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HORIZON 7 (1) 2018 : II. Book Reviews : Prepared by P. Slama : 234-239
ФЕНОМЕНОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ • STUDIES IN PHENOMENOLOGY • STUDIEN ZUR PHÄNOMENOLOGIE • ÉTUDES PHÉNOMÉNOLOGIQUES
https://doi.org/10.21638/2226-5260-2018-7-1-234-239
CHAD ENGELLAND
HEIDEGGER'S SHADOW. KANT, HUSSERL, AND THE TRANSCENDENTAL TURN Routledge, 2017. ISBN 9781138181878
PAUL SLAMA
PhD in Philosophy. Paris IV-Sorbonne University. 75005 Paris, France. E-mail: [email protected]
This review presents historical and philosophical hypotheses of Chad Engelland's book by first considering the general thesis of a Heidegger transcendental philosopher, then emphasizing the importance of this theme for the treatise Sein und Zeit (1927), finally considering promises and aporia of such an interpretation for the second Heidegger. Heidegger first endorsed the program of a certain transcendental philosophy, to reject it in a second part of his work. Each time, the problem is to know what type of transcendental philosophy it is, which implies asking the question of Heidegger's relation to both transcendental philosophy of Kant and transcendental phenomenology of Husserl. Does the thought of utensility or authenticity in Being and Time refer to a transcendental questioning? And is it a Kantian or Husserlian transcendental? But also, can the thought of Ereignis and of the last God be so, as C. Engelland thinks? The reviewer insists on the importance of understanding the role of intuition in phenomenology's relationship to Kant, but also on the link made by Heidegger between Kant's first and second Critiques, that is, between the theory and practice. Finally, it shows from the book the role of affectivity, not without indicating possible extensions including the analysis of ne-okantism, or Hölderlin.
Key words: Heidegger, Husserl, Kant, phenomenology, transcendental philosophy, transcendental phenomenology.
© PAUL SLAMA, 2018
РЕЦЕНЗИЯ НА КНИГУ ЧЕД ЭНДЖЕЛЛЕНД
HEIDEGGER'S SHADOW. KANT, HUSSERL, AND THE TRANSCENDENTAL TURN Routledge, 2017. ISBN 9781138181878
ПОЛЬ СЛАМА
Доктор философии. Университет Париж IV — Сорбонна. 75005 Париж, Франция. E-mail: [email protected]
Рецензия представляет исторические и философские гипотезы, содержащиеся в книге Чеда Энджелленда, прежде всего, за счет рассмотрения главного тезиса о Хайдеггере как трансцендентальном философе, подчеркивая, далее, значимость этой темы для трактата «Бытие и время» (1927), наконец, рассматривая перспективы и апории такой интерпретации для позднего Хайдеггера. Хайдеггер, действительно, придерживается программы своего рода трансцендентальной философии, отказываясь от нее на втором этапе своего интеллектуального пути. Каждый раз проблема заключается в том, чтобы понимать, о каком типе трансцендентальной философии идет речь. А это предполагает постановку вопроса об отношении Хайдеггера к обеим версиям трансцендентальной философии — к философии Канта и к философии Гуссерля. Связано ли мышление об утвари или о собственности с трансцендентальной постановкой вопроса? И является оно трансцендентальным в смысле Канта или в смысле Гуссерля? Но вопрос может быть сформулирован и иначе. Может ли мышление об Ereignis или о последнем Боге быть таковым, как полагает Энджелленд? Рецензент настаивает на понимании важности роли созерцания в отношении феноменологии к Канту, но также на связи между первой и второй «Критиками», а значит, — между теорией и практикой, акцентированной Хайдеггером. Наконец, на основании рецензируемой книги, здесь показана роль аффективности, не без указания возможных расширений проблематики, включая анализ неокантианства и Гёльдерлина.
Ключевые слова: Хайдеггер, Гуссерль, Кант, феноменология, трансцендентальная философия, трансцендентальная феноменология.
Chad Engelland's book on Heidegger's transcendentalism reinforces an entire section of phenomenological research (especially American) that attempts to place Heidegger's thought in the tradition of transcendental philosophy (William Blattner, Steven Crowell, Jeff Malpas, Tom Rockmore...). The originality of this book is to widen the scope of the investigation to the second part of Heidegger's work, with the Beiträge zur Philosophie (Engelland, 2017, 5). The introduction summarizes the problem and the issue of the book. The author wants to interpret Heidegger using the right tools. If Aristotle or the pre-Socratics are the privileged interlocutors of the philosopher, they do not make it possible to grasp the main orientation of his philosophical project, unlike Kant and Husserl (Engelland, 2017, 7). Though Heidegger himself warned against a transcendental interpretation of his work (Heidegger, 1997, 94) or
the limits of Kantian and Husserlian projects (Heidegger, 1989, 451-477), that is not to say that his philosophy is not related to the current of transcendental philosophy.
With regard to the issues at hand that are no longer just historical but also philosophical, the author gives a particularly important place to phenomenological reduction, insisting on the problem of its motivation, which in Ideen I comes from the freedom of the subject who practices it (Husserl, 1976, 62), then in the posterior work (for example in the Krisis) from a historical telos that leads to what is the foundation of empiricism. According to the author, Kant himself has made this connection between transcendental project and history in the Geschichte der reinen Vernunft of the Critique of Pure Reason. It is this tradition that would make it possible to understand the historical conception of the transcendental in Heidegger, particularly from the 1930s (Engelland, 2017, 17). For the author, "Heidegger's 'history' is really his attempt to give affectivity to the philosophical life. As Kant traces every thought to intuition, so Heidegger returns the transcendental turn to the givenness of fundamental dispositions" (Engelland, 2017, 19). In fact, affectivity plays a transcendental role (Engelland, 2017, 20). We must then speak of an "affective transcendentalism", even if Heidegger himself considered the transcendentalist path an "illusion" (Engelland, 2017, 20). There lies the difficulty of the author's work: identifying the unthought of Heidegger's thought in his report to Kant and Husserl.
The author, in the first part, proposes a transcendental interpretation of Sein und Zeit (1927). His general idea is delineated right from the outset. There are two transcendental questions in SZ: "A preparatory one on the timely openness of Dasein, and a fundamental one on the temporal reciprocity of that openness and being" (Engelland, 2017, 30). For the author, the first question is necessary in order to reach the second, but is at the same time inadequate for thinking being. In sum, the transcendental questioning aims to exceed the transcendental. The meaning of the questioning of SZ is then transcendental: „nur wenn Seinsverständnis ist, wird Seiendes als Seiendes zugänglich" (Heidegger, 2006, 212). Dasein must first be thrown into the world in a certain way so that there may be tools around it. But understanding (whether it is the understanding of tools by Dasein or Daseins understanding of being) is, in turn, based more originally on ekstatic temporality (Engelland, 2017, 36). The author also wants to show the not only ontological, but also methodological dimension (Engelland, 2017, 45) of the transcendental in Heidegger. If the question of motivation concerning the Husserlian reduction is central, that of the motivation of Heidegger's questioning also arises. Discussing first the early concept of "formal indication", the author comes to show the importance of the distinction between "authenticity" and "inauthenticity" when the place of the transcendental is to be considered.
The author also quickly mentions at the end of his reading of SZ (Engelland, 2017, 56) the importance of affectivity, but it is regrettable that these tracks (the role of authenticity and affectivity) are not furtherly deepened.
The second part of the book is about Heidegger's 1929 Kantbuch. The return to Kant, for John van Buren or Theodore Kiesel, had the effect of scientifying the second part of SZ with the original temporality, damage that was repaired by the second Heidegger through importance given to affectivity. The author's intent is to understand the philosophical coherence of Heidegger's return to Kant through the idea that Kant is the forerunner of a phenomenological thought of intuitive donation (Engelland, 2017, 69). Having listed in a very useful way the different stages of Heidegger's readings of Kant by quickly showing their relation to Husserlian phenomenology (Engelland, 2017, 70-83), the author recalls the importance of Leibniz's interpretation so as to understand Kantbuch, then tries to show more precisely its phenomenological content (despite some unfortunate formulations, such as "... though the 1927-20 reading of Kant according to Being and Time's horizon of questioning was undoubtedly a distraction" (Engelland, 2017, 84). The author puts forward the primacy of intuition. It is true that Heidegger takes Kantian intuition very seriously as it is also the mark of human finitude as receptivity. As the author writes, "thinking is subordinate to intuiting in the same way as logos is subordinate to phenomenon in SZ" (Engelland, 2017, 92). The intuition thus privileged, it is the immediacy of what is given which occupies the first position, before the conceptual thought (Heidegger, 1991, 20-30). However, it is not easy to reconcile this undeniable primacy of intuition in Heidegger's interpretation with the equally undeniable primacy of imagination, that is, of the transcendental meeting place between sensibility and understanding, still according to Heidegger. The author's answer (Heidegger, 1991, 97) — "understanding is relative to imagination, which is relative to intuition" — is not immediately convincing, since imagination is presented in Kantbuch as the root of sensibility and understanding and at the same time as the original place of the constitution of the relation to objects. But to the extent that Heidegger thinks imagination as being based on temporality (Heidegger, 1991, 191), as well as an experience of the possibility of objectless objectivity (which manifests the finitude of the human mind — see (Heidegger, 1991, 108), barely commented and yet crucial), the intuitionist path remains undoubtedly the most consistent for Heidegger. However, there is indeed a fundamental ambiguity of Heidegger's commentary that the author does not emphasize: on the one hand, the Aesthetics enjoys a certain primacy in his commentary, since according to Heidegger pure space and time intuit something without the support of the understanding; on the other hand, the Analytic prevails to the extent that it exposes the role of imagination,
more original than pure space and time. This ambiguity of Heidegger's commentary is difficult to grasp and perhaps insoluble, if not by taking into account the second Critique, which Heidegger does himself when interpreting the concept of "respect" (absent from the author's analyses).
In the third part of his book, the author approaches the "Kehre" in the work of Heidegger starting from the lecture Die Frage nach dem Ding (1935-1936). The problem is the following: "Heidegger's own transcendental project becomes a more dynamic vocabulary centered on the changing affectivity of historical dispositions" (Engelland, 2017, 123). In the mid 30s, Heidegger becomes a critic of Kant while making his work an essential moment in the history of metaphysics. Therefore, the Kantbuch is "revised", insofar as he has conceded too much to Kant from the phenomenological point of view. From then on, starting in 1935-1936, Kant becomes the thinker of scientific objectivity. (It is interesting to note that Heidegger has evolved in the same way with regard to Aristotle.) Besides, Kant must now be inscribed in a scientific horizon (that of mathema-tized modern science): according to Heidegger, every form of science rests on presuppositions, and it is all the merit of the Critique to try to assign the foundation (intuitive and therefore pre-phenomenological) and the limits (those of understanding) to the scientific exercise. It would have been interesting here to show how Heidegger, in some way, appears to agree with the interpretation of Hermann Cohen, who also put modern science at the heart of the Kantian project. And just like Cohen, Heidegger puts the analytic of principles at the heart of the critical edifice (Heidegger, 1984, 186); and it would have been just as important to mention Heidegger's conception of the history of science, his way of making divisions and identifying discontinuities. Yet Heidegger distinguishes himself from Neokantism when he emphasizes the importance of intuition given for synthesis, a datum that would be above all constituted subjectivity and objectivity, since it would constitute them. But this given belongs to the domain of „Zwischen" of the „Offene" that lets things happen, even before they are objects. However, Kant remains historically attached to rational subjectivity and scientific objectivity, and has not fundamentally parted with these conceptions (Engelland, 2017, 149). The author concludes that transcendental philosophy is for Heidegger a means to reach the thought of the other beginning, and not the end of thought".
This is the full meaning of his reading Beiträge zur Philosophie (1936-1938), which is the main contribution of the book since it tries to pursue a transcendental interpretation for the second Heidegger. It is the problem of the motivation of the reduction, historicized in the Beiträge, that moves his analysis: this motivation is affective, through the Grundstimmungen, which are the condition of every donation. It is "the affectivity of thought" (Engelland, 2017, 182), which cannot be thought outside
the process of history. Here again, we would have liked to ask the question of Heidegger's cutting-up, historical methodology, which distinguishes various beginnings without really knowing on what criterion. However, these pages are in our view the most interesting within the book, because they propose reading the Beiträge analyses in the light of the reduction problem, in a historical perspective.
The interest of Chad Engelland's work is therefore to sharply introduce to the transcendental interpretation of the second Heidegger, with all the difficulties and impasses that it can involve. To conclude, we would like to make some suggestions. First of all, we are surprised at the lack of consideration on the status of phenome-nological reduction in SZ, while in France Didier Franck then Jean-François Courtine have quite long ago orientated the reading of the 1927 opus in this direction. It is also surprising that there should be no considerations on the status of epokhe in Heidegger's later texts, such as Zeit und Sein (1962). More broadly, this book is about Heidegger, and not about Kant or Husserl; however, the author could have compared Heidegger's interpretation of Kant with that of the Neokantians (as cited in Engelland, 2017, 32, 68), like Hermann Cohen, without whom the Kantbuch is literally incomprehensible. The analysis would have also gained taking into account Hölderlin whose Verfahrungsweise of 1800, interpreted by Heidegger in 1934-1935, prepares the affective metamorphosis of the transcendental (Hölderlin speaking of a „transzendentale Empfindung"). Also, the choice of interpreting the transcendental as a misleading and necessary passage, already in SZ, is guided by the last period of Heidegger's work. Is this not a daring use of anachronism? These critical remarks are motivated only by the interest that Chad Engelland's work arouses with its sharp sense of questioning.
REFERENCES
Cohen, H. (1907). Kommentar zu Immanuel Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Leipzig: Durr. Cohen, H. (1885). Kants Theorie der Erfahrung. Berlin: Ferd. Dümmlers Verlagsbuchhanlung. Engelland, C. (2017) Heidegger's Shadow. Kant, Husserl, and the Transcendental Turn. London: Rout-lege.
Heidegger, M. (1977). Phänomenologische Interpretation von Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann. Heidegger, M. (1984). Die Frage nach dem Ding. Zu Kants Lehre von den transzendentalen Grundsätzen.
Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann. Heidegger, M. (1989). Beiträge zur Philosophie (vom Ereignis). Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann. Heidegger, M. (1991). Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann. Heidegger, M. (1997). Besinnung. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann. Heidegger, M. (2006). Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Husserl, E. (1976). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch (Hua. III/1-2). Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
