| [...] Não se pode possuir o sentido da existência, diz Heidegger, de uma "forma teórica , mas sim através da encenação do 'sou', que é um modo de ser que pertence ao ser do 'eu'." Tudo isto mostra "que esta experiência não experimenta o 'eu' como algo localizado numa região, como uma individuação de um 'universal'." E ainda aqui: "O 'eu' deve ser entendido aqui como o eu pleno, concreto e historicamente factual que é acessível a si mesmo na sua experiência historicamente concreta de si mesmo." A historicidade concreta não significa aqui, de modo algum, "o correlato da observação histórica teórica e objetiva; pelo contrário, é tanto o conteúdo como o 'como' da preocupação ansiosa do eu sobre si mesmo". Isto não tem nada a ver com um novo alargamento da "consciência histórica" dominante, entendida como uma coleção de conhecimentos sobre o passado, a utilização prática desta informação e uma crítica das suas relíquias sobreviventes. Não se trata, numa palavra, de Historisches, de historiografia, mas de uma história em progresso que está ativamente em relação com o seu próprio passado. Jaspers, e antes dele a fenomenologia de Husserl, tinham dado à filosofia a tarefa de chegar "às coisas mesmas". Portanto, sem qualquer pressuposto. Já nas primeiras páginas da recensão , Heidegger tinha escrito que "pensar sem pressupostos pretende aqui ser tomado num sentido filosófico e não num sentido especificamente científico. . . . Pode acontecer que mesmo nas direções de investigação em que poderíamos encontrar acesso às próprias coisas da filosofia estejam encobertas para nós, e que o que é assim necessário é um tipo radical de desconstrução e reconstrução, i.e., um confronto genuíno com a história que nós próprios 'somos'". A destruição — ou desconstrução — de algo que se entende no contexto da escrita, onde já não se trata de uma "metafísica" a superar, no sentido do "segundo" Heidegger, mas fala-se antes do fato de os pressupostos objetivos, panorâmicos e estéticos que acabam por se afirmar no livro de Jaspers serem o resultado de uma tradição aceita sem crítica, e nem sequer conscientemente assumida. Devido a esta sujeição à tradição, "não somos capazes de ver os fenômenos da existência atual de uma forma autêntica, já não experimentamos o sentido da consciência e da responsabilidade que reside no próprio histórico (o histórico não é apenas algo de que temos conhecimento e sobre o qual escrevemos livros; antes, nós próprios o somos e o temos como tarefa)." | [...] Não se pode possuir o sentido da existência, diz Heidegger, de uma "forma teórica , mas sim através da encenação do 'sou', que é um modo de ser que pertence ao ser do 'eu'." Tudo isto mostra "que esta experiência não experimenta o 'eu' como algo localizado numa região, como uma individuação de um 'universal'." E ainda aqui: "O 'eu' deve ser entendido aqui como o eu pleno, concreto e historicamente factual que é acessível a si mesmo na sua experiência historicamente concreta de si mesmo." A historicidade concreta não significa aqui, de modo algum, "o correlato da observação histórica teórica e objetiva; pelo contrário, é tanto o conteúdo como o 'como' da preocupação ansiosa do eu sobre si mesmo". Isto não tem nada a ver com um novo alargamento da "consciência histórica" dominante, entendida como uma coleção de conhecimentos sobre o passado, a utilização prática desta informação e uma crítica das suas relíquias sobreviventes. Não se trata, numa palavra, de Historisches, de historiografia, mas de uma história em progresso que está ativamente em relação com o seu próprio passado. Jaspers, e antes dele a fenomenologia de Husserl, tinham dado à filosofia a tarefa de chegar "às coisas mesmas". Portanto, sem qualquer pressuposto. Já nas primeiras páginas da recensão , Heidegger tinha escrito que "pensar sem pressupostos pretende aqui ser tomado num sentido filosófico e não num sentido especificamente científico. . . . Pode acontecer que mesmo nas direções de investigação em que poderíamos encontrar acesso às próprias coisas da filosofia estejam encobertas para nós, e que o que é assim necessário é um tipo radical de desconstrução e reconstrução, i.e., um confronto genuíno com a história que nós próprios 'somos'". A destruição — ou desconstrução — de algo que se entende no contexto da escrita, onde já não se trata de uma "metafísica" a superar, no sentido do "segundo" Heidegger, mas fala-se antes do fato de os pressupostos objetivos, panorâmicos e estéticos que acabam por se afirmar no livro de Jaspers serem o resultado de uma tradição aceita sem crítica, e nem sequer conscientemente assumida. Devido a esta sujeição à tradição, "não somos capazes de ver os fenômenos da existência atual de uma forma autêntica, já não experimentamos o sentido da consciência e da responsabilidade que reside no próprio histórico (o histórico não é apenas algo de que temos conhecimento e sobre o qual escrevemos livros; antes, nós próprios o somos e o temos como tarefa)." |
| In the new and definitive edition of Wegmarken (published for the first time in 1967), which he prepared shortly before his death (in 1976) and which was destined for the Gesamtausgabe,[^It makes up volume 9, edited by F. W. von Herrmann.] Heidegger wanted to include, beyond the lecture on “Phenomenology and Theology,” even the long, unedited review of Psychologie der Weltanschauungen by Karl Jaspers (from 1919) that he wrote between 1919 and 1921. Without even exaggerating the “testamentary” significance of such a decision, the importance of this writing for understanding the formation of Heideggerian thought cannot be lost on anyone. For what interests us here—the analysis of existence and consciousness as the circle of fore-understanding and interpretation—the discussion of Jaspers’s text is revealing. Jaspers, Heidegger recalls, wanted to study the Psychologie der Weltanschauungen in order to understand “what the human being is,”[^In Martin Heidegger, Pathmarks, ed. W. McNeill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 1, where he cites Jaspers.] namely, in order to construct a general psychology able to trace out the horizon of the psyche in its totality. In the preface, Jaspers also wrote that by doing this he wanted to provide “clarifications and possibilities which can serve as means to our self-reflection (in our worldviews).”[^Here too is a literal citation from Jaspers: ibid., 2.] This latter intention, Heidegger says, is the “properly philosophical” one. Naturally, it does not assume that Jaspers judges the worldviews that he studies on the basis of an assumed systematic conception such as the “truth”; nevertheless, what he himself says about his own intention allows us to ask if he would “return radically to the original genetic motivations in this history” by verifying “whether these ideals satisfy the fundamental sense of philosophizing” or whether they have “never been appropriated in an original manner.”[^Ibid., 3.] In the pages that follow, Heidegger introduced the expression faktische Lebenserfahrung (factical life experience), which one finds at the center of his 1920–21 lecture course Introduction to the Phenomenology of Religious Life.[^Martin Heidegger, The Phenomenology of Religious Life, trans. M. Fritisch and J. A. Gossetti-Ferencei (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), 7.] The “properly philosophical” intent of Jaspers, that of putting into play the Weltanschauung itself, is not, according to Heidegger, realized in the work. Jaspers ends by forgetting it, dedicating himself instead to a panoramic, objectifying, and definitively “aesthetic” presentation,[^Heidegger, Pathmarks, 20.] of the various types of Weltanschauung. This attitude is called aesthetic not because it places itself in a perspective that is concerned with beauty and form; in fact, it is also able to have a moral inspiration. Rather, it is aesthetic because it is concerned with its own object—from the point of view that Gadamer later characterized as “aesthetic consciousness”—as an object of pure contemplation. One cannot possess the meaning of existence, Heidegger says, in a “theoretical manner [author’s note: contemplative, objectifying], but rather by enacting the ‘am,’ which is a way of being that belongs to the being of the ‘I.’”[^Heidegger, The Phenomenology of Religious Life.] All of that shows “that this experience does not experience the ‘I’ as something located in a region, as an individuation of a ‘universal.’” And still here, “The ‘I’ should be understood here as the full, concrete, and historically factical self that is accessible to itself in its historically concrete experience of itself.” Concrete historicity does not at all signify here “the correlate of theoretical and objective historical observation; rather, it is both the content and the ‘how’ of the anxious concern of the self about itself.” That has nothing to do with a further broadening of the dominant “historical consciousness,” understood as a collection of knowledge about the past, the practical use of this information, and a critique of its surviving relics. It is not a matter, in a word, of Historisches, of historiography, but of history in progress that is actively in relation to its own past. Jaspers, and before him the phenomenology of Husserl, had given to philosophy the task of getting “to the things themselves.” Therefore, without any presupposition. Already in the first pages of the review, Heidegger had written that “thinking without presuppositions is here intended to be taken in a philosophical sense and not in a specifically scientific sense. . . . It might just be the case that even in the directions of inquiry in which we could find access to the things themselves of philosophy lie covered over for us, and that what is thus necessary is a radical kind of deconstruction and reconstruction, i.e., a genuine confrontation with the history that we ourselves ‘are.’” The destruction—or deconstruction—of something that one understands in the context of the writing, where it is no longer a matter of a “metaphysics” to be overcome, in the sense of the “second” Heidegger, but one speaks instead of the fact that the objective, panoramic, aesthetic presuppositions that ultimately assert themselves in Jaspers’s book are the result of a tradition accepted without criticism, and not even consciously assumed. Because of this subjection to tradition, “we are unable to see phenomena of existence today in an authentic manner, we no longer experience the meaning of conscience and responsibility that lies in the historical itself (the historical is not merely something we have knowledge about and about which we write books; rather, we ourselves are it, and have it as a task).” | In the new and definitive edition of Wegmarken (published for the first time in 1967), which he prepared shortly before his death (in 1976) and which was destined for the Gesamtausgabe,[^It makes up volume 9, edited by F. W. von Herrmann.] Heidegger wanted to include, beyond the lecture on “Phenomenology and Theology,” even the long, unedited review of Psychologie der Weltanschauungen by Karl Jaspers (from 1919) that he wrote between 1919 and 1921. Without even exaggerating the “testamentary” significance of such a decision, the importance of this writing for understanding the formation of Heideggerian thought cannot be lost on anyone. For what interests us here—the analysis of existence and consciousness as the circle of fore-understanding and interpretation—the discussion of Jaspers’s text is revealing. Jaspers, Heidegger recalls, wanted to study the Psychologie der Weltanschauungen in order to understand “what the human being is,”[^In Martin Heidegger, Pathmarks, ed. W. McNeill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 1, where he cites Jaspers.] namely, in order to construct a general psychology able to trace out the horizon of the psyche in its totality. In the preface, Jaspers also wrote that by doing this he wanted to provide “clarifications and possibilities which can serve as means to our self-reflection (in our worldviews).”[^Here too is a literal citation from Jaspers: ibid., 2.] This latter intention, Heidegger says, is the “properly philosophical” one. Naturally, it does not assume that Jaspers judges the worldviews that he studies on the basis of an assumed systematic conception such as the “truth”; nevertheless, what he himself says about his own intention allows us to ask if he would “return radically to the original genetic motivations in this history” by verifying “whether these ideals satisfy the fundamental sense of philosophizing” or whether they have “never been appropriated in an original manner.”[^Ibid., 3.] In the pages that follow, Heidegger introduced the expression faktische Lebenserfahrung (factical life experience), which one finds at the center of his 1920–21 lecture course Introduction to the Phenomenology of Religious Life.[^Martin Heidegger, The Phenomenology of Religious Life, trans. M. Fritisch and J. A. Gossetti-Ferencei (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), 7.] The “properly philosophical” intent of Jaspers, that of putting into play the Weltanschauung itself, is not, according to Heidegger, realized in the work. Jaspers ends by forgetting it, dedicating himself instead to a panoramic, objectifying, and definitively “aesthetic” presentation,[^Heidegger, Pathmarks, 20.] of the various types of Weltanschauung. This attitude is called aesthetic not because it places itself in a perspective that is concerned with beauty and form; in fact, it is also able to have a moral inspiration. Rather, it is aesthetic because it is concerned with its own object—from the point of view that Gadamer later characterized as “aesthetic consciousness”—as an object of pure contemplation. One cannot possess the meaning of existence, Heidegger says, in a “theoretical manner [author’s note: contemplative, objectifying], but rather by enacting the ‘am,’ which is a way of being that belongs to the being of the ‘I.’”[^Heidegger, The Phenomenology of Religious Life.] All of that shows “that this experience does not experience the ‘I’ as something located in a region, as an individuation of a ‘universal.’” And still here, “The ‘I’ should be understood here as the full, concrete, and historically factical self that is accessible to itself in its historically concrete experience of itself.” Concrete historicity does not at all signify here “the correlate of theoretical and objective historical observation; rather, it is both the content and the ‘how’ of the anxious concern of the self about itself.” That has nothing to do with a further broadening of the dominant “historical consciousness,” understood as a collection of knowledge about the past, the practical use of this information, and a critique of its surviving relics. It is not a matter, in a word, of Historisches, of historiography, but of history in progress that is actively in relation to its own past. Jaspers, and before him the phenomenology of Husserl, had given to philosophy the task of getting “to the things themselves.” Therefore, without any presupposition. Already in the first pages of the review, Heidegger had written that “thinking without presuppositions is here intended to be taken in a philosophical sense and not in a specifically scientific sense. . . . It might just be the case that even in the directions of inquiry in which we could find access to the things themselves of philosophy lie covered over for us, and that what is thus necessary is a radical kind of deconstruction and reconstruction, i.e., a genuine confrontation with the history that we ourselves ‘are.’” The destruction—or deconstruction—of something that one understands in the context of the writing, where it is no longer a matter of a “metaphysics” to be overcome, in the sense of the “second” Heidegger, but one speaks instead of the fact that the objective, panoramic, aesthetic presuppositions that ultimately assert themselves in Jaspers’s book are the result of a tradition accepted without criticism, and not even consciously assumed. Because of this subjection to tradition, “we are unable to see phenomena of existence today in an authentic manner, we no longer experience the meaning of conscience and responsibility that lies in the historical itself (the historical is not merely something we have knowledge about and about which we write books; rather, we ourselves are it, and have it as a task).” |
