D. «Erwidert» and «Widerruf» ( «Disavowal»)

The different usages of «erwidern» can be summarized in the following scheme. Person A turns to person B and proposes a to B. B turns to A (and her a ) and answers b . Thus, B erwidert or makes an Erwiderung. One uses «erwidern» in the dative in cases in which b contradicts a , as for instance, in statements about disputes, or altercations. In these cases, A and a are the dative object of «erwidern,» and b is the accusative object of «erwidern» and, most of the time, appears in a subordinate clause. Thus, «A told B to leave the room. However, B erwiderte ihm/ihr (auf seinen/ihren Vorschlag = und ihrem/seinem Vorschlag) (B responded to A [and to A's proposal]) that B would stay in the room.» Or, «A told B that A loved B. However, B erwiderte ihm/ihr (auf seinen/ihren Antrag) (B responded to A [and to A's proposal]) that B didn't love A.» Also in the case of «erwidern» in the accusative in the sense of «to fight back» b contradicts a . For A attacks B and wants B to be defeated, but B fights back. However, the opposite is the case concerning «erwidern» in the accusative in the sense of «to return a favor» or «to comply with a request.» B erwidert A's call for help only if B actually helps A; that is, if B complies with A's call and thus b is in agreement with a . In other words, one uses «erwidern» in the sense of «to return a favor» or «to comply with a demand» when one talks about an act in which B identifies himself or herself with A's intention. However, whenever B acts counter to A's intention and thus distances herself from A, one uses «erwidern» in the dative or in the sense of «to fight back.» Since B distances herself from A, the phrase, «B erwiderte ihm/ihr,» is an incomplete sentence. It must be followed by a subordinate clause or some other phrase indicating the b that B responds to A. Similarly, a story usually does not end with the sentence, «A attacked B. B erwiderte A's attack.» For one is curious to know what happened next. B might have even defeated A, or A might have launched a second attack. However, since in the case of «erwidern» in the sense of «to return a favor» b harmonizes with a and meets A's expectation, the phrase «B erwidert A's a » can indeed be a complete sentence (as is Heidegger's sentence: «Rather, the repetition erwidert the possibility of that

existence which has-been-there»). In some cases, it can also close a story, and nothing more is expected. In fact, anything in addition would be just annoying. Therefore, the sequence, «A declared his/her love to B. And B erwiderte A's love» in fairy tales is usually followed only by, «And they lived happily ever after.» If Heidegger thought of «to fight back,» or «to defend oneself successfully,» Birmingham is fight. If «B erwidert A's love» is Heidegger's paradigm, then he proposes some happy union between the past and the authentic Dasein. If «B erwidert A's call for help» is Heidegger's paradigm, there would be a union between the past and authentic Dasein, albeit not yet an undisturbed and happy one. Rather, he would say that once one has chosen «the choice which makes one free for the struggle of loyally following in the footsteps of that which can be repeated,» Dasein gets captured by the past, has surrendered itself to the past, or has transformed itself into the medium, or the agent, of the past. This might entail a strong, positive emotional bond, some love or deep affiliation. However, Dasein can not yet really enjoy this love. For this identification, or repetition, is not a mere mechanical repetition of the past without any resistance. Nor is it a reconstitution of a physical past, since, at least for now, the past calls Dasein at the same time into a situation of struggle—struggle against the danger to the past, against the false present that threatens the past's existence or has already destroyed it. The struggle is against the false present ordinary Dasein lives in as long as it has not yet made the choice, the false present that exercises its influence even upon authentic Dasein as long as the latter has not yet destroyed it. That this second option, the Erwiderung of a call for help in a situation of danger, is actually Heidegger' s paradigm is clear from his next sentence: «But when such a rejoinder is made to this possibility in a resolution, it is made in a moment of vision; and as such it is at the same time a disavowal of that which in the "today", is working itself out as the 'past'» (BT 438; SZ 386). As already mentioned, in their accompanying note Macquarrie and Robinson give the German text as well as their interpretation of it as a conversation with the past (BT 438, n. 1). In their note, the German version of the last sentence quoted above reads: «'Die Erwiderung der Möglichkeit im Entschluss ist aber zugleich als augenblickliche der Widerruf dessen, was in {sic } Heute sich als "Vergangenheit" auswirkt'» (BT 438, n. 1). The «in» instead of «im» is obviously a misprint. The reader should keep in mind that double quotation marks (for instance, «"today",» BT 438) are neither a misprint nor Heidegger' s. As the translators explain, «our single quotation marks represent Heidegger's double ones. But we have felt free to introduce double ones of our own wherever we feel that they may be helpful to the reader» (BT 15). Furthermore, in other places Heidegger uses «Heute» (today) with double quotation marks, as for instance in: «Unständig als Man-selbst gegenwärtigt das Dasein sein "Heute"» (SZ 391; thus, Macquarrie and Robinson have: «With the inconstancy of the they-self Dasein makes present its 'today',» BT 443). Macquar-

rie and Robinson «have chosen the third edition (1931) as typical of the earlier editions, and the eighth (1957) as typical of the later ones» (BT 15). So far, I have quoted the German text from the twelfth edition (1972), which is a reprint of the seventh edition. The translators will perhaps excuse the following train of thought: As they mention in the preface, Heidegger's revisions in later editions of Sein und Zeit «went beyond the simple changes in punctuation and citation which Heidegger mentions in his preface» (BT 15). In addition to the misprint in the above quotation, there is also one in the sentence «it becomes a way of painfully detaching oneself from the falling publicness of the 'today"» (BT 449), where an opening single quotation mark has been used instead of the correct double one (see SZ 397). Given all this, one might get the idea that concerning the sentence with Widerruf the translators, typesetters, and proofreaders somehow mixed up all these quotation marks, and that up to the third edition Heidegger might have used «today» with quotation marks and/or «past» without quotation marks, while in later editions he used «today» without quotation marks and «past» with quotation marks. After all, Guignon in his quotation of this sentence left out Heidegger's quotation marks, that is, the single quotation marks of the English translation, at «past,» and he put «today» in single quotation marks: «As critical, authentic historiography requires a "disavowal of that which in the 'today' is working itself out as the past"» (HC 138). Naturally, readers familiar with the Macquarrie and Robinson translation will conclude that the single quotation marks at «today» represent one of the quotation marks added by the translators, while readers not familiar with Macquarrie and Robinson's translation will assume that they represent Heidegger's quotation marks. In addition, both kinds of readers will assume that Heidegger used «Ver-gangenheit» (past) without quotation marks. In other words, on the basis of Guignon's citation we would expect Heidegger's text either to contain no quotation marks at all or to read as follows: «was im "Heute" sich als Vergangenheit auswirkt.»^[27] However, the first edition agrees with the eighth and the ninth editions, namely, «was im Heute sich als "Vergangenheit" auswirkt» (SZ 386). Thus, in this sentence in all the editions Heidegger used «Heute» (today) without his quotation marks and «"Vergangenheit"» («'past'») with his quotation marks.

Now I must apologize to the readers for this digression. It was prompted by the fact that Heidegger makes his point not only by means of the very subtle sequence Wieder-holung (wieder-holen), Er-widerung (er-widern), and Widerruf (wider-rufen) but also, as the readers might already sense, by a very subtle, if not tricky, use of quotation marks. Note that in section 74 up to the sentence with Widerruf Heidegger always uses as the object of «repetition» and similar nouns and verbs either the phrase «the possibility of that existence which-has-been-there» (or, «a possibility that has been») without quotation marks, or he uses «des "Vergangenen"» (SZ 385; «something that is 'past',» BT 437) (or,

«das "Überholte"» [SZ 386], «that which has already been 'outstripped» [BT 437]) with quotation marks. In the sentence with Erwiderung, he uses the former expression (the repetition erwidert «the possibility of that existence which has-been-there,» BT 438; SZ 386), and he also does so in the first part of the sentence with Widerruf («But when such a rejoinder is made to this possibility . . .» [BT 438; SZ 386]). However, with regard to the object of the Widerruf he doesn't use any of those expressions, but rather for the first time the phrase, «dessen, was im Heute sich als "Vergangenheit" auswirkt» (SZ 386; thus, since the translators use single quotation marks for Heidegger's double ones, and since they prefer double quotation marks for «today,» their sentence reads: «of that which in the "today", is working itself out as the 'past'» [BT 438]). For Birmingham, there is obviously no difference between Heidegger's «erwidert» and his «disavowal» («Widermf»).^[28] Now, she might be right if Heidegger had said «Widerruf der Vergangenheit» («disavowal of the past») or «Widerruf der gewesenen Möglichkeit» («disavowal of the possibility that-has-been-there»). Each phrase might have been the climax in the sequence beginning with «But when one has . . .» (BT 437; SZ 385), and might have entitled us to read «erwidert . . . die» in «erwidert vielmehr die Möglichkeit der dagewesenen Existenz» (SZ 386; BT 438) as one of those instances of «erwidern» in the accusative meaning «to fight back» or «to launch a counterattack.»

The entire passage would then say: repetition does not simply repeat the past; rather, it fights back, defends itself against the past («erwidert»), and it even fights back and cancels, destroys, the past («disavowal»). However, if that is what Heidegger wanted to convey, it would have been necessary for him to make unambiguously clear that the object of the Erwiderung and the object of the Widerruf is one and the same. Regarding the sentence with Widerruf, this would have required two things. First, he would have had to use a conjunction clearly indicating that the sentence with Widerruf intensifies the sentence with erwidert. Quite naturally, the conjunction «ja, sogar» (nay) (or only «sogar» [even]) would have recommended itself. However, Heidegger doesn't use «ja, sogar» or a similar expression. Rather, he uses the conjunction «aber zugleich» («But . . . at the same time»), which most of the time introduces a new point or a counter move to the one in the preceding sentence. Second, in an extremely relaxed mode of writing «aber zugleich» might indeed be used in the sense of «nay.» However, in the case of «ja, sogar» and especially in the case of «aber zugleich» in the sense of «ja, sogar» Heidegger would have had to use as the objects of erwidern and Widerruf the same expression or sufficiently similar ones to make sure that the readers understand that the object of Widerruf is identical with the object of erwidern. He could have easily done so by saying, for instance, «der Widerruf eben dieser Möglichkeit» («the disavowal of that very/same possibility [we have talked about in the sentence with erwidert and the phrase with Erwiderung]»). However, Heidegger says no such thing.

Rather, he uses «aber zugleich,» and he uses the phrase «Widerruf dessen, was im Heute sich als "Vergangenheit" auswirkt» (SZ 386). This use shows that the object of the «Widerruf» («disavowal») differs from the object of the Erwiderung in the sentence with «erwidert.»^[29] Now, the «Heute» is the present as seen by authentic Dasein.^[30] If the object of «erwidert» is the past as heritage and community of the people, and if the object of «erwidert» differs from the object of the «Widermf,» the object of the «Widerruf»—that is, that «was im Heute sich als "Vergangenheit" auswirkt»—is, as I will elaborate further in chapters 2 and 3, not «destiny» or «community, of {the} people» (BT 436; SZ 384), but Dasein as ordinary or what determines ordinary Dasein or the past with reference to which ordinary Dasein legitimates its way of life. This past has to be destroyed by the authentic Dasein, since this past is not the «real» one. Heidegger uses «Heute» without quotation marks and «"Vergangenheit"» with quotation marks because this past is not the real past but rather what ordinary or inauthentic Dasein regards as the real past.^[31] This train of thought might be paraphrased as follows: Having been recalled from ordinary existence, and having made oneself free for destiny, people, and community of the people—that is, having transformed oneself into the echo of this «real» past, namely, community of the people and destiny—one is called upon to destroy the present, or that «false» past or tradition that has replaced the «real» past. The «false» past or tradition has established itself as the «real» past and as the «real» present with reference to which ordinary and inauthentic Daseine legitimate their way of living. In resoluteness, Dasein experiences the demanding call of the «real» past, which has been destroyed by the «false» past and present. The «real» past calls upon Dasein to rerealize it. This requires that the «false» past and present must be destroyed to make room for the rebirth of the «real» past.

The same point can be made without reference to the quotation marks. «Erwidern» is an ambiguous term; first, it can be regarded as an act of negation of any claim the past might have on me, a very strong negation, as in Birmingham; second, the translators and Guignon pluralize, so to speak, the claims in question and thus, as it were, soften the character of this negation. Within the conversation with the past that has become pluralized by Dasein's utopian ideals, several possibilities are rejected and one is adopted. Since the adoption of one possibility presupposes the refusal of all the others and since the plurality of offers made by the past is the result of Dasein's capacity to distance itself from the present and the past as it lives on in the present, this second interpretation too emphasizes the aspect of negation, as distancing, despite the fact that, in contrast to Birmingham's interpretation, it assumes that, finally, Dasein positively identifies itself with some possibility offered by the past. Third, «erwidert vielmehr» means not some act of negation of the past, but rather the submission to the past. «Widerruf,» however, is unambiguously an act of negation. It is a stronger negation than «erwidern» and

is, in fact, the strongest and most intense expression of negation in academic discourse, calling to mind that a Widerruf was required of Galileo and other heretics if they wanted to avoid being sentenced to death.

Thus, a Widerruf is a complete cancellation of the object of this Widerruf. What has to be disavowed must be canceled completely, never resurface again. Since «Widerruf» is a stronger negation than «erwidert,» one might say that both refer to one and the same possibility offered by the past. However, as was said above, in that case Heidegger would have had to apply the two mentioned devices, in the ways described above, to make sure that readers understand that the object of the Widerruf is identical with that of the Erwiderung.

Therefore, one must not conflate the object of «erwidert» and that of «Widerruf.» Rather, authentic Dasein «erwidert» (to) a and makes a «Wider-ruf» of b , with b being different from a . Guignon makes this distinction when he interprets «erwidert» as referring to possibilities within the past and interprets as the object of the «Widerruf» the present in which Dasein has lived while it was still ordinary and did not yet relate to the past as a pool of choices for authentic Dasein:

Instead, for Heidegger, critique is aimed at the "today": authentic historiography "becomes a way in which the 'today' gets deprived of its character as present; in other words, it becomes a way of painfully detaching oneself from the fallen {sic } publicness of the 'today'" (BT , 449). As critical, authentic historiography requires a "disavowal of that which in the 'today' is working itself out as the past," that is, a "destructuring" of the hardened interpretations circulating in the public world in order to recover "those primordial experiences in which we achieved our first ways of determining the nature of Being—the ways which have guided us ever since" (BT , 438, 44). The critical stance "deprives the 'today' of its character as present , and weans one from the conventionalities of the 'they'" (BT , 444)-(HC 138)

Being capable of going «right under the eyes of Death» (BT 434; SZ 383), I realize that the past offers several heroes. In the light of my utopian ideal I choose, not Socrates or Martin Luther King, but rather Sitting Bull (HC 137). This act includes that I disavow, not Sitting Bull, but rather, say, my career on Wall Street, which my family and my peer group have prompted me to engage in before I ran «right under the eyes of Death» (BT 434; SZ 382), turned back, and realized that there were several heroes to choose from. Guignon developed his interpretation of «erwidert» since he wanted to argue against the «"deci-sionism of empty resoluteness"» (HC 130) that would result if Dasein «erwidert» in the sense of «negates» and makes a «Widerruf»; that is, he wanted to argue against an interpretation in which Dasein, as in Birmingham, exclusively negates, regardless of whether the objects of the two acts of negation are the same or not. Though one might say that the two sentences them-

selves don't exclude the possibility that Dasein, in this or that way, negates («erwidert») something and disavows («Widerruf») something else, Guignon is right in implicitly rejecting this interpretation. For, as I will show in chapters 2 and 3, the context of these two sentences precludes their interpretation as two negations. However, Guignon's own interpretation cannot be right because, as mentioned above, his version of «erwidert» requires the dative. Thus, since «Widerruf» is unmistakably a negation, one is left with «erwidert» not as negation but rather as submission. Since—pace Birmingham—the object of the Erwiderung differs from the object of the Widerruf and since—pace Guignon as well as Birmingham—Dasein submits itself to the past, Dasein submits itself to the suppressed or vanished «real» past, and Dasein cancels all the possibilities of the present it has lived in complacently before the call. The call demands that Dasein hand itself over to the call—that is, to «the possibility of that existence which has-been-there»—and cancel the possibilities Dasein has lived in while still in the mode of the «they,» that is, cancel «that which in the "today" is working itself out as the 'past'» (BT 438; SZ 386).

In his discussion of guilt Heidegger rejects the model of pre-Christian grace, and the model of just exchange as being the ordinary, or inauthentic, interpretation of guilt.^[32] Furthermore, the use of «erwidern» in the accusative in the sense of «to fight back» usually indicates that there may be some sort of violence or coercion at work. Leaving aside the echo,^[33] since it refers to inanimate beings, one might say that all the other examples of «erwidern» in the accusative do indeed show some sort of obligation but only a relatively weak one. In a somewhat frivolous interpretation of «erwidern» in the accusative, one might even say its paradigmatic use is in the following casual^[34] situation: On the street, en passant person A looks at person B, and, en passant, B looks back at A, just for some sort of tiny flirtation. In German, one would refer to this situation by «erwidern» in the accusative: «B erwiderte A's glance.»^[35] Thus, in that case «erwidern» in the accusative means some small exchange in passing, enjoyable for both parties, or it means some sort of weak obligation. Therefore, one must not insinuate, as I did, that in Heidegger it would mean violence, subjugation, and the like. However, I might erwidern, one also uses the phrase «B erwidert A's glance» if this is, as the saying goes, «dove at first sight.» Nonetheless, one might erwidern, love—whether sexual, erotic, agapic, or anything else and whether lukewarm or as passionate as imaginable—is not an issue, neither in Being and Time in general nor in the chapter on historicality in particular. However, I might erwidern, do we really know what was at work in Heidegger's love for the Black Forest and the Volksgemeinschaft? In his love for the «Volksgemeinschaft»—the composite of «Gemeinschaft, des Volkes» (SZ 384; «the community, of {the} people,» BT 436)—the word commonly used on the extreme Right? Furthermore (in order that in this exchange of Erwiderungen—to translate word-for-word a German phrase—«I have the

last word»): First, as in the case of «überreden,» the possible negations of not only lead to a level of obligation lower than that in the usual institutions of grace. Heidegger is great at intensifying the meanings of words by their context, great in producing a Stimmung (mood) that pervades the entire text without being in any particular single word. Second, even if one takes only the passage in question, «erwidert» receives additional intensity due to the «Widerruf» following it. For, as mentioned above, in academic discourse, of all the words for an act of negation, Widerruf is the most intense and forceful. Third «er-widert» and «Widerruf» accrue additional force from the surrounding «struggle» and so forth, which in turn get intensified by the entire sequence of sections 72-77 and its context, which I turn to in the next chapter. «Period! No Er-wider-ung! (or: No Wider-rede! No Wider-spruch!) At least for the time being.»^[36]