Gary,

I’ve been going through some of this stuff you’ve been posting on Heidegger and I’m getting confused. It seems contradictory, unconvincing, and doesn’t dispel my initial concerns. I’ll try to spell out my confusion.

Back on the 23rd of March, I talked about the conference and in relation to that, said something about Heidegger derived from one of the abstracts. I mentioned that, if Heidegger was as painted in that abstract, I could see why he might get enthusiastic about fascism. On the 28th I claimed that Heidegger was an existentialist because he was about completeness, about being instead of nothing.

Why my criticism misses its mark is that my view is couched in metaphysical language, in the language that in Being And Time Heidegger himself attempted to use. He used it to destroy modern Cartesian metaphysics, which turns on the distinction between subject and object. He couldn’t win from such a position – I think Hegel pointed out the general problem with such approaches somewhere. Thus, we conceive of humans and Being (no one has explained about the capital in ‘Being’ yet but never mind) as two distinct entities, as beings seeking Being, but for Heidegger Being isn’t something independent of beings and after which they might aspire.

So far so good, but here’s where it starts to get tricky for me. The older non-metaphysical language: phrases like ‘the throw of Being’ and ‘the call of Being’ are couched in this language. In particular ‘the language from Ereignis is more primordial than metaphysics and therefore not metaphysical.’ What is a language of Ereignis? You say that it is a language of events – ‘Ereignis’ means event, happening, something like that. It is in this language of events that claims of ‘the being “enowned” of humans through Being and in terms of the belonging of humans to Being’ make sense. Hmmm. The ‘belonging of humans to Being’ sounds to me pretty metaphysical in the subject-object sense. Perhaps you can explain.

As far as I understand the tradition of existentialism, it is a breaking with the ‘classic concept of “being” as an abstract pondering of existence’ for some sort of concept of ‘being-in-the-world’, whatever that means – I have a rough idea. Is the language of Ereignis is meant to be the language of being-in-the-world? The notion of authentic existence is key in existentialism. Either ‘enowning’ relates to this notion or it relates to ‘the belonging of humans to Being’, either its an event of authentic existence or it is about belonging in a basically religious (subject-object) sense.

Heidegger is not just for being-in-the-world – he’s for authenticity too. This latter notion is key to existentialism. That’s why Keith Ansell Pearson (in the article in the library) calls Klossowski’s approach ‘a superior kind of existentialism’, because of a notion he detects in Klossowski of the authenticity of dissolution. For him this notion is superior to the notion of ‘authentic existence’, or something like that

Now, if this view isn’t Heidegger’s then explain to me simply and clearly what it is that Heidegger is supposed to be saying. If it is Heidegger’s view, or close enough to Heidegger, then explain to me why this isn’t existentialism. Nothing you’ve said so far shows that it’s not existentialism. Okay, so there is some development from the 19th century stuff – Kierkegaard, Bultmann, etc. – to the 20th century stuff – Heidegger, Jaspers, Sarter, Merleau-Ponty, etc. In particular history gets a guernsey in the 20th century brand. Heidegger’s thought is often referred to as phenomenological existentialism. All right, I’ll wear that one, but not existentialism at all – I don’t come at that.

Anyway, let’s move on – if I’m getting anywhere with the stuff up till now, your April 27 contribution leaves me wondering. I’ll go through it and perhaps you can sort it out. I’ll skip the point about historical standpoints being ‘manifestations or embodiments of being itself’ and its obvious subject-object (i.e., metaphysical) language. According to your mate Tom, today ‘science determines the way in which we understand being or reality’. Further, ‘we must define [the inquiry into Being] in terms of the standpoint proper to science … in order to define the nature of an inquiry about being as being’ (a little ‘b’ has now replaced the big ‘B’ – is this accidental or deliberate?).

Okay, then reading on I find out that science is losing its status as the pinnacle of rationality and knowledge. This crisis of science is the occasion to reopen ‘the question of being’. Now I’m really lost. We have to define the inquiry into Being or being in terms of a standpoint proper to science, which has lost or is losing its epistemological status and its domination over reasoning. I don’t get it. It doesn’t make sense.

Then you compound the problem by saying that Heidegger engages in metaphysical reflection, which you earlier claimed he’s superseded or abandoned. Heidegger is doing metaphysics but it is everyday metaphysics, instead of scientific metaphysics. How does this metaphysics differ from science? You imply that everyday metaphysics isn’t bound by impartiality and objectivity, although you don’t actually say it. Perhaps you could spell this point out. Is Heidegger proposing a metaphysics of the gaps left by the procedures of science? Or is he proposing something more comprehensive than science?

I’m afraid that terms like ‘en-owning’ and ‘thrownness’, and big B Being and little b being, and being-in-the-world sound more than ever like the jargon of authenticity to me. I’d hazard a guess and say that most people don’t know what’s going on here. How come this approach is supposed to connect with real situations but ordinary understandings of being, et cetera, aren’t good enough? We must have this obscure non-metaphysical metaphysical language that is accessible only to a strictly limited group of specially informed and thus élite intellectuals. They can wank on about being-in-the-world precisely because they not in the world. They’re in some ivory tower. The comparative beauty of Marxism, as one example, is that it doesn’t require a special understanding of exploitation – the ordinary everyday sense will do just fine.

Of course, the meaning of this terminology of pre-scientific non-metaphysical metaphysics isn’t merely obscure. It’s obscure but it seems to people that they almost know what it means, and that’s it’s real danger. If they try very hard and they make an effort to be sympathetic, ordinary folk can sort of understand what the Heideggerians are saying, sort of. It all relies too much on the will to understand. In the very secular 20th century what better replacement for religion is there for those who want to fill the secular gap? Existentialism – it’s the religion you have when you’re not having a religion.

I’m sorry, but I’ve been reading all this stuff on Heidegger very closely for over a month now and it just doesn’t make sense. If I’m wrong please tell me exactly where I’m wrong and what the right answer is. I’m not trying to be smart. I’m trying to understand what it’s all supposed to be about.