Heidegger Circle Proceedings

Birds do it, bees do it…does Dasein do it? This question is less about whether members of Heidegger’s community have sex and more about whether the notion of sexual difference plays a primordial role in the existential make-up of a community. John Haugeland states, “Dasein is neither people nor their being but rather a way of life shared by members of some community.1” What is shared here is an understanding of being that is, in a certain way, chained to a body that is historically contingent. Does the fact that bodies are sexed say [Sagen/Zeigen] anything about our way of Being? To answer the opening question, according to Heidegger, Dasein doesn’t do it. That bodies are sexed merits no serious analysis, and the act of having sex, despite its being responsible for the infinite propagation of beings (for whom Being is an issue) is of no ontological significance: Ni homme, ni femme- c’est un Dasein. This phrase is a reformulation of Guenther Anders’ statement, “Ni homme, ni capucin- c’est un Dasein”. Neither surrendering to the desires or material concerns of man, nor transcending to the supra-natural world of the divine, Heidegger’s philosophy of Dasein is one of pseudo-concreteness. Dasein is the middleman, forgetful of the milieu4. If ancient metaphysicians forgot the meaning of Being [ϕνσις] by neglecting its duality, Heidegger is equally guilty in overlooking the dynamic unfolding of the dialectic of sex.

This paper proceeds by investigating three ‘topoi’ or sites within Heidegger’s texts where the presence of Stoicism most fundamentally articulates itself as critical to his understanding of the truth of being (aletheia) and its historical destining as Ereignis. We will begin with the “Letter on Humanism” (1947), the most comprehensive “public’ statement of his later thought-by first considering how Ereignis-often translated as the event or event of appropriation to indicate the historical destining of being-might be said to be consonant with the Stoic doctrine of oikeiosis-the appropriation or familiarization with oneself echoed by both Chrysippus and Hierocles. In doing so, we will attempt to trace Heidegger’s interpretation of oikeiosis back into the origins of his fundamental ontology by turning to the genesis of care/cura (Sorge) in Sein und Zeit (1927)-specifically the Roman myth of Hyginus that bears its name-before concluding with an early lecture course, Introduction to the Phenomenology of Religion (1920-1921) where his engagement with the Pauline tradition reveals oikeiosis to be a hidden enigma in his thinking about the meaning of being and its historical destining.

Plato criticized Mythos for its falsity, but he uses many myths in his own dialogues on the way to attaining truth. He had a distinct standard for making use of or dismissing a myth: truth or falsity. His myths are the inseparable part of his philosophical logos. Heidegger interpreted the myths in Republic from the perspective of the truth of being. Polis is a metaphor of alētheia. The Cave myth presents a vivid picture of how to reach truth by struggling with concealment. The Er myth showed that unconcealment is destined to decline and turn to concealment. As the souls were required to drink the water of ameleta, concealment and forgetfulness entered into the essence of human being. In the essence of truth there is untruth, the counter-essence of truth. Firstly, the truth is reached by struggling with every kind of untruth. Secondly, according to the essence of being, truth of being or the presencing is in order, which means that it comes from concealment and soon goes into concealment again. The truth of being is not physis/emerging as in the Greek, but declining. The decline is determined from the start, as destiny.

The panel’s concern is to invite deeper consideration of Heidegger’s life-long engagement with ancient Greek thinking and language. The touchstone is the forthcoming publication of the translation of GA 55 Heraklit.