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Demythologizing Heidegger: "Altheia" and the History of Being Author(s): John D.

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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DEMYTHOLOGIZING HEIDEGGER: ALETHEIAAND THE HISTORY OF BEING


JOHN D. CAPUTO

.Heidegger of Being story?which the history feel its way

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

of ontology." back through

at the end, with Kant, Beginning the tradition in a deconstructive

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

Gestell, the enframing,


its grip. The end is not an eschaton, a dead end

the "end of philosophy," which holds us all in


conceived into which breakthrough has run. The but task as of

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

in order to find there the secret to a New Dawn.3


a raised keeps awareness its distance of the oblivion from historical and

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

its inextinguishability of any sort. hierarchies in a turn toward the obliv

purports the epochs view

"present." and presence This, degger, too

in question. I argue, makes longer for late

for

rather

a more

liberated bind between

one no

nings, god to save us. a Greek word. from

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

two begin for a waiting

to any belonging or any other the Greek the

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.

C. Och 1971), & Row,

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

turns on his analysis of the history of truth and al?theia,


of the present at the body Then, study. I will reexamine the question of Heideg after all, be reinscribed the within cannot,

forms

of a critical

In the nity which back The in Being Kant into whole

later writings and Time

the privilege is surrendered was

which and

was the

accorded transcendental

moder de

termination

of time defended
was

there is rejected.

The very thing for

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,

for the thinking


thus

subject which

sets itself up as the measure

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

the recent publication


Greek experience the

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

by the two beginnings,

of privilege

tions, of the history the assertion truth

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

ception, which goes all the way back to the beginning


in Plato grounding. hardly check and Aristotle, No attempt true today be made against

of philosophy
and self could as "a

every

to verify it?we it?but it is taken

kind of eidetic
argues,

insight into what

truth must be."11 Yet, Heidegger

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

of truth has a concealed ground


der Philosphie. der Philosophie,

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

523 How did it

and Aristotle.

For when
limits, form

they formulated
down

this "definition" of truth, they set off its


for philosophy's Their recourse purposes, and intro

to size

duced a formula which


across the

could be handed down in a decontextualized


to conceptualizing

centuries.

thinking cut this formulation


Greek things Aristotle experience appear

off from its living context, from the

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

today only to correctness. way: view that

do not hear of open

the Greeks arises

assertions ness that But the

in a fully Greek and presupposes The Greek

the correctness and

the manifestness

of entities truth

themselves.

is homoiosis the shorthand,

only full experience.12

all along presupposes it is first and foremost because openness. was handed version down, not stenographic

Thus the "precision" which Plato and Aristotle


at a dangerous its point essence

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,

ceptualizations of truth Aristotle. This had is not

light of their antecedents,


in the Greeks

in light of the early Greeks.


be seen to stretch

The history
to

from Anaximander

formulated

to say, however, a notion of truth

that the early Greeks themselves as un-concealment. That was not

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

Now all of this takes place within


sichtskreis)15 of the open space being itself, not its unconcealment, as the realm of unconcealment horizon, of Being al?theia To have their Being, the unconceived unfolds. realm, It was not which is the within for

the horizon
is thematized.

(Umkreis, Ge
But it is the Al?theia the implicit of

of unconcealment.

concealed which

clue, the Greek the

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

And the only way


again they

to do this is to do again what


thought. For We must recapture for

they did, to think


the wonder of the

beginning
back and

by experiencing
see what

again the wonder


not in their

that the being is in its


means to see to go the experience,

unconcealment.

us?though was at work

them?that

implicit

clue which

functioned

in and enlivened

the beginning,

13 Grundfragen 14 Grundfragen 15 Grundfragen 16 Ibid.

der Philosopie, der Philosopie, der Philosopie,

??30-33. ??36-39. 147.

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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

they of Heidegger's pieces a middle, It has a beginning, will effect

in

if it can begin as pres

a genuine end, The early Greeks

a transition the being

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

oblivion set in with


tened as veritas, and

a fury and al?theia got Romanized


then modernized

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

For the early Greeks


as it rises into unconcealment

had the
and

to stay with which be today

to resist the explanatory mode of thinking


and Aristotle let the being we is what at this to dominate as in its presence must learn moment ending

(Erkl?ren)

introduced by

the being.18 Instead, it stands forth unconcealed. at the end this of this is not leaves a

tradition, Romantic us hanging

story in suspense.

dangerous a happy with

to do again, of decision. but a modern

So, one which

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,

falling out from the early experience,


Being?because of all the success not dominating beings?arises own withdrawal which Being's 17 Grundfragen 18 Grundfragen

this lack of a need to think


and prestige us but from best witness which come It is Being. to Being

from

bears

the

der Philosopie, der Philosopie,

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

beginning, end, the task

make questionable
flattened out into

what

at the end of this long tradition has been


a tautology. Think

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

itself they would


destiny. as al?theia Their

have been deflected


was to think

from their own historical


its unconcealment

the being within

(on/al?theia)

not al?theia as such (al?theia as al?theia).


provides the space of play which

Inasmuch
early Greek

thinking unfolds, to put that question


space tions is when opening that, as looked."21 subsequently life unfolds. and to disrupt it is not itself the that historical a manifest like a hidden clue, not to be found, when whose sole function "al?theia itself cannot within

itself would be to shatter that


form of life.20 Al?theia func it theme. it constitutes Al?theia the is what silence

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 Greeks experienced


self-showing. the phenomenality But

the phenomenality
left something out. being presupposes

of the being, its radiant


For the the experience of openness of the

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

to Being Being, as such).

Now
definition

the story runs like this:


of truth as the correctness

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

history of truth from Anaximander


taken, an implicit, unconceived, unformulated

to Aristotle,
clearing. horizon.

is the second step


open remains got to The Greeks

phenomenality

but they never named the clearing

itself:

23 Unterwegs trans. Language,

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 thus both Greek and not Greek, and


importance. of his thought, For from it prevents enclosing Hei the

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.

In the first, let us call it the


of the being, cm/al?th or later Greek radical on, to experi sense,

sense, phenomenal its self-showing is present (what to an object to its reduction eia), prior

the phenomenality in its unconcealment,

an object for a thinking subject. ence. In the second let us call sense, al?theia very the able means

of an assertion, is a historical, That it here realm its more

granting the introduce emergence concealment. In the

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

sense, In the that

al?theia of what second granting

means

the

unconcealment the self-showing is withheld presence of sight, it means This

which being, from the

adheres phainesthai. Greeks,

to the presence it means that epoch

sense,

is present, which bestows out

which always takes

nomenality, which every process which

which, opening of presence the epochs

in its phe is that within that a-lethic sense of

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

early Greek the epoch of


it means epoch, the even

the early Greek epoch.


presence; second,

More simply still, in the first case itmeans


grants On presence. to Language, 39.

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

presence, opens up)

grants

nomenality). breaks hyphen

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

tion of his interpretation


Plato's to Plato prior own writings comes concealment concedes statements that that

of Plato.25
meant

Heidegger

had written
al?theia But

in 1943
in as un

al?theia to mean

a transition orthotes

unconcealedness, in which begins or correctness. in the sense of the

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

To get this straight


issues. contains

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

as to whether philological is still

isch) issue, and on this point Heidegger


nothing any the other here, case, what Heidegger the outcome by although is after

is probably right, and he has


not be affected issue. on. going one way

of the etymological

Secondly,

there

is the question of linguistic usage


25 For a careful

(another

issue for the science of

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

out Plato as bearing the responsibility


the of correctness. truth no But this indeed thinks as un-concealment, one uses al?theia or everyday

for using the word al?theia


is so, but not because because Plato Heidegger whether always

in
did

now in is

as

un-concealment, That and after

poetic, philosophical in the sense of correctness, used

usage. before

is, truth Plato.

Finally, has nothing


the tract only

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

one Heidegger He anything.

thought, cealment. but with translate means

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

The natural in the philosophy As a "natural

concept of truth does not mean of the Greeks either.28

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.

If you ask the Greeks what


correctness,

al?theia

say always they will and phenomenality cealment nor anyone language, of presence: else will among

Greeks natural opening

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

27 Zur Sache 28 Zur Sache

des Denkens, des Denkens,

76; On Time IT, On Time

and Being, and Being,

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,

of presence relation a particular historical names the a-lethic process

and age, which

thought an epoch grants

presence
Being

(Being) and truth.


and all

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

cannot be contained thought, is what it itself because epoch

in, or show up in, some an historical contains

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

is saying that as such. What less than

any given a-l?theia?

necessary, failure does

that

even

the

Greeks

failed to hear their own word al?theia.


the withdrawal

That follows from


not arise of what from grants

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

is not the shining presence

of the present

but the opening which

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

encapsulated matter for we

thought

by Heidegger unless:

al?theia experience above and beyond then,

in a Greek the Greek,

manner as unconcealment and think it as the opening of self

concealing.33

Notice

the

two

the al?theia, ence of al?theia

steps: separate return to the ancient

(1) first,

the Greek

(2) then, that tion of Being, historical language open, within we which

as phainesthai, the movement beyond historical called every

and beginnings the shining of appearances; gleam that historical, determina epochal of Being and truth, that experience

of experience the Greek experi

Greek, historical

to a-l?theia, of the the opening occurs and by which it is epoch of the

granted. Now

can

identify

the

historical

"privilege"

early

Greeks:

they are the privileged

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

is ante-historical, cannot which of history, as the open leaves a-l?theia

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

this claim stick, given the gulf


of the phenomenality of Being in

the historical

experience

32 Zur Sache 33 Zur Sache


mine.

des Denkens, des Denkens,

71. 78; On Time and Being, 71. Emphasis 79; On Time and Being,

is

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HEIDEGGER DEMYTHOLOGIZING the Greeks


a-l?theia marked other? as by How

533
of
any as a of presence opening, be more than serve

(al?theia in the first sense) and the ante-historicality


the opening? the opening, can anything answer How bear can any traces possible in terms more epoch of the

made

by the opening of a kind

privileged

clue to the opening?


comes of phenomenology element within

Heidegger's

of horizonality.
epochs which made present. remains even as of Being

The history of theWest


and presence unfolds, epochs and the and open

is the history of successive


is the a clearing in which is to the Anaximander structure always But as a-l?theia, overlooked? the

a-l?theia space

that history for the various But out

of presence?from of its very way is in a certain functioning.

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

inside the very history which


as thought something implicitly, as such. After of phenomenology functional clues but co-given is no paradox

it is otherwise

supposed to

namely, but not

achievements

prethematically experi all, it is one of the funda to have shown how the at work in experience are,

unthematic, not "given" what

horizontal, or perceived, is thematic. There

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,

the Being of beings,

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,

and then passed on in its dehydrated


its nourishing sense,

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

knows all this about the early Greeks.


matter,

He denies
histor

is a factual, historical or "historical research have

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

(which, privative ing of the word

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

of the history of Being.34 an issue-oriented But such amounts to a declaration

Greeks

(sach-lich) about what

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.

because have meant, notion from a deeper

the "very notion" of un-concealment.

of the reading the early Greeks of truth as correctness In other

But this a priori history


In the genetic fallacy to the historical something one

is but the flip side of the genetic


tries to reduce circumstances

fallacy.
of its

or meaning the validity it arises; under which

historisch
Heidegger as truth there esis. for

origin
follows

is taken to be the basis of its sachlich validity.


the

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

for its condition


must Now

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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HEIDEGGER 535 DEMYTHOLOGIZING


does yield itself up under And a deeper historical meditation (geschicht that is the very essence of a transcendental

liche Besinnung). history.

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

we meditate be able power

then we must of elemental

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.

It is not very difficult to find places where Heidegger


mythic anthem early Greek firestorm:

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

thing sounds a little like Camelot: "one brief shining


all. (Camelot itself is a grand and enduring story, a

point to which
easy

Iwill return at the end.)


to debunk?if that is really

But it is rather a tall story


required. One would not

Technik

und

Technology,

die Kehre 34.

(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

the divided table slaves stones

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

would have had very different


history of power instead of

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

Joyce, In fact, Heidegger

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

can bring can match. But

them

and

scriptures,

and meditatively to the writings of the in them

to listen it is possible muse over many eastern voice,

mystics?and structure.

to hear

a deeper view

to medieval thinkers, in them a deeper find not weak

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.

We do our best teaching and learning

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

of Heidegger. Hence once he has been

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

cause it is that which


because it is that which

grants
grants

the epochs of truth.


Being and presence.

It is not Being
Demytholo

gizing Heidegger
which springing un-folding says, its notes for grants the

drives us back to the extremity

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

On this reading, Heidegger's


original mark of departure. point off three stages along

thought comes back full circle to


In Vier the path the seminar Seminare, The first of thought.38

is the attempt

to think the meaning


which up because

of the Being of beings, to put its


organizes of Being projection is too closely tied "meaning" Then the effort subjectivity. any

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

It is that middle period as if the truth of Being


historical as people if Being to actually actually think the

its truth," is the

the seminar says, Finally, of Being, its Ortschaft, "place" themselves and time play out,

there the and open

attempt space within the guideword

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

Being but only the unfolding

of the many meanings

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

I say that Heidegger


three, character

has come full circle here, that there is but


because "path I want of the to deny the develop of thought," but because I

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

that all there is, is the multiple


senses, He meanings,

senses, the
of Being. a reduc

The truth of Being is the delimitation


of truths epochs. began

of truth and the proliferation


by trying to make

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

every epoch is equally epochal,


drawal, and no epoch

inhabited by the structure of with


On this accounting, "his

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

gibt, Austrag?which which the present

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

the effect of this discovery


the epochs the of presence of any effect conception

is not to rush headlong


from radiant splendor

into
of

the early Greeks


cisely has been to see how

to the filthy smokestacks


prestige Its

of the Gestell, but pre


of presence epoch to drive us from a As no rule something epoch has

compromised. to a critical memorializing and given, granted more than transient The only rule

particular is therefore

as a partial authority,

sending no epoch

of history. of presence, sets the

for another.

according dike means

the epochs to Heidegger's to precisely

recognize fabulous let

is the

reading the moments

rule of justice, of dike, of Anaximander, where of presence while away.

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

And the thought of the clearing delimits


time decades

the prestige
up Kuhn, in

which something epoch, In the 1930s, himself. Heidegger

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

judgment which conflates two different epochs of presence.40


39 Holzwege, 40 Grundfrage
117-18.

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

surable") each other. is as speare. nominal rel. We

"worlds"

nonsensical The

To compare Aristotle as it would be among

into meaningless and Galileo directly to the rank various Aeschylus names

competition of the various unities have neither the

of presence, epochs nor the means right

of Being, the a lovers' quar is to evaluate the

epochs.41 It is important ger is not engaged instead solubility coming zur Macht. engaged of all

to see

that, more

in a search

critically for the master

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

ousia, esse, res, Geist, Wille of the epochs of presence

is to delimit
and while ence. shelter itself And

the authority

of all the names of Being and to preserve

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,

to let Being waver


according Time. dence become into It is to make

in questionability,
demand has that which

tremble
of the first

in irresolvability,

to the memorable

an uneasy questionability, a matter of unquestioning

congealed to transform assent

of Being and pages into an easy self-evi that which has into a

(Fraglosigkeit)

matter

of the deepest questionability

(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).

(rather like the contingent


An

necessity

of which
than over in then are The set his

a temporary whose beings, check.

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

tory of Being is the "forgetting"


known. The epochs of presence

(l?th?) of something
are temporary

that never was


ways of filling

41 Zur Sache 42 Holzwege,

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

which finally commits


that is why

it back to the flux.


the best of presence history be used to play the epochs of the other, of the other, in an effort, not to humble thinking is off

not memorializing. It should to let each be the corrective other, successes

of one with the pretensions on the other, stories critical the horizons any one as to keep in particular. critical.

to put down the to use one to tell so much to fuse of it is

stories, each in check, Historical

the pretensions but

is necessary

necessarily

IV

Only

now

is it possible

to make

room

for Heidegger's

stories?

having
history. The could

first delimited

them and situated

them within

a critical

Demythologizing narratival impulse not have done without

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

of ontology" of the history gave Being no mere "existentialist" treatise could

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

epical (epochal?). a whit this without

extremely because sarcasm,

remark within
torical objectivity

a metaphysical
and fanciful

opposition
artifacts,

of truth and fiction, his


unprejudiced factual ac

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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542 (hi)stories which


persuasive power. has Heidegger one with nology, H?lderlin-ish

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

conveniently the early Greek

infant mortality
women

rate to the place it accorded


to have

(or better, denied) to

story telling. ought a master with story-teller

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

everything of logos. frontation with sense

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

coming from modernity,


of view. from thinker decision, Heidegger's his own time, his regards an eschaton of a new

but this time with a radically critical point


his own time, great Every a point of point, and a new be sees

of history reading begins with about the needs of his time. time as as needy, between a turning destruction

wavering

ginning,
dawn

and wonders whether


day. Everybody

this darkest night of all is to be the


looks back upon the past and it

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

But the point of such story-telling


way the pretensions

is essentially

critical.

It is a
that

of the present,

of the powers

43 Sein und Zeit, ?69c. 44 der Philosophie, Grundfrage

?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

lay claim Such historical airs

means thinking of ahistorical importance genealogy

earthly

of everyone

purports to have dropped from the sky. Heidegger


calls

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

(an-wesen, verbally) the way that presence

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,

but not the granting

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

the Es descended illusions

something in our day. It is which is in

of mastery. arrogance, he tells dangerous times, more better, gentle, when

dangerous, tale of another

pretentiousness the danger for us time when things

and in our were

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

pace Heidegger, America. North which we do not

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

The thing (die Sache!) is not to be encumbered by the additional


unnecessary singular privi

45 Technology, Question Concerning 46 Poetry, Language, Thought, 7.

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

produced of the being

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

step, extra-ordinary, assume the that and shoving and

Greeks

exhibited and that

of pushing water into

everydayness energy, which

Tha?es would have been just delighted


how to convert hydroelectrical

if someone had taught him


is some

thing he believed possible


details at hand). not It was let us a sheer Therefore, good story, about treat

in principle
ever thus. this account

anyway
of because but which correlate. the

(without having the


as a early Greeks it exploits certain at the Let same us time is remember

fabrication, world,

things not tied that all

the pre-technical to some historical,

good of

Memorial big part

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,

and inch Heidegger

a little closer to Plato


That I think from thought

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

of too many accomplished


more than

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

Greek and afraid of being in bad faith if we buy a computer.


Now powerful that is an as Heidegger's off which undeservedly to suffer. end ignoble In its place and for we as thinking a critical put

history which
marks robustly names of Being, drawal and mutatis

sets about the work of epochal delimitation,


the epochality shows how

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,

in accord with Difference


which wander that about there are

itself

(Unter-Schied),
better senses

that the
but the and

in errancy, the

are not

or worse of Being,

only different, manifold ways many truths,

in which playing

only the manifold two-fold unfolds, out in endless themselves

many Beings self-differentiation.

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

is released from the hermeneutic

demand to decipher the

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

plays out why.48

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

of presence, epochs he makes it a lovers' sides with one

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

thought is to be "located" in the a-lethic process place (Ortschaft) of presence.

itself, the dwelling

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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