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

Two common misinterpretations should be avoided at this point. First, Heidegger does not deny that non-Westerners may participate in modern science. They obviously do, and very successfully. But according to him, this is not because science is independent of culture, but because our planet’s cultures are being Westernized. Secondly, Heidegger is not a radical relativist who would say that Einstein’s theories are on a par with astrology. Einstein’s theories are true: that is, they do unconceal things, and much more so than astrology. However, this unconcealment is made possible for us by a historical context which, like all historical contexts, is limited and is open to innovation. Every theory inherits a past that both submits the theory to certain prejudices and makes possible other approaches that may someday prove to be more illuminating.

Heidegger’s position, then, is that factors such as culture and mood are always operative in the background of scientific statements. This is so because some particular way of Being-in-the-world is always at work, bringing with it some configuration of sense and non-sense, some relation to Being and to nothingness that precedes and sustains our relationships to particular entities. As Heidegger explains in detail in Being and Time, our moods, which are ways of experiencing our thrownness, disclose the world more fundamentally than any propositions, affirmative or negative, that we may express. Our sense of beings as a whole is what allows us to take up particular relationships to entities, including scientific relationships. According to “What is Metaphysics?” we get a sense of beings as a whole, and of Being itself, when we “transcend” the whole of beings in anxiety and experience nihilation. This transcendence makes it possible to relate to particular entities, including ourselves - and thus Heidegger writes, “Without the original revelation of the nothing, no selfhood and no freedom” [P.103].

This is why logic, as a theory of propositional truth, is not of primary importance for philosophy. When Heidegger dramatically declares that logic “disintegrates”, he means that logic can deal only with the surface phenomena of meaning - theoretical propositions. These would be meaningless without the more primordial unconcealment that accompanies our existence. As we are about to see, thinking about this primordial truth calls for an investigation of the mysteries of human freedom - and here, logic is no help to us.

We may have explained this controversy; we have not resolved it. As late as 1964, Heidegger speculates about “the still hidden center of those endeavors towards which the ‘philosophy’ of our day, from its most extreme counterpositions (Carnap –> Heidegger), tends”. He proposes that he and the logical positivists have some common ground. They are concerned with the same questions: what is objectifying, what is thinking, and what is speaking? [P.24] Today logical positivism has fallen out of fashion, and Heidegger’s thought has made inroads into the English-speaking world. This moment should not mark the beginning of a new, Heideggerian dogmatism. It should serve as an opportunity to ask the same questions that were asked by Carnap and Heidegger.

Pp. 125-126

Hat tip to Bob Guevara's post to the Heidegger mailing list.  ¶ 6:52 PM