Saying, Showing, and Sharing

Transcription

1 Saying, Showing, and Sharing Heidegger s Concept of Discourse By Ed Stroupe And what, from a man who cannot look, is the warrant? Whatever we might say, we see in all that we say. (Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, vv , Heidegger s translation 1 ) Introductory Note: Context Let me give a little hint on how to listen. The point is not to listen to a set of propositions, but rather to follow the movement of the showing. (On Time and Being, p. 2) One contextual question that has grown to animate me in my personal life inquiry is the question, How is it that we have come to see the world the way we see it, and not some other way? In a conference in I attended in 2002, I became captivated by a presentation by Dr. Luanne Frank, associate professor of English at the University of Texas at Arlington, who delivered an extraordinary talk entitled The Discourses of Humanity: The Meanings of Discourse through Foucault. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this talk launched me into what has turned into a sixteen-year exploration of the phenomenon of discourse. It was studying this thematic realm that eventually led me to the contextual question above. Over the five years since my professional retirement from the software world, my interests increasingly focused on the works of Martin Heidegger. This paper is a summary presentation of what I have learned out of engaging with Heidegger s thinking on the concept of discourse. While I will attempt to capture faithfully the essence of his distinctions in this arena, this paper is fully my interpretation of Heidegger s inquiries into discourse and language. To get started, however, I will begin by providing some background on the philosophical concept of discourse. Copyright 2018, R. Edwin Stroupe Page 1

2 Background: The Question of Discourse and Language The existential-ontological foundation of language is discourse. (Being and Time, M&R tr. p. 203) The question about the nature of discourse is as old as the beginnings of Western philosophy, going back to Aristotle, Plato and the pre-socratics. The original Greek word for discourse was logos. In the 20th century, Martin Heidegger brought discourse, and the role of language, explicitly to the forefront of modern philosophy, whereupon it subsequently became an important inquiry in 20 th century postmodern philosophy. Out of Heidegger s usage, the term expanded in its number and shades of technical meanings, notably among later philosophers such as Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. Part of what makes discourse a challenging topic is the ambiguity of the word s meanings. We all have a kind of shared, commonplace understanding of the word, and yet it remains for the most part very abstract or vague. The word is used in English as both a noun and a verb. In this short paper I will try to sharpen the focus to Heidegger s concepts. However, before doing that I will take a short detour through the dictionary meanings. The Oxford English Dictionary gives these meanings, among others: Discourse (noun). 1. Onward course; process or succession of time, events, actions, etc. Obs. 2. The act of the understanding, by which it passes from premises to consequences; reasoning, thought, ratiocination; the faculty of reasoning. Obs. or arch. 3. Communication of thought by speech; mutual intercourse of language; talk, conversation. Arch. 4. Narration, narrative, tale, account. Obs. 5. A spoken or written treatment of a subject, in which it is handled or discussed at length; a dissertation, treatise, homily, sermon, or the like. (now the prevailing sense) Copyright 2018, R. Edwin Stroupe Page 2

3 Discourse (verb). 1. To run, move, or travel over a space, region, etc. Obs. 2. To pass from premises to conclusions; to reason. Obs. 3. To hold discourse; to speak with another or others, talk, converse; to discuss a matter, confer. 4. To speak or write at length on a subject; to utter or pen a discourse. Except for the last definitions of each word form, the use of the word is largely considered obsolete or archaic. However, all definitions carry the sense of the word origins. The words discourse and discursive come from the Latin word discurrere, which meant to run to and fro or to roam. 2 As Heidegger pointed out, our everyday engagement with the world entails discursiveness a running one s attention back and forth in relation to the things we encounter, as we make out how to negotiate or understand what it is we are dealing with, in the present moment and the present situation. 3 Through this running to and fro, we human beings discover and ascribe meaning things become intelligible. At its most basic level, through discoursing we recognize something as something. 4 Imagine, for example: You catch a glimpse of something while you are taking a walk in the woods; you wonder what it is; you try to name it; you get closer to it and finally recognize that thing as something that you know, calling it fully present to yourself by its name It s a deer. Even if you don t recognize it, you address it, or comport yourself toward it, as a question: What is that? In other words, discoursing or discourse is a fundamental mode of our everyday being-in-the-world. 5 As we course back and forth in this process, we are always looking out ahead into the possibility of what it is that we are engaging with at the time, comparing its possibility with what is showing up as an actuality, the phenomenon. We are always Copyright 2018, R. Edwin Stroupe Page 3

4 already reaching out ahead to bring back the meaningful presence of things. During this process, we are not inside our heads, but are out there with the phenomenon at hand. You and I are always discoursing. Whether we are talking with others or thinking to ourselves, we could be said to be engaging in discourse. Even when we are alone and not necessarily aware of thinking about something, we are engaging in discourse. Our discursiveness extends not only to the activities of talking and thinking, but also those of perceiving and experiencing, as illustrated by the deer example. This discursive engagement applies not only to things out there, but also to socalled inner experiences, like emotions. What may start out is a vague sense of misgiving, we suddenly crystallize by calling it fear or anxiety. If we can t immediately identify it, we might call it something like feeling ill at ease, or we might say, I don t know how I feel. The same goes for various pains and body sensations, as well as thoughts, ideas, dreams, memories, or even our sense of self. All of these domains of human experience Heidegger talked about, employing the method of phenomenology that he first inherited from his early mentor, Edmund Husserl. Brief Side Note: Phenomenology The principle is that we should inquire into and work upon the objects of philosophy just the way they show up. Thus, the tendency to press on to the real issues themselves, to free them from presuppositions, overlays from the tradition, and hasty questions laden with presuppositions. (Logic: The Question of Truth, p. 28) There s nothing you can see that isn t shown. (The Beatles) I think it is worthwhile at this point to touch, if only briefly, on Heidegger s concept of phenomenology. As he wrote in numerous places, the word phenomenology comes Copyright 2018, R. Edwin Stroupe Page 4

5 from the Greek words phainomenon and logos. Phainomenon was the participle of phainesthai, a middle-voice verb form which meant to show itself. The root verb was phaino, which meant to bring to light or illuminate. Thus, a phenomenon is something that shows itself or brings itself to light. Logos, Heidegger claimed, meant discourse, which he said always meant discourse about something. In turn, logos was associated with the verb legein, the word that traditionally meant to speak but which he said possessed the character of deloun, or making manifest. Thus, the word phenomenology speaks in a unified sense to letting the manifest in itself be seen in itself. 6 Hence the famous slogan of phenomenology, to the things themselves. For Heidegger, phenomenology was strictly a methodological term: As research work, phenomenology is precisely the work of laying open and letting be seen, understood as the methodologically directed dismantling of concealments. 7 In other words, phenomenology was a way of looking that de-conceals what is otherwise concealed. He considered a primary component of this method reduction (Husserl s epoché), and he credited Husserl with the discovery of intentionality. 8 Heidegger considered phenomenology to be a path for gaining access to the being of phenomena, and ultimately Being itself. It was a way of looking while setting aside the modern stance of objective theorizing. This was a distinct shift of focus from Husserl s path of reducing everything in terms of consciousness, which reinforced a subject-object metaphysical worldview that Heidegger rejected. As an alternative way of interpreting Heidegger s question of being, Thomas Sheehan recently pointed out that Heidegger was out to get to the meaningfulness of things and the nature of Copyright 2018, R. Edwin Stroupe Page 5

6 meaningfulness itself. 9 Being, intelligibility, and meaningfulness were always connected in Heidegger s thinking, especially with respect to discourse (logos). Early Heidegger: The Four Structural Moments We have thus found four structural moments which belong essentially to language itself: 1) the about-which talked over, 2) the discursive what [the said as such], 3) the communication, and 4) the manifestation. (History of the Concept of Time, p. 263) The German words Heidegger used for discourse were Rede ( speech, talk ) and reden ( to talk, to speak ). Rather than translate the words as discourse, Hubert Dreyfus argued that a better translation would be telling. 10 Nevertheless, since virtually all translators of Heidegger have adopted the word discourse, and considering the evolution of the English word as a philosophical concept both prior to and since Heidegger, I will follow that terminological tradition. Regardless of the English word choice, Heidegger considered the phenomenon of discourse to be a human existential. That is to say, it is a fundamental, primordial aspect or feature of the being of a human being, i.e. a part of the fundamental ontology of human existence. 11 Heidegger developed his ideas about discourse during the 1920s, in the period that led up to writing Being and Time. He unfolded the concept within the framework of revealing and exploring the nature of being-in-the-world, specifically in the context of being-with others as a primary existential of human discoveredness (which he later termed disclosedness). He introduced the topic in his 1925 lecture series with the statement, Language is the possibility of the being of Dasein 12 such that language makes Dasein manifest in its discoveredness by way of interpretation and thus by way of meaning. 13 He went on, Language makes manifest. 14 And, As self-articulation of inbeing and being-with, speaking is being toward the world discourse. 15 This Copyright 2018, R. Edwin Stroupe Page 6

7 subsequently developed into, The existential-ontological foundation of language is discourse or talk. 16 One of his most illuminating discussions of the topic took place in that 1925 lecture series, where he unfolded what he distinguished to be the four structural moments of discourse and language. All quotes below, unless otherwise noted, are from section 28-d, Discourse and Language, found in The History of the Concept of Time. 17 Having alluded above to one component, how discourse makes manifest, Heidegger continued: As being-in-the-world, discoursing is first discoursing about something. Every discourse has its about-which. In the words of phenomenology, all discourse is intentional. This was not a brand new concept, and the idea did not originate with Heidegger; it goes all the way back to an observation by Plato. 18 An about-which is always present, whether one is talking with someone, reading, writing, perceiving, remembering, or thinking. In any conversation, there is always something about which we are speaking. We can see this in our above example of perceiving the deer, or the what is it? It holds true when we are dreaming, imagining, or remembering. It even holds true if we are meditating on nothing. Simply put, all discourse intends, or directs towards, something the about-which. Heidegger continued: From the about-which of discourse we must distinguish a second structural moment, the said as such. In discoursing, we are always saying something. It might be That deer has brown spots, Wow, what a beautiful animal, That startled me, or even just the word deer. What we say about something is distinct from the thing we are talking about, thinking about, wondering about, perceiving, or feeling. The said-as-such is a linguistic phenomenon. Temporally speaking, it may Copyright 2018, R. Edwin Stroupe Page 7

8 appear to arise after the occurrence of the about-which, but we could argue that the two always arise simultaneously and are inseparable. Incidentally, the said-as-such itself in turn can become an about-which, as a particular discourse moves forward. There is always something more that we can (and frequently do!) say about what someone has said, even if it be, What you said is wrong, I agree, or There is nothing more I can say about that. It is worth mentioning at this point that, while these two distinctions may seem obvious to us today, there was a time when language was seen by many in a magical context. Words somehow were the things themselves. Possessing a word could somehow give power over others, or over nature. I think that for all of us, on some superstitious level, we still relate sometimes to such notions as real. Take the word cancer, for example. It is a word that invokes fear and anxiety. I know as a youth I was very afraid that even thinking of that word meant somehow that I would have the disease. From the two moments of the about-which and the said-as-such, Heidegger moved into the third and fourth components. First, discourse is ultimately a primary manner or mode of humans being together in the world. Through discourse, we are being-with one another. In this being-with each other, we participate together in a special way. As he put it, Discourse as a mode of being of Dasein qua being-with is essentially communication, so that in every discourse, that about which it is, is shared with the other through what is said, through the said as such.discourse as communication brings about an appropriation of the world in which one always already is in being with one another. Copyright 2018, R. Edwin Stroupe Page 8

9 However, contrary to what most of us ordinarily think, communication does not consist of one person s bundling together some private thoughts or experiences and shipping them over to another person as a message, which the other then deciphers into meaning. It is rather a matter of being-with-one-another becoming manifest in the world, specifically by way of the discovered world, which itself becomes manifest in speaking with one another. This last statement speaks of the fourth structural moment of discourse, the manifestation. We could say that manifestation is the occurring of the about-which through the said-as-such. We could say that the first two structural moments together are what has something show up as something. Manifestation is the showing-up of a being or an entity in the world, and this includes how we show up to ourselves and each other. Manifestation is the meaningful presence of something that, when we abstract it out, when we interpret it, we refer to as its being. Generally speaking, all of the manifestations taken together in the moment past, present, and future are what we experience as our occurring world. Manifestation lies at the heart of all meaning, which in turn we ascribe or assign discursively, in and through our discoursing. For me, as I interpret Heidegger s unfolding of discourse and language, I see discourse as a kind of in-between phenomenon. It is in this in-between-ness that the being-with others presents the possibility of experiencing the magic of communication, the mysteriousness of being together, and the manifestation of love and connectedness. Furthermore, it is through our discoursing that the possibility arises for each of us of discovering, of disclosing, new possibilities for who we are and what the world might be. Copyright 2018, R. Edwin Stroupe Page 9

10 It is important to note here that the way that I am speaking (and Heidegger spoke) about discourse and discoursing makes it sound like this type of engagement is something that we human beings do. That may be true much of the time. However, such an assessment is largely an artifact of English grammar. For example, we were taught that the best way to speak, and especially to write, is using the active voice. I could use the passive voice, which teachers in particular disdain as sounding weaker, and which in this context could lend the impression that discourse is something that is done to us, which in turn could easily lead to the sense that we become victims of discourses. Perhaps the best way to speak of discoursing, and even more so of language that arises in and out of discourse, would be as something that we find ourselves in the midst of a middle voice phenomenon like an arising, an emerging, or an occurring, in which we sometimes are active, sometimes are passive, and often just find ourselves there. Heidegger concluded this section in the lecture series, after a number of side notes too lengthy to discuss here, by saying: We now have discourse as the phenomenon which thus underlies language: There is language only because there is discourse, and not conversely. (History of the Concept of Time, p. 265) This statement is, to say the least, counterintuitive to us moderns. I, for one, always grew up with the notion that language and words are the building blocks of discourse, not the other way around. Middle Heidegger: The Turn in his Articulation During two decades following the 1927 publication of Being and Time, Heidegger underwent what he referred to as a turning. Heidegger scholars argue about what he Copyright 2018, R. Edwin Stroupe Page 10

11 meant by that term and have posited different interpretations. It is clear that in certain contexts he used the word to refer to the shifts or alterations in his way of thinking that took place during the 1930s and 1940s, to be contrasted with a change in his philosophical opinions. 19 During this transitional period, Heidegger delved further into the roots of logos in ancient Greek philosophy, and he began focusing more on the essence of language, the nature of thinking, and the realm of discourse called poetry. He also wrote private monographs, in which he strove for a non-metaphysical articulation of the question of being. Most pertinent to this paper is the development of his thinking about language. With respect to the ancient Greeks, he continued to write and lecture about logos, and he introduced an etymological interpretation of legein (speaking). Legein properly means the laying-down and laying-before, which gathers itself and others. 20 This was a significant interpretation that had implications for his later inquiries into the nature of language, not to mention discourse. While he held that legein clearly held its most common meaning as speaking, he pointed out that logos (discourse as speech) was naturally the protector, preserver, or shelter for what was gathered into unconcealment and laid before through legein. 21 In the late 1940s, Heidegger wrote one of most famous and often-quoted statements, Language is the house of being. 22 Language is the house of being. In its home human beings dwell. Those who think and those who create with words are the guardians of this home. Their guardianship accomplishes the manifestation of being insofar as they bring this manifestation to language and preserve it in language through their saying. ( Letter on Humanism ) Copyright 2018, R. Edwin Stroupe Page 11

12 What was this passage pointing to? What did he mean by guardianship accomplishing the manifestation of being? For Heidegger, those who think are the philosophers, and those who create with words are the poets. Human beings live in language. Language occurs out of the saying of thinkers and poets. We dwell in a home built by thinkers and poets? What did he mean by being here? And what is this home anyway? Out of his continuous inquiry and reformulation during this middle period, Heidegger was shifting much of his attention to the nature of language and thinking. This resulted in an elegant and deeper refinement of his ideas about the phenomenon of discourse, although he rarely employed the term discourse in his later writings and lectures. In my opinion, however, his later work on language more than reflected his earlier concept of discourse, notwithstanding a shift in terminology. His late work crystallized discourse and language as the foundation that provides the ground on which we human beings stand in all of our engagements in living. In the remaining sections of this paper, I will lay out an interpretive sketch below that shows this. Later Heidegger: Saying, Showing, and Language The essential being of language is Saying as Showing. (On the Way to Language, p. 123) The human being cannot comport himself in any way without language. Language is not only verbal articulation. Communicatio is only one possibility. To say [sagen] originally meant to show [zeigen]. (Zollikon Seminars, p. 16) While Heidegger continued to explore the question of being, working to establish a new, non-metaphysical articulation of the nature of being, in the 1950s his questioning led him more and more to inquiring into the realms of poetry and thinking. The natural Copyright 2018, R. Edwin Stroupe Page 12

13 tie for exploring these domains was language (Sprache), and the nature of language became the central focus of many of his essays and lectures. As noted above, Heidegger had written in Being and Time in 1927, The existential-ontological foundation of language is discourse. And earlier in 1925, There is language only because there is discourse, and not conversely. The word he used for discourse at that time was Rede. His inquiries a quarter of a century later led him to a different articulation, embodied in the word, Sagen (saying). It is my view that saying imparts a deeper, richer meaning to the word discourse, and that Sagen effectively replaced Rede as Heidegger s name for the phenomenon discourse. Along the way, Heidegger had the following to say: According to the common view, both thought and poesy use language merely as their medium and a means of expression, just as sculpture, painting, and music operate and express themselves in the medium of stone and wood and color and tone.language is neither merely the field of expression, nor merely the means of expression, nor merely the two jointly. Thought and poesy never just use language to express themselves with its help; rather, thought and poesy are in themselves the originary, the essential, and therefore also the final speech that language speaks through the mouth of man. 23 The underlying assertion here is that language speaks man, and is not just an expression of man. Language, of course, contains words. We tend to think of words as signs, significations, or terms that carry specific, encoded meanings for things. Further in the same lecture: Words are not terms, and thus are not like buckets and kegs from which we scoop a content that is there. Words are wellsprings that are found and dug up in the telling, wellsprings that must be found and dug up again and again, that easily cave in, Copyright 2018, R. Edwin Stroupe Page 13

14 but that at times also well up when least expected. If we do not go the spring again and again, the buckets and kegs stay empty, or their content stays stale. 24 Heidegger s subsequent grappling with poetry, thinking, their relationship, and language, led him to distinguish the essence of the phenomenon saying. In his 1959 lecture entitled The Way to Language, he said: But then, in this short account of the nature of language, in what way are we thinking of speech and what is spoken? They reveal themselves even now as that by which and within which something is given voice and language, that is, makes an appearance insofar as something is said. To say and to speak are not identical. A man may speak, speak endlessly, and all the time say nothing. Another man may remain silent, not speak at all and yet, without speaking, say a great deal. But what does say mean? In order to find out, we must stay close to what our very language tells us to think when we use the word. Say means to show; to let appear, to let be seen and heard. (On the Way to Language, p. 122.) Here he pointed to a clear distinction between saying and speaking. In the same vein, he later elaborated: The human being distinguishes himself from animals because he can say anything at all, that is to say, because he has a language.why doesn t an animal speak? Because it has nothing to say.human speaking is saying. Not every saying is speaking, yet every speaking is saying, even speaking that says nothing..according to its ancient etymological meaning, to say is to show, to let be seen. (Zollikon Seminars, p. 87) In our common parlance, the word discourse implies either spoken or written speech speaking. Saying encompasses far more. Saying includes what is said, and equally importantly, what is left unsaid. For human beings, and perhaps only for human beings, it includes the speaking as well as the silence. Language is the given voice of what is said, revealing and disclosing that about which one is speaking, while at the Copyright 2018, R. Edwin Stroupe Page 14

15 same time concealing all else. Saying brings about the manifestation of something the showing of something that allows it to make its appearance to the one who is speaking and anyone who is listening. In other words, saying and showing, for the later Heidegger, embodied the four structural moments of discourse that he had distinguished decades earlier. If we bring into focus that moment of discourse we refer to as communication, what we are looking at is a unified phenomenon of saying, showing, and sharing being-with one another engaging in the world of shared concerns at the moment. But from whence does language arise, and what is being shown? And, what about that deer in the woods? Does it only show up inside of saying? Listening and Speaking: Saying, Showing, and Language The thing addresses me. If one understands language as saying in the sense of the letting-be-shown of something, receiving-perceiving [Vernehmen] is always language and jointly a saying of words. (Zollikon Seminars, p. 200) In effect for Heidegger, all phenomena all things that make their appearance to human beings make their appearance in and through language. 25 But we normally operate as if we see things, and then use words to name them. For Heidegger, In view of the structure of Saying, however, we may not consider showing as exclusively, or even decisively, the property of human activity. Self-showing appearance is the mark of the presence and absence of everything that is present, of every kind and rank. Even when Showing is accomplished by our human saying, even then this showing, this pointer, is preceded by an indication that it will let itself be shown. 26 In other words, what is shown is the phenomenon that which shows itself. Copyright 2018, R. Edwin Stroupe Page 15

16 He continues, Only when we give thought to our human saying in this light, only then do we arrive at an adequate definition of what is essentially present in all speaking. Speaking is known as the articulated vocalization of thought by means of the organs of speech. But speaking is at the same time also listening. It is the custom to put speaking and listening in opposition: one man speaks, the other listens. But listening accompanies and surrounds not only speaking such as takes place in conversation. The simultaneousness of speaking and listening has a larger meaning. Speaking is of itself a listening. Speaking is listening to the language which we speak. Thus, it is a listening not while but before we are speaking. This listening to language comes before all other kinds of listening that we know, in a most inconspicuous manner. We do not merely speak the language we speak by way of it. We can do so solely because we always have already listened to the language. What do we hear there? We hear language speaking.language first of all and inherently obeys the essential nature of speaking: it says. Language speaks by saying, that is, by showing. Language speaks in that it, as showing, reaching into all regions of presences, summons from them whatever is present to appear and to fade.whenever we are listening to something we are letting something be said to us, and all perception and conception is already contained in that act. If Speaking, as the listening to language, lets Saying be said to it, this letting can obtain only in so far and so near as our own nature has been admitted and entered into Saying. We hear Saying only because we belong within it. 27 Conclusion: Heidegger s Concept of Discourse In summary, for the later Heidegger, discourse is the Saying of language. Discoursing is listening to the Saying of language, and allowing the Showing of the Copyright 2018, R. Edwin Stroupe Page 16

17 Saying to arise and make present to us phenomena as they show themselves. In this making present of the Showing, he was talking about the being of phenomena, or as Sheehan points out, the meaningful presence of things. In other words, discoursing is our fundamental way of engaging both with things in the world and with other human beings. It is through discoursing language-saying-listening-speaking that the things in our world become meaningfully present, and we discover and create who we are for ourselves and each other. Copyright 2018, R. Edwin Stroupe Page 17

18 REFERENCES Referenced earlier works by Martin Heidegger: Being and Time. MacQuarrie, John and Robinson, Edward (translators M&R ). (Harper and Rowe, 1962). The classic 1962 translation of Heidegger s most famous master work, from Discussions of discourse and language appear in sections 34 ( Being-there and discourse. Language. ), and 68-d ( The temporality of discourse. ) Being and Time. Stambaugh, Joan and Schmidt, Dennis (translators S&S ). (State University of New York Press, 2010). This a newer translation by a long-term student and Heidegger translator. Personally, I think it gains much in clarity over the former translation, but in places loses clarity about other things. Obviously, the same sections apply for discussions of discourse and language. History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena. Kisiel, Theodore (translator). (Indiana University Press, 1992). This is a 1925 lecture series that effectively presented a first-cut draft of Division I of Being and Time. The relevant section is part d ( Discourse and language. ) of section 28 ( The phenomenon of discoveredness ) Logic: The Question of Truth. Sheehan, Thomas (translator). (Indiana University Press, 2016). This is a lecture series, during Heidegger s development of his ideas in Being and Time. Plato s Sophist. Rojcewicz, Richard and Schuwer, André (translators). (Indiana University Press, 1997). This is another earlier lecture series, from While not quoted in this paper, it is particularly strong in its discussions of Aristotle, and in especially Plato s notions of logos. Referenced later works by Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings. Krell, David Farrell (editor). (HarperSanFrancisco, 1977). Letter on Humanism translated by Frank Capuzzi. One of two English works containing this letter. Early Greek Thinking. Krell, David Farrell and Capuzzi, Frank (translators). (HarperSanFrancisco, 1975). A set of essays in Heidegger s mid-career on the topic of the pre-socratic philosophers Anaximander, Heraclitus, and Parmenides. On the Way to Language. Hertz, Peter (translator). (HarperSanFrancisco, 1982). This is a classic representative of Heidegger s later thought, gathered in a series of lectures and essays originally published in German from the decade of the 1950s. One particular piece I recommend is in dialogue form, entitled A Dialogue on Language between a Japanese and an Inquirer. On Time and Being. Stambaugh, Joan (translator). (University of Chicago Press, edition 2002). This work, published in English in 1972, consists of two lectures and an essay during the period from Some have fondly spoken of the 1962 lecture Time and Being as the final culmination of Being and Time. Pathmarks. McNeill, William (editor). (Cambridge University Press, 1998). Letter on Humanism translated by Frank Capuzzi. One of two English works containing this letter. What is Called Thinking? Gray, J. Glenn (translator). (Perennial Library, 1968). This work, consisting of two lecture series he delivered in , was his first major publication after World War II. Zollikon Seminars. Mayr, Franz and Askay, Richard (translators). (Northwestern University Press, 2001). This gem of a work collects protocols, conversations and letters that took place over the period from 1959 to 1972, when Heidegger worked with his friend Medard Boss and a group of psychologists and psychiatrists, with the aim of applying his work in the support of the field of psychology and psychotherapy. It includes excellent discussions and clarifications of Heidegger s earlier works. Copyright 2018, R. Edwin Stroupe Page 18

19 Other works referenced: Being-in-the-World. Dreyfus, Hubert. (The MIT Press, 1991). Hubert Dreyfus, Professor of Philosophy at U.C. Berkeley, was one of the early American pioneers of Heidegger studies. Making Sense of Heidegger, A Paradigm Shift. Sheehan, Thomas. (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). I am indebted to Thomas Sheehan, Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University, and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Loyola University Chicago, for encouragement, and enlightening explications, in pursuing this research. ENDNOTES 1 Heidegger quoted this passage at the beginning of his forward to his private monograph Das Ereignis (71, ), translated by Richard Rojcewicz as The Event. In the Signet Classics edition of Sophocles plays, Paul Roche translated the last verse to read, You shall see there s vision in every syllable I say. 2 The Oxford English Dictionary. See also Wikipedia. 3 Interview in 2016 with Thomas Sheehan, Professor or Religious Studies at Stanford University, author of Making Sense of Heidegger, translator of Logic: The Question of Truth and numerous Heidegger essays and lectures. 4 See also Sheehan, Making Sense of Heidegger, pp. 21, 80-81, 100, 104, Being-in-the-world is an expression coined by Heidegger to represent the fundamental way in which human beings live. Humans are always in a world, and are always finding themselves and defining themselves in terms of the world. 6 One of his most extensive discussions of phenomenology takes place in the introduction to Being and Time. In this paragraph, I am quoting directly from his earlier lecture series, History of the Concept of Time, section 9 ( Clarification of the name phenomenology ). All italics in the quoted passages were Heidegger s. 7 Ibid, p Ibid, sections 5, 8, 9, and 10. Intentionality is the structure of lived experience in which all experience intends, or is directed toward something. Husserl refined this distinction from his teacher Brentano. 9 Sheehan, Making Sense of Heidegger. 10 Dreyfus, Being in the World, chapter See Being and Time, sections 3 & 4, and section 34. He also coined the term existentiell to mean an aspect of one s particular existence, including one s particular perceived possibilities in life, as one encounters and understands in one s personal process of living, so to speak. Existentials, by contrast, are the ontological foundations of all human existence. Copyright 2018, R. Edwin Stroupe Page 19

20 12 Heidegger s term for human existence. Literally, the word means to be there, and it also serves a the common German word for existence. 13 History of the Concept of Time, p Ibid, p Italics Heidegger s. 15 Ibid, p Italics Heidegger s. 16 Being and Time, M&R tr., p See pages Refer to Plato s Sophist, (262e): Whenever there is speech, it s necessary that it be speech about something, and impossible for it not to be about anything. (Socrates) 19 See Making Sense of Heidegger, chapter 8. Sheehan quotes a letter in which Heidegger said, [My] thinking about the Kehre [the turn] is an alteration in my thinking. In effect there was an alteration in how he thought about the subject that was his primary concern throughout his career not a change of opinion but rather a change of articulation. 20 Early Greek Thinking, Logos (Heraclitus Fragment B 50), p Ibid, pp Letter on Humanism. This can be found in both Pathmarks and Basic Writings. He wrote this letter in 1946 purportedly in response to Sartre s interpretation of existentialism and his recently published essay, Existentialism and Humanism. 23 What is Called Thinking? p Ibid, p Italics mine. 25 On the Way to Language, The Way to Language, part II, pp Ibid, p Ibid, pp Italics mine. Copyright 2018, R. Edwin Stroupe Page 20