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