heidegger writes that the

8/3/2019 Heidegger Writes That The

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Saying as Showing as Appropriating: Tracing Language Through Heidegger

By: Noah Cawley

In this paper I critically examine one of Heideggers later essays on language: The Way to

Language. Using his 1919 lectures and The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic to exegete the

text, I apply the exegesis to Levinas critique of Heidegger. I propose that Heideggers

discussion of language in these later essays provides him with a new metaphor for understanding

the relation between beings and Dasein. This new metaphor shifts from a focus on Dasein to a

focus on what the beings Say to Dasein. This saying to Daseina saying made possible for

Dasein only by Daseinis directed toward Dasein, not out of itself, but toward it by beings. This

emphasis upon what is said by beings toward Dasein is what provides Heidegger with a way out

of Levinas critique: Dasein does not appropriate beings for itself, but by choosing itself makes

itself appropriate for undergoing an experience with beings; namely, one in which beings speak

to it. In other words, Dasein permits itself to hear what other beings say to it. One can think of

this listening of Dasein to beings as a fundamental ontological acknowledgment that beings

having something valuable to say. Thus, transcendence is not a mastering and dominating of

beings, but a voluntary entry into a conversation with beings. As will become clear this entry into

conversation is fundamentally an acknowledgement of unfinished understanding of beings, and

thus an acknowledgment that beings always already have something of tremendous importance

to (show) say.1

1 Because the term Dasein more-or-less drops out of Heideggers usage in The Way to Language, I will not use it

past this introductory paragraph. Instead, I will attempt to use gender neutral terms for human being. There is

something important about the way language relates to human beings for Heidegger, and not just to the being of the

kind of beings human beings happen to be. In deference to this fact, the term Dasein will be omitted.


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I. Human Language as a Path to Speaking as Showing

Language as a human acitivity involves speakers. Heidegger writes that these speakers are not

the cause of a certain event (speech, speeking), but are present in the way of speaking.2

Not

only are the speakers present in the way of speaking, but so are those who are soken to.

Furthermore, Heidegger writes that everything which conditions things and determines men3

is

present in speaking. As such, these things are spoken about and discussed in such a way that the

speakers speak to and with one another and to themselves.4 It seems to me that this passage is

best understood as an acknowledgement that humnas are always speaking out of a factical

situation. Our shared heritage, culture, language, concepts, and norms are always trickling into

our speaking. As such, they are always spoken of in a conversation. Whether we realize it or not,

whether it is the focus of the conversation or not, humans are always in conversation about, and

with, the lements of their facticity (thus heideggers claim that speakers speak to themselves).

It is important not to leave our here what is explicitly contained in our facticity, but which is

conditioned by it: namely, the future horizons of our understanding. Heidegger writes that,

Everything spoken stems in a variety of ways from the unspoken, whether this be something not

yet spoken, or whether it be what must remain unspoken in the sense that it is beyong the reach

of speaking.5

Speaking, then, is an activity bound up in human facticity.

Here Heidegger makes another important distinction between what is said, and what is

spoken; that is, between speaking and saying. Heidegger writes that, To say and speak are not

identical. A man may speak, speak endlessly, and all the time say nothing. Another man may

2 The Way to Language, p. 1203 Ibid, p. 1204 Ibid, p. 1205 Ibid, p.120


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remain silent, not speak at all and yet, without speaking, say a great deal.6

This passage is not

hard to understand. We have all been in situations of these two kinds. Of the first situation, one

in which a person speaks much but says little, we recall instances of meeting a friend of a

friends for the first time. Topic covered include sports, the news, the weather, and other topics

common to small talk. During such empty banter nothing is communicated about or by either

speaker (intentionally at least), thus nothing is said. Rather, an uncomfortable space is filled with

a convential coping method.

Of the seond kind of situation, one in which a person says much but speaks little, we think of

a child caught in an act of crueld behaviro. After being shown the negative consequences of their

action (the bruise left, the frog dead, etc.), the figure in authority will ask, what do you have to

say for yourself? One pictures the childs head and eyes directed at the gorund, no reply made.

In this silence one hears much. One hears the lack of justification for the action, and the

acknowledgement of wrong doing. Thus, it is in silence that the child admits culpability. It is in

silence that the child acknowleges wrongdoing.

It is not entriely intuitive, however, what this saying is. We are so used to equating

speaking with saying that the concept require elucidation. Heidegger wirtes that, Say means to

show, to let appear, to let be seen and heard.7

In the child;s act if silence, he shows guilt and

repentance. Silence allows these emotions and dispositions to appear before the authoriy figure.

It is in the silence that the authority hears this repentence and acknowledgement even though

nothing is said. Thus, in showing something through speech a speaker says something, and

this saying does not depend upon the speakers making phonetic sounds.

6 Ibid, p. 1227 Ibid, p. 122


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Returning to speaking as a human activity, Heidegger writes, To speakwith one another

means: to tell of something jointly, to show to one another what that which is claimed in the

speaking says in the speaking, and what it, of itself, brings to light. (p. 122) To speakwith one

another, it seems to me, is not to speak with a common voice, it is not to say the same thing to

each other. In speaking with one another the speakers present to one another what is brought to

light in their dialogue. It is to bring one another into what is shown. What each speaker will show

to the otherthat is, what each speaker will bring to light from the conversationis not

necessarily the same element of their conversation (their speaking as Heidegger calls it). Thus,

in the act of speakingwi

th one another the speakers speakto one another, if as Heidegger writes,

To speakto one another means: to say something, show something to one another, and to

entrust one another mutually to what is shown. (p. 122)

To get a firmer grasp of this, imagine two persons engaged in a vigorous debate about

abortion. Imagine further two people standing in an art gallery commenting on a particular

photograph. Or imagine once more two siblings discussing their parents divorce. In the first

situation, if the two parties are speaking with one another, then each will show the other their

opinion. In the showing of this opinion, if the two are speaking with one another, than there will

be recognition by each speaker of what the other is bringing to light. That is, each speaker will

take hold of what is entrusted to them. In the second situation, what is entrusted by a speaker is

much more easily taken hold of. In commenting on the contrast of foreground to background, or

one the way the light hits a particular area, one literally shows what the other way not have

grasped. In this showing, what is entrusted is mere observation, but one can still see the way the

two speakers bring to light an element of what is shown in their speaking. Finally, in the last

situation what is brought to light by the speakers might be disappointments, or reliefs. But in


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speaking of the divorce the two parties already show their concern and care for the issue. In

engaging one another in conversation this concern is merely given explicitness, and is shown to

one another more clearly. Each party entrusts their stake in the issue in the very act of

discussing it. These three situations are what I take to be instances, on an Ontic level at least, of

what Heidegger means by speaking with one another.

Notice that of key importance is the act of showing inherent in the saying, as Heidegger

explains, In keeping with the most ancient usage of the word we understand saying in terms of

showing, pointing out, signaling.8

This is where the essence of language lies for Heidegger. He

claims that, The essenti

al bei

ng of languagei

s Sayi

ng as Showi

ng.

9

Contrary to our intuitions,

the essential being of language does not show by way of written words or sentences, nor does

it show by way of the phonetic sounds uttered when language is vocalized. Rather, Heidegger

writes that the essential being of language shows in that all signs arise from a showing within

whose realm and for whose purposes they can be signs.10

Signs arise because of and for the sake

of a showing. Signs presuppose a showing, have their possibility of arising because of a

showing. Thus, in a sense, all human language is in debt to this showing.

Furthermore, Heidegger seems to indicate that showing by way of saying is not unique to

human linguistic activity. Instead, Heidegger writes that Self-showing appearance is the mark of

the presence and absence of everything that is present, of every kind and rank.11

Another time

Heidegger writes, Speaking, qua saying something, belongs to the design of the being of

language, the design which is pervaded by all the modes of saying and what is said, in which

everything present or absent announces, grants, or refuses itself, shows itself or withdraws. This

8 The Way to Language, p. 1239 Ibid, p. 12310 Ibid, p. 12311 Ibid, p. 123


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multiform saying from many different sources is the pervasive element in the design of the being

of language.12 This makes sense with ordinary ways of speaking.

Often times we say things like that song really said something to me, or this landscape

really speaks to me. We believe that non-human things have the ability to point out to us certain

insights or epiphanies. Often times these insights are hard to articulate, but sometimes they are

life changing. One insight of this kind is that of feeling indebted to something for ones

existence. When looking upon magnificent landscapes atop mountains, for example, one might

feel an incredible feeling of humility. One sees they are not the center of reality, they are not the

most important or grand thing on earth. They might feel as if they owe the beauty and grandeur

of nature something. Perhaps they reorient their life towards preserving creation. Here, the

feeling of indebtedness for ones existence is not one of where did I come from, but more of a

how should I be towards others. Perhaps more like, to what should I direct my existence

towards, to what should I devote my life to? We see that something is communicated by nature,

by non-human beings, to human beings. Something is said without any words having been

spoken. What Heidegger is saying here makes sense.

About this essential element of saying as showing, Heidegger says something puzzling.

Heidegger writes that the moving force in Showing of Sayingis Owning.13

He elaborates,

writing that Owning is what brings all present and absent beings each into their own, from

where they show themselves in what they are, and where they abide according to their kind.14

This Owning then is not an act ofpossessinga being, and thus not an act ofcontrollinga

being. Rather, Owning is that by which a being comes into its own; or as Heidegger

elaborated, that by which a being shows itself and abides.

12 Ibuid, p. 122-12313 The Way to Language, p. 12714 Ibid, p. 127


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This Owning as a moving force, as Heidegger explains it, is the basis for the Showing of

Saying. Owning provides that which is shown through what is said. How it does so is a difficult

matter, but here is my guiding intuition. As owning, a being abides as it is. In abiding as it is a

being always has a duel status. On one hand, the being of that being is partially revealed. On the

other hand, the being of that being is partially concealed. In paying attention to what is revealed

by a being abiding as it is, one can see the partial revelation and concealing contained in that

being. Or, more precisely, in listening to what a being says in its owning, one can hear the partial

revelation and concealing. In listening to what a being says one learns something about ones

own saying. In fact, in listening to what is said by other beings, one learns what one is saying to

those beings. Thus, Heideggers epigraph to his essay is vindicated: language is concerned

exclusively with itself.15

What is left now is to justify this guiding intuition of mine.

II. Owning-Appropriation: Tracing its Origins Through Heideggers Thought

In further clarifying the character of this Owning, Heidegger writes that, This owning

which brings [beings] there, and which moves Saying as Showing in its showing we call

Appropriation.16

This term Appropriation is found earlier in Heideggers corpus. In his 1919

lectures (Worldview Lectures) he writes this of lived experience:

Lived experience does not pass in front of me like a thing, but I appropriate [er-eigne] it

to myself, it appropriates itself according to its essence. If I understand it in this way,

then I understand it not as a processbut in a quite new way, as an event of

15 Ibid, p. 11116 Ibid, p. 127


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appropriation [Ereignis]The experiences are events of appropriation in so far as they

live out of ones own-ness.17

One already sees in this lecture a relationship between appropriation and owning. In the context

of the 1919 lectures, Heideggers focus on owninghas to do with ones own-ness, ones being-

in-a-world. In his 1919 lectures, Heidegger is concerned with responding to those who think that

experience is most fundamentally experience ofthings. In response to this, Heidegger argues that

experience is not fundamentally thingly, but fundamentally meaningful-ly. To illustrate this hard

to grasp distinction, consider the example Heidegger himself uses.

Heidegger, speaking to his students originally hearing these lectures, asks them to consider

the podium from which he is speaking. He asks them to consider what they see. Do they see a

three-dimensional object with intersecting brown sides? Perhaps more clearly, is all of that

content present to them as they experience the podium? According to Heidegger, not at all. As he

writes of this example:

In pure experience there is no founding interconnection, as if I first of all see

intersecting brown surfaces, which then reveal themselves to me as a box, then as a desk,

then as an academic lecturing desk, a lectern, so that I attach lecternhood to the box like a

labelAll that is simply [a]diversion from a pure seeing into the experience: I see the

lectern in one fell swoop, so to speak, and not in isolation, but as adjusted a bit too high

for me.18

17 Towards a Definition of Philosophy, p. 6318 Ibid, p. 60


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While the veracity of this passage is not under dispute, I believe one need only reflect on ones

own experience to see its truth. What is under scrutiny is how this sort of experience constitutes

an appropriation, or appropriating occurrence. Heidegger writes that the lecturn example

illuminates the fact that ordinary human experience is more meaningful than thingly; more

like an event than a process.19

Furthermore, experience gains this quality from the fact that

one has never not been thrown into a world of experiences. From life to death we are always

within an environment of experience, and we go out meaningfully towards future experiences on

the basis of already having had others. To put it in Heideggers words, in his example one sees

the lectern in an orientation, an illumination, a background.

20

How then to think of experience as an appropriation? Normally, we think of appropriating as

the taking of something for our own purposes or aims. We think of appropriation as a kind of co-

opting. When we appropriate anothers resources we take those resources from the other in

question and use them for our own aims and intentions. Thus, we might think of the lectern

experience as an instance of our co-opting previous experiences with the lectern (and lecterns in

general), and using those experiences to go toward this lectern in a particular way (In

Heideggers case as adjusted a bit too high for [him).

But I think this is the wrong way to think about these experiences as appropriations, or at the

very least not a full orbed way. Tentatively, think about ordinary experiences similar to the

lectern example, as instances of our making ourselves appropriate for the beings within our

experience. In other words, think of the lectern example as Heideggers making himself

appropriate for undergoing an experience with the lectern. This is a more ritualistic way of

understanding the appropriating event. It is not an appropriation of beings for our purposes, but

19 Ibid, p. 58;Process, here, means something like a process of reasoning, or inference, or predication; that is, some

sort of higher level theoretical process.20 Ibid, p. 60


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an appropriating of ourselves as able to undergo an experience with other beings. Thus, in the

lectern example, the appropriating event consists in Heideggers summoning forth previous

experience with lecterns in order to be able to go out toward it in a meaningful way. But this

account is as yet inadequate for understanding the nature of the appropriating event.

Before we move forward, let me summarize an important aspect of the treatment of

appropriation as the event like character of ordinary experience. If my tentative insight into

appropriation is accuratethat is, if an event of appropriation can justifiably be thought as an

event of making ones self appropriate to undergo an experience with beingsthen there is a

dual nature to any event of appropriation. On the one hand there is the appropriating of ones

past experience with beings, and the movement from this past experience towards beings in a

particular way. But, there is another aspect to any appropriating event. There is the making ones

self appropriate for undergoing an event with beings by means of ones past experience with

those beings. As we will hopefully see, one of these ways of thinking about the appropriating

event handles beings in a more definite manner, while the other allows beings to present

themselves as they are in themselves.

In order to get a firmer grasp on the nature of an event of appropriation we must consider the

implications of ones going out towards beings in a meaningful way because one has been with

those beings before. Most important of what is implied by this motion in the event of

appropriation are the fore-havings it produces. These fore-havings are the ways in which

one conceives (has) beings. These conceptions necessarily flow from out of ones past; that is,

ones previous experiences with beings predetermine how one will go out toward beings in a

meaningful way. For example, one might go out toward an automobile differently if they had


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their first kiss in a car, versus if their parents died in a fatal car accident.21

How one will

conceive of car will be loaded with the baggage of previous experience. It should be clear,

however, that these fore-havings essentially ground how one will see and experience beings.

That is, how one fore-has a certain being is how that being will present itself for an individual.

Here we must turn to The Metaphysical Foundation of Logic for further elucidation.

With this idea that a fore-having is the way in which one conceives and experiences beings on

the basis of ones past experiences and conceptions, it should be noted that there lies within this

movement of fore-having a certain limitlessness. That is, there seem to be as many ways of

conceiving, experiencing, and going out towards beings as there are people to go do so!

Heidegger calls this limitlessness of possible going-out-towards beings in a meaningful way the

wholeness of beings in the totality of their possibilities.22

He gives a name to this this concept,

World.23

Here, in The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, Heidegger makes a distinction between the

concept of World as the wholeness of beings in the totality of their possibilities, and a more

theoretical concept of world (small w) as the totality of extant beings (what Heidegger calls,

the nave concept of world).24

Differentiating the latter concept of world from the former

concept of World is this: in the latter we have already fore-conceived beings in a particular

way. In the latter conception of world, we have already gone out toward beings meaningfully

in a particular way.25

One might put the point like this, when we experience beings we

experience World (capitol w) restricted down to a particular world (small w). As

Heidegger writes:

21 I am essentially stealing this example from one made by Dr. Halteman in class.22

Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, p. 18023 Ibid, p. 18024 Ibid, p. 18025 As Heidegger writes on page 181, all these beings [in the latter conception of world] belong to what we call

intra-worldly beings, yet they are not the world itself.


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World, as the totality of essential intrinsic possibilities of [the being that humans are] as

transcending, surpasses all actual beings. Whenever and however they are encountered,

actual beings always reveal themselvesonly as a restriction, as one possible realization

of the possible, as the insufficient out of an excess of possibilities, within which [the

being that humans are] always maintains itself as free projection.26

A few elements of this passage deserve clarification. First, if we understand World as the

wholeness of beings in the totality of their possibilities, then what does it mean to say that

these are the essential intrinsic possibilities of the kind of beings we humans are? Second, what

does it mean to say that world is maintained as our free projection?

In answer to the first we must take a looks at how Heidegger originally understood how

humans come to possess the fore-havings they indeed possess. It is necessary to understand

that Heidegger found humans unique in that we are they only beings (according to Heidegger)

whose being is an issue for themselves. That is, humans are concerned with questions about our

being. Questions about how we ought to live, what we ought to worship, how we ought to love,

how we stand in relation to the created order, to other humans, and so on. One of Heideggers

key insights is that all these questions arise out of a fundamental choice to choose ourselves.

That is, a choice to care about our being. In some sense then, our being exists for-its-own-

sake.27

It is important to keep in mind that this statement is a fundamental-ontological statement. It

is not an endorsement of ethical-egoism. Rather, it is the foundation upon which any ethical

26 Ibid, p. 19227 Ibid, p. 186: The existence of Dasein is determined by the for-the-sake-of.


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egoism or altruism stands. Since Heidegger is discussing what stands beneath all theoretical

questioning or theorizing, it is important to keep this level distinction in mind. If our being was

not concernfully directed towards itself, it stands to wonder how concepts like altruism or

egoism would be meaningful for us at all. If our being does not fundamentally exist for its own

sake, why do we ask questions as to how we ought live? Our being mustbe directed towards

itselfchoose itselfin this way in order for theory to get off the ground.28

As Heidegger

writes:

The statement, For-its-own-sake belongs to the essence of [the being of humans], is an

ontological statement. It asserts something about the essential constitution of [the being

of humans] in its metaphysical neutrality. [The being of humans] is for-its-own-sake and

herein, for-the-sake-of, lies the ground of possibility for an existentiell, egoistic or non-

egoistic, for-my-own-sake. But herein lies, just as primordially, the ground for a him-or-

her-sake and for every kind of ontic reason-for. As constituting the selfhood of [the being

of humans], the for-the-sake has this universal scope. In other words, it is that towards

which [the beings of humans] as transcending transcends.

This fundamental-ontological choosing of our being by our being, is what Heidegger terms

freedom. Heidegger writes thatfreedomis one with the for-the-sake-of.29

It is identical with

our beings choosing its own being, identical with our beings being concernfully directed

towards itself. Heidegger writes that in thisfreedom our being overshoots itselfas upswing

28 Theory understood as some second order reflection upon our existence.29 Ibid, p. 191


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towards the possible, the occasion for beings to emerge as beings.30

This overshooting,

Heidegger terms world-projection.31 It is the act whereby our being fore-has beings in a

particular way. In choosing itself, our being chooses itself as a factical being (not as the factical

being it happens to be, but as a factical being, a being that cannot escape its facticity). As such, it

commits itself to the fore-havings such a facticity provides. It commits itself to the world it

projects. Heidegger describes the process thus:

[T]his projecting is only projected in such a way that [the being of humans] holds itself in

it and does this so the free hold binds [the being of humans] i.e., so that the hold puts [the

being of humans], in all dimensions of transcendence, into a possible clearance space for

choice. Freedom itself holds this binding opposite to itself. The world is maintained in

freedom counter to freedom itself. The world is the free counter-hold of [the being of

humans] for-the-sake-of.32

Thus, in a fundamental ontological sense, it is through freedom that our being delimits the

possible ways of going out towards beings in a meaningful way, and brings being to world in a

particular way. Important to note is that by choosing itself, our being brings other beings into

world. As we have just noted, our being limits the possible ways a being comes to world in its

act of choosing itself. It projects its world after its own image (in a sense). Some might take issue

with this metaphor as a fundamental-ontological description of how beings come to world, how

we fore-have beings in a particular way. One such potential objection comes from Emmanuel

Levinas.

30 Ibid, p. 19331 Ibid, p. 19232 Ibid, p. 192


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III. Levinas Argument Against Fundamental-Ontological Freedom

Before I turn to Levinas let me give a brief disclaimer: my treatment of Levinas stems from

Derridas reading of Levinas in Derridas Violence and Metaphysics. Moreover, I am taking the

argument Derrida draws out of Levinas and abstracting it a further level. As Derrida reads

Levinas, Levinas claims that fundamental-ontologicalfreedom does violence to existent beings.

As Derrida reads Levinas, fundamental-ontologicalfreedom is a form of solipsism, one in which

human beings disrespect other beings and oppress them. It is an ethical solipsism directing care

only towards ones own desires and aims. Critiquing Levinas, Derrida argues that fundamental-

ontologicalfreedom is a fundamental-ontological solipsism, but a solipsism which makes

relating to existent beings altruistically possible. Thus, fundamental-ontologicalfreedom is the

condition of possibility for respecting beings.

But I will read Levinas differently. I will take Derridas Levinas as making an argument

directly against the fundamental-ontological description offreedom found in Heidegger. My

Levinas sees Heideggers location of the totality of possibilities of beings in the kind of beings

humans are, unacceptable. My Levinas thinks that beings have more to say than Heidegger gives

them (explicit) credit for. With this (forced) new understanding of Levinas argument in mind,

let me turn to Derrida. Derrida summarizes the basic argument thus:

In effect, if [Heideggers philosophy] disregards the irreducible solitude of the existent,

by the same token it disregards the relationship to the other. It does not think solitude, it

does not appear to itself to be solitude, because it is the solitude of totality and opacity.

Solipsism is neither observation nor sophism it is the very structure of reason.


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Therefore, there is a soliloquy of reason and a solitude of light. Incapable of respecting

the Being and meaning of the other, phenomenology and ontology would be philosophies

of violence. Through them, the entire philosophical tradition, in its meaning at bottom,

would make common cause with oppression and totalitarianism of the same.33

I take Levinas main point here (in Derridas words of course) to be that fundamental-ontological

freedom restricts beings to a particular possibility in bringing them to world. This restriction does

not acknowledge the radical possibility of other beings, instead it limits them. Since the nature of

other beings is this radical possibility, Heideggers philosophy is a philosophy of violence: it

oppresses and restricts beings. More specifically, if Heideggers description of fundamental-

ontologicalfreedom is correct, than human being solipsistically runs roughshod over the nature

of beings in restricting them in its freedom. Since any account of human being that leads to these

consequences is unacceptable, Levinas endorses rejecting Heideggers philosophy.

There is an answer to this argument, and it is to be found in Heideggers essay The Way to

Language.

IV. The Way to Language, or Contra-Levinas

Recall that our digression into HeideggersMetaphysical Foundations of Logic was motivated by

a desire to get clear about an event of appropriation is. We argued that this event of

appropriation was an own-ing of ordinary experience. We saw that ordinary experience is an

amalgamation of fore-havings: ways of conceiving and relating to the world which we gain by

going out towards the world in a particular way, out of a factical situation. In an attempt to

understand these fore-havings and the concept of world we ended up discussing

33 Violence and Metaphysics, p. 91


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fundamental-ontologicalfreedom: our beings choosing itself and thus making itself responsible

for its fore-havingsthe world it projects. Arriving here we finally get a grasp of what own-

ing ones ordinary experience means: making ones self responsible for ones fore-havings. It is

in this responsibility that we return to Heideggers claim that the moving force in Showing of

Sayingis Owning.34

We will see that a Heideggarian response to Levinas lies within this claim.

After retracing the notion of an event of appropriation through Heideggers work, how

might we understand Heideggers phrase the moving force in Showing of Sayingis Owning?

That is, owning as appropriation. Heidegger writes that appropriation yields the opening of the

clearing in which present beings can persist and from which absent beings can depart while

keeping their persistence in withdrawal.35

As we have seen, the event of appropriation is what

brings beings to world in a particular way in everyday experience. The event of appropriation

yields the room into which the totality of possibilities of beings gets limited to one of those

possibilitiesi.e. the present beings persist. At the same time this occurs, however, the rest of

the possibilities are concealedi.e. absent beings depart while keeping their persistence in

withdrawal; that is, keeping the other possible ways they might be limited available.

While he earlier located this phenomena of bringing beings to world in our beingi.e. human

beingHeidegger now writes that this event of appropriation is not the outcome (result) of

something else, but the giving yield whose giving reach alone is what gives us such things as a

there is.36

My understanding of this passage is that the event of appropriation is the most

fundamental event there is. It is what brings all beings, human being included, into existence.

This event of appropriation does so by allowing beings to own and thussay to one another. Think

of it like this.

34 The Way to Language, p. 12735 Ibid, p. 12736 Ibid, p. 127


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All instances of beingsthat is, all beings which have been appropriatedare always just

part of what they could be and at the same time wholly themselves. On the one hand, beings have

a nature of intrinsic possibility, they can come to presence in any of a multitude of ways. But at

the same time, this nature of possibility is always present as well. That is, beings are always a

revealment and concealment. They reveal one possibility while concealing the rest, but this event

of revealment and concealment is always with beings when they come to presence. Beings

always say something to one another by way of this. They always own their naturethat is,

come into their own naturein this event of revealment and concealment.Howthey reveal and

conceal themselves is what theysay; what theysay to themselves and to other beings.

As we have seen, there is no reason to think non-human beings cannotsay something, but let

us look at this phenomena from the perspective of human being. Human beingssay something

about their being every time they enter into conversation with another being, that is, every time

they go out toward it in a meaningful way. How?

First, how that being reveals itself to a person says something about the being. It says that it is

can be gone out toward in a particular manner. For example, a tree revealing itself as gallows,

shows itself as something which can be gone out towards mournfully. But this shows something

about the human who goes out toward it as well, it shows that the human who goes out toward

the tree as gallows, says to itself that its facticity is such that it goes out towards the tree as

gallows. Human being learns about itself in going out toward the tree, just as much as it learns

about the tree itself!

Secondly, in its silence, that is, in its concealed possibilities, the tree shows itself as much

more than what human being can fore-have it as in a particular way. In not fore-having it in a


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multitude of ways, human being shows itself that it is not bound to a particular way of going out

toward the tree. Fore-havings are revisable. Summing this up, Heidegger writes:

Appropriation, in beholding human nature, makes mortals appropriate for that which

avows itself from everywhere to man in Saying, which points toward the concealed.

Mans, the listeners, being made appropriate for Saying, has this distinguishing

character, that it releases human nature into its own, but only in order that man as he who

speaks, that is, he who says, may encounter and answer Saying, in virtue of what is his

property.

37

In other words, human being as appropriated exists in order to listen to what beings say, and

answer them in return. This answering is always already under way in our fore-havings. That is,

in what we say and show to beings in return. What Heidegger, I think, is commending to humans

is to take the conversation seriously. Humans are to be grateful to appropriation for providing the

possibility of the conversation; that is why Heidegger calls appropriation a gift. Just as it was our

beings responsibility, in Heideggers previous fundamental-ontological account offreedom, to

bind itself in the way it brings beings to world, now it is human beings responsibility to take the

conversation seriously. Taking the conversation seriously acknowledges that beings have

something valuable to say. Since every conversation, every instance of showing and saying,

shows what is present and absent in both speaker and listener, it follows that human being has

something valuable to learn in the conversation about itself and other beings.

In response to Levinas critique, then, it is not human being that brings beings to world, but

the appropriation. As Heidegger writes, this appropriation is not the result of anything. Not even

37 Ibid, p. 129


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the result of the movement of human nature. As such, human being stands into relation to

appropriation as grateful. It is appropriation, after all, that confers to human being its there is,

that is, its existence. In response to this gift, and in appreciation of it, human nature is called to

listen and respond to the beings it encounters. It is called to enter into conversation with them.

This is an acknowledgement that beings have something valuable to say. Thus, appropriation

brings beings to world, and human nature goes out towards them curiously and gratefully for

their contribution to in the conversation. Thus, Levinas worry is allied.

Whether this is incompatible with Heideggers early account oftranscendence asfreedom I

do not know. It is, however, a shift in metaphor. As such, I think it is a more beautiful and

elegant metaphor, one which understands the nature of language as something un-

anthropocentric and ubiquitous, from everywhere language speaks.


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heidegger writes that the

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