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Caputo Reviewed work(s): Source: The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 41, No. 3 (Mar., 1988), pp. 519-546 Published by: Philosophy Education Society Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20128629 . Accessed: 10/12/2012 16:54
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could
never
resist
a good
story.
He
could
never
resist giving what he had discovered about al?theia and the oblivion
a narrative was form. to be written In Being and Time backwards?of we were the promised it was gesture, a of to "destruction
looking for what had all along been blocking the discovery of the temporal meaning of Being which had at last begun to emerge in
Kant. the In the vantage later works point is the this is considerably story but now the end end, as a modern the West recast. is the age Again, of the
thought is to make its way back into the primordial "Beginning" (Anfang) in order to recapture that fleeting moment which will
make into it possible for us today an "authentic" end, which to argue obscured in the to begin means to make the present anew, a transition to another be
ginning.1 I want
that Heidegger's best pages present for heroic his penchant tales and privi insights by for first dawns and new beginnings. What leged epochs, Heidegger has to say about the history of Being must be understood in critical, are not heroic terms. It is necessary of Being, in order to delimit to get the history at what the mythos?the story means. I al?theia
?in
am not arguing against the historical side of Heidegger, but rather insisting that historical thinking should serve primarily a critical
1 der Philosopie: Band 45, Grundfragen Ausgew?hlte Gesamtausgabe, "Probleme" der "Logik" (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1984), 145.
Review Metaphysics of Metaphysics 41 (March 1988): 519-546. Copyright ? 1988 by the Review of
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520
and
JOHN D. CAPUTO
purpose. in time the For but a
not a hierarchizing and memorializing, strategic, not a moment is not a story but a structure, al?theia structure which has to do with constitutive of time, oblivion
essential
can never appear or withdrawal on the of Being. Al?theia or the end, be not in the beginning, the middle, of history, stage en sc?ne, of history.2 cause the mise it is the very staging, the "oblivion" from of Being "Awakening" (Seinsvergessen to a primordial of returning is not a matter be accordingly, heit),
ginning
rather which The
It is
says, consists Heidegger awakening, to the oblivion.4 the oblivion ion, in awakening by awakening from which It is thus a profoundly thought puts us all on emancipatory to be, which that be, or presume the alert for the powers give themselves It practices airs necessity about vigilance It is a critical which alertness a Socratic of ahistorical and immutable presence. to be of Being of Hei whatever holds
for
rather
a more
one no
caught the gods and too early for Being,5 For this demythologized a-l?theia is not Heidegger, The hyphen breaks it up its nominal prevents unity, historical A-l?theia is not language. master-name of Being historical but rather within which the history of the names space age can never appear in that space?not at space, it is the very their space up ofthat opening of play. or
in the double
open inconspicuous unfolds. Al?theia of Being or the end?for the beginning granting the epochs
of presence
2 from the French Vier Seminare, translated by Heidegger, wadt 1977), 104-05. (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 3 Band 5, Holzwege Klostermann, (Frankfurt: Gesamtausgabe, trans. D. Krell Greek Thinking, (New York: Harper 327; Early 1975), 18. 4 Zur Sache des Denkens 1969), 31-32. (T?bingen: Niemeyer, trans. Joan Stambaugh On Time and Being, (New York: Heidegger, & Row, 1972), 29-30. 5 trans. A. Hofstadter (New York: Thought, Poetry, Language, & Row, 1971), 29-30.
Harper Harper
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DEMYTHOLOGIZING HEIDEGGER
Consequently, everything the main of paper, to see if they history. this I want to say about demythologizing
521
Heidegger
which conclusion ger's space stories
forms
of a critical
which and
was the
accorded transcendental
moder de
termination
of time defended
was
there is rejected.
the phenomenon of time bringing praised?"he reason is criticized. the subject the he again"6?becomes is looked upon, not as a period of break of modernity of the subject Modernity (and hence is the age of as an object
of the contribution and discovery through of Being. of Dasein), but as a subjectivizing the Weltbild, that is and of the world as picture and
representation,
subject which
of all
of the history of Heidegger's understanding a profound The end of the his undergoes upheaval. ontology is now the most extreme and radical oblivion of all, tory of ontology the eschaton,s where the Western tradition has run into a deadly end, an end-state which threatens gods, even if the bomb never or of metaphysics, is read to destroy and the man, nature, the history of ontology, goes off. Now as a steady or falling deteriorization
is not.7
away (Abfall) from the primordial beginning (Anfang).9 Accordingly, the "destruction" of the history of ontology which
in Being for what and went Time wrong meant an exercise back somewhere in trouble-shooting, in the tradition looking in order to
6 Sein und Zeit, 10. Auflage (T?bingen: Niemeyer, 1971), 24; the translation used is that of E. Robinson and J. MacQuarrie (New York: Harper7 & Row, 1962), p. 45. The Question and Other Essays, trans. W. Concerning Technology Lovitt (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), 115 ff. 8 327; Early Greek Thinking, 17; cf. Zur Sache des Denkens, Holzwege, trans. Joan Stambaugh 63; and On Time and Being, (New York: Harper & Row, 91972), 57. der Philosophie, 145. Grundfragen
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522
repeat lective and redo it (wieder-holen), which (an-denken) is reconceived tries to recover
JOHN D. CAPUTO
as a work something of recol which
thought
has dropped out of sight. Plato and Aristotle are still the source of the trouble, but that is because there is in them a primordial experi
ence are not was over. Hence covered Plato of Being which and Aristotle to be read backwards, from the standpoint of modernity, but as a falling who now assume away from the early Greeks, forwards,
Plato and Aristotle block off, not the place of historical privilege. what was to be discovered later, but what had been experienced in the primordial beginning which had preceded them. Thus the word Wiederholung, which belongs originally to Being
and Time to Kierkegaard), it meant trou it belongs where error made out a critical at the beginning ble-shooting, rooting is now transformed into Andenken, memorial and Aristotle), (Plato (actually
thinking, that is, thinking Western tradition (prior to first beginning. Andenken the same originality which
hence to effect "another
back into the originary event of the Plato and Aristotle) and repeating the makes it possible to begin anew, with characterized the first beginning, and of Heidegger's
and al?theia,10
beginning."
With
the early
1937-38 lectures on
we can now get a
of Being
better
what
picture
sort if any,
of what Heidegger
early they experienced. Truth of truth. conforms to the (Richtigkeit, is treated is or can assertion
meant
of privilege
and what limita enjoyed, is here telling the story Heidegger means the truth of assertions when Greeks of affairs adequatio, as about which it speaks; con This
state
is correctness
homoiosis). self-evident
of philosophy
and self could as "a
every
kind of eidetic
argues,
an entity, can be made about the entity before an assertion out in the open. Hence the correctness of be manifest, itself must The self-ground the openness of entities. assertions presupposes
ing definition
in the openness
of
10 Grundfragen 11 Grundfragen
??20-24.
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HEIDEGGER DEMYTHOLOGIZING beings. How did this concealed ground get concealed? drop out of view?
The trouble, cut truth as we have said, started with Plato
and Aristotle.
For when
limits, form
they formulated
down
to size
centuries.
as the open and manifest in which realm of Being at Plato If we look "back" and and are manifest.
a clear to be the first ones to have introduced they appear and everything before them looks definition of truth as correctness, own predecessors, of their But looked at in terms they can fuzzy. a shared a "formulation" which be seen as producing presupposes experience totle said of the openness al?theia the constriction heard from is correctness, of beings. we Hence when hear We Plato and Aris of it. the half
We what
hear
of al?theia
the manifestness
of entities truth
themselves.
all along presupposes it is first and foremost because openness. was handed version down, not stenographic
lent was
in fact
of truth, it precisely into the incision incising as un of al?theia the Greek of origin?in experience with its etymology. Plato and Aris in accordance concealedness, a transition from the rich, totle are transitional thinkers, effecting experiential thought of philosophy. must of their predecessors we must Hence to the read leaner them con in the
poetic,
The history
to
from Anaximander
formulated
their task, their appointed destiny, their need (Not). Their great ness lay in raising the question of the being (das Seiende) itself.
12 Grundfragen der Philosopie, ?26.
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524
JOHN D. CAPUTO
Their vocation was to stay with the thought of the being itself, to persist with that thought, until they found the means to differen
tiate what is from what is not, as the present and enduring, the
well-formed and delimited, which shows itself from itself (physis). The being for them is what rises up into well formed and enduring
appearance.13 (thaumazein) there.14 Their that thinking arises from the sheer and wonder perdures the being emerges into appearance
the horizon
is thematized.
(Umkreis, Ge
But it is the Al?theia the implicit of
of unconcealment.
concealed which
experience question
them
to raise
as such, but rather of to on "in" its al?theia (on/al?theia). done otherwise have skewed would their destiny, subverted Their history vocation itself are was set to be the and into motion place where because there thinking, erupts in
task.
them the question of the being in all its wonder. In the first is the most question-worthy of all beginning (Anfang), Being even as today it has been flattened out into a (Fragw?rdigste),
self-evidence al?theia was and the taken invisible without question element within page (Fraglosig). which the of their And early while Greeks it could
present thought, palpably as such.16 never be spoken It belongs to us instead the first beginning, to make at the
on every
writings, live
"late-comers"
who
in the wake
of
beginning, what
the ending and unravelling of this great a transition to a new beginning. end-state
beginning
back and
by experiencing
see what
unconcealment.
them?that
implicit
clue which
functioned
in and enlivened
the beginning,
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DEMYTHOLOGIZING HEIDEGGER
which as such Now place. become ning. is the unspoken in a way that the element could of al?theia. not. story and are an beginning end?which, to another to fall We can think
525
al?theia
in
thought
in its beingness
ence (Anwesenheit) within the element of al?theia (on/al?theia). Plato and Aristotle tried to "sharpen" this up with a "definition" of the link between thinking and the being which left the element of
al?theia as unconcealment in the background. as certitudo After that, the
and Chris
and Richtigkeit.
We today stand at the end of this long devolution, and accordingly we must go back prior to Plato and Aristotle and find out just what was happening in the early Greek experience which gave it its
richness experience. and it the fire, made That, we discover, "hearth is the fire"17 implicit of the element early Greek of al?theia
within which
persistence Plato they That
they were
thinking.
the being tries
had the
and
(Erkl?ren)
introduced by
the being.18 Instead, it stands forth unconcealed. at the end this of this is not leaves a
story in suspense.
But how is it possible for us to begin again ifwe are so driven by the technological will to manipulate and dominate beings, if the
in their of beings experience from us, at an extreme moved again Being's about from just realizing that removal, by unconcealment is so far re simple remove can begin We (eschaton)? our removal that from Being is in fact from us. its withdrawal, extreme This is,
from
bears
the
146. ?38.
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526
today, in the age when Being has become nothing
JOHN D. CAPUTO
at all. It is a
the turning away (Wendung) on Being's part which constitutes neediness by which we are beset D?rftigkeit) (Not-wendigkeit, no need (Not) to ask the question of Being, today. If we today feel If the early that feeling is just the way we are tuned to Being.
Greeks were tuned do not wonder. to Being in wonder, that This experience and our way the question to Being. of Being; a self-evidence, the wonder Being seems is for us that we to have vacated
the premises
Being's task was own
(Seinsverlassenheit),
that it is nowhere
In the first at the
to be found, is
the is to
doing to raise
make questionable
flattened out into
what
a triviality,
ing in the technical age means to see in the technical epochal withdrawal of Being, the Gestell.19
Were the early work Greeks to have raised the question in
epoch the
of al?theia
(on/al?theia)
Inasmuch
early Greek
of the
horizon,
Al?theia
But that means is letting-be. be over must in a certain way can only be pointed out it appear; which a given historical form of
as the element
II
Now that explains why, in his later publications, Heidegger spoke of the need to think "over and beyond" the early Greeks, to think al?theia in a way which is "no longer" Greek.22 That means to think al?theia as such, and not merely the being in its al?theia.
19 der Philosopie, Grundfragen 20 der Philosopie, Grundfragen 21 der Philosopie, Grundfragen 22 104. Cf. Vier Seminare, 40. 137-38. 147.
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HEIDEGGER DEMYTHOLOGIZING
527
It is thus of the utmost importance to see the distinction Heidegger ismaking between the being in its al?theia (cm/al?theia) and al?th
eia as such.
The virtue of the early Greeks is that they did not "objectify" the being, which means to turn it into an object for a subject, but
rather they let it be what it is, as a self-showing rising into uncon
cealment
(on/al?theia):
as were the first to experience and think of phainomena it is thoroughly alien to the But in that experience phenomena. into an opposing to press present Greeks being objectness; phain its radiance, and in that to them that a being assumes esthai means is still the basic trait of the Thus appearance radiance it appears. of all present beings, as they rise into unconcealment.23 presence The Greeks
the phenomenality
left something out. being presupposes
they of the
open, the open realm of the clearing of Being itself (which iswhat is two dif meant by al?theia as such). Heidegger thus distinguishes
ferent tions eia)', in this regression: steps to the manifestness of (2) from the manifestness as the open, (1) from the the correctness of asser cm/al?th being (phenomenality; to the openness of the being of as Lichtung, as Seyn, Ereignis (al?theia
Now
definition
For Plato
of assertions
and Aristotle,
is made with
the
the
openness of beings in the background (and fast dropping out of In the early Greeks, that defining gesture is resisted and sight).
the openness of beings (their phenomenality) within the first is. But all of this remains ence nal of the being, of the phenomenality Thus unconcealment (on/al?theia). to al?theia as such, as the open is savored for what it the experi step, within in its phenome of the being nowhere in Greece, The in the
to Aristotle,
clearing. horizon.
phenomenality
itself:
zur Sprache (Pfullingen: Neske, 1965), 132; On the Way P. Hertz York: Harper & Row, 1971), 38. (New
to
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528
This
JOHN D. CAPUTO
comes about in the unconcealment as a clear unconcealedness remains unthought in every itself, as Ereignis, ing; but this clearing this unthought to To enter into thinking respect. [Ereignis] means: to see it in the pursue more originally what the Greeks have thought, source of its reality. To see it so is in its own way Greek, and yet in it sees is no longer, is never again, Greek.24 respect of what
The experience
this two-sidedness at degger,
of al?theia
juncture
is of decisive
a critical
al?theia within a historical period. The opening of the open is both Greek and not Greek, that is, is "somehow" displayed within the historical limits of a definite era and yet unable either to be found
or confined There there. are accordingly al?theia two distinguishable senses of the word
al?theia at work
inHeidegger's
means
story.
sense, phenomenal its self-showing is present (what to an object to its reduction eia), prior
an object for a thinking subject. ence. In the second let us call sense, al?theia very the able means
the opening up of the of the presence of the hyphenated of the field form, of presence
of the unconcealed, the to It is useful here present. to stress for one wants a-l?theia, itself from a radical, intract
first
means
the
sense,
grants
place; of presence.
is the
al?theia as such, the unthought element within which In the first sense, al?theia means thought took place.
presence granting as phenomenality. In the second of presence, of the epochs including in the that which sense, the Greek
24 Unterwegs
zur Sprache,
134-35;
the Way
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DEMYTHOLOGIZING HEIDEGGER
529
To put it somewhat pointedly: We might say that in the first sense al?theia is a Greek word which describes the Greek epoch of
presence sense, their be enclosed as unconcealment the hypenated sense, within Greek experience, a feature no longer experience, but rather that which the Greek But in the (phenomenality). a Greek word it is no longer and for of it is no second cannot of of be, (phe The to a out of
longer the Greek experience (gives, bestows, as unconcealment a Greek it from as does word. belonging crossing the
a quality lets
grants
of presence experience In short, a-l?theia is no longer its nominal historical unity, prevents
up
Sein,
particular, epochal, or the attempt Now this puts about the etymology
language (just to respell Sein as Seyn.) us in a position to understand of al?theia and Heidegger's
supposed
controversy retrac
of Plato.25
meant
Heidegger
had written
al?theia But
in 1943
in as un
al?theia to mean
a transition orthotes
whereas
in 1969 he of
the use
of al?theia
correctness
can be found
as far back
as Homer:
we must In the scope of this question, the fact that acknowledge in the sense of the opening of presence, was al?theia, unconcealment as orthotes, as the correctness of represen originally only experienced tations and statements. But then the assertion Plato's Doctrine [in of of truth, that is from un transformation Truth] about the essential
concealment to correctness, is also untenable.26
we have
to distinguish
three different
al?theia (histor In or
there is the etymological First, issue, an alpha-privative. That is a purely to retract that would debate
of the etymological
Secondly,
there
(another
of this debate, see Robert Bernasconi, The accounting inHeidegger's Question of Language of Being History (New York: Human ities Press, 1985), chap. 2. For more on the etymological issue, see Alex ander Mourelatos, The Route of Parmenides (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), 63-67. 26 Zur Sache des Denkens, 70. 78; On Time and Being,
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530
philology), the word retraction sense take that that was
JOHN D. CAPUTO
of how, regardless of its etymology, is, the question on which Heidegger's This is the level used. actually He no longer thinks is offered. that one should single
in
did
now in is
as
usage. before
there is the level of the matter for thought itself, which to do with scientific philology. On this level, which is
is concerned does not with, Heidegger an inch: as budge does a matter not re for
uncon derives from al?theia, truth as orthotes, homoiosis, so what he said in the thirties in place? remains And no longer one major to He thinks it possible exception. al?theia some form with "truth" ("Wahrheit"), for truth always of correctness:
sense in the traditional Insofar as truth is understood "natural" . . . al?theia, unconcealment in the sense of the opening, may not be truth. Rather unconcealment thought as the al?theia, equated with of truth. For truth itself, just as first grants the possibility opening, can only be what it is in the element of the and thinking, Being
opening.27
unconcealment,
not
as a word in an historical spoken language, concept," we can come up is not to be found. The most a-l?theia (the open) as phenomenality. But even this is to be found only is al?theia with sense which as background starts dropping means correctness both and which totle out with Plato and Aris usage and in ordinary but
whenever
means
it is thematized.
al?theia
say always they will and phenomenality cealment nor anyone language, of presence: else will among
have uncon they will in the background. neither the What to be found, is nowhere in any say, what any historical people, is a-l?theia, the
69. 70.
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HEIDEGGER DEMYTHOLOGIZING
Instead we must say: Al?theia, and saying, in thinking sencing and adequation tive of homoiosis "Truth" which always but means and a-l?theia the
531
as the opening and pre of presence comes under the perspec originally
constitutes
defines
of presence,
presence
Being
It is the opening
truth (as phenomenality,
itself, in which
veritas,
all
(as presence)
certi
A-l?theia means the Es tudo, Richtigkeit) are given and granted. gibt, the very granting of the historical epochs. The history of the of Being and of West is the story of the manifold determinations
truth, matter historical of so many for accounts of the presence of what is present and of
its presence
to thought.
That historical
happening, which
is the
It gives the space (Raum) within which the plurality of epoch. entities belonging to that epoch play themselves out (Spielraum).
The disruptive it from hyphen names the open-ing of the open. The
hyphen breaks up the nominal and natural unity of the word and
prevents historical within any natural, up residence taking name nor neither a-l?theia is Like Derrida's diff?rance, language. no nominal "The natural and possesses conception concept unity.30 mean not in the philosophy of the of truth does not unconcealment, either."31 "Natural" of natural in historical natural Thus (nat?rlich) means historical?as we mean "natural" inhabit prior no histori when lan in to languages, by which It also means fact. attitude, Heidegger a-l?theia the level we
Greeks we
in English speak which exist guages the sense of Husserl's thematization. reflective cal
thinks and says language is something truth calls historical language and truth. which presence grants Thus it is necessary, structurally This
that
even
the
Greeks
itself. of a-l?theia the very makeup on their part but from carelessness
Alan
29 71. Zur Sache des Denkens, 78; On Time and Being, 30 inMargins See the famous essay "Diff?rance" of Philosophy, Bass (Chicago: University Press, 1982), 3, 7. 31 70. Zur Sache des Denkens, IT, On Time and Being,
trans.
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532
JOHN D. CAPUTO
even if what is granted, from whatever is granted is unconcealment as phainesthai. The failure arises because to the l?th? belongs not only concealment heart of a-l?theia.32 L?th? means but self sheltering. is present which the shining of what presence grants opening is itself concealed and sheltered. The matter for thought The
of the present
of Being the history and truth, from the early Greek grants experi ence of Being, to the experience of Plato and Aristotle, and so on all the way of the end-state, the deadly and up to the current epoch decisive The end, the eschaton. privilege when of the he is then early Greeks that we cannot says get nicely to the
ambiguous
thought
by Heidegger unless:
concealing.33
Notice
the
two
(1) first,
the Greek
(2) then, that tion of Being, historical language open, within we which
and beginnings the shining of appearances; gleam that historical, determina epochal of Being and truth, that experience
Greek, historical
granted. Now
can
identify
the
historical
"privilege"
early
Greeks:
historical
to what
portal
through which
the very be itself its traces
to get in order passes thinking or coming to presence Wesen historical. How so? Because
behind
Greek
in the Greek
al?theia
experience
of the
of al?theia
originary,
as phainesthai.
The
a-l?th
is a trace
more-than-Greek
But how is that possible? How can that Wesen of history, the process of letting history be, which can never be itself something eia.
historical, leave its tracks behind in some particular historical
epoch?
between
How
can Heidegger
make
the historical
experience
71. 78; On Time and Being, 71. Emphasis 79; On Time and Being,
is
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533
of
any as a of presence opening, be more than serve
made
privileged
Heidegger's
of horizonality.
epochs which made present. remains even as of Being
a-l?theia space
a-l?theia, of sight,
in virtue
it is implicitly
at work,
the advantage
is that this implicit clue early Greeks had, according to Heidegger, was still functioning for them, that it was still a palpable, felt
horizon, that everyone felt the That trace of power means itself, of its granting it must al?theia that rather show does than it for granted. just taking a somehow leave how, that up some appear
somewhere
grant, enced, mental
it is otherwise
supposed to
achievements
prethematically experi all, it is one of the funda to have shown how the at work in experience are,
or ap-perceived in principle
the early Greeks had a prethematic experience this border became obscured implicit progressively quent history of metaphysics which was more
along with in saying that of a-l?theia and that by the subse the
taken
by what
Greeks made
horizontal
thematic,
than with
its implicit
clues.
Now the story that Heidegger tells in his "history of Being" is beginning to look a lot like Husserl's story in "The Origin of Geome try," which both were telling just about the same time (the 1930s).
Both became stories turn on the notion of an impoverished as a proposition, who lost which originary experience cut off from its enlivening
historical world,
subsequent produced vation,
form to the
and that of reacti and in our
generations
the present crisis. Both stories invoke a notion or of "beginning again," doing again for ourselves
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534
own way what was done in its own way at the
JOHN D. CAPUTO
time of the creative
beginning (Anfang) or primal institution (Urstiftung). But the most telling comparison of all is that both stories have
recourse to a kind of a priori history. Suppose a matter we ask ourselves
how Heidegger
that ical As we factual this
He denies
histor
of ordinary
(historische inspection" Betrachtung). to believe is prepared seen, Heidegger already that, as a an alpha turn out not to contain al?theia may matter, speaking, philologically to a pun). Furthermore, would he reduce is prepared his render to admit
that no Greek ever in fact used the word al?theia in the sense of a-l?theia. So then how does he know what is implicit and prethe
matic here? He could them at the beginning which is quite early Greeks, slmeditative-histori a story, by way of "geschichtliche Besinnung," only situates have come upon this rendering of what of the
cal thinking
terms
in tune with
the matter
of thought, which
thinks
early must issues
in
Greeks
words, Heideg an a priori in what Husserl called ger here engages sense-history, so that Heidegger's an a priori of sense, of the genesis early history are beginning to look a lot like Husserl's Greeks proto-geometers.
fallacy.
of its
historisch
Heidegger as truth there esis. for
origin
follows
of the very meaning tack: because opposite as al?theia from truth derives correctness ontologically which this gen correlate instantiates "must" be an historical as a matter correctness from unconcealment arises Because that is how it "must have been" historically. before Because
thought,
truth as correctness
unconcealment, historically that formulated
depends
is what
of possibility
upon
it was is not to
al?theia
have meant
as correctness.
if this history
be found by means
34 Grundfragen
of ordinary historical
der Philosopie, ?13.
research
(historisch),
it
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a historical cannot to this resist correlate Heidegger assigning cannot structure He resist around old deep (the open). rooting traces words for the barely of this onto-genesis discernible which "must" be there He cannot somewhere. resist the onto giving genesis historisch word eia), words of orthotes case may when from be. al?theia If we the can form detect of a story?whatever this onto-genesis the in the
al?theia
it in a sachlich way upon (as a-l?th it in the old, founding the words, at the beginning and the first dawn. to hear
Now that is the essence of the mythological gesture which I a great beginning, of a It is a myth of origins, of find inHeidegger. act back at the beginning of the tradition, which great founding form?to a philosophical insight. In gives flesh and blood?mythic the beginning was the logos, a great flash of early Greek fire and lightening, which vanished quick as a flash, but left an afterglow which steadily diminished over the centuries, until it finally de
volved into the present to the crisis.
sings a
There was a time when it was not technology alone that bore the techn?. Once that revealing that brings forth truth into the splendor of radiant appearing was also called techn?. the bringing Once there was a time when forth of the true into the beautiful was called techn?. And the poiesis of the fine arts was also called techn?. In Greece, at the outset of the destining of the West, the arts soared to the supreme heights of the revealing them. granted They the presence of the gods, brought the dialogue of divine and brought to radiance. human destinings, When then was art?perhaps only for that brief but magnifi cent time?35 name
The whole
moment," too, and 35 Die Concerning and
point to which
easy
Technik
und
Technology,
(Pfullingen:
Neske,
1962),
34; Question
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536
be inclined to sing such anthems to the Greeks or of slaves.
JOHN D. CAPUTO
if one were The a writing Greek world power rela
of power?of women, say, history was built around a set of exclusionary tions over placed male of which non-Greek, which over
and
hierarchical over
ics, and the Pythagorean Do women ence." and slaves "setting who hauled the into
slave, Greek line provides the meta-phys of opposites the "early Greek experi also share in the clearing? Do the female, for the How also participate temple are the excluded present in in
free man
the truth
the work"?
the open?
perspective
Heidegger
were the
results
the poetics
if his
of
truth. derlin,
making James
Or indeed if he had chosen to heed other poets than H?l if, for instance, he had actually listened to Trakl instead of
him he must have meant, say what e e cummings, or Mallarm?. weaves a marvelous or if he had listened to
yarn
about
the
early
Greeks which is guided by a litany of eminent Germans: in addition to H?lderlin (whence the "Fourfold" and the "two beginnings"), the like Meister Eckhart, mystical poets like early Rhineland mystics
?ngelus Silesius phenomenological what appears. and let us not forget, Husserl's and, (Gelassenheit), access to the phainomenon, the self-showing of to listen to Husserl chose with Greek Heidegger to listen to the Greeks a criticism?it good alive, with (This is not is exceptionally by is a description at making the early he has a feel for to to others, texts?from ears tuned
and ears, poetic H?lderlin and Husserl. of his genius.) Heidegger texts dance. He them which nourish the and few savor
Greek
them
and
scriptures,
mystics?and structure.
to hear
a deeper view
I am arguing
that Heidegger's
is strengthened,
ened, if it is disentangled from this story, if it is understood that this story is just a good story, if it is understood that his essential
thought is not dependent upon really swallowing such a tall tale.
Ill
Now let there be no mistake: there is always room for a good
story.
in stories.
That
is
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HEIDEGGER DEMYTHOLOGIZING
come back why we must critical fact have within clear about about how this breach to Heidegger's history. between we are critical stories Before we and do
537
the place they in that we must be history, clear
and memorial
austere ask
a picture what
drawing
we must
ourselves
is left
of Heidegger
divested of the splendor of the early Greeks and the tale of the two
beginnings. A-l?theia How are we to understand this more austere, as "truth" more
radicalized, demythologized
is not truth
Heidegger?
and cannot be translated be
grants
grants
It is not Being
Demytholo
gizing Heidegger
which springing un-folding says, its notes for grants the
of the Es gibt
so that all "there of presence, is" is the epochs the epochal the relentless up of the epochs, movements, There is no epoch of (des) the Ereignis, of a-l?theia.36 he from the epochs spring (aus) the Ereignis.31
is the attempt
finger on the "upon which" of beings. That was given to the structure of
transcendental
shifted to locate the "truth" of Being. which we have been trying to demystify,
implied that somehow, experienced "truth." somewhere, Being "in some and thought has a singular
the seminar says, Finally, of Being, its Ortschaft, "place" themselves and time play out,
which
here
Being is neither
In the final stage, the task of meaning nor truth but Ereignis. thought is to think the happening of the place of the epochs, that which grants the space and time of the epochs their play (Zeit
Spiel-Raum). Here there is no privileged meaning or truth of
and truths of
36 Zur Sache des Denkens, 20; On Time 37 Vier Seminare, 105. 38 Vier Seminare, 73, 82-87.
and Being,
19-20.
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538
Being across the Anaximander one Heidegger, mental, shifting epochs?none to the present. not not of which can
JOHN D. CAPUTO
be privileged, from
think this path traces out a circle which comes back to a kind of the Heidegger whose path of thought was set in f/r-Heidegger, motion by Brentano's book about the manifold sense of beings (die mannigfache Bedeutung des Seienden). Heidegger began by asking
about the multiple senses of Being the and ended up conceding or truths its mul
tiplicity, acknowledging
manifold unfolding across the of
senses, the
of Being. a reduc
tion o/that multiplicity and ended by making a reduction began and ended with the "there is/it gives," the multiple
of Being and truth.
to it. He sendings
Thus the thinking which is turned towards the Ereignis has so radicalized the idea of history, has become itself so radical a thought, that it can no longer be cast as a history of Being in the
narratival gerous tival cated a story about great of telling and dan beginnings It is precisely to this narra turning points. by succumbing that Heidegger's of Being" becomes impulse "history impli in Historie and chronology and falls into privileging some sense,
historical
fact structurally
epoch.
But what
this demythologized
of every a moment
Heidegger
has in
in terms of a epoch of l?th?, in which the withdrawal, the opening a given which open space up of the open within itself, withdraws from view precisely in order that what is epoch happens, in that come to presence. That means that granted epoch may accomplished necessary
is a description
can be privileged.
tory" is "levelled," not in the sense that it is decimated, but in the sense that the hierarchizing of the epochs is undone and privileged
historical dominating spheres historical are robbed mountain of their peaks, advantages. not for a flat get rid of plain, but for a on this reading We
The "danger" range of competing populous peaks. we may be granted an eschatological ?if moment?arises precisely one of the historical from absolutizing one of the periods of epochs, in particular, to fill up the clearing a particular with presence, and undisplaceable form of presence.
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DEMYTHOLOGIZING HEIDEGGER
On "retrieval" "repetition" emergence has "Es" ence isolated das of this
539
as a theory of the historical reading, Wierderholung is replaced of primordial radical beginnings by a more as the springing the conceived up of the different, hierarchical of diversity, without Heidegger privilege. the structural withdrawal precisely constitutes of the makes a given open?Ereignis, possible epochal the das pres
sending.
is what is first What he has isolated is "ontologically" primary?it in the order of the Sache selbst?but it is precisely the most elusive
of all in the order of "thinking" because of its very the withdrawal.
Now
hierarchizing
into
of
compromised. to a critical memorializing and given, granted more than transient The only rule
particular is therefore
as a partial authority,
sending no epoch
for another.
is the
results from the stiff-necked of pres adikia, persistence Injustice, ence which to go under, to give way to another, to give refuses its to another. to make is the refusal A-dikia for an space place other. asserts And It is not that is what happens when the authority of an epoch itself.39 from sheer
to bring Heidegger's that I want perversity or two, but from a down a notch Greek early reading epoch concern with the matter of thought. The matter for thought is not on the the early Greek of presence?for that is to remain experience of the level of what is granted?but the granting from some time three itself, to the open shows before space of
the clearing.
of any
the prestige
up Kuhn, in
Heidegger defended Aristotle's theory of falling bodies against Ga is right and Galileo is lileo, not because he thought that Aristotle
wrong, but because he thinks it makes no sense to pass such a
To do
Greek Thinking, 45-46, 54. 357,36S/Early der Philosophie, 51-43; Question Concerning
Technology,
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540
so is to put "correct assertions" of unconcealment from different
JOHN D. CAPUTO
(read: "incommen combat on this and with point Shake
"worlds"
nonsensical The
into meaningless and Galileo directly to the rank various Aeschylus names
epochs.41 It is important ger is not engaged instead solubility coming zur Macht. engaged of all
to see
that, more
in a search
the historical in underlining names for Being which the master of the West?eidos, the contingency
understood, Heideg name of Being. He is and dis contingency have been forth
in the history
To appreciate
is to delimit
and while ence. shelter itself And
the authority
of the clearing of what withdraws, the mystery which, never is that which the names of pres grants named, to keep the question it means of Being that is what open,
in questionability,
demand has that which
tremble
of the first
in irresolvability,
to the memorable
of Being and pages into an easy self-evi that which has into a
(Fraglosigkeit)
matter
(Fragw?rdigkeit).
We keep
of Being the epochs and pres the question of Being open by letting ence rise and fall in the open space of the clearing. of history, the names of Being have only a In a "critical" theory
contingent
the scholastics
authority
spoke).
necessity
of which
than over in then are The set his
configuration
more is nothing epoch of presence or grid which has been thrown immutable only in virtue must be validity of the withdrawal, in which the epochs unfolds."42 kept
to pretense is possible If history is the of history the whole "Error is the space
errancy in which
adrift.
history but
(l?th?) of something
are temporary
des Denkens, 62; On Time and Being, 26. 337; Eqrly Greek Thinking,
56.
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HEIDEGGER DEMYTHOLOGIZING
the clearing And critical, each with the brushstrokes use of presence, of the subject
541
to the dike
of one with the pretensions on the other, stories critical the horizons any one as to keep in particular. critical.
is necessary
necessarily
IV
Only
now
is it possible
to make
room
for Heidegger's
stories?
having
history. The could
first delimited
them within
a critical
a certain permits remythologizing. a purpose. is not without Heidegger his stories. The of the "de promise and Time a punch have mustered up.
struction which
His fabulous account of the early Greeks and of the lightening flash
lit up the early Greek countryside of the later Heidegger, and I have my that was doubts a large part of the power as to whether the later
would have made half the impact he did, had he not spun Heidegger are of equal such a magnificent After yarn. all, not all stories merit have Great stories and and power. power impact. They a "moral," a point, us an otherwise make lost have upon impress a purely sachlich point. in stories, and learning has and nobody teaching was not a great ever said that Heidegger teacher. often Heidegger uneven tried to write and with because his success, poems perhaps and vividly lesson, We do our best embody real talents lay elsewhere, of perhaps He was because his real skills are nar and this I good at fiction, I do not situate
ratival, say
remark within
torical objectivity
a metaphysical
and fanciful
opposition
artifacts,
counts and wishful thinking. I take it that such historical positiv We have to do instead with ism has long been discredited.
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JOHN D. CAPUTO compete with one another for insight, depth, and
Everything told a very teeth of in the interpretation. tale on contemporary tech powerful it. He very his poetic, plays adroitly Greeks the turbines and against early and the awful, wheels grinding a long list of forgets world?from its is an
world
of modern computers "cybernetics" he very of the Gestell. Of course, the very forgetable and slaves?but We things that about
infant mortality
women
is part of the rules of the game in good not to interrupt the good manners such considerations.
His
work, where the
critique
part
of technology
is the most
he has
powerful
comes
part of his
where
to a head, everything as he would in the is, put it, "gathered together" It is the tip of Heidegger's Indeed the con pen. at the heart stands of the "reversal." technology to say
This
matter
a almost from Being and Time?as missing critique, entirely a quite positive of fact, Being and Time offered phenomeno account in the of science43?appears for the first time only logical was starts at the end, with what thirties. Once again, Heidegger
of history reading begins with about the needs of his time. time as as needy, between a turning destruction
wavering
ginning,
dawn
leading up to them and then tells a story about how they got there and where the way out is to be found. Thinking is essentially historical (and one can write the history of those who think other Thinking is essentially geschichtlich, that is beginning with wise).
the present not merely chives and worried historisch, days. about the future,44 an issue of "care", through the and ar dispassionately rummaging
of by-gone of delimiting
is essentially
critical.
It is a
that
of the present,
of the powers
?13.
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DEMYTHOLOGIZING HEIDEGGER
be, which be, which master. themselves showing Foucault the take themselves to be present to the master name, instead
543
come to of having set themselves which up as to cut them down who give and permanent and everything presence, which
earthly
of everyone
iswriting what
a history a history of the present, in a anchored a certain crisis, story about how we have come here present telling a story on the powers and how we can get out, telling that be. The essence in the claim of that story is to be found that tech nology issues from the withdrawal, in technology currently has that what comes to presence The Gestell a way is is withdrawal.45 of filling
up the clearing,
it is granted in, and by the withdrawal of the clearing. Technology is what issues from the invisibility of the clearing; it is not what
Being is, but not the way it pretends not has with to be, one more way of presencing,
of presence
itself.
gibt,
Technology
but us rather upon
is not the
the Ereignis, clearing, the presence which given, but one more master-name And deed the against this
And thinking let beings be in their radiance and phenomenality. it seems to me, is to say with all due flourish that there is that,
indeed and another among possibility Greek outside There reduce there, a possibility for thought, scattered here and German and poets, and even, mystics even and Germany, Greece in perhaps to the world is another in relationship ourselves to such a ravaging assault upon
things. There is the possibility of letting things be, of being cap tured by the mystery by which the being emerges into Being, by the
splendor things and of the simple.46 that Heidegger burden In short, is the possibility there has been writing about. of taking all this to be the of all the
23-35.
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544
of a particular once dawn, where The phenomenality lege and well
JOHN D. CAPUTO
in the first back at the great epoch, beginning, a spot which as Camelot. there was is known of the phenomena, is as alive by way of example, as in anything of the French in the painting Impressionists is as much There radiant splendor by the early Greeks.
as much in its Being, in up into unconcealment, rising no sense, on as there it makes and is in Anaximander, C?zanne own terms, to rank-order As a matter of fact, them. Heidegger's has already made this point.47 pace Meyer Heidegger Schapiro, does not come first, before The "other possibility" philosophy. It is not Abend-land. at the dawn something aboriginal, primordial, It is and always has been marginal, excluded, an ex-orbitant took someone it always with and it up. Meister who of on turn the word the the of
fringes, to take mind Gelassenheit degger's suspect his arm famous golden their fair
gave Heidegger Eckhart, in Hei he gets a grudging acknowledgment (for which was a fringe in his day, book of the same figure name), excluded Curia which and eventually twisted by the Roman into for retracting out being We some of of his best lines. Tha?es and early he has lived become in the
dawn. share
may
Greeks
in principle
ever thus. this account
anyway
of because but which correlate. the
fabrication, world,
good of
epochal a conveniently short memory. storytelling requires at active is uncannily which is a thinking forgetting, good the way it works. Let us take it for what it is, a
philosophical
myth,
the
will an
not have liked. he may myth-maker?which the considerable of Heidegger's liberate power
not only of the famous case of Heidegger's 471 am thinking admira see tion for Van Gogh admiration for C?zanne; (36) but of his great Heinrich Stern Zugehen: und Wiegand Petzet, Auf Einen Begegnungen mit Martin Heidegger (1929-76) (Frankfurt: Societ?ts-Verlag, Gespr?che 1983), 143.
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DEMYTHOLOGIZING HEIDEGGER
enervating nostalgia and new-dawn-ism which makes him
545
the butt
is good jokes and trivializes his thought. Nothing ifHeidegger's history of Being is taken to be anything
a good punch we are a good story with line. Otherwise for a lost world in a nostalgic and longing stranded longing hope for a new dawn, too late for the between the two beginnings, trapped and too early for Being, feeling bad that we no longer a speak
gods
history which
marks robustly names of Being, drawal and mutatis
which
violence granting, is possessed of its own grace mutandis. either, Every epoch takes aim at the hierarchy of Critical and its own malice. history own history, in Being's the peaks levels and valleys and epochs,
of the diverse transiency is marked every epoch by with and for letting-be, by possibilities
claims,
epochs,
itself
(Unter-Schied),
better senses
that the
but the and
in errancy, the
are not
or worse of Being,
in which playing
In critical history,
rancy. The matter in virtue
the history
of Being
is the history
of er
the springing for the thought, up of the epochs is thereby of the withdrawal, let be. The history released, of the withdrawal is emancipated from the rule of of the effects telos and eschaton. from every Critical and hope, nostalgia history in Geschichte, in Geschick. the schicken the Geschehen releases
Thinking
one
true message, into truth, and is admitted meaning, (eingelassen) of the play, of the rising and passing the place of the unfolding up There remain and pass away of the epochs. only the coming-to-be the unfolding of the two of the epochal formations, ing away as a describable the issue of the Aus-trag, and best fold, only Spiel. a child-king the only arch?is it plays, Heidegger because says, Here who rules without ground without It why. and with
48 Der
Satz
vom Grund
(Pfullingen:
Neske,
1956),
186-88.
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546
wants Heidegger of the manifold folding Being teller's and truth. And to think the a-l?theia
JOHN D. CAPUTO
the un itself, senses the manifold of process or a story quarrel, or the other of these
prerogative,
to take
historical configurations, even with al?theia itself in the age of the Greeks. What matters for him is the matter for thought which is the mystery of what withdraws and shelters itself behind the epochs which itmakes possible. All there is (Es gibt) is the multi
ple truths and changing faces of presence, so that the matter for
an at Demythologizing Heidegger is, like all demythologizing, to avoid It separates out the contingent and mut tempt idolatry. across which metaphysics able structures stretches the abyss and it does so precisely in order to shelter what withdraws and to preserve
it in the mystery of its play. It sets the play of withdrawal deeper than the contingent configurations in which it issues. It puts the
play of the arche before the clearing the before the violence idols of hierarchy of presence.49 and the mystery of
Villanova University
49 That is why I think critique of metaphysics. there is an ethics of non-violence implicit in his
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