Scott Davidson, Frédéric Seyler (Eds.): The Michel Henry Reader, Northwestern University Press, 2019

The Michel Henry Reader Book Cover The Michel Henry Reader
Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy
Scott Davidson, Frédéric Seyler (Eds.)
Northwestern University Press
2019
Cloth Text 99.95 $
296

Christoph Limbeck-Lilienau, Friedrich Stadler (Eds.): The Philosophy of Perception, De Gruyter, 2019

The Philosophy of Perception: Proceedings of the 40th International Ludwig Wittgenstein Symposium Book Cover The Philosophy of Perception: Proceedings of the 40th International Ludwig Wittgenstein Symposium
Publications of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society – New Series 26
Christoph Limbeck-Lilienau, Friedrich Stadler (Eds.)
De Gruyter
2019
Hardback 109,95 € / $126.99 / £100.00
xi, 420

Paul Crowther: What Drawing and Painting Really Mean, Routledge, 2019

What Drawing and Painting Really Mean: The Phenomenology of Image and Gesture Book Cover What Drawing and Painting Really Mean: The Phenomenology of Image and Gesture
Paul Crowther
Routledge
2019
Hardback £115.00
168, 8 Color Illus.

Elliot R. Wolfson: The Duplicity of Philosophy’s Shadow

The Duplicity of Philosophy's Shadow: Heidegger, Nazism, and the Jewish Other Book Cover The Duplicity of Philosophy's Shadow: Heidegger, Nazism, and the Jewish Other
Elliot R. Wolfson
Columbia University Press
2018
Paperback $30.00 / £24.00
336

Reviewed by: Peter Pangarov (Independent Scholar, Canada)

The Duplicity of Philosophy’s Shadow

The spectre of Nazism hangs over the work of Martin Heidegger. That spectre has ebbed and flowed. The publication of the Schwarze Hefte brought back that ghost once more. The Schwarze Hefte laid bare aspects of Heidegger’s antisemitism that had not previously been seen. In The Duplicity of Philosophy’s Shadow, Elliot Wolfson, a scholar of Jewish mysticism and philosophy who—by his own admission—was influenced profoundly by Heidegger, sets out to see the absences in Heidegger’s writing. Wolfson uses Heidegger’s approach to analyse the relationship of truth and untruth, silence, the limits of speech, and what can or cannot be said. From the outset, it is essential to acknowledge that The Duplicity of Philosophy’s Shadow is not in response to the Schwarze Hefte, but a much broader and nuanced conversation Wolfson engages in with himself, Heideggerian scholars, and Heidegger.

Approach

The intention here is to sketch out how Wolfson conceptualises and breaks down Heidegger’s personal, political and philosophical miscalculations, and the parallels between Heideggerian thought and that of Jewish Mysticism. It is not to necessarily delve into the depths of the commonality of Heidegger’s thought and that of Jewish mysticism; this is something that Wolfson accomplishes too thoroughly to be summarised in a brief review without resorting to an approach that loses a lot of that nuance. Instead, this review focuses on the analysis of the unthought, Heidegger’s reforming and rejecting the Philosophy of National Socialism, and Heidegger’s silence and refusal to denounce the horrors of National Socialism.

Understanding Miscalculation

Wolfson approaches his analysis of Heidegger as an outsider, one influenced by Heidegger, but an outsider nonetheless. Wolfson’s approach is shaped by Jacques Derrida’s reflection that “no thinker is above criticism, certainly not one as controversial as Heidegger, but even he, nay especially he, deserves to be read before he is castigated as an outcast and his lifework deemed irredeemable” (xii). By embracing this, Wolfson seeks to neither excuse nor dismiss Heidegger. Instead, to wrestle with that middle ground. Wolfson acknowledges that it is a middle ground that “I am afraid to say, one that can be borne only by those willing to invest an inordinate amount of time and energy in reading through this vastly arduous corpus.” An analysis of Heidegger’s miscalculation is,

The space we must inhabit, as uncomfortable as it might be, is one in which we acknowledge that Heidegger was both a Nazi given to anti- Semitic jargon and an incisive philosopher whose thinking not only was responding to the urgencies of his epoch but also contains the potential to unravel the thorny knot of politics and philosophy relevant for the present as much as for the past. (xv).

The task Wolfson gives himself, is to read Heidegger in a way unlike how Heidegger sought to interpret himself. This task involves and necessitates walking up to his politics, and not immediately reaching to condemn Heidegger’s silence on Auschwitz but thinking about what that silence says and means. In The Duplicity of Philosophy’s Shadow, Wolfson accomplishes that task without ever losing sight of the reality of the tragedy that occurred. This approach provides a testament to how to engage holistically with Heidegger without losing the historical fact of the tragedy of what happened in Auschwitz.

Politics as Thought and Unthought

Wolfson begins by highlighting that moral condemnation does not run counter to analysing National Socialism philosophically in the background of Heidegger’s work. For Wolfson, in actuality, suspending condemnation would be wrong as it would remove the historicity of the relationship between Heidegger’s thought and that of National Socialism. Herein, Wolfson needs to be applauded for stepping into a potentially uncomfortable position, but a necessary one. It is not possible to not condemn what occurred, but it is possible to remain objective in studying the relationship between Heidegger and National Socialism and seeing where that leads.

As Wolfson puts it,

the Heideggerian presumption that questioning is the means to reveal the matter of thought is not forfeited by adopting a critical stance regarding the monstrosity of Nazism nor is there justification to argue that objectivity can be achieved only by abandoning oneself to a thinking that would preclude the ability to discriminate between right and wrong (1).

Wolfson does not believe Heidegger relinquishes ‘the sanction of good and evil.” Rather, Heidegger sees good and evil as interpreted through historical destiny, and their interaction of going towards and away from a transcendent metaphysical grounding. Wolfson acknowledges herein that this view is not one that would be adopted by certain Heideggerian scholars. Of course, it’s challenging itself to say, beyond a basic framework, what would be and would not be acceptable to a majority in this particular context. Wolfson’s discussion of a transcendent metaphysical grounding does point to a broader criticism that maybe slightly unfairly levelled against the book as a whole: the book places the reader in the midst of an extraordinarily complex and necessary analysis that requires a nuanced knowledge of Heidegger’s corpus. So, the book is not the best starting point for those unfamiliar with the subject matter.

For Heidegger, philosophical enlightenment ‘consists of unmasking the shadow as shadow, that is, discerning the shadow as a form of luminescence and not as a privation of light, (5). Wolfson examines Heidegger’s attempt to purify the philosophy of National Socialism. From 1933 onwards, in his writings, and lectures, Heidegger sought to both critique and support the present manifestation of National Socialism. The purification that Heidegger sought was to remove the racism and anti-Semitism from the core of National Socialism. Heidegger saw Germany, and Germans as philosophical a people, and nation. By having National Socialism embrace this, Germany would accomplish its national destiny. This, as highlighted by Wolfson, is an alternative form of nationalist chauvinism.

Counter-posed here is a sense that Heidegger did express remorse in what he had engaged with, and that remorse impacted his ability to visit former friends, for instance, Carl Jaspers, not—in his words—“because a Jewish woman lived there, but because I simply felt ashamed,” (31). That sense of shame is a real and powerful factor that cannot be dismissed.

In this discussion, there is one aspect that perhaps speaks loudest: that of silence. More specifically, Heidegger’s silence. That of how,

Heidegger fell short of outwardly and forthrightly rejecting the movement or admitting that his own decision was a symptom of a philosophical catastrophe and not merely a political blunder, but this moral failing provides the opening through which the concealed of the unconcealed of his thinking may be revealed as the entanglement of truth and untruth, an entanglement that sheds light on the shadow so that the substance of the shadow is unveiled as the shadow of the substance (32).

Wolfson returns to this regularly from the outset. Analysing the unthought is most illuminating because something being unthought or absent is as such silent.

Silence

Heidegger’s silence on what happened to the Jews, and the ills of National Socialism, remains one of the most challenging parts of his legacy. Heidegger died in 1976, far removed from the era of National Socialism, but he never publicly denounced the horrors that occurred. This failure poses a challenge that Wolfson, taking inspiration from Derrida, seeks to answer.

Derrida embarks on what he labels a “risky hypothesis” that it was by not speaking that Heidegger offered the possibility for others to think the unthought connection between his thought and National Socialism. Had Heidegger explicitly offered an apology for his blunders, he would have likely been absolved, and there would have been closure and less of an impetus for subsequent philosophers and intellectual historians to contemplate the affinities, synchronisms of thinking, and common roots that he might have shared with Nazism. However, the legacy of Heidegger’s “terrifying, perhaps unforgivable, silence” bequeaths to us the duty of doing the work and the “injunction to think what he did not think,” (111).

This deserves to be unpacked because it is the line of thought that Wolfson develops and connects with traditions in Jewish Mysticism. By not apologising, Heidegger placed himself in a space he need not have occupied, and had he apologised he would have lessened the impact of his miscalculation. Choosing to fail to do that forces those within the Heideggerian tradition to engage with that silence and see what that speaks about his legacy. Before proceeding, it is worth noting that there is a truth in Derrida’s hypothesis, but it is challenging to imagine that the Schwarze Hefte would not have led to an alternative if not potentially worse crisis even if Heidegger had publicly apologised.

The framing of the “risky hypothesis,” and how it borders on a notion of silence used in the Kabbalistic tradition, highlights Wolfson’s ability to think the unthought. Silence is appealing because it is the only way left to react to what came before and the absence that creates. Heidegger’s silence can be seen as a form of language used as a reaction to something so unspeakable that the only language left for it is the absence of language. This silence is a product of a belief that it is only possible sometimes to understand what a thinker thought if we can first be aware of what they did not think, or at least did not verbalise in language—leaving it unsaid. This way the failure to speak is in a sense the action of speaking. It provokes the others to respond in a manner typically befitting language, not its absence. Heidegger interpreted silence as an “essential possibility of discourse” (115). For Dasein to be authentic, it has to be able to be reticent and confront the intelligibility of certain actualities and how they can and cannot be expressed. An inability to show something can be indicative of something in the same way that an ability to communicate something can be.

This silence takes on a further meaning that of representing the internal solitude of the philosopher, and the withdrawing into oneself, especially in response to an event as powerful as the Holocaust. Part of the challenge is the philosopher’s awareness of how they will be misinterpreted, and how that leaves certain things as unsaid. There is a truth here but a failure to condemn what occurred at Auschwitz exists in a different category than an inability to articulate an ontology. There is the matter that the misinterpretation of a philosopher is inevitable. There is a need to be aware of the historicity and content surrounding the philosophy that is misinterpreted. As Wolfson proceeds in analysing what has been said, there is a mandate, or need to address that which has not been said. Mainly, why that was not said, and what that absence means. Wolfson builds on Heidegger’s emphasis on the linguistic ability of human beings, and how that capacity to not just speak but not speak as a choice. By not speaking, Heidegger may be engaged in an act representative as well of his historicity in that particular time, and how certain truths may not yet be or were not yet able to be spoken.

Wolfson asks if Heidegger’s silence were not twofold. Firstly, could he only speak by not speaking? Secondly, was it just by heeding and understanding the importance of the said and unsaid that Heidegger could respond to what happened? This point is furthered by Heidegger’s notion that the bloodshed of the war was an example of the excess of evil and wilfulness that was a product of a “non-essence of beying,” (35). This break that is a product of the war and the annihilation that took place is that to which Heidegger speaks by not speaking to it. This speaking by not speaking and indirectness is compared to the Kabbalistic idea of the Other Side. The Other Side is the tool used to explain the existence of evil, the counter to grace. Wolfson explains this in Heideggerian terms as

the evil of the Other Side is the wilful manifestation of the nonessence that belongs to the essence of being, the event of appropriation, which comprises the inexpressible that is expressive of the essentially tragic nature of being (123).

The Other Side is the opposite of essence. It can be grasped as the potentiality of Dasein to undo itself or come apart. This awareness is one that is limited, and not available to all of those that seek to unravel that piece of knowledge.

The knowledge of being, consequently, is limited to the individuals who remain faithful to the truth of the cataclysmic beginning and can make peace with it. Such individuals are neither recognized by the calculative nature of historiographical knowledge nor by the meditative nature of historical contemplation. Their mission is not to be sought in the ability to confront the other, but to accept the essential misrecognition that ensues from living and thinking within the ring of solitude (126).

In rounding off the discussion of silence, Wolfson notes how this conception can be used to explain but not justify. That distinction is critical because it illustrates Heidegger’s thought and what may have remained unthought but influential to Heidegger. An understanding of that does not mean that those actions were justified but merely explainable.

This account of Heidegger’s silence breaks apart what silence meant to Heidegger and the similarities with other traditions. This analysis does develop and ground Derrida’s “risky hypothesis” as something that makes sense and can be understood as the actions that Heidegger took due to his own philosophical framework. Silence is in a sense a performative act or the awareness that it is the only way Heidegger thought he could respond. Whether, as Wolfson notes, that is justified is a separate matter, but it does develop an interpretation based on engaging with Heidegger’s work and methodology.

Duplicity/Thinking the Unthinkable

Let me conclude this investigation by stating once more that I offer no apology for Heidegger. Indubitably, there will be readers who will accuse me of doing what I emphatically announce I am not doing. No matter how insistent and clear-cut my denial, the passion surrounding Heidegger will prevent some individuals from being able to read my work without a predisposition that, oddly enough, smacks of the very absolutism, despotism and homogenization they find so offensive about the fascist ideology Heidegger unwisely embraced at a crucial moment in his own development as a thinker (169).

Wolfson begins his Afterword with this paragraph. In concluding, it is important to bear that in mind as is the following.

The truth, as is often the case, lies some- where in the middle too often excluded by our logic of the excluded middle, a middle where something can be both true and not true, where the propositions that Heidegger was a defender of Nazism and that Heidegger was an opponent of Nazism are not mutually exclusive (170).

The reason for including these is because these paragraphs speak to what Wolfson sets out to do and accomplishes, of wadding into an unpleasant murky water that others are reluctant to do so. He notes that Heidegger was a sublime thinker, but nonetheless he made serious lapses and brought into his philosophy ideas and associations that were and are repugnant. The challenge is to understand both, where they cross over, and learn from that. As Wolfson highlights, the inability to do that is its own dogmatism. As with his silence there are things about Heidegger that we can understand but not justify. Being able to sit in that tension is perhaps the most powerful thing we can embrace from the Heideggerian tradition, whilst acknowledging the horrors. That is a monumental task, but one that Wolfson accomplishes, which by itself makes this book essential in offering a fresh perspective that injects a nuance made possible by an outsider influenced by the material.

John Behr: John the Theologian and his Paschal Gospel: A Prologue to Theology, Oxford University Press, 2019

John the Theologian and his Paschal Gospel: A Prologue to Theology Book Cover John the Theologian and his Paschal Gospel: A Prologue to Theology
John Behr
Oxford University Press
2019
Hardback £85.00
416

Michael Marder: Heidegger: Phenomenology, Ecology, Politics

Heidegger: Phenomenology, Ecology, Politics Book Cover Heidegger: Phenomenology, Ecology, Politics
Michael Marder
University of Minnesota Press
2018
Paperback $25.00
216

Reviewed by: Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides (Associate Professor in Ancient History, Macquarie University, Sydney)

As a classicist and ancient historian, I have always been intrigued by Heidegger’s frequent references to the Greeks and what he described as their “original,” in a Nietzschean sense, appreciation of the essence of Being. Then, again, I am deeply aware of the truth pertaining Glen Most’s statement about classicists and Heidegger (“Heidegger’s Greeks,” Arion 10.1 (2002) 83-98 at 96):

“For the professional classicist, there is almost nothing at all of interest in Heidegger’s work on Greek philosophy and poetry—which no doubt says as much about professional classicists as it does about Heidegger. Heidegger’s work remains entirely marginal to the classics profession, except for a very few classicists who are themselves largely marginal.”

While this partly explains my protracted grappling with this review, it also relates most clearly why Marder’s book has been so tantalizingly appealing to me.

First, although classicists are not habitually interested in Heidegger, they are interested in theoretical advances that may defend their interpretations of ancient Greek texts from the usual charge of being irrelevant and almost a pastime for recluses. Phenomenology has been one of the latest theoretical approaches to be adopted by scholars of ancient religion (such as the great Walter Burkert) and Heidegger is regarded as “the father of phenomenology,” given that for him Aristotle was certainly influenced by a rhetorical culture in defining man as a political animal and that the constituent parts of Da-sein (the speaking, listening, and caring which characterize Heidegger’s concept of Being-There) provide a common ground between rhetorical politics and phenomenology (S. Elden, “Reading Logos as Speech: Heidegger, Aristotle and Rhetorical Politics,” Philosophy & Rhetoric 38.4 (2005) 281-301 at 286-288).

Second, Marder’s book struck a chord with me because the author sets out to make a significant point, that is, to advocate our duty to engage with Heidegger rather than continue to ignore him because of his antisemitic sentiments. The controversy surrounding Heidegger has intensified since 2014 when the first books of his Black Notebooks were published with Marder noting in his Introduction (xi):

“What reawakens each time with the controversy, or what reawakens it, is the desire to expel Heidegger and to expunge his contributions from the canon of Western philosophy or from what may be legitimately taught, interpreted, and discussed in self-respecting philosophy departments.”

In attempting a bold, but not out-of-place, in my view, comparison, I have often felt a similar attitude towards the Classics in post-colonial Australia; I vividly remember a professor of English, who exasperated with Norman Lindsay’s misogynistic adaptation of classical models, asked a doctoral student in a full amphitheater: “why do you want to study this stuff?” The conflation of Norman Lindsay’s views with the right (and even need) to study them produces a gross methodological error, one fraught with greater dangers than people gradually feeling at ease with expressing socially dangerous sentiments. Not trusting students to make the differentiation is indicative of how little confidence we have in our educational system(s), let alone the staff responsible for teaching it. In this regard, Marder’s Introduction is indeed powerful and invests the rest of the book with a renewed sense of purpose, a purpose which many scholars in the humanities are likely to empathize with. This is important given that eight out of the nine chapters comprising this book have been published before in some form and that this reader felt at times that Marder should refine the chapters further to accomplish his purpose of defending the study of Heidegger in a more concerted way.

The main body of the book consists of three Parts, focusing respectively on Phenomenology (3-65), Ecology (69-129) and Politics (133-173). Each Part contains three chapters.

Part I consists of the following chapters: “‘Higher Than Actuality:’ The Possibility of Phenomenology” (3-26), “Failure and Nonactualizable Possibility” (27-46), and “The Phenomenology of Ontico-Ontological Difference” (47-65). In the first chapter, Marder takes start from Heidegger’s view, expressed in paragraph 7 of Being and Time, that phenomenology does not lie in its actuality, but we should rather understand it as possibility (3). Drawing on the History of the Concept of Time, Marder analyzes Heidegger’s understanding of possibilities as existentially necessary for Dasein, especially since for him the impossible is the index of death (5-6). Furthermore, according to Heidegger, “the grounding possibility of phenomenology is “received” … from its “meaning in the human Dasein” (20). Hence, fundamental ontology (the acceptance of Dasein and its existence prior to inquiring about its meaning) is Heidegger’s response to Husserl’s phenomenology; according to Heidegger, by defining the phenomenon as the representation of the world in our consciousness, Husserl privileges consciousness in relation to the object. Of course, possibility needs actuality, otherwise the phenomenological approach to experience risks being separated from reality; Heidegger’s reflects on actuality in his Letter on Humanism where he argues that the accomplishment which constitutes the essence of action depends on how we perceive “productivity” since active fulfillment may well come in the form of letting be (22). This Destruktion of traditionality, enabled by Heidegger’s appreciation of fulfilling a possibility as productive but not productivist, allows for a new appreciation of efficacy in phenomenology as well as the link between intention and intuition (23).

From a classicist’s point of view, Heidegger’s observations are extremely useful in how we perceive and interpret ancient socio-religious experiences; to bring a concrete example to the discussion, ancient religion students have dedicated considerable effort to “categorizing” ancient religious experiences as “rites of passage” or “mysteries,” admittedly in an attempt to grapple with theories from anthropology or socio-linguistics. While there is little denying of the overlap between the categories construed, or the superficial enthusiasm with which classicists have at times adopted theoretical models, we are still hung on the need for classification which is a priori intrusive and inevitably anachronistic (see, for example, the refreshing article by H. Hays, “The End of Rites of Passage and a Start with Ritual Syntax in Ancient Egypt,” Rivista Studi Orientali Supplemento 2 (2013) 165-186). The same can be claimed for classifications of ancient magic, with a mind-blowing yet established in scholarship differentiation between plant-based magic, mainly entrusted to women, and aggressive, erotic magic typically encountered in the hands of men … The concept of possibility introduced by Heidegger can at least function as a halting point to allow for reflection on how certain ancient authors toyed with possibility and their audience’s assumptions or to use Heideggerian language, their “horizons of understanding.”

Marder’s second chapter is equally instructive to this direction, in my view, as it discusses the link between possibility and the sense of failure that overwhelms us when we consider our finitude, the possibilities that we will inevitably fail to actualize because of death. Importantly, our temporality, our ex-istence is essential to Dasein and to our perception of the ec-static character of time. Reading closely Heidegger’s Being and Time, Marder argues that “[T]here can be, and there is, a nothing that has broken free from lack, and that is both the abyssal foundation of fundamental ontology and the springboard for an alternative theory of failure” (32). It is in this nothingness that our existential failure can give birth to numerous other possibilities, what he calls the “fecundity of failure” (31). Importantly, Heidegger understands this “falling” (Verfallen, BT 219) in relation to the Dasein’s ability to understand itself. This falling into the ordinary and mundane expresses the worldliness (the everydayness) of Dasein and is a movement away from the Self, a movement toward inauthenticity; to restore our authentic Self we need to be able to listen to the silent call of conscience or be ready to be anxious about it (39; also, see J.B. Steeves, “Authenticity and Falling in Martin Heidegger’s ‘Being and Time,’” The Jerusalem Philosophical Quarterly 46 (1997) 327-338). To me, the notion of “falling” (especially in light of possibility being higher than actuality) has obvious Christian overtones (and though one could argue the same about the Greek Underworld, Heidegger, as Most (2010, 86) notes, often addresses his Church congregation). Marder does touch upon this on pages 90-91 when he describes the economization of our existence and the devastation of the polis but does not really engage with the idea. Further, although Marder analyzes Heidegger’s differentiation between malfunction and failure in relation to techne in Time and Being (44-46), he does not involve the Aristotelian concept of phronesis which Heidegger did discuss.

The final chapter of Part I focuses on Heidegger’s attempt to situate himself between the phenomenologies of Husserl and Hegel. The notion of types or perhaps possibilities of phenomenologies is enticing and Marder does engage masterfully with Heidegger’s reading of both philosophers. Here, Marder follows two hypotheses: first, Heidegger employs the Hegelian phenomenology of spirit to refute Husserl’s positions and second, Husserl and Hegel come to stand for “the encryptions of ‘ontic’ and ‘ontological’ phenomenologies, of consciousness and of spirit” (49). Heidegger attempts to bridge the “ontico-ontological difference” by gathering together, “without mixing them, dialectical fire and phenomenological water.” Although Marder makes clear that Heidegger does not reject Husserl outright, he concludes that his intentional consciousness caters for a relative being and relative knowledge (53, 56). By trying to substantiate his historically conditioned appreciation of Dasein (i.e. non-metaphysical), Heidegger employs the concept of Mitdasein (being-with) which allows for our existence with objects, with ourselves and importantly with the Hegelian absolute, that is, we can participate in the self-knowledge of the absolute as analyzed by Hegel in the final paragraphs of his Enclyclopaedia Philosophy of Spirit (59-60). At this point, I was feeling rather smug with my progress in following Marder’s often longwinded arguments, and at the same time guilty for having missed the affinity of Mitdasein with post-structuralism (Woerman, M. Bridging Complexity and Post-Structuralism: Insights and Implications, Switzerland: Springer, (2016) 243ff. on Nancy and Heidegger), when it occurred to me that Marder does not explain how the consciousness of Mitdasein (as well as authentic Dasein) can be non-metaphysical. I say this because to my mind, although Mitdasein is enabling us to approach the absolute through Hegelian self-reflection, it necessarily implies a sense of isolation and/or separation from the objects which we “are with;” this thought has a very Platonic as well as Nietzschean ring to it which is, of course, totally metaphysical. Here, Marder does not offer the non-expert much guidance.

Part II consists of the following chapters: “To Open a Site: A Political Phenomenology of Dwelling» (69-92), “Devastation” (93-111), “An Ecology of Property” (113-129). In chapter four, Marder explains Heidegger’s application of the concept of failure in the context of the Greek polis, which is linguistically tied to the word polos (=swirl) (70); the latter is characterized by a perennial openness both in the sense that its members are renewed continuously but, also, in the sense that the questioning that takes place in the polis can never be concluded. Heidegger objects to the common translation of polis as state or city-state because it suppresses its ecological stance (72). Notably, he toys with the Nietzschean notions of hypsipolis and apolis, often through his grappling with Sophocles’ Antigone (73-74) which indicates that Heidegger recognizes oikologia, which in Heideggerian terms would be translated as house-being or house-gathering, as a concept often realized by those who substitute the site of the polis with the site of history – another deeply Platonic idea (cf. Republic, 592b on the Heavenly city), but, also interestingly agreeing with several stories of ancient founders who were never afforded civic identity. I am here thinking of Heracles, but, in defense of Marder’s point that to appreciate Heidegger’s preoccupation with the polis is inherently antisemitic, I would like to add the example of Moses, who led his people to the promised land, but was not allowed to cross the river and enjoy Canaan. Heidegger employs a geometrical appreciation of the dwelling; as Marder explains (75) dwelling, or being a Dasein, is conceived as the meeting point of a vertical dimension that refers to geographical situation and the political and a horizontal dimension that refers to the ethos of the polis. In fact, it is in the context of the polis that Dasein is revealed to be a Mitsein, being-with (76). Having the Platonic example at the back of my mind, I was not clear at this point how Heidegger deals with those exceptional (philosophizing?) individuals who manage to exchange the actual dwelling for the site of history; how does the notion of Mitsein apply in these cases? And, importantly, if the openness of the dwelling relies on it becoming hostile to the individual (as in the case of Antigone), should we consciously seek to rise above the Mitsein? Possibly questions of a novice in Heidegger’s thought, but in advocating the study of Heidegger, Marder could have spent a bit more time trying to guide the less advanced reader. Marder then argues that ecology has been replaced in modern societies by a political and ethical economy, which privileges quantitative valuation (78). Discussing Heidegger’s contribution to the concept of nomos, Marder notes: “The work of ‘mere fabrication’ of the law by human reason corresponds to the degradation of ēthos to the ethical with the help of morality …” (79). The intense economization of existence has allowed for the reign of nihilism, defined as the “danger of self-destruction” (82). In HHI 48, cited by Marder on 91, Heidegger explains: “What I mean by ‘economization’ is the encumbrance of the things and the world they co-create with the time, spatiality, and language (nomos) that are alien to them.” Heidegger charges the Romans with mistranslating the politikón, as the product which arose “out of the existence of the Greek polis,” with the Latin Imperium (83) (as well as with attaching to the Greek word = earth the notion of territory by translating gaia/gē as terra, 84). Admittedly, I am grateful to Marder for including the etymological arguments of Heidegger’s thought to his analysis, I found them delightful. Heidegger urges us not to confuse the need for housing with the desire for dwelling (87). By now, however, I really thought that Marder would press the question of people without terra and flung into history (regardless of whether this was a choice) … maybe the reader should be more patient for a treat later in the book?

In chapter five, Marder examines the question “what do we do when we devastate the world?,” noting that Heidegger anticipated “an abandonment of being” (93). He then introduces the distinction between destruction and devastation (94): “Staying with the logic and the vernacular of the preceding chapter, I am tempted to say: destruction destroys housing, while devastation devastates dwelling, striking not at the actual but at the possible, at the possibility of actuality.” For the next few pages, Marder details Heidegger’s desperate attempt to find hope in the face of ecological destruction, eventually glimpsing it in what Heidegger mentioned in HCT 18 (19): when the system fails possibility or the possibility of possibility, then possibility enters concealment. Thus, when devastation has completed its terrible effect both within and outside us, the concealment of the beginning harbored within Dasein offers the possibility of a new beginning (97). At this point, Heidegger appears almost poetic, perhaps even fatalistic. The worse effect of devastation in us is the “incapacitation of logos, of articulation” (99). Devastation, according to Heidegger, “transmits a scorching desert silence” which “cuts into Dasein and severs it from its world.” Again, to me, Heidegger’s thought at this point is pregnant with theological concepts, especially the eastern hesychast tradition (as an adaptation of pagan philosophical silence) and was a bit disappointed that Marder is not interested in the topic, though this observation is an aside rather than a criticism for the work which here becomes much more legible in terms of style. Going back to the problem of articulating devastation, Heidegger suggests discussing it as “evil,” though he suspiciously claims that “the devastation of the earth and the annihilation of the human essence … are somehow evil” (101). Heidegger appreciates evil as the opposite of logos, rather than in moral terms, but again here Marder avoids saying more about Heidegger’s antisemitism and how this plays against the fascist devastation of logos. Heidegger finds the positive aspects of devastation in the trace of its energy (103); devastation “procures its energy from a contentless and abstract possibility and, in effect, reconfigures energy as this possibility” (104). Although such an appreciation of devastation seems to almost brash off the Nazi regime and their followers as the mere means of devastation, Marder reminds us that Heidegger’s thought is here preoccupied with more mundane forms of devastation, primarily in the forms of economic rules (105). Finally, we come to the question, “what is to be done” about the onslaught of unconditional calculation? The answer being a. “fight the obvious temptation to get over it” (CPC 140/216 cited in Marder, 108) and b. endure it (GA: 94: 292, also on 108). Marder reminds us that here that being proactive is not necessarily a philosophical category, especially given Heidegger’s belief that in doing something we contribute to the expansion of devastation (109). Although Heidegger argues that devastation destroys the in-between space in which the polis exists, there is an in-between possibility in devastation too, the space between abandonment (of being) and releasement which may still save us (111).

In chapter six, Marder discusses the notion of property in the context of Marx’s political economy (113). Since Plato and Heidegger believe that the philosopher’s task is above all to “un-forget being in the midst of a profound ontological amnesia” (114), very much in line with the ancient conception of oikonomia, the modern institution of economy perplexes the mission of the philosopher: “the un-forgetting of being must engage in a painstaking analysis of economism and its corollary modes of appropriation that endanger planetary existence.” Marder here proposes to examine “how the ecologico-phenomenological attitude subtends an economic-political approach to ‘property’” by putting Heidegger in dialogue with Vladimir Bibikhin, a Russian philosopher who translated much of Heidegger’s work into his native language (114-115). Taking start from the post-Soviet privatization, construed by Bibikhin as the “capture of the world” (117), Marder explains how Heidegger allows Bibikhin to articulate the challenges of his society as a symptom of our overall tendency to “world-devastation and the obviation of logos inherent in the economic or economistic attitude.” Finally, Marder considers fascism and technocratic liberalism as alternatives to the ecology of property (119-122). Toying with the double meaning of the Latin capio as grab and grasp(=understand), Marder explains liberalism as preoccupied with grasping without being-grasped to which fascism responds with the reverse option of being-grasped without grasping (119) – notions which both Heidegger and Bibikhin employ in their struggle to restore the ecology of property (120). Here, we have a pseudo(?)-choice between the indifferent grasp of beings or the ecstatic surrender to them. For Heidegger, Marder concludes, “ontological history proceeds by way of ending, its ‘process’ twisting into the ends, a pair of them-fascism and technocratic liberalism-now looming large before us as the only destiny” (121). In his effort to free up some space between calculative rationality and thoughtlessness, Heidegger comes up with the notion of “inceptual thinking,” which diverts “the task of thought from the capture of the world,” to “dwelling with and in the world, all the while articulating and being articulated by this difference between ‘with’ and ‘in’” (123). Pages 127-129 focus on Bibikhin’s intricate method of translating Heidegger whereby he “makes his own what is of the other” while “making other what is his own” (127). Marder obviously enlists Bibikhin as an important ally to his argument about the usefulness of Heidegger’s thought (and crucially in trying to argue that what has been often construed as his antisemitism may in fact, be Heidegger’s indulgence into a separate trail of thought to the point of naivety or even lack of sensitivity), but his point remains latent and is never fully articulated.

Part III consists of the following chapters: “The Question of Political Existence” (133-144), “The Other ‘Jewish Question’” (145-161), “Philosophy without Right” (163-173).

In chapter seven, Marder focuses on Heidegger’s 1934-35 seminar on Hegel’s Philosophy of Right for which he has been accused of putting “Hegel in the service of Nazism” by “supplying a philosophical justification for the theories of state, power and leadership redolent of this deplorable ideology” (133). Accordingly, his aim is to “tease out … Heidegger’s unique being-historical take on the political philosophy” (133) of his predecessor. Marder argues that we should “examine the 1934-35 seminar in light of Heidegger’s own philosophy, which slots Hegel into the vast project of destruction (Destruktion) of Western metaphysics in a privileged way” (134). Like in chapter 3 where, despite of being critical of Hegel, Heidegger opted for a middle position between Husserl’s relative phenomenology and Hegel’s absolute phenomenology of being, Heidegger develops a similar strategy regarding political philosophy. But this time instead of comparing Hegel to Husserl, Heidegger compares what he perceives as Hegel’s idealistic approach to political existence to Karl Schmitt’s realism.

Marder lays out Heidegger’s critique of Hegel and Schmitt on pages 135-139, concluding that he rather “oversimplifies their positions in order to cement his alternative version of political existence” (139). In addition, Marder observes that “Schmitt’s nonmetaphysical political ontology, which has all the trappings of a ‘self- developing self- assertion,’ is as attuned to existential realities and possibilities as that of Heidegger himself” (140). Heidegger tries to avoid Hegel’s “absolutization of spirit” which privileges the metaphysical being and Schmitt’s “relativization of the political (as a relation to the enemy other),” which privileges the individual beings over the political (141). Instead, he claims that “political existence transpires in the difference between being and beings that Hegel and Schmitt all but effaced” (141). Heidegger introduces a valid contradiction between domestic and international politics (since the state is Dasein and hence, the center of its world, but not of the world) and insists that the essence of the political is its existence as a historical being-in-the-world personified by its leader (141-142). Earlier Marder suggested that Heidegger appreciates the state as “historical being” (GA 86: 85) through which “spirit gives itself actuality, political facticity, and freedom” (135). Further, he argues that “‘the essence of the state’ is ‘unification’ (GA 86: 79– 80), and that the Dasein of the leader effects ‘the unification of powers’” (142). Although Marder rightly observes that “translating the vocabulary of Being and Time into political categories proves impossible,” and is critical of Heidegger’s emphasis on the role of the leader, it must be said that to this day such views are widely held by many people and regimes across the globe who loudly reject Nazism while strongly defending their right to preserve a certain, unified identity. Thus, castigating Heidegger for putting forward a Nazi-echoing political system applies to the extent that he expresses these views in 1930s Germany and perhaps that he was misled by his historical context in grappling with the Dasein-based struggle he describes. Without underplaying in the least the gravity of the Holocaust, and hence by a similar token, we could argue that there is little point in studying Plato, a male, totalitarian aristocrat whose political views have been long branded as utopian. Marder is treading carefully here, stating that “We are yet to gauge the depth of ontico-ontological difference and other aspects of Dasein- analysis in the question of political existence” (144).

In chapter eight, we finally get to the core of the discussion about Heidegger’s antisemitism. To this direction, Marder compares Heidegger’s Black Notebooks as well as a 1933-34 seminar with the title “On the Essence and Concepts of Nature, History, and State” with Marx’s 1843 essay “On the Jewish Question.” Marder “suspects” that Heidegger’s antisemitism is mostly related to his reluctance to a. turn the figure of the Jew into a question and b. interrogate the logic of coming up with a specific figuration model for the nihilistic completion of metaphysics (145). Marder’s analysis of Heidegger’s attack on Husserl on account of his Jewishness which, in his view, accounts for the limits of his philosophy, is very successful as is his point that Heidegger clearly thought in similar terms about other groups such as “the Cartesians, but also the Bolsheviks, the English, the Americans …” whom he showcases “as though they were different specimens of an indifferent metaphysical nihilism” (145). On the same page, Marder suggests that we should resolve the Jewish issue as a question through which we are not looking for an answer but for an emancipatory commingling of the questioned and the questioning in a “single –and singular– being.” Marder finds this emancipatory path in Marx and his rejection of religion through which the conflict between Christians and Jews which makes the foreignness of the latter irreconcilable is resolved. The second stage of Marx’s emancipation is a critique of state per se (i.e. not the Christian state) and the third what Marx calls communism. The essence of Heidegger’s problem with the Jews or rather, the problem embodied by the Jews in his society, is this:  “The question of the role of world Jewry is not a racial question, but the metaphysical question about the kind of humanity that, without any restraints, can take over the uprooting of all beings from being as its world-historical task” (GA 96: 243 cited on 151). Hence, Marder explains “[T]he ontic displacement of traditional Jews, sublimated in the secular version of Jewish cosmopolitanism, has mutated, on Heidegger’s reading, into the ontological deracination of the world and of being itself” (152). Marder offers a very insightful analysis of how Heidegger’s fear of the worldlessness practiced by the Jews was already articulated by Hegel but also of how, despite claiming that race did not play a role in determining the kind of humanity we aspire to, he did fall prey to racial stereotypes (154). More problematic is his understanding of the Jews’ calculated overbreeding as a way of overpowering life and leading to nihilism (153). Marder claims that, overwhelmed by the prejudice of his time, Heidegger did not pay enough attention to the unique Jewish attachment to tradition as a valid alternative to space – a situation drastically altered by the Zionist project. Here, I would like to offer two points: first, although the Zionist project offered substance to Israel as a nation state, subscribing to a political ideal that originates in the nineteenth century, the spatial aspects of Jewish belonging were extremely pronounced in ancient accounts of the Jewish history; regardless of the debates about the exact dating of the Tanakh books, the idea of the Promised Land is ubiquitous in them (e.g. Genesis 15: 18-21; Exodus 23: 31; Numbers 34: 1-2; Deuteronomy 19: 8-9). Further, I wonder to what extent Heidegger would regard the Zionist project as enough response to the stubborn clinging of the Jews to the idea of foreignness (149), from a Mitdasein perspective. Second, for me, the “homelessness of modern man” (GA 9: 340) that Marder identifies as Heidegger’s main problem with modernity has given rise increasingly in the second half of the 20th and the 21st century to a number of cultural identities (which may or may not include racial, religious, and other dimensions), often in response to experiences of marginalization (e.g. Greek-Australian, Italian-American etc.), often competing with each other (e.g. Christian Black American vs homosexual Christians), certainly breaking down with tradition in some ways yet confirming it in others (e.g. both groups may subscribe to the idea of national army service), which would disrupt Heidegger’s appreciation of history as written by races or peoples (GA 96: 56 cited on 155) as much as the case of the Jews. I was urged to make this association by Marder’s observation on page 158 that Heidegger “converts the figure of the Jew into a complexio oppositorum (i.e., the complex of opposites, where otherwise antithetical traits coexist without the work of dialectical mediation) abounds.” Still, from this perspective, Heidegger’s failings make him totally relevant and worth-studying nowadays in the same way that Plato’s authoritarian regime, in response to the problems of Athenian democracy make him a core reading (for everyone really). Interestingly, Plato remains locked into the walls of the ancient city-state in the same way that Heidegger remains trapped in the nation-state. To put it differently, Heidegger adheres to a single version of history (cf. 159 where Marder notes Marx’s differentiation of the Jewish question according to the national context in which it is raised).

The last chapter of the book, co-authored with Marcia Sá Cavalcante-Schuback, tries to address “the relation between philosophy and politics, when both politics and philosophy lose their footing and their right” (165). According to Marder, “[T]hat is why the case of Heidegger mobilizes a question that is also ours, demanding an ‘active reading’ à la Lacoue- Labarthe, rather than the reading of a historian or a philologist.” I found this comment uninformed: historians and philologists have long insisted on post-structuralist rigor. As a trained philologist, Heidegger did not fail because of his penchant for etymology, his one-dimensional application of a discipline onto his understanding of Dasein. He failed, as the authors acknowledged on 164, because despite thinking the possible he kept consulting the actual, a kind of bias to which all scholars, all thinkers are susceptible. Here, the focus shifts on Heidegger’s reading of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right which tries to reunite “philosophy and politics (the latter, in the guise of right) precisely in the common destiny of their end as completion and exhaustion” (166). Heidegger sees in National Socialism the answer to the danger of Hegelian dialectics which produce an endless exchange; Heidegger refers to the scope of dialectic as “Back and forth— going— Dissolution— confusion,” (HPR 136 cited on 167) leading to “the loss of right.” Feeling that by the 1930s democratic liberalism and socialism had run their course, unable to produce anything new, other than “the back-and-forth of an exhausted dialectics” (168), Heidegger recognizes in National Socialism a “letting-emerge” of new possibilities. Another side of the problem is Heidegger’s insistence on actively fomenting the emergence of new forms to achieve “self-assertion.” His proposal can work only if “implemented together with the people grounding the state” (168). Marder admits that in embracing National Socialism as a way of transforming the essence of being by “rethinking and reorganizing power and work” was Heidegger’s biggest historico-political blunder (169). Still, Heidegger was not incorrect in his criticism of Hegelian dialectics; in his view, unlike Socratic dialectics, Hegel “does not invent a method for seeking the truth of being but identifies the truth of being itself as a method” (172). Heidegger continued to associate dialectics with actuality well into the post-war period and be frustrated by its inability to recognize phenomenological possibilities. The chapter concludes:

“… the darkest excesses of metaphysics tend to be repeated and magnified in every attempt to master and idealize finitude, putting it at power’s disposal. Do living and thinking ‘without right’ provide a sufficient insurance against this possible repetition […]? Our wager in this chapter has been on the incomplete dialectics of the without and an enduring search it instigates for the right to philosophy and to politics with others. Whether or not it could work, only being as time would tell” (173).

Appropriately philosophical, this conclusion lacks the force of the Introduction. Overall, the book achieves its goal of re-introducing Heidegger in philosophical debate though less so in political theory (for example, it would be interesting to see how Heidegger’s theories would be challenged by the increasing contemporary phenomenon of stateless people). I found Marder’s use of texts to support his arguments extremely valuable (and philological). The book would have benefited from a list of the sources used. Finally, although I applause Marder’s intention in putting this book together, he could have done more work to address his purpose in a more systematic way. That said, the book is still a must for every student of philosophy.

Andrew J. Mitchell: Heidegger unter Bildhauern. Körper, Raum und die Kunst des Wohnens

Heidegger unter Bildhauern. Körper, Raum und die Kunst des Wohnens Book Cover Heidegger unter Bildhauern. Körper, Raum und die Kunst des Wohnens
Heidegger Forum 15
Andrew J. Mitchell. Aus dem Englischen von Peter Trawny
Klostermann
2018
Paperback 24,80 €
150

Reviewed by: Giovanna Caruso (University of Koblenz-Landau)

Die Rolle des Raumes, der bislang in Heideggers Denken neben jener der Zeit bzw. der Zeitlichkeit kaum wahrgenommen wurde, ist in den letzten Jahren immer häufiger in den Fokus der Forschung gerückt worden. Es wird dabei betont, dass vor allem die kleinen Schriften über die Kunst, die im Laufe der 1960er Jahre anlässlich von Heideggers Begegnung mit einigen zeitgenössischen Künstlern entstanden sind, von einem starken Interesse Heideggers am Phänomen des Raumes zeugen. Denn diesen Texten lässt sich eine Raumauffassung entnehmen, die im Vergleich zur Räumlichkeit des Daseins in Sein und Zeit oder auch zur Konzeption des Raumes als Wohnen in den 1940er und 1950er Jahren neue Verhältnisse zwischen Raum und Zeit, Raum und Dasein, Raum und Körper und nicht zuletzt zwischen Raum und Welt entstehen lässt. In diesem Forschungskontext, der der Spur des späten Heidegger auf der Suche nach seiner revidierten Raumauffassung folgt, verortet sich auch Andrew J. Mitchells Heidegger unter Bildhauern. Körper, Raum und die Kunst des Wohnens. Wie der Titel bereits verrät, stellt Mitchell Heideggers Konzeption des Raumes in seinem Verhältnis zum Körper und zur Kunst – insbesondere zur plastischen Kunst – dar. Zu diesem Zweck untersucht und interpretiert er in Anlehnung an Heideggers Denken die Werke der Bildhauer Ernst Barlach, Bernhard Heiliger und Eduardo Chillida, denen er jeweils ein Kapitel widmet.

Der erste Satz des Buches fasst implizit seinen Ausgangspunkt und sein Ziel zusammen: „Die Bildhauerei lehrt uns, was es heißt, in der Welt zu sein.“ (9) Eine fragwürdige, sehr allgemeine und sogar tendenziöse Annahme – könnte man denken. Auch die Erklärung, die der Autor kurz darauf vorschlägt – „In dieser Welt zu sein heißt stets, einen materiellen Raum von Strahlung zu betreten.“ (9) –, bleibt erklärungsbedürftig. Wenn man aber die Ungenauigkeit dieser Annahme vorläufig akzeptiert und sich von ihr durch den Text leiten lässt, wird im Laufe der Lektüre verständlich, dass dieser vermeintlich unverständliche Ansatz das Programm des gesamten Werkes Mitchells zum Ausdruck bringt. Denn dem Schlüsselbegriff ‚Grenze‘ folgend, will der Autor in seinem Buch zeigen, dass Heidegger durch eine Auseinandersetzung mit der Bildhauerei eine Raumkonzeption entwickelt, auf Basis derer der Unterschied zwischen Raum und Kunst aufgehoben wird. Mitchell zeigt darüber hinaus, dass, indem Raum zur Kunst und Kunst zum Raum wird, Heidegger ein neues Verständnis des Verhältnisses des Daseins zu seinem Wohnend-Sein bzw. zu seinem In-der-Welt-Sein entwirft.

Um die Entwicklung und zugleich die Ergebnisse der Heideggerschen Auseinandersetzung mit dem Raum-Begriff von den 1920er bis zu den 1960er Jahren darstellen zu können, gliedert Mitchell sein Werk in fünf chronologisch aufeinanderfolgende Teile. Auf eine lange Einleitung, die von Sein und Zeit (1927) über die Kunstwerksabhandlung (1935) bis zu den späten 1960er Jahren durch die bedeutendsten Etappen das Verhältnis von Dasein, Kunst und Raum im Denken Heideggers rekonstruiert, folgen drei aufeinander aufbauende Kapiteln, die die Zusammenhänge zwischen dem Denken Heideggers und der Kunst Ernst Barlachs (1.Kapitel), Bernhard Heiligers (2. Kapitel) und Eduardo Chillidas (4. Kapitel) untersuchen. Das dritte Kapitel hingegen ist einen Exkurs über Heideggers Vortrag Die Herkunft der Kunst und die Bestimmung des Denkens. Eine Darstellung dieser Abschnitte wird im Folgenden jene Aspekte fokussieren, die Mitchel zufolge für die Entwicklung des Denkens Heideggers in Bezug auf das Verhältnis von Raum, Kunst und Mensch eine besonders wichtige Rolle spielen.

Statt den Leser in das Thema des Buches einzuführen oder einen systematischen bzw. historischen Hintergrund zur Orientierung zu umreißen, versetzt die Einleitung ihn sofort ins Zentrum der Betrachtung. Durch eine Sprache, die deutlich eine starke Beeinflussung durch Heideggers Stil erkennen lässt, gewinnt der Leser einen unmittelbaren Zugang zur Thematik des Werkes: das neue Verhältnis von Körper und Raum, das sich deutlich in den Vorträgen und kleineren Schriften Heideggers der 1960er Jahre zeigt. Schon die ersten Seiten des Werkes entwerfen eine innovative Interpretation der Entwicklung der Raumauffassung im Denken Heideggers. Denn Mitchell stellt keinen Bruch zwischen der Raumauffassung von Sein und Zeit und jener der späten 1960er Jahre fest. Er vertritt vielmehr eine Kontinuitätsthese: Die in den 1960er Jahren von Heidegger entwickelte Auffassung des Raumes und seines Verhältnisses zum Körper „schreitet“ laut Mitchell „auf einem Denkweg durch Sein und Zeit zur Abhandlung über ‚den Ursprung des Kunstwerks‘“. (10) Damit bestreitet Mitchell jedoch nicht, dass sich die Raumkonzeption Heideggers im Laufe seines Denkens deutlich verändert hat. Er plädiert aber für die These, dass Heideggers Werke der 1920er und 1930er Jahre den Kern seiner späteren Raumauffassung bereits in sich tragen. Eben diese kontinuierliche Entwicklung des Heideggerschen Raumverständnisses wird von Mitchell in der Einleitung auf kurze und prägnante Weise dargestellt. Er zeigt zuerst, dass die Auffassung des Raumes in Sein und Zeit Grenzen aufweist, die seiner Analyse zufolge dadurch entstehen, dass Heidegger die Räumlichkeit des Daseins „vom daseinsmäßigen Nutzen des Zeugs (des ‚Zuhandenen‘) her“ (13) denkt. (Vgl. 11–17) Aufgrund dessen bleibe der Raum in Sein und Zeit ausschließlich ein funktionaler Raum, dessen Existenz vom handelnden Menschen abhängig ist. (Vgl. 17) In einem zweiten Schritt zeigt Mitchell, wie Heidegger die Auffassung eines funktionalen Raumes überwindet und im Kunstwerksaufsatz eine Konzeption entwickelt, die auf einem vom Dasein unabhängigen Raum basiert. (Vgl. 17-24) Diese neue Idee eines autonomen, „anti-utilitaristischen“ (21) Raumes wird Mitchell zufolge im Kunstwerksaufsatz im Schlüsselbegriff ‚Erde‘ expliziert: „Erde nennt eine exzessive und abgründige Phänomenalität, eine Erscheinung, die auf keiner unterliegenden Substanz beruht.“ (19) Auf dieser veränderten Auffassung des Raumes, die nun von Heidegger als Erscheinung bzw. als Lichtung der Wahrheit (vgl. 21) verstanden wird, basieren Mitchell zufolge die Veränderungen in Bezug auf das Verhältnis von Körper und Raum, die sich in Heideggers Denken in den 1960er Jahren anlässlich seiner Auseinandersetzung mit den Plastiken verschiedener Künstler äußern.

Vor dem Hintergrund der dargestellten Entwicklung untersucht Mitchell im ersten Kapitel seines Buches (vgl. 31-48) den Zusammenhang zwischen dem Spätdenken Heideggers und der Kunst Ernst Barlachs. Der Begriff der Seinsverlassenheit bildet dem Autor zufolge das Bindeglied zwischen Heideggers Denken und Barlachs Kunstwerken. In diesem Zusammenhang deutet Mitchell Verlassenheit als „Weg, Sein als weder völlig präsent (es hat Seiendes verlassen) noch als völlig absent zu verstehen“ (33) und somit das Seiende als „etwas Offenes, das in die Welt ausgeschüttet ist“, (34) zu erfahren. Die stark metaphorischen, fast poetischen Züge der Sprache Mitchells beeinträchtigen bisweilen ein systematisches, eindeutiges Verständnis des Textes. Dennoch lässt sich Mitchells Interpretation der Werke Barlachs in Bezug auf Heideggers Denken erkennen: Indem die formlosen Körper-Skulpturen Barlachs ein Seiendes ohne bestimmte Grenze bzw. ein offenes, nicht abgeschlossenes Objekt verkörpern, stellen sie laut Mitchell die Spannung zwischen Präsenz und Absenz dar, die der Seinsverlassenheit eigen ist, und werden somit als Ausdruck der „Unbestimmtheit des irdischen Lebens“ (43) gedeutet. Außerdem betont Mitchell, dass eine implizite Kritik an der Welt der Technik und am Formideal des Nationalsozialismus als deren Konsequenz vorgenommen wird: „Barlachs Skulpturen sind mehr geformt als jeder Nazi-Körper es sein könnte, gerade durch ihre Weigerung, Form zu verdinglichen oder zu kristallisieren und sie von ihren sie ermöglichenden Bedingungen abzuziehen.“ (47)

Dieses Verhältnis von Raum und Körper, das die formlosen, offenen Skulpturen Barlachs bereits implizit thematisieren, wird zum Hauptthema in Heideggers Rede Bemerkungen zu Kunst-Plastik-Raum, die er 1964 anlässlich seiner Auseinandersetzung mit den Kunstwerken Bernhard Heiligers gehalten hat. Auf Basis dieses Textes zeigt Mitchell im zweiten Kapitel seines Buches (vgl. 49–72), dass Heidegger das Verhältnis von Kunst und Raum eindringlich untersucht, dass er grundlegende Fragen über die Möglichkeit einer Auseinandersetzung mit dem Raum für den Künstler aufwirft und dass dabei auch das Verhältnis von Körper und Raum zunehmend an Bedeutung gewinnt. Bei dem Versuch, dieses Geflecht von Verhältnissen, Bezügen, Verweisen und Zusammenhängen zwischen Kunst, Raum und Körper zu entwirren, entwirft Heidegger laut Mitchell eine neue Auffassung des Raumes, die dazu zwingt, auch seinen Bezug zur Kunst und zum Dasein neu zu denken. Gegen die klassische Raumauffassung, die die Definition des Raumes mit den Körpern verbindet, zeigt Mitchell, dass Heidegger den Raum vom Raum und nicht vom Körper her denkt. Auf dieser Weise definiert Heidegger den Raum als Räumen. Dies ermöglicht, „Raum nicht länger abstrakt und homogen, sondern selbst schon sich versammelnd und furchend und ausstreckend und zurückschnappend in Gebiete, Fernen, Richtungen und Schranken“ (58) zu denken. Diese neue Raumauffassung fordert, dass auch das Verhältnis von Dasein und räumendem Raum vom Raum her gedacht wird – und nicht mehr wie in Sein und Zeit vom Dasein her. Aus dieser Perspektive neu gedacht, lässt sich Mitchell zufolge das Verhältnis von Dasein und Raum als ein sich gegenseitiges Durchdringen und Prägen verdeutlichen. (Vgl. 60) Entsprechend heißt In-der-Welt-Sein, dass das Dasein durch die Welt geprägt ist und dass sich die Welt konsequenterweise, wenn auch verdeckt, in jedem Dasein zeigt. Eben dieses unsichtbare Verhältnis des Menschen zur Welt und zugleich die unsichtbare Präsenz der Welt in jedem Menschen werden laut Mitchell von Heidegger in Heiligers Kopf-Werken zum Ausdruck gebracht: „Wenn der Künstler einen Kopf modelliert, so scheint er nur die sichtbaren Oberflächen nachzubilden; in Wahrheit bildet er das eigentlich Unsichtbare, nämlich die Weise, wie dieser Kopf in die Welt blickt, wie er im Offenen des Raumes sich aufhält, darin von Menschen und Dingen angegangen wird.“ (61) In diesem Verhältnis von Welt und Mensch kommt den Begriffen des Zwischen, der Bewegung und der Relationalität in der Argumentation Mitchells besondere Relevanz zu. (Vgl. 63–67) In Anlehnung an den kurzen Dankesbrief, den Heidegger nach einem Besuch des Heiligers Ateliers schrieb, (vgl. 63) und auf Basis einiger Bemerkungen Heiligers, der selbst seine Skulpturen als Kunstwerke in Bewegung bzw. als etwas Offenes, in dem Offenheit waltet und Welt erscheint (vgl. 63), beschreibt, deutet Mitchell die Welt als Zusammengehörigkeit von Menschen und Dingen bzw. als ein geheimnisvolles Dazwischen. (Vgl. 65–66) Dadurch will Mitchell an den Werken Heiligers zeigen, welche Deutung von Welt und Mensch sich aus der Heideggerschen Auffassung des Raumes als Räumen ergibt. Der Versuch Mitchells, diese Idee der Welt als Zwischen und ihre Bedeutung für den Menschen zu verdeutlichen, wird jedoch durch seine literarische Sprache, die das Verständnis erschwert, ausgedrückt: Mitchell schreitet an dieser Stelle seiner Betrachtung durch intuitive Verbindungen zwischen den Sätzen, er bedient sich metaphorischer Bilder, die schnell aufeinanderfolgen und die intuitiv aufeinander verweisen. Der Diskurs scheint existenziell poetische Gedanke hervorrufen und das Terrain des philosophischen Argumentierens bzw. der Kunstkritik verlassen zu wollen. Diese existenzielle Richtung verstärkt sich im nachfolgenden Paragraph ‚Artikulation 2: Verfall und Erosion‘. (Vgl. 67–72) Mitchell betont, dass die Kunstwerke Heiligers, die die Relationalität zwischen Mensch und Welt ausdrücken, „die Tatsache [attestieren], dass Bewegung ein Abnutzen ist“. (67) In diesem Sinne expliziert der Autor weiter, dass „ein Werden hin zu etwas […] ein Werden weg von etwas“ (67) ist. Eben dieses Thema der ‚Distanzierung von etwas‘ wird von Mitchell in seiner Deutung der Werke Heiligers betont, weil er darin den Ausdruck einer grundlegenden Weise des In-der-Welt-Seins sieht. Ausgehend von dieser Deutung der Werke Heiligers bringt Mitchell einen anderen Wesenszug des Verhältnisses von Mensch und Welt zum Ausdruck. Denn die Welt wird nun nicht als etwas verstanden, das den Menschen prägt, sondern als etwas, das uns verbraucht bzw. „erodiert“: (68) Insofern Mensch und Welt sich gegenseitig durchdringen und prägen und sich daher in einer ständigen Bewegung bzw. einem ständigem Werden befinden, das nicht nur ein Werden zu etwas, sondern auch ein ‚Weg von etwas‘ ist, verbraucht die Welt den Menschen. Mit den folgenden Worten drückt Mitchell diesen Gedanken in all seiner Radikalität aus: „Wir sind durch Welt verwittert, erodiert im Zwischen. Unsere Absprache besteht darin, gemeinsam zu erodieren.“ (68) Indem die Skulptur den Menschen in diesem Zwischen hält – so Mitchell weiter – und Verbindung zwischen Mensch und Welt stiftet und daher Mensch und Welt verändert, erweist sich die Skulptur für diesen Erosionsprozess des Menschen als mitverantwortlich. (Vgl. 71)

Bevor Mitchell auf das Verhältnis des Heideggerschen Denken und der Kunst Eduardo Chillidas eingeht – ein Verhältnis, das dem Autor zufolge eine weitere Entwicklung des Verhältnisses von Raum, Körper und Kunst im Denken Heideggers darstellt –, setzt sich Mitchell in einem kurzen Exkurs mit Heideggers Die Herkunft der Kunst und die Bestimmung des Denkens auseinander. (Vgl. 73–81) Mit der Interpretation Mitchells, die ausgehend vom Blick Athenas auf die Steingrenzen (vgl. 77) darauf zielt, die Zusammengehörigkeit von τέχνη und ϕύσις im Denken Heideggers zu begründen, ist die Heidegger-Forschung längst vertraut. „Der Ruf der ϕύσις ist“, schreibt Mitchell, „für die menschlichen Werke also eine Einladung die Welt zu prägen, doch zugleich auch sich selbst von der Welt prägen zu lassen.“ (80) Besonders interessant und originell ist dagegen der Gedanke, dass das Bas-Relief in einer ausgezeichneten Weise diese Zusammengehörigkeit von ϕύσις und τέχνη bzw. von Natürlichem und Künstlichem zum Ausdruck bringt. (Vgl. 80) Diesbezüglich weist Mitchell darauf hin, dass es vielleicht kein Zufall ist, dass die drei Bildhauer, mit denen Heidegger sich auseinandergesetzt hat, im Relief arbeiten. (Vgl. 80)

Im vierten Kapitel seines Werkes stellt Mitchell den letzten Schritt und daher das endgültige Ergebnis der Auseinandersetzung Heideggers mit dem Raum und dem Körper dar, das Heidegger laut Mitchell 1968 anlässlich der Begegnung mit den Kunstwerken Chillidas entwickelt hat. (Vgl. 83–109) Der grundlegende Gedanke dieses Schritts und der Wandel im Verhältnis zur vorherigen Raumkonzeption Heideggers besteht Mitchell zufolge darin, dass, indem Heidegger eine physikalische bzw. metaphysische Auffassung von Raum explizit ablehnt, jeder Unterschied zwischen Kunst und Raum aufgehoben wird. Wenn daher die Werke Barlachs und Heiligers noch von einer Trennung von Raum und Kunst zeugen, die auf unterschiedliche Art und Weise überbrückt wird, konstatiert Heidegger anlässlich der Begegnung mit den Werken Chillidas, dass eine solche Trennung und konsequenterweise eine Überbrückung der Lücke zwischen Kunst und Raum überhaupt nicht denkbar ist. (Vgl. 84–86) Denn Kunst ist keine „Besitzergreifung des Raumes“ (84), sondern sie ist schon immer ein räumender Raum, ein Ort gewordenen Räumens. Diese radikal neue Konzeption des Raumes und seines Verhältnisses zur Kunst bewirkt – so Mitchell – Veränderungen in der Auffassung des Verhältnisses von Raum, Werkzeug und Kunstwerk, von Raum und Menschen, von Raum und Sprache und von Raum und Körper. In Bezug auf das Werkzeug behauptet Mitchell, dass die Funktion des Werkzeugs als Medium zwischen Künstler und Materie in Frage gestellt wird. (Vgl. 91) Denn es gibt keine Leere mehr zwischen den beiden, die durch Werkzeuge gefüllt bzw. überbrückt werden muss. Mitchell verdeutlicht des Weiteren, inwiefern sich auch der Bezug des Daseins zum Raum ändert: Das Dasein verliert sein Privileg als Handelnder, der Räume bildet, stiftet, eröffnet oder ermöglicht. Vielmehr wird das Dasein vom Räumen des Raumes gedacht und ist daher schon dem All des Seienden zugehörig. (Vgl. 100-104) Inwiefern sich auch das Wesen der Sprache in Bezug auf diese neue Raumkonzeption verändert, wird von Mitchell nicht ausführlich erklärt. Er stellt in Heideggers Versuch, den Raum etymologisch zu erhellen, lediglich eine „Betonung der Sprache“ (105) fest. Diesbezüglich sagt er sogar: „‚Kunst und Raum‘ bringt uns dazu, eine Zwiefalt zu denken: dass Raum sprachlich und Sprache räumlich sei.“ (105) Leider erklärt Mitchell nicht, wie genau diese von ihm behauptete Zusammengehörigkeit oder sogar Identität von Raum und Sprache zu verstehen ist. Erklärungsbedürftig bleibt bedauerlicherweise auch die Verbindung, die Mitchell in den letzten Sätzen dieses Abschnittes zwischen Körper, Raum und Wahrheit herstellt. (Vgl. 108–109) Außerdem ist auf eine Irritation zu verweisen, mit der sich der Leser bei der Lektüre dieses Kapitels konfrontiert sieht. Im dritten Teil dieses Kapitels mit der Überschrift ‚Setzen Bringen Zusammenarbeiten‘ (94–99) setzt sich Mitchell mit dem Unterschied zwischen dem ‚sich-ins-Werk-Setzen‘ und dem ‚ins-Werk-Bringen‘ der Wahrheit in der Kunst auseinander. Der Autor macht darauf aufmerksam, dass – wie Heidegger selbst im ‚Zusatz‘ zu Der Ursprung des Kunstwerks bemerkt – in der Entwicklung des Heideggerschen Denkens ein Wandel vom Setzen zum Bringen stattfindet. (Vgl. 94) Dieser Wandel wird jedoch von Mitchell darin identifiziert, dass ‚Setzen‘ ein Moment von Gewalt mit sich bringe, während ‚Bringen‘ etwas Weicheres darstellt, indem es eine Begleitung und nicht eine Gewalt betone. (Vgl. 97) Aus diesem Grund erklärt der Autor: „Die Wahrheit des Werkes erscheint daher in ‚Kunst und Raum‘ weniger insistent als in ‚Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes‘.“ (97) Dabei übersieht Mitchell aber den bedeutendsten Unterschied zwischen den beiden Ausdrücken, der darin besteht, dass der erste (sich-ins-Werk-Setzen) reflexiv ist und der zweite (ins-Werk-Bringen) eben nicht. Und dies bewirkt eine grundlegende Veränderung des Verhältnisses von Wahrheit und Kunst und konsequenterweise auch eine Veränderung der Rolle des Künstlers. Denn während die Wahrheit im Kunstwerksaufsatz als die ‚sich-Setzende‘ aktiv im Kunstwerk erscheint bzw. geschieht, gewinnt der Künstler in den späteren Auffassung Heideggers eine viel stärkere Rolle, indem er die Wahrheit ins Werk bringt.

Das abschließende Kapitel fasst die Ergebnisse der vorhergehenden Kapitel zusammen und zeichnet dadurch den Weg, auf welchem Heidegger ausgehend von der Begegnung mit den formlosen Körpern Barlachs über jene mit den Köpfen Heiligers bis zu der Auseinandersetzung mit den Vögeln Chillidas seine Raumauffassung in den 1960er Jahren entworfen hat. Vor dem Hintergrund dieser neuen Raumkonzeption versucht Mitchell auf den letzten zwei Seiten, den Menschen in den Mittelpunkt der Betrachtung zu stellen und sein Verhältnis zu sich selbst, zu den anderen, zu seinem In-der-Welt-Sein und zur Wahrheit neu zu konturieren. Leider zeichnet sich auch dieser Abschnitt durch eine sehr kryptische Sprachverwendung aus. Aufgrund dessen bleibt es schwer nachvollziehbar, inwiefern Mitchell das aus der neuen Raumsauffassung entstandene Verhältnis von Mensch, Plastik und Raum als eine Aufforderung für den Menschen, sein Leben zu ändern, versteht. (Vgl. 114)

Abgesehen von diesen Unklarheiten der Darstellung trägt das Buch zweifellos zur Klärung der in der Heidegger-Forschung tendenziell vernachlässigten Thematik des Raumes bei und ergänzt diese um interessante Überlegungen und Denkanstößen. Denn Mitchell unternimmt in seinem Buch den gewagten Versuch, auf Basis sehr kurzer und zuweilen unsystematischer Texte des späten Heidegger eine systematische Raumkonzeption darzustellen. Es gelingt Mitchell jedoch nicht immer, die Schwierigkeiten zu umgehen, die ein solches Vorhaben unvermeidlich mit sich bringt. An einigen Stellen erweckt der Text den Eindruck, als ob der Autor, indem er in Anlehnung an die Texte Heideggers und mithilfe seiner Begrifflichkeit die Werke der drei Bildhauer deutet, ihnen Inhalte, Bedeutungen oder Verweise zuspricht, die diesen Kunstwerken andernfalls nicht zukommen. Eine andere Schwierigkeit, auf die bereits hingewiesen wurde, ist die Sprachverwendung. Oft wird eine sehr poetische Sprache verwendet: Einige Zusammenhänge und Verweise werden intuitiv aufgebaut und daher bleiben einige Gedanke erklärungsbedürftig. Auf Grund dessen entsteht der Eindruck, als habe sich der Autor nicht immer bemüht, seine Überlegungen zu erklären, und es stattdessen vorgezogen, á la Heidegger mit der Etymologie der Worte zu spielen und seinen Diskurs durch intuitive Verbindungen aufzubauen. Dies macht einige Textpassagen auch für den Heidegger-Kenner sehr schwer verständlich. Ob und inwiefern die Übersetzung Trawnys zu diesen Schwierigkeiten beiträgt, bleibt unklar. Außerdem lassen sich einige Ungenauigkeiten in der Auslegung der Texte Heideggers feststellen.

Trotz dieser kritischen Anmerkungen ist der Versuch Mitchells lesenswert. Denn der Leser erhält durch das Werk nicht nur einen Überblick über die kontinuierliche Entwicklung des Denken Heideggers über den Raum von Sein und Zeit bis zu den späten 1960er Jahren, sondern dem Leser werden darüber hinaus zahlreiche interessante Deutungsperspektiven des Heideggerschen Denkens angeboten, die sich als originell erweisen und über die Betrachtung Mitchells hinaus für eine Auseinandersetzung mit den Themen Raum, Dasein, Welt und selbstverständlich auch Kunst im Rahmen des Spätdenkens Heideggers fruchtbar gemacht werden können.

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