qu aliti es of consonants and vow els. But H eidegg er also talks of th e ' naming power of langu age ' , it s power of r eferring to things. Given th e cont ext of Heid egger ' s attack on th e th eor eti cist distincti on of th e 's ensible' and th e 'inte lligible ' , ' ear th ' could not m ean some m er ely acoustic bod y to wh ich som e spirit or ' meaning' w as th en m ysteri ou sly adde d. Elsewher e H eid egger writes: The supposedly purely sensuous aspect of the word-so und. conceived as mere resonance, is an abstraction . . .. Even when we hear speech in a lang uage totally unknown to us, we never hear mere sounds as a noise present only to our senses - we hear unintelligible words . But between the unintellig ible word, and the mere sound grasped in acoustic abstraction, lies an abyss of difference in essence . (W T: 130) (See also Heb: 101)

Insofar as any soun d or writt en m ark appears as langu age , it necessarily becomes far m or e than its m er ely physical presen ce , i. e . w e say that th e sound or sign ' means' someth ing . Thus ' t h er e.' consid er ed as a sequenc es of squiggles , is no m or e m eaningful th an a pebble on a b each . Co nsider ed as part of a langu age, th e m arks conjure at once a possibl e r elati on to a w orld. Even a single ph on eme or a fragm ented pi ece ofl etteri ng found on an old w all is, inso far as it is taken as part of language , alre ady t en se with possibiliti es of r elati on and disclosur e . Thi s fundam en tal possibility of signifying at taches to any pi ece of langu age as th e condition of its appeara nc e . Blan chot writes of th at ano nymous 'giant murmuring ' th at is a langu age , a writer ' s task b eing in a way t o shape it by imposing a limit of silence on its inchoat e power (Blan chot 198 2a : 27 ). In legal, phil osophi cal and m ost ever yday langu age , this murmuring of oth er possibiliti es is sim ply a nui sance, an effect to b e minimized in th e inter ests of a direct, in strumentalized clarity. A lit erar y ar t w ork, however , uses langu age differ ently - precisely in not

'THE ORIG I N OF THE W O RK OF A R T '

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simply usina it, for the naming power of langu age is ma nifest in it . In writing too ' The work lets the earth be an earth ', (PLT : 46) . This setting fort h of the earth is achieved by the work as it sets itsel f back into the earth. The self-seclusion of eart h, however, is not a uniform , inflexible staying under cover, but unfolds itself in an inexhaustible variety of simple modes and shapes... . To be sure the painte r . . . uses pig ment, but in such a way that colo ur is not used up but rath er only now comes to shine forth . To be sure , the poet also uses the word - not , however, like ordinary speakers and writers who have used them up , but rath er in such a way t hat the wo rd only now becomes and remains tr uly a word . (PLT 47-8)

Heidegg er is arg uing that th e literar y work ' set s for th ' this primordial pow er of langu age . Thi s power no writer invents - wh o could inv ent th e very nature of langu age? Haar cit es th e Fr ench poet Y. Bonnefoy, ' poe try is a cer tain excess of w ords over sense' (Haar 1993: 121 ). It is not a m atter of th e m er e play of em pty signs (o r nonsen se w ould b e th e greatest ar t !) . It relat es to what H eidegger calls the ' unth ought' of th e w ork . Let us clarify further H eid egger' s noti on of th e ' setting for th of th e ear th ' as r eleasing th e inchoa t e naming-p ow er of langu age . I will clos e thi s chapter with an exam ple of my ow n, helping r elate Heid egger' s thinking her e to practical qu esti on s in liter ar y int erpretati on . Why do not , or canno t, lit erar y w orks have indexes? In a lat e chap ter of his l.eq islatum s: The Polit ics if Deconstruction ( 1994), Geo ffrey Ben nin gt on considers th e nature of an 'inde x'. What is an ind ex , and what sort of considerations are inv olv ed in com piling one? Benningt on r efer s to th e traditional distincti on betw een an index nominorum and an index rerum , th at is an ' inde x of nam es' and an 'inde x of subject -ma tter' . Compiling an ind ex of nam es is not a par ticul ar probl em : one could nowadays do it with th e 'F ind' com m and on a w ord-processing program . An index rerum , however , is not a conco rdanc e, th at is, som eth ing th at sim ply list s alm ost every w or d . Th er e are difficult principl es of selection : Com piling an ind ex rerum involves weighty philosophical decisions. It suggests as a basic principle that t he compiler is able to distinguish between a pu rely verbal occ urrence of a word , and a thematically or conceptually significant

occurrence. It also assumes that the compiler is able to recognize the presence of a concept or theme in the absence of its name. (Bennington 1994: 277--8)

Th e difficulty is th at of distingui shing th e ' concept ual' fr om th e ' me r ely verbal' , i. e . discerning a conc ept, (which need not coinci de necessarily with one specific w ord or t erm) as som eth ing with a clear org anizati on al r ole in th e som e overall arg um ent ena cte d by th e text . Benningt on ' s focus her e is th e w ork of th e post -H eid eggeri an , Jacques D errida: 'The com piler of th e ind ex for th e English transl ati on of [D er rida' s] La Verite en peinture soo n r ealized th at something abo ut th at b ook m ad e it virtually impossible to com pile a satisfacto ry index rerum , and w onder ed wh y' (Benningt on 1994 : 277-8 ). Likewis e it is no accident th at while lit er ar y text s m ay have a conco rdanc e, usually as a sep arate publicati on , th ey almost never have an ind ex. In a lit er ar y text, or one such as D er rida' s whi ch depl oys lit er ar y effect s, di stin cti on s of th e conceptual and th e m er ely verbal, th e significant or in significant occurr en ce of a sign etc ., are all ver y probl em atic. Imagin e trying to compile an ind ex to th e first act of Haml et ! How co uld one talk about, say , ' th e poetry as oppos ed to th e ideas' wh en what is specific is a struggle or a cer tain generative undecid abili ty between th em ? An index co uld not be compiled ther e becau se th e distinct ion b etween wh at m ay b e significant and wh at insignificant in th e text is too har d to draw . It is alw ays im aginabl e th at som e new r eader will r espo nd to some seem ingly unmeaning elem ent of th e text , som e hitherto hid den r eso urce in th e langu age , finding th er e an im po r tant elem ent of implicati on , ton alit y or r egister th at adjusts th e impact of th e wh ole w ork . For instance, in Haml et th e w ord ' visage' r ecurs quite often (mor e th an in any ot her of Shakespear e's dram as). Three exam ples: [Polonius]

We are oft to blame in this, 'Tis too much prov'd, that with devotion's visage And pious action we do sugar o'er the devil himself . (III, i 46)

[Claudius ]

Whereto serves mercy But to confront the visage of offence? (III, iii 47)

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[Hamlet]

Heaven's face does glow O'er this solidity and compound mass With tristful visage, as against the doom , Is tho ught-sick at t he act. (III, iv: 50) (See also I, ii : 77-83; II, ii, 545-8)

Do es th e pr ecise word ' visage' cont ribute ir r eplaceably t o th e world project ed by Hamlet? In m or e t raditional langu age , is it par t of th e general conceptual th rust of th e text, ' what it is saying ' ? Alt ernativ ely, could it b e repl aced by ano th er w or d , 'face ' , with no significant effect? If it w er e ju st a m atter of th e most basic sense, it probably could b e substituted . Yet th e specific w ord ' visage' also matter s as part of th e acoustic substanc e of th e play, with its Latinat e sound , as oppos ed to th e Anglo -Saxo n m on osyllabl e ' face ' . Th e fact th at a substit ution w ould disrupt th e rhythm of th ese lin es is alr eady significant for th e kin d of semantic impact th ey m ay have : it is not only a matter of 'fitting th e m etre ' . ' Visage' also diml y sugg ests ' visor' and ' vision' .. . . Th ese speculat ions could go on for a while , but it sho uld alre ady b e clear that ' visage' is th e place of a certai n un decid abili t y and struggle b etween ' world ' and 'ear th ' in Heid egger ' s sense . Th e ' work-b eing ' of th e w ork, it s singular for ce, is thi s ceasele ss struggle . It is not ' expre ssive ' of a ' meaning' in any obvio us w ay, but part of a t exture th at cannot be cut into ' sound ' on one side and 'sense' on ano the r , whi ch is w oven inex tricably of th e str ess between th em , a stress th at brings each into it s own in un stabl e opposition. So Haml et does not adm it of being split int o an index nominorum and an index rerum . Ano th er thing th at th e clos e attention to th e ear th ly prop er ti es of ' visage ' sho ws, its sound prop er ties etc. , is th at is impossible to affirm ' earth' with ou t sim ulta neo usly affir m ing ' w orld ' in th e for m of subtl e pr ojecti on s of possible m eaning effects. Th e concept ual and th e lingui stic are indi ssoluble her e, not in a comfor table, stable sense, bu t as an unresolv eabl e and untranslatabl e ten sion . Th e word / conce pt ' visage' w ould b e one of th e coun tl ess sites in Hamlet wher e thi s str uggle is at w ork . ' Pro jective saying is saying wh ich , in preparing th e sayable , sim ultaneo usly brings th e un sayabl e as such into a w orl d ' (PLT : 74 ) .

SUMMARY A rt, for Heidegger, is a threatened mode of knowledge t hat is being suffocated in t he mode rn epoc h. It cries out to be dise ngage d from t he dominant concept ions of it, eit her as a mere imitat ion or re-presentation of a given reality , as a function of cultural debate and huma n power relatio ns, as an object of merely historical interest, as merely 'aest het ic' (a matter only of sensuo us beauty) or just an object of academ ic scholars hip , Nor should art be un derstood in terms of 'expression' , as the making outward of an ind ivid ual 's thoug hts or feel ings - the external ization of mere opin ion or feel ing. Heidegger turns instead to the way great art is engaged wit h issues of truth, making a f undamental claim upon us as to the nat ure of our existe nce. It defam iliar izes, under a new, sing ular aspect, t he 'world' of its sit uat ion , i.e. the tota lity of norma lly unt houg ht, pre-reflective practices and modes of perception in wh ich peop le live, In this way, as in the famous examp le of t he Greek temple body ing forth its gods , great art is capab le of setting fort h and sustain ing t he most basic sense of t hings in a people's life . So art, for Heidegger, is always an inherently comm una l affair, putting at issue a society 's modes of perception. It is not an object for merely ind ivid ual contemp lation , To stress the way in wh ich art needs to be rescued from dominant concept ions , Heidegger stresses t he way its thing-like, recalc itrant nat ure always resists the grasp of any attempt to understand it in terms of given meanings, cultural implications and so on, The wor k's trut h is always offset (li ke light and shade) by the depth and resistance of what Heidegger calls its 'earth' qua lity , as opposed to the way it projects a 'world' . We finally looked in deta il at how suc h thin king might work in practice in a considerat ion of a literary text , my example being focused on why it is t hat a literary work cannot have an index.

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4 THE DEATH OF ART?

' The O rigin of th e W ork of Art' introduces one of H eid egger ' s m ost distinctive but least r ecognized top ics, th at of th e death of art . Thi s gloo my th em e reapp ears in Heidegger ' s readings of poetry (see Chapter 6) and in various occasio nal lectures and r em arks up till the end of his life . T o redress th e w ay thi s to pic has so often been overloo ked, thi s bri ef chapt er will focus on it exclusively .

PRESERVATION Th e death of art is an issue b ound up with th e way ar t is r eceived in the m od ern epoch. So, wh at for Heid egger is th e role of th e r ead er (o r beh old er or listen er ) in relation t o th e w ork of ar t? After all , a gr eat ar t w ork w ould hardly be gr eat if few took adequate not ice of it , precisely th e pr obl em of modern ar t . For Heid egger th e task of th e r ead er etc . is to ' pr eserv e ' th e singular w orld-soliciting thrust of th e w ork, it s singularity as described in th e section of that nam e in th e last chapt er . Respect for it s singular ity m eans not for cing th e w ork to be intelligibl e within th e fram ework of what one alr eady under stand s, wh ether th at b e th e r eader ' s sense of the w ork's soci al cont ext or of its autho r's th ought . T o preserve th e singularity of th e w ork is a matter of hold ing open, as it w er e , that for ce of di sclosur e to wh ich , as w e have seen , th e ar tist alre ady responds

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in th e emergent w ork, and not t o make of th e w ork an object on to wh ich pr ed et ermined lab els co uld be fixed : ' W here does th e w ork belong? Th e w ork b elongs, as w ork, uniquely within th e realm th at is opened up by itself' (PLT : 41 ) . So 'The w ork' s own peculi ar r ealit y . . . is brou ght t o bear only wher e th e w ork is preserv ed in th e truth th at happ en s by th e w ork it self' (PLT: 68). ' Pre ser vation ' , th en , is th e oppos ite of 'reade r r espon se ' in any subjective sense . It do es not ' re duce peopl e to th eir priv at e expe riences, but brings th em into affiliation with th e truth happ ening in th e w ork' (PLT : 68) . Heid egger 's not ion of th e r ead er as id eally ' pre ser ving ' w ork is th at of a r espon se that do es ju stice to thi s defamiliarizing for ce of singulari ty : Not only the creation of the work is poetic , but equally poetic, though in its own way. is the preserving of the work; for a work is in actual effect as a work only when we remove ourselves from our commonplace routine and move into what is disclosed by the work , so as to bring our own nat ure itself to take a stand in the truth of what is. (PLT 74-5)

In a str uctural sense, a r ead er belon gs to th e w ork fr om th e ver y first , not of co urs e in th e sense of any specific per son or gro up but in th e w ork' s necessar y sense th at it is Jor someo ne, dir ect ed outward : 'The poetic projection of truth . . . is also never carried out in th e dir ecti on of an ind eter minat e void . Rath er , in th e w ork, tr uth is thrown to wa rd th e com ing preserv ers, th at is, t ow ard an hist or ical gro up of m en ' (PLT: 75) . Th e w ork' s for ce is inh er ently communal, a setting for th of a space in wh ich a peopl e might live . At th e sam e time, th e w ork is no w ork - do es no w ork - if m et wi th an attitud e clos ed to it . Ar t' s founding power is annulled in m ost official kinds of r ecepti on . ' As soo n as th e th rust into the ext raordinary is par ried and captured by the sphere of famili arity and conno isseurship , the ar t bu siness has begun ' (PLT : 68) . Pot entially , th e w orld-di sclosing for ce of art is comparable to th e act ' th at founds a politi cal state' (PLT : 62 ) . Heid egger also com pares th e disclosive power of art to th at of 'e ssential sacrifice', an obsc ure r efer en ce , appar ently, to th e Cruci fixio n of Christ as a w orld-alt ering event (PLT : 6 2) . How ever , sinc e the w ord of th e poet is no power at all unl ess r ecognized and ' pre ser ved' by th ose who r eceive it , th e poet' s

founding is not a kin d of diktat , to be mindlessly ob eyed or im pos ed. It is an appea l and event of disclosur e th at cannot truly happ en unl ess its r ead er s are attuned t o it . Thi s might take centuries. Th e ' time of cre ator s' , is ' essentially long , for th e prep arati on of th e truth th at is som e day to happ en , does not occur overnight or to order, but requires m any human lives and even genera tions ' ( GA 39 : 56) . H eid egger ' s id eal in th e mid-1930s, far fr om th e r ealit y he lived , was th at ' the hi storical existe nce of a peopl e ' be 'founde d by th e poet , orga nized and brought t o kn owledge by the thinker , and r oot ed in ear th and hi storical space by th e state-founder ' (GA 39: 120 ) . Ideally th en , politicians w oul d operate within th e realm of disclosur e at w ork in ar t and th ought , as arguably Greek statesm en had inhabited th e w orld of th e t em ple . Thi s was a r em ot e even utopi an hop e , as old as th e id eal of the philosophically led r uler in Plato ' s Republic. As w e have seen, H eid egger is pr eeminently th e thinker of the declin e and possibl e death of art .

MODERN ART: IS ART FINISHED? The Aegina sculptures in the Munich collection, Sophocles's Antigone in the best critical edition, are, as the works they are, torn out of their own native sphere . However high their quality and power of impression, however good their state of preservation, however certain their interpretation, placing them in a collection has withdrawn them from their own world .

H eid egger arg ues that the w ork of art has a finite life-span . H e continues : But even when we make an effort to cancel or avoid such displacement of works - when, for instance, we visit the temple in Paestum at its own site or the Bamberg cathedral on its own square - the world of the work that stands there has perished . World-withdrawal and world-decay can never be undone. (pL T 40-1)

For H eid egger art di es onc e its w orld-disclosing is cover ed over with attitudes th at take it m erely as a source of aesthetic expe rience , or as a cult ural or hist or ical art efact or, one must add, when it b ecomes valued almost entir ely as an object of critical study in uni ver siti es or for public display in museums. Aft er all , outside th e academy lit er ar y THE DEATH OF ART?

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cult ure in th e twenty-first century t ends to m ean either a r eductive focus on th e per son alit y of autho rs , and th e cult of bi ogr aphi es, or it m ean s the com modificatio n of writer 's lives and w orks in ter ms of th e places with which they can be associate d by th e t ourist industry, as in ' Hardy's W essex ' , ' Housm an ' s Shro pshir e' and so on. Heid egger ' s great lecture, viewed in r etrospect , appe ars as one of several attem pts in th e twentieth century to save art by dissociating it from the aesthetic. Avant-gar de modernism, as w ith th e sur r ealists of th e 1920s and 1930s, had also put into practice a subv ersio n of th e m erely 'aesthe tic' noti on of ar t , at tempting, for exam ple , to t ransgr ess accepted distincti on s of ar t and r ealit y, r endering art a privileged m od e of social and political actio n . Art's death is not in stantan eou s and is still in process. For Heid egger such dying is perhap s what modern art is. ' The dying occurs so slo w ly th at it takes a few cent uries' (PLT : 79) . So wh at space is left in Heid egger ' s arg ument for m odern ar t? Th e Gr eek T emple w as an instance of pre-m od ern art, opening th e qu esti on of wheth er modern art can ever have qui t e th e sam e pow er. Th e Van Gogh paintin g , a m od ern w ork discussed in th e last chapter, only r eveals what th e peasant w oman alr eady kn ow s , albeit implicitl y and non -th em ati cally: it does not found th at w orld , it m er ely un cover s it . N ever theless , ar t, in thi s exam ple , still m akes available a holisti c m ode of being oth er th an th e spac e of calculative rep resentation al th inking . Lat er Heid egger was to discover th e w ork of Paul Cezanne ( 1839 - 1906) as foll owing in paintin g a path parallel to his ow n in thinking (Pet: 131ff ) . O ne argum ent ab out modern ar t is that it enacts th e failur e of ar t' s essential disclosive pow er to r ealize itself. Art becomes a space of negative cog nitio n , i. e . its own r em ove fr om qu esti on s of ' tr uth ' and autho rity r ender s it th e space of a fr ustrated or deni ed possibility . It r em ain s, in it s tor tured w ay , a m od e of presen cing oth er th an t ech nology, even if thi s m ode of pr esen cing appears largely in th e m od e of its own pow erl essness. Writing on th e com m unist ar tist Heinrich Vogeler (1 872 -1 94 2) H eid egger sees a ' te rr or , hidden even from him self, in th e face of th e end of art th at was to found a w orld , in th e era in whi ch m etaph ysics is dissolv ed in a univ er sal technology' (P et : 140). O ne thinks her e also of th e ' postm ode rn' thinker J.-F. Lyot ard ' s ( 1924-98) definiti on of the ' sublime ' as th e prime characte ristic of modern art (Lyotard 1989) . By a sublim e presentation is m eant her e one which presents and keep s open th e fact that th er e is a som eth ing

unpr esentabl e . Thi s schem a cer tainly fits H eidegger ' s cel ebra tion of th e gr eat Ger m an Romanti c poet Friedric h H old erlin as th e essential poet of our tim e, as Chapter 6 will consider . D oes ar t , in it s essential power , still exist? Writing to hi s discipl e , the art critic H. W . Pet zet , in th e Spring of 1950 (th e sam e year as ' The Origin of th e W ork of Art' appeared in Holzwege), H eid egger arg ues : Something else: the question raised in [your] lecture - what is the exhibited work of art? - does not yet seem clear in all respects. The question that could be hidden behind all of this is whether there exists an art work at all. Or does art become untenable along with metaphysics? (Pet: 152-3)

Thi s pu zzlement appears in H eid egger ' s adm iration for Picasso . Is such w ork, however impressive, ' capable of m aking m anifest for ar t even its essential place in th e future . Perhaps thi s is not an issue for ar t but th en wh at is th e w ork of such artistic genius? Wher e do es it belong?' (Pet: 14 5). Th e music of Igor Stra vinsky ( 1882- 197 1) raised th e sam e qu esti on s for Heid egger (' Ube r Igor Strawinsky' (GA 13: 181» . Ano th er r eason m od ern ar t is so probl emati c for Heid egger r elat es surely to what may b e a qu esti on abl e part of his argum ent . Thi s r elat es to the w ay art's business of disclosur e r enders it essentially comm unal - it is not a m atter of individual expre ssion but of general ' world' in which a soci ety lives . H eidegger assum es (rather th an argue s) th at th er e is a clos e, even constit utive relation between ar t and th e nati on al life of a par ti cular gro up . Thi s go es beyond for example th e kind of vague asso ciatio n m ad e when lit er ature is pragm ati cally divid ed up as 'E nglish Lit er ature ' , ' Canadian Lit er ature ' etc. Ar t for Heid egger takes place as a pot entially disclosive event within the hori zon formed by th e w orld of a specific hist ori cal peopl e (Volk) . It arises fr om a particular hist or ical peopl e, offering th em , wh ether Greeks or Ger mans , th eir fund am ental sta nc e in existe nce . It is Jar th at peopl e , addr essed to th eir possible destiny, and it is preserv ed , if at all, by th at peopl e . In oth er w ords, the noti on of a peopl e is foundati on al to th e processes of ar t in Heid egger ' s under standing , as it is to a whole Ger ma n Rom antic tradition str etch ing back to th e phil osopher J. G . Herder ( 1744- 1803) in th e lat er eighteenth century . 'The peopl e ' for m th e stag e on which alone ar t is given a founding power , even if it b e only a pot ential one . Th e noti on THE DEATH OF ART?

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of th e peopl e bear s th is fun cti on withou t being m uch analysed (see, however , C : 29-30; 66-9) . It is clear, however , th at a peopl e (Volk) is defined for Heid egger by a common langu age and certainly not by race, as in the Nazi ideology with which th ese lectures are in debat e. Th is aspect of H eidegger ' s argum ent raises a qu estion : is H eid egger ' s noti on of ar t r eally only adapte d to tradition al , pre-m od ern , hom ogen eous and geographical bounded soci eties of th e kin d th at have not r eally existe d in Europe for centuries (if ever )? Is it so cer tain that art is nati on al in it s essence? Even if one gra nts th at Gr eek Art or th e w ork of th e Italian Renaissance could be seen in thi s w ay, m od ern ar t cer tainly canno t . Leaving aside for now th e qu estion s of music , painting and archite cture , whose langu age-indep enden ce H eidegger w ould anyway di spu te (PLT : 74 ) , surely m uch lit er ature even is int ernati on al in it s constit utio n and outlook? Th e poetry of T . S. Eliot ( 1888- 1965) or th e plays of Sam uel Beckett ( 1906-89) seem produced alm ost expre ssly to der id e th e possibilit y of being un der stood only in relation to one nati on al cult ur e . Both , in th eir differ ent w ays, ar e com posed with r efer en ce to w orks in several European traditi on s, yet also in terms oft en so ab strac te d fro m specific soci al and hist ori cal r efer en ce as to defy being situated in anyone cult ural cont ext . In a lecture of 1967 Heid egger acknowledg es th at m od ern ar t ' no lon ger originates from th e formative border s of a w orld of th e peopl e and nati on ' (H K: 15), bu t only to see thi s disjun cti on as th e end of art , and m od ern art as r ootl ess and nihili sti c. H eid egger her e seems stuc k in a form of Rom antic nation alism . Heid egger ' s un easiness appe ars in hi s pu zzled attitude to abst ra ct art . Sinc e Heidegg er does not accept th at non -abstract ar t is r epr esentational in th e first place one might expect hi s atti tude t o abstra ct art to be an inter esting one : Is there perhaps , behind the u neasiness brought about by a nonobjective art , a m uch deeper shock? Is that the end of art? T he arrival of something for which we do not have a name ? (Pet: 153)

It is m ainl y a negativ e r espon se. The Principle <1 Reason (1957) r elat es abstract art and th e dominati on of techn ology . Abstract art is 'a tool th at unfold s th e b eing of techn ology' (Pet: 66) . Th e relati on between

t echn o-scien ce (th e w orld of particle accele ra tors) and abstra ct ar t is th at neither relat es to objects outside th e act of its own operation , but inv olv es th e ver y constr uction of th e objects th ey illuminat e . Ju st as scientific expe riments have becom e m or e and m or e interv entioni st and techn ologized , so ab stra ct ar t m akes it self out of its ow n activity :

That in such an age art becomes objectless testifies to its historical appropriateness, and this above all when nonreprese ntational art conceives of its own productions as no longer being able to be works, rat her as being something for which a suitable word is lacking. That there are art exhibitions of modern styles has more to do with the mighty principle of reason, or rendering reasons, than we can first imagine. (P R 34)

Ho w ever, need thi s b e th e end of th e m atter ? In a little kn own confere nce of 1958, chaire d by H eid egger , on th e r elati on of W estern and Japanese art, one par ti cipant defended abstract art . O ne ' Bros e' sugg est ed th at ab stra ct art m ight b e seen as post-aesth eti c or post m etaph ysical in a positiv e sense, a kin d of W estern ' Ze n' art th at could b od y-for th th e cont ours and presen cing of pre-r epresentati on al space (Foti 1998: 340- 1) . Thi s idea m atches Heid egger ' s adm iration for th e w ork of th e Swiss painter Paul Klee (1 879-1 940), paintings far m or e t ortured th an Brose ' s peaceabl e ideal. Heid egger seems t o have discov ere d Klee ' s w ork in th e mid 1950 s (Pet : 135) , and it affecte d him stro ngly enough to give ri se to ideas and notes for a second par t of ' The O rigin of th e W ork of Art' (H eidegg er 1993) . Klee ' s pow erful , dream -lik e im ages are usually consider ed a precursor t o 'ab stract expre ssionism'. D en ounced as 'de gene ra te ' by th e N azis, for H eid egger they open a new w ay b etween traditional art and m er ely or fully abstract w orks: th e objects in a Klee painting do not di sapp ear compl etely as in abstra ct ar t, bu t th eir withdraw al from im m ediat e r ecogniti on forms a kind of continuous event in a w orld render ed newly pr ominent by thi s w ithdraw al. A Klee paintin g also ma kes visible th e deep str uctures of m od ern human existe nce. Klee ' s Pat ient in (, The (Wom an) Pati ent' ) he com mende d as reaching furth er into 'illness and suffering ' th an any clin ical probing or m ed ical t extb ook (Pet : 148) . Thi s is enigma tic but presumably r elat es t o th e noti on th at ar t can provid e a holistic sense of what di sease m eans as a disrupti on of the THE 0 EAT H 0 FAR T ?

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wh ole w orld a person inhabits, with out m ind / bo dy du alism , oppos ed to th e reductiv e analysis of m er ely ph ysiological sym pto ms . Acco rding to Pet zet , H eidegger ' s project ed sequel to his fam ou s essay w oul d have dealt w ith Klee ' s un successful str uggle t o under stand what was happ ening in hi s paintings, th e necessar y confusion and inar ti culacy th at affect a gr eat painter at a tim e wh en ar t is b eing fundam entally tra ns formed by the domination of t echnological thinking (Pet : 146) . For Heid egger , th is transformati on is such th at modern pi eces, how ever powerful , cannot b e called ' w or ks' . Heidegg er 's 1967 Athens addr ess on art w orries again over th e qu estion of m odern art : The modes by which we determine reality in a scientific world, and by the name 'sc ience' , we understand natural science, mathe matical physics, emphasize something that is only too well known. By t his means one is easily prompted to explain t hat the region fro m which the req uirements to which modern art responds is none other than the scientific world . We hesitate to give our assent. We remain in indecision . (H K : 15)

Th e lecture ' s ind ecision is th e very ind ecision in which , for Heidegger , glo bal civilizat io n is suspend ed . Is m od ern ar t no m or e th an th e writhing of a for gotten mode of b eing , suffocat ed in th e w orld of techno -scienc e? Am idst th e continuing abso r ptio n of artisti c life by th e combined industries of th e academy and 'heritag e ' , thi s qu esti on loom s, hu ge but largely ign or ed , over all th e academic confer ences and cult ural tours. N ever theless, an indi stin ct hop e r em ain s: th at modern humanity will com e to feel the danger in wh ich it stands in takin g th e norms of indus trial soci ety as th e only crit erion for all th ou ght . Realizati on th at industrial soci ety exists on th e basis of being locked in its ow n manip ulati on s might b e th e first movem ent of a new di spen sati on of b eing , a rethinking of th e unthought bases of W estern th ou ght and histor y at th e m oment of th eir globalizatio n . Her e ar t might offer a pathway: ' D oes th e beckoning into th e mystery of th e still unthought 'A -Ietheia' point at th e sam e tim e into th e r ealms of th e origin of ar t? D oes th e claim to produce w orks com e fr om thi s r ealm?' (HK : 2 1).

But H eid egg er do es not beli eve anyone is yet in a position to answer : whether art will be granted this highest possibility of its essence in the midst of the extreme danger, no one can tell. (OCT 35)

SUMMARY The wor ld-d isclos ing potential of art is stifled in the modern epoch, wit h its appropriation of art as a form of merely subjective experie nce, as an object for museums or for school and university study . Th is stifling is suc h that Heidegger doubts whether anyth ing like a 'work' in the sense outlined in the 'The Orig in of the Work of Art' is possible in our age . What is the status t hen of modern art and literat ure? T he issue, for Heidegger, is genuinely undecided. T his is not because he can not make up his mind , but because t he force of art is nothing if it is not acknowledged and 'preserved' by those who see and read, so art's f uture depends on the uncertain way in w hich dominant modes of thought and being may change . Shou ld t he over-rationa lized wor ld of mode rn tec hno-scie nce merely conso lidate itself in the com ing centuries, as Heidegger expected, t hen the alternative, more holistic modes of understanding engaged in art will be killed off . Art will essent ially have died .

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5 LAN G UAG E, TRADITION AND THE CRAFT OF THINKING

Nothing is more unfit t ing for an intellectual resolved on practicing what was earlier called philosophy than to wish , in disc ussion, and one might say in argumentation, to be right. The very wish to be right, down to its subtlest fo rm of logical reflection, is an expression of that spirit of self-preservation which philosophy is precisely concerned to break down. (Theodo r A dorno)

Thi s chapte r conc erns langu age , both Heid egger ' s un conv ention al view of language and, at th e end of th e chapte r , th e extraordinar y expe rim ents with th e rh etor ical forms of phil osophical writings to which his thinking leads him. In b etween , w e will have a close look at th e w ay H eid egger reads th e texts of W est ern traditi on , his r evisioni st conc ern with what gets said or - m or e pr ecisely - what gets covered over in the langu age of th ese tex ts. A minute attention to language foll ows necessaril y fro m H eid egger ' s one, perv asive intention : t o free us from th e numbing famili arity of producti oni st m et aph ysics. It is a hu gely ambitio us aim : such thinking is basic to th e w ay th e m od ern W est sees ever yth ing . It is less what it thinks and feels than that by which it thinks and feels . Heid egger needs t o undo thi s self-evidenc e:

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When tradition th us becomes master, it does so in such a way that what it 'transmits' ... rather becomes concealed . Tradition takes what has come down to us and delivers it over to self-evidence; it blocks our access to those primordial 'sources' f rom which the categories and concepts handed down to us have been quite genuinely drawn. (BT: 43)

Heid egger aims to clarify th e ' pre -ont ological under standing of being ' which tradition covers over, even as it must finally r est up on it . (Ontology is th e nam e of th at field of phil osophy whi ch conc erns it self with th e concept of 'be ing' ) . Such inquiry th e Heid egger of Beina and Time called a ' fundamental onto logy ' bu t he lat er abando ned thi s phrase as still too tradition al in its implicati on s. H e also called it a 'de str uction ' or 'de -constr ucting ' (BP : 22-3) of m etaph ysically based assum ptions and per ception s, not in th e sense of a violent dem olition but as a de-layering of str uctures of th e obvious . H eid egger m ean s th e 'disobst r uctiou' of our im m ediate existe nce , encruste d as it is with mill ennia of th eor eti cist and objectivizing assum ptions. Thi s is, in effect, wh at w e have alre ady foll ow ed in our exe r cise abo ut AI in Chapt er 1: We understand this task as one in which by taki ng th e question of Being as our clu e, we are to destroy the traditional content of ancient ontology until we arrive

at those primordial experiences in which we achieved our first ways of determining the nature of Being - the ways which have guided us ever since. (BT: 44)

LANGUAGE Th e cr uci al issue for H eid egger afte r Beina and Time b ecomes langu age , and th e langu age of tradition , what it covers over, th e r esources it draw s fr om , what it r eveals in its un said. Heidegg er 's th inking on language is as distinctiv e as any ot her aspect of his w ork . Th er e is nothing unusual in his seeing language as a defining characteristic of hu m anit y. Th is is alr eady th e case for Aristo tl e in anci ent Ath ens . If H eid egger seems st rang e it is because he r ejects th e traditio nal or obvio us view oflanguag e : that it is an instrum en t wher eby w e r epresent things or th oughts to ourselves and to each oth er, a m edi um of communication . Heidegger argue s that, ultim at ely, lan guag e cannot b e seen as our tool and that - in a notori ou s ph rase -

' it is langu age that speaks ' (die Sprache spricht) and not th e hu m an being : 'For st ric tly it is langu age th at speaks . Man first speaks , when and only when he r esponds to langu age by list ening to it s appe al' (PLT: 2 16). Thi s claim , prep ost er ou s at first sight , sho uld becom e clear in th e light of H eid egger ' s general holism. H eid egger thinks thro ugh H olderlins lin es ' Since w e have b een a conv ersa tio n / And able t o hear fr om one anothe r ' . What , he asks, is the nature of conversatio n and what can it t ell us abo ut language gener ally? A first poin t , strang e and then evide nt, is th at language is not id enti cal wi th wh at is said (or written ) . First, speaking in conversa tio n is as m uch a m atter of list ening as it is of talkin g . In conversatio n, you m ust be able to hear , to pick up in th e speech of th e other th e silences as w ell as the stat em ents . ('Being able to talk and b eing able to hear are co- original' (E : 57» . In additio n, it is far m or e th an ju st a m atter of a shar ed ability to for m w ords and sentenc es . Langu age is not just a syst em of signs whos e code suppos edly r esides 'in' th e minds of its user s. It is better expre ssed as an all-pervasive bu t utterl y decisive envir onment, one which opens and m aintain s th e shared hor izon within which under standing is possible, th e com m on w orld th at enables peopl e t o approa ch and m ake sense of things and each oth er . Th e w ork of language project s a conte xt for us in which gest ure , tim ing , silenc e and so on are each par t , yet non e could be fully captured in a notation , a for m alized system of gramma r, or some taxo nomy of ty pes of speech act . ' O nly wh er e th er e is langu age, is th er e w orld ' (E : 56) . Even disagr eem en ts take place w ithi n an essential coming-toge ther in language , a space without whi ch no mi sunder standing even w oul d b e possibl e . Thus 'We are always speaking , even when w e do not utter a single w ord aloud , bu t m er ely listen or read , and even wh en w e ar e not par ticul arl y listening or speaking, but attending t o som e w ork or takin g a r est' (PLT : 189) . As th e fund am ental envir onment in which w e per ceive, think, talk and have our being it is only superficially the case th at langu age is a set of signs attached to 'ide as' , or th at th ese ar e th em selves ' re presentatio ns ' or im ages of things out th er e . As anyo ne wh o has st udied a for eign langu age kn ow s, any langu age brings with it its ow n specific w orld : In the cu rrent view, lang uage is held to be a kind of communication. It serves for verbal exchange and agreement, and in general f or communicating . But L A N G U AGE , T R A D I T IO N A N D T H I N K I N G

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language is not only and not primarily an audible and written expression of what is to be comm unicated . It not only puts forth in words and statements what is overtly or covertly intended to be communicated; language alone brings what is, something that is, into the Open fo r the first time. Where there is no language, as in the being of stone, plant , and animal , there is also no openness of what is. (pL T: 73)

Heidegger ' s conc ern th en is not th e surface ph en om ena oflanguage, th e com m unication within th e alre ady opened space , but with th e way langu age m akes possible th at spac e it self, it s attitudes, attune ment s th e sort of w orld disclosed th er e . Ani m als m ay or may not have th eir own kind of open region or clearing (Heidegg er's denial of full w orldhood for anima ls has been contr over sial (see Derrida 198 9 : 47ff; Kr ell 1992 : 112ft) , but for human beings w orldhood is given in langu age. For in stan ce , as w e saw in Chapter 2, for Heid egger th e tran slation of Gr eek thinking and its w orld into Latin , into Romann ess, was perhaps th e m ost cr ucia l event in th e hist or y of th e W est . So, as th at whi ch opens to us th e w orld w e inh abit , it is langu age th at speaks, not human beings. (If thi s still seems counte rint uitive , try inv enting a few w ords of your ow n overn ight and see how you far e using th em th e next day .) Such a noti on of langu age infor m s th e extraordinar y impo r tanc e Heid egger gives cer tain poets (Ho m er , Hold erlin) . In his legacy in decon structiv e thinking (see Chapter 8) , it informs arguments to th e effect th at the langu age of a text m ay say som ething oth er th an anything iden tifiabl e with an auth or' s int enti on , conscious or oth erwis e: ' it is not w e who play with w ords, but the nature of langu age plays with us . . . long since and alwa ys' (WT : 118) . Given thi s conce ption of langu age, it is not surprising th at Heid egger 's dest ructio n of pr oducti on ist m etaphysics sho uld focus up on th e langu age of traditi on , nor th at Heidegger ' s thinking sho uld turn t o m or e and m or e rh etor ically st range and inv entive m od es of langu age in order to try to free itself of th at tradition . He w oul d aw aken in th e tired terminology of phil osophical and critical th ought th e r ealizati on th at langu age is at it s basis an ar t- w ork , a poesis. It is a mo de of disclosur e, not a m od e of r e-presentation .

TRADITION AND THE TRACE H eid egger ' s statem ents on nihili sm and th e crisis facing W est ern civilizati on accord with th ose of m any German intell ectu als in th e period after th e disaster of th e Gr eat W ar. Th ey imply th e need for a com plete break with th e past , a noti on Heid egger held till his death . W e live in an 'e xhauste d pseudo-culture ' (Wolin 1993: 18) . Th e issue , he wrot e in 1920 , is ' whe the r fr om thi s destructi on a new "cult ure" will eme rge or an accele ration of decline ' (ibid ). It is th e pr ofundit y of Heid egger 's thinking to un cover ' pro ductionist ' m etaphysics at w ork in every aspect of m odern life and tho ught, even wh at w e take t o b e obvio us . So per vasive is it th at one soo n sees wh y th e noti on of a complete rupture fr om t radition so appealed to him . An extre me diagn osis r equires ext re me solutions , yet thi s inevitably raises th e issue of Heidegger 's sudden turn t o Naz ism in 1933, whi ch took even hi s clos e discipl es by surprise (see Chapter 7) . Lest w e be too hasty about th e political tenden cy of H eid egger ' s ant i-mo dern thinking , Richard W olin reminds us th at ' a surprisingly sim ilar critique of m od ernity w as shar ed by th e radical left' (Wolin 1993 : 18) . Th e later H eid egger , wh o will mainl y conce rn us her e, sustains a radi cal critique of m od ernit y, but now teaches th at th er e is no single, sim ple border to cross from producti oni st m etaph ysics into som e bar ely conc eivable oth er r ealm. W e must learn in stead - it is th e only optio n - a pati ent and th oughtful tran sformati on of the space and traditi on s in whi ch w e alre ady find ourselves . H eid egger ' s interv ention th en usually takes th e form of a r evisioni st clos e r eading of th e phil osophical t exts in th e W estern traditi on . Thi s is t o give a cr ucial place t o th e texts of that tradition and , t o some exte nt th e poet ic tradition . Th ese, for H eid egger , r ender legibl e th e bases of W est ern hist or y . Thi s is not , however , t o indulge in some professor ' s fantasy th at phil osophy as a discipline gro unds hu m an life , th at phil osopher s are th e un ackn owledged legislat or s of th e w orld . His far mor e plausibl e claim is th at phil osopher s - and poets - bring to langu age th e pervasive but oth erw ise unthem atized under standing of their epoch. Such an act is necessaril y always in complet e, wh ich is one r eason wh y H eid egger ' s concern , when ever he r eads a philosopher , is with wh at he terms th e ' unth ought' of th e thinking , th at unthou ght m atrix out of which wh at is explicit emerged. Heid egger writes: 'W hat is unthought in a thinker 's th ought is not a lack inh er ent in his th ought . What is un-tho ught is th er e in each case only as th e un -thought. Th e L A N G U AGE , T R A D I T ION A ND T H INK I N G

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m or e ori gin al th e thinking , th e rich er will be what is unthou ght in it' (W T: 76 ) . Jacqu es Derrida writes th at for philosophy a univ ocity of langu age - i. e. th e id eal of an un equivocal langu age with one clear sense - is ' the essence , or better , th e telos [end or id eal] oflanguage . No philosoph y, as such, has ever ren ounced thi s Ari st ot elian id eal. Thi s ideal is phil osophy' (D errida 198 2: 247) . It is a Heid eggeri an poin t . O ne r eason Heid egger is so alien t o m ost thinker s in th e Anglopho ne tradition of phil osophy is th at he qu esti on s wh at is usually th e first , alm ost in stinctive gest ur e of phil osophical argumentation , th at of m aking one 's terms into univ ocal and precise concepts . Heid egger does not t ry to r educe th e terms of thinking to a clarity th at w ould aim t o b e context ind ep endent , ahisto rical, as th ough it w er e a m er ely a matter of Ari stotl e and Ber trand Ru ssell going over iden tical issues in differ ent langu ages - th e suppos edly per ennial ' pro blems of phil osoph y' . For Heid egger of co urs e, th e langu age of neither phil osopher could be abstracted or ' unworlded' in th at way . Thi s is not to say th at Heid egger is r educing phil osophi cal t exts to m er ely hist or ical documents, as in th e hist or icism of m any lit er ar y critics, but he is reading with a view to deep hist or y in th e sense of Geschichte, i. e . th e seem ingly obvious, unthou ght sens e of things th at perv ades and str uctures th e t exts. Destructi on / deconstr uction will give a clos e reading of th e t exts of tradition , t easing out th eir dependenc e on unthemati zed elem ents th ey cannot explicitly avow. For Heid egger , 'the multiplicity of possible int erpretati on s does not discr edit th e strict ness of th e th ought content' and is not ' th e residue of a still un achieved formal-logical univ ocit y wh ich w e prop erl y strived for but did not attain' (W T : 71 ) . Heid egger 's scho larship is usually th or ou gh , bu t its goa l is t o open out , in th e terms and conc epts of previou s th ought , the um houqh: legibl e ther e. List ening t o langu age , Heid egger ' s thinking st rives t o solicit fr om th ese texts a sens e of th e kind of w orld at sw ay th er e - th e way 'be ing is said' as H eid egger puts it . So it is not a case of wh at Parmenides or Anaximand er , for exam ple , ' me ant' , but of the trace of wh at is unthou ght but ma r ked in th eir Greek . W e have alr eady seen an exam ple of thi s sor t of attentio n in the w ay th at a noti on of t ruth as ' unconcealm ent' still offers itself t o be r ead in Gr eek texts as "aletheia' (a-Ietheia), even th ough th ese thinker s are star ting to use th e term in th e sens e of truth as only a prop erty of human judgem ents, as th e cor r ectness of judgem ents. As Rob ert Bernasconi explains, ' W he n w e

hear th e lethe [con cealm ent 1 in aletheia w e ar e list ening not to Parmenides, but to th e speaking of langu age it self' (Bernasconi 198 5 : 25) . Thi s trace , not explicitl y tho ught by th e Gr eeks themselves, is alr eady th e sign of a for getting of th ought' s unreflectiv e conditio ns. H eid egger ' s thinking , in it s attem pt to attune it self to its subject m atter , th e being of particular bein gs, is, Heid egger writ es, 'in the ser vice of lanpuaq e' (H eid egger 1989 : 93; Heid egger ' s italics) . Thi s is, of cours e, a r ever sal of th e com mon noti on that language is - or ought t o be - th e ser vant of a pre-exi sten t th ou ght . 'The ultimat e bu siness of philosophy' , w e r ead in Beina and Time, ' is to pr eser ve the fo rce if the most elemental words in which Dasein expre sses itsel f, and to keep th e com m on under standing from leveling th em off to th at unintelligibili ty whi ch fun cti on s in turn as a sour ce of pseudo-probl em s' (BT : 26 2) . Aft er Beina and Time thi s sentenc e m ight need a slight modificatio n, m ak ing it clear er th at th e space opened in langu age is wh er e Dasein find s itself, not someth ing it cr eat es . Phil osophy need s to pr eserve ' the m ost elem ental w ords in whi ch [being], is said . H eid egger' s r eading focuses on 'basic w ords' ( Grundw orte) - w ords such as 'art' , ' t ruth ' , 'be ing' , ' nat ure' , ' politics' , 'histor y' . Th ese bear ' w ith in' th em crucia l and differing hist or ical under standings of being and Dasein . Th ese are w ords in wh ich decisive deep -hist or ical (aeschichtlich) shifts sho w up , wher e lit tl e not iced but colossal alte rations in th e human w orld are at w ork in langu age . Th e Gr eek w or d techne is a good exam ple: it onc e nam ed the kn owledge implicit in th e m akin g of som ething, b oth in ar t and t echno logy . Lat er th ese become distinct , even antagonistic. H eid egger' s attention to th e texts of traditi on offers a ver y stra ng e and elusive kind of interpretati on . It is not th e fixing of what th e thinker s in the tradition ' m eant' , nor th e t easing out of logical ten sion s in th eir argument s with a view to either refuting or defending th em ; nor is it a so -called 'he r mene utics of suspicio n' in th e sense of a sniffing out in th e tex ts hidden or un con sciou s m ot ives or un ackn owl edged prejudices at w ork th er e. W e are conc ern ed her e with th e t ra ce of what (a) was not explicitly th ought , bu t was precisely ' unth ought' ; and (b) wh ich could never have been present as an object of th ou ght , for what is ' unthought' w as never an entity in th e w orld , but is precisely the holisti c all-pe r vading w orl d and context out of wh ich particular things eme rged. Such a context, and th e deep hi stor y it conveys, find s its prim ar y site in th e langu age in whi ch th ese past th ink er s lived . Speaking over and beyond th eir conscio us int ention or arg um ent, it L A N G U A G E , TRADITION A ND THINKI NG

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conveys th e fundamental sens e of things through which th ey saw, and which m ade those intentions or arguments possible . Tradition for H eid egger is an obj ect of destruction or deconstruction, but this is not a simplistic gesture of r ejection. Aft er all , what else do w e have to think with? Th e language of tradition also contains th e unthought traces of its own unbuilding: 'It is simply a matter of list ening to this tradition in r eturn , and th er eby exam ining th e preju dic es and pre-judgem ents in whi ch every thinking , in its own w ay, must dwell ' (P : 33 2) . H eid eggeri an critique is a list ening to th e text and th e tracin g out of its limits , not a phil osophical 'attack' on or 'defence' of its ' po sitions ' , as th e usual militar y langu age has it . H e tries to trace th ose limits, not as a Marxist or Fr eudian r eading w oul d , by setting up som e m eta-philosophical syst em whi ch could judge and it emi ze it s object fr om th e outside , but by foll owing elem ents of dep en dence in th e tradition al text whi ch trouble its own th eses. Th ese ' unth ought' traces in th e t ext ind icat e, in David Kolb ' s w ords, ' th at th er e is within phil osophy a thinking th at conditions it s activity but does not operate according to it s rules' (Kolb 1995 : 66) . Read er s m ay also r ecognize her e major features of th e kind of r eading associ ated with deconstructi on under Derrida's nam e . A glance at Heid egger ' s own vocabular y in Beina and Tim e is helpful her e. When ever it is a m atter of a philosophical or com mon sense legacy to b e decon struct ed th e terms at issue ar e usually tradition al ones , and th ey ar e m ost often Latin (i. e. Rom an or m edi eval) in origin - t erms such as ' object' , ' subject' , ' conce pt' , ' pe rce ption' , ' reality' , and 'int ellectual' . When , how ever , H eid egger str uggles to r e-express th e qu esti on of bein g m or e primordially he has r ecourse to collo quial Ger m an , its phrasal verbs and Hexible compo unds , and som etim es what look s (wro ngly) like m er e w ord-play: ' Dasein" , "Soroe" , 'Mitsein' , "sclionsein-in ', ' vorhanden sein ' etc ... . Th e vernacul ar emerge s as som etim es clos er to th e un th ought but perv asive pre-r eflectiv e r ealm th an does phil osophy or scienc e, and thus as a m ajor r esource for a thinking trying to fr ee itselffrom W estern m etaph ysics. It is the unformalized lan guag e of th e tradition , not its techn ical terms, th at preserves, withhold s and so keep s safe th e ' unthought' from whi ch m or e th em ati c kinds of thinking stand forth . Not surprisingly th en , Heid egger sees local dialect as th e ' the m ysteri ous w ellspring of ever y true langu age ' (H eb : 90). In a m em ori al addre ss on th e writer and fell ow Swa bian Johann Pet er Heb el (17 60-1826), Heid egger ascribe s th e secret of Heb el' s poetry

t o his having in corpor at ed into lit er ar y langu age th e chara cte rs of th e Allemanic dialect . App ealing to a clu e for thinking afforded by dialect , H eid egger adds (in a seminar of 196 6- 7) th at ' Language is much m or e tho ughtful and open th an w e are ' (Her : 127 ).

TRANSLATINGS Let us turn now to see how th is all w orks out in th e minutiae of H eid eggeri an r eading , espe cially in Heid egger ' s depl oym ent of trans lati on and wh at look s like etym ology - th e study of th e suppos ed ' r oot' m eaning of w ords - in th e close w ork of defam iliarizing a t ext. In his lecture cours e of 1942 on H old erlins hymn ' The Ister ' (composed c. 180 3-4) Heid egger r em arked: 'Te ll m e wh at you think of tran slati on , and I will tell you who are' (1st : 6 3) . O ne of th e m ost seemingly vulner able aspe cts of Heid egger ' s w ork is his offer ing of un conv ention al t ranslations, usually from Greek, which he declin es to defend by the normal criteria of scho larship . Yet what , after all , is th e standard of corre ct ne ss in th e use of langu age , in tran slating from one tongu e to another for in stan ce? Thi s qu esti on is conside re d in detail throu ghout H eid egger ' s life . Introduction to Metaphy sics (1 953) contains a difficult but important sectio n on th e m ajor terms of gram ma r as establishe d by th e Gr eeks (1M: 55ff) . Th e co urse 'The Ist er ' conside rs th e status of di cti on ari es in making translati on s: A 'wordbook' can give us pointers as to how to understand a word, but it is never an absol ute authority to which one is bound in advance. Appealing to a dictionary always remains only an appeal to one interpretation of a language, an interpretation that, in terms of its proced ure and its limits, usually cannot be clearly grasped at all. Certainly, as soon as we regard lang uage merely as a vehicle, then a dictionary that is tailored to the technique of comm unication and exchange is 'in order' and is binding 'without further ado' , Viewed with regard to the historical spirit of a language as a whole, on the other hand , every dictionary lacks any immediate or binding standards of measure. (Ist : 62)

Thus, only a th ou ghtful dwelling in th e langu age w orld of Gr eek ' the histor ical spirit of a langu age as a whole ' - will enable a t rans lat or to undertake th e job of findin g th e Ger ma n th at r espo nds to the Gr eek. Th e choice of Germ an will lik ewi se have genuine for ce if it L A N G U A G E , TRADITION A ND THINKI NG

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proceeds not from a b ooki sh dictionar y-led com pet enc e but from its speaker' s own ' translation' into th e language-w orld of German . Thi s is one basis for Heid egger 's r ep eat ed claim th at , in m atter s oflanguag e, a listening to th e speaking of langu age itself preced es th e th oughtful or poet ic speech of any individual. Transl ati on b ecomes a place wh er e one's own language is m ad e t o feel its finitude, even it s failure, so providing a threshold t o its un th ought (cf. WL: 27 ) . In oth er w ords translati on is a genuine discipline of th ought . It is no accident th at ju st abo ut ever y page of H eid egger ' s contains som e w ork of transl ati on in th e form of som e cr ucial Latin or Greek t erm wi th its t entati ve German r endering. Tran slatin g can even bring to light connec tions in th e translat ed langu age not explicit th er e , and is necessaril y a kind of int erpretati on. Likewi se, all int erpr eting of texts in one 's langu age is also translati on . It is in th e essence of th e singular power of tex ts by such thinker s as Kant and H egel th at th ey are also 'in need of t ran slation ' (1st : 6 2), th at is, th at th ey resist th e m easur e of com mo n under standing and ar e set forth in langu age th at must be w orked throu gh in it s own, inh abitual terms . In fact ' the m or e difficult task is alw ays th e tran slati on of one 's own langu age into its ow nmos t w ord ' (Par : 13; see Emad 1992) . Heid egger himself writes in a m od e dem anding tran slation in th e sam e sense, i. e . as r equiring th ou ght and r esistin g easy appro priatio n . Co nsider th e foll owing passage: Such need [for translation for great works of t houg ht in the same language ] is not a lack ... but rather the inner privilege of such works. In other words : It pertains to t he essence of the language of a decisively historical people [eines geschichtlichen Volkes] to extend like a mountain range into the lowlands

and flatlands and at t he same ti me to have its occasional peaks towering above into an otherwise inaccessible altitude. In between are the 'lower altitudes' and 'levels'. As t ranslating , interpreting indeed makes something understandable - yet certainly not in the sense that common understanding conceives it. Staying with our image: The peak or a poetic or tho ughtful work of lang uage must not be worn down thro ugh translation , nor the enti re mountain range leveled out into the flatlands of superficiality. The converse is the case: Translat ion must set us upon the path of ascent toward the peak. (1st: 62; trans . modified)

Internal translati on , saying th e seemingly 'same' thing again in th e 'same' langu age can be ju st as crucia l. Reformulati on (Um5chreibun8) , is basic to any act of under standing , in profound th ought as in th e m ost mundane conver sation . All thinker s, from Heidegger ' s viewpoint, necessaril y think the ' same ' , i. e. th e qu esti on of being , explicitly or other wise. Heid eggeri an thinking, however , with its r evisioni st strategies of r eading and defamili arizati on , aims to b e a saying of th e sam e thing (being) in its pr eviou sly unthou ght sense. Joanna H odge is ver y helpful on thi s poin t : The suggestion is that the text [of tradition] cannot be expected to artic ulate completely what it is attempting to articulate; thus the meaning to be recovered is one which is not f ully expressed in the text but is indicated and gestured to as meaning to be brought into expression at some future time . The meaning

in the

text

has the

structure of an

incomplete event.

[Interpretation] is a retrieval of a past, but a retrieval in relation to an incomplete past . . . not a completed, closed off past. (Hodge 1995: 114)

READING A PHILOSOPHICAL TERM Let us turn now to th e specific kinds of appr oach H eid egger em ploys when it comes to r eading a specific tex t from th e phil osophic tradi tion . Th e use of etym ology, translati on , internal tra nslat ion and r eformulati on are all found in Heid egger ' s lectures. I will t urn her e to a lecture given in 1951 , on th e hist or ically decisive Greek t er m, 10805 (Log .) . Thi s t erm is tran slat ed in some contexts as 'language' , but in others as ' r eason' (henc e for ming th e suffix ' logy' in 'e ntom ology', ' biology' , or, of course, 'e tym ology' ) . Th e Septuagint, th e Gr eek t rans lati on of th e H ebrew T or ah or O ld Testam ent , uses 10805 in the sense of th e w or d of God (' In th e beginning was th e word (1°8°5)') . Again, the for ce of 10805 is distinct from th e m er e ' language ' . Heid egg er ' s essay ' Logos' is devot ed to a r eading of th e term in a Pr e-Socratic philosopher , Her aclitus, who stood at th e very inaugurati on of W estern tho ught (c. 500 Be), early enough t o b e irreducibl e to productioni st m etaph ysics. What are all th e ' translations' , 'e tym ologies' and so on doin g in H eid egger ' s lecture? Heid egger ' s overall strategy is to r ead the t ext fr om tradition as a ' w ord of b eing ' . Th at is to say , Heid egger aim s not L A N G U AGE , T R A D I T ION A ND

T H INK I N G

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to fix th e sense of loq o« in th e received way of m akin g a det erminat e , univ ocal conc ept out of it , nor t o track with his et ym ologies som e suppo sed original sens e fr om wh ich all th e others w ould suppos edly deriv e . Instead , H eid egger pays clos e attention t o th e w ord across th e multiplicitou s senses in it s hist or y, idi oms and associa tions, with a view to releasing as non -r eductiv ely as possibl e th e kind of w orld or ' w orlding ' at w ork in th e langu age , i. e . th e unformalizabl e cont ext of practices, beliefs, attitudes and fundam ental attunem ents im plicit ther e . Thi s is to r eaw aken th e cont ext assumed in and project ed by th at langu age , not in th e sense of th e par ticul ar histori cal circ umstanc es of a w or d such as loa os, but in ter m s of its inflection of th e basic take up on bein g at w ork in th e Gr eek, i. e . Heid egger always r eads with a view not t o Historie but to deep hist or y (Geschichte) . Loqos th en is not ju st th e sam e as the Latin ' ratio' or th e modern 'language' by which it has b een so often tran slat ed. To tran slat e thus is m erely to erect a mirror in wh ich w e will see only ourselves and our famili ar terms of th ought . H eid egger is guided by th e fact th at th e Gr eek w ord loqos is r elat ed to th e verb leqeui. Leaein is st riking in th at it m ay m ean both to 'say' and ' t o gath er ', as in a harv est . In fact th e sense of gathering is 'just as early' and even m or e originary . Heid egger also r efer s to th e st riking fact th at th e Germa n ' Ieqen' (to lay down , gath er, lay befor e) also r elat es to langu age, th e relat ed ' Lesen' (t o r ead ; from Latin ' Leqere' to gath er, collect or bin d t ogether ) . Thi s correspo ndence of Gr eek and Germa n lies less in th e hist or ical relati on of langu ages th an in the imprint of th e m atter at issue up on both - it is appro priate to add th at th e English w ord ' to glean' is used in th e sense of r ead (as in 'gleaning' th e conte nt of a book ) as w ell as gat h ering or harv esting . Meditating up on th e w ords loqos and leqein with a view to r endering explicit th e ' w orld' at w ork th er e, H eid egger ' s lecture necessaril y broad ens its r efer en ce enorm ously. Gath ering is not som ething th at m akes sense as an action in it self - peopl e do not collect fruit or wh eat together sim ply to m ake a heap . Th e m akin g , sto ring , using and cel ebrating of bread and wine is centra l to th e cult ure's whole existe nce . Heid egger translates himself and his r ead er s into th e hist or ical spirit of Greek, that nexus of significanc es, associ ations, implicit practi ces and rituals at w ork th er e. The gleaning at harvest time gathers fruit from the soil. The gathering of the vintage involves picking grapes from the vine. Picking and gleaning are

followed by the bringing together of the fr uit.

. But gathering is more than

mere amassing , To gathering belongs a collecting which brings under shelte r, Accommodation governs the sheltering; accommodation is in turn governed by safekeeping , (Log 61)

Such a w orld , as w e saw in Chapt er 1, must b e conc eived holisti cally . Furth er r esear ch into th e anci ent Gr eek help s Heid egger concl ude that th e m or e originary m eaning of ' Leq ein ' as 'gathering' cannot simply b e said to have been r epl aced by th e m or e custo ma ry one of saying and talking . Th at leqein (saying) is also leqein (gath ering) cannot b e described a m er e transformation in w ord m eanings. For instance, to claim th at leqein as ' saying' is a m etaph or or a dead m etaph or w oul d b e gross ly inad equat e , partly because th e ver y conc ept of ' metaphor ' alre ady sm uggles in vari ou s decision s abo ut th e nature of th e language which ought still to be at stake in our inquiry, such as th e distincti on b etween th e ' pr ope r' m eaning and th e 'figura tive' one : ' W hat w e have b een thinking abo ut in no way tell s us th at "leqein" advanced from one m eaning, "to lay", to th e oth er, "to say'" (Log: 63) . Instead , w e must sim ply take Her aclitus, in the langu age he inh eri ts, as findin g 'saying' t o b e a 'laying side by side' or 'gathering ' . In th e w orld of Greek, th ese things go t ogether . Anachr oni stic terms such as m etaph or sho uld b e kept out of it. Thus, 'The saying and talkin g of m ortals com es to pass fr om early on as leqein , laying ' (Log : 63) . Langu age is a leqein in th e sens e of 'letting things lie t ogeth er b efor e us' (Log: 63) . So wh at sort of a r eading of th e ter m is thi s? As wi th th e t erms a1etheia and physis, H eid egger is trying t o draw out of the Greek w ords leq ein and logos a legibl e trace of the pre-r epresentional , holisti c r ealm of un conc ealm ent presupposed in all under standing . Legein !1ogos nam es the pre-rati on al sense of order in th e w orld of th e Gr eeks , th e w ay things appear ed as 'going togeth er ' , th at pre-analytic synth esis wher eby th e w orld gave itself as non -chaoti c, harmoni ou s in cer tain w ays. Such 'gathering' is not th e m ethodi zed sequenci ng of deductio n or of analysis, but a m or e orig inary and holistic sense of th e order of things, pri or t o the forming of conc epts, r epresentati on s, or discr et e w ord-m eanings. For th e Greeks th en , being w as expe rienced , if not explicitly tho ught, as the original holisti c ' gathe ring' process th at set all individual b eings together in relati on to each oth er . Further mor e, in thi s case, it is th e Gr eek w ord oft en tran slat ed as langu age th at gives us L A N G U A G E , TRADITION A ND THINKI NG

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thi s truth , a truth pr ecisely abo ut th e hid den pow er of langu age in th e giving of a ' wo rld ' . With its 'e t ym ologies ' and th e t easing out of sedim entations of cont ext H eid egger ' s thinking has inevitably been accused of abando ning th e rigour of conc eptual thinking for something m er ely ' poetic'. Such an impression , however , does no ju stic e to wh at is usually a high level of scho larship and histor ical precision in Heid egger 's w ork . His point is not , for exam ple , th at th e et ym ological sense of a w or d is th e ' t rue' one to b e r etrieved and cel ebra ted , but to use et ym ologies in a process of ' inte r nal translati on ' and defamili arizati on , as ' hints' 'gesture s' or as a ' fr eeing w ord ' (W L: 24 1), opening up th e language of th e text from it s do m inant, m etaph ysical interpret ati on , and by so doing b ecom ing sensitive to th e m od e of w orlding th at hold s sw ay ther e , unthought. H eidegger argues : ' the expe rience of A1etheia as un con cealm ent and disclosur e in no way bases itself up on th e etym ology of a select ed w ord, but rath er on th e m att er t o b e th ought her e ' (P: 332). In sum , for H eid egger to read th e key w ords of th e tradition , such as ' tr uth ' or 10805 as each alr eady a ' w ord of being ' , is to r ead th em as a trace of th e unthou ght ' w orl ding' at w ork in th em , a ' basic m eaning ' (P : 21 ) hitherto un ackn owledged . Th er e is no qu est for som e supr em e ' name' , nor is it a m atter of ' the pr ocurem ent of newly formed w ords' (WL: 135), but of a transformed r elati on t o langu age it self.

A POSTCOLONIAL HElD EGGER? Th is brings us to one seemingly obvious opt ion for thought w hich Heidegger yet rejects , Why not delim it Western thinking by opening a dialogue with the thin king and languages of non-Western civilizat ions? After all , no one more than Heidegger has crit ic ized at so deep a level the bases of Western thought and life, making him , before t he term was even invented, a major thinker of 'g loba lization ' , Given that Western modes of social organizat ion are com ing to dom inate the w hole planet, an engagement with Eastern trad it ions might seem to offer an irrep laceab le resource , The extent of Heidegger's debt to Eastern thoug ht is a matter of continu ing debate (see May 1996; F6ti 1998), His know ledge of it seems to have been broad , with an especial interest in the Taoist work of Laot zu, from the sixth century

Be (Pet: 168,

181 ~3) .

Heidegger's most pub lic engagement, however , is with

the Buddh ist trad ition, in one of his exper imenta l dia logues : 'A Dialogue

on Language betwee n a Japan ese and an Enquirer' (W L:

1 ~54) .

Th is

dialogue seems to arise out of actua l enco unters betwee n Japanese thin kers and Heidegger, Japanese, or the wor ld of its language, is certainly held to enact modes of being alien to Western product ion ist metaphysics , so alie n in fact, that t he Japanese speaker, in dialog ue wit h the 'i nquirer' (the Heidegger figure) fi nds it almost imposs ible to express them in a Western language like German, The delicate disc ipline of t he dia log ue, caref ully and pat ient ly undergone, manages to ope n the smallest crac k in the door to a space outs ide, but t his is no sooner glimpse d tha n it t hreate ns to disappear. Elsewh ere Heidegger arg ues: it is my conviction that a reversal can be prepared only in the same place in the world where the modern technological world originated , and that it cannot happen because of any takeover by Zen Buddhism or any other Eastern experiences of the world. , , , Thinking itself can be transformed only by a thi nking which has the same origin and calling , (Only: 113) Nevert heless, even if one agrees t hat Western thought ca n only be genui nely tra nsformed from wit hin, it is still difficu lt to agree w it h t he exclusive pr ivilege Heidegger gives in t his possible tra nsformation to Germany and t he Germans. T he supreme relat ion between languages for Heidegger is that betwee n German and (anc ient) Greek, 'A long w ith German the Greek language is (in regar d to the possib ilit ies of tho ught) at once t he most powerfu l and most sp iritual of all languages' (1M: 57). Languages such as English, Lat in and French Heidegger saw as deep ly impoverished for t houg ht. It is through relatio n to t he deeply alien language of t he Greeks, Heidegger argued, t hat the German language , tho ug ht and people might awake n themse lves to t heir deepest possibilities, and to t heir role of spiritual leadersh ip in Europe, The best answer to suc h linguistic nat ionalism in Heidegger is t he very vitality of t hinking indebted to him in ot her languages

~

Derrida's t hinking

from out of the resources of French, partic ularly its synta x (as opposed to Heidegger' s focus on ind ividua l Germa n words) or the live liness of English in A merican Heideggerians like David Krell (Kre ll 1992), So we have in Heidegger a strange ble nd of arguments and stances , He is cr it ica l as no one else of a violence inherent at the very bases of Weste rn thoug ht. He is fascinated by enco unters w ith Buddhism and knew

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int imately the Taoist th inker Laot zu, seeing in bot h real alternatives to Western traditio n, He loat hes t he United States and keenly supports efforts to resist the encroachment of Western modes of life upon other parts of the globe, He does not believe, however , that engageme nt with non-Western civilizat ions is a suffic ient optio n for Western t hinkers themselves, whose deepest assumptions can only be shaken from with in the largely unt houg ht traditions that determ ine t heir existe nce. At the same t ime the alte rnative modes of life to w hic h Heidegger seems most deep ly drawn are European, those of an agrarian, peasant life wh ic h was fast disappearing, and wh ich he seems to idealize, as in the essay 'Why Do I Stay in the Provinces?' [1934] (Heidegger 1977b), or the image of peasant shoes he fi nds in the Van Gogh painting (PLT: 33---4) . Even some of Heidegger's prejud ices , such as his uncrit ical patr iotism , are t hose of a fantasy peasant.

HEIDEGGER'S EXPERIMENTS WITH LANGUAGE It will b e obvio us by now th at H eid eggeri an thinking qu esti on s tradi ti onal m ethod s of phil osophical argument , and calls for a differ ent kin d of practi ce . O ne of th e m ost exciting aspe cts but least r ecognized of Heid egger ' s w ork is hi s continual expe rim entation with th e generic and for m al str uct ures of philosoph y as a w ritten practice , depl oying new m od es of cohesiveness , unity and conclusiveness . Thinking , after Heidegger , cannot be th e act of w ould-be sover eign conscio usness seeking th e secur ity of an assured and tot alizing syst em of wat er -tight conce pts. Thi s m etaphysical picture of th ou ght is m em or ably caricature d by Heid egger as th e securing of 'booty' from th e ' oute r ' w orld into th e st ro ngho ld of the m ind CST: 89) . Such a m od e of kn owl edge is linked to th e instrumentalist and fundam en tally aggre ssive project of W est ern rati on ality, now in its globalizing ph ase . Thinking for Heid egger is not essentially th e act of a subjective conscio usness positing vari ou s r epresentations of an objec t-w orld. It must instead b e a non -assertive tracing out of th e m easur e and m ann er of th e r ealm of un -con cealm ent in whi ch it already m oves . So it is not a m atter of ' grasping ' , ' securing ' , ' ma king certain', and ' ma ste ring' bu t of 'follow ing' , ' hear kening' , 'hinting ' , and ' being guided ' . Th e r educti oni st process of analysing som ething into a series of tightly secured separate items must give way to som eth ing far less famili ar - th e opening out , non -appropriativ ely,

t o th e holistic ' w orld' presupposed bu t not r ecognized by th e analytic stance . Th e m ost com mo n form H eid egger depl oys is th e lecture . Witnesses t estify t o th e dr am atic power of hi s teachin g as an oral discipline . O th er t exts are published as essayistic m editati on s. Th e m ost inv entive forms used are th e dialogu e, as in ' A Dialogu e on Langu age ' (WL: 1- 54) or ' Conversation on a Co untry Path ' (0 : 58-90), and, as in th e posthumous Contributi ons, th at of th e series of not e-lik e passages, som e apho ristic , som e alm ost essay-like. Thi s strang e expe rimental t ext of 1936- 8, published only in 1989, is now r ecognized as Heid egger ' s gr eat est w ork after Beina and Tim e, th ough it is hardl y one for th e H eid egger ian novice (unlike much of th e dialogu es) . A note-lik e form w as also used in differ ent ways by Hold erlin and Nietzsche and by H eid egger ' s conte m pora ry Wittgen stein in his Philosophical ln vestiq ations

( 1953) . In addition to th e dialogu es and th e Cont ributions, ther e are also vari ou s sho r t texts whi ch seem like poems or a poetic sequence but which m ay only r eceive du e at tention onc e th e qu esti on of th eir genre is posed less assuredly . H eid egger called one such sequence ' Hints' , den ying th ey sho uld be calle d poems (GA 13: 23- 33). H eid egger writes th at th ese texts, whi ch superficially r ead like rath er poor poem s, ar e not poem s, nor ver sified phil osoph y . Th ey are th e partial com ing to w ord of a th inking that is yet unfulfilled ther e . A th inking , H eid egger writes, wh ich attem pt s to think bein g it self, as oppos ed to particular b eings, cannot r est on sensuo us im ages except as a kind of sheet-anchor for a venture which sho uld ideally be im ageless: ' As oppos ed to th e w ord of poetry th e langu age of thinking is im ageless' (G A 13: 33) . Thi s m ean s th at sequenc es like ' Hints' [1941], or 'Tho ughts' [1971] (for th e Fr ench poet Ren e Char), or the subtly b eautiful 'F rom out of the Experienc e of Thinking ' [1 947] form a unique genre th at is yet to b e fully r ecognized . It is one perhaps less akin t o m ost W estern poetry than to th e t er se sayings and w ork of th ou ght found in a Z en Buddhist Koan - ter se, often enigm atic sayings enacting a discipline of mind . Anglophon e r eader s of Heid egger have not been help ed by the fact th at ' From out of th e Experienc e of Thinking ' , is available in English under the mi sleading title 'The Thinker as Poet' (PLT: 1-14). In thi s continuo us formal expe rime ntation H eid egger , despite hi s di sdain for mos t m od ern art and th e super ficiality of liter ar y criticism , is aligned with ' modernist' and ' post- m ode rnist' project s in vari ou s L A N G U AGE , T R A D I T ION A ND T H INK I N G

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arts and disciplines. For exam ple , Maurice Blan chot' s avant-garde nar rativ e , L' att ent e L'oubl! ( 196 2) r eu ses text from a Heid eggeri an -typ e dialogu e, ' L'attente' (Blanchot 1959), whi ch Blanchot had first released for th e Festschrift for Heid egger' s seventieth birthday in 1959 . Heid egger' s expe rime nts strive to practise a non -r epresentati on al thinking . How th en can H eid egger pr oceed to study th e essence of langu age? He cannot take th e normal r oute of assum ing langu age t o be an object like any other, th en go on to distingui sh and classify its vario us parts and th e rules th at seem t o go vern th eir interrelati on ship s. Langu age cannot be st udied, as lingui stics do es, by evading the questi on of it s m od e of bein g . No r can w e step outside langu age , for human beings alw ays find th em selv es in langu age and the w orld it opens . T o im agin e not havin g language is as impossible as im agining havin g nothing to imag ine with . Th ere is no w ay to langu age except as a path th at turns back up on itself, transforming itself as it does so . Th e aim must be to avo id m erely writing about langu age but ' to bring language to langu age as langu age ' (WL: 113; trans . m odi fied ) . Wittgen stein arg ued similarly: ' W hat is spo ken can only be explaine d in language and so in thi s sense language cannot b e explaine d . Langu age must speak for it self' (W ittgenstein 1974b : 40) . Th e thinker must take a step back fr om langu age , th at is t o give it th e kind of non -coer cive , pr esuppositi onl ess attentio n w e have alr eady seen at w ork in r elati on to th e lectern in th e first chapte r or th e temple and painting in th e third . It m eans not presupposing that w e alr eady kn ow it s m od e of being and th en tr ying to get a clear er concept of it as if it w er e an object one could t urn at every angle ben eath our eye s. Released from such attit udes th ought m ay b ecome attentive to th e deli cate bu t all- powe rful way in which langu age ar ticulate s th e open space or cleari ng in which w e find ourselves, m akin g th ings accessible with th e significances and implication s th at give th em th eir det erminat e being. It brings things to a w orld and a w orld t o things. Th e ' poem s', th e dialogu es and much of th e Contributions cannot be r ead as b eing 'ab out' som eth ing in th e famili ar sense of m akin g a conce pt ual model of it . Th ey strive towards th e sta tus of a thinkingin -acti on. Such an awa r eness is approached, surprisingly, by a close attention to th e failin gs of langu age, th ose places wh er e th e language r eceived from tradition breaks down . Failure her e m eans not ju st th e lack or th e inadequacy of a par ti cular expre ssion or term, but , as in th e issue of translati on , th ose mom ents in which th e ade quacy of a

langu age as a whole is at issue . Thi s is wher e, losing our seemi ng con trol of langu age, som ething of its power emerge s. In th e Contributions w e read : The word fails , not as an occasional event - in which an accomplishable speech or expression does not take place, where only the assertion and the repetition of something already said and sayable does not get accomplished - but originarily [i.e. it is lang uage as a whole that fails , not j ust the lack of a specific word]. The word does not even come to word , even tho ugh it is precisely when t he word escapes one that t he word begins to take its first leap. (C 26)

No w onder , perhap s, th at th e Contributions are a series of halting not es. Th e title it self, with its studied banalit y, advertis es it s ow n stand in status . Th e gaps , th e seeming r ep etiti on s of th e ventures of th ought, the dryings up int o staccato not es, all b esp eak th e necessity of a cer tain failure as par t of wh at ever succ ess thi s th ought m ay achieve. Heid egger's writing is m arked by pauses, spacing and th e use of lin eati on to draw thinking into th e pull of th e unthought . Th e dialogu es are if anything m or e inventive . Heid egger seems to have been espe cially drawn to thi s form in th e crisis years of th e mid194 0s (GA 77 ) . O ften th ey do not dram ati ze arguments in which one speaker tri es to prove hi s or her view right and th e ot hers wr ong . Th ey m ake up a shared listening to langu age in th e halting , non -competitive to and fro of m editativ e exchange. Th e dramati s personae are less characters th an places for th e m om entar y failur e, pau se and enforced listen ing of thinking to langu age . Thus in ' Conver sation on a Co untry Path ' ( 0 : 58-90) th e possibility of a non -r epresentati on al, non -obj ectifying thinking is at w ork both as a to pic and as th e pu tati ve m ed ium or path foll ow ed by three minimally characte rized speakers , nam ed to sugg est slightly differing attitude s to th e nature of th ou ght : Scholar:

Probably it can't be re-presented at all , in so far as in re-present ing everything has become an object t hat stands opposite us within a horizon .

Scientist:

Then we can't really describe what we have named ?

Teacher:

No. A ny description would reif y it.

Scholar:

Nevert heless it lets itself be named, and being named it can be thought about . L A N G U A G E , TR ADITIO N A N D THI N KI NG

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Teacher: Scientist: Teacher:

TRADITION A ND THINKING

, , only if thinking is no longer re-presenting , But then what else should it be? Perhaps we now are close to being released into the nature of thinking .

Scholar:

. . . through waiting for its nature. (D 67)

Passages like thi s enact a virtuosity of thinking still to be full y r ecognized . Th e failure of language in r e-pr esentation her e is not sim ply th e loss of all m eans to think furth er . Rath er , th at failure is it self th e process wh er eb y th e new m ode of th inking opens up , th e one described her e (pro visio nally) as a ' w aiting'. Such thinking is no longer th e positing of various r epresentati on s of an object-worl d . Instead , th ou ght must also turn back up on itself , attentive to th e cont ours of its own existence, but with ou t ther eby posing itself as a self-cer tain consciousness against wh ich an object- thing is posited . Th ought turns up on itself as th e qu estion of its ow n nature and th at nature is, cor relatively, th e open space of such a turning and qu esti oning . It is such a space for thinking , not an object th ought , whi ch th e dialogu e opens out with its falt ering m ovem en ts of pause and r estart . Thi s Heid egger terms ' re lea sement ' (Ge1assenheit). Heidegg er 's practice aligns him wi th th e post - or anti-m ode rnist practi ce of writer s such as Samuel Beck ett or Blanch ot , with their per sist ent r efusal of formal or conc eptual clos ure, as oppos ed to th e kinds of aesth etic autono m y at w ork in high mo dern ist w orks by Ezra Pound and T . S. Eliot wi th th eir stress on spatial form , my thic analogy and epiphanic clima x . Heid egger depl oys fragm entati on , provision al or incomplete st ructur es not by vague analogy t o th e suppos ed chaos of th e w orld , but as par t of an ascetic di scipline in which th ou ght is defamiliarized and t ransformed by an enc ounte r w ith it s ow n b or der s. Likewi se, as w e shall see in th e nex t chapter , th e essential nature of th e poeti c w as r evealed for Fri edrich Hold erlin, th e suprem e poet for H eid egger , from out of th e ver y failure of poetry to achieve it self full y in m od ern Europe (hence H old erlin is seen as th e poet of th e nature of poetry) .

SUMMARY This chapter has ranged t hroug h various issues all relat ing to Heidegger' s dist inct ive take on language. Heidegger rejects the received, common-sense view that language is primarily a tool of huma n commu nicat ion. This view is superfic ial , he argues , because it pres upposes t he deeper way in w hich language, even as we speak, already forms a kin d of all-pervading environme nt , making th ings art ic ulab le for us in a wor ld in the first place . As such a primary enviro nment, language is the bearer of deep history in the sense of t hat 'obvious' sense of t hings in w hic h people have lived in vario us epochs . Any free ing of our ourse lves from t he burden of productionist metaphysics must involve a rad ical defam iliariz ing of the language that carries it , includ ing ord inary language, however seeming ly devoid of ph ilosop hica l assumptions it may at first seem. The commonplace language of today bears down on us w ith the who le dead weig ht of metap hysica l trad ition . At the same t ime language is also the supreme resource for Heidegger's thin king . His wor k cons ists mainly of revisio nist readings of t he cr ucia l texts of the Weste rn tradit ion . He reads against t he lett er, attent ive to the kind of unthought world out of which the text arose, whether its aut hor was explic itly conscio us of th is or not, and he employs a variety of defamiliarizing strategies to open the word up, w ith a view to reawaken ing the w hole way of life at work in or vehicled by the language . These strateg ies inc lude the consideration of various possib le trans lations , attention to etymolog ies, to related words and their associatio ns and history. In th is way, instead of t he traditio nal philosoph ical procedure of reduc ing language to the status of being the tool of discrete and unequivocal concepts, expressing supposed ly t ime less 'problems' , Heidegger opens out the language of his text to revive a sense of the deepest , implicit but all-pervas ive assumptions and modes of being inherent in it - t he unr efl ect ive sense of th ings w hich both makes possib le yet is den ied by productionist metap hysics . Finally, we turned to t he way in wh ich Heidegger' s rejection of the instrumenta list conception of language led to his vario us provisio nal experiments wit h new modes of wr iting and pract ic ing ph ilosop hy. These inc luded his use of t he dia logue form, his seeming 'poems' and t he posth umous ly pub lished Con tr ibuti on s (Beltrage) . Wege nlcht Werke, 'ways not works ' , was Heidegger' s choice as t he motto for his collected wor ks.

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au IZZI CAL What

IS

I NTE RLU DE a l iterary work?

You m ay lik e to kn ow abo ut an intellectu al conjuring trick th at proves, or seems t o prove , th at a lit er ar y w ork does not exist . You take vari ou s plau sible ideas as t o what sor t of thing a given w ork is, and th en sho w with one or two sim ple arg um ents th at it cannot be anyth ing of th e sort . Finally, as vari ou s ideas as to its m od e of b eing are exhauste d , the w ork seems to have been proved not to exist . Let us take Haml et again. First, w e might want to say Haml et exists in th e same way as does the Mona Lisa or the Parth enon , also great w orks of ar t . Thi s m ean s that one is saying th at ju st as th e Mona Lisa exists as a ph ysical object, currently locat ed in Fra nc e, or as th e Parthen on exists in Ath ens (m ostl y), so Haml et too is a unique physical object. Yet thi s w ould be obviously wrong . If th e original co py of Haml et is destroyed , th e play is not destroyed as long as accura te copies r em ain . O n th e oth er hand , if w e dest roy an ar te fact such as th e Parth enon , w e destroy it compl etely, as imitations will be r egarded as having a lesser status th an th e original. Finally , even if one did acce pt th e hyp othesis th at Haml et is essentially som e early sevent eenth-century object, th er e w ould b e fur th er probl ems: for in stan ce th e printed page contains m any elem ents which still seem extrane ous or acci dental in r elati on t o th e lit er ar y w ork, such as th e page size used or th e kind of typ eface. Th e w ork, th en , is not a m at er ial thing . So one might w ant to say th at it is only r eally th er e when performed . Haml et, in th at case, is th e

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sounds and actions of th e actors, or correspo ndingly, th e internal vocalization th at is th e performance of silent r eading. Thi s seems plausibl e at first but is easily r efuted . If a w ork is th e sam e as it s performan ce does thi s not m ake each differ ent production or r eading a separate w ork? Two readings of Haml et w ould not b e two differ ent r ealizati on s of th e same w ork, but distinct w orks. At th e sam e time any one perfor m ance m ay r ealize only som e aspects of th e w ork, leaving oth ers lat ent and perhap s t o be made explicit in ot her performances. Aft er all, w e distin gui sh good and bad performan ces of a w ork and thi s clearly assum es th at th e w ork and the performance are not identical things. A third try . A com monsens e answ er to th e dil emma now sugg ests it self. W e say ' ye s, such a such an interpreta tio n is fine, but what was in Shakespear e 's m ind etc.?' W e id entify the w ork wi th the autho r 's plans and int entions in w riting. Yet, th e assum ption th at th e r eader 's job is to get at ' what th e auth or m eant' is ind efen sible if thi s is taken as some original int ending or m ental thing or act pr esent at th e tim e of writing . For m ost writer s no evide nce what ever sur vives of such circ ums tances. In any case, even if w e had perfect evide nce as to Shakespeare 's m ental state while writing Hamlet , thi s w ould surely be tr eat ed as evide nce towards an int er pretatio n of th e w ork, not as th e r eal thing . A fourth and final answe r to th e dilem m a - wh at is th e m ode of being of th e lit er ar y w ork of art? - brings us to th e assumption at w ork in much contem po rary academic writing . Th e r eal w ork is the w ork as it appear ed to r eaders at th e tim e of its initial publication . Thus th e r eal nature of th e text, it is arg ued, can be r econ struct ed only by m inut e histor ical r esear ch into th e socia l and political cont ext in which it articulat ed itself. Thi s is the answ er im plicit in th e forms of historicism now dominant in criticism . Yet again an objection springs to m ind, espe cially if one is at a salutary distan ce fr om a uni ver sity . Ar e peopl e r eally still goi ng t o see Haml et out of a deep int er est in English or in Danish histor y? D o w e r eally r ead Go eth e, say, only to learn abo ut his histor ical epoch? D oes thi s not sugg est th at the w ork is not sim ply a hist ori cal docum ent in th e received sense? Furth ermor e, if the arg uments of thi s sort of hi stori cism are acce pte d , can w e really assume th at th e play ever m eant th e sam e thing to div er se peopl e and inter ests even when it first was seen, i. e. th at th er e was ever one original ' re al' Hamlet? And then even if th e ' tr ue' Hamlet is th at whi ch was appare nt t o th e early sevent eenth century , can thi s r eally m ean th at subsequent r eadings

(e .g . in t erms of psychoanalytic noti on s such as th e O edi pus complex) must be inv alid ? A qu ote fr om Heid egger can be bro ught in her e, anticipating th e argument with such hist or icism in hi s tho ught . Th e quotidian un der standing of hi stor y will not accept, he writes, t hat Sophocles .. . [and] Kant one day can and must be interpreted differently . . . . But the conventional view is that the re is such a thing as a Sophocles in itself or a Kant in itself . . . j ust as that table there is a table and t hat pencil a pencil. Suppose for instance there could be an explanation and representation of the poetry of Sophocles in itself and t hat it fell under t he eyes of Sophocles, he could only find t his interpretation utt erly boring. (GA 39: 145)

H eidegg er 's inter est , as w e will fur th er explore (Chapt er 6), is not in th e w ork as an hist or ical object , but rath er in its r elati on to deep hi stor y (Geschi chte), its continuing engagement wi th m ajor qu estion s in hu m an existence , w ith assum ptions which chang e only rar ely over the cent uries. In sum, it would seem th at a lit er ary t ext can b e identified neith er sim ply as a m at er ial obj ect, nor as a psychological object expe rienced by a r eader or r eaders, nor identifi ed with its aut ho r 's original inten tions and nor , finally, with the work as it appear ed in its original historical cont ext . What space is left? Have w e r eally proved th at Hamlet does not exist? Or rather have w e not pr oved Heidegger ' s po int th at th e w ork do es not have the mo de of b eing of an object present-at -hand in any sense , eithe r m at erial, psychological or social? The arg um ent given her e is not particul arl y profound (in fact , as given so far, it m ight apply to any wo r k oflanguag e) . H ow ever , it do es sugg est th e phil osophical naivete of most assum ptions about th e nature of th e work even in profession al criticism. It clears a space in which to turn to furth er H eid egger ' s extraordinar y and sometim es co unt er intuitive r eadings of poetry .

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Behind the technological world the re is a mystery . Th is world is not j ust a creatio n of human beings. No one knows whether and when huma ns will ever experience this emptiness as the 'sacred empty' . It suffices that t his relation remains open. (Letter to Ingeborg Bottge r, 25 February 1968: Pet: 61)

A per son who r ead s Heid egger and th e m onum ental issues in his tex ts inter ested only in ext racting some new m eth od of r eading to b e adde d to th e sto ckpile of lit er ar y criticism - thi s might be a good definiti on of an idi ot. Heid egger 's r eadings of poets have b een widely if often implicitl y influ ential, but th ey w er e never in fact primaril y intended as par t of th e bu siness of lit er ar y cri ticism, a discipline Heid egger saw as a par ochial r epresentative of th e so rt of thinking he w as trying t o challen ge . A disclaim er add ed t o the fourth edition of Heid egger 's study of Hold erlin ( 197 1) r eads: ' The present Elu cidations do not aim to b e contributions t o r esear ch in th e histor y of lit er ature or to aesthetics. Th ey spring from a necessity of th ought' (E: 2 1). Th at necessity r elat es t o Heid egger 's discover y, in certain poeti c t exts, of m od es of th ought and being th at offer a radical alte rna tive to productioni st thinking and the w orld of techno-scien ce . Heid egger ' s engagement with the poet ic , espe cially th e w ork of Friedrich Hold erlin , is the subject of thi s chapte r .

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FRIEDRICH HOLDERLIN In 1914 H eid egger writes, an 'e ar th quake' hit him (W L: 78). He m eans not th e outbr eak of W orld War bu t his reading of th e extra ordinar y Romantic poet, Friedric h H old erlin ( 1770- 1843) . H eidegger enc ounter ed H old erlin in th e hi stor ic first edition of No rb er t von Hellingr ath , published seven decad es afte r th e poet' s death in 184 3, and m or e th an a hundr ed aft er his eclipse by insanity in 1806 . He stat ed th at ' My th inking stands in an un avoid abl e relation ship to th e poetr y of H old er lin ' (Only : 122). Th e poets R . M. Rilk e (PLT : 9 1- 142) and Stefan Georg e (1868-1 933) (W L: 139- 58) are th e subject of a published lecture each by H eid egger , Geo rg Trakl (1887-1 914 ) of two (PLT : 189210 : WL: 159- 98), H old erlin is the subject of ten. Th ese include a book , Elu cidations if H olderlin 's Poetry first published in 1944 and r eissued in expande d editions up to 1971 . A large amount of new m ateri al has r ecently b een published (G A 75 (2000 ». In 196 3, introducing a r eco rding m ade of him r eading ten H old erlin texts, Heid egger reaffir m ed , his voice shrill with age , th at ' Ho lderlin's poetry is a fat e for us' (E : 224) . ' He calls out toward th e turning of time ' (E : 226). Heid egger' s w ork on th e poeti c has been immen sely influ en tial , but not on th e surface . It is contrar y t o th e spirit of Heid egger' s thinking th at it sho uld found any school or b e schema tized into a techn ics of interpretati on . Gerald Bruns go es so far as to say th at th er e is no 'cash valu e ' of H eid egger' s thinking on th e poeti c, nothing , th at is, which a st udent of lit er ar y or cult ural th eor y could sim ply take awa y and apply elsewher e (Bruns 1989: xxv ) . Thi s is an exagge ration, I think . However , it is fair t o say of H eid egger' s interpretati on s of Hold crlin what is perhaps true of his th ought generally : th at th ose aspects of it th at fun cti on as a decon structi on of traditional thinking have been lastin gly influ ential , wher eas Heidegg er's m or e ' positive' elabo ratio n of new ways of hearkening t o being have had less effect and been criticized . For instance, I kn ow of no livin g critic wh o w ould endorse th e pecu liarl y exalte d importan ce th at H eid egger gives Hold erlin , let alone th e r ed emptiv e nati on alist politics at w ork in som e of th e r eadings. My focus in thi s chapte r , then, will be on th e kin ds of qu estioning in Heid egger' s lectures th at r em ain t o engage us. Hold erlin bears th e w eight of all th at H eid egger is trying t o find r ed emptiv e in art. His w ork had first turned to Hold erlin in th e winter sem ester of 1934-5, in th e afte r ma th of th e debacle of his failed

engagement in politics. He was to give lectures on Hold erlin for decades afte r wards, widening his fram e of r efer en ce fr om th e crisis b eing undergon e by Germa ny to th at of the m od ern W est as a whole . Th e r eception of H eid egger ' s r eadings of poetry has been held back by a sim plistic under standing of Heid egger ' s affir ma tio n of H old erlin ' s view th at poets ar e th e real founder s and det er miner s of hu m an hi stor y, legislating th e basic m yth s, assum ptions and ways of seeing that are th en inh abited by ot hers . As w e saw in Chapter 3, such an ideal of ar t is one t o wh ich Heidegger aspire d (as did Hold erlin) : for both however , th eir s is a time of th e possible death of art un der th e dominance of t echn ological and objectifying ways of life . Th e wh ole poin t of H eid egger 's turning to poetry is to do ju stice to modes of being and thinking that ar e still not full y det er mined by productioni st m etaphys ics . So H eid egger ' s claim is hardly th at Hold erlins w ork alr eady founds a new hi stor ical epoch . Th e issue is to help let th e w ork 'happen ' as par t of such a b eginning . Th er e is sometim es a m essianic qu alit y in th ese t exts: ' It may be th at one day w e shall have to m ove out of our everydayness and m ove into th e pow er of poetry, th at w e shall never again r eturn into everydayne ss as w e left it' (G A 39: 22). No one gives Hold erlin m or e decisive status th an Heid egger. Th e m ain r eason is th e for ce of th e poetry, th e conc ern of m ost of thi s chap t er. Hold erlin is also decisive for two furth er reason s. First, Hold erlins w ork arises out of an engage ment wi th one great highp oint of German and W est ern phil osophy, 'G erma n Idealism ' in the form of th e w ork ofG . W . F. Hegel (1770-1 831), F. W . J. Schelling (1775-1 854) and J. G . Fichte (17 62-1 814) (the for m er two had been fell ow sem inary st udents with H old erlin) . For Heid egger , Hold erlins qu esti oning prox imity t o Ger m an idealist phil osophy gives his w ork th e singular status of being ot her th an m eta physica l th inking in a way that dir ectly feed s into H eid eggeri an Destruction . So sym biotic becom es th e r elati on ship b etween Hold erlin and Heid egger th at Heid egger ' s later th ou ght depl oys m any of H old erlins ow n t erms. For in stan ce th e lat er Heidegger furth er elabo rates his dich ot omy of 'ear th ' and ' w orld ' into a ' fourfold' , deriv ed fr om Hold erlin , of ' m ortals' , 'ear th' , ' sky' and ' divinities ' (e .g . PLT : 165-8 6) . Th e seco nd cont extual r eason for H6l derliu ' s decisiven ess is th at his poetry and th ou ght is in dialogu e with the Gr eek b eginnings of W est ern th ought, a dialogu e so profound th at H eid egger sees Ho lderlin alo ne am ong th e gr eat th ink er s and writer s of this tim e , in cluding even J. W. von Go eth e ( 1749- 1832) , as offering HE IDEGGER A ND THE POET IC

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and controlled by th e org ans for m akin g public civilized opInIOns (PLT : 213- 14). Am ong such orga ns w ould b e th e educ ation syst em and th e institution of criticism, whose pow er s are reductiv e : ' In such a setting poetry [Dichtung] cannot appear oth erw ise th an as lit erature ' (PLT : 214). Dichtung th en , if is to be pr eserved in it s singular for ce , m ust b e distingui shed and r em oved fr om th e fam iliar ar ena of conflicting valu es and inter est s th at make up th e institu ti on s of literature and criticism . It is som ething else entir ely, of an elusive and easily occl uded m od e of being. What then is Dichtung? Th e German t er m is not fully equivalent to th e English ' poe tr y'. It m eans im aginativ e lit er ature in genera l, and not just ver se - for in stan ce H eid egger w ould include Joseph Co nrad 's prose as genuine Dichtung (Pet: 196) . Simply put, Dichtung in H eid egger is a st ro ngly evaluative t erm, naming a w ork of langu age which has all th e features of a gen uin e w ork of art as described in Chapter 3 . Th er e too w e alre ady saw H eid egger ' s convictio n th at m ost official or pr ofession al r eception of ar t w as effectively its suffocation .

NOT READING FOR THE ' C O N TE N T'

Thi s issue brings us back to a crucial feature of th e art w ork, its singu larity . Th e poetic w ork (Dichtung) , in its r esistant , 'self-sufficient presence' (PLT : 29), is not reducible to what a reader alr eady under stands. It brings into existe nce somet hing new th at need s to be un der st ood only in its own t er ms : 'The truth th at discloses itself in the w ork can never b e pr oved or derived from what w en t b efor e . What w ent befor e is r efut ed in its exclusive r ealit y by th e w ork ' (PLT : 75) . Thi s lead s to th e m ost not abl e feature of Heid egger 's readings. To affirm the singularity of th e poetic is necessaril y to affir m th e singularity of any r eading which responds to it . Th e r esistan ce of H eid egger ' s tex ts her e is th at he r efu ses to ' decode ' th e singularity of th e text into som e genera l ' conte nt' or nascent system of th ought bu t depl oys and rests up on th e w ords and im ages of th e t ext at issue . His procedure is usually to home in relentlessly on cer tain crucia l terms in th e text (as w e have seen him do with logos in Her aclitus) then open th em up by all th e st rategies of internal translation and defam iliari zati on described in th e last chapte r. Thus th e r eadings of Friedric h Hold erlin r em ain couched in H E I D E G G ERA NO T H E P O E T IC

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Hold erlins own terms of 'the unknown god', 'the ho ly' and ' the homeland ' and th at of Geo rg Trakl in Trakl' s ter m s of ' the strange r', 's pirit', 'blue' and so on. As 'The O rig in of the W ork of Art' reminds us: ' W he re does th e w ork belon g? Th e w ork belon gs, as w ork , uniquely within th e r ealm that is opened up by it self' (PLT : 41 ) . Heidegger ' s int ernal translatin g tries to carry us towards th at po int at whi ch th e poetic w ords w ould become no longer ju st objects of our thinking but th at throne ]: which w e think, wi th out need of par aphrase, so delivering us over to th e unique r ealm opened in th e poetry . ' [T ]he elucidating speech must each tim e shatter itself and wh at it had attempte d t o do ' and ' the most difficult st ep of ever y interpret ati on . . . consists in its di sapp earing befor e th e pure presen ce of th e poem ' (E : 22) . It is of co urs e an asym pt otic or finally impossible ideal and, needl ess to say, Heid egger has been argued to stand in th e way of th e pure self-presenci ng of th e poem s in vari ou s ways (see Chapt er 7 , pp . 128- 32), and th e ideal itself criticized (C hapter 8, pp . 152- 3) . Th is resistant proximity to th e ver y letter of th e text ren der s H eidegger ' s readings only partly generalizable into some transfer able m ode of reading . As w e saw at th e opening of this study, H eid egger ' s perv ading con cern is to challeng e what ' know ledge ' usually m eans, diagn osing and r epudiating th e r eductiv e violen ce implicit in th e kinds of kn owledge th at have becom e dominant in th e W est , with th eir voca bulary of ' ma ste ring' , ' conque ring' , 'grasping' , ' ma king cer tain ' and so on . A r eading th at r esp ects th e irreducibl e singularity of th e tex t is m ovin g to wa rds th e pract ice of non -app ropriativ e kn owing . For in stan ce , in Heid egger ' s r eading of Hold erlins ' W ie w enn am Feier tag ' (w ritten 1800 ) Heidegger ' s w ay is to focus on th e key w ord ' Nature' and its cognate s in th at poetic frag m ent. He cannot assume that this t erm can be under st ood simply by refer en ce to what ' Nature' m ean s in , say, th e natural phil osophy or th e r eligion of H old erlin 's tim e, an approach th at w ould clos e off in adva nce th e possibility th at th e text m ight be doing som ething singular and new. Instead , H eid egger utilizes th e stra tegies of int ernal t ranslation di scussed in th e previou s chapter t o ease out th e precise inflecti on wh ich th e term is given in H old erlins w ork: ' what thi s w ord ' nature ' , kn own sinc e long ago and long sinc e w orn out in its ambiguity , is to signify her e must b e deter mined solely out of thi s single poem ' (E: 78 ). Thus ' Na ture ' takes on a singular for ce , unique to H old erlin , one no longer identifiabl e with what ' N at ure' m eans or m eant in given systems of religion or phil osophy .

Th e sam e procedure applies to a key phrase in H old erlins ceuvre, ' th e go ds ' : Heid egger writes: instead of reading the works of poets and thinkers, it has become the custom merely to read books 'about' them, or even excerpts from such books, there is the even more acute danger of the opinion setting in that the gods in Holderl in's poetry could be ascertained and discussed via literary [i .e. literary historical] means . It makes no essential difference whether one also calls upon Christian theology for assistance and expounds the view that Holderlin's doctrine concerning the gods is a fallen version of the one, true Christian monotheism, or whether one 'explains' these gods with the aid of Greek mythology and its Roman variations. (1st: 32)

(W e will return t o ' th e gods' sho rtly .) Heid egger dem ands th at w e leave b ehind th at famili ar kin d of reading th at tries to extract som e kind of phil osophical or r eligiou s 'content' fr om out of th e texture of poeti zing . Such a m od e of critic al at tention, seem ingly so r eason abl e , w ould destroy in advance th e possibility of hearkening t o what is essential and singular in th e poet ic .

CO NTEXT?

An other cr ucial issue in 'The Origin of th e W ork of Ar t' , let us r ecall , w as the r ejecti on of the noti on th at ar t is a reflectio n or mi rror of som e sort . Th e true w ork of ar t does not sim ply take things or objects alre ady in existe nce and th en re-present th em , as in th e tired old view of ar t as a sort of ' re flection ' of r ealit y or soci ety . Instead of m er ely repr esenting what is already appare nt , th e poetic engage s and can chang e the m ost basic sense of things, th e overall context or ' w orld ' in which things are appare nt to us in the first place. Hubert Dreyfus gives a helpful exam ple. He writes of th e poetic in t erms of wh at he calls ' ba ckgr ound practi ces' : an artist or a thinker, just like anyone else, cannot be clear about the background practices of his life and his age, not just because there are so many of them that such explication is an infinite task, but because the background is not a set of assumptions or beliefs about which one could even in principle be clear . .. This is what Heidegger calls the essential unthought in the work . HE IDEGGER A ND THE POET IC

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T he greater the work of a thinker ... the richer is the unthought in the work, i.e. that which through that work and through it alone, comes up as never-yet-thought. As this passage implies, this unthought is not at some unsoundable depth but right upon the surface. It can best be noticed in the case of thinkers whose intuitive grasp extends beyond that of their contemporaries (e.g. Melville in Moby Dick) . . . . We cannot speak of the meaning of a work . . because there

is no final determinate meaning to get at. (Dreyf us 1985: 236-7)

Dreyfus' s r eading help s us by relating H eid egger to th at vagu e but st ro ng sense th at in lit er ature is put int o langu age as nowher e else a general ' spirit of th e age' , th e fundam ental qui ddity of a time or place . Th at grant ed, one must r em ember th at H eid egger is not talkin g of th e accidents of either individual or socia l psychology, but deep hist or y, th e fund am ental attitude s th at det ermine a whole civilization , th e 'histor y of b eing ' . For H eid egger th en , appr oaching a poem by Hold erlin or Trakl , th e 'c onte xt' at issue is not prim aril y someth ing th e criti c is suppos ed to r econ struct with a view to fixin g som e id eal of wh at th e text 'o riginally m eant' within th at context . With Dichtuna, things are th e ot her way round , i. e . th e poetic tex t r eveals th e conte xt which might have been held to explain it - ' the perv asive individual and social selfinterpretati on [th e] w ork embodies' (Dreyfus 198 5, 236-7) - m akin g thi s newl y per ceptible and qu esti onabl e . What does thi s m ean in H old erlins case? For Heidegg er, Hold erlins w ork, with it s conc ern with spiritual destitution , longin g , and nati onal crisis, r eveals th e modern condition as one which Heid egger w oul d ter m nihilism. Th e w orl d pr evailing but usually unrecogni zed in th e langu age of his (and Heid egger ' s) time b ecomes legibl e : th at of th e triumph of instrumen talist reason , th e objectificatio n of the envir onment , th e lack of ' the gods ' in Hold erlins idiom . Heid egger 's and H old erlins conc ern is to address wh at oth er thinkers, afte r the sociolog ist Max W eb er ( 1864- 1920) call the 'disenchantm ent' of th e w orld in m odernity (see Cascardi 1992 : 16-71 ) . Th e 'lack of Go d' definin g our era is not a deni al th at 'the Christian relati on ship with Go d lives on in individuals and in th e churches' (PLT : 9 1), but is a r ecognition th at r eligion has long lost it s w orl d -hist or ical significance . It is not a m atter of a b elief in thi s or th at divinit y, but

th e loss and oblivio n , in th e era' s prevailing conce ptions of r eality and humanity, of th e whole dimen sion in which such qu esti on s arise exce pt, m eaninglessly, as a kind of life-st yle cho ice : ' It has alr eady gro w n so destitute , it can no lon ger discern th e default of Go d as a default' (PLT : 9 1). H old erlin is th e poet of fundam ental spiritual crisis, of our time as a destitute time of w aiting , a m eanwhile th at cannot be m easur ed but only endure d . His odes , modelled in a peculi arl y Greek Ger m an on thos e of Pindar m or e than two mill ennia ago , enac t what might b e t er m ed a r eligion withou t an object . In this way Ho lderlin has been seen t o trace th e boundari es of m od ern Euro pean existe nce. Blanchot writes of Holderl in in ter m s th at align him with twentieth-century writ ers such as himself and Samuel Beckett: in a present that was null, companion less, having nothing to say and nothing to do except this very nothing , [Hblde rlin] was deeply aware of existing only in waiting, in movement held above its not hingness. (Bl anchot 1982a: 117)

H old erlins phrase ' the go ds' is singular in standing mainl y for a lack , alm ost as a cipher marking a space th at mi ght one day be filled , and not a nam e whos e originals mi ght be pointed out .

' P O ET R Y OF POE TRY '

Th e distin ctiv en ess of Hold erlin for H eidegger is not , however , th at he writ es about such nihili sm , but that his poetry is it self a mode of language th at engages it by enacting th e possibility of oth er non appropriative ways of kn owing . Heid egger writes th at Hold erlins is a ' po etr y of poetry' (E : 52) . H e m eans by thi s not som e vagu e noti on of poetry wh ich is ab out itself, becoming a sort of criticism, but poetry engage d explicitly with th e ver y kind of disclosive pow er described in ' The O rigin of th e W ork of Art', in othe r w ords with it s pow er of r evealing deep hist or y ( Geschichte), th ose most basic and unthought m od es of being which are nor mally too clos e, or to o obvious, for us to see. For instan ce , one of the m ost immedi at ely pow erful and un usually cel ebrato r y of H old erlins poems is ' Ho mecoming ' (1 80 2) . H er e th e poem conce rns th e occasio n of the poet' s r eturn hom e , t o hi s native land , travelling across a lake to a small south ern Ger m an HE I DEGGER A N D THE POET IC

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town shadowed by th e Alps. ' All seems famili ar, even th e hurried greet ings / Seem thos e of friends , ever y face seems a kindred one' (E : 27). Everything, in th e hom ecoming , is famili ar bu t est ranged by b eing seen ane w, newl y r ealized in its specific nature in a w ay imper ceptibl e to a daily inh abitant who has never left and to who m all is unprobl em ati cally ordinary. To bring th e famili ar near er by perceiving at a new distance , to cherish wh at w e r ecogni ze by ackno w ledging th e r esistan ce of its oth ern ess, thi s is th e forc e of th e poetic which Heid egger cel ebrat es in thi s , one of H old erlins happi est t exts . So, wh at does it m ean to see thi s as a ' poe tr y of poetry' ? Th e poem is clearly about th e nature and du ty of th e poet , but th at is only super ficially th e issue . For H eid egger , afte r H old erlins own poetics and practice , th e act of th e poem itself , in the tim e of it s being r ead , is it self such a hom ecoming in process: Homecoming is not a poem about homecoming ; rather , the elegy, the poetic activity which it is, is the homecoming itself. and still it comes to pass as long as its words ring like a bell in the language of the German people. (E: 44)

Th e kin d of poetic per cep tion engaged in ' Homecom ing' correspo nds to Hold erlins own conc ept of a tr ue 'intima cy' (Innigkeit) with things or peopl e . Th is alt ernative noti on of kn owing is not , of cours e, ju st a m atter of th e subjective feelin gs of the r eturned travell er , th ough th at m ay b e provision ally helpful as an analog ue : it involves Hold erlins deep est engagement with th e unregarded assum ptio ns and modes of per cepti on of his age, wi th wh at w ould lat er b e t er m ed nihili sm . Thi s 'intim acy' is the noti on (surely in debat e with the m od el of kn owledge being elabo rat ed at th is time by Hold erlins fri en d Hegel (GA 39: 129ft) of a ' po etic' kn owing th at brings near er but by allo w ing distan ce , join s t ogether by acknowledging separateness and ' unde rstands' in yet holding a r eser ve of th e non -intelligibl e (see GA 39 : 249-50) . Thi s is what Heid egger ' s lecture calls the ' myste ry of th e r eserving nearness' (E : 43, 47), or sim ply , the ' sacre d' (E : 46). Th ese polari ti es in th e ' sacre d ' (o f near and far , under standing and m yster y) ar e contradic tio ns which for Hold erlin it is th e for ce of the poet ic to hold and sustain, rath er th an dem anding th eir furth er r esolu ti on by r eason . Her e is th e basis of H eidegger ' s affirm ation of the poeti c as a kind of alt ernative non -r eductiv e kn owledge :

The poet knows that when he calls the reserved 'the real find' , that is, something he has fo und, he says something that runs counte r to common sense. To say that somethi ng is near while it remains distant means, afte r all, violati ng a f undamental principle of ordina ry tho ught, the principle of cont radict ion, or else playing with empty words, or else making an outrageo us statement. That is why the poet, almost as soon as he has brought himself to say his words about the mystery of t he reserving nearness, inte rrupts himself : I talk like a fool . But he talks nevertheless . The poet must talk, for

It is joy. (E 43)

As ' Homecom ing ' shows us , by ' poet ry of poetry' is not m eant som e so rt of r eHexiv e t ext th at spira ls in up on it self, but one th at opens outw ards up on th e m ost basic trait s of its time and place - disen chant ment and th e need for th e ' sacre d' in H old erlins sophistic at ed sense of th e w or d . ' Po et ry of poetry' is th e oppos it e of an arid kind of navel gazing . Thi s help s us under stand wh y Hold erlin, for Heid egger , is so special. H eid egger does not den y th at in Virgil, Shakespeare, Sophocles or Dante ' the essence of poetry com es to rich expre ssion', m or e th an in H old erlin (E : 52) . Hold erlins distinctiven ess is ' his wh ole poeti c mi ssion ' , which is ' to m ake poems solely out of th e essence of poetry' . In Hold erlins ' poe tr y of poetry' , th e di sclosive , defamili ari zing power of th e poeti c loses it s imper ceptibility and b ecomes itself th e issue . H old erlin turns poetic langu age back up on it s own founding power - his mi ssion is to di sclose and affir m thi s pow er of sacr ed disclosur e, t o poetize poetizing , or t o bring th e power of language it self to w or d . Thi s is not an infinite r egr ess but somet hing as elusive and yet fun dam ental as trying to see, not any thing , but sight itself. It is to r ender strange by rendering appare nt th e very obvio usness of the obvio us . Yet, in ' Homecom ing' th e poet , unlike th e oth er inh abitants, r em ains at th e end burden ed with care as a r esult of hi s broad er per spective , which em braces th e lack of thi s ' sacre d' dimen sion in th e lives of hi s countr ymen , and th e continuing w eakn ess of poetry in such an envir onment to ar tic ulat e and com m unicate it.

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THE T IME OF THE POEM

Unlike m er e ' lite rat ure' , Dichtuna canno t justly b e approache d as a his torical do cument, its details tidily r esituat ed within th e debat es of its time . Th e po etic text is historical in its mode of being for Heid egg er but in accordance with a very differ ent and profounder understanding of historicity th an other forms of historicism . Th e focus , relentlessly , is on deep history , Geschichte, on 'c onte xt' in its deep est and most far r eaching sens e . W e cannot assume th e work to be an obj ect th at w as once a thing in itself and which is now simply pr esent in front of us to be r econstruct ed. A Hold erlin poem has a dat e of composition and a historical conte xt, but th e deep history (Geschichte) it engages, th at of European nihilism, is absolutely conte m porar y. This leads to a thoughtprovoking cons equen ce : th at Heid egg er sees Hold erlin as lying in our futur e at least as much as in our past , exceeding all th e critical m ethods th at have hitherto b een applied to him or which exist in our time, for th ese are pervaded by th e obj ectifying assum ptions of productionist m et aphysi cs. Holderlins work stands within history - th e German lands in th e period of th e Fr en ch Revolution - but also besid e it in th e sens e of op ening a space in whi ch it m ay yet b e decid ed wh at 'history' m eans: This essence of poetry belongs to a definite time . But not in such a way that it merely conforms to that time as some time already existing. Rather, by providing anew the essence of poetry, Holderlin first determines a new time. It is the time of the gods who have fled and of the god who is coming . (E: 64)

If Holderlin ' s po ems have not yet found th eir time and space, how is on e to approach th em? Clearly not simply by r eading Holderlin as a historical figur e who wrote at th e time of th e Fren ch Revolution and th en lost his mind . H eid egger 's appr oach is not a r eading in terms of histori cal conte xt, nor th e elab or ati on of some sort of 'conte nt' , nor a formal analysis of th e linguistic and other structures of th e text , nor an evaluation. All th ese famili ar modes r ender th e po em a totalized obj ect laid out befor e th e critic. Th e elucidati ons are not interpretati ons aiming at a set of r esults about th e po ems . If any kind of event is t o transpire in th e enc ounte r with th e text, w e must avoid submitting Holderlin to th e m easur es of our time, but submit ourselves , but not thoughtlessly, to th e m easure of th e po et. Th e transformati on of th e r ead er is th e issu e .

HISTO RIelS M Historicism, curre ntly very powerful in the literary academy , is defi nab le as 'a crit ica l moveme nt ins isting on the pr ime importance of historical conte xt to the interpretati on of texts of all kinds ' (Hamilton 1996: 2), The text is understood as an historica l document. It belongs 'back t here ' : its understanding is t he reconst itution of t he prec ise contexts in wh ic h it was embedded or in wh ich it intervened , T he more deta iled t hese contexts, the more t horoug hly histor icized the text and

~

for t he historicist

~

t he better the interpretat ion.

So, oddly, one might object, the more 'topical' t he text can be argued to be, t he more valuable and interesting it is somehow supposed to become? In practice, 'historical accuracy ' is often be invoked by critics anxio us to condem n less orthodox kinds of interpretation , To a Heideggerian, conce rned to ope n up the text in relat ion to t he largest and most press ing quest ions about human existence , even the part ially historicizing rubric for t his Rout ledge Cr it ica l T hinkers Series sounds familiarly oppressive . Does not the assurance about placing 'key th inkers firmly back in the ir context ' also sou nd like a police clamp down? Heidegger' s concerns are t horoug hly historical in a sense, but his conce rn is deep history in the sense of Geschichte . Th us, from a Heideggerian viewpo int , trad it iona l historicism does not go deep enoug h, but wor ks with in

all kinds of philosop hica l assumptions t hat are themselves f undame nta lly 'historical' in ways t hat are not acknowledged . As we saw in Chapter 2, Heidegger associates traditio nal historiograp hy w it h the 'princi ple of reason' t hat governs our epoc h of tec hno-scie nce (QCT: 126--7: Chapter 2, p. 35) Heidegger wr ites of the early twent ieth-century German poet, Georg Trakl: It has been said that Trakl's work is 'profoundly unhistorical.' In this judgment, what is meant by 'history'? If the word means no more than 'chronicle', that is, the rehearsal of past events, then Trakl is indeed unhistorical. His poetry has no need of historical 'objects' , Why not? Because his poetic work is historical in the highest sense, His poetry sings of the destiny which casts humankind forward into its still with held nature, thereby saving or salvaging the latter, ('Language in the Poem,' (WL: 196; trans, modified)) The reading must be, from the point of received procedures, an ant iread ing ,

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HEIDEGGER READING HOLDERLIN'S 'GERMANIA' I w ill turn th en to th e earliest of Heid egger 's r eadings of H old erlin , th e 1934 lectures on th e od e ' Ge r ma nia' ('Germanien ' (H olderl in 1980: 400-7» . Am idst th e fascist triumphalism of 1934, Heid egger 's first lecture on H old erlin ' s ode ' Ger ma nia' concerns th e way th at poem engages th e sense of a deep m ourning for th e withdraw al of ' the go ds', yet at th e sam e tim e it hold s open , by its very nature as m ourning , a space for a possible new advent.

TH E IN V O C ATI ON : L ANG U AG E A S AC T IO N

Th e poem opens with a st rangely negative gest ure . Hold erlin do es not offer a t radition al inv ocati on to th e mus es or to th e classical gods, in homage or for in spir ati on . H e opens with th e r enunciation of such a beginning , as if to marking th at an old and famili ar kin d of poetry is no lon ger possible: Not them, the blessed, who once appeared, Those images of gods in the ancient land , Them, it is true, I may not now invoke .

Yet , this r enunciation of inv oking is not a sim ple r ejectio n or dismi ssal of th e go ds. It arises fr om a sense of painful necessity: who can inv ok e th e dead? It do es not m ean th er e is no desir e for such an inv ocati on . Th e poem opens itself in th e spac e of an inv ocati on th at is longed for but must now b e r en ounced (' I am afraid, for deadl y / And scarcely permitted it is to aw ake n the dead') . So in effect , th e non inv ocation is for m ally still a kind of inv ocation : that is, it r ema ins som ething wher eby th e poem opens itself t o th e spac e of ' th e gods' , but it does so in way th at bear s out how th at phrase now stands for a lack only, a cipher marking an em pty spac e th at might one day b e filled but wh ich for th e presen t can only be kep t open, safeguarded from oblit er atio n . Th at is why th e m ourning r em ains a ' sacre d' m ourning . W e are t orn , H eid egger writes, between ' the open w elcome of r eadi ness' and ' the abs enc e of fulfillment' . What is inv ok ed in not b eing inv ok ed can have no nam e in thi s 'godless' tim e . It is sim ply ' the inv ok ed ' or ' the aw aited' (das Erharrte). Any sens e of th e sacr ed can no longer look to old gods to b e sust ained . It is th e du ty of th e poet

not to evade thi s disen chantment. T o genuinely hold open the spac e of th e sacred w e must think throu gh and endure its cur r ent em ptine ss and destitution , and not be hasty to fill it unthinkingly with gods which could only b e id ols, bogu s alt ernatives : What is this invocation? Not a hailing of those familiar to it, and not an invocation to highlight the invoker . Instead it is that invocation through which we stand in waiting for the invoked as such, and by which we first posit that which is awaited as still far removed in the distance, thus at the same time renouncing its proximity. This invocation is the taking up of a conflict between the open welcome of readiness and the absence of fulfillment. To endure such a conflict is pain , suffering, and so the invocation is a plaint (verse 3 ff) : but if, You waters of my homeland, now with you The love of my heart laments . (GA 39: 81)

W e have only foll owed Heid egger on H old erlin throu gh th e first few lin es of ' Ger m ania' yet severa l cr ucial features of th e eluci dation have alr eady come out . First, th er e is th e t ransfo r ma tio n in basic attitudes t o langu age, th e m ove out of th e prop ositi onal attitude . W e have seen thi s in the opening . If th is w er e in th e convent ional langu age of sta tem ents, then Hold erlin w ould m er ely b e declaring the classical go ds to be non -exi stent. In fact, it is an action whose effect is to open and hold open a space - th at of th e abs enc e of gods - in which th e poem will unfold . As H eid egger writes in ' The Letter on "Humanism'" th at 'If th e human being is t o find hi s w ay onc e again into th e nearness of b eing , he must first learn to exist in th e nam eless. ' Seco nd, this brings us to one of Heid egger ' s cr ucia l terms. Th e invocation so unds wh at H eidegger t er ms th e 'fundamental ton e ' or ' attunem ent' of th e poem , set ting forth th e em otional and intellectual w orld in which th e poem as a whole will unfold and r eson at e . Grundstimmu na (' fundamental/gro und to ne ') is a qu asi-t echnical term in H eid egger ' s eluci dations of th e poet ic , explicitl y at w ork in th e earlier r eadings, implicitl y in ot hers . W e must sto p with it briefly .

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GRU N D S T I M M U N G/' FU N DA ME N TA L TON E'

Holism is onc e m or e th e cruci al issue . Pr ovision ally, th e Grundsti mmu na can be r elat ed t o th e fact , attested by m any poets, th at in th e emer genc e of th e poem , a sens e of th e whole preced es and det ermines th e individual parts. Paul Valer y' s noti on of ' la ]jan e donnee' is r elevant her e - th e seeming gift to th e poet of a lin e fr om nowher e, one alr eady for ceful and com plete, it s t on e setti ng up a r eson an ce in wh ich th e r est of th e w ork is lat ent . T o refer to just one exam ple from th e m any possible , Rilke .' s Du in o Eleqies first cam e to th e poet as a lin e seemingly dict at ed from out of th e blue, int errupting a seemingly unrelat ed train of th ought . it was as though a voice in the storm had cried out to him : 'Wer, wenn ich scbriee, harte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?' ['Who, if I cried out, among

the hierarchy of angels would hear me?']. He stood still listening, 'What is it', he whispered . 'What is it that is coming?' He took out his notebook, which he always carried on him, and wrote down these words, and immediately afterward some verses for med themselves without his help . (Quoted in Fehrmann 1980: 145)

Such inspirati on Rilk e ascrib es, tradition ally, to ' the Go d .' O th er poet s at test th e gift not of a specific lin e as such but a general sense of a possible w ork, emergent and insistent . Heid egger ' s noti on of th e Grundsti mmu na help s us read th ese episode s of 'inspira tion' without th e evasions of a r eligiou s terminology or th e reducti ons of a m er ely psych ological account . Th e Grundsti mmu na is th e unifying fund am ental sourc e from wh ose impetus the poem emerge s as fr om a nascent Gestalt . It is not primaril y a stat e of mind within th e poet, but a sense of things as newly r evealed under th e colo uring of th e eme rgent poem : the poet speaks by virt ue of a tone [Stimmung] which sets [bestimmt] the gro und and base and stakes out [durchstimmt] the space from and in which the poetic saying establishes a mode of being . This tone we name the f undamental tone of the poetry . By fundamental tone, however, we do not mean an und ulating state of emotion merely accompanying the language : rat her, the f undamental tone opens the world which receives the imprint of its being in poetic speech.

(GA 39 79)

A lat er essay on th e early tw enti et h- century poet Georg Trakl speaks of each gr eat poet writing out of one ' site ', that of one ' po etic statem en t' which need never be explicit anywher e bu t which perv ades each poem in th e oeuvr e. 'The site gath ers unto itself, supr emely, and in the extre me. Its gat hering power pen etrat es and per vad es ever ything ' (, Languag e in th e Poem ' ( 1952), W L: 159). Its pull forms the ' m ovement -giving wav e' of th e poem ' s unfolding . It is sim ulta neo usly that from out of which the poem arises and to which each of its words is drawn. It is 'what , from a m eta physical-aesth etic poin t of view , m ay at first appear to be rhythm ' (WL: 160 ). What eme rges as the fundam ental ton e of H olderl ins ' Ger m ania' ? It is ' the oppressio n which ho lds itself in readiness in sacred mourni ng ' - a summary sta tement, in effect, of th e to ne of the opening . Thi s phrase becomes almost a refr ain in H eid egger' s reading . Th e distinction of Hold erlin for Heid egger is th e pen etrati on of the Grundstimmuna of his poet ry of poetr y, its ma king explicit of th e disen chantm ent of European hu m anity. O th er poets may disclose various modes of being or elements of th eir w orld , bu t in Hold erl in , th e disclosur e is a m atter of deep hist ory: it conce rn s th e destiny of th e W est . Th is fundam ental ton e is not th en someth ing which Holderl in m akes up : it is attune d to a di sen chantm ent which is alr eady th er e, all perv asively but unthought , and it makes it reson at e un ign or ably in langu age . Th e landscape it self , as th e poem conti nues, appe ar s under th e colo uring of th is un cer tain longin g : For full of expectation lies The country, and as t hough it had lowered In sultry dog-days, on us a heaven today, You yearning rivers, casts prop hetic shade. Wit h promises it is fr aught , and to me Seems t hreatening too .

Th e ter minology of attunem ent and ton ality helps H eidegger to talk abo ut th e emergence and working of the poeti c in ways which avo id a cr ude langu age of lin ear cause and effect. Th e subtl ety is th is: on the one hand th e poetic with its fundamental to ne is not somethi ng th at happ en s in the writer' s head, as a mood or a tho ught and which th en colours his or her r epr esentatio n of r eality in langu age . Th e poet is essentially passive in r elati on to th e to ne. It comes to th e poet , as in HE I DEGGER A N D THE POET IC

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classical th eori es of inspira tion, as an appre he nsion of th e w orld under a deep er and defamili ari zing sense. In th at revelati on th e poet responds to som eth ing that com es fro m th e outs ide . O n th e other hand (and thi s seems at first a contradic tion), neither is th e ton e someth ing m er ely th er e alr eady in th e w orld and which th e poet must subsequently translat e int o w ords. It r eson at es from out of the poet' s listening to th e langu age and it needs th e act of th e poet to sound out and b e appr ehen sible . Where does thi s leave us th en ? Does th e r evelation come first or th e w ords? Th e answe r is th at th er e is only a cont radic tio n her e on th e surface, for lin ear thinking . Th e r evelation of th e w orld in th e r eso nance of th e gro und ton e and it s com ing t o langu age for th e poet ar e simulta neo us or equi-prim ordial. It all takes place t oo holistically - too non -foundati on ally - t o be disentangled in ter m s of any one elem ent being th e 'cause' and th e other an 'e ffect' (cf. E: 80) . 'G er ma nia' , th e first poem Heid egger ever treated in depth , b ear s out a holistic principl e th at r ecurs in all his lat er readings of poet ry. A poem such as 'G ermania' r esists a th em atic r eading, for its ever y wo rd is charg ed with the singular for ce of a wh ole project ed in th e Grundstimmuna . Every w or d bears a peculi ar and unique inflecti on : th e w or d-m eanings co uld not be spelled out individually by r esor ting t o a di cti on ar y (th ink, for instance, of go ing to a dicti on ar y to interpret Blake' s w ords ' 0 r ose th ou art sick') . H eid egger ' s prose str etches it self to the limit in try ing to describe, in th e lin ear succ ession of nor m al w ords, th e w orking of th e poeti c text as a happ ening all at once, backwards and forwards: Beyond the choice, the place or enchainment of the words, it is . . . above all the whole rhythmic configuration of the poetic word which 'expresses' what one calls the meaning. This rhythmic assemblage of saying is not, however, primarily the result of the placement of the words and the disposition of the verse, but in fact the other way round : the rhythmic configuration is first, the creative vibrancy first intuiting the language, the constant and all-pervading source, pre-resonant with the ranging of words, and it presides not only over the distribution and the placement of words but also their selection. The rhythmic configuration of the speaking is yet determined from the outset by the fundamental tone of the poem which obtains its form in the inner contours of the total ity . (GA 39 14-15)

For Heid egg er th e primary task of th e reader in preserving a po em is to becom e attuned , non-conceptually, to th e fund am ental tone : ' At th e heart of th e sph er e of power of th e poetry , w e should first det er mine th e place fr om whi ch and towards wh ich th e power of th e po etry opens itself and r em ains powerful' (GA 39 : 139). This is simultan eousl y a transformati on of our attit ude to langu age and a putting into qu esti on of ourselves, th e r ead ers , as us ers of langu age . W e sho uld no longer be thinking of th e poem as something w e can know as being ' abo ut' so m eth ing, but as opening a spac e of its own proj ecti on for us to inh abit, possessing us lik e a dance or a walk to music . ' Giving th e ton alit y, [th e poetry] should at tune us to th e place from which th e t ot alit y of being op ens itself t o a new expe rience' (GA 39 : 137) . W e ente r th e poem as a ' rhyth m ic' space att uning us anew , one in which w e must give up th e sen se th at w e ar e already sur e wh at its t erms (su ch as ' th e gods') m ean and wh o w e ar e wh o so r epresent th em to ourselves . In short, w e must conc eive ourselves as addr essees of and particip at ors in th e poem, and no longer as its histori ans or its aesth etic conno isseurs . A secti on of Heid egger 's lecture on ' Ge r mania' directl y turns to th e audience as a sam ple of th e German peopl e, and w orks to un settle all th eir com placenci es abo ut wh o th ey ar e, wh er e th ey are in hist or y and even wh at th at hist or y, at bottom , really is .

POET IC I M A G ES

Having w orked through ' Ge rm ania' this far , th e rest of th e po em m ay seem to fall into place fairl y easily. H old erlin turns t o figurativ e lan guag e for th e r est of th e ode, which is a kind of prophecy . Three im ages in particul ar stand out , th e figure of a m an, perhaps th e poet, wh o is looking expectantly to th e east , and also th e im ages of an eagle and of th e girl calle d Germania. In th e third stro phe th e depiction of a land in expectation cent re s on th e figure of th e solitary m an looking to th e Orient . It is thi s figure who sees th e approach of an eagle com ing originally fr om th e Indus , a m essenger from ' the go ds' it seems . Th e r est of th e poem is thi s m essenger 's addr ess to ' Ge r mania,' a girl virgin al and self-effacing in acco rdance with H old erlins ir en ic patrioti sm. Yet, th e eagle ' s annunciation is also obscure. What is Germania b eing exh or te d t o do or say?

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o drink

the morning breezes

Until you are opened up And name what you see before you ; No longer now the unspoken May remain a mystery Though long it has been veiled .

It seems her e th at she is to become a kind of super -Ho lderlinian poet, one whose speech tran sforms th e ver y sight of wh at it nam es, according to Hold erlins ideal of ar t. Thi s might seem relativ ely accessible in th e cont ext of Holderl in ' s hop es for a new beginning for hi s peopl e . It is an annuncia tion , th at ' A truth be m ade a m anifest' , surely th at of th e possibility of a new destiny . Yet th e str ophe also ends exhor ting th at wh at Germ ania might say be ' Yet unutter ed also, ju st as it was found , / So let it , inn ocent virgin , r em ain ' ! David Co nstantine writes th at th e eagle ' s m essage is 'a stra ngely conto r ted and obsc ure celebra tion of Ger ma nia's qu alit ies, and his in structi on s ar e m anifestl y impossible to ob ey ' (Con stantine 1988 : 257 ) . So in th e end w e seem ' no fur th er forward ' (ibid) . Th e annunciation is pr em ature : it seems to withdraw itself in it s ver y gift! Th e overa ll m ovement of th e ode r emain s th at of a hop e withou t an object, just as, at th e clos e of ' Homecom ing ' th e poet , with his mi ssion , remain ed alone . How does H eid egger deal with thi s section, th e bulk in fact of th e poem ? His argument so far mi ght sugg est th at th e scene of th e eagle and Ger m ania relat es to th e fund am ental t on e, espe cially it s doublen ess of both loss and expectation. No w, w e mi ght th ink , in thi s annuncia ti on th e m or e forward-looking , propheti c aspect of th e fundam ental ton e will come to th e for e . Thi s seems reason abl e, but H eid egger ' s reading is not of thi s so rt. For H eid egger , Hold erlins turning to im ages cannot b e r ead so easily . Instead , th er e is a return to general considerations . O ur temptati on is to put into practice th e assum ption th at poetic im ages must b e read by our translating th eir obsc urity into som ething already fam iliar - w e reason th at sinc e it obviously cannot be a ma tter of a real eagle talkin g to a young Ger ma n girl, th e im ages must expre ss a pr ophet ic expectancy for a new beginning in Ger ma ny, and so on perhap s, in th e kin d of cross wo rd- puzzle solving wh ich exe r cises on poetry too oft en becom e . Yet thi s seem ingly com mon -sense w ay of proceeding is exactly what H eid egger conte sts. T o read thus is not to

do ju stice to th e Grundstimmuna , to th e holistic kind of reading it r equires or th e kind of transformati on of basic attitudes in ourselves which th at demand s. Th e poin t is that by decoding th ese im ages in a tradition al w ay - r estating th e initially obsc ure in t erms of the already kn own - w e will have r educed th e Grundstimmuna to a m er e th em e or id ea r epresented by language (see also GA 75 : 69- 70) . W e have ign or ed Heid egger 's injuncti on to r ead and b ecome att uned t o th e poetry itself poet ically and have rath er subo rdinat ed poetry to r epresentatio nalist thinking , slipping back into th e kn owing atti tude pr obably qu it e inn ocently, so all-pervasiv e are th e m od es of th ou ght and b eing w e need t o pu t at stake . What does H eidegger give us th en ? Th e im ages, he arg ues, must offer th em selv es to our interpretati on and th emati zati on (w e cannot not interpret aft er all!), but w e must also preserv e th e singularity and strang eness of what is said, undecod ed , unthematized and r esistant to our to talizing effor ts. Th e tex t m ust b e r ecognized as holding back , as w ell as offering forth . Thi s is th e m atter of th e singularity of th e w ork onc e m or e . In th e ' O rigin of th e W ork of Ar t' , given as a lecture not m any m onths lat er , it is what will conce rn Heid egger in t erms of a w ork' s 'setting forth of th e ear th ' . Th e earthly, irreducibl e nature of th e figurative language must b e preserv ed in th e kin d of attention w e bring t o th e im ages of th e eagle and th e young girl. Th ese cannot b e finalized by us as clos ed or set tl ed th emes or ideas, ' what H old erlin r eally said ' or wh at ever. (The crucial thing about Heid egger , as was str essed at th e opening of thi s study, is hi s challenge to wh at ' unde rstanding' or ' kno wing ' usually m ean .) Poet ic langu age , as th e bringing t o w ord and t o issue of its ow n prim ordial disclosive power , always ri sks falling back into m or e tradition al kinds oflanguage : 'language m ust constantl y place itsel f into th e illu sion which it it self has generated , and th er eby endanger what is m ost it s ow n , auth entic saying ' (E : 55; trans. m odifi ed ) . H eidegg er 's r eading of the seco nd half of Hold erlins 'Germ ania' conc erns how thi s authe nticity can b e preserved against th e reader ' s under stand abl e if mi sguided reach ing for famili ar guiderails to steady against th e disori entati on of a ' poet ry of poetry' . For H eid egger , th e only auth entic path is not to flee the disori entati on t o whi ch poet ic langu age subjects us and our seem ing cer tainties, but to resolv e t o r emain in it , tran sformed . Th e r ead er must both th em atize and hold open (GA 39 : 121 ) . Th e poetic , like th e oracular (G A 39 : 127 ), is langu age whi ch m anifests HE IDEGGER A ND THE POET IC

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itself partly as a secret , nam ely, as that which legibly m akes kn own that som ething is hidden , wi thdraw n, un said , wi thout dir ectl y r evealing anyth ing bu t th e reserv e of secr ecy . Such langu age cor respo nds to Hold erlins id ea of the ' sacre d': if th e read er lets it b e and preserv es its non -obj ectifi abl e, non -th em ati zabl e nature, it m ay, instead of beco m ing our object, change us. So a concern for th e Grundstimmuna is lost as soo n w e star t conc eiving it as m erely what th e poetry is 'about'. In fact it co uld never be appro ached in th at way, for it is not any sor t of object w e could hold in fro nt of us (see 1st : 119) . It is th e essential ' unsaid' m agnetizing all th at is said in a movem ent of disclosur e as concealm ent (o r vice ver sa) . Fro m th e need to preser ve in th e poem th e dem ands of thi s kind of non -kn owing kn owledge , so t o speak , follow all the seem ing contraditio ns th at r ender Heidegger on th e poet ic so fru st rating a to pic to an overly analytic phil osopher - for Heid egger affir m s th e valu e of th e text in an act of clar ification th at not only repudiat es tradition al m eth od s of interpretati on or cont extualizatio n, bu t which finally affirm s that t ext' s withdraw al from under standing . It brings th e poem near er by stressing its r em ot en ess, so th at th e eluci datio n is a contra dict or y double m ovem en t of approaching and holding off, as in ' Homecom ing': ' How can w e preser ve it - thi s m yster y of nearness - without our kn owing it ? For the sake of thi s kn owledge th er e must alw ays be one wh o first returns hom e and says th e myster y again and again' (E 43) . In sum, Heid egger ' s ideal in appr oaching th e poet ic is of a non objectifying non -t ot alizing reading in which th e reader under goes a critical defamili arizati on of th e ver y obviousness of language and th e w orld , r eson ant with th e transformativ e ton e of Hold erlins r eligion witho ut an object . It is a ma tter not of getting at som e hidd en m eaning but of both 'letti ng th e un sayabl e be not said' and of ' doing so in and throu gh its ow n speech act' (GA 39 : 119) (a par ticul arl y good exam ple of H eid egger ' s delight in poetry' s defian ce of prop ositi on al logic) : The secret is not a barrier placed beyond the truth. but in fact tr uth's highest form [Gestalt]; for to let the secret remain tr uly what it is - the preservation of authentic being in its withdrawal - the secret must be manifest as such . A secret which is not apprehended in its power of veiling is not a secret. (GA 39 : 119)

H eid egger 's readings all affir m ' m yste ry' , but not in any vaguely r eligios e sense . Th e quotati on just given , in effect , summariz es th e ideal of non -appropriativ e kn owledge w e have alr eady seen in relati on t o H eid egger 's r eading of ' H om ecom ing ' . Th er e he writes th at ' we never kn ow a m yst er y by unv eilin g or analyzing it to death , but only in such a w ay th at w e preserve th e m yster y as myster y' (E 4 3) . Thus th e m atter of th e poem canno t be evade d by b eing consider ed m erely an attitude or idea held by Hold erlin . Both ' H om eland' and 'G er ma nia' r em ain th e opening of a space t oward a transformed, non objectifying m od e of being . It is thi s th at H old erlin m ean s by th e ' homeland ' ( Vaterland), a t erm th at Heid egger in 1934 di ssociat es fr om ' d ubious and noisy' kinds of nati on alism (GA 39 : 120 ) . As th e r eader becomes attune d t o th e poem' s double-ed ged fund am ental ton e, and is drawn on by a figurativ e prophetic langu age whi ch withdraws from interpret ati on even as it offers it self , 'Germa nia' b ecomes th e expe rience of a radical defamili arizati on oflanguag e, iden tity and kn owledge . It is a call to leave th e com placent oblivion of our curre nt cer tainties and endure th e ' pain ' of an authentic sens e of th e un cann y, unhomely ' hom eland ' . H eid egger ' s r eadings of H old erlin take th e reader up to th e ver y limit of traditional pr esupposition s. At times, perhap s, Heid egger does not resist th e temptati on t o go farther and to flesh out, using H old erlin , som e w ould-be post-metaph ysical m yth ology, and he has been criti cized for this (see next chapter) . In th e reading of 'G er ma nia,' however , the 'hom eland' is anyth ing but a place of assurance . It is a sit e of felt lack , endurance and of an expectation th at cannot kn ow its ow n m easure , one drawing all th e r eceived terms of poet ics - form , im age , content - into a ' whirlpool' (GA 39 : 136) .

SU M MARY After his controvers ial and abortive engagement with politics in the early days of Germany's Nazi government , Heidegger t urned to art and the poetic, above all to the German romant ic poet Friedrich Hblderlin. Heidegger was atte ntive in the poetic to t he possibility t hat here mig ht be a space outside of t he dominance of prod uct ionist th inking . Heidegger uses t he German term Dichtung to name the gen uinely poetic , wit h all the characterist ics of a true wor k of art as descr ibed in 'The Origin of the Work of

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Art' . He reserved the term 'literat ure' to t he usual object of literary crit icism, i.e, wor k merely determined by the cu ltural debates of its day. Heidegger's readings of Dichtung aim for a drastic tra nsformation in the deepest assumptions of the reader , He rejects t he ways in which the poet ic is recuperated by crit ical and educationa l insti t ut ions, These, in effect, reduce it to something safely compatible wit h dom inant th inking and the oppressive world of globa lized techno-sc ience (this is whether the approach is to see t he work merely in terms of some extractable content, or an historical document merely to be sit uated in its more immediate cult ura l context, or as an object of formal analys is, attentive to its generic and rhetorical structures) , For Heidegger, t he only context that matters is deep history. For him, Hcilderlin's wor k stands out for its untimely engagement with European nih ilism (t he death of the gods in Hcilderlin' s parlance) , This makes this early nineteent h-cent ury poet absolute ly contemporary, and indeed ahead of us, in his practice , Out of his symb iotic relat ionship w ith Hcilderlin's t houg ht and pract ice Heidegger' s reading str ives towards the ideal of a non-appropriative understand ing of the poetic . This is sensit ive to the way Hcil derlin' s Dichtung draws t he patient reader into a revelat ion of its (and our) world as one of nih ilism, of t he absence of the sacred . So negat ive a revelation however, is also t he first stage in t he making room for a new sense of the sacred in Hcilderlin' s sense, The sacred is at work already in t he poetic act as a kind of parado xical knowing other t han t hat of metaphys ical t hink ing , Th is is an non-exploitat ive mode of knowledge that addresses but does not negate t he otherness of what it touc hes, It lets 't he unsayable be not said', and makes tr uly clear by leaving a reserve of mystery ,

7 NAZISM, POETRY AND THE POLITICAL

H eid egger and N azism : th e issues ar e so cont entio us, so overdet er mined by conte m porar y intellectual politics, and som e of th e conce rns so horrific th at thi s is a to pic about whi ch it is probably impossibl e to think stra ight . Th e cont rover sy was stirr ed to new life by a b ook by Victo r Farias ( 1989) . Farias's argum ent th at Heid egger w as a Naz i thro ugho ut hi s life and his w ork th or oughl y fascist is easy to dismi ss. Less dismis sabl e is evide nce gleaned by oth er scho lars at this time, not abl y Hu go O tt ( 199 3), r evealing th e exte nt and depth of Heid egger's involvem ent with th e Nazis in th e 1930s . Thi s refutes som e of H eid egger ' s ow n defen sive self-pr esentatio ns on th ese issues. Fari as's book said little new . At times, thi s was an oppo rt unistic b ook , engineering a SUCCI?S de scandale by making ext re me claims bound t o grab th e attention of a lot of peopl e . It ow ed its impact to th e w ay th e figure it attacked had becom e , by th e mid-1980s, an indi spen sabl e r efer en ce in radi cal m odern thinking, espe cially in continental Euro pe , wher e H eid egger ' s thinking had become newly prominent with th e declin e of Marxism . Thi s associa tion gave th e debat e its seem ing stakes and its peculi ar veh em en ce . Th e oddit y rem ain s th at it is oft en m or e conservative thinker s who ar e eager to di smi ss H eid egger , while th ose who defend th e continuing valu e of his th ought ar e broadly of th e left . What is incontestabl e is th at H eid egger join ed th e Naz i par t y in May 1933 and th at during 1933-4 at least his political engagement was a

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m atter of genuine conviction and even excite ment. In May 1933 Heid egger w as elected by his colleagues to ser ve as Rect or of Fr eiburg Univer sit y . H eid egger lat er claim ed th at he acce pte d thi s post r elu ctantly with a view t o helping prot ect th e Univer sity from th e new r egime th at had com e to power earlier th at year . In fact , he took a leading r ole in th e 'bringing into lin e ' (Gleichschaltu na) of Ger ma n univ er sit y life , pr oducing several speeches and newspap er ar ticle s in suppo rt of th e r egim e and even calling himself th e ' Fuhre r' of th e Univer sit y . Th e exte nt t o which Heid egger w as anti-Sem itic is open to debat e . His writings fr om the 1920s and 1930s stand out - such was th e conte xt - for th e abs ence of racism , which H eid egger explicitl y at ta cked in lectures . N everthel ess, in acade m ic politics Heid egger was pr ep ar ed to appe al to th e anti-Semitism of oth ers if it help ed get his ow n way . A letter pr oving thi s was am ong evide nce cit ed in Heid egger 's case b efor e the D enazificati on Co mmittee of th e Fr ench occupying for ce in 194 6 . O verall, Heid egger w as convicte d for having 'in th e crucial year of 1933 . .. conscio usly placed th e gre at prestige of his scho larly r eputati on and th e di stin ctiv e ar t of his orator y in th e service of th e National Socialist Revolution ... th er eby doing a great deal to ju stify thi s revolution in th e eyes of ed ucate d Ger ma ns' (O tt 1993 : 327) . Th e comm ittee suspended H eid egger fro m teachin g , a ban lift ed in 1950 . Ho w far H eidegger continued his suppo rt for National Socialism aft er 1933 is one of th e issues of conte ntion. H e cer tainly r em ain ed a m emb er of th e par t y till 194 5, th ough of cours e, in a to talitarian state, r esign ati on w oul d not have been prudent . H eid egger dat ed his disillu sion with th e Nazis from th e so-called ' Night of th e Long Kniv es ' , 30 June 1934 , when th e par ticul ar party facti on he felt clos est to was purged (Rec : 4 99) . H e th en seems t o have reached an ambivale nt position , defending som e incr easingly idi osyn cr atic lost 'essence' of National Socialism against what it w as in r ealit y. Th e lectures on the origin of th e w ork of ar t and the first lectures on H old erlin both emerge from thi s espe cially imponder abl e tim e. A lecture co urs e of 1935 attacke d ' w or ks b ein g peddled about nowadays as th e philosophy of National Socialism' compare d t o wh at H eid egger clung t o as th e lost 'inne r truth and gr eat ness ' of th e m ovem en t , a statem ent reprinted in 195 3 (1M: 2 13) . In th e lat e 1930s, H eid egger ' s lectures on Fri edrich Nietzsche (N ) m ake up a clear if cod ed at tack on Nazism as a m er ely ano ther , lat e nihili stic form of producti oni st m etaph ysics.

For th e r est of his life H eidegger ' s view of Hitler ' s coming t o power in early 1933 r em ain ed th at th e chanc e of a genuine nati on al ren ew al had been th er e , one th at could have led Europe away fr om th e path of nihili sm and self-dest ruction, but th at th e m ovement swiftly b etrayed thi s pr omise . Looking back on thi s suppos ed b etrayal , Heid egger bl am ed his fellow Ger m an intellectuals for not having tried in sufficient number s to direct and shape event s as he had tried , for allow ing a racist and militarist cult to turn Naz ism int o m er ely another version of Euro pean nihili sm , on a par with Stalinism or Am er ican capitalism . So H eidegger 's per sonal versio n of National Socialism w as ver y much a thing on it s ow n , part of his t enden cy t o self-my tho log izat ion as th e pr ophet ic thinker wh o m ay b e able to lead Europe out of th e shadows of a nihili stic m od ernity into a new dispen sati on of being . W e cannot consider her e th e debat e as to wheth er or not H eid egger's gr eat est w ork Beina and Time (1 927) anticipates th e fascist politics of 1933 . Beina and Time preced es by seven years th e t urn to ar t and the poet ic in Heid egger th at is our conc ern and whi ch was in par t a r eacti on to what he called th e ' stupidity' of th e Rect or ship (Pet: 37) . However , one can see how fascism is at least a possibility lat ent in aspects of H eid egger ' s thinking , if not inevitably or necessaril y in scribed th er e . Let us r eturn briefly to th e issue of 'holism' fro m Chapter 1. Might not a holi sm whi ch is critical and anti-re d uctive in its r esp on se to the domination s of scient ism, bureau cratic ra tionalization and control - th e im pli cati on s taken up by so -called left -H eid eggeri an s - become oppr essive and inh er ently tot alitari an when transfer r ed too hastily into an active progr amme of immedi at e political chang e , i. e. th e dem and to think a sta te or nati on as a whole, as m or e th an and tran scending th e sum of its parts? Fro m that per spective th e peopl e (das Yolk) is m or e th an th e sum of it s indi vidu als. It is th at wh en ce th ey arise and take th eir identit y, a positi on th at might lead to a view of th e individual' s irrelevan ce . In th e early 1930 s attem pts t o criticize and alleviat e th e ato m istic individualism of m odern life , its solitude and alienation, led Heid egger t oo qu ickl y into a dismi ssal of th e importance of individual political and economic right s. Liberty in th e m odern sense of individual aut onom y appears m ainl y as a threat to socia l cohesio n and a w ould-be deep er sense of b elonging t o a peopl e and place . O nly, it seem ed, surrender to a greater power , embodied in a lead er , could ensure th e genuine and non alienating self-realizatio n of th at peopl e in a com m unal movem ent, lib er ating the Ger ma n w orker fr om the yoke of capitalism and bringing N A Z ISM

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in th e intell ectu al w orker in com mon cause. So w e can sur mise th at a holism at w ork in H eid egger ' s critiques of th eor eti cism might also lead , if tran sferred too hastily t o politics , t o di sturbing claims such as th at m ade by Rect or H eid egger in 1934 th at 'The individual by himself count s for nothing . It is th e destiny of our nati on incarnat ed by its state th at ma tters ' (Freib urg Univer sit y Ar chiv es; qu ot ed in Ott 1993: 240) .

HEIDEGGER'S SILENCE? For m any, however , th e outstand ing cont ro versy about Heid egger is not his peri od of engagement with Naz ism . It is th at aft er th e war , wh en th e full horror of what had taken place in Ger m any w as kn own, he seems to have failed full y to ackno w ledg e it. His per son al apologetics, evasive or other wise, seem insignificant com pared to thi s failure of tho ught, espe cially th e seem ing inability t o confro nt th e holocaust and think through its implicati on s. Th e nature of Heidegger ' s silence on th e holocaust is open to inter pretation . No t speaking is an even st ro ng er source of wildly competing int erpretati on s th an ar e Heidegger 's den se writings! Unfortunat ely for w ould-be defender s of H eidegger th e rar e occas ions when he br ok e th at silence ar e m orally prob lem ati c. Most fam ou s is a seemingly off th e cuff rem ark m ad e in a lecture in Bremen in 1949, a r em ark omitted when th e t ext reapp ear ed as ' The Question Co nc ern ing T echn ology' (QCT : 1- 35): Agriculture is now a mechanized food industry, in essence the same as the manufactu re of corpses in the gas chambers and extermination camps , the same as t he blockading and starving of nations, t he same as the manufacture of hydrogen bombs . (Quoted in Schirmacher 1983: 25)

Th e sentence has outrag ed m any for it s insen sitiv e equation of food producti on and m ass murder (see Mil chman and Rosenber g 1996) . Heid egger ' s prim ar y t op ic is not th e exte rmination it self but m od ern agricult ure . T o expre ss his horror at th e reducti on of a way of life to a m er e ind ustry he seems to have r eached for th e m ost ext re me in stan ce he could conc eive of th e evils of technology. T o say th at m od ern farming , th e holocaust and th e hydrogen bomb have ' the sam e essence' m ean s th at th ey all ma nifest a w orld in which t echnology str uct ures fundam entally th e way things appear . Thi s may w ell b e true, but can

it justify th e kind of blanket equivale nce in Heid egger 's sent enc e? It has been arg ued th at Heid egger 's standpo int , of alw ays homing in on what is said on th e largest scale, of being and of hist or y only in th e sense of change s in what is hist or ically decisive , qeschichtlich . blinds him t o hist or y in its m or e famili ar sense. H ow ever , even thi s statem ent abo ut agricult ure and th e holocaust has been defended . For some, H eid egger ' s equation is primaril y a w arning abo ut th e futur e , th e com ing techn ological devastation of th e earth and of humanity (Young 1997 : 181- 5). Likewi se it is not impossibl e to present H eid egger ' s post-war philosophy as in part a r espon se to th e holocaust . Hi s w ork is aft er all a m editation on th e nihili sti c essence of th e m od ern W est , revealing its threat not only to life bu t to th e human essence it self conc eived in t er ms of th e openness to being . From thi s r esp ect , th er e mi ght even seem som et hing appro priate in Heid egger 's public silenc e on the murder of th e European Jews, when set against a society dominat ed by what he ter m ed ' publicity' and the m edia, wh ose crass represen tations in cr easingly det ermine wh at is generally taken as real. Why r edu ce thi s un speakabl e event to th e level of r epresentati on s th at glibly cir culate as ' ne w s events'? Heid egger wrot e t o th e Jewi sh poet Paul Cel an on 30 Januar y 1968 , afte r th eir m eeting in Jul y th at ' Since th en w e have much to have been silent abo ut together ' (' Seitde m haben wir vieles einander z uaesch wieaen ' ) (qu ot ed in Em m eric h 1999: 144-5). Th e view of Heidegg er 's silenc e as appropriate m ay seem gen er ous. N everthel ess, discu ssion s of thi s issue from post -H eid eggeri an philosopher s draw deeply on Heid egger ' s th inking in approa ching th e holocaust , even while r epudiating wh at seem Heid egger ' s ow n failin gs . In Philippe Lacou e-Labarthe ' s w ork, wh at might be termed a Heid eggerian r eading of th e holocaust is sugg ested , supplem enting th at whi ch H eid egger ' s published w ork seems m er ely to hint . Lacou e-Labar th e takes up th e conc ept of Geschi chte, th e hist or y of being conc eived as a series of shifts in th e m ost fund am ental sense of human things . For Lacou e-Labar th e, unlike Heid egger , th e holocau st is such a decisive shift, and not just one event among others m anifesting th e nihili sm of the m od ern w orld . It is a deep hist or ical break (aeschi chtlich) in th e sense th at nothing after wa rds can b e the sam e . For Lacou e-Labarthe , drawing on H eid egger ' s reading of nihili sm , ' Auschw itz' is a hor rific r evelati on of th e nature of W est ern civilizatio n, and it ' ope ns up , or closes, a quite other hist or y than th e one w e have kn own up un til now' (Lacou eLabarthe 1990 : 45) . N A Z ISM

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Perhaps, tho ugh, H eid egger was right : 'We m ay find Heid egger barbar ically insen sitiv e in his r efusal to speak to th e Sho ah in his Seinsqeschichte [hist or y of b eing], but our horror does not ' negate ' hi s or any view th at does not find in th e holocaust a radical rupture in th e possibilities open to W est ern tho ught' (Lysaker 1993 : 20 6) . D oes w orld hist or y since 194 5 perhaps suppo r t H eid egger ' s seemingly brutal r em ark th at th e Second W orld W ar essentially decid ed nothing (WT: 66) ? Among th ose who agree with thi s disturbing view is th e Fr ench phil osopher [ean -Francois Lyot ard wh o elabo rat es wh at is r ecognizably a variant H eideggeri an reading of th e exte r m ination (Lyot ard 1990 ). Lyot ard endor ses th e arg um ent th at th e holocau st m anifests th e violen ce inh er ent in W estern rati on alit y, withou t , like Lacou e-Labar th e, seeing thi s horrific r evelati on as m arking a deep hist ori cal (aeschichtlich) break . N ever theless Heid egger , in Lyot ard ' s view, still r em ain s convicte d of a disastrou s inability to m ake m or al di stin cti on s. Th er e are two broad aspects of Heidegg er 's blindness. Fir st , to see th e holocau st as a m anifestation of European nihili sm in gene ral is to evade th e specific Ger man r espon sibility for th e murder s . Second, Lyot ard argue s th at Heid egger cannot even pose, let alone answer th e qu esti on , ' why m ainl y th e Jew s?' Lyot ard 's , Blancho t's (Blancho t 1993: 129ff) and Geo rg e Steiner's effor ts (Steiner 199 2: 4 5) t o find som e rati on ale as t o why th e Jew s in par ticul ar w er e victimized offer again a kin d of revisioni st Heid egger ianism . Each sees th e issue in r elati on to th e rep r essed in securities of W est ern m od ernity, in its drive to provid e a self-sufficient rati on ale for human life based solely on a secular viewpoin t . Against th is drive , th ey arg ue, th e Jew s offer ed th e discomfor ting challeng e of a peopl e wh o insist on th e finitude of human life and kn owledge and wh o m ain tain the necessity of som e sor t of r elati on to th e divine . Th ey pose a challe nge in th eir very existe nce to th e secular principl es of moder nity . But is thi s arg um ent convinci ng ? Is it not to attribute to anti-Sem itism a gr eater kn owledge of Judaism th an is plau sible, giving it even som eth ing of th e dignity of an intellectu al positi on ?

ART AN D POLITICS How do th ese issues relat e to H eid egger ' s thinking about art and th e poetic? Th e writings on th e poeti c all postd at e his Rect or ship and ar e generally read as a r eacti on against it. Th e years 1934-6 sho w an incr easingly critical atti tude towards any noti on of politi cs itself still

cent re d on th e human will alo ne and on competing w orld-view s. H eid egger ' s un scheduled decision t o lecture on Hold erlin in 1934-5 was a turn to a kin d of qui eti st ' spirit ual' politi cs gear ed to wards fund am ental attune ments and r eceptivit y to b ein g, incompati bl e with active progr ammes of socia l planning or m er ely in stitution al change . Thi s introducti on has necessaril y alr eady im pli ed a positi on on thi s issue , effectively arg uing th at , fr om th e tim e of th e engagement with H old erlin in lat e 1934 , H eidegger esche wed dir ect political action in hi s hop es for Ger ma n ren ew al and re-engaged in a deeper critique of the bases of W est ern histor y in pr oducti oni st m etaphysics, a critique whose main impact must be a grim r ealizati on of th e exte nt to whi ch its to talitarian anthropoce ntrism t ou ches every aspect of modern life and th ought. O ne of th e most influ ential b ook s on th is topi c is again Philippe Lacou e-Labar th e ' s Heideaa er, Art and Poli tics, published in 198 7 , just b efor e Farias's assault. Lacou e-Labarthe sho ws that it is not possible t o talk abo ut ' He ide gge r and politi cs' as if th e t er m politics was without a set of assumptions about wh ich Heid egger has a lot to say . Politics in th e traditional sense, argue s Lacou e-Labarthe , has been a fun cti on of productioni st thinking: it has always been conc eived in th e W est as a form of t echn ics or craft, nam ely th at of th e fashioning or makin g of a peopl e acco rding t o some id ea or ideal of th eir life togeth er (as a potter moulds a pot towards the shape of its precon ceived design ) . Naz ism was striking for the way it inten sified thi s associ ation of poli tics and a kind of craft , for it str essed the genuine essence of Ger ma ny as som ething th e Ger ma n peopl e sho uld continuously cr eat e in th eir daily life and activities, all of which in t urn becom e celebrate d as the expre ssion of a common essence and dest iny . It is an essence m ad e visible in flags, insigni a, un iforms and in such large scale pr oducti on s as th e infam ou s Nur emberg rally or th e prop agandist film s of Leni Riefenstahl, as w ell as in th e ruthless elim ination of ever yth ing and ever yone conside re d non - German . Against this, Lacou e-Labar th e argue s, H eid egger offer ed his own revisioni st reading of the relati on of art and politics. So, what m ight ' politics' m ean for Heid egger ? Again , H eid egger's thinking m oves by taking th e ter m s of W est ern life back to th eir Gr eek source, so opening the space for a new b eginning at th e sam e, profound level. In 1935 , H eid egger lectures that ' state ' or ' city' , or ' city-state' are inadequat e t er m s to tran slat e th e Greek ' polis'. ' Polis' ' m eans rath er , th e histor ical [aeschichtli ch] place, th e th er e in which and N A Z ISM

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out of which , andjor which histor y happ en s' (1M : 162- 3). So any m akin g or producti on of a peopl e in th e conventio nal under standing of politics must pr esuppose and take place wi thin som e given ' w orld ' , th at basic str ucturing of hu m an existe nce whi ch is ' political' in a deep er sense. In oth er w ords, th e only ' politics' th at can truly m atter for Heid egger , or m akes for any essential kin d of chang e , is deep hist or y, Geschi chie .

Heidegg er believed till th e end of his life th at alth ough it had b een qu ickl y per verted , th er e had been the possibly of a genuinely ' deep historical' or q eschi ch tli c]: change in Germany in th e early 1930 s, i. e . a shift in th e m ost basic atti tude s and ' wo rld ' . Th e ' O rigin of th e W ork of Art' (lectured in 1936) , still includes th e 'founding' of a stat e as a possible new in stituting of truth alongside thinking and art, tho ugh thi s disapp ear s alt oge ther in lectures lat er in the 1930 s. Th e w ork on ar t and on Hold erlin is th en a m or e fundamental continuatio n of th e drive to r en ewal that had taken a m or e conventional ' political' for m in 1933 . In his apologia, ' The Rect or at e 1933 / 4 : Facts and Th ou ghts, ' Heid egger writes: What is essential is that we are caught in the consummation of nihilism, that God is 'dead' , and every time-space for t he godhead covered up. The surmounting of nihilism nevertheless anno unces itself in German poetic thinking and singing . Of t his poetry, however, t he Germans still have had t he least understanding, because they are concerned to adapt to the measures of the nihilism t hat surrounds them . (Pec: 498)

In H eid egger ' s un der standing, thi s issue alo ne is genuinely ' political' in th e sense of a hist or ically decisive change in th e w orlding of th e w orl d . His refer en ce to 'what is Germa n' , for all its lat en t nati on alism, is ver y distant from th e racist and exclusive Naz i essentialism. It seeks , in th e Ger man langu age and peopl e , th e possibilit y of a new non -r eductiv e relati on to b eing , one whi ch w oul d b oth r ep eat and r evise th e Gr eek inaugurati on of W estern life . So is th e excr uciating difficulty of thinking through H eid egger ' s poli tics th ankfully eased for th e r ead er wh ose m ain inter est is in lit er ature? N ot entir ely . Thi s alte rnative , essential ' politics' cent red on Hold erlin and art , still m akes some peopl e un comfortabl e , and not only for its Ger m an-centric stance . For Lacou e-Labarthe th e probl em has less to

do wi th Heid egger ' s dest ructi ve / deconst ructiv e r eadings of tradition al noti on s of interpretati on , m eaning , hist or y etc . bu t with what might b e termed th e m or e r ecup er ativ e side of hi s eluci dations . Heid egger is t oo eager to reach some ' oth er thinking ' , outside the closur e of productionist m etaph ysics. As a r esult his r eadings of poetry are som etim es an idealizati on. Heid egger is prem ature . Lacou e-Labar th e sugg ests that the ' H olde rlinian preachin g ' , as he calls it (Lacou e-Labarthe 1990 : 12), is too often tempted into a dogm atic my tho logizing . Lacou e-Labarthe ' s r eserv ati ons conc ern th e m yth ological m otifs der ived fro m H old erlin in H eid egger ' s lat er thinking, the 'fourfold ,' th e lack of sacr ed nam es, th e call for new gods , etc . . Th ese cont rast with th e t ortured but m or e scr upulously defen sible recognition of oth er H eidegger t exts (e .g. ' O n the Questi on of Being ,' P : 291-32 2) th at one canno t so directl y exit the langu age and th inking of th e t raditio n, th at it s hold on us is too total to adm it yet of m or e th an a pati ent tracin g of its all-pervading clos ur e . Lacou e-Labarthe ' s arg um ent has b een ver y influ ential. Heid egger has been charg ed wi th allego rizing som e of th e text s he read s in the light of his own hop es for a step out of m et aph ysical nihili sm , contrar y t o th e m or e cha ste ne d , perhap s despairing elem ents in th e poetry itself. H e tends not to see th e time of pain of H old erlin , Trakl and oth ers but in terms of th e com ing of a new wh olen ess, or to see loss except as poten tially th e space for a new advent . Vero nique F6ti writes th at, whether it is a qu estion of H old erlin ' s poetry, Hold erlins speculat ions on Gr eek tragedy ju st b efor e the ons et of his m adn ess, or Trakl' s poetry fr om th e First W orld W ar , Heid egger is un abl e , strangely , to countenan ce loss and di saster full y, as such, outs ide th e r ed emptive possibility of som e hidden saving power (F6ti 1992: 74) . John D . Caputo likew ise argue s th at Heid egger holds ' poetr y' s m ost disturbing and m en acing effects in check ' (Caputo 1993: 148). Hold erlins tentative and un settled thinking on th e possibility of new go ds becom es som etim es t oo definite a progr amme in Heid egger ' s Hold erlin. O ne issue is th at th e central conc ept of th e 'histor y of being ' pr ovid es ju st too m on olithic a fram e in wh ich to deal with th e singularity of th e poeti c or with much th at is usually r ecogni zed of importance in lit er ature . John Caputo writes of H eid egger ' s essay on Georg Trakl that wher eas poetry has always b een cel ebrat ed as one place wh er e th e cry of indi vidu al pain can sound out, from H eid egger ' s deep hist or ical per sp ectiv e th e em pirical pain of any one per son w oul d be a ' me r ely NA ZISM

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anthro po logical' conc ern (Ca puto 1993: 149). Heid egger ' s r emor seless attention to essential and hist or ical (geschi chtlich) issues m akes his w ork profound , bu t it also r ender s it odd ly ethe rializing or , precisely, essentializing. Thi s poin t has already come up in r elati on t o the infam ou s agricult ure r em ark . Factical pain , in it self, is downplayed except as Heid egger can read Trakl' s poetry in terms of its hist ori cally disclosive or concealing pow er , i.e. as a m od e of un con cealm ent or conc ealm ent in th e hist or y of being . Pain , or em otions such as love, anger , com passion etc. , not havin g th e status of ri sing to fundam ental attune me nts, are sim ply not in th e gam e of eithe r disclosing or conc ealing anyth ing and so fall to th e side of th e thinker ' s path as in essential. Th ese w oul d be ver y much th e lim itati on s of a specifically phil osophical r eading. Despite th e arg um ents of 'The O rigin of th e W ork of Ar t' , the poeti c is not given it s full singularity, but is still being w eigh ed pred om inantly as a m eans of kn owledge , albeit in a radically alt er ed form . In th e r ead ing of Hold erlins ' Ande nke n' even love is conside re d as essentially a m od e of truth (E : 147-8 ) . Th e argument then, elabo rated at length in Foti ' s influ ential Heuleqaer and th e Poets ( 1992), is th at Heid egger ' s concern with th e 'histor y of b eing ' and th e possibility of a major transfor m ation in W estern histor y b ecom es a r estrictive per son al m yth ology, a 'grand narrativ e ' th at imposes itself up on th e texts Heid egger r ead s. First, th e th em es of th e oblivion of being and of awa kening a fundam ental attune ment of mourning b ecome unifying concerns th at can over ride such normal details of scho larship as th e stat us of th e editions of th e texts used , or ot her elem ents r esistant t o th e overall focus on ' essent ial' qu esti on s. Heid egger r elies on two editions of H old erlins poems, using at first th e classic edition of No rber t von H ellingr ath , and lat er th e newly edite d Stuttgart edition initiated in 194 3 . In some cases, th e minutiae of H eid egger ' s interpretati on bear up on a ver sion of the text th at is disputabl e , surely a m ajor issue for r eadings th at rest so closely on unravelling crucial w ords in th e text (F6ti 1992 : 44ff; Derrida 1995: 3 16) . Foti's accusation th at Heid egg er cannot conceive radical loss in his r eadings of H old erlin and Trakl concerns m or e than th e accuracy of th e interpretati on s. It relat es to th e gr eater issue of the adequacy or oth erw ise of H eid eggeri an thinking to face conte m porar y r ealit y . Heid egger ' s alleged failure to m easure up t o th e hist or ically decisive chara cte r of th e holocaust marks Foti's reading, and gives it a cer tain ten dentiou sness. She is takin g up a positi on , first articulated by th e

Marxist Th eodor Ado rno ( 1903-69), th at after th e holocaust th e ver y possibility of poetry must be in doubt (F6 ti 1992 : 74). Thi s is wh y two chapters, a wh ole third of thi s sho r t book , ar e devot ed to th e poetry of Paul Celan, a poet whom Heid egger adm ire d as th e gr eatest living poet, standing 'furthe r forward th an anyo ne else', but did not actually write abo ut (Safra nski 1998 : 422). Cel an was a Jewi sh Ger ma n speaking writer wh o pr oduced som e of th e gr eat est post-w ar poetry in Europe . H e was w ell r ead in Heid egger 's th inking , as th e poem s sho w , but also , given Heid egger ' s past , deepl y un certain about him . Foti , Lacou e-Labarthe and ot hers r ead Celan 's poetry as articulating a post -H eideggeri an ethic and poet ic , one th at gives full witness to di saster , irrecup er abl e loss and th e possible impossibility of poetry after the holocaust . No w onder th en th at a first m eeting b etween H eid egger and Cela n in 1967 has attained th e stat us of a my thic tou chston e in discussion of H eid egger and poetic (see , for instance, Lacou e-Labarthe 1999 : 33- 8; Go lb 1988; Rapapor t 1997 :118- 32) . Heid egger and Cel an w er e to m eet twi ce subs equently , befor e Celan's suicide in 1970 . Int erpretati on s of th e poem th at Cel an wrot e aft er th e first m eeting ar e as at odds with each other as ever yth ing else in thi s t ortured debat e . Entitl ed 'T odtnaube rg ' , th e poem is nam ed for th e place of th e m eetin g at Heid egger ' s co untry cabin (Celan 198 3: II, 255) . Th e t wo m en had set out on a w alk t ogeth er afte r Celan had written in H eid egger ' s guest b ook : ' Int o th e cabin logb ook , with a view to wa rds th e Br um enst ern, with hop e of a com ing w ord in th e hear t' (Safrank si 1998 : 4 23) . Som e , lik e Heid egger ' s biograph er Safranksi and Hans Geo rg Gadam er read the poem as the record of a positiv e encounte r (Gadam er 198 5: 53). Safranski cit es evide nce th at Celan was ' elate d' aft er m eeting H eid egger (Safranski 1998 : 424) . O th ers, however , see 'T odtnaube rg' as a poem of di sillu sion , w ith it s expre ssion of th e poet' s hop e of a ' coming w ord ' fr om Heid egger and th e foll owing of path s th at lead only into a m arshy swam p . A t ext that admi ts of r eadings so contrar y is, needl ess t o say, enigma tic. H owever , th e consensus is towards the bl eaker r eading . Th e poem is full of im ages th at , elsewher e in Celau's w ork, r elate to the holocaust (Golb 1988). For some r ead er s Celan attains th e status of the poet who managed to surpass th e limitati on s of H eid egger ' s own poet ic , writing , aft er Au schwitz, a poetry th at gives full witness to it s intoler abl e histor ic conditions and the possibility of irrecup er abl e loss. It thus r eaches int o wh at m ight be called th e ' unth ought' of Heid egger 's ow n thinking . N AZ ISM

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In sum, Lacou e-Labarthe and F6ti pick up a tot alizing tenden cy in Heid egger ' s r eadings, alo ng with th e slightly m essianic drive th at betrays th e ' political' nature of th e r eadings of Hold erlin in particular , offering as th ey do a qui eti st , patriot ic programme of Ger m an r en ewal at odds with that of the Naz is and, lat er , with th e Am eric anized state of post war Germany . Foti's critique dr aw s on a distincti on b etween two sor ts of r eading . O ne, the m or e famili ar , is bent on interpret ati on , elucidation and, inevitably, appro priat ion of it s t ext . Th e ot her is no less scho larly but its rigour for ces its acknow ledge me nt finally of a cer tain ' unre adability' in th e text, a st ructural r esistance to any sor t of univ ocal interpretati on or tot alizati on . Th e implicati on is th at Heidegger ' s elucidatio ns draw towar ds bu t fail to becom e th e seco nd form of reading , slipping too often into th e first . H eid egger w ould thus approach bu t finally fall sho rt of a fully decon structiv e thinking th at w ould affir m th e singularity of it s t ext against th e t ot alizati on s of histori cizing / th ematizing r eadings, and which at th e sam e time w ould affir m a limit of unreadability out of respect for th at which eludes th e gras p of our ow n thinking , for oth erness . Foti' s is a ver sion of an argument m ade many tim es sinc e th e 1960 s: th at Heid egger pr ep ar es th e space for his m ost fam ou s discipl e , Jacqu es D errida, bu t is still m arked by r esidues of m etaph ysical thinking not at w ork in th e latter . For instanc e, if Heid egger affir ms th e withdrawn secr et nature of th e text, as w e saw in r elati on to th e second part of ' Ger m ania' , it is insofar as such obsc urity is seen in it s ' ear th ly ' shelt ering aspect , as prot ecting th e fundam ental to ne from mi sapp r opriati on , not as a m ere obsc urity or ind eciph er abili ty of th e letter of th e t ext and no m or e . Unlike in Celan , th e failure of langu age itself does not seem to be countenanced full y as a possibilit y, but only in terms of th e recup er ative noti on of th e pr ot ectiv e ' secre t' . Thus even th e very opacity of th e text is pu t t o w ork by H eid egger in th e task of pot ential disclosur e . Yet, one can go a long w ay to wards answ ering Foti' s accusations . Can Heid egger ' s str ess on th e poetic as a m ovem ent of fundam ental qu esti oning r eally be presented as a dogm atism ? Gera ld Bruns H eideaa er's Estra nqe men ts ( 1989) discover s ano th er H eid egger , one for whom th e poetic is wh at mi ght be ter m ed a langu age of th e 'ear th ' in th e sense of th at which is r ecalcitrant to th ought , un gr aspabl e , chast ening : poetry exposes thinking to lang uage, to its strangeness or otherness, its refusal to be contained within categories and propositions, its irreducibility to

sameness and identity, its resistance to sense - in short, its denial of our efforts to speak it. Philosophy by contrast is thinking that closes itself off to the experience with lang uage, turns itself over to logic , tries to protect itself by bringing language under the control of the proposition. Poetry, of course, knows no such control; poetry is the letting-go of language . (Bruns 1989: xxiv- xxv)

As th e site of such an event in th e m ost fund am ental human environment, nam ely language , th e poet ic is t o be preserv ed as th e supr em e site of openness to oth ern ess, t o a futur e not already predi ctabl e as th e r esult of calculative processes. Alth ou gh H eid egger ' s r eadings som etimes co ntain a rh et or ic of 'ho m eco ming' th at threat ens to close off thi s spac e, to identify H eid eggeri an poeti cs m er ely with a mythi calpolitical programme of Germ an r en ewal is too reductiv e, and amounts t o a refu sal t o b ear th e insecurity of th e open space t o which H eid egger leads us. At w orst , som e readings of H eid egger in th e 1990s, a decad e m arked by a deeply m oralistic t enden cy in criticism , give to Nazism and th e holocaust th e stat us of a key to all m yth ologies in Heid egger ' s difficult t exts . For Heid egger , it is m ost often a spac e of end urance and pati en ce th at H old erlins poetry opens . Lyot ard writes: What art can do is bear witness not to the sublime, but to this aporia [undecidability] of art and to its pain . It does not say the unsayable, but says that it cannot say it. 'After Auschwitz' it is necessary, according to Eli Wiesel, to add yet another verse to the story of the forgetting of the recollection beside the fire in the forest. I cannot light the fire, I do not know the prayer, I can no lonqer flnd the spot in the forest, I cannot even tell the story any longer . All I know how to do is to say that I no longer know to tell this story . And this should be enough. This has to be enough . Celan 'after' Kafka, Joyce 'after' Proust, Nono 'after' Mahler . (Lyotard 1990: 47)

And Heid egger 's r eading of Hold erlin? Lyot ar d ' s description of m od ern art as possible only as th e ' sublime' wi tn ess t o its own im poss ibility is alre ady th e place of th e poetic for Hold erlin . One distincti on b etween Heid egger and th e m od ern writer s listed by Lyot ard is th at H eid egger places th e dil emma of the death of art much earlier - ano th er r eason perhap s wh y he might give less th e holocaust less significanc e in this r espect th an do oth ers. Might Heid egger ' s r eading of Hold erlins NA ZISM

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enunciation of a non -enunciation in ' Ger ma nia' b e a case of Wiesel' s ' I cannot even tell th e sto r y any longer . All I kn ow how to do is to say th at I no longer kn ow to tell thi s sto ry' ?

THE READERS' DILEMMA No new w ork on Heid egger is lik ely to be consider ed seriously unl ess it acknowledg es th e qu esti on of his Nazism . William Spanos 's Heideaaer and Criticism (1 993) full y acknowledges Heid egger 's com plicity in politi cal crime bu t expre sses dismay at th e cr udities of Farias 's book and special issue of Critical Inquiry ( 15 , Wint er 198 9) on Heid egger and Naz ism . Spanos argue s that blank et conde m nations and dismi ssals of Heid egger need to b e under stood as m uch in relati on to our ow n time as t o hi s. Th e vilificatio n of Heid egger afte r th e publicati on of Farias's b ook was in par t a conservative backl ash against th e radical forms of critique th at had ow ed so m uch to him , espe cially th e w ork of Mich el Foucault (19 26- 84 ) on th e nature of power and Jacques Derrida's ' deconstr uction' (see next chapte r ) . H eid egger , in fact , becam e a convenient scapego at wher eby th e t rium phant lib er al capitalism of th e ' ne w w orld order,' post-1 98 9, could consolidate its positi on in th e m edi a and acade m y, tarring forms of radical critique with th e fascist brush, espe cially wh en a second scandal aros e conce rn ing th e w ar -tim e journalism of the decon structi oni st critic Paul de Man . Such Am erica n complace ncy, writ es Spanos, for get s ' the m ass destruction of civilian populati on s in Viet nam , Dresd en and Hiroshim a' , falsely bolstering th e moral auth ority of th e W est as vict or ofthe Co ld W ar (Spanos 1993 : xiii ). Th e cont rover sy is not only abo ut Naz ism and H eid egger. It is also necessaril y about th e nature of r eading , interpret ati on , tex tu al m eaning, autho rial r esp on sibility and th e r eader ' s r espon sibility . Thi s is why, over and abo ve th e immen se qu esti on s th at N azism raises, th e Heid egger cont roversy is not peripher al t o a b ook aimed principally at reader s concerned in som e w ay with lit er ar y th eor y . Spanos still endorses Heid eggeri an thinking as a basis for a kin d of oppos itional cult ural criticism . In oth er w ords, in most of H eid egger ' s w ork a specific politi cs is not built fixedl y into Heid egger ' s texts but these still produce r eadings th at allow a critique of m od ern industri al soci ety which ma ny on th e left find profound . Th e actual hi stor y of H eid egger ' s reception is a for ty year wi tness to this and is surely alre ady a r efutatio n of claims th at Heid egger ' s thinking is inh er ently fascistic.

What ever yone w ould lik e of cours e, is to r ead Heid egger ' s texts and to be able to put wh at is com plicit with N azism on one side and the r est on th e oth er. Is thi s possible? Unfor tunat ely, probably not . Th e difficulty is engage d in Mi chael E. Zi mmerman 's Heuleqqer's Conf rontation with Modernity : Technoloqv, Politics, Art (1990 ), one of th e few b ook s that peopl e approaching Heid egger will find clear and autho ritativ e . Zimmerman r ecogni zes th e way the issue of r eading Heid egger , espe cially w ork of th e 1930 s, poses qu esti on s of the nature of textual m eaning . Zimmerman endorses th e statem ent by the contempo ra ry Fr ench sociologist Pierre Bourdieu ( 1930- ) th at H eid egger' s text s ar e ' po lysem ic,' of multiple m eaning, adding : They can be read profitably witho ut regard to t heir [immediate] political implications, but they can and should also be read in ter ms of those implications. His tho ught cannot be reduced to the level of an ideological 'reflex' of sociopolitical conditions , but on the other hand it cannot be regarded as wholly detac hed from such conditions . Heidegger argued that because creative works - incl uding philosophical ones - have a measure of autonomy, the autho r's views about those works are not privileged . (Zimmerman 1990: 38)

H eidegger' s importan ce as a thinker for som e on th e radi cal left is a dram atic confirmatio n of Zimmer m an ' s last poin t . Yet th e intractabl e difficulty of thi s issue also appears in the peculi ar strategy of presen tation ado pted in Zi mm erman ' s b ook . O ne half devot es itself to a lu cid acco unt of th e kind of cult ura l polit ics in wh ich Heid egger' s w ork can b e placed in the 19 20s and 1930s in Germa ny, th e decad en ce of th e W eim ar Republic, th e genera l di saffecti on with m od ernity, th e disillu sion with dem ocracy, th e hop es for nation al r enewal, th e influenc e of th e w ork of Ernst Junger on th e place of t echn ology in th e modern socia l and political econom y etc. H er e, Zim m erman 's is a m ode of writing ver y famili ar t o w orker s in m od ern lit er ar y studies. H eid egger' s t exts are placed in a context of hi stor ical debat e th at render s th em - or seems to r ender th em - mas terable as par t of th e cult ural poli tics of th eir day . Th e arg um ents abo ut techno logy, abo ut th e hop es for a revival of the power of ar t, all seem t o fall into place in the intellectual life of Germa ny at thi s time . Th e seco nd part of Zim m erman's study is more strictly ' philosophical' , w orking throu gh Heid egger' s arg um ents with productioni st m etaph ysics, its hist or y, its culm inatio n N A Z IS M

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in techn ology and in th ink er s such as Junger for whom humanity is th e 'labo uring anim al,' etc. Thi s is all ext re m ely helpful , yet th e division of Zimmerman ' s book into two parts sim ulta neo usly r epresents and evade s th e m ajor pr obl em in writing on Heid egger and cult ural hist or y: th at Heid egger ' s ow n arg um ents are direct ed partly against th e ver y kind of r eading th at Zimmer ma n 's first section em ploys, nam ely th e r educti on of a poet ic or phil osophical text t o being a fun cti on of socia l and hist ori cal debate, th e suppos ed expre ssion of it s age and , with thi s view , th e exalt ation of th e hist ori an of such t exts to a com m anding over view whos e objectivizing assum ptions are not at stake . Zim m er m an kn owingly practices up on H eid egger exactly the kind of hist ori cist r eading that H eid egger r efu ses and tries to r efute in th e case of Hold erlin , Plat o and ot hers . So, as Zimmerman w ould no doubt be th e fir st to ackno wledg e, hi s contextualizing of Heid egger ' s lecture on Hold erlins 'Germania' is a partial reading . T o r ead only with a view to it s most im m edi ate conte xt necessaril y constr ue s H eid egger ' s text as only a hist or ical document with a par ticul ar cult ural programme, and not , for exam ple , as a m ovem ent of th ought with truth claims w e still need t o confr ont . Th e lecture emerges as a top ical progr amme of Ger m an r en ewal , based on Hold erlin , and in debat e with th e racist poet ics of contem po ra ries of H eidegger, such as E. G. Kolb enh eyer 's ver sion in 1932 of an "expre ssivist' poet ic according to which th e poetr y is a necessar y 'biological' expre ssion of a peopl e ( GA 39 : 27) . Zimm erman brings to life wh at Heid egger ' s listen er s w oul d have pi cked up in 1934-- 5 . However , th e difficulty - or importance - of r eading Heid egger is th at one cannot sto p th er e , for deep assum ptions abo ut hi stori cism and interpretati on are exactly what is at stake in Heid egger and why he still engage s us. If he w er e ju st th e diminishing figure of histor ical perspective th er e w ould be no contro versy . M or e th an any oth er bod y of th ought, Heid egger ' s is r em arkabl e for th e w ay it qu esti on s and r er eads it s conte xt or any conte xt in which one w ould wi sh to contain it . Baldl y speaking, Heid egger ' s conc ern is with Geschi chte, a deep histor ical conte xt w e still shar e . Such fundam ental assum ptions abo ut being change rar ely and thus lie outs ide ' hist ory ' in it s m or e qu otidian sense, bu t wh en th ey do shift th ey chang e everything with th em . Zimmerman , conventionally and lu cidly, r eads in ter m s of Historie . Such a reading m akes itself vulnerabl e t o th e Heid eggeri an charge th at its hist ori cism indulges fundam ental assum ptions about b eing ,

obj ectificati on , historical m eaning etc. th at th e lecture explicitl y con t ests. Heid egger attacks th at appro ach which 'situates itsel f by principl e and from th e first outside of th e m atter it judges and considers, makin g of it a sim ple object of it s opinio n ' (G A 39: 28). Yet does thi s m ean w e must sim ply side with Heid egger against Zimmerman 's approach in th at part of his b ook ? It is har d t o see how anyone can yet deal fully with thi s qu esti on . It w ould r equire engagem ent in phil osophical issues at H eidegger 's ow n level , wi th com parable acumen of th ou ght and depth of reading in th e hi stor y of phil osophy . Ver y few are equal t o th is . O n th e oth er hand , th e last thing anyone w ants to m er ely to take Heid egger at his w or d . Th er e is an im passe her e . Any writing on Heidegg er has to think throu gh thi s issue in som e w ay or another. Zimmerman ' s double strategy of presentati on - cult ural histor y in part one, issues in phil osophy in par t t wo - is one w ay of dealing with it . It m ay be in ten sion with Heid egger 's thinking , but it also respo nds to the impossibilit y of deciding wh er e, in Heid egger ' s t exts , one can say th at such or such a conce pt or argume nt is 'fascist' or not . Thi s is espe cially probl em atic of texts fr om th e mid-1 930 s wh en H eid egger was develop ing a critical positi on in relati on to Nazism. Th er e is no sim ple test or rule th at w ould decid e for us once and for all wh ether elem ents in 'The O rigin of th e W ork of Ar t' might b e com plicit with Naz ism or not . No t only is th e reading of H eid egger 's t exts an open -ended and often difficult process, but such readings w e mi ght undertake cannot but engage with - or assume - issues in th e nature of interpretation on which H eidegger alre ady has much to say . Aft er all, are w e even so sur e w e kn ow exactly wh er e fascism ends and other less vilifiabl e m od es of th ought begin ? Jacques D errida points out th at Heid egger is far fr om alone at thi s tim e in diagn osing a deep and possibly t er m inal crisis in th e idea of Europe , or in calling for a radical revolution and r evaluati on at th e deep est level. Does such a com para ble sens e of extre me cris is in Edm und Hu sserl , Paul Valery and other great thinkers at thi s time not blur th e issues (D errida 198 9 : 6 1)? D errida conclude s that Heid egger ' s m od ern r ead er is placed in an impossible but also un avoid abl e position. W e are pulled in oppo site directi on s by two oppos ed dem and s; first , th at of th e need to condem n at once ever y mark of com plicity with Naz ism in H eid egger and yet , second, th at of the demand for patien t th ought and rer eading of th e texts, whi ch m ean s of course keeping open in m any circums tances N A Z ISM

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th e decision as to what is complicit and what is not. Th er e is no rule th at w oul d decid e for us: why isn't the case closed? why is Heidegger's trial never over and done with? .. . we have to, we've already had to , respect the possibility and impossibility of this rule: that it remains to come. (Derrida 1995: 193-4)

In thi s r esp ect , th e reading of H eid egger becom es an extre me exam ple of th e eth ical dil emma of r eading mor e gener ally, in any significant text . W e ar e torn between concl usive interpret ati on or judgem ent and openness and r e-r eading . Thi s intractabl e difficulty continue s t o be endure d in H eid egger ' s legacy . Th er e is no pat ' Stude nts' Introducti on ' for mula for th is issue . Its strain is one reason debat e ab out Heid egger so easily b ecomes polari zed , and tempers frayed. Each read er m ust confro nt the issue anew , as his or her circumstanc es best allow .

AFTER HEIDEGGER

It appears to be time to think with Heidegger against Heidegger. (Jurpen Habermas, 1953)

Aft er Heid egg er ? Heid egger died in 197 6 , but w e are not afte r H eidegger . Hi s w ork engages qu esti on s at th e m ost fund am ental level im agin abl e abo ut th e nature of a human existe nce and what w e have come t o under stand as kn owledge . His thinking tou ches on about every field of intell ectu al w ork . So th er e is no ' after ' Heid egger in th e sense of someth ing th at can now be un der st ood at a distance or pu t ' ba ck into context' - for th at context is what w e inh abit, th e globalized, industrialized and industrializing w orl d whose basis is producti oni st m etaph ysics. H eid egger ' s overall influ en ce on m od ern th ought is sim ply too vast t o documen t in a book focused primaril y on qu esti on s of th e poet ic . As w ell as tran sfor ming poetics, H eid egger is an un avoid abl e r efer en ce point in any discu ssion of th e distin ctive charac te r of th e W est , of the nature of t echn ology, of th e nature of hist or y and of hist orical st udy , of envir onme ntal ethics, of th e nature and limits of science, of r eligion , of m edi cin e and psychoanalysis, of th e nature of Na zism, of th e r elati on of th e W est and Asian th ou ght, and so on . T o give just one in stan ce , H eid egger ' s w ork must have profound conseque nce s for the id ea of a univ er sity: it raises new qu esti on s about th e nature and basis

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of an institution whos e existe nce is alr eady an un easy compro mis e betw een politi cal and socia l for ces and intellectual w ork suppos edly dominated by reason alo ne . Heid egger never withdrew th e addre ss he gav e on b eing installed as Rector of Fr eiburg Uni ver sit y in 1933, wh er e he criticized th e m od ern institution ' s lack of anyth ing bu t a pragm atic basis for its foundati on , and called for ' the task of r etrieving fr om th e m er ely technica l orga nizatio n of th e uni ver sit y a new m eaning which could come out of a r eflection on th e t radition of W estern European th ou ght' (O nly : 96) . What of Heid egger ' s effect up on th e specific field of lit er ary st udy ? If it is m atter of influ en ce in th e sense of critics referring back frequently to H eid egger for guidance, as th ey have often don e wi th Jacqu es Der rida, Mi chel Foucault, Mikh ail Bakh tin and ot hers , th en apart from some books in the 1970 s H eidegger is scarcely pr ominen t. Th ere r em ain s no Heid eggeri an school of liter ar y criticism . Gera ld Bruns obs er ves th at 'for many lit erar y critics and th eori sts, he is more inter esting for his inv olvem en t with Natio nal Socialism th an for hi s writings on poetry and langu age ' (Bruns 1994 : 375). H ow ever , if it is a matter of the general struct ures of tho ught fro m which critics draw , th en Heid egger is surely a mor e decisive figure th an any other. Heidegger ' s thinking cannot be harden ed as a doctrine with nor m s against which discipl es co uld be ranged and judged . Th er e can be no H eideggeri an ortho do xy . A distinction one sometim es hear s is th at between ' left-H eideggerians ' and ' right -Heidegg erians ' . ' RightHeid eggerian s' would be th ose th inkers for whom Heid egger offers a view of life as th e Poem of Bein g, calling for th e homecoming for the hu m an essence , an ethic of non -exploit ativ e relation to th e ear th and to each other . An excelle nt exam ple is Rob er t Mu ger au er 's application of Heid egger to issues in envir onmentalist ethics (Mug erauer 1995: 109ff; see also M cWhorter 199 2) . For' left-Heid eggeri an s' on th e ot her hand , th e pot entially Edenic elem ents in Heid egger 's work are of less inter est th an th e for ce of H eid egger ian Destruction as a basis for a funda m ental socia l critique, deepl y critic al of given thinking and institution s. Heidegger ' s w ork m ade up a cr ucial part of th e deeply critical r eevaluation of th e nature of W est ern histor y and thinking which characterized th e second half of th e twentieth century. Heid egger has been one of the m ajor thinker s of wh at w e now term globalizat ion. Th e 1960 s saw th e emerge nce of ambitio us r eadings of W estern th ou ght as a whole th at ow e m uch to H eid egger ' s (and to Nietzs che's) exam ple . Mich el

Fou cault acknow ledge d H eidegger as, for him , 'a lways ... th e essential phil osopher ' (quo ted in Kritzm an 1988 : 250). Heidegger ' s 'histor y of b eing ' becam e Fou cault ' s conception of th e histor y of W estern th ought as one of changing ' episte me s' . H e w as reacting against m od els of intellectual histor y as one of a continuously unfolding 'de velopme nt' , accord ing t o wh ich , say, seventeenth -century bi ology can b e under stood as a cr ude r ver sion of th eori es th at eme rged m or e clearly in th at di scipline in th e eighteenth and subs equent centuries. Fou cault arg ued th at w e must r ecogni ze alte rations fr om one epoch to ano th er in th e m ost basic conceptions of wh at kn owledge is, change s so pr ofound as to r en der inquiry at one time in com m en sur abl e with w ork in th e ' same' field at ano ther (see Spanos 1993: 132-80). Thus nin et eenth-century biol ogy really has a deep er kin ship with, for instance, nin et eenth-century phil ology th an with eighteenth- century bi ology, so dr astically differ ent have become th e var ying "episte me s" or m od els of wh at kn owledge itself is across th e centuries. H eid egger was also an early influenc e on the r evisioni st Marxism of th e so-called Frankfurt School, espe cially th e w ork of Herbert Mar cuse ( 1898- 1979) (McCarthy 1993: 83- 96). D espite th e vast indirect influ en ce of Heidegger ' s thinking, how ever , can it be assimilate d t o oppos itional cult ural politi cs quite so easily as some defen der s wi sh (e .g . Spanos 1993)? For instance, th ou gh H eid egger 's criticism of th e oppression lat ent in m od ern concepts of kn owledge w as supr emely important for Foucault 's lat er thinking abo ut power and institution s and hen ce , indir ectly, for much w ork influ en ced by Fou cault in th e lit er ar y acade m y (the so called ' ne w hist oricism ' for exam ple) , th er e is mu ch in thi s w ork th at H eid egger w ould have found nih ilistic, ju stifying perh ap s hi s general disdain for lit er ar y criticism . A dominant assum ption in almost all critical r eadin gs of t oday is th at to un earth th e cult ural politics of a text is to r each th e bottom lin e of a possible analysis . But th at , for H eid egger , is nihili sm , th e r educti on of th e poeti c t o a fun cti on of competing claim s to pow er or autho rity in human cult ure . It is t o posit th at nothing is m or e fundam ental th an th e riv alr y of human r epresentati on s, th e str uggle of com peting individu als or gro ups . W ork th at tran smit s th e m ost challenging side of H eid egger ' s th ought cannot r est at th at point. It is that which keep s open th e possibil it y th at its text is not ju st a producti on of the debat es of its day, object for our interpret ati on , but th at it m akes a claim up on us, i.e , it conc er ns th e t ruth of our existe nce in som e sense . AFTER HE IDEGGER

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So Heid egger ' s legacy is striking for its m ulti plicity and deep am bivalen ce . His attack on th e anth r opoce nt rism of W est ern tho ught aligns him with th e deep ecology m ovem en t , it s r ejecti on of the attitude to th e earth and its cre at ure s as a m er e resource , and which sees even space in t er m s (ludicr ou sly) of ' conquest' . H eid egger ' s w ork is, in the title of one of th e b est book s ab out him , The Sona if th e Earth (Haar 1993). At th e sam e time many peopl e are un easy at th e way Heid egger seems oddly blind to th e conte m porar y w orl d exce pt as an int ensificatio n of declin e . He seems uninter ested in th e div er se nature of m od ernity, takin g it s science, its individualism , its crim es and its achieveme nts as undiffer entiate d instances of productioni st m etaph ysics. Th er e has also been disqui et about th e w ay th e ver y profundity of Heid egger's th inking, its inten se focus only on 'e ssential' qu esti on s, lead s to th e di smi ssal as ' ine ssential' of m any issues th at yet m atter deeply t o m any peopl e - where in Heid egger is th er e to be found a sustained discu ssion of hu man relationships engage d with, say, issues of socia l ju stice, th e family, sexual differ en ce , childhood , love etc.? Th e qu est ion of sexual differ en ce is espe cially challenging. Heid eg ger arg ues th at he is writing about so fundam ental a level of being th at one can say th at Dasein has no gender . If, however , a counte r-argument w er e to prevail th at sexuality is perh aps primordial to th e way a w orl d is disclosed t o anyone , th en th e issue w ould have to be r eop en ed. T o pu t it cr udely, if th e sexes have lived in differ ent w orlds, if only partially, th en wh at co uld be more qeschi chtlic]: than th at (see D errida 1983)? Even Heid egger' s pupil , Han s Georg Gadam er came to write th at what is need ed 'is not th e per sistent asking of ulti m at e qu esti on s, but th e sense of wh at is feasible , wh at possible, what is correct, her e and now' (Gadam er 197 5: xxv ). Th er e has been a genera l recogni tion of both (1 ) th e need to leave th e inten sely anti-m ode rn m oral climate of Heid egger' s thinking and yet (2) t o avo id lap sing back into th inking th at is m er ely pr e-Heidegger ian.

AMERICAN HElD EGGER: THE ROMANTIC 'POST -STR UCTU RALIST'? Un criti cal adm iration m arked the first w ave of lit er ar y criticism in English to look to Heid egger in th e early 1970 s. W ork of th e early 197 0s never formed a school and soo n died off or m erg ed into a second w ave of w ork influ en ced by Der rida and Paul

de Man . In r etrospect th e lim itati on s of th e early st udies using Heid egger are clear , not least th e fact th at m ost of th em referred to Beina and Time ra th er th an Heid egger ' s lat er w ork on th e poeti c. O ne feature w as th e t enden cy to use select ed pieces of H eid egger ' s text to back up claim s for th e importance of specific poet s, almos t always poet s in th e traditi on of twentieth-century Am er ican m od ernism , as in Paul Bovc' s Destructi ve Poetics: Heidcqq er and Modern American Poetry (1980), Joseph Ridd el' s book abo ut William Carlos Williams (Riddell 1974 ), or Th om as J . Hin es ' s study of W allace Stevens (Hines 197 6) . O th ers seized on th e w ay Heid egger ' s t exts provid e a defence of poeti c langu age . H eid egger ' s distin cti on between ordinary instrumental langu age and poet ic , r evelat or y langu age was easily assim ilate d to a criticism th at con tinued th e m od ernist age nda of a driv e towards a purified , essential lan guag e with unique truth-bearing prop erties. In Ger ald Bruns' s early study , Modern Poetry and the Idea if Lana uaa e: A Critical and Historical Study ( 1974), H eid egger ' s w ork w as assim ilated t o a distin cti on between wh at is termed th e ' Herm etic ' and th e ' O r phic ' as m od es of langu age . Th is oppos ition w orks ahistorically to dema r cat e two poles in W est ern poet ics, th e one, (the Hermet ic) a reHexi ve conce rn with th e density of lan guag e itself as a sit e of m yster y, and th e oth er (th e O rphic) with langu age in it s for ce of disclos ur e , its relati on not to itself but t o a w orld. In effect th ese Am erica n studies of th e 1970s develo ped th e cam paign of dominant critica l school in th e first three decades afte r th e Seco nd W orld W ar , th at of th e so-called N ew Critics, with th eir unphilosoph ical , romantic progr amme of cel ebra ting poeti c langu age as offering th e read er a kind of un alienat ed subjective expe rience in whi ch th ought and feeling are org anically b ound together , a subjective 'enact me nt' or 'e m bo dime nt' of a thinking at od ds with th e abstra ct r educti on s of scientism .

POSTSTRUCTU RALISM Poststructuralism is usually presented in int roduct ions to literary t heory as an intellectual movement of the late 1960s and the 1970s. It is described as taking over and rad ica lizing certa in ideas of t he li nguist ics of Ferdinand de Saussure

(1857~19 13)

and t he method of research he had influe nced

(Structuralism) , Thus Saussure had argued that t he signs in a lang uage are completely 'arb itrary ' (i.e. not natural) in t he way they possess meaning

AFTER HE IDEGGER

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there is no inherent relatio n between t he word 'home' and t he t hing or

concept it refers to . What it means depends entirely on how that particu lar set of letters or sounds (h-o-m-e) f unctions in t he system of language distinct from the funct ioning of other sets of letters or sounds . 'Poststr uct ura lism' is presented as an argume nt that pus hes th is insight one step further . It argues that, for example , since a word in a language can only be explained in relat ion to other words, and so on, all methods of interpreting a text t hat aim to pin it to some stab le reference in the real world or to an aut hor's mean ing are doomed, that the cr itic is impr isoned in t he unstable play of language. This argument was false ly attr ib uted to t he thin king of Jacques Derrida. The wor k of Michel Foucault , of t he cr it ic Roland Bart hes (1915--80) and of t he psychoanalyst Jacq ues Lacan (1901-<31) have all been presented as 'poststructuralist' at some time or other and similar simplist ic arg ume nts attribute d to them . In fact, however, 'Postst ruct uralism' in this sense barely ever existed . The idea t hat 'postst ruct uralism' was an inte llectual movement is a selfperpet uat ing fabr icat ion of jo urnalist ic 'introd uct ions ' to literary t heory, too lazy to look at the diverse set of primary texts .

Heid egger ' s w ork also enabled critics take up th e kin d of 'antihumani st' positi on on th e agenda in str uct uralist and emerge nt ' postst ructuralist' criticism at thi s time, i. e . attacking th e view th at human consciousne ss be seen as th e final source of m eaning in eithe r langu age or hi stor y. H eid egger seem ed to offer a positi on th at could recon cile such anti-hum anism with a defen ce of th e uniquen ess of th e poet ic . O ne culmination of thi s peri od of inter est was a special edition of th e journal, boundary2, (lat er a book ) devot ed t o H eid egger and lit er ature and edite d by William Spanos, a Greek Am er ican H eid eggeri an wh o continued to defend th e valu e of reading Heid egger thro ugh th e 1970 s, 1980s and 1990 s (Spanos 197 6). Inevitably perhaps, given th e strang eness of Heid egg er 's w ork, such st udies assim ilat ed it too stro ngly t o intell ectu al position s alre ady available - generally t o a Rom antic and m od ernist tradition which champion s th e poet ic w ork in ter m s of th e vagu e superio rity of poetic truth , all couche d at a level of generality th at deprived th e arg ument of specific hist ori cal for ce . Th e r esult r ender ed H eid eggeri an poetics a tam ely European form of Zen , with just th e kin d of slant - loosely

anti-com m erci al, anti- indust rial, and anti-science - alr eady so cong enial t o lit er ar y critics , oblivious in som e cases of th e oddness of cel ebrating how poetry 'founds' a w orld in th e context of th e Co ld W ar and fighting in Vietnam . O ne w oul d not guess from th ese r eadings th at Heidegger is th e thinker of th e declin e and probabl e death of art . In sho rt, in effect , for all his criticism of aesth etics, Heid egger becam e th e source of a new aesthet icism . A pr obl em with almost all Heid egger -in spir ed readings of som e chosen writer , from th e 1970s till tod ay, is th at th ey take an argument abo ut ar t from Heid egger 's t exts with often no regard for th e ver y noti on , th at of the hist or y of being , th at gave them th eir critic al, antimodern edge. For instance, ma ny appr opriations of H eid egger r ead as if th e characteristics he r eserv es to gr eat art , such as th at of th e Gr eeks , could b e sim ply claim ed for m odern art , with ou t r egard t o th e wh ole qu esti on of th e death of art .

HERMENEUTICS A m or e enduring legacy has been th e t ot al r econ structi on of th e di scipline of hermen eutics (th e art and th eor y of th e interpretati on of texts) in terms dominat ed by Heid egger ' s thinking . Her e th e major nam es ar e Han s-Georg Gadam er (1900- ) and Paul Ricoeur (1 91 3- ) . H eidegg er 's general effect on th e tho ught of the second half of th e twen tieth century w as often to induce a ' her m eneutic turn ,' i. e , a new concern wi th th e nature and finitude of all act s of int er pretation affecte d such div er se ar eas as anth ro po logy , law studies , debat es abo ut cog nitive scienc e (as w e have seen) and, of cours e, lit erar y studies. In each case ther e has been a r eex aminati on of not ju st the attainability bu t the desirabil ity of ideals of objectiv ity th at had previou sly b een do m inant. O ne exam ple of thi s shift in th e field of criticism has been a conc ern w ith th e kind of often sub-conscio us and untheori zed interpr etati on th at takes place in the very r eading of a tex t , as in th e so -called Reception Th eor y of Han s Rob er t Jaus s and W olfgang Iser wh ich develop ed in Germa ny from th e late 1960s (see Holub 1984 ) . Reading is not some immedi ate pr ocess like seeing or sensing what is in t ext , but a deepl y m edi at ed set of int erpretativ e skills - one r eason th at r eading lit er ature takes time to learn. Such w ork ow ed a gr eat deal also to Han s Georg Gadam er 's classic Truth and Method (1 960 ) which was th e first w ork to develop a genera l 'her m eneutics', or theo ry of inter pr etatio n , on th e AFTER HE IDEGGER

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basis of H eidegger ' s w ork . Gadamer wrot e: ' He idegge r 's t empor al analytics of human existe nce (Dasein) has, I think, sho w n convinci ngly th at under standing is not ju st one of th e vari ou s possible behaviours of the subject, but th e m od e of bein g of Th er e-being [Dasein] it self . . . and hen ce includes th e whole of its expe rience of th e w orld ' (Gadam er 197 5: xviii ) . Gadam er was writing at time when , as now, th e humanities w er e under int ense pressur e to m od el th emselves on th e natural scienc es, t o accept th e latter as th e only fully acceptable mode of kn owledge. Again st thi s, Gadam er str esses th e way Heid egger 's w ork on th e essentially pre-r eflective nature of human under standing endor ses th e auth orit y of traditi on al intell ectual skills , such as textual interpretati on , with ou t acce pting th e need to underwrite th em w ith so m e m or e full y transpar ent 'scientific' m etho d (even if such w er e possible). Gadam er also develop s th e crucia l argum ent of 'The O rigin of the W ork of Ar t' that a w ork is not ju st to be seen as an expre ssion of th e views and valu es of its auth or , or of its tim e, but as engaging still with th e qu esti on of truth . In oth er w ords, art cannot be r elegat ed to th e realms of th e traditi on ally hist ori cal or m er ely subjective without m akin g an arrogant restricti on of th e kin d of claim it m ay m ake on us. For Ricoeur , foll owing Gadam er, w e can no longer define hermen eutics or th e th eor y of interpretati on ' in t erms of th e search for th e psychological intention s of anothe r per son whi ch ar e conc ealed behind th e text, and if w e do not w ant to r educ e int erpretati on to th e dism an tling of str uc tures, then wh at r em ains to be interpreted ?' (Rico eur 1981 : 141 ). Th e answ er is a H eid eggerian one : th e interpreter sho uld aim to inh abit and under stand the m od e of being project ed by th e text , i. e . a w orld in th e sense given in th e first chapt er of thi s st udy : For what must be interpreted in a text is a proposed world which I could inhabit and wherein I could project one of my own most possibilities. This is what I call t he world of the text, t he world proper to this unique text. . . . Through fiction and thro ugh poetry , new possibilities of being-in-theworld are opened up within everyday reality. (Ricoeur 1981 : 142)

Th e r ead er ' s task is to subm it, th oughtfully, t o th e t er ms of th e text, but th e ultimat e goa l, for Ricoeur is th at m od e of under standing wh ich he ter ms 'a ppr opriation'. Th e reader engages in an inter action between his or her ' world ' and th at of th e text , with th e goal of th e

conv erg enc e of th e world hori zons of th e writer and th e r ead er' (p . 192) . Th e goal of interpretation becom es not th e r econ stituti on of som e dubiou s ' original' m eaning but an eluci dation of one's own w orld thro ugh th e encounte r with th at of an oth er. A striking differ en ce between Ricoeur and Heid egger is th e abs enc e of anyth ing equivale nt to Heid egger' s concept of th e ' ear th ' in Ricoeu r' s arg um ent, th at r esistant , inchoat e elem ent of th e w ork in it s oth erness, irreducibl e to th e cult ural terms of being part of a ' w orld' . Th e w ork, as a site of the st rife of ' wo rld' and ' ear th' cannot b e seen sim ply as th e projecti on of a world . As w e saw in Chapter 3 (th e exam ple of wh y lit er ar y t exts cann ot have an index ) Heid egger is fascinat ed by th at elem ent of th e w ork th at r esists appropriatio n, th at cannot be stabilized by interpretati on , or m ad e compatible with th e w ork of w orldly m eaning . Gera ld Bruns w rites, against Ricoeur : The work is uncontainable within the world, resistant to its reasons, excessive with regard to the boundary that separates world from earth . The paradox of the work of art is that there is no place for it in the world it works to establish. Its sort of speaking, its words, cannot be made sense of in worldly terms . (Bruns 1993: 31)

Wher eas Heidegger affir ms th e singularity of the w ork of ar t as an irreducibl y strang e m ode of b eing , Ricoeur' s project , Bruns arg ues, r em ain s aligned with th e m ajor progr amme of poetics sinc e Ari stotl e , nam ely of poet ics as a subset of philosophy whos e task is the full com pre he nsion or appropriation of th e poet ic object .

BLANCHOT, DERRIDA AND DECONSTRUCTION Bruns' s criticisms of Ricoeu r instantiate a m ajor and continuing effect of H eid egger in contem po rary lit erar y study, a str ess on th e finitude of un der standing and interpretati on and an engagement with th e issue of wh at in a text m ay be in compatible with noti on s of eluci datio n, com prehen sion or interpretati on in th e first place . It w as initially in Franc e that thi s side of H eid egger' s w ork, the th ought of th e 'earth ' so to speak, has had the m ost impact , espe cially in th e th ou ght and writing of Maurice Blanchot and Jacqu es Derrida. Th e r ew orking of Heid eggerian thinking on th e poetic in th e w ork of Blan chot and Derrida might be also termed a th ou ght of th e ear th AFTER HE IDEGGER

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(not a phrase th ey use , though it may be us eful her e) , sometimes against aspects of H eid egger 's texts . Both th ese thinkers , however , are working within a broadl y Heid eggeri an understanding of th eir context, conceived as th at of W est ern th ou ght as a whole, its deep est assum ptions and r epressions, and it s suppr essio n of what is oth er to it. Blan chot , wh o enc ounte re d H eid egger ' s w ork m ost full y in th e 1950 s, adapts and r evises it in relati on to his life-long fascinati on by th e lit er ar y . Blan chot' s The Spa ce <1 Literature ( 1955) is m arked ever ywhe re by th e r eading of 'The Origin of th e W ork of Ar t' : The statue glorifies the marble. . . . And the poem likewise is not made with ideas, or with words; it is the point from which words begin to become their appearance, and the elemental depth u pon which this appearance is opened while at the same time it closes . (Blanchet 1982a: 223)

Thi s earthly elem ent of th e w ork, however , is for Blanchot th e pri m ar y one . Th e w ork is no longer , as it was for H eid egger , th e mutual affir m ation of w orl d and earth in th eir constitutive antago nism (as w e saw in Chapt er 3) . For Blan chot , th e w ork does not ente r , except by violent mi sappropriati on , into th e w orld ' s space, i. e . th e r ealm of m eaning , disclosur e, cult ura l debat e and truth . It r em ains with th e darkness of th e earth . Blancho t affirms in the poet ic , th e 'lite ra ry space ', an anar chic acult ural for ce th at is never full y r educibl e t o m eaning nor capable of even the self-id entity of an object, but which m akes up a perpetual outside to hist or y and th e w ork of m eaning . Thi s is, am ong oth er things, a refusal in H eid egger of every th ought of art as a possibl e 'ho m eco m ing' or r etrieval of th e human relati on of being . Art r em ain s, for Blan chot , a ' lim it expe rience' , a spa ce of radi cal exile from cult ure and hist or y. Th e poet is essentially a ' wander er '. Th er e is surely an implicit criticism of elem ents of H eid egger ' s Hold erlin r eadings her e, th eir spirit ual politi cs and r omantic nati on alism . Art for Blanchot is inh er ently a r efusal of th e hi stor ical place (the polis) of a specific peopl e : ' [the poet] b elongs to th e for eign , to th e outside which kn ows no intim acy or limit , and to th e separation whi ch Hold erlin nam es wh en in his m adn ess he sees rh ythm' s infinite space ' (Blancho t 198 2a: 237 ) . Derrida' s nam e has alr eady com e up in thi s study several tim es as th e m ost fam ou s contem po rary reader of Heid egger . A Fr ench Algeria n of Jewi sh descent, D errida' s inter est in th e peculi ar m od e of bein g of

th e lit er ar y w ork of ar t led him in th e 1950 s to a deepl y critic al engagem ent with ph en om en ology, th e particul ar school of twentieth-century philosophy from whi ch H eid egger ' s w ork had earlier emerge d . H eid egger th en becam e a cr ucial refer ence for Derrida in th e 1960 s as he develop ed his ow n radical ' deconstr uction ' of th e m ajor texts and m od es of th ought th at have defined th e W est sinc e th e Gr eeks. ' Deconstr uction', often wildly mi sappropriat ed and distorted , th en becam e th e titl e for a mode of lit er ar y critic al r eading powerful thro ugho ut the 1970s and 1980s, espe cially in th e over pr ofession alized Am er ican academy . Sim plistic view s of 'de const ruc tion' as claimi ng, for example , that texts have no m eaning , or th at th e critic' s task is simply t o affir m th e tex t' s vagu e strang eness in refu sing to be pinned down and such lik e, all gave Derrida a kind of academ ic super -star status at odds with the challe nging m et icul ou s w ork he was in fact doing , often in Heidegger ' s w ake. (Such might have been Heid egger ' s fat e perhaps, had he b een born a generation lat er .) Altho ugh D er rida is too critical of H eid egger to be called sim ply a ' pos t-Heideggerian' , this t erm is a far less mi sleading epithet for his w ork th an th at of ' postst ruc turalist' still so m etim es heard in less scho larly w ork in lit er ar y th eor y. D errida' s deconstr uction of W est ern th ought is th e m ost prominent legat ee of H eid eggeri an destr uction / decon struction. Both thinker s take r eceived m od es of phil osophizing and th ou ght to th eir limits, not t o affirm a bl andly fashionable relativism, but to shake up th e deep est assum ptions of W est ern th ought, opening it to what oth er m od es of b eing and thinking , if any, mi ght b e conc eived beside it . For both , the singular m od e of b ein g of th e lit er ar y is crucial t o thi s venture. Co m ing to D errida th e phrase ' Aft er H eid egger ' becomes even m or e probl ematic . O ne thing th at D errida, like Foucault, takes fr om the r eading of Heidegg er is a decon structi on of received id eas of intell ectual hi stor y . So, rath er th an speak in famili ar ways abo ut ' He ide gger ' s influ ence' on Derrida it w ould be m or e accurate t o speak of Heid egger ' s w orks having a plural and het er ogen eou s series of affects in th e w ork of D errida and oth ers . Heid egger ' s w ork is not som e m on olith to be judged and labell ed , as if w e had someho w got b eyon d it . W e ar e speaking of div er se text s with plural and contradic to r y effects, som e at odds with each oth er . D errida' s r eading of W estern tho ught sinc e th e Greeks as domi nat ed by wh at he ter m s 'logocentrism' is effectively Heidegg er 's point abo ut th e determinati on of bein g as presen ce . H ow ever , his practice AFTER HE IDEGGER

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key traits th at H eid egger asserts chara cte rize his and our epoch: Spinoz a's , writes Oerrida, is 'a th ou ght th at is not of th e subject, not of r epresent edness, not of sufficient reason , not of cer titude, not of finalism ' : H eid egger largely ign or es Spinoz a (Oer rida 1987: 172 ) . O ne of the m ost definitive charact eristics of m et aph ysics Oerrida describes as follows: All metaphysicians, f rom Plato to Rousseau, Descartes to Husserl, have proceeded in this way, conceivi ng good to be before evil, the positive before the negative, the pure before the impure, the simple before the comple x, the essential before the accidental , the imitated before the imitation , etc. And this is not just one metaphysical gesture among others, it is the metaphysical exigen cy, t hat which has been the most constant, most profo und and most potent. (Derrida 19S5: 93)

Thi s account also to uches on Heid egger. Heid egger acknowledges the necessity of both m editativ e thinking and of calculative m od es of rati on ality : 'The re ar e, th en , two kinds of thinking, each ju stified and need ed in its ow n w ay' (0 : 46) . In practi ce , however , ' calculative ' r easoning , as it is r em oved fro m th e exclusive privilege which th e W est has tended t o give it , is often severely caricatured. A distin cti on between th e essential and non -essential is still w orking in what O errida describ es as a 'metaphysica l' way in th e rh etor ical strategies of many of Heid egger ' s t exts, setting up an exclusionist agenda which places a lot of issues as m er ely secondary , derivative or superficial in relati on to the deep issues. W e must consider if th er e is too purist a drive in H eid egger ' s thinking of a non -appropriativ e r elati on to b eing . ' Heidegg er avers th at the essence of t echn ology is nothing t echn ological : hi s th inking of tech nology as such and as an essence tries in a classically philosophical m ann er t o shelt er th e th ou ght and langu age of essence fr om contamina tion' (Oerrida 1987 : 172 ) . Sim ilar poin ts can be m ade about such H eid eggeri an claims as th at th e scienc es 'are not thinking ' (W T : 33) but ar e m erely a secondary t echnique of rati ocination , or H eid egger ' s r eaffirm ati on of a differ en ce of essence between th e human and th e anima l. With critique of thi s kin d , pu shing Heid egger ' s argume nts with tradi tional catego ries of th ought against such elem ents lingering in his own w ork, D errida' s writings r em ain Heid egg er 's m ost pot ent legacy, m ost faithful to H eid egger ' s w ork in its very unfaithfuln ess to it . AFT E R HE I D E G G E R

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Derrida's w ork takes up H eidegger ' s criticisms of r eceived ways of thinking abo ut th e poetic. Derrida' s th oughts on reading lit er ature, as in his lu cid intervi ew with Der ek Attridg e, offer wh at can be seen as a par tial and respon sible for m alizati on of H eid eggeri an reading (D er rida 1992: 33-75). Derrida st resses th e irreducibility of th e lit erar y to th e dominant assum ptio ns which lit er ar y criticism has taken over fr om m etaph ysics: th e w ay th e ver y m od e of b eing of th e lit er ar y or poetic r esists being studied fro m th e outs ide like some sort of object but challe nges dominant phil osophical assum ptions about th e bein g of anyth ing ; th e inad equacy of r eading for th e cont ent; th e reductiven ess of r eceived ideas of hist or ical context, and of assum ptions about th e ver y idea of interp r etati on as th e find ing of a ' meaning' ; the irreducible singularity of th e w ork and th e dem ands thi s singularity m akes on the r ead er , on th e place of the reader in th e deter mining wh at for ce th e w ork may have ; th e ten sion s between lit er ature and tradition al institutio ns of intell ectu al authority and learning (such as th e univ er sity) . . . and so on . D errida' s enigm atic bu t fascinating prose poem , 'Che cose la poesia?' (Derrida 1991: 22 1-3 7) cel ebrates th e poetic as a fragil e singularity of language, 'humble , clos e t o th e ear th' (231-3), vulnerable to obliteratio n by th e ver y com mo nalty of th e m edium , langu age , it which it can alone appear. Derrida' s concern wi th a cer tain purism in Heid egger ' s th ou ght also lead s him to qu alify an elem ent of idealizati on of th e poet ic in Heid egger . Thus, alth ough D errida endorses the critical and deco nstr uct ive for ce of H eidegger ' s r eadings, w e are led to qu alify the r edem p tive side of H eid egger ' s turn to th e poetic . O ne issue her e concerns Heid egger 's idea of a r eading of th e poeti c which , in r espon se to th e singularity of th e w ork befor e it , w ould aim finally to disapp ear as a com m ent ary : ' [T ]he eluci dating speech ', w rites H eid egger (as w e saw in Chapter 6) , ' m ust each tim e shatter itself and wh at it had at tempt ed to do ' and ' The last , bu t also th e m ost difficult step of ever y inter pretati on , consists in its disapp earing befor e th e pure presen ce of th e poem ' (E : 22). But could th er e ever b e such a thing as ' the pure presence of th e poem ' ? Does not H eid egger ' s postulat e th at th er e co uld be ri sk fallin g foul of th e ver y criticisms he m akes himself of th e vulgar noti on that th er e is such a thing as a Sophocles w ork 'in it self' or Kant 'in it self' (see p. 95 of thi s study) ? Such w orks do not have th e m od e of being of objects, but mor e th at of event s whos e efficacy and for ce alt er - or m ay be stifled by - th e w orl d in which th ey ar e being read ?

Th e act of interpretation or commentary is thus not some sor t of accident th at befalls the pure presen cing of th e text , as H eid egger alr eady r ecogni zes himself in his noti on that th e reader ' s or spectato r's ' pre servati on ' is essential to th e w ork-being of the w ork of art. Instead , ' com mentar y, ' re ading ' and ' elucidation ' have to be acce pte d as st ruct urally inh er ent to th e ver y appearance, or legibili ty, of a w ork, however un comfortabl e this m ay t o any r ead er dr eaming of securing the text as an un challengeabl e anchor to th eir r eading . D errida's thinking on th e lit er ar y (after Blancho t 1993 : 389ff) r ep eat edl y r efuses the idea of th e self-sufficient uni ty of th e w ork im plicit in such idealizati on s (see D errida 199 2: 4 8) . Th e being of th e lit er ar y is thus for D errida and Blancho t a contaminated one, resistant to th e kind of purist distincti on Heid egger m akes between Dichtuna and ' mere' ' lite rat ure'. For instance, Shakespear e 's Henry V can b e r ead, wi th evide nce amass ed in detail on b oth sides, b oth as th e cel ebration of an id eal m on ar ch and the her o of Aginco urt it appears to be , and as th e ir oni zing pr esentation of such a figure and the kinds of langu age associate d with him , bringing out th e way he builds and imposes an im ages of himself. Many of Blake ' s songs of inn ocen ce, with th eir childish speakers, can b e r ead ' straight' as expre ssions of a sentim ental Christianity or as ir on ic stagings of such view s. Exactly th e sam e sequence of w ords can be sub jected , in effect , to oppos it e int erpretati on s with equal ju stificati on ! Thi s m ight m ake one qu esti on th e plau sibility of placing the poet ic at the heart of a r ed emptive rath er th an sim ply critica l cult ural programm e, even in so sophisticated a w ay as H eidegger ' s m editations on Dicht unq . Poet ic language may be irreducibl e t o producti oni st thinking , but it also brings with it , necessaril y, a pot ential destabili zati on of th e instituti on of all serio us valu es . So, how does Derrida' s r eading affect th e issue of judging H eid egger's importan ce? T o criticize H eidegger as D errida does, in terms of certain ' signs of a belonging to m etaphysics' is still th e oppos it e of r efuting him , for it is for ces in H eid egger ' s own thinking th at ar e being brought t o b ear against him . Who , after all, is r esp on sibl e for th e argum ent th at W estern m etaph ysics must be decon struct ed but Heid egger ? W ork such as Heid egg er ' s which also provides the source of m ost of the thinking one m ight w ant to direct against that w ork - this is not som eth ing any one is go ing to b e able to view from th e ' out side ' for a very long time .

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WORI<S BY HElD EGGER For reading Heid egger 's ow n t exts , th er e is little alt ernative to jumping in at th e deep end , espe cially for th ose with little or no sense of philosophy . Th e foll owing selected t exts m ay be a useful first poin t of call. Th e two sectio ns b elow ar e listed in wh at seems an appro xima te order of difficulty.

GENERA L ' The Age of th e W orld Picture ,' in The Qyestion Conceminq Technoloqv , tran s. William Lovitt, N ew York: Harper , 1977 , pp . 115- 54 . ' O nly a Go d Can Save us,' t rans . Mari a P . Alt er and John Caputo, Philosophy Today 20 (1976), pp . 267-85 ; reproduced in Richard W olin ed. , The Heide88 er Controversy, Cam br idg e Massachu setts; London : MIT

Pr ess, 1993, pp . 9 1- 116. H eid egger' s posthumou sly published intervi ew with Der Spieqel contains hi s acco unt of the event s of 1933-4 and also a general take on his life ' s w ork .

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READING

What is Philosophy ? [1955], tran s. W illiam Klub ack and Jean T . W ilde, Plym outh: Visio n Pr ess, 1989 . A brief and r elatively acc essible lecture . The Fundamental Concepts

if Metaphy sics:

World, Finitude , Solitude [1983:

lecture co urs e of 1929- 30], tran s. W illiam McN eill and Nicho las Walker, Bloo mi ngto n and Indi anap olis: Indiana Uni ver sity Pr ess, 1992. Good exam ple of H eidegg er' s detailed attentio n to th e fundam ental issues implicit in even the m ost or dinary expe rience (bo r edom, in thi s case) . The Principle if Reason [1957], trans . Reginald Lilly, Bloomington and Indi anapolis: Indi ana Uni ver sity Pr ess, 1991 . Beina and Time [1927], t ran s. John Macquarrie and Edwar d Robinson ,

Oxfor d : Blackw ell, 196 2. No t an easy read , but t oo impor tant to be omitted . Becom es far more r elaxed in pace after Heid egger' s Introduction . Refer also to th e guides by Dreyfus, Steiner, Rce or W ood (see below) .

A R T , PO ET R Y , L A N G U A G E

Holderlin 's Hy mns 'Germanien ' and 'Der Rhein '.

A translatio n by W illiam McN eill is curre ntly in prepar ati on , to appear from Indi ana Uni versity Pr ess. Th ese w er e H eidegger' s earliest lectures on the poeti c and r emain th e most accessible . Elu cidati ons if Holderlin 's Poetry [4th edn 1971], trans. Keith Hoeller , Am herst, N Y: Humanit y Books, 2000 . Heidegg er's gr eatest w ork on poet ics. Th e first two essays are th e most accessible . Poetry , Lanq uao e, Thouq ht., tran s. Albert Hofstadter , N ew York, NY:

Harp er & Row, 1971 . Co ntains 'The O rigin of th e Work of Art', and ot her pap er s. H ofstadter's translation of 'The Origin of the W ork of Art' also ap pears in Philosophies 1 Art and Beauty: Selected Readinas in Aestheticsfro m Plato to Heul eqq er, ed . Albert Hofstadter and Richard Kuhn s, Chicago : Uni versi ty of Chicago Pr ess, 1976 .

On the Way to Lang uage [1957], trans . Pet er D . H ertz, San Francisco , Ca .: Harper & Row , 1971 . A collection of paper s on th e nature of langu age, including the ma rv ello us ' A Dialogu e on Languag e : b etween a Japanese and an Inqu ir er ' . GedachteslThoug ht s [1971], trans . Keith H oell er , Philosophy Today 20 ( 1976), pp. 286-9 1. A series of Heidegger ' s ' poe ms'.

THE GES A M TA USG A BE

A full bibliography of th e Gesamtausgabe, or Complet e Works, to date , in German and in translation, is updated year ly in th e journal Heideq ger Studies. But see also Th eod or Kisiel , ' H eidegger's Gesamtausgabe: An Int ern ation al Scanda l of Scho larship ', Phi losophy Today 31 (1995), pp . 3- 15. Inw ood ( 1999) can b e used as a basic ind ex to Heidegger 's wo rk in German and English translat ion .

WORI<S ON HEIDEGGER B IOGRAPH I ES

Hugo Ott (199 3) Martin Heidegger: A Poli tical Life, trans . Allan Blund en , N ew York: Basic Books; London : Harp er Collins. The r eliable book on H eid egger , Naz ism, and Heidegger 's shabby academ ic politics. H einri ch W iegand Pet zet ( 1993) Encounters and Dia logues with Ma rtin Heuleqqer 1929-1 976 , tra ns . Parvis Emad and Kenn eth Maly, Chi cago : Un iver sity of Chicago Pr ess. Inform al and very r eadable episode s of biog rap hy fr om a disciple who seems to have genuinely loved H eidegger . Rud iger Safranski ( 1998) . Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil, tran s. Ewald Os ers, Cambridg e Mass. : Harvard Un iversity Pr ess. A very w ell pac ed general biogr aphy.

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Th e 'E re ignis' site at http : / /www.web c om . com / ~p af! er eigni s .html Thi s m ainl y provides helpful bibli ogr aphi es of studies of Heid egger in r elation to specific field s or issues , e. g . H eidegger and th e Enviro nm ent, H eid egger and Scienc e, and so on.

I N T R O D U C T O R Y L E V E L ( G E N E R A L)

David Cooper (1996 ) Think ers if Our Time: Heideaaer, London : Th e Claridg e Pr ess. With Ree (1998 ) thi s is th e clear est of th e severa l available introdu cti on s t o Heid egger . It is focused , like th e oth ers, on Beina and Time. Hubert L. Dreyfus (1 98 5) ' H olism and H ermen eutics' , in Rob ert Hollinger ed. , Hermeneutics and Praxis, No tr e Dam e , Indi ana : University of No t re Dam e Pr ess, pp . 227-47 . Read this if you ar e still feelin g stuck abo ut H eid egger' s m ain arg um ents . Th er e is little on lit er ature directl y, but th e issu es covered ar e th ose described in Chapter 1 of th e present introducti on . Hubert L. Dreyfus (19 91 ) Beina- in-the- World : A Commenta ry on H euleqqer's Being and Time, Divi sion 1, Cambridg e Mass. : Harv ard Univ ersity Pr ess. Lucid , st ep by step phil osoph ical introducti on . Th e valu e of Dreyfus' s w ork lies in th e way th at he does not write as an un cri tical dis cipl e wh ose aim s ar e limited t o getting at th e m ast er's m eaning , or in Heid egger' s kind oflanguage. H e tries to clarify wh at H eid egger' s arg um ents ar e, th en considers th eir st rengths, w eakn esses and implicati on s. Hubert L. Dreyfus, and Stuar t E. Dreyfus (198 6) Mi nd over Machin e: The Power

qf H uman Intu it ion and Expertise in th e Era

if th e

Computer,

Oxford: Basil Blackwell . No t on H eid egger directly but a case of Heid eggerian thinking at w ork . If you ar e still feeling stuck at th e m ost basic level , look at th e ' Pro log ue' to this b ook or th e Dreyfus article ' Ho lism and Hermen eutics' .

Reinh ar d May ( 1996) Heideaaer's Hidden Sources, l ondon : Routledge. H eidegger ' s m assive un ackn owl edged debt t o Taoist and Buddhist tho ught ? Rob er t Muger auer ( 1995) Interpretina Environments: Tradition, Deconstruction, Hermeneutics, Austin : Univ er sity of T exas Pr ess. lucid w ork on Heid egger and envir onme ntal eth ics, with a useful r efer en ce to further r eadin g on H eidegger and th e deep ecology m ovem ent (p . 155) . Rob er t Mu ger au er ( 1988) Heideaaer's Lana uaae and Thouqht; Atla nti c Highland s, NJ : Hu m aniti es Pr ess. Especially clear and useful on Heid egger and langu age, and on Hcidegger ' s expe rime nt s with the dialogu e for m as a m od e of disciplined thinking oth er th an the traditi on al procedures of analysis or system building . Pol t Richard ( 1999) Heideqq er; l ondon : U Cl Pr ess. Ano th er fairl y accessible introducti on , slightly longer than Coo per ( 1996) but just as clear, m eant primaril y for b eginning st udents in phil osoph y. Go es slightly further int o th e lat er H eidegger than oth er introducti on s. Jon ath an Rce (1 998 ) Heideaaer. l ondon : Phoenix. A snappy, lu cid little book on Beina and Time. George Steiner (1 991 ) Martin Heideaaer, Chicago: Univ er sity of Chicago Pr ess. A r evised ver sion of a long-popular introducti on fr om th e M od ern Master s series, first published in 1978 , focused m ostly on Beina and Time. A new introduction concentrates helpfully on the cult ur al conte xt of H eid egger in th e Germa ny of the first for ty years of th e twentieth cent ury and also sur veys th e lat est contro versy, post -1 987 , on H eid egger and Nazism . Juli an Young ( 199 7) . He ideqq er, Philosophy, Na zism, Cam bridge : Cam bridge Univ er sity Pr ess. Unusually lu cid , a th or ough defen ce of Heidegger, bu t also ver y r eadable as an acco unt of his th ou ght in general. Mu ch sho uld be accessible t o students un famili ar with phil osoph y. FURTHER READ I NG

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Michael E . Zim m er m an ( 1990) Heideaaer's Corifrontation with Modernity: Technoloqv , Politics, Art, Bloomingt on : Indiana Univ er sity Pr ess. Lucid , espe cially clear on th e cultur al context of H eid egger ' s thinking in th e 1930s and th e r ole art played in Heid egger 's 'spiritual' politi cs . Fur th er discu ssion of thi s b ook can be found in Chapter 7 of th e present study . OTHE R ( G E N ERA L)

David Carroll (1 990 ) Foreword t o Jean Francois Lyotar d , Heideqqer and 'the J ews' , t rans . Andr eas Michel and Mark Rob erts, Minneapolis, Lon don : Uni ver sity of Minn esot a Pr ess, pp. vii- xxix . Useful for introducing th e debate on Heid egger ' s silence about th e holocau st . Simo n Critchley (1 999) ' Black Socrat es? Questi oning th e Phil osoph ical Tradition ' , in Ethics Politics Subjecti vity , London : Ver so , pp . 122-42. This is not explicitly on Heidegger , but conce rn s th e myth s th e phil osophical traditi on has constructe d about its Greek origins, its Eurocentrism and th e notion of tradition itself. All th ese issues bear up on Heidegger. Fr ed Dallm ayr ( 1995) ' He idegge r and Fr eud ', in Babette Babich (ed .) From Phenomenolo8J to Thouaht, Errancy , and Desire: Essays in Honor c1 Willia m j. Richardson, S.j., D ordrecht: Kluwer Academ ic Publi sher s,

1995, pp. 547-65 . Indi spensable on H eid egger ' s critica l r eadin g of psychoanalysis in his so -called Zo lliko n Seminars (a tran slati ons of these is du e in 200 1). Parvi s Emad ( 1992) 'Thinking mo r e deeply into th e qu esti on of translation: essential translati on and th e unfolding of langu age ' in Christoph er Macann (ed .) Martin Heideqqer: Critical Assessments, 4 vols. , London : Routledge, 1992, Vol. 3 ' Language ' , pp. 58- 78 . O n H eid egger ' s thinking ab out and use of translation. Michel Haar (1 993) The Sona c1 the Earth: Heideaaer and the Grounds c1 the History c1 Beina , tran s. Regin ald Lily, Bloomingt on: Indiana Uni ver sity Pr ess. Superb on th e influential/radical not ion of th e 'e arth' in H eidegger . Written at what might be termed an int ermediat e level of difficulty.

Michael Inw ood ( 1999) A Heuleqqcr Dictionary , O xfor d : Blackw ell . Lists m ajor issues and ter ms alphabe tically . Relativ ely scanty on po etic issues , however . Can be used as a partial index to H eid egger' s cor pus. David Kolb ( 1995) ' Raising Atl antis: Th e Lat er Heid egger and Co n t empor ar y Phil osophy' , in Babette Babi ch (ed .) From Phenomenology to Th ough t, Errancy, and Desire: Essays in Honor if William j. Richardson, S.j.,

D ordrecht : Kluwer Academic Publisher s, pp . 55-69 . Map s lat er H eidegger on to position s in contem po rary analytic philosophy . Useful for students of analytic philosophy . Philippe Lacou e-Labarthe ( 1990) Heidegger, Art and Poli tics, tran s. Chris Turner , O xford : Blackwell . An influ ential if pret entiou sly written book on th e contr oversy about H eid egger and Nazism, discussed in Chapter 7 of thi s study . Christo pher Macann , (ed .) ( 1992) Ma rti n Heidegger: Critical Assessments, 4 vols, Lon don : Routledge . A large and inv aluabl e critica l anth ology, cover ing most aspe ct s of H eid egger' s w ork . Int ended m ainl y for philosophy st udents. Alan Mil chm an and Alan Rosenb erg ( 1996) Marti n Heidegger and the Holoca ust , Atlantic H eights, NJ. : Humaniti es Pr ess. Useful if rath er r ep etitive collec tion of essays on H eid egger' s ' silence' . Richard W olin , (ed .) ( 1993) The Heidegger Controversy: A Critical Reader, Cambridge Massachu setts: MIT , pp. 29-39 . Invaluabl e collectio n of documents and essays relating to th e Nazism contr oversy.

LITE RA RY AN D CRITICAL TO PICS INT R OD UCT O RY M A TE R I AL

Again , as most book s written on Heid egger have an audience in phil osophy in mind , th er e are few t exts on Heid egger and lit er ature th at FUR THE R REA 0 I N G

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non -phil osoph er s will find immediat ely easy t o r ead (henc e th is pr esent st udy!) . Th e foll owing sugg est th emselves as first por ts of call . Andrew Bow ie (1 997 ) ' Intro d uction : Reviewing th e Th eor eti cal Cano n ', in From Romant icism to Criti cal Theory: The Phil osophy qf German Literary Th eory , Lond on : Routledge , pp . 1- 27 . Useful defence of th e relevan ce of Heid egger' s noti on of truth in contem po rary lit er ar y th eor y . Gera ld Bruns ( 1989) H eideaa er's Estranqements: Lana uaa e, Truth , and Poetry , N ew Haven : Yale Univ er sity Pr ess. Lively and accessible lectures. Highly recommend ed , tho ugh Bruns om its much refer en ce to th e noti on of th e 'histo ry of b eing ' . Gera ld Bruns ( 1993) ' Against Poetry' , in David E. Klemm and William Schw eiker eds, Mea ni nas in Texts and Actions: Qy estio ni na Paul Ricoeur , Charlottesville: Univ er sity Pr ess of Virginia, pp . 26-46 . A lu cid , sho rtish paper which brings out th e distin ction b etween Heid egger' s deconstructiv e un der standing of poetry and th e m or e appro priative thinking of Ricoeur' s hermen eutics. Gera ld Bruns ( 1994) 'Martin Heid egger' , in Michael Gordo n and Martin Kreswirth eds, The J ohns H opkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criti cism, Baltimo r e, John s H opkins Uni ver sity Pr ess, pp . 73- 75. Very brief overview . John D . Caputo (1 993) Demytholoa izina Heideaa er, Bloomingt on : Indiana Univ er sity Pr ess. Lucid exam ple of th e 1990 s' turn against Heid egger , especially against th e noti on of th e 'history of b eing ' . Contains an accessible but rath er caricatur ing chapter attacking H eidegger on the poetic (' Heidegger' s Poet s' ) . Timothy Clark ( 1997) 'Contra dicto ry Passion: Inspirati on in Blanchot' s The Spa ce qf Literature (1 995)' , in Clark ( 199 7), pp . 238 -58 . W orks st ep by st ep throu gh Blanchot's influential r evisionist ver sion of H eidegger' s arg um ent in 'The Origin of th e W ork of Art' .

William V . Spanos ( 1993) Heideaa er and Criticism: Retrievina th e Cultural if Destruction , Minneapolis: Univ er sity of Minnesota Pr ess. Spanos has devot ed m ost of int ellectual career to H eid egger and lit er ature . Thi s b ook is a series of essays, written or r evised with the post 198 7 fascist contro versy in mind . It r eassesses and defends Heid egge r as a thinker who can still inform a respon sible oppos itional criticism . Spanos is m or e inter est ed in foll owing throu gh Heid egger ' s criticisms of r eceived thinking th an in th e specifics of H eid eggerian r eadings of H old erlin and oth ers . Politics

Charles Taylor (1 99 2) ' He ide gge r, Language, and Ecology ' , [on lan guage in general] in Huber t L. Dr eyfus and Harrison Hall eds, Heideqa er: A Critical Reader, O xford : Blackwell , pp . 24 7-69 . Sit uat es Heid egger ' s thinking on langu age in a specific int ellectual t radition in a w ay th at m akes it much clearer . Kr zysztof Ziar ek ( 1989) 'The Recep tion of Heid egger ' s Th ou ght in Am erican Lit er ar y Criticism ', Diacrit ics 19 , nos. 3-4 , pp . 114- 26. Review ar ticle on th e r eception of Heid egger in Am er ican criticism of the 1970s and early 1980s (i. e . cor r espo nding to th at discussed on pages 14 2- 5 in th e subsectio n ' American H eid egger : Th e Romanti c "Post-Struct uralist" ?') .

O T HER ( L I TE R A R Y A N D CR I T ICA L T O PICS )

Thi s lists m at eri al at wh at might be termed an intermedi ate level of difficulty . Rob er t Bernasconi ( 1992) 'The tran sfor m ati on of langu age at another b eginning ' , in Christo pher Macann (ed .) Ma rti n Heuleqq er: Critical Assessments, 3 vols., Lon don and N ew York: Routledge, 199 2, III, pp . 168-8 9 . Clear and acce ssible on issues of Derrida' s r elati on to Heid egger and th e status of language at the clos ure of th e m etaph ysical t radition. Timothy Clark ( 1992) Derrida, Heuleqq er, Blanchot: Sources if Derrida's No tion and Practice if Lit eratur e, Cambridg e : Cambridg e Univer sity Pr ess.

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Argu es th at H eid egger is th e m ajor impetus behind th e kin d of d econstructiv e qu esti oning of literature found in Maurice Blan ch ot and Jacques Derrida, diss ociating th e latter 's w ork fr om th e journalisti c catc h -all t erm ' post str ucturalism ': Rod ophe Gasche and Anthon y Appiah ed s (198 9) ' He ide gge r : Art and Politics' , special d ouble issue of Diacritics 19 (3-4). A vari ed collection of essays. Ar th ur A . Grogan (1992 ) ' Q ue stions fr om H eid egger ' s HolderlinInterpret ati ons ' , Philosophy Today 36, pp . 114-21 . Useful for th ose wh o have already been w orking on thi s issue , but not for b eginnners. David Halliburton (1981 ) Poetic Thinkina : An Approach to Heideaa er, Chicago and London : Univer sity of Chic ago Pr ess. A study of Heid egger' s lat er w ork (i. e. post Beina and Time), setting out it s argument s clearl y, th ou gh in a way th at has th e effec t of d ownplaying th e stra ng eness and challe nge of th e w ay in whi ch Heid egger phil osophizes . Still very useful , if slightly dat ed b y new m at eri al th at has b ecome available since 1981 . Em ma nuel Levinas (1987 ) ' Reality and its Shado w ', in Collected Philosophical Papers, trans . Alph on so Lingis, D ordrecht : Martinus Nijho ff, pp. 1- 13. Doesn 't m ention Heid egger' s essay on ar t, but covers similar gro und in a way implicitl y cr itical of Heid egger . Joseph D. Lewand owski ( 1994) ' He ide gge r , lit er ar y th eory and social cr it icism ', Phil osophy and Social Criticism 20 , pp . 109- 22. Review essay of Spanos, Heuleqqer and Criticism , sceptical of th e exte nt t o wh ich H eid egger can b e claim ed as a sourc e of em ancipator y th ou ght by Spano s and others. John T. Lysak er (1 993) ' He ide gge r After th e Fall' . Research in Phenomenoloqy (23) , pp . 201-11 . Succi nct and cr itica l revi ew ar ticle of Ver onique Fotis influ ential cr iticism s of H eid egger in her Heideaa er and th e Poets ( 1992) .

William V. Spanos (ed .) ( 1976) Martin Heideaa er and the Qyestion if Literature: Towards a Postm odern Literary Hermeneutics, Bloomingt on : Indiana Univ er sity Pr ess. Useful , if slightly out of dat e, with its focus mainly on th e H eidegger of Beina and Time .

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WORKS CITED

Dat e of original publicati on , wh er e applicable, is given in squar e brack ets. Babich , Babette (ed .) (1995) From Phenomenology to Thought, Errancy, if William j. Richardson, S.j., Dordrecht: Kluwer Acad emic Publi sher s.

and Desire: Essay s in Honor

Benningt on , Geoffrey (1994) Legislations: The Polit ics London : Ver so .

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Bernasconi , Rob ert (198 5) The Qyestion if Lang uage in Heidegger's History NJ. : Hu m aniti es Pr ess.

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- - ( 1995) " Will T ell You Who You Are .' Heid egger on Gr eco German D estiny and Amerikanismus, in Babette E. Babich (ed .) From Phenomenoloqs. to Thought, Errancy, and Desire: Essays in Honor

if William

j. Richardson, S.j. , D ordrecht : Kluwer , pp . 30 1- 13. Bernstein , J . M . ( 1992) The Fate if Art: Aestheti c AlienationJ rom Kant to Derrida and Adorno, Cambridg e : Polity Pr ess. Blanchot , Maurice (1959) ' L' atte nte, in Gunter N eske (ed .) Martin Heideqqer z um Siebzigsten Geburtstag , pfullingen , N eske, pp . 217- 24 .

- - ( 1962) L'att ente, L' oubli , Paris: Gallima rd .

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- - (198 5) ' Ho lism and H ermen eutics' , in Rob er t H ollin ger (ed .) H ermeneutics and Praxis, No tre Dam e , Indiana: Univ er sity of Notre Dam e Pr ess, pp . 227-47. - - ( 199 1) Beina-in -the - World: A Commen ta ry on H eideaa er' s Being and Time, Division 1, Cambridge, Mass.: Harv ard Univ er sity Pr ess. - - ( 1998) ' Philoso phy of Artifi cial Int elligen ce: Response t o My Critics', in Terrell W ard Bynum n and Jam es H . Moor (eds) Th e Dia it al Phoenix : H ow Computers are Cha naina Phil osophy , O xford : Basil Blackwell , pp . 193- 212. Dreyfus, Hubert L. and Stuart E. Dreyfus (1986) Min d over M achin e: The Power

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INDEX

abstract art 66-8 acad em y 68 ; acad emic scho larship 59; see also educ ation , educ ation syst em ; universit y

attunement (S timm un8) 18,21 ; see also 'fundamental ton e' Auschwitz 125,1 31,1 33 automatic writing 50

aaualitas 32, 33

Ad orno, Th eod or 131 Aegina scu lptures 63 aesth etics 41-2, 4 3, 51, 64 AI (artificial intelli gen ce) 12, 13, 15,

16,17,18,20,21,24,72 alet heia 22 , 32, 44 , 49 , 68, 76, 83,

84 Anaximander 76 animal, th e 74,1 51 anthropocentrism , anthrop ocentric

2,29, 30, 37, 39,127, 142 anti-Semitism 122, 126 ar chitecture 45 Ari st oteIiani sm 30- 1 Aristotle 9, 21, 30, 38,72,76,147 art 7,12,20, 38, 39,41 -69,77,

101,127,128,1 33,1 35,147 , 148, 153; see also abstract art; death of ar t; m od ern art

Bach, J . S. 20 Bakhtin, Mikhail 140 Barthes, Rol and 144 Beckett, Samuel 66, 90, 105 be ing 10, 12, 15,2 3,24,27, 32,

34 ,3 8 , 43 , 44 , 47, 72 , 77, 8 1, 88,91,98,115,119,125, 136, 140, 149 , 152 ; determination of bein g as presen ce 10, 25, 3 1; see also hist ory of being ; ob livion of bein g Benningt on, Geoffrey: Leqislati ons: Th e Politi cs

if Deconstru ction

5 6- 7

Bernasconi, Rob ert 42, 76 Bernst ein, Jay 46 Blake, William 114, 153 Blanch ot, Maurice 47-9,50,55,

90 , 105, 126, 147-8, 153;

178

IN 0 EX

L'at tent e l'oubli 88 ; Space

cj'

Lit erature 48-9, 147 boundary 2 144

Bourdieu, Pierre 135 Bove , Paul : Destruc tiv e Poeti cs: H eideqqer and Modern Am erican

cult ure 66, 75,141,148 ; cultural achi evement 45 ; cultural criticism 134 ; cultural debate 27,59,148 ; cultural history 136,1 37; cult ura l politics 135, 141 ; cultural th eory

98

Poetry 14 3

Brecht, Bertolt 46 Breton, Andre 50 Bruns, Gerald 98, 140, 147 ; H eideqqer 's Estrangement s 132 ; Modern Poetry and th e Idea

cj'

Language 144

Buddhism 84, 85 ; Z en Buddhism

85, 87, 145 Cah oon e, Lawren ce E. 2 'care' 15 Celan, Paul 125, 131, 132, 133; 'Todtnaube rg ' 131 Cezanne, Paul 64 Christ 62; see also Jesus Christianity 28, 33, 104, 153; Christian God 39; Christian th eology 103 co gnitive science 18 Cold W ar 134, 145 co m pute r modelling 13 Conrad, Joseph 101 Con stantine, David 116 co nte nt (form and co nte nt ) 41,108,

119, 120 co nte xt 5,6,19,21,28,51,61, 66, 77, 82, 95, 103-5, 108, 109, 118, 120, 135, 136, 139, 148, 152 ; co nte xtua l kn owledge 16 creativity 41,45; cre ative 49 criticism 6, 41, 4 3,95,105,1 33; as a reductiv e institution 101; ' pro ble m s of criticism ' 100 ; see also lit erary crit icism

Dante 107 Darwin, Charles 34 Da sein 15, 18,21,27,77,142,145

Davi es, Paul 36 death of art 42,61 -9,1 33,145 decon struction, de -con structing 2,

7 , 28 , 4 3, 72, 76 , 78 , 98 , 129 , 132,134, 149, 152 d eep ecology m ov ement 37 , 142 d eep hist ory 27- 39, 76 , 77, 91, 95,104,108, 109, 113, 120, 128,129,1 36, 150 ; see also hist ory of being ; Gcschicht e; Hi stori e

de Man, Paul 134, 142 D errida, Jacques 4, 7,49, 57, 76,

78,85,1 32, 134, 137, 140, 142, 144, 147, 148-52 ; ' Che cox 'e la poesia ?' 152 ; interview with Derek Attridge 152 ; La verit e en peinture 57

D escartes, Ren e 13, 151 destruction 72,76,78,99, 128,

140 dial ect 78-9 dial ogu e (dialogu e form) 87-90, 91 Di chtung 38; as co nt raste d to ' lite r ature ' 100-1, 108, 120, 153 Di ck en s, Charl es 28, 44 ; Bleak Hou se

47 Dreyfus, Hubert 12, 15, 16,20,24,

4 3, 103-4 Dreyfus, Stu art 15 dualism 17 Durer, Albrecht 53

'e ar th ' 41, 52- 9, 99,11 7,1 32, 147 , 148 , 152 education, education syste m 4 2 , 101 ; see also acade my; university Eliot , T. S. 66, 90 emo tion , emo tional 18, III, 112, 130 Enlighten me nt 2 environme ntalist ethics 140 ethics 37 etymo logy 79,8 1,82,84,9 1 Europe I, 39, 66, l OS, 121 , 123, 137 ; European imperialism 2; European nihilism 108 everyday , the everyday 13, 2 1 exp lanation 35-6, 5 1 Farias, Victor 121 ,1 27 ,1 34 fascism: latent in Heidegger 's thought? 6, 123, 137 Faulkner, W illiam 44 Fichte, J . G. 99 figura tive language 116-1 9 for m (for m and con ten t) 4 1,52, 108 , 119 , 120 Fors ter, E. M. 4 9 Fori, Veronique 129 ; H cideqq er and the Poets 130- 2 Foucault , Michel 134, 140 , 141 , 144 ,149 'fourfold ', the 99, 129 French Revolution 28 , 108 Freudian reading 78 'fundamental tone' (Grundsti mm una) 111-1 9 ,1 32; fundamental attunements 130

German people, the 42, 106 , li S, 127- 8 Germany 3, 4 , 5 , 99 ,11 6 ,1 24 , 127- 8 ,1 35 , 136 Geschichte 27-8, 76, 95, 108, 109, 125, 127 , 136 , 142, I SO Ge-Stell 37-8 globalization 2,30,3 1,68, 84, 139, 140 God 33,34,39, 104-5, 112, 128 Goe the, J . W . von 36, 94 Greece I , 2, 3, 10, 22, 38, 43; the Greeks 5, II , 12 , 25 , 28 , 30 , 32-4,38 , 4 1,45,63 ,74,77,83 , 128, 149 Greek 22,32,33,76,79, 8 1,82; ar t 66; myth ology 103; tem ple 4 2,45 , 52, 54, 59, 64; tragedy 129 Haar , Michel 4 9 ; Th e Sona c:lthe Earth 142 Hebel , Joh ann Pet er 78 Hegel, G. W. F. 4 2 , 80, 99, 106 Heidegger , Mart in : Beina and Tim e 4, 6, 18, 72 , 77 , 78 , 87 ,1 23,143; Comp lete Works 7 ; Cont ributio ns to Phil osophy 87- 8, 89, 9 1; 'Conversation on a Coun try Path ' 87, 89; ' Der Herkunft der Kunst und Die Bestim mung des Denkens' 68; 'A Dialogu e on Language ' 87; Elucidations c:I H olderlin 's Poetry 98; 'Fro m out of th e Experience of Thinking ' 87; 'H ints ' 87; H olderlin s Hymnen 'Gcrmanie n ' und 'Der Rhein '

Gada mer, Hans Georg 3, 5, 131 , 14 2 , 14 5 ; Tru th and M eth od 145- 6 genius 5 1, 65 George, Stefan 98 German Idealism 99

110-1 9 ,1 34 , 136 ; In troduction to M etaphysics, 47, 79; ' Language in th e Poem' 113; ' Letter on Humanism' 27, III ; 'On the Q uestion of Being ' 129 ; 'T he I N D EX

179

180

IN D EX

O rigin of th e W ork of Art' 6 , 41 - 59,61 - 5,67,69,101,103, 105 ,117,11 9 ,128 ,1 30,1 37, 146, 148 ; Th e Principle cj" Reason 34 , 66 ; 'The Questi on Con cerning Techn ology' 124 ; ' Th e Rector ate 1933/4 : Facts and Thoughts ' 128 ; 'Thoughts ' 87 ; ' W hy Do I Stay in the Pro vinces?' 86 Her aclitus 6 , 81, 83,101 Her der, J . G . 65 hermen euti c circle 21 hermen euti cs 145, hermen eutics of suspicion 77 Hines , Tho mas J. 143 histori cal 5, 11, 27-39 , 4 5 , 76, 94 , 108 , 109 , 120 , 127 , 139 ; to historicize 6 , 109 histori cism 76 , 94 , 108, 109, 136 histori city 12 Hi storie27 ,1 36

histori ogr aphy 28 , 35 , 109 histor y of being 10, 27- 39,104 125 ,1 26,1 29 ,1 30 ,141 ,145 , 150; see also deep histor y; Geschichte; Hi storie

Hitl er, Adolf 123 Hodge, Joanna 37 , 81 Holder lin, Friedrich 6 , 7, 65 , 73, 74,87, 90, 97-120,1 27, 129, 132 , 133, 136 , 148 ; 'Ande nken ' 130 ; editions of Holder lin used 130 ; 'Germania' 110-1 9, 132, 134 , 136 ; 'the gods ' 103, 104,108,110,111,11 5,120, 129 ; Hold erlins Gree k German 105 ; ' Ho mecoming ' 105-7, 116, 118, 119, 122 ; 'The Ister' 79 ; 'W ie wenn am Feiertag' 102

holism, holistic 19, 20, 24 , 25 , 31,33 ,54 , 64 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 77 ,8 3,87,112 ,114 ,117 , 123 holocaust , th e 124, 125, 126, 130, 131, 133 Hom er 74 Husserl, Edmund 4 , 137 , 151 image (poe tic image) 87 , 115-18 imitation 4 3; see also rep resentation ind ex 56- 8 ,59 , 14 7 inspi ration 48 ,49 , 50 ,52 , 110 , 112, 114 int ention (authorial int ention ) 41 , 47 , 74,77, 94, 146 ; see also inspirati on int erpretation 7 ,21 ,25 , 27 ,80 , 81,109,118,1 29,1 30,1 32, 134,1 36,1 37 ,1 38,141 , 145 , 146 , 147 , 152- 3; see also index 'intimacy ' (lnnigk eit) 106 Iser , W olfgang 145 Japanese 85 ; art 67 Jauss, Hans Robert 145 Jesus 28; see also Christ Jews 125- 6 Joyce , James 133; Ulysses 4 2 Jun ger, Erns t 135, 136 Kafka, Franz 133 Kant, Imm anu el 51, 80, 95 , 152 Klee, Paul 67-8 knowledge 3, 4, 9, 10-11, 20, 29 , 30,3 1,34 , 44, 48 , 59 , 86, 102, 106 ,11 9,120 , 130 , 139 ; dr ive to knowledge 1, 4 Kolb, David 78 Kolb enh eyer, E. G. 136 Krell, David 85

Lacan, Jacques 144 Lacou e -Lab arthe, Philippe 125,1 3 1,

132 ; Heul eqqcr, Art and Politi cs 127- 8 ,1 29- 30 language 6, 17, 18,50,54--8, 7 1-9 1, Ill , 115 , 14 3, 152; failings of language 88-90, 132; German 3, 15 , 78 , 82; German and Gr eek 79, 82, 85 ; H eid egg er' s expe r iments wi th language 86-9 1; languages as powerful or impov erished for th ought 85 Laotzu 84, 86 Latin 31, 74, 78, 82, 85 left -H eidegger ians 123, 140 Leibniz, G. W. 34 linguist ics 88 lit erary criticism 2, 28, 87, 97, 100 141 ,1 4 2,1 48 , 152; lit er ary study 6 ; literary th eory 6, 98, 134 ,1 44 ; the liter ary hist orical 102 ; see also criticism lit erary, th e 2, 44, 54, 55-8, 78,

93-5,100,148, 153 literat ur e 6, 27,43, 65, 66, 68, 97, 100 , 104 ; as co ntraste d t o Dichtu ng 100- 1,108, 120, 153 'logocentrism ' 149 logos 8 1-4, 101 Lvotard , J .-F. 64, 126, 133

m et ap hor 83 m etaphysics 2, 11,12, 17,30,33,

35,64,72,78,9 1, 120, 132, 150 , 151 , 152; see also productionist m etap hysics; W estern thought Middle Ages 39 Middlemarch 43

mimesis 43; see also imi tation modern art 64--9; see also dea th of art; abs tract art modernism, American m od ernism

14 3 modernist 87, 90, 144 modernity 2, 4,36,75,104, 126,

135 , 14 2 Mona Lisa 93

Mozart 49 Mugerauer, Rob ert 140 museum 42, 63, 69 mys tery 97, 106, 107, 118 , 119 natura 32

nature 2,35,37,5 1,53,77,

102 Nazism, Nazis 5, 6, 42, 66, 67, 75,

119, 121-38, 139, 140 New Critics, th e 14 3 'new historicism ' 141 Nie tzsche , Fri edrich 29,87, 122 ,

140 nihilism 12, 29, 31, 66, 75, 104,

Ma h ler, Gus tav 133 Marcus e, Herbert 141 Marxism 1, 12 1, 141 Marxist reading 78 m eaning, th e m eaning 34, 47, 5 1,

106 , 108, 120 , 122 , 125 , 126 , 128 , 141 non-foundational th inking 53, 114 Nono, Lu igi 133

54--5,58,76,77,8 1,83,94, 104, 118, 129, 134 , 135 , 137, 14 3,1 47,1 48 , 149, 152 Melville, Herman 44, 50 ; Mob)" Dick 50, 104

oblivion of being 29,33, 150 obvious , th e 10 , 14, 15 , 19, 25 , 28 ,

38, 72, 9 1, 105, 107 onto logy 72 O tt, Hugo 121 I N 0 EX

181

182

IN 0 EX

Parm enides 5 , 76 , 77 Parthen on 93 peop le , a peop le (das Volk ) 59 , 63, 65-6,80, 123, 127- 8 , 136 , 150 ; see also German peop le Petzet, H . W . 65, 67 phen om en ology 4 , 14 9 philosop hy 1- 3, 4 , 6 ,1 2-1 3,1 7 , 24 , 30,43, 55 ,74-5,76 ,77,8 1, 9 1,109, 147, 15 1; analytic philosop hy 23; philosop hical writing 7 1, 86; see also m etap hysics; productioni st m etaphysics physis 32 , 33 , 83 Picasso , Pablo 65 Pindar 105 Pirsig , Rob ert 44 Plato 9, 30 , 31, 38 , 136 , 15 1; Republi c 6 3

Platonism 30- 1 poesis 74

poetic (the poetic) 2, 4, 6 , 16 , 39 , 62- 3,80,84, 90, 97- 120, 129, 130 ,1 33,1 39 ,1 41 ,1 4 3,1 44 , 14 8 , 152 poetic language 7, 38 , 107, 117 , 14 3, 153 'poe try of poetr y' 105- 7, 113 po liti cs, political 38 , 62- 3, 64, 75, 77,98, 12 1- 38, 140, 148 postm od ernism, ' pos tmode rri' 3, 11, 24 , 64 , 87 , 90 poststructuralism 14 3-4 , 149 Pound, Ezra 90 pre -re flective , th e 12 , 17 , 23, 25 , 32, 59 , 78, 146 prese rvation 6 1-2, 153 Pre-Socratics 32 Preston, Beth 15 principle of reason 34-6 , 67, 109

productioni st metaphysics 29-30 , 31, 33 , 37, 38 , 7 1, 74 , 75, 85, 9 1, 97 ,99 , 122, 127, 129, 135 , 139 , 14 2 , 153; see also met aphysics; W estern th ought Proust, Marcel 133 race, racism 66, 122, 128, 136; see also anti-Semi tism reader, th e reader, reading 6 1-2, 108 ,11 5 ,11 7 ,1 34-5 ,1 4 5 ,1 52 reason 3, 10 , 11, 13, 106 , 140; see also princip le of reason Recept ion th eor y 14 5 Rectorship of Fre iburg University ( 1933-4) 5, 98 , 122 , 124 , 126 , 127 ,140 reducti onism 18 , 19 , 86 rel ativism, relative 11 , 23 , 14 9 representation, to represen t 16 , 4 3, 44,45, 48,49 , 53,64,66,73, 74,86,89,90,103,1 13, 117, 141 , 151 ; see also imi tation Ricoeur , Paul 145-7 Riddel , Joseph 14 3 Riefenstahl , Leni 127 right-Heid eggeri ans 140 Rilke , Rainer Maria 5 , 98 , 112 rhythm , rhyth mic configuration 113, 114 ,11 5 , 14 8 Rom an , th e Rom ans 31-4,3 9 , 44 , 74,78 Romant ic (aesthetics, tradition , etc.) 50, 5 1,5 3,65, 142-4 Romant ic nation alism 66, 14 8 Rousseau , J .-J. 151 Russell , Ber tr and 76 Russian for malism 46 sacre d , the 97 , 106 ,1 07 ,110 ,111 , 118-1 9 ,1 20 Safranski, Rudiger 131

Saussure , Ferdinand de 14 2 Schank, Roger 20 Schelling, F. W . ] . 5 1-2, 99 Schur mann, Rainer 2 science 11 , 13, 21 , 23, 33, 34-5 , 37 , 67 , 68 , 14 2 , 14 5 , 15 1; scien tific know ledge 2 scientism 2 1, 143 secre t 118-1 9 , 132 sexual differ ence 14 2 Shakespeare, W illiam : Hamlet 44-5, 57-8, 93-5, 107 ; H enry V, 153 silence , Heidegger 's 124-6 singulari ty 47-5 1, 58 , 6 1, 62, 101 ,102 ,1 29 ,1 30 ,1 32 ,1 4 7 , 152 Sop hocl es 15 , 32 , 95, 107, 152 ;

theoria 16

th eory, the th eoretical 9 , 11, 12 , 13,14,1 5 ,1 6 ,18 , 21 , 24 , 37 th eory of everyth ing 35- 6 tou rist ind ustry 64 trace 76-8 tradition 13, 18 , 23, 27 , 71 , 72 , 74 , 129 , 140 , 151 Tra kl, Geo rg 98, 102 , 104 , 109 , 113, 129 , 130 translation 31, 5 1, 73 , 75- 80 , 8 1, 88, 9 1; internal translation 80- 1, 84 , 101 , 102 truth 4 , 11 , 12 , 13, 21- 3, 29 , 31 , 33 , 4 2 , 44 , 4 9 , 50 , 5 1,53 ,5 9 , 62 , 63,64,77 ,84,10 1, 130, 144, 14 8 ; corre spo ndence theory of truth 22- 3, 44-5 ; see also aletheia

Antigone 63

Spanos, W illiam 141 , 144 ; Hcideqqer and Crit icism 134 Spengler, Oswald : The Declin e '!f' the West 3

Spinoza, Baru ch de 150-1 Steiner , Geor ge 126 Steven s, W allace 14 3 Stoppar d , Tom 15 Stravinsky, Igor 65 structur alism 14 3-4 sublime 64 , 133 supe r-man 29

Ta oism 84, 86 techne 48, 77 technology 30 , 36 , 37 , 4 8 , 64, 66, 67,68,97, 124 , 135 , 136 , 139 , 151 techno-science 34-5 , 42, 68, 97, 109 , 120 ; techno-scient ific civilization 10 th eoret icism 13, 15 , 17 , 19 , 20 , 30 , 4 3, 4 7 , 55, 72

undecidability 58 und ers tan ding 9, 12, 13, 14, 17, 39, 73, 81 , 118 , 14 7 ; non -theor etical or pr e-reflective understanding 12,1 5 ,1 6 ,1 7 , 20 , 25 ,1 4 6 universi ty 63,69,94, 139-40 , 152 ; see also academ y; education , education syste m un thought, the 31, 59, 68, 75-6, 77,78,84,86,89,9 1, 103-4, 131 Valer y, Paul 112 , 137 Van Gogh, Vincen t 46,47,86 Vattimo, Gianni 54 Virgil 44, 107 Vogeler, Heinr ich 64 W eber, Max 104 W eim ar Repub lic 135 W est (th e W est) 5, 6 , 11, 16 , 28 , 29, 38,7 1, 74,8 5,86, 113, 125, 126 , 139 , 140 I N D EX

183

184

IN D EX

W estern th ought 1,4, 7, 10, 23 , 24 ,29, 30 , 31, 32, 37 , 38,68, 141,148 ,149 ; W est ern civilization 3, 75; see also m etaph ysics; productionist m etaphysics Wi esel, Eli 133, 134 Williams, William Carlos 143 Wittgen stein, Ludwig 17, 88 ;

36 , 37 , 38 , 4 5 , 4 6 , 65, 67, 73 , 74,76,77 ,82,88, 91 , 99,126, 146-7 'world' (as oppose d to 'earth' ) 41, 46, 52- 9,6 3,99 , 147 , 148 W orld W ar One 3, 75, 98, 129 W orld W ar Two 5 , 31,124,143 Young, Julian 36

Philosophi cal Investig ati ons 8 7

W olin, Richard 75 W ord sworth, Willi am 28 worl d 16, 18, 20, 23,24, 25,28,

Zimmerman, Michael 30; H eidegger's C0I!}Tontation wit h Moderni ty

135-6