{1} “What is Metaphysics?”: nothingness and the disintegration of logic by Richard Polt.

“What is Metaphysics?”: nothingness and the disintegration of logic
In 1929, on the occasion of his inauguration as professor at Freiburg, Heidegger delivered one of his most famous lectures, “What is Metaphysics?” This concentrated, powerful exploration of anxiety and its relation to nothingness owes much to Being and Time, but its spirit is one of opening new questions and provoking fresh thought. The lecture was not meant as a clear statement of a doctrine, but as a challenge to philosophize.

In this regard, it had only mixed success. On the one hand, it attracted a great deal of attention and soon became a key text for existentialists. One listener reports, “When I left the auditorium, I was speechless. For a brief moment I felt as if I had had a glimpse into the ground and foundation of the world. In my inner being, something was touched that had been asleep for a long time” . [Pp. 12-13]

On the other hand, “What is Metaphysics?” led indirectly to Heidegger’s banishment from the world of Anglo-American philosophy, and for decades this banishment prevented most English-speaking philosophers from using Heidegger as food for thought. For in this lecture, Heidegger makes two statements in particular that are calculated provocations. The first is the pronouncement das Nichts selbst nichtet: “Nothingness itself nothings”, or “The nothing itself nihilates” [P.103]. The second is the statement, “The idea of ‘logic’ itself disintegrates in the turbulence of a more original questioning” [P.105]. The first statement sounds like utter gibberish, while the second sounds like reckless
irrationalism.

So thought Rudolf Carnap, at least, who denounced Heidegger in his essay “The Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis of Language” (1932). For Carnap and other logical positivists, philosophy should clarify the rules of coherent, meaningful discourse. Meaningful discourse is scientific; it expresses objective facts in unambiguous propositions. Philosophy, then, is a system of propositions about systems of propositions in general. In other words, philosophy is logic, theory of theory. Now, some sentences seem to be neither science nor logic - for example, “that flower is beautiful” or “justice is good” or metaphysical propositions such as “substantiality implies unity”. But these are just pseudo-propositions: they are nonsense, or at best, a symptom of the speaker’s emotional state. When we use the tools of logic to clean the Augean stables of philosophy, babble such as das Nichts selbst nichtet will be the first to go.

Pp. 121-122

Continued.  ¶ 11:51 AM