B. Heidegger's An Introduction to Metaphysics

Besides Rilke and Nietzsche, Hölderlin was the author whose poems and writings educated German soldiers in World War I, and also later in World War II, carried with them in their «Tomister» (knapsack) when they went to war. In his Mein Kampf , Hitler had left no doubt that, as to foreign affairs,

his top priority or Lebensaufgabe was to conquer Russia by war (MKe 641ff.; MK 726ff.), and he had maintained that only six years of National Socialist rule would suffice to make the German Volk ready for war (MKe 633; MK 716). In the year after the Machtergreifung, in the winter semester of 1934-35, Heidegger gave a lecture course on Hölderlin's hymns "Germanien" (the German word for the Latin word for Germany, Germania) and "Der Rhein" (The [river] Rhine), in which he also interpreted two lines of an unfinished poem by Hölderlin,

Seit ein Gespräch wir sind
Und hören können voneinander. (HH 71)

It is a subclause and runs, literally translated: «Since we have become a conversation and are able to hear from (of) each other.»^[25] In Heideggerian terms, one might say that, in 1933, Being took over. Verfallen, taken in by the beings, the ordinary and inauthentic Daseine ignored or covered up Being and stuck to their Gesellschaft. However, Being, Gemeinschaft, raised its voice and demanded that Gesellschaft be canceled so that Being, Gemeinschaft, could be properly manifested. In 1933 Being was successful. Heidegger adds to Hölderlin's subclause what he thinks was the main clause Höldefiin intended and then comments on the two lines as follows:

Since we are a conversation, we are placed into and at the mercy of the being as it reveals itself {ausgesetzt in das sich eröffnende Seiende}; it is only since then that the Being {Sein} of the being as such can encounter and determine us {uns begegnen und bestimmen}. (HH 72)^[26]

The inauthentic Daseine wanted to deny and cover up Being in order to avoid being taken over and determined by Being. Now Being reveals itself as it is in reality, no longer covered up and distorted by the inauthentic Daseine. In this moment, we realize that it is not we who determine ourselves. Rather, we give up the pretense of autonomy and expose ourselves to, open ourselves for, or submit ourselves to, the Being of the beings as such, which catches hold of us and determines us. We realize that only now can we relate to the other authentically. Heidegger goes on:

The fact, however, that the being as to its Being {das Seiende . . . in seinem Sein } is unconcealed in advance for each of us, is the presupposition for being able to hear from the other something, that is, something about some being, whether this being is what we are not—that is, nature—or whether it is what we ourselves are—that is, history. (HH 72)

Being in Heidegger has priority over the beings that Being gives. The proponents of Gemeinschaft maintained that, prior to being in Gesellschaft, human beings had been in Gemeinschaft and that the individuals in Gesellschaft

regarded the latter as a mere means to pursue their selfish interests and, for that very reason, were not really happy, even if they accumulated a fortune. For, in reality Gemeinschaft founded the individuals, and it was only Gemeinschaft that gave them identity and rewarding feelings about themselves, the others, and the Gemeinschaft. Heidegger continues:

The ability to hear by no means produces the relation of the one to the other, that is, the Gemeinschaft. Rather, the ability to hear presupposes the Gemeinschaft. This primordial {ursprüngliche} Gemeinschaft by no means originates through entering into a relationship; that is how Gesellschaft originates. Rather, Gemeinschaft is because of the preceding bond, a bond that binds each individual to that which keeps bound and determines each individual in a superelevating manner {das, was jeden Einzelnen überhöhend bindet und bestimmt}. (HH 72^[27]

Authentic belonging-to-one-another results neither from the Aristotelian natural inclination toward society nor from contracts, as, for instance, in liberalism. Heidegger considered it convenient to give an example. For German right-wingers after World War I, the paradigmatic Gemeinschaft were the heroes of Langemarck. As I've pointed out in the sections on Hitler and Scheler, right-wingers thought the war would surely be lost if it was approached with the attitudes of Gesellschaft. When faced with war, Gesellschaft evaporates, and Gemeinschaft raises its voice. War is the ultimate rationale, the Grund or ground, of Gemeinschaft. Fully in line with that sort of reasoning, Heidegger continues:

That which neither the individual by itself nor the Gemeinschaft as such is, that must become manifest. The comradeship of the frontline soldiers was grounded neither in the fact that they had to gather together with other humans because they needed them and could find them only at other places {daß man sich zusammenfinden mußte, weil andere Menschen, denen man fern war, fehlten}, nor in agreeing upon a shared enthusiasm {daß man sich auf eine gemeinsame Begeisterung erst verabredete}. Rather, at bottom it is grounded only in the fact that the nearness of death as a sacrifice placed each one in advance into the same nullity, so that this latter became the source of the unconditional belonging-to-each-other. (HH 72f.)

It is not the bargaining of social democrats and liberals in labor unions and in parliament that leads to authentic belonging-to-each-other. This is, according to Heidegger, what the Philistines have to learn:

It is precisely death—the death each human being has to die for himself and which singularizes each individual to the utmost extent—it is precisely death and the willingness of its sacrifice {= the willingness to offer one's own death as a sacrifice} that first and foremost and beforehand creates the site of Gemeinschaft, from which comradeship emerges {entspringt}. Thus, does comradeship grow {entspringt} out of Angst? No and yes. No, if one, like the Philistine, understands

by Angst only the helpless quivering of a panicky cowardice. Yes, if Angst is understood as a metaphysical nearness to the unconditional, a nearness that is given as a gift only to the highest self-sufficiency and readiness. If we do not compel powers into our Dasein that, like death as a free sacrifice, bind and singularize unconditionally—that is, powers that catch hold of {angreifen} each individual at the root of its Dasein and that, like death as a free sacrifice, stand deeply and wholly in an authentic knowing—then no 'comradeship' will emerge. In that case, the result will at best be a modified form of Gesellschaft. (HH 73)^[28]

One sees that it is, so to speak, «the same old story» as in Being and Time . In 1926, Heidegger shied away from calling the actors by their proper names. He left out the name of the foe, and he wrote «der Gemeinschaft, des Volkes» (SZ 384; «of the community, of {the} people,» BT 436). The latter phrase allowed him to use as well as to avoid the blunt word «Volksgemeinschaft» and at the same time be understood by philosophers, that is, by people who are not Denker, but just Verstandesdenker, and who proceed from the genus to the species. After 1933, Heidegger could use the proper names, for everyone knew what he was talking about anyway, and he could leave out the Volk of the Volksgemeinschaft. Indeed, the German Volksgemeinschaft was not just one species among several others; it was the proper manifestation and agent of Being, which would clean up the remaining Gesellschaften in Europe and, as the song had it, «tomorrow {in} the entire world.» Heidegger's last two sentences in the above-quoted passage are a warning. No one must have recourse to «the endless multiplicity of possibilities . . . of comfortableness, shirking, and taking things lightly» (BT 435; «Behagens, Leichtnehmens, Sich-drückens,» SZ 384), for «each individual» is in charge. However, at the same time Heidegger's sentences might express some doubts as to whether «we» were fast enough or even whether «we» were still «mit beiden Beinen,» with both legs, on the authentic track.

The lecture course on Hölderlin took place in winter 1934-35. In the next semester, in the summer of 1935, Heidegger gave the lecture course An Introduction to Metaphysics . Having read the passage on erwidert in Being and Time , the readers might recall the following passage:

It is absolutely correct and proper to say that "You can't do anything with philosophy." It is only wrong to suppose that this is the last word in philosophy. For the rejoinder imposes itself: granted that we cannot do anything with philosophy, might not philosophy, if we concern ourselves with it, do something with us? So much for what philosophy is not. (IM 12; EM 9)

This is an unambiguous instance of what in chapter I, sections B and D, I referred to as an Erwiderung in the dative, namely, someone proposes something, and I contradict, or object to him. Thus, the English reader might expect

that the translator has rendered the German word «Erwiderung» through the English term «rejoinder.» However, the reader might also become suspicious, since this rejoinder is very impressive, or at least says something, whereas the rejoinder in Being and Time didn't say anything at all. The reader would be right, for the German text has, not «Erwiderung,» but rather «Gegenfrage» («Es kommt nämlich noch ein kleiner Nachtrag in der Gestalt einer Gegenfrage,» EM 9). The corresponding verb to «Gegenfrage,» or «Entgegnung,» is «entgegnen.» «Gegenfrage,» «Entgegnung,,» and «entgegnen» are unambiguous formulations of what I referred to as «erwidern» in the dative, and they can also serve as «erwidern» in the accusative in the sense of fighting back. Thus, instead of the ambiguous «erwidert» Heidegger could have used «entgegnen» if he had wanted to indicate a reciprocative rejoinder in Guignon's, the translators', or Birmingham's sense. Furthermore, as mentioned, «erwidert» in the dative and also, to some degree, «erwidert» in the sense of «fighting back» would have required Heidegger to tell the readers what the authentic Dasein erwidert.^[29] As was indicated above, he could have also used «Auseinandersetzung» or «auseinandersetzen» or «Widerspruch» or «widersprechen» if he had wanted to say what Guignon and Birmingham take him to say.^[30] Since he did not use any of these expressions, he must have meant his «erwidert» as subjugation.^[31] In the same context as the first passage quoted above, Heidegger writes:

Philosophy is essentially untimely because it is one of those few things that can never find an immediate echo {Widerklang} in the present and that must never find such an echo {und auch nie finden zu dürfen}. When such an echo {solches} seems to occur, when a philosophy becomes fashionable, either it is no real philosophy or it has been misinterpreted and misused for ephemeral and extraneous purposes. . .. But what is useless can still, and even more than ever {und erst recht}, be a force, perhaps the only real force. What has no immediate echo {Widerklang} in everyday life can be intimately bound up {im innigsten Einklang stehen} with a nation's {eines Volkes} profound {eigentlichen} historical development, and can even anticipate it {dessen Vorklang}. What is untimely will have its own times. This is true of philosophy. (IM 8; EM 6f.; the words in italics have been left out in the English translation, J. F.)

The phrase «is one of those few things that» is a somewhat colorless translation of Heidegger's phrase «sie zu jenen wenigen Dingen gehört, deren Schicksal es bleibt» («belongs to those very few things whose fate it remains»). «Echo,» «intimately bound up,» and «anticipate» are translations of Heidegger's sequence of «Widerklang,» «Anklang,» and «Vorklang»:

Die Philosophie ist wesenhaft unzeitgemäß, weil sie zu jenen wenigen Dingen gehört, deren Schicksal es bleibt, nie einen unmittelbaren Wider-klang {echo } in ihrem jeweiligen Heute finden zu können und auch nie finden zu dürfen. Wo solches scheinbar eintritt, wo eine Philosophie Mode wird, da ist entweder keine

wirkliche Philosophie oder diese wird mißdeutet und nach irgendwelchen ihr fremden Absichten für Tagesbedüfnisse vernutzt. . .. Aber, was nutzlos ist, kann doch und erst recht eine Macht sein. Was den unmittelbaren Wider-klang {echo } in der Alltäglichkeit nicht kennt, kann mit dem eigentlichen Geschehen in der Geschichte eines Volkes im innigsten Ein-klang stehen {intimately bound up }. Es kann sogar dessen Vor-klang {anticipate } sein. (EM 6f.; italics and hyphens mine, J. F.)

This sequence of «Widerklang,» «Einklang,» and «Vorklang» is brilliant. All three nouns have as their root the noun «Klang,» sound. «Wider» in «Wider-klang» is, pace Birmingham, not «in opposition to,» but rather, as in «I erwidere/return a favor,» «back,» or «re-»; that is, «Widerklang» is «resonance» or, as the translator rightly puts it, «echo.» «Ein» in «Einklang» is «in accord with»; thus, «Einklang» is «unison,» «accord,» or «harmony.» «Vor» in «Vorklang» has a temporal sense; thus, «Vorklang» is an anticipation in the sense that there is some so far unknown event in the future that makes itself felt somehow in the present for those who are open to perceive this, that is, philosophy, or exclusively Heidegger himself who thus becomes the «Vorklang» of this futural event. In German, one expects words like these in two kinds of situations. One uses them in descriptions of very subtle, often erotic, situations in which one communicates indirectly.^[32] Or, imagine someone sitting pensively, melancholic, or in pangs of love on some hill not too far away from a village, and the bells of the church begin to ring. He listens to them and, duplicating or echoing, erwidernd in the accusative, their Klang, he opens himself to them, and his thoughts and feelings follow the sounds. (He might refer to his state after the bells have actually stopped ringing by using another compound noun with «Klang»: «Even several hours later, I felt the Nachklang, echo, of the bells in me.») In Heidegger, however, these words receive a slightly tragic as well as defiant tone. As one knows, the lecture course An Introduction to Metaphysics was delivered in 1935, that is, shortly after Heidegger had resigned from the rectorate, and after he had declared in a speech broadcast on radio why he would not go to Berlin but rather stay in the provinces.^[33]

In 1935 Heidegger still believed in Hitler and National Socialism as the notorious sentence claiming «the inner truth and greatness of this movement» (IM 199; EM 152) in An Introduction shows.^[34] However, the truth of National Socialism has become an «inner» one; that is, it seems the empirical reality of National Socialism no longer counts as a proper realization of the Volk and National Socialism. In 1926 and subsequent years, the philosopher had thought that the «fate» allotted by «destiny» to philosophy was to bring about, or to help to bring about, the practical comeback of the Volk. However, something must have gone wrong. Thus, through the mouth of its only incarnation philosophy declares that all those who thought that philosophy had become practical had simply misunderstood philosophy, and philosophy also declares

that it, is its fate never to find an immediate echo. Nevertheless, the philosopher remains the one with privileged access to the authentic historizing of the Volk, and he is the only one, except perhaps for the Führer. Thus, the expressionistic and actionistic vocabulary of «Kampf,» «hörig,»^[35] «erwidern,» and «Widerruf» of Being and Time is replaced with the bucolic Innerlichkeit, inwardness, of «Anklang,» «Einklang,» and «Vorklang» (in which the «Vor-klang» no longer insists on the possibility of immediate realization and thus, as in contrast to «Vorlaufen zum Tode,» can be properly translated as «anticipate»).

Something else, however, has not changed. Imagine if Heidegger had published section 74 of Being and Time in a journal and had written an abstract. It might have looked like the following:

Heritage in section 74 stands in the closest connection with krinein , to separate, in the sense of de-cide in collecting toward the authentic historizing of the German Volk. Erwiderung and Widerruf are the foundation and proof of the pursuit of the Volk as authentic community and the battle against liberal and democratic Gesellschaft . The meaning of krinein includes to pick out, to favor, to set a measure that will determine rank.

Replace the phrases in bold type with «logos, » «the collectedness of being { Sein },» «Selection,» «being,» and «appearance,» respectively, and you have Heidegger's summary of his interpretation of Parmenides in An Introduction to Metaphysics :

Logos here stands in the closest connection with krinein , to separate [Scheiden] in the sense of de-cide [Ent-scheiden] in collecting toward the collectedness of being. Selection [das auslesende "Lesen"] is the foundation and proof of the pursuit of being and the battle against appearance. The meaning of krinein includes to pick out {auslesen}, to favor, to set a measure that will determine rank. (IM 174; EM 133; as in the next quotation italics with «auslesende» mine, J. F.)

This sentence reads in German: « steht hier im engsten Verband mit , dem Scheiden als Ent-scheiden im Vollzug der Sammlung auf die Gesammeltheit des Seins. Das auslesende "Lesen" begründet und trägt den Verfolg des Seins und die Abwehr des Scheins. In der Bedeutung des schwingt mit: auslesen, abheben, die rangbestimmende Maßgabe» (EM 133).^[36]

In this summarizing passage key terms of Being and Time, « Ent-scheiden» («de-cision»), «Entschlossenheit,» («resoluteness») occur alongside items from the National Socialist vocabulary, such as «Auslese» («selection» or «pick out» as in «rassische Auslese,» «racial selection»). At the same time, in the text Heidegger forcefully promotes Sammlung, sammeln (gathering, to gather) to a key term of his later philosophy. The passage precisely «repeats»

the passage on erwidert and Widerruf in Being and Time , section 74. We live in a fallen state of mixture. The call of the Volksgemeinschaft calls us back («erwidern») and calls upon us to purify the mixture, that is, to throw out the impure and alien elements and to restore the pure Gemeinschaft («erwidern» and «Widerruf»). In the passage from An Introduction to Metaphysics , it is especially the phrase «das auslesende "Lesen"» («selection») that carries the required restoration of the pure Gemeinschaft by throwing out the alien elements. The phrase «das auslesende "Lesen"» («selection») specifies the phrases «de-cide» («Ent-scheiden») and «collecting» («Sammlung»). By this, «gathering» in Heidegger follows the same logic as «gathering» in National Socialism. Within National Socialism, the inconspicuous everyday word «sammeln» all of a sudden gained a prominent place in the political vocabulary in precisely the sense in which Heidegger uses it in the above-quoted passage from An Introduction to Metaphysics . To be sure, the notions Versammlungen, Sammlungen, and Sammlungsbewegungen, meetings and merger movements (of political parties or religious groups), were used already before the emergence of National Socialism. However, from 1933 on the word «sammeln» acquired a new sense.

The history of the Sammlungsbewegung National Socialism prior to its final defeat consisted of three stages. First, the members of the party sammelten sich selbst, assembled by leaving the city, the Weimar Republic, to congregate outside of it or by forming their own city within the city. This is «to separate in the sense of de-cide in collecting toward the collectedness of being» (IM 174; EM 133). In doing so, they cleanse themselves of the unhealthy mixtures and corruption they believed to be prevalent in the city. They cleanse themselves of any trace of Gesellschaft, liberalism, social democracy, and Jewishness in themselves. From their vantage point, the city was afflicted with alien elements from which it had to be purged so that its purity might be restored. In other words, the city was in a state of unhealthy mixtures of Being and Non-Being, and the philosophical term for this usually is «Schein» (EM 133; «appearance,» IM 174). That first act was an Auslese, a separation, a selection, a de-cision, and the party members were the subjects as well as the objects of this act. They de-cided themselves from the city by leaving it and forming their party. The authentic Daseine are «followers {Hörige}» (IM 129; EM 99)^[37] of Being. They only collect themselves because they listen to Being's commands. Thus the first act is the moment in which Being collects itself («in collecting toward the collectedness of being»). The phrase «in collecting toward the collectedness of being» corresponds to the phrase «the handing down of a heritage constitutes itself in resoluteness» (BT 435; SZ 383f.), which I discussed in section C of chapter 2. In the first act, the authentic Daseine erwidern the call of Being; Being is no longer covered up; rather it begins to be active and to be the main actor in the second

and third act in which the authentic Daseine widerrufen, cancel, Gesellschaft. In the second act the party members took over the city, the so-called Machtübernahme. In the third act, they realized the program they had developed in the first act, namely, the removal of those whom they have declared to be the alien, unhealthy elements from which the city had to be cleansed. They remove the alien elements and their world, Gesellschaft, to restore a pure Gemeinschaft. Especially this third act is a selection, a de-cision. The party members remain the subjects of this decision; however, the object has changed. The objects of this decision are now those whom the party members have designated as the foe of the Volk and who must be ausgelesen, selected, and eliminated.

One might say not only the first sentence in the passage on logos in An Introduction , but also the second and the third sentences—the ones with «selection» and «to pick out»—are analogous at most to what I described as the first step of the history of National Socialism. To be sure, it might not be completely impossible for an ingenious exegete of Heidegger to refer the second and the third sentences to the first step. In this way, he might reduce all three sentences to the first step and leave out the Machtübernahme and the disavowal of Gesellschaft and of the alien elements. However, there is nothing that can prevent one from referring the second and third sentences to the second and the third step. In fact, if one looks at the German expressions Heidegger uses, one is strongly moved and encouraged—if not in fact forced— to refer them to the third step. Heidegger employed a widely used and well-known expression that was also part of the official vocabulary of the National Socialists. What is translated by «selection,» reads in German: «auslesende "Lesen".» While in relation to texts and writing lesen means «to read,» in the context of agriculture and cooking, for instance, «Lese» and «lesen» refer to the gathering of crops and beans. In this process, «lesend,» one stands «in» the «"Lese[n]"» (EM 133; «Selection,» IM 174), or «in der Sammlung,» as Heidegger put it on the preceding page («Der Mensch ist als der im Logos, in der Sammlung, Stehende und Tätige: der Sammler,» EM 131f.; «Standing and active in logos, which is ingathering, man is the gatherer,» IM 172). Harvesting, however, entails that one will «die Spreu vom Weizen trennen» («separate the chaff from the wheat»), as a well-known saying puts it. Applied to the sorting of beans, the Bohnen-Lese, this saying became «die schlechten ins Kröpfchen, die guten ins Töpfchen,» i.e., the good beans are gathered in the cooking pot («Töpfchen») and the bad ones are «ausgelesen,» «aussortiert,» sorted out and thrown into the trash («Kröpfchen»).^[38] Thus, by adding «auslesende» to «"Lese",» Heidegger just makes what is implied in «Lese» explicit. This amounts to no less than the supposed Einklang (unison) between everyday discourse, especially the one of the peasants, and that of the National Socialist Party. Since sammeln, to gather, is «auslesende "Lese",»

«auslesende» simply expresses what is clearly implied in the very act of gathering, namely, a sorting out and elimination. Once the party members leave the city and regain their purity, they come back, take over the city, and purify the mixtures; that is, they redeem and restore the originally pure ones by pushing the aliens out of the city. From 1933 on, all human beings, first in Germany and later in all of Europe, became the object of this auslesende Lese, of this gathering and sorting.

From the very beginning of their reign, the National Socialists set up sites where aliens were gathered. One did not use the German «sammeln» to designate these sites but rather a related word of Latin derivation, namely, «konzentrieren,» «Konzentrationslager» (concentrate, focus, «concentration camps»), konzentrieren being the most intense form of sammeln. The German word «sammeln» was used from the beginning of the mass deportations. «Sammelstelle,» «Sammelplatz,» or «Sammellager» («collecting point, collecting camp») designated the sites in the villages and cities where the Jews had «sich einzufinden» (the bureaucratic word for «to appear, to assemble at a certain time and a certain place») in order then to be pushed into the trains to Auschwitz and the other concentration camps. As objects of the Lese, they were forced to move from the village to the Sammelplatz at the brink of the village, that is, they were forced to move to and gather at the railway station, made to enter the trains, and to move along the tracks until the final gathering on the Verlade-Brücke in Auschwitz.^[39]

Heidegger' s interpretation of logos in An Introduction to Metaphysics is identical with the activities called for in the sentences with «erwidert» and «Wider-ruf» in Being and Time . Thus it might be that eigentlich, in truth, Heidegger's pre-Socratics and his history of Being are the characters of Being and Time , sections 72-77, transposed under new names onto the broader stage of the history of Being. They are, so to speak, the Führer's «new clothes.» Though it is not possible to pursue this in more detail in this book and though there are many, more or less different, Heideggers after the Kehre, I want to address at least briefly one later Heidegger, the one Caputo developed in his Heidegger and Aquinas , published in 1982, before he began his project of Demythologizing Heidegger in the second half of the eighties.

The carpenter in his workshop in Division One of Being and Time (BT 95ff.; SZ 66ff.) is not yet in the «downward plunge,» for he is in the ordinary world «in the mode of its genuineness» (BT 189; SZ 148). However, he is already on the road «Falling,» which will lead into the downward plunge. Similarly, we peregrinatores, as Augustine has called us—Heidegger might say that the language of the «they» translates this with «tourists»—are, to use one of Heidegger's pet expressions, immer schon, always already, on the road that leads into

the excess of idle talk, curiosity, and ambiguity of the ordinary and inauthentic Daseine (BT 210ff.; SZ 167ff.). As is known, Thomas Aquinas struggled so hard to reconcile all the different paths on the broad road «Falling.» Ordinary Dasein is not aware that it is no longer at the beginning. It takes its falling or downward plunge as given traditions, and doesn't reflect on the fact that they are a fallen-away version of the real beginning that nonetheless is somehow responsible for the falling and the downward plunge and, thus, holds the Daseine even as they are moving away from it. Similarly, Thomas Aquinas «does not put the tradition itself into question; . . . He thinks within the tradition without thinking the tradition as precisely what is to be thought, that is, as a Being-process in which Being is withdrawn precisely insofar as it gives itself.»^[40] Thus, as ordinary Dasein does not recognize that it is caught up on the road «Falling,» Thomas Aquinas «is caught up in the historical sweep of the "it gives" without experiencing the giving itself which is at work in Scholasticism, without experiencing Scholasticism as a constellation of meaning which itself has been made possible on deeper—alethiological—grounds. Thomas stands within the clearing without thinking the clearing as such.»^[41]

Impatient Daseine on the road and a

follower of St. Thomas might object at this point that not every age of Being is equally an oblivion, not every period of thought is equally an "epoch" of withdrawal. For even though the "It" which gives remained behind, Being as presence was bestowed upon the early Greek thinkers with a primal and undistorted originality. And if such a gift has been granted to the early Greeks, who were no more historically minded than St. Thomas, why not for Thomas too? Why cannot Thomas have a status somewhat like Parmenides who thought Being in its truth as presencing, even though the "It" which "gives" was concealed from him?^[42]

However, first of all, Dasein on the road is quite obviously not at the beginning. In other words, there are «important differences between the primal bestowal of Being as presence in the early Greeks and the metaphysics of esse .»^[43] Second, the time is not yet ripe, the Bocksgesang has not yet arisen to break out of Gesellschaft, or «to break the spell of metaphysics.»^[44] Thus, Thomas Aquinas «stands at neither end (terminus, ) of the tradition, but precisely, as a "medieval," in the middle.»^[45]

The authentic Dasein realizes that Volk is not to be reified. In the beginning, Volk is a fluid something, and later on Volk is somehow responsible for the move away from itself that nonetheless remains within itself. Authentic Dasein begins from within ordinary Dasein and sees through the activities by means of which ordinary Dasein forgets that it is in the downward plunge as a forgetfulness of the origin. Thus, authentic Dasein looks through the forgetting of a forgetting. Similarly, there is a double Vergessenheit, «oblivion simpliciter or the oblivion of that oblivion, concealment simpliciter

or the concealment of that concealment.»^[46] The latter is Gesellschaft, or «metaphysics, and metaphysics can be overcome»^[47] only at the end of the downward plunge where either everything falls apart and into chaos, socialism or anarchy, or the origin as such reenters the stage. It is only here that the Bocksgesang arises and the crisis begins. In this crisis, the Daseine become responsible for their becoming authentic or inauthentic and for the future of the world. Those capable of listening will become authentic. Thus, one can

determine where the element of human "responsibility" enters into Heidegger' s thought. It has not always been possible to overcome metaphysics, to spot the withdrawal as a withdrawal. For as long as thought was caught up within the sweep of the tradition and what it passed along, in medias res , the thinker was inevitably drawn along with it. But now, in these days, we live in extremis , in the extreme radicalization of this withdrawal, at the "end" of philosophy, when the tradition of withdrawal and concealment has reached its deepest and most ominous stage. Now, in this very moment of extreme danger, the saving is most palpable for those who would submit themselves to the discipline of "thought" and who would lay aside the pretension of rationality. Awakening from oblivion in this sense can be carried out. If men would be thoughtful enough, attentive enough to the movement of withdrawal whose vibrations we all can feel, whose soft reverberations we all can hear if we lend an ear, then the awakening from oblivion to oblivion would take place. The primal withdrawal of Being itself is something over which no man has any influence, for which he has no responsibility. But the oblivion of this concealment can be escaped. It lies within the pale of man's responsibility, that is, of his responsive-ness, to awaken to the movement of this withdrawal and to think this withdrawal as a withdrawal. If we make the turn into the Ereignis (Einkehren in das Ereignis ), the withdrawal of the Ereignis is not removed; we come rather to stand in it, to attend to it. And this is a possibility for thought itself.^[48]

Authentic Dasein cancels Gesellschaft to rerealize the origin. Similarly, in the later Heidegger «a new beginning will become possible. . . . and we shall be granted an experience of Being comparable to that of the early Greek thinkers. Then we too shall be the recipients of the gift and grace of presencing in its primal splendor.»^[49] For these Greek thinkers «whom philosophy considers to be semi-philosophical and still encumbered by the old myths, are in fact non-metaphysical thinkers who were not yet victimized by Western ratio . Their thinking is still close to the source, primal, freshly bestowed upon Western man, like the new-fallen snow outside the cabin in Todtnauberg.»^[50]

Having been called upon and facing heritage to repeat it, authentic Dasein realizes that the repetition is not a simple repetition. Similarly, «we today live in the eschatology, in the ending of the first great beginning, in the ever-growing night which is the evening-land called the "West" (Abendland ). We seek not literally to repeat the first beginning, which would be "vain and absurd" (Weg. ² 369/2 10), but»—and this might be a dose of Guignon's interpretation

of Being and Time in the later Heidegger—«to find in what the early Greeks thought a renewal of our own history in a way which is uniquely proper to us.»^[51] However, it is, if at all, only a dose. For, as Heidegger in section 75 (BT 444; SZ 39 If.), Caputo returns to a return simpliciter : «Hence, this early Greek experience must come again, at the end of the present history of Being, and thereby set free a new dispensation, a new beginning, precisely at the point at which the old dispensation takes its leave.»^[52]

He doesn't elaborate this delicate point. But who would blame him for this? After all, Heidegger himself hasn't done so. At least, he did not offer much beyond the formula of logos I discussed above. In Anaximander, justice still managed to «subdue the stubbornness of that which wants to persist inordinately.»^[53] After Parmenides, however, something has happened. In Being and Time Heidegger doesn't talk about a single Dasein that becomes authentic individually by distancing itself from any tradition or by freely exploiting any tradition, but about Daseine that, called upon by heritage, break out of Gesellschaft in order to rerealize, against Gesellschaft, the denied origin Volk, Volksgemeinschaft, they are called upon to identify with. Similarly, what is at stake in the later Heidegger is the entire Westen and thus by implication the entire world.

At least Caputo's later Heidegger shows that the basic framework in his late writings remains the same as in Being and Time . Thus, it might be possible that, in contrast to many interpreters, the later Heidegger was right when, especially in Brief über den "Humanismus " (Letter on Humanism ), he stressed the continuity between Being and Time and his later writings. In addition, in an ambiguous sentence in the Letter on Humanism , Heidegger invites us to regard the analysis of the «they» in Being and Time as I took it, namely, as an analysis of Gesellschaft. For, the analysis of the «they» is a «sociology.» And what, after Weber, was sociology about if not about—as the German title of Weber' s famous book from 1922 reads—Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft , economy and society? However, at the same time Heidegger' s analysis of the «they» is much more than a contribution to sociology. After talking about «the dictatorship of the public realm {Diktatur der Öffentlichkeit}» (BW 197; WM 149), he continues: «Was in "Sein und Zeit" (1927), ## 27 und 35 über das "man" gesagt ist, soll keineswegs nur einen beiläufigen Beitrag zur Soziologie liefern» (WM 149). This means that «what is said in Being and Time (1927), sections 27 and 35, about the "they" is by no means supposed to furnish a merely incidental contribution to sociology.» That is, what is said in those sections about the «they» is indeed a contribution to sociology, but it is also much more than that. (The English translator has misunderstood the German phrase «keineswegs nur» and has mistranslated the sentence: «What is said in Being and Time [1927], sections 27 and 35, about the "they" in no way means to furnish an incidental contribution to sociology,» BW 197.) It is a contribution to sociology, and it is much more than an incidental contribution, because it is undertaken

from the viewpoint of fundamental ontology, and it is offered on the way to the true origin of Gesellschaft, on the way to Gemeinschaft. (Given Heidegger's remarks on the relation of his fundamental ontology to «subordinated» sciences [BT 28ff.; SZ 8ff.]—remarks that are certainly authoritarian as no other First Philosophy has ever been—one is entitled to say that the phrase «incidental contribution» is of ironic modesty; from his point of view, a sociology that is not undertaken under the auspices of his fundamental ontology is simply not a science.) Heidegger goes on:

Just as little does the "they" mean merely the opposite, understood in an ethicalexistentiell way, of the selfhood of persons. Rather, what is said there contains a reference, thought in terms of the question of the truth of Being, to the word's primordial belongingness to Being. This relation remains concealed beneath the dominance of subjectivity that presents itself as the public realm. (BW 197f.; WM 149)

One might read these sentences as Heidegger's veto against interpretations of section 74 such as Guignon' s and Birmingham' s. For in one way or another, both miss the peculiar pull of the Gemeinschaft, or of Being, to which Gesellschaft, subjectivity, and the ordinary Daseine are subject. One must not resist the pull or ignore the call. In other words, both Guignon and Birmingham miss the peculiar figure of handing oneself over, or sacrificing oneself to, that origin Volk, hidden up to now, whose agents the authentic Daseine become. In this sense, section 74 may have been in fact already «this turning [Kehre ]» (BW 208; WM 159), or the threshold to it, in which «everything is reversed» (BW 208; WM 159).^[54]