Aren’t we all afraid of standing before the nothing or shall we say it nothingness? We, the so-called modern people, love to get ourselves busy in order to escape from the quest about the nothingness. But in Heidegger’s thought, nothingness is very crucial. Heidegger’s preoccupation with the nothing become an important theme that bridges his early and later work and serves to characterize his unique approach to philosophy [Basic Writings, 93]. But wait the minute, how could we deal with or question the nothingness if it is nothing at all? What is nothingness? Is it even possible to question the nothingness?
First of all, the nothingness is not the “not thing” or the negation. According to Heidegger, we know the nothingness when we are anxious. The nothingness is revealed by anxiety. In Being and Time, Heidegger says that anxiety is different from fear in a way that the object or cause of anxiety is never clear and definitive. We get anxious when standing before something dark, mysterious, or unknown. However, dealing with nothingness is actually the same as dealing with Being, says Heidegger because “pure Being and pure Nothingness are the same” [Basic Writings, 110]. Interrogating the nothing - asking what and how it, the nothing is – turns what is interrogated into its opposite. The question of the nothingness puts us, the questioners, in question. It is a metaphysical question. It is a question about Being.
We know how important the term aletheia which basically means the openness, disclosedness or unconcealedness of Being to Heidegger’s thought. It is impossible to talk about aletheia without talking about “lethe” which is the hidden, the concealed, the undisclosed part/aspect of aletheia because the word aletheia itself consists of two words these are “a” and “lethe”. This lethe is what remains hidden when Being is disclosed. Consequently, Being is never fully disclosed. Whenever Being discloses or gives itself (or appropriated by Ereignis), at the same time Being also conceals or withdraws itself. Heidegger even claims that what is concealed is more original than what is disclosed or unconcealed.
Then how do we deal with nothingness or the nothing? In Being and Time, Heidegger calls us to question Being. However in later Heidegger, apparently the more appropriate action or attitude is to welcome or to be friend with the unknown, the mystery. Nothingness is not something that we could or should conquer by disclosing everything or by grounding everything to reason. With mystery Heidegger refers to something that is beyond our calculative, representational thinking. How do we do it? We should be waiting in silence, contemplating about what closest to us and most importantly letting being be (Gelassenheit). With this, Heidegger is saying goodbye to philosophy of willing.
Ah, sounds so mystical. Though he refuses being labeled as a mystic saying that mysticism is a flight from thinking, his later thinking and his “closeness” to Meister Eckhart, one of the great German mystics, tell us otherwise. But whatever the label is, I think what Heidegger is trying to do is to give room to the unknown, the mystery which the modern people tend to ignore or even dislike. I myself hate being in the dark not knowing what's going on. I don't like the uncertainty. But life is so full of mystery, uncertainty, the unknown. We are already thrown into that kind of life. Guess, we just have to make peace with it by welcoming the mystery as the interesting element of life.
Happy Good Friday!
3 comments:
Is nothingness talkable? But Heidegger does. Why? Why not he passed it into silence? Recalling Kantian Q : What are the conditions of possiblity that enable one to talk about nothingness?
Hi ... When Heidegger talks about lethe, he says we shouldnt think about lethe as something that is not present or concealed forever. Instead we should think lethe as a "movement". You know that there is something hidden, concealed when you realize that what appears, discloses now is not the whole thing. Take for instance, the concept of Being. It changes throughout history. Plato calls it idea, Aristoteles, energia, Hegel, absolute spirit, Kant, ratio, Nietzsche, the will to power. No one, according to Heidegger is totally wrong or totally true. Nothingness is something or the realm from which things emerge. It is not the opposite of beings.
The condition of possibility of nothingness? Haha ... I don't know if we could really venture into this thought without betraying Heidegger. How are we going to ground this condition? On human ratio? He would have oppossed this attempt. Heidegger promotes this groundless groud or Abgrund.
Passed it into silence? Eventually yes ... by dealing with it, by no means it we try to have a crystal clear understanding about it ... instead, we have to acknowledge that "there is" nothingness. The same way we acknowledge the ontological difference without trying to abolish it.
Well, thanks for the response.
1. The idea of lethe as a "movement", reminds me to Whiteheadian "Creativity". It has no ontological status but "there is" (quite paradoxal isn't it?). For a thing to exist two conditions are necessary (1) Physical pole; (2)conceptual one. And "Creativity" has neither of them. How about this Heideggerian "lethe"?
2. From your example about the shift in perspective of the idea of Being, can we say that "lethe" is similar to the moment of unknowness? If yes, then the category applies here is epistemological rather than ontological. Am I right?
Emanuel Bria
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