The "Creative" Nothingness

I have got some interesting questions from Emanuel Bria, a Whiteheadian from East Timor ;-), in regards with my previous posting “Welcoming the Nothingness”. They are so intriguing that I decided to put the answers in a new posting.

I never really think of comparing Heidegger with Whitehead. So I am not sure if I could answer the questions correctly because first of all I don’t know much about Whitehead’s thoughts. Secondly, I am still very much confused about Heidegger’s thoughts. Thus, answering these questions is like walking in the dark … marching into the realm of Nothingness ;-) …


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"?

Lethe = creativity? Well, let’s see what Whitehead said in Process and Reality about creativity: "It is that ultimate principle by which the many, which are the universe disjunctively, become the one actual occasion, which is the universe conjunctively. It lies in the nature of things that the many enter into complex unity. . . . The many become one, and are increased by one."

The catch is on the word “creativity” which suggests a process of creation. I have some questions about this. What is this "complex unity"? Is it something different and new from the “many”? Are the many and the one are of the same genus? What is the relationship between Creativity as the ultimate principle on the one hand and the many and the one on the other hand? I am not clear either with what “there is” here means and whether we could compare it with Heidegger's explanation about Being as “there is” in On Time and Being.

Meanwhile, Heidegger described lethe as a horizon from which things/beings emerge and to which beings rest. So it does not create beings or make it appear. It is actually Ereignis that allows beings to appear within our field of vision (see Discourse on Thought). This Ereignis appropriates Being and beings to their own most. If lethe then appears as a “movement”, it is, in my opinion, because of this Ereignis.

So, can Ereignis be associated with Whiteheadian Creativity then? I am not sure because Ereignis does not create something new, as the one come from the many as in Whitehead’s thoughts. It simply appropriates (Being and beings). Unfortunately there is not much can be derived from Ereignis except that it appropriates. This is so typical Heidegger to say of something as if it was already very clear while it is actually not ;-). But let’s say we accept what he said about that for the sake of argument. In From Enownment, Contribution to Philosophy, he said Ereignis is actually Being that holds sway. To compare it with Whitehead's thoughts, we need to be clear about the nature of Creativity and its relationship to the one and the many.

What Ereignis appropriates is the so-called belonging-together (Zusammengehörigkeit) of Being and beings. Being and beings are not the same, not of the same genus obviously if we could even say that, but they belong together. Between Being and beings there stands this famous ontological difference that forever cannot be bridged. In contrast, the one in Whitehead's thoughts comes from the many.


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?

If it is asked how we know that lethe “exists”, then yes it might be an epistemological issue in a sense that we know something is never fully disclosed when it "appears" differently throughout history. But this is where the importance of time in Heidegger’s thoughts sets in. It has got to do with the meaning of Being as presencing with temporal character as opposed to presence which is traditionally understood as something ever-present, constant, unchanging. Being discloses itself (or we can say Being gives itself) in an epochal way. By saying this Heidegger was injecting a sense of historicity to the meaning of Being.

Therefore, it is not simply an epistemological category because (at one point of time) there is no telling about what there is to know or yet to know or whether we could know it or not. Being is hidden not because we have or do not have knowledge about it but because it is the way Being discloses itself. It discloses itself in history which Heidegger called the history of Being. This way, Heidegger is saying goodbye to the never-changing, absolute, Idea of Plato.

This is as far as I understand ... or misunderstood ;-)

Welcoming the Nothingness

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!