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Heidegger’s Experience with Language

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Heidegger, Translation, and the Task of Thinking

Part of the book series: Contributions To Phenomenology ((CTPH,volume 65))

Abstract

This study explores the following dimensions of Heidegger’s hermeneutics of language: the uniqueness and significance of his lifelong concern with the nature, origin, and “place” of language in human destiny and culture (1); his sustained experience with language as the discernment of what is ownmost (Wesen) to language, of “what” and “how” language really is or can be (2); the transition from metaphysical, representational, and instrumentalized (objectified) view of language to the be-ing-historical understanding of language as the coming of be-ing, of the phenomenon and essential sway of “to be,” into the word (3); the hermeneutic lessons entailed in his experience with (rediscovery and liberation of) language, that is, its contribution to the recognition of the disclosive power of language, to the understanding of the interplay between language (speaking) and thought (thinking), between ratio and oratio, to the interpretation of texts, to the openness of attunement to the spoken and written word (4).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Martin Heidegger, Vom Wesen der Sprache: Die Metaphysik der Sprache und die Wesung des Wortes; Zu Herders Abhandlung “Über den Ursprung der Sprache” (upper level seminar at Freiburg, Summer Semester, 1939; notes and protocols), GA 85 (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1999), p. 72 (hereafter: GA 85); On the Essence of Language: The Metaphysics of Language and the Essencing of the Word; Concerning Herder’s Treatise “On the Origin of Language,” trans. Wanda Torres Gregory and Yvonne Unna (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 2004), p. 62 (translation modified).

  2. 2.

    GA 85, p. 65; tr. 55 (translation modified).

  3. 3.

    Martin Heidegger, Unterwegs zur Sprache, GA 12 (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1985), p. 204 (hereafter: GA 12); On the Way to Language, trans. Peter Herz and Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), p. 108 (translation modified).

  4. 4.

    Martin Heidegger, Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis), GA 65 (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1989), pp. 501, 497 (hereafter: GA 65); Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning), trans. Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), pp. 352, 350 (referred to in the text with Contributions).

  5. 5.

    Martin Heidegger und Elisabeth Blochmann, Briefwechsel 1918–1969, edited by Joachim W. Storck (Marbach am Neckar: Deutsche Schillergesellschaft, 1989), p. 117.

  6. 6.

    Martin Heidegger, Einführung in die phänomenologische Forschung, GA 17 (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1994b), p. 16 (hereafter: GA 17); Introduction to Phenomenological Research, trans. Daniel O. Dahlstrom (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), p. 12.

  7. 7.

    GA 17, p. 317; tr. 240 (translation modified).

  8. 8.

    GA 12, p. 88; tr. 7 (translation modified). See also GA 12, p. 89; tr. 8.

  9. 9.

    GA 12, pp. 34, 224; tr. 161 (translation modified), 155 (translation modified). See also GA 12, pp. 168, 169; tr. 74, 75.

  10. 10.

    Hans-Georg Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics, translated and edited by David E. Linge (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), p. 127.

  11. 11.

    Ibid., p. 126.

  12. 12.

    GA 65, p. 497; tr. 350.

  13. 13.

    Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, GA 2 (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1977), p. 52 (hereafter: GA 2); Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and James Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), p. 63. See also: GA 65, pp. 497–503; tr. 350–354; Besinnung, GA 66 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1997), p. 103; Mindfulness, trans. Parvis Emad and Thomas Kalary (London: Continuum Press, 2006), p. 86 (hereafter: GA 66); and Heidegger’s Die Geschichte des Seyns, GA 69 (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1998a), p. 153 (hereafter: GA 69).

  14. 14.

    GA 12, pp. 149–155, 246–251; tr. 57–63, 126–131. Cf. also Parvis Emad, On the Way to Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 2007), pp. 21–37.

  15. 15.

    GA 12, p. 181, Wort; Wörterbuch; tr. 87 (“…a dictionary can neither grasp nor shelter the word…”) [translation modified]. See also Heidegger’s Logik als die Frage nach dem Wesen der Sprache, GA 38 (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1998b), pp. 24 (we do not find language in the dictionary), 19–28 (hereafter: GA 38).

  16. 16.

    The dynamics of this “trans-ition” is quite discernable in Heidegger’s 1939 summer semester seminar on Herder (GA 85). A discussion of this issue may be found in George Kovacs, “Heidegger in Dialogue with Herder: Crossing the Language of Metaphysics toward Be-ing-historical Language,” Heidegger Studies, 17 (2001): 45–63.

  17. 17.

    GA 66, p. 127; tr. 107.

  18. 18.

    GA 12, p. 250; tr. 130 (translation modified).

  19. 19.

    GA 12, p. 242; tr. 123 (translation modified). See also: GA 12, p. 255; tr. 234, 235; and Kenneth Maly, Heidegger’s Possibility: Language, Emergence, Saying Be-ing (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), p. 57.

  20. 20.

    GA 12, p. 159; tr. 66 (translation modified).

  21. 21.

    GA 12, p. 156; tr. 63 (translation modified).

  22. 22.

    GA 65, p. 501; tr. 352–353. See also Heidegger’s Grundbegriffe, GA 51 (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1981), p. 64 (das Sein als die Verschweigung auch der Ursprung der Sprache; Verbergung, Sagen) (hereafter: GA 51).

  23. 23.

    GA 69, p. 153.

  24. 24.

    GA 66, p. 127; tr. 108.

  25. 25.

    GA 2, section 7 concludes with remarks on language; GA 65 and GA 66, as well as his many other texts, confront this difficulty.

  26. 26.

    GA 66, p. 254; tr. 223.

  27. 27.

    GA 66, p. 254; tr. 224.

  28. 28.

    GA 66, p. 254; tr. 224.

  29. 29.

    GA 66, p. 103; tr. 86.

  30. 30.

    GA 66, p. 103; tr. 86.

  31. 31.

    GA 66, p. 103; tr. 86.

  32. 32.

    GA 65, p. 510; tr. 359.

  33. 33.

    GA 66, p. 103; tr. 86. (Regarding decision, see also GA 69, p. 61).

  34. 34.

    GA 12, p. 242; tr. 132.

  35. 35.

    GA 12, p. 150; p. 58 (translation slightly modified).

  36. 36.

    GA 51, pp. 60–66. See also George Kovacs, “The Ontological Difference in Heidegger’s Grundbegriffe,” Heidegger Studies, 3/4 (1987/88): 70 (new language).

  37. 37.

    Heidegger, “Poverty,” trans. Thomas Kalary and Frank Schalow, included in this volume.

  38. 38.

    William J. Richardson, S.J., Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought (Preface by Martin Heidegger), Phaenomenologica vol. 13 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1963), pp. xvii, xviii.

  39. 39.

    Ibid., p. 635.

  40. 40.

    Ibid., p. viii. See also Heidegger’s Identität und Differenz, GA 11 (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 2006), p. 145. Cf., GA 66, p. 427, 428; tr. 37.

  41. 41.

    Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger, Briefe 1925– 1975 und andere Zeugnisse, ed. Ursula Ludz (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1998), p. 245.

  42. 42.

    Walter Biemel, Martin Heidegger: An Illustrated Study, trans. J. L. Mehta (New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), p. 156. For helpful explorations of Heidegger’s hermeneutics of language, see the following studies: Alfred W. E. Hübner, Existenz und Sprache: Überlegungen zur hermeneutischen Sprachauffassung von Martin Heidegger und Hans Lipps (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2001), pp. 1–117; Ingeborg Schüssler, “Le langage comme ‘fonds disponible’ (Bestand) et comme ‘événement-appropriement’ (Ereignis) selon Martin Heidegger,” Heidegger Studies, 22 (2006): 71–92.

  43. 43.

    Parvis Emad, On the Way to Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy, pp. 1–42, 135–155. Regarding this issue, see also the following studies: François Fédier, Regarder voir (Paris: Les Belles Lettres/Archimbaud, 1995), pp. 83–117; Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann, Wege ins Ereignis: Zu Heideggers “Beiträgen zur Philosophie” (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1994), pp. 307–323; George Kovacs, “Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy and the Failure of ‘A Grassroots Archival Perspective,’” Studia Phaenomenologica, 6 (2006): 319–345; Kenneth Maly, Heidegger’s Possibility: Language, Emergence—Saying Be-ing, pp. 83–100; Frank Schalow, “Locating the Place of Translation,” Studia Phaenomenologica, 7 (2007): 523–533.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, Florida International University, Tamiami Campus, 33199, Miami, FL, USA

    George Kovacs

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  1. George Kovacs
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Correspondence to George Kovacs .

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of New Orleans, NEW ORLEANS, 70148-2330, Louisiana, USA

    F. Schalow

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Kovacs, G. (2011). Heidegger’s Experience with Language. In: Schalow, F. (eds) Heidegger, Translation, and the Task of Thinking. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 65. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1649-0_5

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