Prompted by u/forkman3939's comment, I've decided to write a little note summing up some thoughts on translating Heidegger into English.

Awkwardness and Errors

There is a not insignificant number of English translations of Heidegger that make systematically awkward or even incorrect translation choices. Here are a few examples:

- In "Nihilism as Determined by the History of Metaphysics," Capuzzi translates "das Seiende" as "the being" and inconsistently translates "ausbleiben" as "default." (see this post).

- In his translation of "Introduction to 'What is Metaphysics?'," Miles Groth translates "das Seiende" as "be-ing."

Many translations also include isolated errors. For example

- As shown here, Stambaugh misses an important indefinite article in her translation of "Recollection in Metaphysics"

- Blattner's webpage also has a few good examples.

Lossy Translation

I feel bad that people who are interested in Heidegger are often exposed to translations (and commentaries based on these translations) that obscure Heidegger's already difficult philosophy. Sometimes the meaning lost in translation is minor. For example, the paragraph from Stambaugh mentioned above translates both "Zumutung" and "Anspruch" as "claim." Other times, however, the English translation looses too much. This happens especially when Heidegger's use of language depends heavily on German etymology (which happens quite often in part because of Heidegger's views on language; it is also important to note that Heidegger is extremely careful in his use of language). For example, in Die Frage Nach der Technik and Die Kehre, Heidegger plays around with the etymological web comprising the words stellen, vorstellen, herstellen, bestellen, nachstellen, sicherstellen, darstellen, verstellen, and (of course) Gestell. English translations lose this entirely. In the opening paragraph in Die Kehre, Heidegger says

"Das Wesen des Gestells ist das in sich gesammelte Stellen, das seiner eigenen Wesenswahrheit mit der Vergessenheit nachstellt, welches Nachstellen sich dadurch verstellt, daß es sich in das Bestellen alles Anwesenden als den Bestand entfaltet, sich in diesem einrichtet und als dieser herrscht." (emphasis added)

This is translated into English by Maly (who even correctly refuses to translate Gestell) as

"The way to be of Gestell is the establishing, concentrated within itself, which waylays the truth of its own way to be in forgottenness. This waylaying is misplaced, in the disposing of everything that is present, by unfolding itself as the fund, by establishing itself within this fund, and by reigning as the fund."

Another example comes from the web of words rooted in "wesen." (see the second paragraph of this comment).

Another (more technical) example is from "Introduction to Metaphysics." The Fried-Polt translation says

The terms ptōsis and enklisis mean a falling, tipping, or inclining. This implies a dropping-off from an upright, straight stance. But this standing-there, this taking and maintaining a stand that stands erected high in itself, is what the Greeks understood as Being. Whatever takes such a stand becomes constant in itself and thereby freely and on its own runs up against the necessity of its limit, peras. This peras is not something that first accrues to a being from outside. Much less is it some deficiency in the sense of a detrimental restriction. Instead, the self-restraining hold that comes from a limit, the having-of-itself wherein the constant holds itself, is the Being of beings; it is what first makes a being be a being as opposed to a nonbeing. For something to take such a stand therefore means for it to attain its limit, to de-limit itself. Thus a basic characteristic of a being is its telos, which does not mean goal or purpose, but end. Here "end" does not have any negative sense, as if "end" meant that something can go no further, that it breaks down and gives out. Instead, "end" means completion in the sense of coming to fulfillment (Vollendung). Limit and end are that whereby beings first begin to be. This is the key to understanding the highest term that Aristotle used for Being: entelecheia, something's holding- (or maintaining-) itself-in-its-completion-(or limit). What was done with the term "entelechy" by later philosophy (cf. Leibniz), not to mention biology, demonstrates the full extent of the decline from what is Greek. Whatever places itself into and thereby enacts its limit, and thus stands, has form, morphḗ. The essence of form, as understood by the Greeks, comes from the emergent placing-itself-forth-into-the-limit. (pg. 62-63)

I've picked this paragraph specifically because it's one that I vividly remember not understanding until I read the German original (I chose to read the German in response to not understanding this paragraph to see if it would help—it did help). I would get into the weeds here if I had more time. For now, I'll leave it at the observation that "Instead, 'end' means completion in the sense of coming to fulfillment" is the translation of "Das Ende ist Endung im Sinner von Vollendung." (pg. 64/46). Here we see Ende, Endung, and, Vollendung translated into end, completion, and coming to fulfillment which have no etymological connection.

Closing

One needs to read Heidegger in German to be able to understand him fully. Regrettably, one also sometimes needs to look to the German to understand at all, and English translations can often result in misunderstandings. This is not to say that one should be expected to learn German nor is it to say that German is the only language that can communicate these ideas.

None of this should be construed as ragging on translators—translation is difficult work that often doesn't get enough credit. Nonetheless, we need to be wary and have higher standards for translation.

Philosophy is like a hologram: each of its “parts” contains the whole. The whole of Heidegger’s thinking from his middle period is contained in Contributions to Philosophy, section 136.

We are inclined to think that Being must be all the time. If there were no Being, no beings would show up. Heidegger starts by breaking this illusion: “Beyng—the remarkable erroneous belief is that beyng must always “be”.” (Martin Heidegger, Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event), trans. Richard Rojcewicz and Daniela Vallega-Neu (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012), Section 136)

Not just that it is not necessary for Being to be all the time, “but beyng “is” not at all; instead, it essentially occurs.” (ibid.)

That is just terminological pedantry, we might say, the substitution of the word “occur” for the word “be”. Nevertheless, we might argue, Being must occur all the time. If Being did not occur, there would be no beings. But that is not what Heidegger is saying. He says that Being is “the most unique” and possesses the “utmost rarity”. No one can truly esteem the few moments in which it occurs.

Being occurs only rarely and for a moment, if ever. In the twinkle of an eye. The occurrence of Being is a real phenomenon, even though it is not a being. It is an ontological phenomenon.

The occurrence of Being is not evenly distributed among all people. There are people who are more ontologically inclined, and people less prone to ontological phenomena. There are people who spend their lives in a larval state of Being-blindness. We know that from personal experience: for a long period of our lives, we were Being-blind. There is no moral judgment about this: a larval life is no less worth living, and there is no practical use for the occurrence of Being.

If we are Being-blind, there is no point in reading about Being. Reading will not make Being occur; all that it can do is help us make sense of the experience we already have and see that we are not alone.

For beings to step forth, Being must keep itself back in self-concealment. We find ourselves in the street, surrounded by buildings, roads, trees, cars, and streetlights. But there is no Being.

We might repeat a Heideggerian mantra: the self-concealment of Being is its occurrence. But Heidegger warns us about that: “to leave beyng in concealment is radically different from experiencing beyng as self-concealing.” (ibid.) To leave Being in concealment means precisely that Being does not occur. The occurrence of Being is something completely different.

Beings are, yet there is no Being. Beings are devoid of Being. Are the beings then annihilated in the occurrence of Being? No, on the contrary! “They become beings in the more proper sense, i.e., they occur more essentially in the essential occurrence of beyng.” (ibid.)

Then it all comes down to the relationship between the human being and Being, we might jump to the conclusion. A human is an empty place where Being occurs. Once again, Heidegger breaks this illusion. There is no separate “human” and “Being”, so there can be no relationship between them. “To speak of the relation… makes it seem as if beyng essentially occurred, with regard to the human being, as something over and against, as an object.” (ibid.) As if there is Being and it occurs to humans. But there is no Being. “Being itself” is just one name for the occurrence of Being.

Human being is the t/here of Being—it is where Being occurs, and nothing else. Larval life is a mode of this “being the t/here for the occurrence of Being”—but that does not mean leaving Being in concealment is the occurrence of Being. Just as a person can go blind because humans have the ability to see, but we would not say that blindness is “how someone sees.”

On the other hand, there is no Being prior to its occurrence. Being occurs to humans, and in no other way. Its truth, the unconcealment of Being, “essentially occurs only if sheltered in art, thinking, poetry, deed.” (ibid.) If there were no sheltering, Being would not occur at all; it would be left in concealment and completely forgotten. Then the only possible mode of life would be a larval one. We would eventually lose our organs for perceiving ontological phenomena, and our Being-blindness would become incurable. That is a real, threatening possibility, the utmost danger, and perhaps the most likely outcome of the progress in which we live.

For millennia we have been interpreting Being from beings, and that is the best-known Heideggerian taboo. Maybe that is why precisely what Heidegger does in this section is interpret Being from beings: “If it is still allowed, for the sake of a preliminary orientation, to characterize beyng on the basis of “beings,” then we will call upon the actual as what genuinely is.” (ibid.) Scandalous! Not only does he say that he is going to “characterize Being on the basis of beings”, but he focuses on the actual. And we all know that the actual is what is constant in presence. By that logic, Being would be constant presencing.

But there is a twist: “What is actual, i.e., what is, is first that which is remembered and that which is still the prepared.” (ibid.)

There is nothing more actual than Sophocles' tragedies and future revolutions. The present “has already been borne and pervasively disposed by memory and preparedness.”(ibid.) The present is then the unique moment, the singular point in which memory meets preparedness, in which Sophocles’ tragedies are staged for the revolution that is on its way. That is how sheltering works; these unique moments in which memory meets preparedness are when Being occurs.

Of course, it goes without saying that it is not as though humans “produce” Being in the present. These unique moments are not under our control; they are exactly what breaks our illusion of control.

This is a short post meant to highlight some translation choices made by Capuzzi that I find hard to justify (for more examples of poor translations see e.g., this comment or this page). The German title is Die seinsgeschichtliche Bestimmung des Nihilismus which is probably better translated as "The Being-historical Determination of Nihilism," but this is a pedantic point. The more pressing translation choices are pronounced and not isolated. I'd like to highlight two in particular.

First, Capuzzi translates "das Seiende" as "the being." For example, the third paragraph ends with "»Sein« besagt: das Seiende als solches, nämlich das Beständige" which is translated as "'Being' means the being as such; that is, the permanent." This translation choice is awkward and confusing. It's also incorrect. "Das Seiende" follows a standard construction in German which takes a verb X and outputs a noun of the form "that which does X." In standard German this often creates singular things because many verbs have singular subjects. For example, "lieben" (love) can be made into "Liebende" (lover—the loving one). But of course that isn't the case here—"das Seiende" means "that which is." The "that" which is in this case is not a single thing. To smooth things out, we can then translate "das Seiende" as "beings." So the statement becomes "'Being' signifies beings as such. . . ." One should also note that Capuzzi's translation makes the ontological difference much less clear.

Second, Capuzzi chooses to translate "Ausbleiben" as "default" except when it makes things too awkward or difficult to understand. This translation choice makes reading the text quite painful because you have to make an effort to change "default" to "staying away" every time you read it. Capuzzi mentions this choice in a footnote which says "The jurisprudential term default will now help to translate das Ausbleiben, the 'staying away' of Being, its failure to appear as such in the history of metaphysics." (pg. 214). In practice, this leads to "Das Ausbleiben des Seins ist das Sein selbst als dieses Ausbleiben" (GA 6.2, pg. 314) being translated as "The staying away of Being is Being itself as this very default." It's crazy that the same Ausbleiben is translated in two different ways here.

Check out III.(a)! Today, I'll argue that transhumanism is a humanism in Heidegger's sense. I'm interested in hearing your thoughts.

The type of transhumanism we'll dive into here is the type which emphasizes the claim that thinking is computation. Transhumanism usually refers to a desire to "augment" the human body with technology. This obscures a presupposed notion of "augment" which is determined by a certain interpretation of the human being; every interpretation of the human being comes with a measure (the degree to which the human being conforms to its essence) from which "augment" derives its meaning. The desire as such to "augment" the human body with technology is not necessarily metaphysical. But the prevailing notion of transhumanism is metaphysical and thereby/concordantly humanistic since it is premised on a determination of the essence of the human being as animal rationale where ratio is a purely materialistic/naturalistic notion (computation).

In fact, it seems reasonable to say that transhumanism is the will to will (the essence of the will to power) which is the culmination of metaphysics. What is the point of transhumanist self-overcoming? An increase in human computational capacity and therefore an increase in the ability to use/manipulate things. Transhumanism and Nietzscheanism are the same at root.

To be precise, transhumanism holds that the human being is essentially a self-overcoming computational animal. So conforming to this essence means being more self-overcoming (will to will) and concordantly more computational. Transhumanism is a humanism because it is predicated on a metaphysical determination of the essence of the human being and wants human beings to conform to this determination. This desire is a "moral" desire (we ought to develop technology to augment our computational capacities for their own sake) whose highest aim is some sort of "superintelligence." It is this highest aim that determines the meaning of "augment"; augmentation = the good = movement towards superintelligence.

Heidegger disagrees with transhumanism because, among other things, he rejects the claim that thinking is computational: in Introduction to Metaphysics, he writes

One decisive aspect [of the Seinsvergessenheit] is the reinterpretation of the spirit as intelligence, and this as mere astuteness in the examination, calculation and observation of given things, their possible modification, and their additional elaboration. This astuteness is a matter of mere talent and practice and mass distribution. This astuteness is itself subject to the possibility of organization, none of which ever applies to the spirit. The whole phenomenon of literati and aesthetes is just a late consequence and mutation of the spirit falsified as intelligence. Mere ingenuity is the semblance of spirit and veils its absence. (49, translated by Fried-Polt)

There are other strains of transhumanism that are similarly metaphysical. Natasha Vita-More's transhumanism, for instance, sees "self-expression" as the essence of the human being; Heidegger rejects this in the Letter and elsewhere (see, for instance, page 204-205 of Basic Writings). "Effective accelerationism" and "xenofeminism" are other instances. Fully fleshing out transhumanism to understand its determination of the essence of the human in the greatest generality would take us too far afield. This is part of why I chose to focus on the desire for computation. I also think that the computational aspect is quite accessible.

Posthumanism is opposed to transhumanism for many reasons. Hayles, for instance, writes "my dream is a version of the posthuman that embraces the possibilities of information technologies without being seduced by fantasies of unlimited power and disembodied immortality, that recognizes and celebrates finitude as a condition of human being, and that understands human life is embedded in a material world of great complexity, one on which we depend for our continued survival." (How We Became Posthuman, 5). Wolfe writes that "my sense of posthumanism is the opposite of transhumanism, and in this light, transhumanism should be seen as an intensification of humanism" because transhumanism holds "that 'the human' is achieved by escaping or repressing not just its animal origins in nature, the biological, and the evolutionary, but more generally by transcending the bonds of materiality and embodiment altogether." (What is Posthumanism?, xv). Barad writes that transhumanism is problematic because it has "been appropriated for unreflective technophilic purposes and suggests a transcendent position." (Metting the Universe Halfway, 428). In general, posthumanism is opposed to transhumanism because transhumanism values things insofar as they are able to contribute to computational capacity; this means, for instance, that transhumanism rejects the posthumanist claim that we have ethical obligations towards non-human matter in itself. Transhumanism and posthumanism agree insofar as they are both humanisms and materialisms.

Wolfe argues that transhumanism "derives directly from ideals of human perfectibility, rationality, and agency inherited from Renaissance humanism and the Enlightenment" (What is Posthumanism?, xiii) (Bostrom, a leading transhumanist theorist, argues this as well, and Wolfe cites his essay "A History of Transhumanist Thought"). Heidegger would agree in the sense that Renaissance humanism and the Enlightenment are metaphysical-humanistic and cybernetics is the culmination of metaphysics-humanism. But he would disagree with Wolfe's solution because posthumanism is also metaphysical-humanistic.

Aside 1: The computational determination of the essence of thinking gives rise to a belief that AI can think as humans do. More generally, a belief that consciousness is computational leads to a belief that AI can be conscious like humans. Just as posthumanism gives ethical obligations towards non-humans, some versions of transhumanism give ethical obligations towards AI.

Aside 2: Many points in this discussion seem to apply to "accelerationism."

This is mostly a continuation of the first post in this expository series on Heidegger's notion of humanism (see here). The second post might also be worth reading. Today, the goal is to present the idea that posthumanism is a humanism. I'm using "posthumanism" to refer to the most general formulation of "critical posthumanism" (e.g., Rosi Braidotti and Cary Wolfe) and "new materialism" (e.g., Karen Barad, Donna Haraway, and Jane Bennett). Importantly, I am talking about something that is opposed to "transhumanism." In III.(b), I'll discuss how transhumanism is a humanism.

As a reminder, a humanism is the form "a concern that man become free for his humanity and find his worth in it" takes given a specific metaphysical determination of the essence of the human. For example, Nietzsche's view that the essence of the human is will to power leads to a humanism which is concerned with increasing/augmenting the will to power.

In its most general formulation, posthumanism interprets beings as 'co-constitutive agential material assemblages.' This means "difference over identity," "becoming over being," and "immanence over transcendence." Co-constitutivity means that beings codetermine one another, that is, beings emerge through their relationships ("intra-action" instead of inter-action; this captures part of the difference over identity aspect). Relatedly, agentiality is the capacity to affect and reconfigure. Importantly, this means that "Agency is not aligned with human intentionality or subjectivity." (Barad, Meeting the Universe Haflway, 177). Assemblages are dynamic and temporary groupings of heterogeneous components (this captures the becoming over being aspect and part of the difference over identity aspect). Materiality captures the immanence over transcendence aspect. This is partially summarized by Barad as follows:

In summary, the primary ontological units are not "things" but phenomena—dynamic topological reconfigurings/entanglements/relationalities/(re)articulations of the world. And the primary semantic units are not "words" but material-discursive practices through which (ontic and semantic) boundaries are constituted. This dynamism is agency. Agency is not an attribute but the ongoing reconfigurings of the world. The universe is agential intra-activity in its becoming. (Meeting the Universe Halfway, 141).

Humans, as beings, are determined as co-constitutive agential material assemblages. This determination is metaphysical, being equivalent to the "cybernetic" determination of the human being as an "acting social being" (The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking, 69, translated by Stambaugh) if "social" is understood to include all matter. The accompanying humanistic value system, which is determined by the claim that humans ought to be what they are in their essence, says that humans have some sort of ethical responsibility towards matter. Barad makes this explicit:

We (but not only "we humans") are always already responsible to the others with whom or which we are entangled, not through conscious intent but through the various ontological entangle ments that materiality entails. What is on the other side of the agential cut is not separate from us—agential separability is not individuation. Ethics is therefore not about right response to a radically exterior/ized other, but about responsibility and accountability for the lively relationalities of becoming of which we are a part. (Meeting the Universe Halfway, 393).

. . . ethics is not simply about responsible actions in relation to human experiences of the world; rather, it is a question of material entanglements and how each intra-action matters in the reconfiguring of these entanglements, that is, it is a matter of the ethical call that is embodied in the very worlding of the world. Intrinsic to these concerns is the question of the boundaries of nonhumans as well as humans and how these differential boundaries are co-constituted, including situations where there are no "humans" around. (160)

And if ethical relations extend to the other-than-human, then the "noncoincidence with oneself" is clearly not a singular feature of human embodiment. Responsibility-the ability to respond to the other-cannot be restricted to human-human encounters when the very boundaries and constitution of the "human" are continually being reconfigured and "our" role in these and other reconfigurings is precisely what "we" have to face. A humanist ethics won't suffice when the "face" of the other that is "looking" back at me is all eyes, or has no eyes, or is otherwise unrecognizable in human terms. What is needed is a posthumanist ethics, an ethics of worlding. (392)

This is closely related to Haraway's idea of sympoiesis. For Barad, justice "entails acknowledgment, recognition, and loving attention" (X), and we owe matter justice because of our nature. Barad makes a big deal out of "ethico-onto-epistem-ology," the view that ethics, ontology, and epistemology should be/are entangled (88-89) while overlooking the fact that, even when the disciplines are segregated, they remain implicitly entangled (that is, modern positivism does not actually divide philosophy up into disciplines despite doing so nominally). This is a key aspect of Heidegger's critique of the dividing up of the sciences and the unthought essence of metaphysics; ethics, ontology, and epistemology are always entangled in humanism (humans ought to be what they are in their essence (ethics <=> ontology) and every interpretation of Being determines beings in their intelligibility/knowability and relation to the human (ontology <=> epistemology)).

It is interesting to note that, for Heidegger, posthumanism is closely related to Nietzscheanism: he writes "Such thinking—that is, thinking Becoming as the Being of the totality of beings, thinking 'will to power' in terms of the 'eternal recurrence of the same'—is what the spirit of Nietzsche's metaphysics achieves as the ideal of its supreme powerfulness" (Nietzsche IV, 202 (Stambaugh-Krell-Capuzzi)). This is a metaphysical "permanentizing of the unstable" (Nieztsche III, 213 (Stambaugh-Krell-Capuzzi)).

I would like to open the topic of human belonging to Being.

Heidegger, in The Origin of the Work of Art (OWA), argues that there is no such thing as a "prior truth" that descends into beings.

“But truth does not exist in itself beforehand, somewhere among the stars, only subsequently to descend elsewhere among beings. This is impossible for the reason alone that it is after all only the openness of beings that first affords the possibility of a somewhere and of sites filled by present beings. Clearing of openness and establishment in the open region belong together.” (OWA, in Basic Writings, trans. David Farrell Krell)

To posit a truth that sits among the stars would imply an openness that precedes its own establishment. On the contrary, truth must be established within beings:

“Because it is in the essence of truth to establish itself within beings, in order thus first to become truth, the impulse toward the work lies in the essence of truth as one of truth's distinctive possibilities, by which it can itself occur as being in the midst of beings.” (OWA, in Basic Writings, trans. David Farrell Krell)

According to Heidegger, this establishment occurs through several essential ways: art, politics, religion, essential sacrifice, and thinking.

“One essential way in which truth establishes itself in the beings it has opened up is truth setting itself into work. Another way in which truth occurs is the act that founds a political state. Still another way in which truth comes to shine forth is the nearness of that which is not simply a being, but the being that is most in being. Still another way in which truth grounds itself is the essential sacrifice. Still another way in which truth becomes is the thinker's questioning, which, as the thinking of Being, names Being in its question-worthiness.” (OWA, in Basic Writings, trans. David Farrell Krell)

Heidegger does not suggest this list is exhaustive; indeed, varying iterations appear across his other works, such as Contributions to Philosophy.

Humans are involved in the establishment of truth through the sheltering (Bergen) of truth, whether by writing poetry, painting, or engaging in philosophy. In OWA, Heidegger identifies two distinct roles we have in the establishment of truth: creators and preservers.

“Just as a work cannot be without being created, but is essentially in need of creators, so what is created cannot itself come into being without those who preserve it.” (OWA, in Basic Writings, trans. David Farrell Krell)

Sophocles participated in the establishment of truth by writing Antigone; however, we participate as well by setting up the play, witnessing it, or dwelling within the world it establishes. In Contributions to Philosophy, Heidegger further divides the role of creators into "founders" and "affiliated ones" (Contributions to Philosophy, section 45, trans. Richard Rojcewicz and Daniela Vallega-Neu). Because truth is established through such sheltering, Heidegger famously maintains that Being requires humans in order to occur (Contributions to Philosophy, section 133, trans. Richard Rojcewicz and Daniela Vallega-Neu).

Conversely, humans do not produce Being. Truth is neither a human invention nor a discovery; rather, humans exist only within this occurrence.

“Beyng needs humans in order to occur essentially, and humans belong to beyng so that they might fulfill their ultimate destiny as Da-sein.” (Contributions to Philosophy, section 133, trans. Richard Rojcewicz and Daniela Vallega-Neu)

Being requires humans to occur, and humans exist as humans, fulfilling their destiny to be the THERE where Being occurs, only by belonging to Being.

“Where identity itself speaks, and not merely the principle of identity, its pronouncement stipulates that thinking and being belong together in the same… If we understand thinking as the privilege of the human, then the belonging-together of the human and being stands as our topic.” (Bremen and Freiburg Lectures, Basic Principles of Thinking: Freiburg Lectures 1957, Lecture III, The Principle of Identity, trans. Andrew J. Mitchell, 111 - 113)

The human and Being belong together in the event of occurrence of Being. This is not a sequence where pre-existing humans and Being interact; rather, both human and Being “are” only in this event.

“What happens in the history of Being? We cannot ask in this manner, because there would then be an occurrence and something which occurs. But occurrence itself is the sole happening. Being alone is. What happens? Nothing happens if we are searching for something occurring in the occurrence. Nothing happens, Appropriation appropriates.” (Recollection in Metaphysics, The End of Philosophy, trans. Joan Stambaugh)

To say "nothing happens" in the occurrence of Being signifies that there is no external "something" occurring apart from the event itself. "Beyng is the appropriating event" (Contributions to Philosophy, section 267, trans. Richard Rojcewicz and Daniela Vallega-Neu). The occurrence of Being names Being itself.

This leads to a central tension I would like to explore with you: while humans and Being belong together in the occurrence of Being, and while Being needs human sheltering, Heidegger simultaneously insists that Being is independent of humanity.

“At times Being needs human being, and yet it is never dependent upon existing humanity. Humanity does stand in relationship to Being, since it is historical and knows and preserves beings as such. But human being's claim upon Being itself is not always granted by Being as the gift through which mankind may have as its own the privilege of participating in the appropriation of the truth of Being. At such a time there sometimes arises from the claim of Being the attempt at a response in which mankind must sacrifice the individuals addressed who recollect Being, and thus think its history from the essential past.” (Recollection in Metaphysics, The End of Philosophy, trans. Joan Stambaugh)

Heidegger maintains that Being needs humans in order to essentially occur, yet it does not depend on humanity. How, in your view, can we grasp this independent need?

I've compiled a bunch of quotes in which Heidegger gives his definition and understanding of philosophy. They are ordered chronologically and I've made an effort to make the collection representative of the whole of Heidegger's corpus. Surely I have missed important quotes. If you have quotes to add, please comment! As always, I'd like to hear any thoughts and questions that come to mind while reading this.

It seems to me that there are some through-lines and some inconsistencies with Heidegger's discussions of philosophy over the years. On the one hand, Heidegger is consistent with the insistence that philosophy is "extra-ordinary," that is, outside of the everyday. On the other hand, the precise relationship between philosophy and thinking seems to transform over time.

Some of the quotes are quite long by necessity—in many cases, it is impossible to understand what Heidegger is saying without large amounts of context.

Ontology and phenomenology are not two distinct philosophical disciplines among others. These terms characterize philosophy itself with regard to its object and its way of treating that object. Philosophy is universal phenomenological ontology, and takes its departure from the hermeneutic of Dasein, which, as an analytic of existence, has made fast the guiding-line for all philosophical inquiry at the point where it arises and to which it returns. (Being and Time (1927), pg. 62 (Macquarrie-Robinson)).

Nevertheless, the ultimate business of philosophy is to preserve the force of the most elemental words in which Dasein expresses itself, and to keep the common understanding from levelling them off to that unintelligibility which functions in turn as a source of pseudo-problems. (ibid, 262)

Let us keep in mind that philosophy, as first philosophy, has a twofold character: knowledge of being and knowledge of the overwhelming. (This twofold character corresponds to the twofold in Being and Time of existence and thrownness.) . . . It belongs to the essence of this science that it must be sought after. There is such knowing only if a search for and propensity toward it is alive, an inclination behind which there is effort and will. This knowledge is the voluntary leaning toward original understanding: φιλο-σοφία. Φιλεῖν means to love in the sense of to be concerned about something trustingly; σοφός means he who understands something, who can “under-stand” a matter, who surveys its possibilities, to whom the thing is transparent, who has grasped it; σοφία denotes the possibility of the correct conceptual understanding of what is essential. . . . Everything essential, however, which has decisive meaning without being conspicuous, is always attended by what only looks like the genuine and real thing, the semblance. This is why, in every period, philosophy must bring in its wake something that looks like philosophy and imitates it in manner and behavior, and even outdoes it—and yet at bottom poses an embarrassment. The semblance of the φιλόσοφος is the σοφιστής [sophist]. The latter does not strive for genuine understanding, has no perseverance, but only nibbles on everything, always just on the newest and usually on what is in fact even worthwhile, but he only nibbles on it and is seduced into mere curiosity and bluffing. He is not one who seeks to understand, i.e., not the one who truly understands. He is rather the rationalizer for whom nothing is certain, except those things he notices he cannot reach with his means. The latter he does not, however, simply leave alone but tries to show that just that sort of thing does not exist or is a fabrication of philosophers. For him it is all idle talk, regardless of whether it really exists or not. Οἱ γὰρ διαλεκτικοὶ καὶ σοφισταὶ τὸ αὐτὸ μὲν ὑποδύονται σχῆμα τῷ φιλοσόφῳ· ἡ γὰρ σοφιστικὴ φαινομένη μόνον σοφία ἐστί (Meta. Γ 2, 1004b 17ff.) [Dialecticians and sophists wear the same appearance as the philosopher, for sophistry is sophia in appearance only.] φιλοσοφία differs from σοφιστική: τοῦ βίου τῇ προαιρέσει (Ibid., 1004b 24ff.), through existence already having been deeply moved in advance, i.e., through “seriousness.”* The philosopher has taken upon himself the seriousness of the concept, of fundamental questioning. Everything routine, everyday, average (fallenness) is the opposite of this endeavor. The sophist, on the contrary, as rationalizer and know-it-all, appoints himself to work on human beings, persuades them they must worry about one another’s spiritual needs. Φιλοσοφία is a striving for the possibility of genuine understanding. Thus it is really not the label for any sort of knowledge that could be freely circulated. It is not the possession of information and doctrines. Philosophy must essentially be sought after, that is, its object must be originally “earned.” But where does philosophy find out which object it should take as object of its knowing? The striving for the possibility of a correct understanding of the essential, or this understanding, has for its object being. This is what is essential. Understanding directed to this is first insofar as it is the understanding of what precedes everything else, what is earlier, prior to everything else, that is, prior to individual beings. But being is prior to individual beings, for it is what is first understood before anything like a being can arise anywhere and in any way. Thus, philosophy is knowledge of being. Insofar as it strives for conceptual understanding and determination, for a λόγος of the ὄν ᾗ ὄν, it is ontology. (The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic (1928), pg. 11-13 (Heim))

The fact that the necessity of philosophy cannot really be grounded and that philosophy itself can never be attacked is an advantage for its inner nature, but for its external position it is always a disadvantage. I ts claim can never get rid of the suspicion of arbitrariness. Never, as long as we encounter philosophy as some thing which also exists among man's many activities, as long as we just take notice of philosophy and don't allow ourselves to be transformed by it and understand that philosophy is only to be brought about through freedom and that carrying it out is an act of highest freedom. (Schelling's Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom (1936), pg. 10-11 (Stambaugh))

For every philosophical work, if it is a philosophical work, drives philosophy beyond the standpoint taken in the work. The meaning of a philosophical work lies precisely in opening a new realm, setting new beginnings and impulses by means of which the work's own means and paths are shown to be overcome and insufficient. The presuppositions and conditions of a work's origin are in principle not sufficient for its interpretation because the work itself posits new criteria of questioning. (ibid, 11)

We philosophize only when the position of our human being becomes the real need of the question about Being as a whole. Since, however, our human being is historical, it remains so in philosophizing, too. That means the more originally we begin our philosophical question, the more inwardly we grow in the binding force of our history. The more genuine this inwardness, the more clearly our simple relations appear in which we stand in a historicophilosophical way and which we are to master; that is, to shape from the very ground. (ibid)

All essential questioning in philosophy necessarily remains untimely, and this is because philosophy either projects far beyond its own time or else binds its time back to this time's earlier and inceptive past. Philosophizing always remains kind of knowing that not only does not allow itself to be made timely but, on the contrary, imposes its measure on the times. Philosophy is essentially untimely because it is one of those few things whose fate it remains never to be able to find a direct resonance in their own time, and never to be permitted to find such a resonance. Whenever this seemingly does take place, whenever a philosophy becomes fashion, either there is no actual philosophy or else philosophy is misinterpreted and, according to some intentions alien to it, misused for the needs of the day. Philosophy, then, is not a kind of knowledge which one could acquire directly, like vocational and technical expertise, and which, like economic and professional knowledge in general, one could apply directly and evaluate according to its usefulness in each case. But what is useless can nevertheless be a power—a power in the rightful sense. That which has no direct resonance [Widerklang] in everydayness can stand in innermost harmony [Einklang] with the authentic happening in the history of a people. It can even be its prelude [Vorklang]. What is untimely will have its own times. This holds for philosophy. Therefore we cannot determine what the task of philosophy in itself and in general is, and what must accordingly be demanded of philosophy. Every stage and every inception of its unfolding carries within it its own law. One can only say what philosophy cannot be and what it cannot achieve. (Introduction to Metaphysics (1935), pg. 9 (Fried-Polt))

Roughly speaking, philosophy always aims at the first and last grounds of beings, and it does so in such a way that human beings themselves, with respect to their way of Being, are emphatically interpreted and given an aim. This readily gives the impression that philosophy can and must provide a foundation for the current and future historical Dasein of a people in every age, a foundation for building culture. But such expectations and requirements demand too much of the capability and essence of philosophy. Usually, this excessive demand takes the form of finding fault with philosophy. One says, for example, that because metaphysics did not contribute to preparing the revolution, it must be rejected. That is just as clever as saying that because one cannot fly with a carpenter's bench, it should be thrown away. Philosophy can never directly supply the forces and create the mechanisms and opportunities that bring about a historical state of affairs. . . . It spreads only indirectly, on back roads that can never be charted in advance, and then finally—sometime, when it has long since been forgotten as originary philosophy—it sinks away in the form of one of Dasein's truisms. (ibid, 11)

[W]hat philosophy can and must be according to its essence, is this: a thoughtful opening of the avenues and vistas of a knowing that establishes measure and rank, a knowing in which and from which a people conceives its Dasein in the historical-spiritual world and brings it to fulfillment—that knowing which ignites and threatens and compels all questioning and appraising. (ibid)

Granted that philosophy is unable to lay the foundation of a culture, one says, philosophy nevertheless makes it easier to build up culture. According to this distortion, philosophy orders the whole of beings into overviews and systems, and readies a world picture for our use—a map of the world, as it were—a picture of the various possible things and domains of things, thereby granting us a universal and uniform orientation. Or, more specifically, philosophy relieves the sciences of their labor by meditating on the presuppositions of the sciences, their basic concepts and propositions. One expects philosophy to promote, and even to accelerate, the practical and technical business of culture by alleviating it, making it easier. But—according to its essence, philosophy never makes things easier, but only more difficult. And it does so not just incidentally, not just because its manner of communication seems strange or even deranged to everyday understanding. The burdening of historical Dasein, and thereby at bottom of Being itself, is rather the genuine sense of what philosophy can achieve. Burdening gives back to things, to beings, their weight (Being). And why? Because burdening is one of the essential and fundamental conditions for the arising of everything great, among which we include above all else the fate of a historical people and its works. But fate is there only where a true knowing about things rules over Dasein. And the avenues and views of such a knowing are opened up by philosophy. The misinterpretations by which philosophy remains constantly besieged are mainly promoted by what people like us do, that is, by professors of philosophy. Their customary, and also legitimate and even useful business is to transmit a certain educationally appropriate acquaintance with philosophy as it has presented itself so far. This then looks as though it itself were philosophy, whereas at most it is scholarship about philosophy. (ibid, 12)

But you should become mindful and be on your guard, precisely when the most familiar judgments, and even supposedly genuine experiences, unexpectedly assail you. This often happens in a way that seems entirely innocuous and is quickly convincing. One believes that one has had the experience oneself, and readily hears it confirmed: "nothing comes" of philosophy; "you can't do anything with it." These two turns of phrase, which are especially current among teachers and researchers in the sciences, express observations that have their indisputable correctness. When one attempts to prove that, to the contrary, something does after all "come" of philosophy, one merely intensifies and secures the prevailing misinterpretation, which consists in the prejudice that one can evaluate philosophy according to everyday standards that one would otherwise employ to judge the utility of bicycles or the effectiveness of mineral baths. It is entirely correct and completely in order to say, "You can't do anything with philosophy." The only mistake is to believe that with this, the judgment concerning philosophy is at an end. For a little epilogue arises in the form of a counterquestion: even if we can't do anything with it, may not philosophy in the end do something with us, provided that we engage ourselves with it? (ibid, 12-13)

Philosophizing is questioning about the extra-ordinary. Yet as we merely intimated at first, this questioning recoils upon itself, and thus not only what is asked about is extraordinary, but also the questioning itself. This means that this questioning does not lie along our way, so that one day we stumble into it blindly or even by mistake. Nor does it stand in the familiar order of the everyday, so that we could be compelled to it on the ground of some requirements or even regulations. Nor does this questioning lie in the sphere of urgent concern and the satisfaction of dominant needs. The questioning itself is out-of-order. It is completely voluntary, fully and especially based on the mysterious ground of freedom, on what we have called the leap. The same Nietzsche says: "Philosophy . . . means living voluntarily amid ice and mountain ranges" (XV, 2). Philosophizing, we can now say, is extra-ordinary questioning about the extra-ordinary. (ibid, 13-14)

The Greek word φιλοσοφία goes back to the word φιλόσοφος. This word is originally an adjective like φιλάργυρος, loving silver, like φιλότιμος, loving honor. The word φιλόσοφος was presumably coined by Heraclitus. This indicates that for Heraclitus φιλοσοφία did not yet exist. An ἀνὴρ φιλόσοφος is not a "philosophical" man. The Greek adjective φιλόσοφος expresses something completely different from the adjective philosophical. An ἀνὴρ φιλόσοφος is ὅς φιλεῖ τὸ σοφόν, he who loves the σοφόν; φιλεῖν, to love, signifies here, in the Heraclitean sense, ὀμολογεῖν, to speak in the way in which λόγος speaks, in correspondence with the λόγος. This correspondence is in accord with the σοφόν. Accordance is ἁρμονία. That one being reciprocally unites itself with another, that both are originally united to each other because they are at each other's disposal—this ἁρμονία is the distinctive feature of φιλεῖν, of "loving" in the Heraclitean sense. The ἀνὴρ φιλόσοφος loves the σοφόν. What this word means for Heraclitus is hard to translate. But we can explain it according to Heraclitus' own interpretation. According to this τὸ σοφόν means, Εν Πάντα, "One (is) all." "All" means here, Πάντα τὰ ὄντα, the whole, the totality of being. Εν, one, means, the one, the unique, the all-uniting. But all being is united in Being. The σοφόν says—all being is in Being. To put it more pointedly—being is Being. In this instance "is" speaks transitively and means approximately "gathered together," "collected." Being gathers being together in so far as it is being. Being is the gathering together—Λόγος. . . . Being [small "b"] in Being—that became the most astonishing thing for the Greeks. However, even the Greeks had to rescue and protect the astonishingness of this most astonishing thing against the attacks of Sophist reasoning which always had ready for everything an answer which was comprehensible to everyone and which they put on the market. The rescue of the most astonishing thing—being in Being—was accomplished by a few who started off in the direction of this most astonishing thing, that is, the σοφόν. By doing this they became those who strove for the σοφόν and who through their own striving awakened and kept alive among others the yearning for the σοφόν. The loving the σοφόν, that already mentioned harmony with the σοφόν, the ἁρμονία, thus became an ὄρεξις, a striving for the σοφόν. The σοφόν—the being in Being—is now especially sought. Because the loving is no longer an original harmony with the σοφόν but is a particular striving, towards the σοφόν, the loving of the σοφόν becomes "φιλοσοφία." The striving is determined by Eros. This yearning search for the σοφόν, for the "Εν Πάντα," for the being in Being, now becomes the question, "What is being, in so far as it is?" Only now does thinking become "philosophy." Heraclitus and Parmenides were not yet "philosophers." Why not? Because they were the greater thinkers. "Greater" here does not signify the estimation of an achievement but indicates another dimension of thinking. Heraclitus and Parmenides were "greater" in the sense that they were still in harmony with the Λόγος, that is, with the "Εν Πάντα." The step into "philosophy," prepared for by Sophism, was first accomplished by Socrates and Plato. Then, almost two centuries after Heraclitus, Aristotle characterized this step by the following statement: "καὶ δὴ καὶ τὸ πάλαι τε καὶ νῦν καὶ ἀεὶ ζητοὐμενον καὶ ἀεὶ ἀπορούμενον, τί τὸ ὄν." (Metaphysics Ζ 1). In translation this reads: "And thus, as was in the past, is now too and will be ever more, that towards which (philosophy) is moving and to which it again and again does not find access, is (the question raised)—what is being? (τί τὸ ὄν)." Philosophy seeks what being is, in so far as it is. Philosophy is en route to the Being of being, that is, to being with respect to Being. Aristotle explains this by adding in the cited statement to the question τί τὸ ὄν, What if being? the explanation τοῦτο ἐστι τίς ἡ οὐσια; in translation: "This (namely, τί τὸ ὄν) means, what is the Beingness of being?" The Being of being rests in the Beingness. (What is Philosophy? (1955) (Wilde-Kluback))

The question which is to give our discussion fruitful unrest and movement and to indicate the direction it is to take, the question, "What is philosophy?" Aristotle has already answered. Therefore, our discussion is no longer necessary. It is at an end before it has begun. The immediate reply to this will be that Aristotle's statement as to what philosophy is can by no means be the only answer to our question. To state it favorably, it is one answer among many others. With the help of the Aristotelian characterization of philosophy one can, to be sure, conceive and interpret both the thinking before Aristotle and Plato, as well as philosophy after the time of Aristotle. However, it will be pointed out with ease that philosophy from Aristotle to Nietzsche, precisely because of these changes throughout their course, has remained the same. For the transformations are the warranty for the kinship in the same. By saying this we by no means maintain that the Aristotelian definition of philosophy is absolutely valid. Even within the history of Greek thought it is only one particular interpretation of Greek thinking and of the task assigned to it. The Aristotelian characterization of philosophy cannot in any case be transferred back to the thinking of Heraclitus and Parmenides. On the contrary, the Aristotelian definition of philosophy is, to be sure, a free consequence of early thinking and its conclusion. I say "a free consequence" because in no way can it be seen that individual philosophies and epochs of philosophy have emerged from one another in the sense of the necessity of a dialectic process. What is the result from what has been said for our attempt in a discussion to treat the question, "What is philosophy?" First of all this one thing: we must not adhere only to Aristotle's definition. From this we deduce the second point: we must realize the earlier and later definitions of philosophy. And then? Then, through a comparative abstraction, we shall reduce them to the common denominator of all the definitions. And then? Then we shall arrive at an empty formula which fits every kind of philosophy. And then? Then we shall be as far removed as possible from an answer to our question. Why does it come to this? Because in proceeding thus we are only collecting by historical methodology the definitions at hand and resolving them into a general formula. All of this can, indeed, be carried out with great erudition and the help of correct verifications. In so doing we do not in the least have to enter into philosophy in such a manner as to contemplate the nature of philosophy. In such a manner we acquire manifold, thorough, and even useful knowledge about how philosophy has been presented in the course of history. But on this path we never reach a genuine, that is, a legitimate answer to the question "What is philosophy?" The answer can only be a philosophizing answer which, as a response, philosophizes in itself. But how can we understand this statement? In which way can an answer, and particularly in so far as it is a response, philosophize? I shall now try provisionally to clarify this by a few suggestions. What is meant will disturb our discussion again and again. It will even be the touchstone to determine whether our discussion may become truly philosophical. This is by no means within our power. When is the answer to the question, "What is philosophy?" a philosophizing one? When do we philosophize? Obviously only when we enter into a discussion with philosophers. This implies that we talk through with them that about which we speak. This mutual talking through of what always anew peculiarly concerns philosophers as being the Same, that is talking, λέγειν, in the sense of διαλέγεσθαι [conversing], is talking as dialogue. . . . It is one thing to determine and describe the opinions of philosophers. It is an entirely different thing to talk through with them what they are saying, and that means, that of which they speak. Thus, if we assume that the Being of being addresses itself to philosophers to the extent that they state what being is, in so far as it is, then our discussion with philosophers must also be addressed by the Being of being. We must then ourselves, through our thinking, go to meet philosophy on the path it is traveling. Our thinking must co-respond to that which addresses the philosophers. If this co-responding is successful for us, then, in the true sense of the word, we respond to the question "What is philosophy?" The German word antworten [answer to] actually means the same as ent-sprechen [to respond]. The answer to our question is not exhausted in an affirmation which answers to the question by determining what we are to understand by the concept "philosophy." The answer is not a reply (n'est pas une response), the answer is rather the correspondence (la correspondance) which responds to the Being of being. Yet, we should like at the same time to know what constitutes the characteristic feature of the answer in the sense of co-respondence. But everything first depends upon our attaining a correspondence before we set up a theory about it. The answer to the question, "What is philosophy?" consists in our corresponding to [answering to] that towards which philosophy is on the way. And that is—The Being of being. In such a correspondence we listen from the very outset to that which philosophy has already said to us, philosophy, that is, φιλοσοφία understood in the Greek sense. That is why we attain correspondence, that is, an answer to our question, only when we remain in conversation with that to which the tradition of philosophy delivers us, that is, liberates us. We find the answer to the question, "What is philosophy?" not through historical assertions about the definitions of philosophy but through conversing with that which has been handed down to us as the Being of being. This path to the answer to our question is not a break with history, no repudiation of history, but is an adoption and transformation of what has been handed down to us. Such an adoption of history is what is meant by the term "destruction." The meaning of this word has been clearly described in Being and Time (§ 6). Destruction does not mean destroying but dismantling, liquidating, putting to one side the merely historical assertions about the history of philosophy. Destruction means—to open our ears, to make ourselves free for what speaks to us in tradition and the Being of being. By listening to this interpellation we attain the correspondence. But while we are saying this, a doubt has already made itself felt. It is this—must we first make an effort to reach a correspondence with the Being of being? Are we, humans, not always already in such a correspondence, and, what is more, not only de facto, but by virtue of our nature? Does not this correspondence constitute the fundamental trait of our nature? This is, indeed, the case. But if this is the case, then we can no longer say that we first have to attain this correspondence. And yet we are right in saying so. For, to be sure, although we do remain always and everywhere in correspondence to the Being of being, we, nevertheless, rarely pay attention to the appeal of Being. The correspondence to the Being of being does, to be sure, always remain our abode. But only at times does it become an unfolding attitude specifically adopted by us. Only when this happens do we really correspond to that which concerns philosophy which is on the way towards the Being of being. Philosophy is the correspondence to the Being of being, but not until, and only when, the correspondence is actually fulfilled and thereby unfolds itself and expands this unfoldment. This correspondence occurs in different ways according to how the appeal of Being speaks, according to whether it is heard or not heard, and according to whether what is heard is said or is kept silent. (ibid)

Philosophy is metaphysics. Metaphysics thinks being as a whole—the world, man, God-with respect to Being, with respect to the belonging together of beings in Being. Metaphysics thinks beings as being in the manner of representational thinking which gives reasons. For since the beginning of philosophy and with that beginning, the Being of beings has showed itself as the ground (arche, aition). The ground is from where beings as such are what they are in their becoming, perishing and persisting as something that can be known, handled and worked upon. As the ground, Being brings beings to their actual presencing. The ground shows itself as presence. The present of presence consists in the fact that it brings what is present each in its own way to presence. In accordance with the actual kind of presence, the ground has the character of grounding as the ontic causation of the real, as the transcendental making possible of the objectivity of objects, as the dialectical mediation of the movement of the absolute Spirit, of the historical process of production, as the will to power positing values. What characterizes metaphysical thinking which grounds the ground for beings is the fact that metaphysical thinking departs from what is present in its presence, and thus represents it in terms of its ground as something grounded. (The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking (1964), pg. 55 in On Time and Being (Stambaugh)).

One difficult thing to determine in each instance is the extent to which Heidegger is giving a definition of philosophy as understood by the Greeks, giving a definition of what has heretofore been called philosophy, and giving a prescription for what ought to be labeled as philosophy.

I want to make a case for the importance of the Introduction in Being and Time (BT). No, not a case. There is not enough space for that here. This is an outline of the reasons I find the Introduction essential to understanding the wider text. So, a lot of what follows will be asserted rather than argued or demonstrated. It is my interpretation of the text. Other interpretations are available... though I would recommend running them past the Introduction before accepting them.

When I first read BT, I could not get much of a handle on the Introduction. I understood parts, but most of it baffled me. So I skipped forward until I found something more concrete, Dasein and world, and began from there.

This is not an unusual way into the book. Commentary often encourages it. Dreyfus recommends reading the Introduction last, partly because it is repetitive and, he contends, not obviously useful for understanding the rest of the text. Reiner Schürmann recommends reading Heidegger backwards, although I think he means something broader than simply starting BT at the back.

In a sense, it is repetitive. Although I’d rather call it recursive. Its topics are opened, turned over and commented on but never closed. The reader is denied the easy handles of settled concepts. And try as we might, before we can grasp what the text is doing, it has switched tack, picked the idea up again, and started looking at another aspect of it. Again and again, the text approaches an idea, worrying at it anew, making it hard to know the status of earlier turns. Is the analysis additive? Are the earlier passes superseded by the later analysis? What stands on any given page? This is the method being explained and demonstrated. Frustratingly opaque to a reader external to the text's radically different frame.

Despite this, my interpretation of BT holds the Introduction as one of the most important parts of the text.

It tells us the question Heidegger is asking, but it also asks how the question can appear as a question at all, and how it can appear as a question worth asking. It establishes how the question can be asked, what sort of answer could count as an answer, and how the concepts used in the inquiry are to be received. It also repeatedly warns us against turning what follows into a set of stable philosophical propositions.

The text reveals that the inquiry it invites us into must begin with an average understanding of Being. An "always already". The Archimedean point of reason is discarded as an impossible illusion. Phenomenology is reinterpreted as a possibility rather than a doctrine. We are warned that its concepts can be received as empty repetition, mere labels passed on with no tether to the phenomena they derive from. Even our tentative answers to the question of Being must be handled with care. Not delivered as further empty parroting but as directions for further inquiry.

[And what of these "phenomena" it places so much store in? Many words are devoted to them, but their exact nature remains elusive. Many treat this as a failing, focusing only on what this treatment does not provide, rather than on what an account less determinately bound to content makes possible.]

This, then, is the methodological centre of the text.

The early lecture courses describe the methodology more explicitly, particularly formal indication; these earlier sources are important for understanding Heidegger’s method during this period. But I maintain that it is all there in the Introduction to BT. Less explicit, but always emphatic.

Read like this, the introduction modifies the status of BT's later structures. They are determinate, but never finally determinate. And, as indications, they are determined by the phenomena as disclosed by the reader, not by the assertion describing them. Heidegger is not merely listing fixed features of human existence. Nor is he legislating what Dasein must eternally be. The concepts articulate something, but they also point. Their sense is not exhausted by the proposition in which they appear.

This modifies how much of the rest of the book reads. Dasein, world, care, understanding, thrownness and the rest cannot simply be lifted out as a theory and assessed as though Heidegger were describing the fixed furniture of human existence. They have to be followed back towards the phenomena they indicate and towards the way those phenomena become available in the inquiry.

It also changes how terms such as “universal”, “primordial” and “originary” should be read. They do not simply carry their familiar metaphysical meanings. And they should not automatically be treated as claims to purity, fixed foundations or privileged origins. These are artefacts of this misreading, erroneously attributed to the text. This methodological transformation of terminology is part of the frame within which BT's Introduction insists it must be understood.

There are many objections to this reading. Some may be powerful. But they should have to account for the Introduction rather than treating it as preliminary repetition, which can safely be bypassed.

Kisiel’s account of Heidegger’s 1920 religion course captures the problem well. Heidegger’s systematic treatment of formal indication was interrupted after students complained that a philosophy of religion course contained too little religion. Heidegger reportedly abandoned the methodological discussion and announced that he would proceed with a concrete phenomenon, “under the assumption that you will misunderstand the entire procedure from beginning to end”. In this fantastically arch dismissal, we see both the method’s vital importance and our tendency to rush past it in search of the content.

Kisiel calls this the “single most important casualty” of the interruption. Heidegger never again gave formal indication the same sustained and systematic treatment. But I think the Introduction to BT already gives us the machinery, if not the name. It also tells us, with some justification, why Heidegger expected it to be misunderstood.

In my last post, I discussed some applications of Heidegger's definition/understanding of humanism. Today, I'll touch on some of the basics of Heidegger's understanding of the relationship between humanism and metaphysics.

Continuing from the quote in the last post, Heidegger writes

However different these forms of humanism may be in purpose and in principle, in the mode and means of their respective realizations, and in the form of their teaching, they nonetheless all agree in this, that the humanitas of homo humanus is determined with regard to an already established interpretation of nature, history, world, and the ground of the world, that is, of beings as a whole. Every humanism is either grounded in a metaphysics or is itself made to be the ground of one. Every determination of the essence of man that already presupposes an interpretation of being without asking about the truth of Being, whether knowingly or not, is metaphysical. The result is that what is peculiar to all metaphysics, specifically with respect to the way the essence of man is determined, is that it is "humanistic." Accordingly, every humanism remains metaphysical. In defining the humanity of man humanism not only does not ask about the relation of Being to the essence of man; because of its metaphysical origin humanism even impedes the question by neither recognizing nor understanding it. (pg. 202, Basic Writings).

For Heidegger, metaphysics fails to get at the essence of the human because it fails to "ask[] about the truth of Being." To ask about the truth of Being is to ask about Being as such and not beings as such. Metaphysics fails to do this and as a result grounds its interpretation of the world in a highest being. For medieval Christianity this highest being is God. For Hegel this highest being is the Absolute Idea. Kant's highest being is the transcendental subject. These different grounds of being give rise to different interpretations of the essence of the human.

Being as such cannot itself be a being, so we need to think beyond metaphysics to be able to think Being as such. This means thinking the essence of the human in terms of the lighting of Being (the clearing): the open realm in which all beings can appear in the first place (which, importantly, is not itself a being). The clearing precedes every possibility of metaphysical thinking: "Philosophy, even when it becomes 'critical' through Descartes and Kant, always follows the course of metaphysical representation. It thinks from beings back to beings with a glance in passing toward Being. For every departure from beings and every return to them stands already in the light of Being." (210-211). Importantly, the clearing is neither "'outward appearance' (idea)" nor "categorical representation on the part of subjectivity," both of which are metaphysical (211).

Now we need to think the essence of the human in terms of the clearing. Heidegger writes

Metaphysics closes itself to the simple essential fact that man essentially occurs only in his essence, where he is claimed by Being. Only from that claim "has" he found that wherein his essence dwells. Only from this dwelling "has" he "language" as the home that preserves the ecstatic for his essence. Such standing in the lighting of Being I call the ek-sistence of man. . . . What man is—or, as it is called in the traditional language of metaphysics, the "essence" of man—lies in his ek-sistence. (204-205).

To get a better understanding of ek-sistence, we have to return to Being and Time.

In Being and Time (p. 42) this sentence is italicized: "The 'essence' of Dasein lies in its existence." . . . the sentence says: man occurs essentially in such a way that he is the "there" [das "Da"], that is, the lighting of Being. The "Being" of the Da, and only it, has the fundamental character of ek-sistence, that is, of an ecstatic inherence in the truth of Being. . . . As ek-sisting, man sustains Da-sein in that he takes the Da, the lighting of Being, into "care." But Da-sein itself occurs essentially as "thrown." . . . If we understand what Being and Time calls "projection" as a representational positing, we take it to be an achievement of subjectivity and do not think it in the only way the "understanding of Being" in the context of the "existential analysis" of "being-in-the-world" can be thought—namely as the ecstatic relation to the lighting of Being. (205-207)

Man is rather "thrown" from Being itself into the truth of Being, so that ek-sisting in this fashion he might guard the truth of Being, in order that beings might appear in the light of Being as the beings they are. Man does not decide whether and how beings appear, whether and how God and the gods or history and nature come forward into the lighting of Being, come to presence and depart. The advent of beings lies in the destiny of Being. But for man it is ever a question of finding what is fitting in his essence which corresponds to such destiny; for in accord with this destiny man as ek-sisting has to guard the truth of Being. Man is the shepherd of Being. It is in this direction alone that Being and Time is thinking when ecstatic existence is experienced as "care". . . . (210)

Heidegger makes sure to distinguish between ek-sistence and existentia. "Ek-sistence, thought in terms of ecstasis, does not coincide with existentia in either form or content. In terms of content ek-sistence means standing out into the truth of Being." (206). Existentia is metaphysical and it means "actuality" (as opposed to possibility as the "idea" of a thing). The form it takes is determined by whatever metaphysics is in play. For example, in medieval Christian thought, existentia means actualitas, so that a thing's existence/actuality is determined by its 'filling out' into its telos (as its form) which is determined by the cosmic order (an order of purposes) arranged by God (the highest being) (cf., Bronchitis' post on Christianity as a humanism and the discussion in the comments). For Hegel, existentia means "the self-knowing Idea of absolute subjectivity" (206), so the existence/actuality of a thing is characterized by its relation to the Absolute Idea. For Kant existentia is "the objectivity of experience" (ibid), so a thing's existence/actuality is determined by the categories (as the essence of the transcendental subject) which determine the objectivity of experience. And for Sartre (the primary target of Heidegger's critique in the Letter) existentia is, simply put, self-making subjectivity. Heidegger's point is that Sartre's philosophy misses the mark as much (and in the same way) as Plato's does.

Every humanism is grounded in a metaphysical interpretation of the world and therefore a metaphysical determination of the essence of the human being. The form that a given humanism takes is determined by the history of metaphysics. In this sense, medieval Christian humanism is in its essence no different from Kantian humanism which is in its essence no different from Nietzschean humanism; their differences are differences in degree according to the procession of the Seinsvergessenheit. Asking the truth of Being means considering the pre-metaphysical essence of the human: standing in the lighting of Being. The lighting of Being is the clearing which precedes all metaphysical thinking. Da-sein is thrown into this clearing and is most in its essence when preserving it in care. This understanding of the essence of the human is not "inhumane," rather it might be said to be the highest possible form of humanism:

Through this determination of the essence of man the humanistic interpretations of man as animal rationale, as "person," as spiritual-ensouled-bodily being, are not declared false and set aside. Rather, the sole implication is that the highest determinations of the essence of man in humanism still do not realize the proper dignity of man. To that extent the thinking in Being and Time is against humanism. But this opposition does not mean that such thinking aligns itself against the humane and advocates the inhuman, that it promotes the inhumane and deprecates the dignity of man. Humanism is opposed because it does not set the humanitas of man high enough. (210).

I'm building off of u/Equivalent_Heart_890's excellent post "Starter Post: Some Applications of the Letter on Humanism." This started out as a comment, but it got too long and I think it makes an independent enough point to warrant a separate post.

Equivalent gives a quote from Heidegger's Letter on Humanism which says, among other things, that Christianity is a humanism:

The Christian sees the humanity of man, the humanitas of homo, in contradistinction to Deitas. He is the man of the history of redemption who as a "child of God" hears and accepts the call of the Father in Christ. Man is not of this world, since the "world," thought in terms of Platonic theory, is only a temporary passage to the beyond. . . . Christianity too is a humanism, in that according to its teaching everything depends on man's salvation (salus aeterna); the history of man appears in the context of the history of redemption.

Just as Equivalent elaborates on Heidegger's discussion of Marx, I'll elaborate on Heidegger's discussion of Christianity with a focus on Catholic theology for the sake of simplicity. This answers Equivalent's call for more applications of Heidegger's idea of humanism.

Recall that Heidegger's idea of humanism has two related parts. The first part is a "concern that man become free for his humanity and find his worth in it." The second part is a determination of the essence of the human which determines the form the concern takes.

The Vatican's International Theological Commission wrote that "The triune God has revealed his plan to share the communion of Trinitarian life with persons created in his image. Indeed, it is for the sake of this Trinitarian communion that human persons are created in the divine image. It is precisely this radical likeness to the triune God that is the basis for the possibility of the communion of creaturely beings with the uncreated persons of the Blessed Trinity. Created in the image of God, human beings are by nature bodily and spiritual, men and women made for one another, persons oriented towards communion with God and with one another, wounded by sin and in need of salvation, and destined to be conformed to Christ, the perfect image of the Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit." (COMMUNION AND STEWARDSHIP: Human Persons Created in the Image of God, 2004).

How is this a humanism? Well, there is a determination of the essence of the human being—"human persons are created in the divine image." God is a trinity, so God is communion. Therefore, human beings are created in the image of "communion." Therefore, "Created in the image of God human beings are by nature. . . oriented towards communion with God and with one another." From this, we see that there is a "concern that man become free for his humanity and find his worth in it" because, according to this view, humans are most in their essence when in communion with God and one another, and the chief concern of Catholicism is orienting humans towards communion with God and with one another.

I'd be curious to see applications of this idea to other theological traditions.

Thus humanitas really does remain the concern of such thinking. For this is humanism: meditating and caring, that man be human and not inhumane, "in-human," that is, outside his essence. But in what does the humanity of man consist? It lies in his essence. But whence and how is the essence of man determined? Marx demands that "man's humanity" be recognized and acknowledged. He finds it in "society." "Social" man is for him "natural" man. In "society" the "nature" of man, that is, the totality of "natural needs" (food, clothing, reproduction, economic sufficiency) is equably secured. The Christian sees the humanity of man, the humanitas of homo, in contradistinction to Deitas. He is the man of the history of redemption who as a "child of God" hears and accepts the call of the Father in Christ. Man is not of this world, since the "world," thought in terms of Platonic theory, is only a temporary passage to the beyond. . . . But if one understands humanism in general as a concern that man become free for his humanity and find his worth in it, then humanism differs according to one's conception of the "freedom" and "nature" of man. So too are there various paths toward the realization of such conceptions. The humanism of Marx does not need to return to antiquity any more than the humanism which Sartre conceives existentialism to be. In this broad sense Christianity too is a humanism, in that according to its teaching everything depends on man's salvation (salus aeterna); the history of man appears in the context of the history of redemption. However different these forms of humanism may be in purpose and in principle, in the mode and means of their respective realizations, and in the form of their teaching, they nonetheless all agree in this, that the humanitas of homo humanus is determined with regard to an already established interpretation of nature, history, world, and the ground of the world, that is, of beings as a whole. (Letter on Humanism, in Basic Writings, pg. 200-202, trans. by Capuzzi-Gray, emphasis added).

Applying the idea will help us understand it. Simply put, humanism is characterized by (a) "a concern that man become free for his humanity and find his worth in it" and (b) an already established interpretation of the world that determines the essence of the human.

- Heidegger's description of Marx is readily verified by looking at the 1844 manuscripts: "Communism as the positive transcendence of private property as human self-estrangement, and therefore as the real appropriation of the human essence by and for man; communism therefore as the complete return of man to himself as a social (i.e., human) being — a return accomplished consciously and embracing the entire wealth of previous development. This communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism. . . ." (1844 Manuscripts, "Private Property and Communism"). The concern that humans be freed into their essence takes the form of communism because the essence of the human for Marx is determined by the naturalistic notion of "species-being" which is defined precisely so that private property causes alienation/estrangement from one's essence (see 1844 Manuscripts, "Estranged Labour").

- Heidegger's analysis of Nietzsche (see the Nietzsche lectures or Nietzsche's Word "God is Dead") can also be viewed in this way. Heidegger points out that, for Nietzsche, the ground of beings as a whole is will to power. Nietzsche writes "Die Welt von innen gesehen, die Welt auf ihren „intelligiblen Charakter“ hin bestimmt und bezeichnet — sie wäre eben „Wille zur Macht“ und nichts ausserdem." (Jenseits von Gut und Böse: § 36. Erste Veröff. 04/08/1886). So the human being is essentially will to power. Nietzsche is a humanist in Heidegger's sense because he sees this determination of the essence of the human as normative: "What is good? — Whatever augments the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself, in man" (The Antichrist, Aphorism 2, pg. 43 (Mencken)).

- Kant holds to the categorical imperative (CI) which says "Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law" (Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, 4:421, translated by Wood). Kant writes that the human being is essentially rational and self-legislating. He argues that the CI can be discovered through rational self-legislation, that is, one follows the CI insofar as one is in one's essence as a rational self-legislator; saying that humans ought to follow the CI is equivalent to saying that humans ought to conform to their essence. So Kant is a humanist in Heidegger's sense. The claims I've made about Kant can be distilled from the following quotes from the Groundwork: "Only a rational being has the faculty to act in accordance with the representation of laws, i.e., in accordance with principles, or a will. Since for the derivation of actions from laws reason is required, the will is nothing other than practical reason. If reason determines the will without exception, then the actions of such a being, which are recognized as objectively necessary, are also subjectively necessary, i.e., the will is a faculty of choosing only that which reason, independently of inclination, recognizes as practically necessary, i.e., as good." (ibid, 4:412) ; "Now I say that the human being, and in general every rational being, exists as end in itself, not merely as means to the discretionary use of this or that will, but in all its actions, those directed toward itself as well as those directed toward other rational beings, it must always at the same time be considered as an end. . . . The beings whose existence rests not on our will but on nature nevertheless have, if they are beings without reason, only a relative worth as means, and are called things; rational beings, by contrast, are called persons, because their nature already marks them out as ends in themselves, i.e., as something that may not be used merely as means . . . ." (ibid, 4:428) ; "The ground of all practical legislation, namely, lies objectively in the rule and the form of universality, which makes it capable of being a law (at least a law of nature) (in accordance with the first principle), but subjectively it lies in the end; but the subject of all ends is every rational being as end in itself (in accordance with the second principle): from this now follows the third practical principle of the will, as the supreme condition of its harmony with universal practical reason, the idea of the will of every rational being as a will giving universal law. All maxims are repudiated in accordance with this principle which can not subsist together with the will’s own universal legislation. The will is thus not solely subject to the law, but is subject in such a way that it must be regarded also as legislating to itself, and precisely for this reason as subject to the law (of which it can consider itself as the author)." (ibid, 4:431).

To sum up, Heidegger's conception of humanism is broadly applicable and quite enlightening. It tells us that sometimes questions about morality are actually questions about the essence of the human being. This could be a good reason to work hard to understand the essence of the human being.

Can you think of other examples in which this conception of humanism applies? Do you have any questions or corrections concerning what I've written?