What is metaphysics?

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What is metaphysics? is the title of a lecture given by Martin Heidegger on July 24, 1929. It is Heidegger's inaugural public lecture, who at that time took over Husserl's chair at Freiburg University .

In the lecture Heidegger defines the human being as the being who asks about the whole in metaphysics . He deals with the relationship between philosophy and science by addressing their relationship to nothing . It turns out that the "basic question" of philosophy and thus also of science is motivated by nothingness: "Why is there being and not rather nothing?" Since logic proves to be unsuitable for understanding nothing, Heidegger rejects it as the central method of metaphysics.

The lecture represents an important transition between thinking from “ Being and Time ” and Heidegger's late work. Its importance can also be gauged from the fact that Heidegger later wrote an afterword in 1943 and an introduction in 1949, in which he interpreted himself.

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The initial question

Heidegger begins the lecture with the development of what it means to ask metaphysically. According to him, two things determine this question: it is the person who asks and he asks not about a single thing, but about the whole. Heidegger counters the sciences as a comparison. These ask about individual aspects, they don't ask about being as a whole, but about being. Accordingly, they pursue their research in separate disciplines. The scientific procedure can be characterized by the following three points:

  • Reference to the world: The sciences relate to beings.
  • Attitude: Your approach is determined by the object of investigation, for this you abstract from people.
  • Break-in: Science is carried out as a systematic exposure of beings.

Heidegger now uses a formulation that initially looks like a language game to establish a preliminary relationship between metaphysics and science by stating: “Only beings should be explored [through science] and nothing else; beings alone and further - nothing; […] Is it a coincidence that we speak that way all by ourselves? ”He maintains that if science ignores nothingness, it addresses it as“ unscientific ”and defines itself precisely with its help.

The nothing

In order to understand whether this is just a way of speaking or whether there is actually a reference to nothing, it must be clarified what is meant by “nothing”. Obviously, according to Heidegger, it is not enough to think of nothingness as the negation of a being, because then it would be defined precisely by what constitutes its opposite. Heidegger makes this statement with a certain reservation, because it is a logical contradiction that shows up here. The role of logic has yet to be decided.

Even a conception that presents nothing as the negation of the whole turns out to be unsuitable for Heidegger, because the whole is never accessible to us as finite beings as a whole . In addition, it would again be a matter of the mind to imagine the whole thing and to deny it. Instead, Heidegger would rather seek out an experience of nothingness. On the level of experience, according to Heidegger, the whole can also be understood as something in the midst of which we are. Here, however, not through the mind, but through moods and sensitivities. For example, in boredom, all things and possibilities move away from us as uninteresting. Likewise, in the mood of joy in the presence of a loved one, the whole in the midst of which we are can be revealed to us.

These moods, however, make the whole thing more important for us, they do not reveal the nothing. The mood that opens up nothing as such , on the other hand , is fear for Heidegger . Unlike fear of something, it is not directed towards something specific, but in it becomes uncanny and the world loses its significance, it becomes indifferent, it is “nothing” for us. Nothing is therefore not grasped in fear, but encountered . For this it is dependent on beings: it shows itself precisely in beings sinking into insignificance. Resistance, failure, closure and refusal of the world is a basic experience for Heidegger that is part of being human. It is the basic experience of nothing in fear. For Heidegger, nothing is therefore nothing abstract, but a concrete experience, which he wants to express in the drastic formulation that man is "held into nothing".

In the following, however, Heidegger does not speak of the “experience of nothing” but of “nothing” - a formulation that was taken offense. However, this has its reasons in Heidegger's efforts to overcome modern subjectivism . It is not a subject who moves away from the world in fear, but rather the world moves away from man, its withdrawal is not in his power. Heidegger describes this moving away from the world as inactivity : “This overall rejection of the slipping being as a whole, as which nothingness in fear forces existence [ie man] around, is the essence of nothingness: inactivity.” Mood fear is nothing that you could consciously evoke, it overwhelms you: "We are so finite that we are not able to bring ourselves to nothing through our own resolve and will." For Heidegger, therefore, it is no mere linguistic sophistication, by substantiating “not” to “the nothing” to withdraw this from the availability of a subject and to say: “The nothing itself does not.”

The experience of nothingness and fear made in practical contact with the world is therefore not one produced by a subject. It also now shows why nothing cannot be understood from the intellectual function of negation: this would be a subject's ability to precede any relation to the world. For the negation, however, the human being is much more dependent on the more original experience of nothing, because the negation is only possible in advance of the nothing. Since experience is also nothing that he can bring about, but rather the nothing that does not do, the negation arises from the nothing: “The not arises from the negation, but the negation is based on the not, that of the annihilation of the nothing arises. "

Inferences

The investigation had shown how fear lets you experience nothing: things are no longer interesting, stimulating, inviting - although they do not "disappear" as a result. That is why Heidegger says that nothing shows itself in beings. With this, however, logic, which rejected such a connection between beings and nothing as contradicting itself, is obviously not to be accorded a preferred position as a method of metaphysics.

Since nothing shows itself in beings, Heidegger assigns it to the being of this being. However, he distinguishes himself from Hegel , who equated nothing and being (“Pure being and pure nothing is therefore the same thing.” Hegel: Science of Logic I. Book WW III, p. 78 ). Hegel made this equation, since being and nothing are both undifferentiated in their absoluteness; both concepts are equally abstract and empty. For Heidegger, on the other hand, being and nothing belong together, since both depend on people in order to reveal themselves: only people know that being is and only they experience nothing. Because of this dependence of nothingness on people, Heidegger also calls people the "placeholder for nothing."

Since nothing does not concern an individual being, but rather the being as a whole, the question of nothing is a metaphysical one. If being as a whole is only revealed through fear and nothingness, then nothing is obviously a prerequisite for the delimitation of science, which only relates to beings - because only when the whole is brought into view can be determined that one only refers to individual things. Science thus remains dependent on nothingness in its self-understanding and thus on metaphysics.

In addition, it had been shown that intellectual negation depends on nothing (the more primal experience of nothing) and not the other way around. Therefore, science remains dependent on nothing for its questioning practice, because only the amazement about nothing brings the question of why on the way: "Why is there at all and not rather nothing?"

criticism

Rudolf Carnap criticized two aspects of Heidegger's speech. On the one hand, this is the usage of the word. He notes that "not" represents an impermissible word formation in the sense of everyday use: "Here [...] we have one of the rare cases in front of us where a new word is introduced that has no meaning from the start." In addition, modern logic has shown that the term “nothing” is neither a noun nor a verb, but that the logical form of the term is determined solely by existential quantification and negation. Carnap's main point of criticism, however, is that Heidegger rejects the central position of logic and natural science. This point is more of a political than a philosophical dimension, because Carnap worries that Heidegger's "metaphysical teaching [...] currently exerts the strongest influence in Germany." He saw his criticism of Heidegger as a necessary component of a comprehensive social, political and cultural struggle against metaphysics.

In an afterword to his essay, Carnap refers to similar criticism from Oskar Kraus , which had already been expressed before him : “Science would be ridiculous if it took it [nothing] seriously. Because nothing threatens the reputation of all philosophical science more seriously than the re-launch of that nothing and everything philosophy. ”He also quotes David Hilbert :“ In a more recent philosophical lecture I find the sentence: 'Nothing is the absolute negation of the totality of beings . ' This sentence is instructive because, despite its brevity, it illustrates all the main violations of the principles set out in my proof theory. "Carnap does not mention Richard Hönigswald's polemical criticism, which was also expressed before him :" Incomparable as it is , "Nothing" breeds comforting fear by, as the obvious and precisely for that reason surprising expression, "does not" go. “It is therefore more original than the not and the negation.” - However, such insights, as one recognizes on closer inspection, elude any concern. They are, as it were, beyond his conditions and competencies. Because concerns always mean questions; How far questions now reach into the uncanny depths of "nothing" at all cannot be determined in principle. "

Accompanying words

Heidegger wrote an afterword in 1943 and an introduction to “What is Metaphysics?” In 1949 , in which he deals with the criticism of his lecture and at the same time makes a self-interpretation of his thinking. While the original lecture from 1929 falls at a time in which Heidegger is still transitioning from his fundamental ontological approach to a metaphysics of existence , the two accompanying words come from the time after the turn that has now taken place . From now on Heidegger no longer tries, as he did in “Being and Time” , to clarify the meaning of being by tracing back to Dasein and its existentials. Heidegger later found this approach too 'subjectivistic'. Instead, he tries to think of truth as the self-fulfillment of being: Truth does indeed take place 'in' man (as the clearing of being), but no longer 'through' him as a subject: it is now the processing of being itself. This he calls the "Truth of Being."

While the afterword emphasizes the ontological difference , the focus of the introduction is on the truth of being. In the introduction, Heidegger tries to show in the form of a self-interpretation that the starting points must already have been present in “Being and Time” which later led him to the question of the truth of being. The subsequent and reinterpretation of Heidegger's self-interpretation shows that for him philosophy consists above all in execution: Since there is no solid ground on which a philosophy can be based (e.g. a subject ), "Being and Time" began with to carry out a movement in hermeneutic circles that gradually reveals Dasein and its existentials and on this basis helps to understand the meaning of being. Unlike in “Being and Time”, however , the movement after Heidegger's departure from fundamental ontology no longer forms a spiral, but rather a loop that no longer looks for a foundation for the ontology as it declines along the history of being . She asks instead, then what happened to the man himself, as a metaphysical essence which being locked and entbirgt, in the course of history of being done . As part of this movement, Heidegger himself is consequently involved in the history of being, so he does not take a point of view that is removed from everything. Showing this is also the task of self-interpretation. Nonetheless, his philosophy has a certain special position, since in it the process of hiding and uncovering being itself becomes the topic for the first time, making it possible for the first time to overcome metaphysics. However, Heidegger cannot credit himself with this as it was only the fate of being that led him to this.

Epilogue (1943)

In the afterword written in 1943, Heidegger interprets his lecture as tending towards overcoming metaphysics, even if the lecture was still written in the language of metaphysics itself. For Heidegger, this is already indicated by the title, which with the question “What is metaphysics?” Asks beyond metaphysics. Heidegger interprets this question in such a way that it already asks about the basis of metaphysics. He sees this reason for metaphysics in the fact that metaphysics only asks about beings, but not about being, i.e. forgets the ontological difference .

If one now poses the question about metaphysics, then it asks beyond the object of metaphysics, the being, about being itself. To clarify this, Heidegger even went so far as to write in the afterword of 1943: "that that Being is well known without being, but that there is never a being without being. ”This formulation radicalizes the ontological difference up to its dissolution. Heidegger withdrew the statement in later editions: "That being never exists without being, that there is never a being without being."

Heidegger discusses three allegations in this epilogue:

  1. Due to the central position of nothing in metaphysics, the lecture is a testimony to nihilism .
  2. To identify fear as the basic mood is a philosophy of cowardice. In addition, fear, as a depressed mood, is rather negative.
  3. The rejection of logic is also a rejection of the mind and instead leaves thinking to a mere mood.

Heidegger replies:

  1. No nihilism emerges from the central position of nothing, since nothing does not represent being as non-being. Instead, the nothingness shows itself in beings and thus precisely reveals their being. That means that precisely in its insignificance, beings concern us. One could say that precisely because in fear the being that is revealed in it concerns something as insignificant , that nothing is not nothing.
  2. Heidegger would like to understand fear not only as a depressed mood, as it can also enchant in its revealing function: "Only man experiences among all beings, invoked by the voice of being, the miracle of all miracles: that being is ."
  3. Heidegger insists that logic is only an interpretation of the essence of thought, precisely that which developed historically in ancient Greece and which takes its experience from the consideration of beings. He opposes this with a way of thinking that is dedicated to the “truth of being”.

For Heidegger, the truth of being is the fundamental ontological event in which being is discovered in the first place . Just because the person discovers the being, is it at all. Once something is discovered, it is already in the (ontological) truth, because that the human being refers to something in any way is a prerequisite for all other theories of truth, including those that require the observance of logic. Heidegger therefore differentiates between exact , logic-oriented, and strict thinking, which turns to the ontological truth event. The exact thinking that is expressed in logic has now found its consistent continuation in modern times in logistics, which provides the subject with everything it desires. Heidegger calls this thinking calculating thinking , which in modern usage could also be called purposeful thinking. Since this thinking only considers beings and calculates their usability for itself , for Heidegger it is in the essence of such a thinking that it cannot overcome itself by giving account of its own motives. So it always reproduces only itself, in which its consuming character lies.

Heidegger counters this with a way of thinking that focuses on the original truth event, on the fact that there is at all: Being and man need each other, because only man knows that there is. Such thinking sacrifices pursuing being in order to turn to being. Since this sacrifice - unlike all purposeful thinking - has no purpose but is wasted on being, the character of such thinking corresponds more to a thanking.

Introduction (1949)

The subtitle of the introduction is "Decline to the bottom of metaphysics" . To explain this, Heidegger ties in with a picture of Descartes , who describes philosophy as a tree whose roots are metaphysics, whose trunk is physics and whose branches make up the other sciences. Heidegger, remaining in this picture, adds: the truth of being is the ground in which the roots of metaphysics protrude. Metaphysics only considers the being of beings. So it turns to beings when there is already being . But how it comes about that being is at all, she forgets about it when she turns to beings and dwells on their determination. That being is, however, means that it is unhidden, the process of this arriving in unconcealment is the truth of being .

In this sense it can be said that the truth of being is the ground in which the roots of metaphysics protrude, because metaphysics remains dependent on the fact that being has arrived in unconcealment. Heidegger uses the term "reason" in a double sense:

  • In the sense of unconcealment of beings is the basic requirement that the metaphysics their business, the determination of entities to pursue, can .
  • But this reason is also the reason why metaphysics as metaphysics cannot address the reason itself. It only looks at what is existent in order to remain in the picture: metaphysics as the root "forgets itself [...] in favor of the tree"

An overcoming of metaphysics must therefore address its ground in a double sense, it must take place as a “return to the ground of metaphysics” . Here, that reason is for Heidegger no, the philosophy as a discipline on the set could be, he is no first cause, close from where through and prove you could guess everything else, even he is not, foundation 'as Descartes' cogito . In this context, Heidegger is much more concerned with human determination. He sees its essence determined by the relation to being. So one could say that the question about the reason is not 'What is the first principle of philosophy?' But 'What happens to man as the being that is metaphysical and the history of being?'

In retrospect, Heidegger interprets his thinking in “Being and Time” as something that set out to consider the truth of being. To this end, he reinterprets the main terms of the work, such as existence , care and design :

  • Dasein was chosen to determine the essence of man through the relation to being.
  • According to the sentence “The essence of Dasein lies in its existence” (SZ, p. 42), existence denotes a way of being of Dasein in that this is open to the relation to being.
  • Care is now no longer concern about the self of existence, but about being. However, the determination of the self was initially necessary in “Being and Time” in order to distinguish oneself from metaphysical constructions of the self as substance or subject.
  • Heidegger now interprets understanding in such a way that it is understanding which is aimed at understanding the truth of being.
  • Design now means that the human being, understanding, designs himself towards the arrival of being, that is, keeps himself open to being.
  • Meaning is what Dasein projects itself, according to the previous reinterpretations, namely, that being shows itself in its unconcealment. Dasein thus projects itself to the meaning of being, the meaning is the unconcealment of being, hence “meaning of being” and “truth of being” say the same thing.
  • Time is no longer the horizon of understanding of an individual existence on the basis of which the meaning (here still: as an alignment to practical projects) is only possible. Instead, Heidegger interprets time as the condition of the unconcealment of being, that is, for the process of truth occurrence. It is thus also intended as a condition of the history of being.

Although all of this was already laid out in “Being and Time” , the philosophy “with nightwalking security” passed it by. However, this was not a failure, but lay in the essence of being itself, which at the same time hides itself in revealing. So it is not a misunderstanding about a book, but lies in the essence of being itself, in the abandonment of being that “being and time” did not reveal itself back then . It is true that “Being and Time” has brought the question of being back into the mind (“Do we have an answer today to the question of what we mean by“ being ”?” SZ, foreword.), But it asked only after the ontological difference and tried as a fundamental ontology to put the ontology on a foundation. Heidegger now rejects this, because to overcome metaphysics it is necessary to “gain thinking about the truth of being. As long as this thinking still describes itself as fundamental ontology, it puts itself in its own way with this name [...] “Thinking is thus no longer an ontology, but the destruction of the history of metaphysics by thinking about the truth of being.

Analogous to the previous reinterpretations, Heidegger now interprets the basic question of philosophy differently: "Why is there at all and not rather nothing?" Now no longer asks about the ontological difference and being than what is then encountered, but Heidegger now wants it that way understood to know that it asks about the truth of being, that is, about revealing being in the event. Regardless of the intentions at the time, this is the actual question of the lecture, the question that took place in the lecture in terms of the history of being.

literature

Primary literature

The text of the lecture can be found together with a later foreword and afterword in volume 9 ( waymarks ) of the Heidegger complete edition . Other editions:

  • Martin Heidegger: What is metaphysics? Verlag Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 978-3465035176
  • Martin Heidegger: Waymarks . Verlag Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 978-3465033707

Secondary literature

  • Oliver Jahraus: Martin Heidegger. An introduction. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 2004, p. 146ff, ISBN 3-15-018279-4
  • Michael Friedmann: Carnap. Cassirer. Heidegger. Shared ways. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-596-16006-5
    Philosophy-historical consideration of the schism between Carnap and Heidegger.
  • Rudolf Carnap: Overcoming metaphysics through logical analysis of language. in knowledge 2, 1932, p. 230f.
    Carnap's criticism of Heidegger.
  • Romano Pocai: Heidegger's Theory of Sensitivity. His thinking between 1927 and 1933. (Symposion 107), Verlag Karl Alber GmbH, Freiburg (Breisgau) / Munich 1996, ISBN 978-3495478356
    Weist u. a. to the differences between the fear in “Being and Time” and the fear in “What is metaphysics?”.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ GA 9, p. 105.
  2. ↑ GA 9, p. 114.
  3. ↑ GA 9, p. 118.
  4. ↑ GA 9, p. 114.
  5. ↑ GA 9, p. 116f.
  6. ↑ GA 9, p. 118.
  7. ↑ GA 9, p. 122.
  8. ↑ Quoted from Michael Friedmann: Carnap. Cassirer. Heidegger. Shared ways . Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 25, note 16. There from Rudolf Carnap: Overcoming the metaphysics through logical analysis of language. in knowledge 2, 1932, p. 230f.
  9. ↑ See Michael Friedmann: Carnap. Cassirer. Heidegger. Shared ways . Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 25.
  10. ↑ Quoted from Michael Friedmann: Carnap. Cassirer. Heidegger. Shared ways . Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 25.
  11. ↑ See Michael Friedmann: Carnap. Cassirer. Heidegger. Shared ways . Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 34.
  12. ^ Rudolf Carnap: Scheinprobleme in der Philosophie and other writings critical of metaphysics, Meiner, Hamburg 2004, 81–110, here 110
  13. ^ Oskar Kraus: Lecture: "About Everything and Nothing", Leipziger Rundfunk, May 1, 1930, printed in: Philosophische Hefte 2, 140, 1931
  14. ↑ David Hilbert: "The basics of elementary number theory", lecture in the Philosophical Society Hamburg, Mathematische Annalen 104, 485, 1931
  15. ↑ Richard Hönigswald: Basic questions of epistemology, Tübingen 1931, re-edited by Meiner, Hamburg 1997, 62
  16. ↑ GA 9, p. 306.
  17. ↑ GA 9, p. 307.
  18. ↑ GA 9, p. 372.
  19. ↑ GA 9, p. 378.
  20. ↑ GA 9, p. 380.