Krell (1991:83-85) – Lumen Naturale

[…] Heidegger está bem ciente do peso da tradição, que, como Karl Marx   diz da história em geral, oprime o cérebro dos vivos como um pesadelo. E é quase como se Heidegger pudesse ouvir as declarações de futuros comentadores que não achariam nada mais natural do que identificar o Dasein com o sujeito e o mundo com o objeto. A análise temática do "ser-em" é para despertar o leitor de tal pesadelo, no qual todo o projeto de Ser e Tempo   se afundaria. Heidegger não tem ilusões sobre a dificuldade da sua tarefa. Pois as suas tentativas anteriores de definir o Dasein como "o Ser do ’entre’", e ainda como o fenômeno global, podem muito bem ter despertado o fantasma que ele desejava enterrar. É nesta altura (capítulo 5 de SZ  ) que a palavra "Dasein" começa a aparecer como Dasein, a separação indicando paradoxalmente a inseparabilidade do mundo e do eu, e mesmo do Sein e do Dasein, na revelação.

O modo de falar onticamente figurado que se refere ao lumen naturale no homem não significa outra coisa senão a estrutura existencial-ontológica deste ser; significa que este ser é, pelo fato de ser, o seu Da. Dizer que ele é "iluminado" significa que ele é iluminado em si mesmo como ser-no-mundo, não por meio de outro ser, mas de tal modo que este ser é ele mesmo a clareira. Somente para um ser que é iluminado existencialmente de tal maneira é que as coisas que estão à mão são acessíveis na luz, escondidas na escuridão. O Da acompanha o Dasein do princípio ao fim. Carecer dele não é meramente factual, mas geralmente, não é o seu modo de ser. O Dasein é a sua revelação.

[…]

Lumen naturale é denominação de uma imagem ôntica do Ser do homem. Embora possa servir como evidência para a análise do Ser-em, não pode ser tomado como ontologicamente fundamentado e esclarecido. Porque não é um ser que, como atestado ôntico, possa servir para fundamentar a análise; é antes um dos fardos da nossa tradição - "fardo" entendido aqui tanto no seu sentido musical como no seu sentido mais opressivo.

Although the word Lichtung and its cognates do not appear often in Being and Time  , the matter is omnipresent. What in that treatise are called “existence,” “openness to the world,” “transcendence,” “understanding of Being,” “dis-closedness of Being,” and Da-sein revolve about the theme of clearing. Of the five direct references in Being and Time   to Lichtung or to its terminologically employed cognates four are of central importance. The remaining one can be absorbed into consideration of the four key references, which are located in the following places: first, in section 28, on the thematic analysis of Being-in, especially p. 133 11. 1-10; second, in section 31, on Da-sein as Verstehen, p. 147 11. 1-3; third, in section 36, on curiosity, pp. 170-171 complete; fourth, in section 69, on the temporality of being-in-the-world and the problem of the world’s transcendence, preliminary remark, p. 350 11. 27-37 and p. 351 11. 1-8. (The reference in section 79, p. 408 1. 7, fits easily into the thematic of the prior reference in section 69.)

The first reference. The thematic analysis of Being-in as such in chapter five imposes itself as a task because of the need to synthesize the concrete analyses of “world” (chapter 3) and “the who” (chapter 4) and in order to prepare the way for the designation of the structural whole of the Being of Dasein as care (chapter 6). Is such a synthesis really necessary? Not if we have been careful to prevent “world” from collapsing into the res extensa of categorial interpretation and the “who” of Dasein into the res cogitans of metaphysical subjectivity. Yet Heidegger is well aware of the burden of tradition, which as Karl Marx   says of history in general, oppresses the brain of the living like a nightmare. And it is almost as though Heidegger could hear the utterances of future commentators who would find nothing more natural than to identify Dasein with the subject and world with the object. The thematic analysis of “being-in” is to awaken the reader from such a nightmare, in which the entire project of Being and Time   would founder. Heidegger has no illusions about the difficulty of his task. For his [84] earlier attempts to define Dasein as “the Being of the ‘between’,” and yet as the global phenomenon, may very well have roused the ghost it wished to lay to rest. It is at this point (chapter 5) that the word “Dasein” begins to appear as Dasein, the separation paradoxically indicating the inseparability of world and self, and even of Sein and Dasein, in disclosedness. Heidegger now writes—and here it will be necessary to read the German text:

Die ontisch bildliche Rede vorn lumen naturale im Menschen meint nichts anderes als die existenzial-ontologische Struktur dieses Seienden, dass es ist in der Weise, sein Da zu sein. Es ist “erleuchtet,” besagt: an ihm selbst als In-der-Welt-sein gelichtet, nicht durch ein anderes Seiendes, sondern so, dass es selbst die Lichtung ist. Nur einem existenzial so gelichteten Seienden wird Vorhandenes im Licht zugänglich, im Dunkel verborgen. Das Dasein bringt sein Da von Hause aus mit, seiner entbehrend ist es nicht nur faktisch nicht, sondern überhaupt nicht das Seiende dieses Wesens. Das Dasein ist seine Erschlossenheit. [SZ  , 133]

The ontically figurative turn of speech that refers to the lumen naturale in man means nothing else than the existential-ontological structure of this being; it means that this being is by way of being its Da. To say that it is “illuminated” means that it is lighted in itself as being-in-the-world, not by means of another being, but in such a way that this being itself is the clearing. Only for a being that is lighted existentially in such a way are things that are at hand accessible in the light, concealed in the dark. The Da accompanies Dasein from beginning to end. To lack it is not merely factually, but quite generally, not its way to be. Dasein is its disclosedness.

A few brief observations on this passage may be in order.

Lumen naturale is called an ontic image of man’s Being. While it may serve as evidence for the analysis of Being-in it may not be taken as ontologically grounded and clarified. For it is not a being which, as ontic attestation, can serve to ground the analysis; it is rather one of the burdens of our tradition— “burden” meant here in both its musical and more oppressive senses.

Heidegger nonetheless tries now to make this image (lumen naturale) an icon of the existential-ontological structure of Dasein. The attempt fails, for reasons that will become clear when we arrive at section 36, “Curiosity,” the third reference to Lichtung.

That Heidegger is aware of the problematic nature of this particular burden or image is suggested by several peculiarities in the German text: (a) meint nichts anderes: the word “means” suggests perhaps that, in traditional doctrine at least, [85] lumen naturale actually “says” something quite different; (b) “erleuchtet" appears in quotation marks, the “goose-feet” (Gänsefüsschen) in this case indicating that the illumination in question is not the work of the Paraclete; © nicht durch ein anderes Seiendes: written in defense, meaning “not illuminated by another being which would be characterized as lumen supranaturale, beyond the raptures of Time”; (d) ist and als are emphasized in order to preclude ontic-apophantic interpretation and to make room for an ontological-hermeneutical analysis (see the distinction between the apophantic and hermeneutic “as,” SZ  , section 33).

Note, finally, that although “light” and “dark” are introduced here they are restricted to the context of the disclosure of things at hand; there is a being that is gelichtet in such a way that things are accessible to it in the light—but concealed from it in the dark. Lichtung makes light and dark possible, but, at the same time, unlike a transcendental condition-of-possibility, does not flood the darkness and expunge all concealment. Lichtung seems to be something more— and yet less—than light. To it, at the end of the passage, Heidegger gives the name Erschlossenheit, one of the oddest words in the German language, containing the multivalent prefix Er-. It is one of those fundamental words of which Freud  , following Karl Abel, postulated that they contain their opposite within them and thus are pregnant with opposition.