On the Essence of Language and the Question of Art

The texts and notes collected in this volume offer unique insight into the development of Heidegger’s thinking on language and art from the late 1930s to the early 1950s – a tumultuous period both for Heidegger personally and for Germany as a whole.  Following Germany’s defeat in World War II, Heidegger was banned from teaching at Freiburg University, where he had been a professor since 1928, and his thinking underwent significant changes as he began to cultivate different modes of silence and non-saying in his philosophy of language. This volume illuminates these shifts and charts the evolution of key terms in Heidegger’s philosophy of language during this key period in the development of his thought.  The central theme of Heidegger’s reflections on language in this volume is his repeated engagement with the character of the word, silence and the unsaid, and his rejection of the instrumental conception of language, where he instead prioritized conversation as the “homeland of language.” Alongside references to Hölderlin and von Hofmannsthal and shrewd scrutiny of aural phenomena such as silent thought and speechlessness, speech is demonstrated to be intimately connected to the human essence. In a later section, Heidegger examines the place of art, in particular the plastic arts, and the role of the artist in conjunction with the new industrial landscape and architecture of his time, and in juxtaposition with ancient Greek attitudes to space and the polis. This key work by Heidegger, now available in English for the first time, will be of great interest to students and scholars of philosophy and to anyone interested in Heidegger’s thought.

Translator’s Introduction Part One: On the Essence of Language The Saga 1. The Resolution 2. The Characteristics of the Decision 3. The Question of Being 4. The Question of Being (The First and the Other Inception) 5. The Two Leaps in the Attempt to Think Being 6. The Three Insights and Knowledge 7. Beyng, “Spirit,” Cognition 8. The Saga 9. The Beyng-Historical Inception 10. The History of Beyng 11. “The History of Philosophy” and the History of Being 12. Beyng-Historical “Thinking” 13. Steadfastness and Thinking 14. The “Concept” – Distancing – Naysaying 15. The No of Beyng-Historical Thinking 16. Naysaying and Questioning 17. The Word 18. Beyng and Word 19. Beyng as the Appropriating Event (The Human) 20. Beyng and Attunement 21. Beyng 22. The Nothing and Beyng 23. Beyng as Nothing 24. The Nothing 25. The Event of Appropriation 26. Event of Appropriation 27. Beyng 28. Beyng, God, the Human 29. Beyng 30. Beyng is and only Beyng Is 31. Abyssal Ground 32. Beyng 33. The More Inceptual Saga 34. The Untenability of the Differentiation between “Being” and “Becoming” 35. Truth and System 36. The Attunement of the Voice Determines 37. Where is a Measure? 38. Not What “is Coming” 39. What Are “We” To Do 40. Not a “New” Philosophy 41. Where Do We Stand? Directed Toward the History of Beyng 42. A Curious Delusion of this Age 43. Steadfastness and Duty 44. The Saga 45. The Crux of the Error 46. Time-Space (cf. Contributions, Grounding) 47. The Temporalization of Time 48. Time-Space The Word. On the Essence of Language The Quickening Element of the Word The Birth of Language The Beginning The Unique Element Addenda Word – Sign – Conversation – Language I. The Word and Language II. The Sign (Its Essence Bound to the Event) III. The Word. Conversation and Language IV. The Word (CF. Poetizing and Thinking) V. The Word and Language VI. Word and “Language” VII. The Essential Prevailing of the Word VIII. Image and Sound – The Sensible IX. Language X. Language On Eduard Mörike’s Poems “September Morning” and “At Midnight” ADDENDA Image and Word Part Two: On the Question of Art On the Question of Art Art and Space The Work of Art and “Art History” Reflection upon the Essence and Conduct of the Art-Historical “Science” Editor’s Afterword Glossaries English–German German–English