Sigetics
Sigetik (too ancient Greek. Σιγᾶν (sigân) = to remain silent) is a philosophical technical term that can be roughly translated as "doctrine of silence". The term is occasionally used in the context of traditions of mysticism or negative theology , but mostly refers to the use by Martin Heidegger . He had emphasized that "being itself can never be said directly". In this respect, "Sigetik" takes the place of a " logic " based on statements about beings .
Heidegger's Critique of Traditional Metaphysics
When Heidegger replaces “logic” (speech / word teaching) with “sigetics” (silence teaching), this refers to his criticism of traditional conceptions of how language relates to objects: in traditional metaphysical positions these are understood as well-defined objects that are stable over time and that are objectively given - "present". Here, for example, Heidegger's criticism of Plato comes in: his concept of ideas presupposes that one refers to objects as “brought to a state” - while Heidegger is concerned with an analysis of those structures that make this objectifying reference possible at all. The stability of metaphysical order schemes is understood as future, for example, compared to the practical and meaningful understandings and circumstances (Heidegger calls them “world” as a whole) that we associate with things. A stable “knowing subject” of the same type of “rational beings in general” with well-definable cognitive faculties and schemes, for example, is again understood to be future-oriented in relation to dynamic structural conditions, including in particular the enabling conditions that Heidegger identified as “temporality” for time positions for oneself and other objects and ascribing permanence. Furthermore, Heidegger differentiates between different modes (“existentials”) to refer to the whole of “world”, criticizes calculating, technical-utility-calculating, objectifying approaches and explains their predominance in terms of time diagnostics. Against this background, he sees attempts at theory of traditional metaphysics as inadmissible narrowing, because they are only oriented towards "existing", imagined, existing objects - "being", and answers every question about the meaning and origin of beings to the effect that they are Describes “being” as a principle cause following the pattern of other beings. In order to make these and other differences in his method, which he at times called “ fundamental ontology ” in contrast to “ontic” modes of description, recognizable, Heidegger speaks of “being” - which means that dynamic, process-like structure that is understood as the origin of beings becomes. This dynamic relation to time is expressed in expressions such as “essence of being”, whereby “essence” is not meant in the sense of a static essence, but is to be read verbally-procedurally: the being “west” (and is not of this essence as a stable one Object can be lifted). Heidegger also speaks of "event" and refers to this. a. also to the temporal constitution depending on its own subjective relation. This origin, “being”, remains misunderstood and misunderstood by traditional metaphysical approaches - instead, philosophy has to think and say a “different beginning”.
Heidegger's language criticism and Sigetik
Both the theoretical language of philosophy, referring to the naming of already existing things, as well as the everyday language (whatever culture) are "increasingly widely used and talked to death". “Being” cannot be named using conventional ways of speaking. In particular, the essence of language is not actually described by the logic in the traditional sense, which is based on the propositional sentence, but the essence that establishes and enables it is in turn identified as “Sigetics”. The reproduction as a “doctrine of silence” is misleading insofar as Heidegger's question about the meaning of “being” cannot be locked into a rule-based “school subject” - if only “because we do not know the truth of being” (but it ever only "he-owns"). Instead, it is about a more original way of speaking compared to statements of facts, which Heidegger simply calls "saying": "Saying does not describe anything that is present, does not tell the past and does not anticipate the future". In general: “We can never say being itself ... directly. Because every legend comes from being ”. Every saying is, as it were, already too late - and refers back to its origin, which can only be identified ex-negativo as the silence which preceded this saying and which would therefore alone be appropriate to it. Heidegger is not concerned with mere silence (“keeping quiet”), but with a reference (“naming”) to what is actually to be said in “silence”: “The highest intellectual saying consists in not simply keeping silent about what is actually to be said in saying but to say it in such a way that it is called in non-saying: the saying of thinking is a silence. This saying also corresponds to the deepest essence of language, which has its origin in silence. "Heidegger sees examples in the poetry: Trakls Im Dunkel begins with the verse" The soul is silent, the blue spring "- Heidegger adds:" The soul sings it by keeping him silent ”; Heidegger comments on the phrase “ one gender” blocked by Trakl : this “ hides the basic tone from which the poem ... the secret is silent ... In the emphasized ' one gender' hides that unity, that of the gathering blue of the spiritual night unites. ”The dynamic of silence and telling follows the structure otherwise described by Heidegger (for example in the origin of the work of art ) as“ concealment ”and“ revelation ”. “Silence” is not a mere breaking off of linguistic quality, but means the event of being related to “being” itself: “The basic experience is not the statement ... but the behavior against the hesitant failure in truth ... of need from which the necessity of the decision arises ”. In formulations like this that are typical of Heidegger's late work, not only is almost every word a specific Heidegger term, whose meaningfulness requires knowledge of his earlier writings - in addition, Heidegger's late work seeks a dense, almost poetic style. One has spoken of a “style of event-historical thinking” and identified this with sigetics.
Individual evidence
- ↑ So z. B. in G. Wohlfart / J. Kreuzer: Art. Schweigen, Stille, in: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Vol. 8, pp. 1483–1495, here 1486 with reference to Proklos
- ↑ GA 65, p. 78f
- ↑ GA 65, p. 78
- ↑ GA 65, p. 79
- ↑ GA 65, 79
- ↑ GA 65, 79: "The essence of logic is therefore the Sigetics."
- ↑ GA 65, 78f
- ↑ History of Being, 29
- ↑ GA 65, 79
- ^ Heidegger: Nietzsche, Vol. 1, 471f; on the specific meaning of “thinking” in this formulation see e.g. GA 8: What does thinking mean?
- ↑ GA 12, 79
- ↑ GA 26, 78
- ↑ GA 65, 80, emphasis removed
- ↑ So z. B. Richard Sembera: On the way to the evening country - Heidegger's Sprachweg zu Georg Trakl, Diss. Freiburg i. Br., SS 2002 (at F.-W. von Herrmann), p. 51 ff.