Raising Atlantis: The Later Heidegger and Contemporary Philosophy

References to Heidegger’s works will be given in the text according to the following abbreviations: EPH: “The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking,” translated by Joan Stambaugh, reprinted in Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings, edited by David Krell (New York: Harper and Row, 1977). SZ: Sein and Zeit (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1963), translated as Being and Time (New York: Harper and Row, 1962). US: Unterwegs zur Sprache (Pfullingen: Neske, 1975). All but one of the essays in the German volume are translated in WL. WL: On the Way to Language, translated by Peter Hertz and Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper and Row, 1971). ZS: “Time and Being,” translated by Joan Stambaugh, in On Time and Being ( New York: Harper and Row, 1972, 1–24.Google Scholar

After I had been thinking about this passage, I discovered that Derrida had written an enlightening long footnote concerning it in De l’esprit (Paris: Gallilée, 1987, 147n1). Oddly, just as I realized the relevance of the Derrida passage late in the game, so Derrida was put on to the passage by a colleague after the main text of De l’esprit was written. This happened, I think, because the passage goes against Heidegger’s standard rhetoric about thought’s task being that of ever deeper questioning, so the passage tends to recede from view. In his discussion, Derrida shows how the passage invites a retrospective reinterpretation of Heidegger’s whole thought, but also why this temptation is inappropriate.Google Scholar

William D. Blattner, “Existential Temporality in Being and Time (Why Heidegger is not a Pragmatist),” in Hubert Dreyfus and Harrison Hall, eds., Heidegger: A Critical Reader ( Oxford: Blackwell, 1992 ), p. 105.Google Scholar

See Hubert L. Dreyfus, Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time, Division 1 ( Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992 ).Google Scholar

Nearing nearness has the character of denial and withholding…. The giving that gives time is determined by denying and withholding nearness…. We call the giving which gives true time an extending which opens and conceals.“ (ZS 15f). Cf. ”Vom Wesen der Wahrheit“ (in Wegmarken [Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1967]; the English version by John Sallis is found in Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings,edited by David Krell [New York: Harper and Row, 1977]).Google Scholar