The Beginning of Western Philosophy by Martin Heidegger

Author:Martin Heidegger
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 2015-07-16T16:00:00+00:00

b) The lack of the correct indication of the way

κωϕοὶ ὁμῶς τυϕλοί τε—κωϕός, dull, altogether dull in sense, although here not applied to the senses in general, but restricted, since indeed blindness is expressly named as the dullness of eyesight and seeing. κωϕός here to be related to hearing and speaking (cf. later, ὀνομάζειν—γλῶσσα). But what is actually meant? Of course this does not intend to say that all people are deaf and mute and blind, i.e., that the sensory organs are disturbed in their functioning. On the contrary, people see very well and hear and speak; but they see and yet do not see, hear and yet do not hear, speak and yet say nothing. Apprehension as taking in and being taken in and being taken out of—not the correct νόος—ap-prehension—Being! [36]Understanding of Being. |

Moreover, this precisely because the correct indication of the way of apprehension is lacking to humans in advance. This apprehension, how ever, as we already know, is originally νοεῖν of εἶναι—understanding of Being. Their understanding of Being is errant (νόος πλαγκτός), erroneous, not simply false, but, as errant in a much more fatal way, it does not come to a standstill (cf. below, 6, 8–9), is haphazard, accidental (not grasped and a fortiori not conceptualized) and above all not as such experienced and seized, but always only alights now on this being, now on that. Humans see beings and hear about them, speak about them, but all this remains dull, without the sharpness of the penetration into the essence; the entire comportment of these humans proceeds and staggers only alongside beings, as it were, external to them.

So it is with everything that comes to these people, and everything does come into their hands, even philosophy. There they merely slurp up impressions and believe they are philosophizing when they fancy themselves stirred and meditative and talk about existence—but make themselves scarce when the work begins.

τεθηπότες—bewildered. The diverse manifold they stumble across in this more-or-less-satisfying frenzy enthralls them, surprises them, tempts them from one thing to another—but they remain with any one thing only for a fleeting moment, and then they bounce to something else, for they lack the sight of the essence and Being of things. Therefore, these humans cannot be detained by anything, they cannot sustain anything, and they cannot attain the tranquilly persistent restraint of wonder, the constancy of meditation, or the keen air of steadfast questioning. On the contrary, all that remains for them is erratic surprise and desultory bewilderment—they merely find things “interesting.”

ἄκριτα ϕῦλα—τὸ ϕῦλον, phylum, class, consanguinity, all those of the same provenance as regards their way of thinking, the plural of those in the same category to whom is lacking κρίνειν, judgment, discrimination. They throw everything into the same pot, even if the only commonality among the things is the extrinsic one of bearing the same name or label and of agreeing with one another only to the most fleeting glance. Since these persons do not judge and discriminate, they

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