Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal

Volume 14, Number 2 -Volume 15, Number 1,1991

Retreat from Radicality:

Pöggeler on Heidegger's Politics
Frank H. W. Edler

As one ofthe foremost interpreters ofHeidegger's philosophical thought,

Otto Pöggeler has occupied a special-some would say privileged-posi-
tion in post-war Heidegger scholarship. In 1959, in preparation for his
work entitled Der Denkweg Martin Heideggers,I Pöggeler, an outsider
to Heidegger circles at the time, began working directly with the
philosopher. Not only did Heidegger help hirn "in working out this
book," but he also granted Pöggeler "long conversations and insight into
important manuscripts" (Path, 283). Moreover, Heidegger's unpublished
manuscripts such as Beiträge zur Philosophie and the Hölderlin courses
were made available to Pöggeler at that time. He may weIl be the orlly
person who had the opportunity of talking with Heidegger about his
own development in a systematic and comprehensive way. Because of
this close working relationship, Pöggeler admits that Der Denkweg "is
thus imprinted with how Heidegger at that time viewed the way of his
thinking" (Ibid.).
Der Denkweg, however, did not emphasize the problematic and trou-
bling relation between Heidegger's philosophical thought and his political
involvement with Nazism. In the "Afterword to the Second Edition,"
Pöggeler addressed the apparent omission in the following way: "I would
also like to respond to the question often asked as to whether I have jus-
tifiably allowed Heidegger's entanglement in politics to remain unconsid-
ered" (Path, 261). At the time he wrote the book, he answered, he found "a
good reason to omit political questions altogether," because Heidegger
"confessed his political error" to him personally and "decisively put it at a
distance" (Path, 271-272). However, looking back on his conversations with
Heidegger, Pöggeler agrees that "occasional differences in our conversa-
tions should have genuinely disconcerted me" (Path, 284).
That "unconsidered" question reasserted itself in a more personal
way in 1974 when Heidegger thanked Pöggeler for his work entitled
Philosophie und Politik bei Heidegger 2 and added, "I have nowhere spo-
ken of the 'National Socialist movement'" (Path, 277). Pöggeler wanted to

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include this remark in the afterword to the book's second edition.

However, he discovered that the correction proofs of Heidegger's
Introduction to Metaphysics (1935) did contain the reference to the
National Socialist movement and did not originally contain the paren-
thetical remark about global technology and modern man (Ibid.).3
These discrepancies, as weIl' as the occasional variances in his earlier
conversations with Heidegger, led Pöggeler to reevaluate his position in
Der Denkweg. Instead of minimizing the political question in order to
present "a guide to Heidegger's path of thinking" (Path, 4), Pöggeler
reversed this procedure and examined the path through the prism of
Heidegger's politics. As a result, the "outsider" who was given the privi-
lege of intimacy with Heidegger and who perhaps had been led away
from the political question by hirn, now speaks from the very same inti-
macy when he states he experienced "first hand how Heidegger failed
in his attempt at illuminating in a long introduction [to the Nietzsche
volumes] the way he traveled from 1930 to 1947" (Path, 283).
What I wish to examine here is Pöggeler's interpretation ofHeidegger's
politics and his political involvement of1933-34. Pöggeler, since the publi-
cation of his book Philosophie und Politik bei Heidegger in 1972, has writ-
ten extensivelyon this subject, although his most comprehensive essay
is still "Heideggers politisches Selbstverständnis," included in Heidegger
und die praktische Philosophie. 4 It is an investigation of Heidegger's
"blindness"-from bis blindness concerning specific political questions to
his blindness regarding the political realm itself and, finally, to the blind-
ness Pöggeler believes is inherent in Heidegger's way of philosophizing.
The theme of Heidegger's blindness, however, is not new, emerging
as it did in Pöggeler's early conversations with hirn concerning Oedipus
and tragic greatness. In the "Mterword to the Second Edition" of Der
Denkweg, Pöggeler states that even during the preparation of the vol-
lIme, he had had reservations concerning Heidegger's philosophy:
...one could still learn that precisely the unprotected radicality of
the questioning together with the rejection of everything that
endures had heen ahle to lead right into the noose of what is con-
temporary. L..] Was it not through adefinite orientation in his
thinking that Heidegger fell-and not merely accidentally-into the
proximity of National Socialism without ever truly emerging from
this proximity? (Path, 272)
This is the gist of Pöggeler's criticism, which he develops later in
"Heidegger's politisches Selbstverständnis." I shall turn to this in a
moment, but first, an overview.
General agreement is growing, I believe, on three important points
concerning Heidegger's political engagement with Nazism. The first is
that there is no evidence to suggest that Heidegger believed in the

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racial and biological underpinnings of the National Socialist ideology.

Even Farias agrees that Heidegger was "openly in opposition to the racist
and biologicalline of Alfred Rosenberg and Ernst Krieck."5The second is
that the formulation of the philosophical problematic presented in Being
and Time is not the one which is most germane to Heidegger's decision
to enter the political arena.
Pöggeler is quite right when he states that it was Heidegger's new
philosophical development after 1929 in conjunction with the revolution-
ary sense of change in 1933 which brought hirn into the proximity of
National Socialism (HpS, 24). Heidegger's correspondence with Elisabeth
Blochmann verifies this conclusively. On September 9,1932, he writes to
Blochmann that people think he is now working on "Being and Time 11."
He goes on to confide that, while "Being and Time r' had indeed been a
path for him once, he had outgrown it and could in fact no longer take it.
"I can no longer even write Being and Time 11," he concluded. 6
The third point concerns these new philosophical developments
which revolve around Heidegger's discovery of what he calls the truth
ofbeing, that is, being as the difference itself. The first formulation ofit
appears in 1929-30. 7 Much extrinsic criticism ignores or minimizes the
motivating power this insight had for Heidegger's political debut.
Pöggeler describes it in this way: "In the thirties, Heidegger hirnself
placed the decision about the truth ofbeing as he sought it in a political
context" (Path, 287).
Why Heidegger in 1933 threw his whole effort into the attempt to
realize the connection between his philosophical understanding of the
truth of being and the political upheaval taking place is, in my view,
the leading question in this troubling and perplexing matter---espe-
cially in light of Hermann Heidegger's statement that in the Reichstag
elections of 1932, his father still voted for the small, insignificant party
ofWürttemberg winegrowers. 8
It is a question, however, that includes a plethora of other questions:
(1) What did Heidegger mean by the truth of being at that time? (2)
How did he understand the history of metaphysics, and how was the
end of metaphysics to take place? (3) What was Heidegger's interpreta-
tion of science and technology in 1933? (4) Based on the answers to the
preceding questions, what conception of politics follows from Heidegger's
philosophy? (5) What was Heidegger's reading of the so-called German
revolution in 1933? These more obvious questions Pöggeler engages in
his essay, "Heideggers politisches Selbstverständnis," although one of
his primary concerns is the fourth question, that is, to discover what
political conception follows from Heidegger's thought "which entitled
him to bind the individual and its destiny with the historical destiny of a
'people'" (HpS, 26). In other words, ifthe experience ofbeing and its truth

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were to bind a people together, what political concept mediates between

the truth ofbeing and political action?
The task Pöggeler sets for himselfhere, already posed at the end ofPhil-
osophie und Politik bei Heidegger, is the same one Reiner Schürmann has
tackled in bis article, ''Political Thinking in Heidegger."9 AB Schürmann
says, the task is "to work out the missing link between what has tradition-
ally been called ontology and practical pbilosophy" (PTH, 195).
Two difficulties immediately crop up in relation to this task: first,
Heidegger himself never developed this link in his own works, that is,
he never developed a practical philosophy or explicated the connection
between his philosophy and the political dimension (PTH, 195), and, sec-
ond, Heidegger subverts the traditional ways in which philosophies of
action have been grounded (PTH, 200).
Although Pöggeler (in ''Heideggers politisches Selbstverständnis") recog-
nizes both of these difficulties and carefully examines many of the scat-
tered references Heidegger makes to politics, he does not appear to con-
sider the question an open one and makes no attempt to develop a practi-
cal pbilosophy from these fragments. His assumption, I believe, from the
very beginning ofthe essay is that tbis missing link cannot be worked out.
Pöggeler says in the "Afterword to the Second Edition" ofDer Denkweg
that he had planned a second part to bis book, "wbich was to provide a
systematic discussion (about the question of nature, about praxis and
history, and above all about affect and virtue, about language, conversa-
tion, and poetry, and about the religious dimension)" (Path, 287). In fact,
after Der Denkweg was first published, Pöggeler "awaited the announced
mature work in wbich Heidegger (as in bis actual principal work) wanted
to present his thoughts in context" (Ibid.). Clearly, Pöggeler wanted to
draw the outline of a practical philosophy as part of the proposed system-
atic discussion with Heidegger's help, and Heidegger seemed to have
been amenable to the proposal (Ibid.).
However, problems began to surface. Although "he had gathered all
the basic thoughts," Heidegger began to balk at the proposal, because,
according to Pöggeler, "he still lacked the language---one cannot just
poetize..." (Ibid.).lo Rather than providing a context for a systematic dis-
cussion of the various regions of being and how they are related both to
the truth of being and to the event of appropriation (Pöggeler refers to
it as Lichtung), Heidegger "went off in an unexpected direction" (Ibid.).
Thus, Heidegger declined Pöggeler's invitation to work out his philoso-
phy systematically and the opportunity to elaborate a practical philoso-
phy after the publication of Der Denkweg.
By the late sixties and early seventies, Pöggeler's criticisms of
Heidegger's thought became increasingly more evident. Although in
Philosophie und Politik bei Heidegger Pöggeler states that the relation

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between Heidegger's philosophy and politics needs to be worked out

more explicitly and reflectively (PPH, 70), he also tries to show the inad-
equacy of Heidegger's whole way of thinking-to such an extent as to
suggest it is impossible, or not worth the time, to do so. In "Heideggers
Topologie des Seins," for example-also included in Philosophie und
Politik bei Heidegger-Pöggeler claims that:
Heidegger's attempt to extend the meaning of Being-for instance,
to extend this meaning beyond the realm ofthe presence-at-hand-
must then appear as an over-stretching into what is vague and
indeterminate, which does not correspond to actual language
usage.... ( PPH, 99-100)11
and
The questions emerge...of whether a radical and universal philo-
sophical questioning under "speculative" pressure always has to
stretch a determinate guiding clue into something universal and to
exaggerate it into something radical. ... (PPH, 101; HTB, 135)
and, tinally, in his essay, "Historicity' in Heidegger's Late Work":
...if we look at Heidegger's work as a whole, we find that he has not
yet been able to solve the ontological questions raised by him. 12
Thus, why should anyone concern him- or herself with developing a
practical philosophy from Heidegger's thought when the ontology itself
is a failure? Pöggeler had wanted Heidegger to walk down the mountain
into the regionalontologies and "the vast domain ofthe empirical"13 and,
by doing so, give up his "vagueness," "indeterminacy," "radicality," "over-
stretching," "universality," and "speculativity." But, as Pöggeler says in
the Mterword to Der Denkweg, "I realized that what I had in view could
not at all be presented in direct connection with Heidegger" (Path, 287-
288). In other words, amiddIe term could not be developed-at least,
not for the kind of practical philosophy Pöggeler has in mind. Thus, by
1983, Pöggeler rejects not only Heidegger's formulation of "the question
of being," but also his later topology of being, because the same charac-
teristics ofHeidegger's way ofthinking are evident in both.
Pöggeler carries over the assumption that an adequate practical philos-
ophy cannot be developed from Heidegger's philosophy into "Heideggers
politisches Selbstverständnis," where he explicitly identifies these charac-
teristics as the basis for rejecting Heidegger's whole philosophical
endeavor. Indeed, he goes so far as to say that "...one must ask oneself
again and again whether Heidegger is not speaking a language which is
no longer possible" (HpS, 52). Or, to put it more bluntly, Heidegger's phi-
losophy "...is false because ofthe fact that it [philosophy] is understood in
a one-sidedly speculative-and 'imperious'-way" (HpS, 47).

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According to Pöggeler, Heidegger's philosophical blindness is largely

responsible for his political involvement with Nazism. In HpS, Pöggeler
catalogues the characteristics of Heidegger's philosophy that cause his
blindness: its unconcretized abstractness (HpS, 53), its speculativity (HpS,
47), its one-sidedness (Ibid.), and its radicality (HpS, 22, 27, 54, 55). All of
these characteristics describe Heidegger's various attempts to think being
itself which culminate in the final period of his work, where he attempts
to think being "without regard for its groundedness in entities."14
Pöggeler admonished Heidegger, stating "[p]hilosophy should no
longer blindly and without orientation join up with political tendencies;
it should no longer offer a radicality empty ofreality..." (HpS, 54). Thus,
throughout Heidegger's philosophical career, he remained the radical
but politically bankrupt revolutionary: "Heidegger would like to coun-
teract such [political] systems without having seen a way into the polit-
ical domain" (HpS, 52-53). Clearly, Pöggeler believes that the same radi-
cality which disassociated being from acting in order to bring about a
complete Umkehr (tumover) in philosophy also encouraged Heidegger
in the direction of fascism (HpS, 50, 54, 55). But before investigating the
claim that Heidegger disassociates being from acting, I want to focus on
Pöggeler's understanding of Heidegger's political involvement in 1933-
34 in relation to the problem of language and action, since it bears
directly on this question of disassociation.
Pöggeler believes that Heidegger did not draw the following political
consequence in the early thirties: "Politics alone cannot bring about a
transformation of man..." (HpS, 56n43). This claim that Heidegger tried
to set the truth ofbeing to work through politics alone, however, needs
careful examination. The reason for this is that Heidegger was basi-
cally an "unpolitical man," as Hermann Heidegger states (see note 8).
Everything about Heidegger points to a wariness of political systems,
political parties, and even professional organizations whose member-
ship he spurned. 15 Even while he was politically engaged with Nazism,
he explicitly opposed the politicization of the universities which the
Nazis promoted. Notjust the university-Heidegger was opposed to the
new political science altogether. 16 And yet he didjoin the Nazi Party, he
supported National Socialism, and he urged people to vote for Hitler.
How are we to understand this double-sided Heidegger? Are we to
understand, as Pöggeler suggests, that a basically unpolitical man who
mistrusted politics suddenly became politically involved in 1933 to the
extent that he was willing to employ exclusively the very political means
he mistrusted? I think not. To say that Heidegger wanted to engage the
revolution through politics alone is tantamount to saying that he was
willing to politicize the whole process ofrevolution and thus use political
praxis exclusively the way the new political science of the Nazis did. If

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this were the case, Heidegger would be contradicting hirnself, that is, his
political actions contradicted his political beliefs.
There are several problems with this view. First, it assurnes that the
language and action of Heidegger's involvement with Nazism must fit
some traditional theory of political action. However, since Heidegger, in
a number of political speeches, stated that the revolution meant the
complete transformation of Dasein, he clearly implied that political
action would also undergo such a transformation and thus could no
longer be understood in traditional ways.
Second, it reduces or eliminates the polysemy of Heidegger's political
language and action by labelling hirn a radical conservative, a closet
Nazi, or a misguided idealist seduced by the will to power. I would
argue, however, that Heidegger was none ofthese and that the double-
sided or polysemous aspects of his political speeches and actions, those
marked with multiple meanings, constitute the essence of his political
engagement. As long as we do not know how his polysemy functioned
and what its purpose was, we cannot agree with Pöggeler that
Heidegger sought to engage the revolution through politics alone. The
meanings of words such as 'revolution', 'politics', and 'political action'
will have to be held in abeyance until we have a better understanding
of the double-sidedness of Heidegger's political speeches and actions.
In this regard, Heidegger's letters to Elisabeth Blochmann shed a
great deal oflight on his political double entendre. On March 30,1933,
shortly before he was voted rector, Heidegger wrote to her as folIows:
For quite some time now, the pallor and shadow play of a mere "cul-
ture" and the unreality of so-called "values" have for me been
reduced to naught and caused me to seek a new basis (Boden) in
Dasein. We can discover it as weH as the vocation ofthe Germans in
the history ofthe West only ifwe expose ourselves to being itselfin
a new manner and appropriation (Aneignung). In this way, I experi-
ence what is presently happening completely from the future. Only
thus can a true partaking and that insistent dwelling (Instandig-
keit) grow in our history, which ,of course, remains a precondition
for genuine action. On the other hand, what must be received in all
calmness is that rash, headlong jumping on the bandwagon to join
the latest things which is mushrooming everywhere: that manner of
gluing oneself to the immediacy of the foreground which now sud-
denly takes each and every thing "politically" without bearing in
mind that that can only remain one path of the first revolution.
Admittedly, it has become, and can be for many, one path of first
awakening-granted that we are resolved to prepare ourselves for a
second, deeper one. (H / B, 60)
It is clear, then, that Heidegger was reading the first "political" revolu-
tion from the anticipated occurrence of a second, more profound one,
whose task was a new appropriation of being itself. The confrontation

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between the Dasein of a people and being would thus be the precondi-
tion for genuine participation and action. Only if the first revolution
leads to the second will the actions of the first become justified. No won-
der Heidegger says in one ofhis political speeches (November 11,1933)
that "[tJhe National Socialist revolution is not simply the takeover ofthe
existing power of the state by another party which has emerged for that
purpose; rather, this revolution brings the complete upheaval of our
German Dasein" (NH, 150). This does not mean that had the Nazis
talked "being" instead of "race," Heidegger would have found their
actionsjustified. IfNazism had truly taken up Heidegger's movement of
questioning, it would have had to give up its own racial and biological
foundations and thus lose the basis of its identity.
But why did Heidegger even see the possibility of a second revolu-
tion emerging from the first political one? Because, for hirn, the essence
ofthe National Socialist movement involved a break with modern sub-
jectivity. Heidegger confirmed this much later in "A Dialogue on
Language," although without mentioning National Socialism directly:
Inquirer: To experience in this sense always means to refer back-
to refer life and lived experience back to the "1." Exper-
ience is the name of the referral of the objective back to
the subject....
Japanese: And this sphere of subjectivity and of the expression
that belongs to it is what you left behind when you
entered into the hermeneutic relation ofthe two-fold.
Inquirer: At least I tried. The guiding notions which, under the
names 'expression', 'experience', and 'consciousness',
determine modern thinking, were to be put in question
with respect to the decisive role they played. 17
As early as 1925, in History of the Concept of Time, Heidegger noted
that words such as 'experience' and 'lived experience' which had perme-
ated the language before the Great War were now losing their coinage:
"the word experience (Erlebnis) has nowadays lost its preeminence;
there is even a reluctance to use it at all. Nowadays we talk in its stead
of the 'questionability of existence' and 'decision'."18 At that time,
though, Heidegger was not convinced a change in existence was taking
place with the change in language.
By 1929-30, however, it is clear Heidegger was convinced:
It is not because of capriciousness or eccentricity in philosophy that
we today no longer speak of lived experiences, conscious experiences,
and consciousness, but rather we are compelled to another language
because of a change in existence. More precisely, this change occurs
with this other language. 19

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What Heidegger was referring to was the fact that a new language-a
language of rupture and upheaval (Ausbruch, Aufbruch), displacement
(Versetzung) and flow {Strömmung)-was gaining prominence and indi-
cated a severance from modern subjectivity whose apXrl was located in
the self-certainty of the cogito's logical representations, thus, a sever-
ance from subjectivity as lntoKE1J,1EVov. This break with the tradition,
involved, for Heidegger, a break with the whole of metaphysics. As
Heidegger stated before 1933:
The first matter of urgency is the entry into the overcoming of
metaphysics whose completion must be experienced beforehand-
but the latter [the completionJ as what now and above all "iS."20
How then did Heidegger propose to move from the first political rev-
olution which challenged the crumbling apXrl of rational subjectivity to
the second, which, as a confrontation with being itself, would subvert
the ousiological moorings of all political philosophies, including National
Socialism? Pöggeler says that the kind of breakthrough (Durchbruch)
Heidegger had in mind-like the ones van Gogh and Hölderlin achieved
in art-"cannot be brought about by state-regulated cultural politics or
by the vote of a 'democratized' art society."21 Undoubtedly, Heidegger
sought to use political means, but he was weIl aware that those means
alone would not bring about the second revolution.
He knew very weIl, for example, that if the second revolution were to
bring about a transformation ofhuman being, a change in language, as
weIl as a change in action (work), would have to occur to make possible
the transition from the first. It is precisely this consideration of lan-
guage as a condition ofthought and action which Pöggeler overlooks-a
condition which cannot be dictated or voted into existence, a condition
which goes beyond politics in the way it has been traditionally defined.
More specifically, Pöggeler overlooks the linguistic strategy Heidegger
developed, intending to displace Nazi terminology away from its ideo-
logical context and redirect it into a movement of questioning itself
(PLP, 226-233). Indeed, Pöggeler actually reverses the way in which
Heidegger inserted himself into the political revolution.
In his latest essay, '"Praktische Philosophie' als Antwort an Heidegger,"
Pöggeler states that "already by 1934-35, he [HeideggerJ no longer
grasped the being-at-work of truth from the political task of shaping a
nation, but solely from the direction of the AOyOc;, of language and the
work of art."22 This statement falsely suggests that Heidegger-because
he failed in his political engagement-withdrew for the arena of politics
in 1934 and retreated into the question of language, poetry, and the
work of art. It incorrectly implies that (I) the AOyOc;, of language,
Hölderlin, and art did not playa significant role in Heidegger's political

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activities and that (2) Heidegger's emphasis on them in 1934-35 is due

to his disengagement from politics and his return to the more abstract
problems of his philosophical thought.
On the contrary, the essay "The Origin of the Work of Art," as
Heidegger indicates in a letter to Blochmann in 1935, originated in
1931 and 1932 (H/B, 87) Thus, he was already investigating how art
sets truth to work before 1933 and no doubt had this in mind in rela-
tion to his political activities. Moreover, Heidegger had already set
poetry on a par with originary philosophy as early as 1931-32: ''What is
essential in the diseovery of the real did not and does not oeeur through
the scienees, but rather through originary philosophy and through
great poetry and its projections (Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare,
Goethe)" (GA34, 64).
Furthermore, Heidegger's breakthrough in 1929-30 beyond funda-
mental ontology to the truth ofbeing opens the way for the comprehen-
sion of a pre-Iogical AOyOc;. capable of corresponding to the event of pres-
encing. This pre-Iogical AOyOc;. is one of the key elements in the transi-
tion to the second revolution. Heidegger thought he eould translate the
kinetics ofthe eruption (theAufbruch ofthe radieal conservatives such
as Jünger, Freyer, and Moeller van der Bruck, the anti-rationalism of
the "new thinking"23 and various forms of Nietzsehean vitalism) away
from modem subjectivity into the movement of questioning aimed at
recovering the originary event of presencing as the unthought source of
Western thought and politics.
Egon Vietta pereeived this aspect of Heidegger's revolutionary intent
quite elearly in 1931 in his article "Martin Heidegger und die Situation
der Jugend."24 What is remarkable about this rather neglected essay is
that it anticipates-prior to Heidegger's own political involvement-the
crucial role Heidegger believed philosophieal questioning had to play
in the politics of revolution, that is, in transforming and transferring
language and action toward another site or location of the political. The
central theme of the article is the opposition between the type of youth
characterized by its political and ideologieal captivity, that is, its
unquestioning "self-certain craving for activity" (SJ, 504) on the one
hand and the movement of Heidegger's questioning on the other. In
fact, Heidegger's thirlking "forms the fundamental antithesis to that
self-certain craving for aetivity..." (SJ, 504). Vietta's purpose is to show
that political action cannot be authentie unless it also displaees itself
into a movement of ever more radieal questioning which subverts all
metaphysieal thirlking whose representations are grounded in some
ontic referent in order to reach "...a more original, pre-Iogical 'openness
of beings', [whichJ logic presupposes..." (SJ, 507). The movement of ques-
tioning thus clears a path for "an extra-Iogical diselosure of our existence"

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(SJ, 507-508). Only when ontic referents have been removed which block
Dasein's access to its own way of being and to presencing itself can the
second revolution take place.
Heidegger's entry into politics is aimed precisely at working inside
the reform of the universities in order to effect a trans-Iation toward a
pre-Iogical AOyOc;. as a new site for the political. But for what purpose?
As Heidegger said in his letter to Blochmann, noted above, it was "to
find the vocation of the Germans in the history of the West...." In his
Rectorial Address, Heidegger said that, "[tJhe beginning [the event of
presencing which gave rise to Greek philosophy and Western scienceJ
has invaded our future."25 Granted that the originary origin leaps over
all that is to come, that is, the history of metaphysics, how did the
beginning get lodged in the future of the Germans and what language
would provide access to it?
Eugene Rosenstock had already made a move in this direction in his
work Die Europäischen Revolutionen (1931).26 He not only recognized
that every revolution has its own syntax and language which appears as
a rupture in meaning (Sinnbruch) with the old (ER, 23), but also that:
...a coup d'etat [alone] does not have the capacity of reshaping the
character of a people only-a period of suffering [does] in which all
contemporaries get a higher education. It is the total, patriotic con-
version [vaterländische Umkehr] of which Hölderlin speaks, a con-
version [or overtuming] which threatens the very sanity of a people.
(ER, 21)

Heidegger agreed with Rosenstock on these points about language and

revolution. But if, as Heidegger claimed in many of his political speeches,
the political revolution was going to lead to a second revolution wherein
"the entire way of representing and thirlking which has existed until
now..." (NH, 200) was going to change, what new syntax and language
would be used to approach the Anfang (the event of presencing) which
beckoned from the German future? It can only be the language of
Hölderlin, who in his comments on Antigone said the following:
[The] course of events in Antigone is that of arebellion where, to the
extent that it is a patriotic cause, it is important that everything
senses itself as being seized (ergriffen) by infinite reversal (Umkehr),
and being deeply affected (erschüttert), senses itself in an infinite
form within which it is affected. For patriotic revers al (väterlandische
Umkehr) is the reversal ofall modes and forms ofrepresentation. 27
According to Pöggeler, Heidegger claimed in a still unpublished
manuscript that Hölderlin became a destiny for him in 1929-30 (Path, 176).
But why Hölderlin? Only Hölderlin had immersed hirnself so intimately in
Greek poetry and thöught; only Hölderlin had tried to transpose the
Greek of Pindar and Sophocles directly into the German language and

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arrived at a new syntax and poetie language in his late poetry, only
Hölderlin had performed a "poetie step baek" that paralIeIs the movement
of Heidegger's questioning, and only Hölderlin had given himself over
eompletely to the task of trying to eompose the essenee of a future
Germany into poetry (PLP, 210-214).
It is important to remember that .the seeond revolution was to be that
revolutionary dialogue between thought and poetry in which the voca-
tion of the Germans would be established anew in relation to the event
of presencing. Just as the Greek people ''began to create through its
great poets and thinkers a unique and new form of the historical exis-
tenee of man..." (Farias, 134), so, too, in this other beginning, would the
Germans. It would not be a mere repetition or imitation of the Greeks,
but rather a deeper confrontation with being than the Greek itself. In
this eonfrontation, another site or loeation for thinking and aeting mani-
fests itself-a location from which and in which thinking and aeting are
transformed and are no longer defined by ontic referents and principles.
This has nothing to do with Aryanism as Farias seems to insinuate by
inserting the word 'Aryan' into Heidegger's political speeches where it
does not appear in the original German (Farias, 124, 128).
In my view, only when we understand how the polysemy ofHeidegger's
political speeches was designed to enact in language a transition to the
second revolution, do we get a more aceurate pieture of the nature of his
political involvement. He used language and grammatical constructions in
a unique way by first appropriating a certain range of Nazi terminology
(not the racial, biological terms, but such terms as 'deeision', 'work,' 'strug-
gle', 'revolution', 'leadership') and then redefined their meaning in those
constructions in order to redirect them into the movement of his own
questioning (PLP, 226-233). Heidegger always claimed that philosophy
eould only change things indireetly, and this linguistic strategy was the
indirect way he tried to change the very language in which the political
revolution was taking place.
To ignore the eontext of language and the change in language Heidegger
saw taking place, is to ignore the context of involuntarism in which
Heidegger's political engagement oceurs. Turning to the voluntaristie
side first, the strain of voluntarism whieh still appears in Heidegger's
second period of the thirties consists in the possibility that a eollectivity
(a people) could will the breakthrough out of the grip of representation
toward the event of presencing and thereby receive its destiny (its own
possibilities for existing as a people) (HBA, 15-16, 245). The involun-
tarism eonsists in the transformations of presencing over which human
beings have no control. The possibility of a voluntaristic turn became a
real possibility for Heidegger in the early thirties beeause of the under-
lying changes he (and others) perceived taking place in language and in

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action. Hans Zehrer, editor of Die Tat, is only one example of many
who misread the "revolution" along these lines:
The ice was broken when the old powers, the ones of the Weimar
system, at last started to abdicate. All the minds suddenly seemed
to have overcome the vagueness of jargon and began to communi-
cate in a new way. Suddenly, the old and meaningless concepts dis-
appeared, the crazy categories ofLeft and Right.... 28
For Heidegger, the voluntaristic turn toward the event ofpresencing
would shatter against it and, in the shattering, the very voluntarism
which got it there in the first pIace would be destroyed. In effect, it
would be the final act of the metaphysics of the will prior to its trans-
formation in the experience of being. Hence, Heidegger's emphasis on
the will and his support of Hitler as aleader belong to the voluntaristic
effort to overcome voluntarism.
Thus, it was not by traditional political means alone that Heidegger
tried to engage the political upheaval and guide it to a second revolu-
tion. He did use political means, but in such a way as to subvert the
basic philosophical assumption of ideology itself. His linguistic strategy
sought to disengage the language of the revolution from its traditional
political and ideological bindings and displace it into the movement of
questioning. The fact that Heidegger thought an indirect strategy would
be effective is evident in one of his letters to Elisabeth Blochmann
(December 20, 1931), where he says, "[t]his semester, I again had the
experience which always disturbs me that what is said indirectly is
what strikes horne with the greatest certainty" (H / B, 46).29
It is no coincidence that one finds the significance of questioning
emphasized alongside the claim that German Dasein is undergoing a
radical change in almost all of Heidegger's political speeches (NH, 135,
150, 180, 197, 200). In fact, the movement of questioning itself was for
Heidegger to become the essence of a people's historical existence. From
here, it is but a stone's throw to Hölderlin, who has composed the
essence ofthe flowing movement ofGermany's native rivers into poetry.
In terms of movement, the transformation begins with Freyer's,
Jünger's, or Nietzsche's pure flux or process of becoming (Werden) and
turns outward away from modern subjectivity and its anthropology into
the historical hermeneutic movement of questioning as the phenomenol-
ogy of the history of clArl8Eta (that is, the history of the economies of
presence, to use Schürmann's terminology). In engaging the originary
source of the tradition, it would then turn into the dialogue of dichten,
denken, and staatsschöpfen (creating astate) which would constitute the
heart ofthe second revolution. 30
Heidegger confirms the use of his linguistic strategy later in the
Beiträge zur Philosophie,31 where he discusses the inherent difficulty of

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using words in a "pre-revolutionary" context, that is, in a context which

is still metaphysical and ideologieal:
[This difficulty] stipulates a procedure which, within certain limits,
at first always meets ordinary thinking halfway and accompanies it
für a certain distance in order to require at the right moment a sud-
den turn in that thinking, but under the power of the same word.
For example, 'decision' (Entscheidung) can and should at first be
used to signify an "act" of man, if not morally then at least in the
sense of accomplishment until it suddenly means the essence of
being. This does not mean that man is understood "anthropologi-
cally," but quite the reverse: that man is placed back into the
essence of being and the shackles of "anthropology" are torn away.
(GA65, 83-84)

This is apreeise description of the way Heidegger wanted his language

to work in the political context.
The courses that Heidegger gave after his withdrawal from politics-
on logic in the summer of 1934 and on Hölderlin during Winter Semester
of1934-35-do not constitute a retreat from bis political position. On the
contrary, they intensify that position in the sense that they elaborate and
justify what he tried to do during his political engagement. For example,
only in his .first Hölderlin course, does it become clear how important
language was in the transition to the second revolution:
[LanguageJ itself has this character of being which it discloses and
conveys to man. In language as such occurs the con-front-ation
(Aus-ein-ander-setzung) of being and non-being, the coming-forth-
over-against-üne-another of powers and the standing firm and suc-
cumbing in this struggle.... (GA39, 66)
In fact, "language as such constitutes the originary essence of the his-
torical being ofman" (GA39, 67).
Even Schürmann, among the best commentators on Heidegger, mis-
places the importance of language by restricting it to the later
Heidegger: "the primacy of language in the manifestation of being was
enunciated expressly only in the later writings" (HBA, 84). Although he
sees the importance of language in relation to the transition beyond
the closure of metaphysics to anarchie action, Schürmann does not
apply it retrospectively to Heidegger's linguistic strategy of1933.
In his first Hölderlin course, Heidegger not only teIls us how impor-
tant language is, but he also teIls us the purpose of that linguistic strat-
egy. In the course, he laments the fact that the concept of language as
expression has become so deeply entrenched-so much so that it seems
almost hopeless as to how one could bring about "an essential change in
the experience of the essence of language in the historical Dasein of a
people..." (GA39, 64). Nonetheless, Heidegger continues, "this has to

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occur if there is ever going to be a change brought about in Dasein back

to the primordial regions of being" (Ibid.).
What the content ofthis course shows is that at the time it was given,
Heidegger clearly rejected the political revolution. But he had always
rejected it as an ideological change alone. What attracted Heidegger
about the Aufbruch and its movement was its fissuring quality, which
seemed to defy ideological fIXity. By 1934, however, the "revolution" was
so ideologically fixed and grounded that Heidegger no longer saw any
possibility for a transition to a second revolution: "the possibility of a
great convulsion ofthe historical Dasein of a people has vanished" (GA39,
99). On the other hand, Heidegger never gave up the concept of a second
revolution, of a complete and radical change in thinking beyond the clo-
sure of metaphysics, of a transformation of human being, and, indeed, of
complete change in the concept ofhuman action.
It is precisely this radicality that Pöggeler finds so abhorrent and
dangerous-a "radicality empty of reality," as he says, which can be
bent willy nilly to any political purpose (HpS, 54). But does Heidegger's
thinking dissociate being from acting in such a way that no middle
term or practical philosophy can be constructed to bridge them? Or is
the strength of Heidegger's thought located exactly in that radicality
which is anathema to Pöggeler? Perhaps it is only by thirlking through
the radicality of Heidegger's final period, as Schürmann has done, that
one can reach the transformed sense of action which is no longer ruled
by principles grounded in ontic referents.
In order to evaluate Pöggeler's criticism, it is important to see that it
applies not only to Heidegger's second period, hut also to his third.
Pöggeler does concede that Heidegger tried to rethink his approach after
1945: Heidegger made the claim that his thinking had taken a turn
from what had once preoccupied him in what Pöggeler calls his Freiburg
National Socialism (HpS, 49). Pöggeler even agrees that Heidegger no
longer talked about one way of philosophizing, but about a plurality of
ways (Ibid.). Nevertheless, Pöggeler believes that Heidegger failed in his
last period for the same reasons his earlier attempts failed, that is,
because of the one-sidedness, radicality, and abstractness of his way of
philosophizing.
According to Pöggeler, Heidegger dissociates being from action even
more radically in his third period than he did in his second. Pöggeler
also believes that Heidegger reintroduces the same point of departure
in his later works which had enabled Heidegger in 1933 to place him-
selfin the proximity ofNational Socialism (HpS, 49).
I would argue, however, that Pöggeler does not have an adequate
understanding of Heidegger's third period; in particular, Pöggeler does
not see how the third period departs radically from the second. Pöggeler's

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use of Beiträge zur Philosophie (1936-38) as Heidegger's major philo-

sophical work and thus as fully representative of his third period
stretches the significance of the work out of proportion. No doubt the
Beiträge is a major work, but nevertheless a transitional one from
Heidegger's second period to his third period, which emphasizes
Ereignis or the event of appropriation.
Pöggeler's own description ofthe work is telling: "they [the Beiträge]
seek to experience the truth ofbeing as Ereignis..." (HpS, 42). Precisely!
The work still addresses Ereignis from the direction of the truth of
being and not Ereignis as such. If the Beiträge were representative of
Heidegger's third period, how could Pöggeler talk about Heidegger
turning in an "unexpected direction" (Ibid.) in 1962?
The main point I wish to make here is that when Pöggeler reads
Heidegger politically, he reads the whole of Heidegger in a strictly
prospective manner. 32 Just as earlier commentators have misread
Heidegger's political speeches as grounded in and following from Being
and Time, so too, Pöggeler misreads Heidegger's third period as an
extension of the second, along with its concomitant political dangers.
Heidegger's last period does, indeed, involve a radicality ofthought, but
it is no longer the radicality which believes that the Dasein of a people
can force a breakthrough out of representation to the truth of being or
the Ereignis, for that matter. It is, however, this latter radicality in
particular that Pöggeler reads prospectively into Heidegger's last
periode To do so is to maintain-incorrectly-that: (1) the Dasein of a
people can still break the constraints of representation and break-
through to the truth ofbeing (i.e., the voluntarism is still operative); (2)
Heidegger's thinking is focused primarilyon the relationship between
Dasein and being; and (3) the Ereignis is understood as a unification of
being and Dasein (and thus Ereignis itself as another center, another
identity, another ground).
Indeed, this is precisely what Pöggeler maintains. For example,
Pöggeler asks the following rhetorical question: "Doesn't Heidegger,
when he takes up metaphysics as a problem, orient himself far too one-
sidedly towards identity (which is determined later as Ereignis or the
unification of being and Dasein) at the expense of difference?" (FF, 53).
Here we see Pöggeler not only extending the concept of identity into the
Ereignis, but also misunderstanding Ereignis as a unification of being
and Dasein. Nothing could be farther from the truth. To add injury to
misunderstanding, Pöggeler goes on in the very next sentence to offer a
criticism ofHeidegger based on this misreading: "[b]ut that means that
Heidegger's thinking is shaped precisely by what he wants to overcome
or get over" (Ibid.).
Apparently, Pöggeler is so desperate to keep a center in Heidegger's
third period where none exists, that he makes the following kind of
statements:
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Obviously [!], Heidegger's late thought also falls, in a quite definite

manner, in the same circle which in Being and Time was positively
determined as "hermeneutic" circle. Perhaps what Heidegger calls
the 'clearing' is for thought the speculative center (Mitte), which
can be approached from the different points on the periphery...
which shows itself differently from each point.... (HHL, 72)

This language of center and periphery, however, is precisely what

Heidegger gives up in his third periode Ironically, it is Pöggeler's abhor-
rence of radicality which hinders hirn from taking this last step with
Heidegger beyond the schema of center and periphery. Even as early as
1944-45, Heidegger already emphasized Gelassenheit as a releasement
"from our transcendental relation to the horizon."33
To maintain, as Pöggeler does, that the late Heidegger somehow still
believed in a voluntaristic breakthrough is to negate totally the signifi-
cance of releasement which relinquishes the willing of any transcen-
dental horizon. As Heidegger indicated, it is "a relinquishing ofthe will-
ing of a horizon" (DT, 79-80) and thus of the entire center-periphery
scheme (HBA, 224).
The evidence Pöggeler cites for a sotto voce voluntarism in the late
Heidegger is based on Heidegger's contribution to the Festschrift for
Ernst Jünger (1955).34 What Pöggeler finds so shocking about this work
is that "Heidegger proposed anew that point of departure whereby he
once made hirnself available to Hitler..." (HpS, 54). Pöggler's assumption
is that what still lurks behind Heidegger's talk of deconstructing
Nietzsche's will to power to Heraclitus' 1tOAEJlOs is a voluntarism which
still wants to will the instigation ofthe truth ofbeing.
In the same work, however, Heidegger stresses the fact that it is not
a matter "of wanting to overcome nihilism," because to cross the line, as
Jünger does, is still an act of will and thus still participates in the
"dominance of the will to will" (QB, 103). Nihilism can be overcome,
according to Heidegger, only by entering into its essence, that is, by
taking the step back into the origin of metaphysics (Ibid.). But is this
step back driven by the will to instigate the event of presencing as
Pöggeler suspects? Hardly. What Pöggeler overlooks-or ignores-is
Heidegger's claim that with the entry into the essence of nihilism (the
origin ofmetaphysics), "the desire to overcome breaks down" (QB, 107).
In order to pursue his prospective reading of Heidegger, Pöggeler
must ignore such statements as "man of hirnself has no power over
truth, and it remains independent of hirn" (DT, 84) and "[a]ppropriation
is to be thought in such a way that it can neither be retained as being
nor as time" (TB, 43; HBA, 217-219). Both indicate the anti-humanism of
Heidegger's third period in which the theme is no longer the relation-
ship between being and Dasein, but the event of presencing as such

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which is no longer to be thought as an epochal transformation of being

within the history ofmetaphysics (TB, 52-67). Furthermore, the event of
appropriation is not to be misconstrued as "a more original ground"
(TB, 45) and thus, not as a center or any other form ofidentity.35 Finally,
the claim that the event of appropriation is the unification ofbeing and
Dasein results in the distortion of Ereignis because here "being...disap-
pears as being" (TB, 43) in the event of appropriation and thus is no
longer the true Sache of thought: "Being is no longer what is to be
thought explicitly" (TB, 41).
Moreover, Pöggeler's interpretation ofthe event of appropriation dis-
torts our understanding ofthe fourfold where mortals (not Dasein) are
relegated to one quadrant. As Schürmann has indicated,
The transmutation OfEV into Geviert does more than de-center man:
one would have to speak not even of an eccentric core, but of eccen-
tric cores. This plurification shows that the entire idiom of core,
center, focus, chief, primary is incompatible with the thorough
transmutation of values. (HBA, 224)
That is to say, Pöggeler cannot take the step towards Ereignis because
he cannot relinquish the anthropocentrism which Heidegger subverts
completely in his third periode
Pöggeler might argue that this criticism simply strengthens his case
against Heidegger insofar as the Ereignis includes an even more radi-
cal disassociation from practical action than the truth of being. As he
says of Heidegger's second period (not to mention his third),
....does not the radicality with which Heidegger seeks setting apart
(Auseinandersetzung) and difference (Unterscheidung) unheedingly
push aside what has been built up for centuries: "metaphysics" as
something merely to be overcome or "civility" as something dis-
dained? (HpS, 55)
(Incidently, Pöggeler here contradicts his own earlier criticism of
Heidegger in "Den Führer führen." As we have just seen, Pöggeler says
Heidegger sacrifices difference for the sake of identity; here in
"Heideggers politisches Selbstverständnis" he criticizes Heidegger for his
radical pursuit of difference. Clearly, Pöggeler cannot maintain both).
Actually, Pöggeler's argument concerning dissociation is correct in
the sense that no reconciliation is possible between the epochal forma-
tions of being and the event of appropriation (see HBA, 88). Thus, no
reconciliation is possible between traditional philosophies of praxis and
Heidegger's late thinking. This does not imply, however, that a theory
of action cannot be developed from Heidegger's third periode On the
other hand, this theory of action would necessarily involve a complete
rethinking of practical philosophy towards a "non-principial mode of
presencing" (HBA, 289).

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This is why, I believe, Heidegger refused a dialogue with Pöggeler

and other German hermeneutic philosophers in the early sixties. Had
he done so, he would have been constantly trying to clarify and defend
this non-principial mode of presencing to various philosophers of practi-
cal action. Instead, he turned to the problem of clarifying the event of
appropriation and the modes of thinking and acting that would corre-
spond to it respectively as non-metaphysical and non-principial. True,
he did not explicitly develop a theory of action, but there are sufficient
references to elicit one-as Schürmann has done in his highly original
work, Heidegger on Being and Acting.
Perhaps Heidegger was wise not to devote what time he had left to a
dialogue on political action. When Pöggeler says that "one must in a
positive way also ask about binding by means of socio-political regula-
tions" and that "a philosophy [such as Heidegger'sJ which does not
grasp this problem, but nevertheless intrudes into politics, has a false
idea of its task" (FF, 66), he shows the difficulty he has in understand-
ing the relation between Ereignis and action. To continue to demand
principles for actions is to continue to demand the imposition of meta-
physical firsts, whether they be located in God or in human rationality.
As Schürmann puts it,
The confusion par excellence would be to expect Seinsdenken, think-
ing of being, to provide principles for action the way Aristotelians
sought to derive the principles of moral and institutional theory
from first philosophy, or as philosophers in early modernity divided
general metaphysics into branches of special metaphysics. (HBA,
286-287)

But is this not precisely what Pöggeler and others demand of

Heidegger-those who were disappointed with On the Way to Language
because it did not provide a "guide for philosophizing" in conformity
with "the myriad ways of philosophizing in our time" (Path, xvii)? Were
they not looking to Heidegger to develop a new hermeneutical meta-
physics that would yield a new principle, a new purpose, or a new goal
for a pluralistic practical philosophy?
The stumbling block, however, in applying Heidegger's later thought
to practical philosophy was (and is) accepting the consequences of
deconstructing political action which involves the "practical abolition of
apxrf and of principium..." (HBA, 91). For Pöggeler, this is simply too
radical because action could no longer be legitimated in any traditional
way. Hence, Pöggeler's fear that the same condition of "anomy" which
allowed Heidegger to opt for Hitler in 1933 was still operative in his
later thought. As Pöggeler says, Heidegger had to accept the fact that:

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...human beings, out offear ofthe consequences oftheir actions, must

impose norms for actions. This agreement out of fear can combine
completely with the openness for the new, but it will demand a legiti-
mation for undertaking a risk and not grant freedom of action to
politicians.... (HpS, 56)
Pöggeler's demand for legitimation via norms necessitates a system-
atic reference to some ultimate representation whereby the play of pres-
encing is usurped in order to "stabilize" it into a constant. In other
words, yet another metaphysics would be produced as a ground for legit-
imation. If, however, "openness to the new" means granting the thing an
open field and following the emergence of presencing (HBA, 278-280),
then openness is incompatible with Pöggeler's call for legitimation, just
as the event of appropriation is incompatible with metaphysics.
Pöggeler seems to think that the choice is between either the legiti-
mation of action (traditional practical philosophy) or a lapse into anomy
(the elimination of apxai andprincipia). Since the latter is repugnant to
Pöggeler, the only avenue left is a retreat back into metaphysics. This
choice is a false dilemma; as Schürmann has convincingly shown, the
withering away of epochal principles does imply anarchic action, but not
anomy (HBA, 290): "anarchy means absence of rule, but not the absence
of rules" (HBA, 295).
However, it is not just the fact that Heidegger eliminates principles
and grounds which makes Pöggeler suspect that his late thought
results in anomy. It is the way Pöggeler connects this elimination with
the two other assumptions he makes concerning the relationship
between thinking and acting in Heidegger's work. His first assumption
is that thinking always has priority over acting, and his second is that
acting is reduced to the thinking ofbeing. From these two assumptions,
Pöggeler draws the conclusion that Heidegger either refused or was
unable to grant "the political an authenticity of its own.... "36 This con-
clusion, together with Heidegger's rejection of principles and ultimate
representations, forms the basis of Pöggeler's suspicion of anomy.
On the one hand, Pöggeler is right: Heidegger does not grant political
action its own authenticity ('authenticity' may no longer be the appropri-
ate word here) so long as it is still conceived metaphysically under the
dominance ofprinciples and ultimate representations. A regional ontol-
ogy of the political is no longer possible (HBA, 31 7). On the other hand,
Pöggeler is wrong insofar as both of his assumptions are incorrect.
The originality of Schürmann's work consists both in showing how a
theory of action is indeed latent in Heidegger's later work and in show-
ing that Heidegger does not dissociate being form acting (HBA, 3). In
opposition to Pöggeler's first assumption, Schürmann claims that act-
ing has at times a priority over thinking (HBA, 243). In fact, from Being

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and Time onwards, a "practical modification of existence has priority

over its 'philosophical analysis'..." (HBA, 238). Indeed, a practical imper-
ative or apriori exists in Heidegger's work which precedes thinking
and is a condition for it (HBA, 287). That is, a certain mode of action or
way ofbehaving is necessary for thinking to take place:
...to understand the turn, one must turn oneself about. To under-
stand authentie temporality, one must exist authentieally. [...] To
understand releasement, one must be released. To understand the
primordialleap (Ur-sprung) ..., one must take a leap. (HBA, 236)
Just as thinking is transformed in Heidegger's later work and can no
longer be understood metaphysically, so too, action undergoes a similar
transformation. If action (in the broad sense as Schürmann describes it,
which is no longer opposable to thinking, but akin to it (HBA, 82)) can no
longer be legitimated by referring it to an end or goal prescribed by
some fixed order of congealed presence, how is action to be understood?
To what does acting respond? To contingent, non-principial presencing.
To act beyond the closure of metaphysics means not only to let go of ap-
Xai and principles and leap away from them, but also "'to bring some-
thing [the phenomenal] where it belongs and leave it there'" (HBA, 83).
Action here means "granting the thing an open field" (HBA, 278), let-
ting it be in compliance with the mutations of presencing. The action of
letting go, which releasement requires, not only frees us, but also frees
the thing from ultimate representations and commits us to the mutabil-
ity ofpresencing beyond epochal principles (HBA, 278-280).37
This mode of action, however, is not "reduced" to thinking in the
sense that it somehow loses itself and becomes thinking (Denken).
Rather, itjoins with thinking in a transformed sense beyond the closure
ofmetaphysics as a living which is the condition for thinking (HBA, 237-
238). Both mutually condition and imply each other in response to the
fluctuations of anarchic and non-principial presencing. It is in this sense
that Heidegger does not dissociate being from acting.
Furthermore, this action is not a reenactment ofthe Greek 0J.l0AeyEtV,
which lays out what the AeyEtV of the AOy0c:. (non-human) has already
laid out. The <l>UEtV (the arising and coming forth) of the Greek AOy0c:. is
not identical to the Ereignis as the event of appropriation. The Greek
<l>ucrtc:. as the fire ofheaven (to use Hölderlinian language for amoment)
occurs under the condition of the self-withdrawal and concealment of
the event of presencing itself. This condition is lifted with the event of
appropriation. Thus, the action that responds to the Ereignis can no
longer be thought of as a 0J.l0AEYEtV. To put it another way, what
Hölderlin calls the "clarity of presentation" is that attempt to find a
mode of articulation which is no longer dependent upon the Greek. As

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the poet says in his letter to Böhlendorff prior to his departure for
France: "Hence, it is also so dangerous to deduce the rules of art exclu-
sively from Greek excellence" (Hölderlin, 150).
Pöggeler's misreading of Heidegger's third period also manifests
itself in his criticism of the way Heidegger interprets Hölderlin's
poetry. As early as 1972, Pöggeler claims that Heidegger misconstrued
or disregarded the basic task Hölderlin set forth for the development of
his own poetry and thought: what was native or inborn to the modern
poet (the clarity ofpresentation) had to be learnedjust as weIl as what
was foreign to hirn (the Greek fire of heaven) (Hölderlin, 149-150).
Pöggeler implies that Heidegger's singular preoccupation with the
question of being (the fire of heaven) prevented hirn from learning the
other aspect, that is, the clarity of presentation (PPH, 104). In other
words, when Heidegger, especially in his last period, thinks being with-
out regard to beings, he violates Hölderlin's own dictum. Thus,
Heidegger supposedly shuns the clarity of presentation (and represen-
tation) with respect to entities in favor of a thinking concerned solely
with being itself (the fire of heaven). In 1985, Pöggeler reiterated this
criticism in a footnote to "Den Führer führen?":
Heidegger misconstrues Hölderlin's basic intention that the learn-
ing of what is handed down, [that is] the precision and sobriety [of
presentation], is the most difficult and, therewith, the specific task
which needs to be addressed. (FF, 5InII)

This means that by refusing to return to the realm of the empirical,

Heidegger absolved hirnself of the responsibility of learning the clarity of
presentation. Thus, he did not even live up to the prescriptions of his
own beloved Hölderlin. Clearly, this is not the case. On the contrary,
Hölderlin's letter emphasized the free use ofwhat is one's own (the clar-
ity of presentation). This means that what is native or inborn to the
modern poet must be {reed {rom the way the Greeks appropriated and
used it to protect themselves from the fire ofheaven.
The purpose of Heidegger's deconstruction of Western presentation
and representation back to the VOEtV-Al:YEtV of the Presocratics is to
describe how VOEtv-Al:yEtV are responses to the originary event of pres-
encing which the Greeks themselves did not think explicitly. The
deconstruction or step back to the event of presencing already involves
the freeing of the clarity of presentation {rom ousiological, principial,
and logical domination to the event whereby presence and absence are
differentiated and enjoined. As I stated above, the clarity of presenta-
tion cannot be and is not merely a reenactment of the Greek OJlOAl:yEtv.
In the same way, the Greek fire of heaven is transformed in Hölderlin's
"poetic step back" into the holy (the openness) via Pindar, Homer, and

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Sophocles. As Heidegger says in "Wie Wenn am Feiertage... ," what

Hölderlin poetizes in the word 'nature' is something other than <l>ucrtt::
although it has a hidden relation to it. 38
The difference between metaphysical clarity of presentation and the
clarity of presentation released from ultimate representations is that
the latter not only submits to and is guided by the fluctuations of pres-
encing, but also it no longer eliminates absence and concealment from
its presentations. With the event of appropriation, withdrawal shows
itself as such and, consequently, the sendings of reified constant pres-
ence cease. In other words, entities in terms oftheir arrival in presence
no longer attempt to usurp the play of presencing by insisting on per-
manence (HBA, 248-249).
The whole import of Heidegger's commentary on Hölderlin's poem,
"Andenken," is to show how the originary andenken of the poet "fastens"
itselfto the originating ofthe origin not as grounded to ground, but as a
poetic thinking whose essence is constituted by the movement ofthe ori-
gin's withdrawing. 'Constituted' here means that the directionality of
the poetic thinking, as weIl as the way it participates in presencing and
absencing, is determined by the way the event of presencing "gives to
present entities their share of presence and to absent entities their
share of absence" (HBA, 221). There is nothing here, or in Hölderlin's let-
ter, ofhumanism, classicism, or romanticism (GA39, 293).
Just as Pöggeler misunderstands the Ereignis as a union ofbeing and
Dasein, so too, he misreads Heidegger's commentaries on Hölderlin.
According to Pöggeler, Heidegger disregards the real danger which
threatens the poet: "the immediate proximity of the divine [the fire of
heaven] in the way it is sought in eruptions and revolutionary changes"
(HpS, 55). Again, this is simply not the case. For example, Heidegger's
commentary on one ofthe cruciallines ofHölderlin's poem, "Andenken,"
emphasizes the fact that the poet must not become one with the fire.
The poet's call for a "fragrant cupful/of dark light," according to
Heidegger, "does not deny the clarity [of the fire], but does indeed deny
the over-abundance of brilliance..." (EHD, 119). Just as the Ereignis is
not the union of being and Dasein, so too, the poet's task is not to
become one with the fire. The desire for such a union would indeed be
the desire for total and complete clarity, for total and complete presence,
and for total and complete intelligibility. It would be a denial offinitude,
absence, and concealment. In short, what Pöggeler is suggesting is that
Heidegger believed in something which completely negates the whole of
his own thought.

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NOTES

1. Otto Pöggeler, Der Denkweg Martin Heideggers (Pfullingen: Neske, 1963);

Martin Heidegger's Path ofThinking, trans. D. Magurshak and S. Barber
(Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1987 (reprint,
1989)). Henceforth, cited as Path with English page reference.
2. Otto Pöggeler, Philosophie und Politik bei Heidegger (Freiburg/Munich:
Alber, 1972). Henceforth, cited as PPH with page reference.
3. Martin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. R. Manheim
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), p. 199. In relation to this con-
troversy, see also G. Neske, ed., Erinnerungen an Martin Heidegger
(Pfullingen: Neske, 1977), p. 49f., and Thomas Sheehan, "Heidegger and
the Nazis," New York Review ofBooks 35, No 10 (June 16, 1988), pp. 42-43.
4. Otto Pöggeler, "Heideggers politisches Selbstverständnis," A. Gethmann-
Siefert and O. Pöggeler, eds., Heidegger und die praktische Philosophie
(Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1988). Henceforth, cited as HpS with page reference.
5. Victor Farias, Heidegger and Nazism, J. Margolis and T. Rockmore, eds.;
French trans. P. Burrell with D. Di Bernardi; German trans. G. R. Ricci
(Philadephia: Temple University Press, 1989), p. 4. Henceforth, cited as
Fartas with page reference.
6. Martin Heidegger-Elisabeth Blochmann, Briefwechsel 1918-1969, J. W.
Storck, ed. (Marbach: Deutsche Literaturarchiv, 1989), p. 54. Henceforth,
cited as H / B with page reference.
7. Reiner Schürmann, Heidegger on Being and Acting: From Principles to
Anarchy, trans. C.-M. Gross (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987),
p. 50; henceforth, cited as HBA with page reference. See also my essay,
"Philosophy, Language, and Politics: Heidegger's Attempt to Steal the
Language ofthe Revolution in 1933-34," Social Research 57 (Spring 1990),
pp. 197-238; henceforth cited as PLP with page reference.
8. Letter to Frank Edler from Hermann Heidegger:
3 August 1989
Dear Mr. Edler,
The many special publications observing the centennial of my
father's birth (I edited three myself and six others needed my
"approval") postponed any response to your letter of July 25, 1988.
PIease understand the reason for this delay.
Unfortunately, I cannot give your questions any definitive answers.
My father was acquainted with Hölderlin from the time of bis youth.
When my father went to the Front in 1918, he carried a small volume
of Hölderlin's poetry with hirn. Zinkernagel's edition of Hölderlin's
works was given to him by my mother. He obtained Hellingrath's edi-
tion after it appeared. I cannot say for sure whether he read any of
Wilhelm Michel's essays, but do not rule it out.
Since I have not researched my father's relationsbip with Baeumler,
I have no clear opinion on the matter. However, I can say that they,

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coming from different philosophical positions, did meet in 1933 on

numerous (?) occasions-at least twice to my knowledge. I still remem-
her one of Baeumler's visits to the hut in Todtnauberg, around June
1933. I know that they very quickly defended sharply opposing views
which dealt with philosophy as weIl as National Socialism.
Basically, my father was an unpolitical man. In the Reichstag elec-
tions of 1932, he still voted for the small insignificant party of
Württemberg winegrowers. Swept along by the national mood ofrevo-
lution, he erred in bis judgement of National Socialism in 1933. He
realized this around the turn of 1933/34 and accordingly resigned as
rector at the end of Winter Semester-in a protest occasioned by a
directive to recall the deans he himself appointed, namely, von
Moellendorff(SPD) and Erik Wolf.
With best wishes for your work and friendly greetings,
Yours, HH
[I would like to thank Hermann Heidegger for kindly allowing me
to translate this letter and include it in this essay.]
9. Reiner Schürmann, "Political Thinking in Heidegger," Social Research 45
(Spring 1978), pp. 191-221. Henceforth, cited as PTH with page reference.
10. The ellipsis after the word 'poetize' does not appear in the English transla-
tion. I have inserted it as it appears in the German edition of Der Denkweg
(1983) because it makes an immense difference in the tone ofthe sentence.
11. Otto Pöggeler, "Heidegger's Topology of Being," J. Kockelmans, ed., On
Heidegger and Language (Evanston: Northwestern University Press,
1972), p. 134. Henceforth, cited as HTB with page reference.
12. Otto Pöggeler, "'Historicity' in Heidegger's Late Work," trans. J. N.
Mohanty, R. W. Shahan and J. N. Mohanty, eds., Thinking About Being:
Aspects of Heidegger's Thought (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,
1984), p. 59. Henceforth, cited as HHL with page reference.
13. HTB, p. 142. This remark by Pöggeler is part of the discussion that fol-
lows the work just mentioned.
14. Martin Heidegger, Zur Sache des Denkens (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1976), p.
2; On Time and Being, trans. J. Stambaugh (New York: Harper & Row,
1972), p. 2. Henceforth, cited as TB with English page reference. It is also
important to note that Pöggeler argues vehemently against Heidegger's
claim that being shows itself in manifold ways in the various uses of 'is'
(see PPH, pp. 96-99 and HTB, pp. 130-135).
15. Erinnerungen an Martin Heidegger, p. 192.
16. Guido Schneeberger, ed., Nachlese zu Heidegger: Dokumente zu seinen Leben
und Denken (Bern, 1962), pp. 74-75. Henceforth, cited as NH with page ref-
erence. See also letter 46 (H/ B, p. 60) included in the present volume (see
Appendix C).
17. Martin Heidegger, On the Way to Language, trans. P. D. Hertz (New
York: Harper & Row, 1971), pp. 35-36.

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18. Martin Heidegger, Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs, Gesamt-

ausgabe 20 (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1988); History ofthe Concept ofTime:
Prolegomena, trans. T. Kisiel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1985), p. 272. Henceforth, all Gesamtausgabe volumes are cited as GA with
volume number, followed by page reference.
19. Martin Heidegger, Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. Welt-Endlichkeit-
Einsamkeit, Gesamtausgabe 29/30 (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1983), p. 298.
20. Martin Heidegger, Vom Wesen der Wahrheit, Gesamtausgabe 34 (Frankfurt:
Klostermann, 1988), p. 324.
21. Otto Pöggeler, "Den Führer führen? Heidegger und keine Ende," Philo-
sophische Rundschau 32 (1985), pp. 26-67. Henceforth, cited as FF with
page reference.
22. Otto Pöggeler, "'Praktische Philosophie' als Antwort an Heidegger," B.
Martin, ed., Martin Heidegger und das 'Dritte Reich': Ein Kompendium
(Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1989), p. 73. Henceforth,
cited as AH with page reference.
23. Kurt Sontheimer, Antidemokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republick:
Die politischen Ideen des deutschen Nationalismus zwischen 1918 u. 1933
(Munich: Nymphenburger, 1962), pp. 53-58.
24. Egon Vietta, "Martin Heidegger und die Situation der Jugend," Die Neue
Rundschau 42 (October 1931), pp. 501-511. Henceforth, cited as SJ with
page reference.
25. Martin Heidegger, "The Self-Assertion of the German University," trans.
K. Harries, Review ofMetaphysics 38 (March 1985), p. 473.
26. Eugene Rosenstock, Die Europäischen Revolutionen: Volkscharaktere und
Staatenbildung (Jena: Diederichs, 1931). Henceforth, cited as ER with
page reference.
27. Friedrich Hölderlin, Werke und Briefe 2: Der Tot des Empedokles. Aufsätze.
Übersetzungen. Briefe, F. Beissner and J. Schmidt, eds. (Frankfurt: Insel,
1969), p. 789; Friedrich Hölderlin: Essays and Letters on Theory, ed. and
trans. T. Pfau (Albany: SUNY Press, 1988), p. 114. Henceforth, cited as
Hölderlin with English page reference.
28. Quoted in Klemens von Klemperer, Germany's New Conservatism: Its
History and Dilemma in the Twentieth Century (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1957), p.199; see also letter 40 (H/B, p. 55) included in
the present volume (see Appendix C).
29. See letter 32 in the present volume (see Appendix C).
30. Martin Heidegger, Hölderlins Hymnen "Germanien" und "Der Rhein,"
Gesamtausgabe 39 (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1989), p. 51.
31. Martin Heidegger, Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis), Gesamt-
ausgabe 65 (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1980), pp. 83-84.
32. On the prospective reading ofHeidegger's texts, see HBA, pp. 12-21.

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33. Martin Heidegger, Discourse on Thinking, trans. J. M. Anderson and E. H.

Freund (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), p. 73. Henceforth, cited as DT
with page reference.
34. Martin Heidegger, The Question of Being, trans. W. Kluback and J. T.
Wilde (New Haven: College and University Press, 1958). Henceforth, cited
as QB with page reference.
35. Martin Heidegger, The Piety of Thinking, trans. J. G. Hart and J. C.
Maraldo (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976), p. 69.
36. This quotation is taken from the Introduction to Heidegger und die prak-
tische Philosophie, p. 9.
37. Interestingly, Eugene Gendlin also moves in this direction with his notion
of intricacy as a thinking involving more than forms. He does not deny
Heidegger's openness beyond forms, but does criticize hirn for leaving it
"at the outer edge of everything" (Thinking Beyond Patterns, p. 32).
Gendlin claims that the event of appropriation or "philosophical...," as he
calls it, is inherent in the human situation: "it is always here and in
everything" (Ibid.). Heidegger, however, would agree with this: with
Ereignis, things can be thought as things for the first time without the
intercession of dominating representations. Heidegger moves "to the outer
edge of everything" in order to think presencing apart from the tyranny of
form (ground, principles, ultimate representations), but it does not have to
be left there. Nor does Heidegger want it to be left there. Schürmann's
anarchie action and Gendlin's intricacy attempt to respond to the fluctua-
tion of presencing in a non-metaphysical way which avoids the Derridean
premise of constant deference. (The above references are taken from an
unpublished manuscript kindly sent to the author by Eugene Gendlin
(Thinking Beyond Patterns: Body, Language, and Situations, 1989).)
38. Martin Heidegger, Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung (Frankfurt:
Klostermann, 1971 4 ), p. 57. Henceforth, cited as EHD with page reference.

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