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(Part 1) Martin Heidegger’s “Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event)”

As we continue with Heidegger’s Contributions book, we note it is not a linear development of an argument. Heidegger never intended it for publication. What I’m trying to show is his philosophy is not superstitious even though it uses theological language strategically. The later Heidegger clearly says, “Faith has no place in thought (Anaximander’s Saying, 280, 1946).”  Heidegger didn’t leave treatises, he left puzzles. For example, he will use a term without explaining it until a hundred pages later or even in a different book. The lesson is to feel the “nothing” of the book so we can attend to our not knowing, pay attention to where we are failing to make sense/meaning, and so practice distinguishing the essential from the trivial – which is a core trait of thoughtful thinking and so reading/writing/speaking.

Heidegger asks regarding what the Greeks understood as non-being:

It could be argued that the experience of impermanence, of coming to be and passing away, had suggested and called up as a counter-measure the positing of constancy and presence. Yet how is it that things which come to be and pass away count as nonbeings?   (Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 153). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition.)

We’ve thought before that beings in transition are non being for the Greeks because an aligning of one’s soul to the constant and permanent overcomes the tragic restlessness of human life.  This ancient restlessness emerged in modernity as multifaceted not being at home.

Hölderlin—Kierkegaard—Nietzsche No one today may be so presumptuous as to consider it a mere coincidence that these three had to come to an untimely end, they who, each in his own way, at last suffered most deeply the uprootedness to which Western history is driven and who at the same time surmised their gods most intimately.  (Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 160). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition.)

Beingness of the particular is its being, for example eternal mountainness which neither comes to be nor passes away but simply “is” shining through the majestic mountain in front of you in a limited aspect. 

the presencing, the shining forth, of the view in the look and specifically as that which in coming to presence provides constancy at the same time. Here originates the distinction between the τί έστιν [“what it is”] (essentia, quidditas) and ότι [“that it is”] (existentia) in the temporality of the ίdέα (cf. The leap). A being is a being in virtue of constant presence, ίdέα, the seen in its seen-ness (αλήθεια). The ίdέα: that to which the changing, many things are referred back, the unifying One. Therefore: ν, being [seiend] = unifying. As a consequence, with respect to its many instantiations (έκαστα) the ίέα is the κοινόν, and the κοινόν, this later-derived derived determination of the ίέα as beingness, then remarkably becomes the first and ultimate determination of beingness (or of being). And so being is the “most general”!  (Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (pp. 163-164). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition).

Beauty shining along with mountainness in the majestic mountain temporarily satiates desire as lack in our soul.

as the αγαθόν—καλόν [“good—beautiful”] in relation to έρως [“love”].  (Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 165). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition.)

Houseness is not what comes to be or passes away but simply is regardless of whether there are any houses or not. But this is derivative of a more originary sense where houseness presences incarnate in the beautiful mansion, is merely present in the average house, and is deficient in the dilapidated shack.

the ίdέα as the presencing of the “what” and as the constancy of such presencing (but this is not grasped and incurs forgottenness, and through misinterpretation it becomes the ens entium (being of beings) as aeternum (eternal)!);  (Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 168). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition).

We do not think a thing in its uniqueness, but in general.  The tree in front of me is experienced in its treeness and objectness which it shares in commonality with every other tree and object.

thinking, which according to Kant is the representing of something in general (categories and the table of judgments; categories and the self-knowledge of reason for Hegel).  (Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 168). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition).

Truth as “true friend” or “great truths of the human condition was levelled down into correctness and then certainty following Luther because what had to be certain secured against doubt was the salvation of the soul.

of the history of αλήθεια, the history of its all-too-early collapse and of its transformation into όμοίωσις [“correctness”] and adaequatio and from there into certainty.(Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 169). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition).

Beingness is prior to beings and so grapeness is prior the particular grape in front of me.  Grapeness neither was not nor will pass away but simply is at all times. Grapeness is what I have invisibly before my mind’s eye which allows my grocery trip to be successful.

The apriori, in accord with the way Plato introduced it, will in the future always mean for metaphysics that beingness comes before beings. In company with the ίdέα, the apriori becomes the perceptio; i.e., the apriori is assigned to the ego percipio and thus to the “subject.” In other words, representing is now what comes before. (Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 174). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition).

We talked before about how Beauty is a medium through which being can appear (e.g, houseness appears incarnate through the beautiful mansion), and likewise with space time.  As Aristotle noted, the stretching out of time seems to be a trait of the boring tv show, though the next person need not experience the boringness. But the boringness does relate to the tv show, and so time is not merely person nor object but in between – alongside beings.

Da-sein is the simultaneity of time-space with what is true as a being, and it essentially occurs as the grounding ground, as the “between” and “middle” of beings themselves.  (Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (pp. 174-178). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition)

Being is traditionally thought of as that which is the most general concept and hence the most empty, simply what is ever-present, since even a hallucination “is,” is something rather than nothing.

Being becomes the most common, the emptiest, the best known, and at the same time what is most eminently as that cause, “the absolute.”  (Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 181). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition.)

We must always be careful when Heidegger talks about gods, and so he qualifies it here saying the gods ”are not.”

Beyng never is more fully than beings but also never less fully than the gods, because these latter “are” not at all. Beyng “is” the “between” amidst beings and the gods, utterly and in every respect incomparable, “needed” by the gods and withdrawn from beings. Therefore attainable only through the leap into the abandonment by being as divinization (refusal).  (Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 192). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition).

Dasein (Being-There) is difficult to grasp and so we need to think what it is to have a disposition, like a moral disposition.  This is related to the notion of “Will,” such as acting according to the concept of a scientific education.

How far are we standing from the essence of disposition, i.e., how far from Da-sein.  (Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 202). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition.)

The historical understanding of beingness as what is always present, does not come to be or pass away, is related to the classical understanding of the present, where the past is just a past present and the future is a future present.

Memory and preparedness open the temporal-spatial playing field of beyng in which thinking must renounce the “presence” that previously was the one and only determination. (Because it is here that the most proximate domain lies for the decision regarding the truth of beyng, the initiation of the leap to the other beginning had to be attempted as “Being and Time.”) Yet one might want to retain the ordinary conception of time (predominant since Aristotle-Plato), leave the νΰν [“now”] its privilege, and derive the past and future as modifications of the νΰν, especially because memory can remember only out of and in calling upon something present and something that has been present and because what is in the future has but one destiny, namely, to become something present. Although what is present is never the negative and participates in the grounding of memory and preparedness, yet all this is so only if the presencing of what in each case is present has already been borne and pervasively disposed by memory and preparedness. Only from the intimacy of these can the present gleam forth. In original experience, the present cannot be reckoned according to its ephemeralness but only according to its uniqueness. This latter is the new and essential content of the constancy and presencing that are to be determined on the basis of memory and preparedness.  (Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (pp. 202-203). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition.)

The basic question of metaphysics is “Why is there something rather than nothing).  From this question we can extrapolate a fundamental truth about beings: “To be” means to have a “why.”

But both, truth and the “why” (the call for a grounding), are the same. (Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 203). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition.)

Regarding Beyng, just as beauty is not a thing itself but is a vehicle through which beingness presences (houseness incarnate in the beautiful mansion), and as I said time is with things but not something itself (following Aristotle), Beyng is when and where this movement of the middle happens.

instead, the essential occurrence of being grounds the sheltering, and thereby the creative preservation, of the god, who pervades beyng with divinity always only in work and sacrifice, deed and thought.  )…  The god is neither a “being” nor a “nonbeing” and is also not to be identified with beyng. Instead, beyng essentially occurs in the manner of time-space as that “between” which can never be grounded in the god and also not in the human being (as some objectively present, living thing) but only in Da-sein.  (Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 207 207). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition)

We speak of a chair in front of us that it has a how and a what.  A table may be brown and hard in terms of what it is, and existing/badly positioned in terms of how it is.

We call, to some extent arbitrarily, the τί έστιν the quiddity (what-ness, essentia) and the ότι εστιν the “mode” (the fact that something is, and how it is, existentia)… “The door” has its whatness, and so do “the clock” and “the bird”; likewise, each of these has the fact that it is and how it is. Does the ότι εστίν include only “actuality” or also possibility and necessity? Are the latter “modalities” modalities of actuality? If actuality itself is but one modality among others, then of what are these the modalities? … In a formal sense, it can be said that every “quiddity” has its modality and every modality is that of a quiddity.  (Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (pp. 212-213). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition).

Nature once reflected the presencing of the gods, for instance Niagara falls as a wonder of the world was nature incarnate.  The Greek world was permeated by this understanding of movement/appearing.  Livesey notes in the bible regarding “home” that the home as social setting is, however, largely derived from Acts, which strategically deployed “home” as a safe and welcoming place for Jesus followers distinct from the synagogue. The rhetorical use of “home” (οἶκος) by ancient Greek authors to evoke images of togetherness or a “home feeling.”  In this regard, as I note in my MA thesis on Heidegger the key notion is parestios, para Hestia, the one in the sphere of the warmth of the hearth fire.  But as Seneca notes life is not meant to be easy and shorn of hardships, teaching that to live is to do battle (Atqui vivere, Lucili, militare est).

What was nature once? It was the site of the moment of the advent and sojourning of the gods; and that was when nature, still φύσις, rested in the essential occurrence of beyng itself. Subsequently, nature soon became a being and then even the counterpart of “grace” and, after this degradation, was completely set out in the compulsion of calculative machination and economics. Ultimately what remained were “scenic views” and recreational opportunities, and now even these have been calculated to gigantic proportions and prepared for the masses. And then? Is that the end?  Why is the earth silent at this destruction? Because the earth is not allowed the strife with a world, not allowed the truth of beyng. Why not? Is it because that gigantic thing, the human being, becomes all the smaller the more gigantically grown? Does nature have to be renounced and abandoned to machination? Can we yet seek the earth anew? Who will kindle that strife in which the earth finds its open realm, secludes itself, and is genuinely the earth? (Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 218). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition).

Beyng cannot be conceptualized in the normal way because categories have been unearthed by scrutinizing beings and Beyng is not a being, can’t be grasped through a “what/how” lens.

Every way of ordering, rearranging, and intermixing “categories” fails here, because the categories are said on the basis of beings and apply to beings and never name or know beyng itself. (Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 220). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition).

Genuine thinking is posing a question so that when the path it opens is traversed, the question can be re-posed in a more original way.

The misinterpretations of precisely this section of Being and Time are the clearest signs of the still-rampant incapacity to reenact the questioning prepared there, which always means to think it more originally and to surpass it creatively.  (Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 223). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition).

The beauty of the palm tree swaying in the wind awakens the enthusiasmos or god within (the mask of Dionysus), so that these two poles are not things in themselves but an oscillating event.

beyng “is” not again “something,” whereby we could rest assured that it can be represented and encountered.  the appropriating event, that oscillation between beyng and Da-sein in which the two are not objectively present poles but are the pure coming to be of the oscillation itself. The uniqueness of beyng and the fact that it cannot be represented in the sense of something that is simply present constitute the most pointed warding-off of determinations of beingness as ίdέα and γένος [“genus”], determinations that are necessary initially, when the breakthrough to beyng from “beings” as φύσις first comes to pass.  Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 225). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition.

When we are going along with our guiding perspective of the beloved traditional definition of marriage, we are suddenly surprised when we encounter LGBTQ+ rights because our guiding perspective can’t appropriate it (it is an outsider, epekeina) and does violence to it.  So this is a catalyst for us to deconstruct the old approach and reconstruct it in a more just, inclusive way.  Justice doesn’t change.  It is what it always was.  We just come to understand it better.

Epekeina έπέκεινα. As soon as “being” is no longer the representable (ίdέα), as soon as, consequently, being is no longer thought away from beings, “separated” from them (out of a craving to grasp being as purely and as unalloyed as possible), as soon as beyng is experienced and thought as contemporaneous (in an original sense of time-space) with beings, as their ground (not as cause and ratio), then there is no longer an incentive to question beyng again with regard to its own “beyng,” a procedure which would represent beyng and thus would place it still further away.  (Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 230). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition).

The ancients were enchanted by nature, the appearing of the “gods” a regular occurrence.   Now, the gods have fled.

The abandonment by being is the first dawn of beyng as self-concealing out of the night of metaphysics, through which beings pressed forward into appearance and pressed forward objectivity, while beyng became an addendum in the form of the apriori. (Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 231). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition.)

Whereas when and where was previous that which beings are in, here as I said we are concerned with the pure oscillation between humans and Beyng

That is, presence proves to be one particular appropriation of the truth of beyng, whereby the present, over and against the past and the future, receives a determinately interpreted priority (which is entrenched in objectivity, i.e., objectness for a subject)… In its previous and still usual sense, “Dasein” means presence in some place or other; it means to turn up in a “where” and a “when.” In the other, prospective sense, “to be” [sein] does not simply mean “to turn up”; rather, it signifies steadfast enduring as grounding the “there” [Da]. The “there” does not refer to some determinable “here” or “yonder”; it means the clearing of beyng itself.  itself. The openness of this clearing first grants the space for every possible determinate “here” and “yonder” and thus for the instituting of beings in historical word, deed, and sacrifice.  (Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (pp. 234-235). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition).

Heidegger notes thinkers are not close to life but are caught up in the mystery of being, whereas for most people everyday life is subtly out of joint but sometimes there is a being engrossed in beings where Beyng is abandoned:

to be infatuated with things, smitten with them, lost in them…. pushing aside of beyng, i.e., apparently, only of “beings” for themselves. Herein is expressed in converse the essential relation of Da-sein to beyng. For the most part and in general our existence is a being-away, precisely in its “closeness to life.”  (Heidegger, Martin. Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) (Studies in Continental Thought) (p. 238). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition.   (Heidegger, Martin.)

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