“Der Holzweg”: Heidegger’s Dead End Philippe Nonet
To what end should thinking be devoted? How and why did the question of being become a dead end for thought? What is to take its place as the key concern of thinking? What did Heidegger say regarding this matter? Such are the leading questions that will presently occupy us. The notes Heidegger wrote to himself while working on das Ereignis have now been published in the edition of his collected writings. There, Heidegger comments upon his earlier publication of Holzwege1 (Tracks in the Woods): Man hat diesen Titel nicht ernst genommen. Man hat nicht beachtet, daß die unter diesem Titel gesammelten Abhandlungen in die Entfaltung der Seinsfrage gehören. Man hat nicht gedacht, daß diese Entfaltung und die Seinsfrage selbst—der Holzweg des Denkens sind.2 (One has not taken this title seriously. One has not noticed that the essays gathered under this title belong in the unfolding of the question of being. One did not think that this unfolding and the question of being itself—are der Holzweg, the dead end, of thinking.) Often “tracks in the woods” lead nowhere: they are “dead ends,” so much so that in German “Holzweg” is understood as “Irrweg,” a “wrong track.” To Heidegger, the question of being had been the dead-end that prevented thinking from moving in proper direction. Recall now that die Seinsfrage (the question of being) had long been regarded by Heidegger as die Sache des Denkens (the matter for thought), namely, what called upon man to think, das Geheiß (the call), and what determined the task of thinking, die Aufgabe des Denkens. Since it had been a dead end, das Sein had to be abandoned as die Sache des Denkens. Thinking had now to devote itself to another task. This was to be das Ereignis, which was no longer to be understood in its ordinary sense as “event,” derived from “Er-äugnen,” but was instead constructed as a formation of “eignen,” to be translated as “appropriation.” The decision to elevate Ereignis to the position das Sein occupies as die Sache des Denkens is not publicly made until later in a difficult lecture, “Zeit und Sein” (“Time and Being,” 1962), to be published even later (in 1969) in a short collection under the title Zur Sache des Denkens3 (On the Matter for Thought).
“Der Holzweg”: Heidegger’s Dead End
Phillipe Nonet
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