The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics: Making Sense of Things (117 page)

47
Cf. ‘Truth’, §7. Cf. also Clark (
1990
), p. 19. But note that ‘in its own distinctive way’ is a crucial qualification. There is certainly a sense in which only beings, not Being, can be said to be: see e.g. ‘Time and Being’, pp. 3ff. and 18. (The phrase ‘let Being be’ is not Heidegger’s own. He talks of letting
beings
be. Both here and in the very title of this chapter I am taking a liberty. But the point is really just to indicate, however schematically, that Being can be made sense of and that making sense of Being ‘is itself a definite characteristic of
Dasein
’s Being’ (p. 32/p. 12, emphasis removed).)

48
See again the material in n. 19.

49
But not, obviously, on the interpretation of that image in terms of scientific beliefs to which I alluded at the beginning of the previous chapter.

50
Cf.
Introduction
, pp. 44–45, and
What Is Philosophy?
, pp. 67–69. Cf. also ‘Overcoming Metaphysics’, §IX, where he writes, ‘At first the overcoming of metaphysics can only be represented in terms of metaphysics itself, so to speak, in the manner of a heightening of itself through itself.’

51
At the same time, of course, they are symptomatic of a sense of what that work is. Heidegger is far from believing that these thinkers had
no
idea what form proper metaphysics should take. For a sympathetic account of how (e.g.) Kant began to give metaphysics suitable reorientation, see
Kant
, esp. §One.

52
For further discussion, see Sluga (
2004
).

53
Cf. ‘Overcoming Metaphysics’, §X, where he writes that technology includes ‘objectified nature, the business of culture, manufactured politics, and the gloss of ideals overlying everything.’

54
‘The labouring animal,’ Heidegger graphically writes, ‘is left to the giddy whirl of its products so that it may tear itself to pieces and annihilate itself in empty nothingness’ (‘Overcoming Metaphysics’, §III).

55
For helpful discussions of Heidegger on technology, see Cooper (
1996
),
Ch. 5
; Young (
2002
),
Ch. 3
, esp. pp. 44–55; and Pattison (
2005
),
Ch. 3
.

56
Here as in Kant, metaphysics as it should be is the only thing that can effectively be pitted against metaphysics of the misguided guide. Cf. ‘Overcoming Metaphysics’, §IX, where Heidegger himself makes the comparison with Kant. Cf. also the way in which ‘the essential unfolding of technology harbours
in itself
what we least suspect, the possible rise of the saving power’ (‘Technology’, p. 337, emphasis added).

57
Cf. Kant (
1998
), B21.

58
See e.g. Cooper (
1996
), p. 61. Cf. Young (
2002
), p. 30.

59
The German word translated as ‘overcoming’ is ‘
Überwindung
’. A striking fact, obscured by the translation that I have been using, is that this is the same word as that used by Carnap in the original title of Carnap (
1959
) where it is likewise coupled with ‘
der Metaphysik
’ – the whole phrase in that case being rendered ‘The Elimination of Metaphysics’. (This is the essay in which Carnap takes Heidegger to task for his pronouncements on ‘nothing’: see
Ch. 11
, §4(b). We shall return to this
casus belli
in the next section.) For helpful comments on Heidegger’s use of this word here, very relevant to the current issue, see Joan Stambaugh’s n. 1 to her translation.

60
Cf. Hodge (
1995
), pp. 176ff. See
Ch. 5
, n. 9, for something similar in Kant;
Ch. 9
, n. 15, for something similar in the early Wittgenstein (in that case with respect to the word ‘philosophy’ rather than the word ‘metaphysics’); and
Ch. 10
, §1, for something similar in the later Wittgenstein (again with respect to the word ‘philosophy’).

61
Cf. ‘What Is Metaphysics?’, pp. 106ff.;
Contributions
, §83; and
Introduction
, p. 44, where he writes that ‘our asking of the fundamental question of metaphysics … opens up the process of human
Dasein …
to unasked possibilities, futures, at the same time binds it back to its past beginning, so sharpening it and giving it weight in its present.’

62
In fact he does not believe that it can be straightforwardly discarded. In ‘Time and Being’, p. 24, he writes, ‘A regard for metaphysics,’ – by which, as his previous sentence indicates, he means bad metaphysics – ‘still prevails even in the intention to overcome metaphysics. Therefore, our task is to cease all overcoming, and leave metaphysics to itself.’ This bears directly on what I am about to say in the main text. For discussion, see Alweiss (
2007
).

63
Compare my definition of metaphysics as the most general attempt to make sense of things with Heidegger’s definition of it as ‘inquiry beyond or over beings, which aims to recover them as such and as a whole for our grasp’ (‘What Is Metaphysics?’, p. 106).

64
While we are at it, where does he stand on the other two questions? First, the Novelty Question. We have already noted Heidegger’s self-consciousness about his own neologizing (n. 1). This is in turn self-consciousness about his need to make sense of things in radically new ways, even, as he suggests, using a radically new ‘grammar’. For an especially clear statement of his friendliness towards radical conceptual innovation in metaphysics, see
History of the Concept of Time
, §4(d), where he writes, ‘It is not decisive, in philosophy, to deal with … things … by means of traditional concepts on the basis of an assumed traditional philosophical standpoint, but instead to disclose new domains of the matters themselves and to bring them under the jurisdiction of science by means of a productive concept formation.’ (Cf. also the final sentence of ‘The End of Philosophy’.) As for the Transcendence Question, there is a sense in which Heidegger does believe that metaphysicians have scope to make sense of what is transcendent, namely the sense, admittedly idiosyncratic, in which he believes that Being is transcendent – as indeed he does
Dasein
(see pp. 22 and 62/pp. 3 and 38, and
Basic Problems
, pp. 299–300). As we shall see, both of these stances bear directly on his stance on the Creativity Question.

65
Recall that even Carnap, to whose censure of Heidegger we shall shortly be turning, conceded that metaphysicians can be thought of as artists, albeit third-rate artists (
Ch. 11
, §5).

66
Cf. how the Creativity Question crumbled in Bergson’s hands: see
Ch. 16
, §6(c).

67
Cf.
The Principle of Reason
, p. 48, where he writes, ‘The metaphorical exists only within metaphysics.’

68
Heidegger is referring to the lecture that he has just given, i.e. the lecture of which this is the very last sentence

69
I have taken the liberty of retaining the original German ‘
Ereignis
’ in place of Joan Stambaugh’s rendering of it as ‘Appropriation’: see §4 above.

70
Cf. the previous note: this time I have taken the liberty of retaining the original German ‘
Ereignis
’ in place of Parvis Emad’s and Kenneth Maly’s rendering of it as ‘enowning’.

71
The hyphen here is to register that the original German word is not ‘
Sein
’, but the older ‘
Seyn
’. See Emad and Maly (
1999
), §I.2, for discussion of what difference Heidegger intends by this, or might intend by it.

72
See Cooper (
2002
), pp. 292ff. Cf. also Dahlstrom (
1994
).

73
Apart from what I am about to say in the main text, cf. Wittgenstein (
1980a
), p. 24, where we find: ‘I think I summed up my attitude to philosophy when I said: philosophy ought really to be written as a
poetic composition
’ (emphasis in original). Wittgenstein later adds, ‘I was thereby revealing myself as someone who cannot quite do what he would like to be able to do’ (ibid.). This too connects with what I am about to say in the main text.

74
Thus compare Heidegger’s claim, on p. 105 of his essay, that the ‘nothing’ is the origin of logical negation with Wittgenstein (
1961
), 5.552–5.5521, part of which appeared in the list of quotations above.

75
Cf. ‘Humanism’, p. 238, and ‘The Question of Being’, pp. 317–318.

76
Cf. Inwood (
1999b
). See also Glendinning (
2007
),
Ch. 3
, Pt III, whose conclusions I take to be very similar to mine, though they are not always expressed in the same way.

77
Cf.
Basic Problems
, where he urges that Being, though it
is
not, ‘is given’ (pp. 10–11 and 18).

78
This of course casts retrospective light on the reference to thinking at the end of the previous quotation, from ‘The Question of Being’.

79
This occurs in the passage quoted in
Ch. 11
, n. 39. See again the other material cited there.

80
A similar question arises with respect to the
Tractatus
, of course. In that case it is clear that nearly all of the book, if not all of it, must count as nonsense: see
Ch. 9
, n. 45.

81
Or is Heidegger committed to the view that only ‘whats’ that are present-at-hand can be the subject matter of propositions? No, not unless he is inconsistent: see §33 and p. 267/ p. 224. (What I have in mind from §33 is particularly early material. Later in the same section, at pp. 200–201/pp. 157–158, there is material which some commentators have taken to show that Heidegger does in fact believe that only ‘whats’ that are present-at-hand can be the subject matter of propositions. For references and a corrective, see Schear (
2007
).)

82
When I talk about the use of expressions here I am prescinding from the technical distinction that is sometimes drawn between using expressions and mentioning them. I shall return to this distinction in
Ch. 20
, Appendix.

83
How significant is it, incidentally, that I feel justified in putting it in these terms, as opposed to referring to the German word ‘
Sein
’?

84
See
History of the Concept of Time
, §5(c)(α). Cf.
Ch. 17
, §4.

85
That is why it is appropriate to talk about the world’s ‘existing’ (
Basic Problems
, p. 166). Cf.
Being and Time
, pp. 33–34/p. 13. (Cf. also Wittgenstein (
1961
), 5.621.)

86
Cf. Dreyfus (
1991
),
Ch. 1
.

87
This is truth on the conception of truth to which I alluded earlier, as that which allows that which shows itself to be seen.

88
Cf.
Basic Problems
, pp. 115–116. And cf. the material from Husserl (
1973a
) quoted in
Ch. 17
, §6.

89
I have taken the liberty of dropping John Macquarrie’s and Edward Robinson’s capitalization of ‘Interprets’ in their translation. For their policy on this matter, see their n. 3 on p. 19.

90
We noted parenthetically in §3 that Heidegger distinguishes between a person
qua
living and the person
qua
dead. Yet he also recognizes, not merely that something is common to each, but that some
being
is common to each. He says, ‘The end of the being
qua Dasein
is the beginning of
the same being qua
something present-at-hand’ (p. 281/p. 238, emphasis adapted). Cf. the material from Husserl (
1962
), §89, cited in n. 24 of the previous chapter.

91
There is admittedly something glib about this way of expressing the concern. But any difficulties that there may be in finding a more careful way of expressing it do not detract from what is problematical about Heidegger’s view; in fact they add to it.