Neuzeit, modernité, temps nouveaux, modernidade, modernidad, modern age, modern time, novos tempos

Neuzeit, a somewhat old-fashioned term for “modernity,” literally means “New Age.” Heidegger uses the term to contrast the stage of Western metaphysics that began “three centuries ago” (GA16:677/HR 330) with Greek antiquity and the Middle Ages. Modernity arrives at its completed or consummate form in the age of technology (see, e.g., GA5o:i49). Although he calls it the “nihilistic” (GA5:218/163), “godless” (GA5:76/58) age of “planetary technology” (GA16:668/HR 324; cf. GA90), modernity should not be defined in terms of the political, social, religious, scientific, or technological revolutions that have marked it since the 1600s, but rather by their common, hidden source. The concept of modernity is central to Heidegger’s apocalyptic vision of Western culture in crisis. Complicating attempts to interpret that vision, however, are his idiosyncratic notions of the history of metaphysics and the “essence” of science and technology. This article aims to clarify the relations among these ideas.

For Heidegger, historical epochs are marked by incommensurable interpretations of what it is to be a thing and what it means to be true. This may seem strange: how can there be different views about ideas as basic as “being” and “truth”? Haven’t things always been just things? Didn’t “true” and “false” mean the same for the Greeks or medievals as for us? Heidegger argues that it is just the apparent self-evidence (SZ 2, 4, and passim) of such terms that occludes alternative interpretations, leading us to neglect (GA20:147fr.) or forget (GA5:2 21-22/165-66; SZ 2; cf. SZ 5,169) the “question of (the sense of) being” (SZ 2,215,403)> and so be blind to the inner nature of other historical epochs and our own. Since it is within the undiscerned metaphysical horizon of “being” that modern scientific, religious, political, and other discourses are conducted, it is only by clearly defining it that we can grasp their common modern “essence.” Thus Heidegger unearths archaic conceptions of being and truth, so as to expose the roots of our own conceptions, and their implications for the future of humanity. His admittedly awkward (GA16:671/HR 326) name for this essence is “das Ge-Stell,” the inventory or syn-thetic com-posit(ion)ing. Since Heidegger views the sciences as the clearest manifestation of modernity (GA5:76/58), explicating their presuppositions will clarify the nature of Ge-Stell, and so too the essence of modernity. (CHL)

VIDE: (Neuzeit->http://hyperlexikon.hyperlogos.info/modules/lexikon/search.php?option=1&term=Neuzeit)

N.T.: Na passagem acima, Heidegger vale-se do conteúdo significativo do termo alemão para designar a modernidade: Neuzeit significa literalmente o “novo tempo”. Como esse conteúdo específico ao termo alemão desapareceria na tradução, optamos por inserir a tradução literal antes do termo normalmente utilizado. (Casanova; GA6MAC:763)