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HORIZON 10 (1) 2021 : I. Research : O. Karamercan : 268-285
ФЕНОМЕНОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ • STUDIES IN PHENOMENOLOGY • STUDIEN ZUR PHÄNOMENOLOGIE • ÉTUDES PHÉNOMÉNOLOGIQUES
ПРОИЗВЕДЕНИЕ ИСКУССТВА И ФЕНОМЕНОЛОГИЧЕСКАЯ ГЕРМЕНЕВТИКА
ARTWORK AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL HERMENEUTICS
https://doi.org/10.21638/2226-5260-2021-10-l-268-285
HEIDEGGER'S WAY TO POETIC DWELLING VIA BEING AND TIME
ONUR KARAMERCAN
PhD in Philosophy, Independent Postdoctoral Scholar. University of Tasmania. 92300 Levallois-Perret, France. E-mail: onur.karamercan@utas.edu.au
Although Heidegger's explicit account of "poetic dwelling" belongs to his later philosophy, there are important indications that he was already engaging with the core matter of the notion in his early thought. Contrary to the idea that in Being and Time, "dwelling" amounts to mere practical coping with the environment, we would like to demonstrate that the notion is already a poetic issue in his early thought, as it requires the appropriation of our relation to the world via an authentic experience of fin-itude. Following a topological mode of thinking, the paper thematizes the connections between Heidegger's early and later thought, and elucidates the following three points: First, "freeing" and "letting" appears as the appropriate ethos of a poetic experience of finitude, one that maintains the "clearing" of meaningfulness. Second, a topological reading of Being and Time can explicate the notions of authenticity and inauthenticity as different disclosures of the clearing where human being-world correlation occurs. Third, the notion of "keeping-still" (Schweigen) can be interpreted as an authentic disposition
© ONUR KARAMERCAN, 2021
that frees space for the disclosure of existence. The paper concludes that an authentic experience of finitude through "stillness" appears to reorient human ethos by releasing "discourse" from absorption in "idle-talk" and that such an act of existential re-orientation of one's disposition towards the world is the essence of "authenticity," and Heidegger's early "poetic dwelling".
Keywords: Heidegger, Being and Time, poetic dwelling, finitude, Gelassenheit, silence, authenticity, topology.
ПУТЬ ХАЙДЕГГЕРА К ПОЭТИЧЕСКОМУ ОБИТАНИЮ ЧЕРЕЗ БЫТИЕ И ВРЕМЯ
ОНУР КАРАМЕРДЖАН
Доктор философии, независимый исследователь. Университет Тасмании. 92300 Леваллуа-Перре, Франция. E-mail: onur.karamercan@utas.edu.au
Хотя эксплицитное рассмотрение «поэтического обитания» относится к поздней философии Хайдеггера, есть важные признаки того, что он обращался к смысловому ядру этого понятия в своей ранней мысли. Вопреки представлению, что в Бытии и времени «обитание» сводится лишь к практическому взаимодействию с окружающим миром, мы хотели бы показать, что это понятие имеет поэтический смысл уже в его ранней мысли, поскольку оно требует обретения собственного отношения к миру посредством аутентичного опыта конечности. Следуя топологическому способу мышления, статья тематизирует связи между ранней и поздней мыслью Хайдеггера и обосновывает три тезиса. Во-первых, «высвобождение» и «позволение» раскрываются как собственный этос поэтического опыта конечности, который хранит «просвет» значимости. Во-вторых, топологическое прочтение Бытия и времени позволяет эксплицировать понятия собственности и несобственности как различные модусы раскрытия просвета, в котором осуществляется корреляция человеческого бытия и мира. В-третьих, понятие молчания (Schweigen) может быть интерпретировано как собственная установка, открывающая пространство для раскрытия экзистенции. В статье делается вывод о том, что собственный опыт «молчания» переориентирует человеческий этос посредством освобождения речи от поглощенности «толками» и что подобный акт экзистенциальной переориентации установки по отношению к миру есть сущность «собственности» и «поэтического обитания» у раннего Хай-деггера.
Ключевые слова: Хайдеггер, Бытие и время, поэтическое обитание, конечность, Gelassenheit, молчание, собственность, топология.
Das Bleibende im Denken ist der Weg. Und Denkwege bergen in sich das Geheimnisvolle, daß wir sie vorwärts und rückwärts gehen können, daß sogar der Weg zurück uns erst vorwärts führt.
M. Heidegger (Heidegger, 1985, 94)
1. INTRODUCTION
Although there is a growing body of literature that explores the idea of "poetic dwelling" and its implications for Heidegger's later philosophy (Seamon & Mugerauer, 1985; Singh, 1997; Davis, 2006; Capobianco, 2014; Malpas, 2020), early hints of this notion have received little scholarly attention1. Since Heidegger's deliberate reflections on the meaning of "poetic dwelling" belong to the later period of his philosophy, it is deemed that Heidegger's early thoughts should not have much to do with themes related to "poetic dwelling"2. Nonetheless, a topological approach that focuses on the continuities in Heidegger's philosophy3 can explicate that Heidegger was already engaged with the core matter of "poetic dwelling" in Sein und Zeit4, even if he did not employ the same terminology, style of writing and method. To show this, we will turn to SZ after having first identified the significance of the idea of "poetic dwelling" in Heidegger's later philosophy. How the core issues of the "poetical" and "dwelling" are already linked in SZ will come to the fore against this background5.
1 Werner Marx's work was one of the earliest studies that focused on the concept of 'poetic dwelling' (Marx, 1972, 235-261). See also Absher (2016) for a contemporary discussion that deals with the question of language.
2 The prevailing tendency in Heidegger studies is to treat his early and later philosophy as two detached periods of thought, taking "the turn" (Kehre, or Wendung, Wandlung) that occurred in the 1930s as the breaking point, which is a view that we are challenging in this article. For a detailed review of the discussion, see Sheehan (2015, 246).
3 "The distinction you make between Heidegger I and II is justified only on the condition that this is kept constantly in mind: only by way of what [Heidegger] I has thought does one gain access to what is to-be-thought by [Heidegger] II. But the thought of [Heidegger] I becomes possible only if it is contained in [Heidegger] II" (Heidegger, 2006, 151).
4 References to Being and Time (Sein und Zeit, abbreviated as SZ) are from the 11th edition. For the translation of German terms, I am following the John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson translation with minor changes. For the translation of quotes and key concepts from the rest of Heidegger's Gesamtausgabe, I am consulting the standard English translations, with some modifications.
5 In order to offer a comprehensive reading of Heidegger's philosophy, our primary aim is to make sense of Heidegger's relevant ideas in their own right rather than try to criticize them, as the latter should be the task of another study.
2. THE PLACE OF 'POETIC DWELLING' IN HEIDEGGER'S THOUGHT
Let's first try to understand why "poetic dwelling" matters as a philosophical topic, since its significance in Heidegger's philosophy has been a matter of dispute. While some commentators (Lyotard, 1991; Leach, 1999) associate the notion with a patriotic sense of belonging to one's home, "poetic dwelling" should be considered as a fruit of Heidegger's long-standing engagement with the very "question of being" (Seinsfrage), which is always linked with the idea of "finitude." It is well known that Heidegger's explicit investigations of the meaning of the "poetical" are inseparable from his engagement with Hölderlins poetry6. Heidegger draws the very idea of "poetic dwelling," or dwelling poetically, from Friedrich Hölderlins poem entitled In lieblicher Bläue7, which is a poem that Heidegger continued to interpret as late as in 19708. Although the aptness of Heidegger's Hölderlin interpretations can be a matter of debate, it is evident that what he finds particularly valuable in Hölderlins poetry amounts to more than mere 'poesy' as a cultural achievement or the tranquilization of one's soul9. It is rather a mode of "thinking" that "poetizes," a poetry that is adept at thinking the boundaries and existential situation of the human being on the earth as a finite, "placed" being.
One of the obstacles that prevents many commentators from making sense of Heidegger's "poetic dwelling" within the larger context of Heidegger's writings stems from the tendency to disregard or underestimate how Heidegger's "topology of being," which we will explain below, is directly linked with his way of dealing with the question of being. For instance, the parallel that Heidegger draws in Letter on Humanism-which is at the junction of Heidegger's earlier and later writings- between the notion
Heidegger's interpretations of Hölderlins hymns in the 1930s and early 40s on the rivers of the Rhein (GA, 39) and the Ister (GA, 53) are particularly indicative of a move towards his mature account
of 'dwelling place'.
Voll Verdienst, doch dichterisch, wohnet der Mensch auf dieser Erde (Hölderlin, 1951, 372). If we read the entire poem, we can see that Hölderlins poetizing of dwelling leads to an inquiry of the place of the human being, the latter being inextricable from God, which the human being considers as the "measure" (Maaß) of his being on the earth.
Here we are specifically referring to the Das Wohnen des Menschen essay, which is not translated into English although it requires a close attention on its own (Heidegger, 1983a, 217-218). Gosetti-Ferencei suggests that Heidegger overlooks the place of Hölderlins thought vis-à-vis Kant and German idealism, and if we scrutinize Hölderlins understanding of poetic subject, we would see that his project shows a commitment to Enlightenment ideals. In arguing so, Gasetti-Ferencei takes distance from the idea of "resoluteness" in SZ, favoring later Heidegger's idea of Gelassenheit as a poetic way of "letting-be" (Gasetti-Ferencei, 2004, 2-5, 8). Nonetheless, we will show that the two are in fact connected in an interesting way.
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of "being-in-the-world" (In-der-Welt-sein) in SZ and his later reflections on "poetic dwelling" (Heidegger, 1976, 358) is an important indication regarding the necessity to situate the issue within the context of the place-character (Ortlichkeit) of Heidegger's thought of being10. In that context, one way of approaching the issue would be by way of introducing Heidegger's notion of the "fourfold" (Geviert), which, starting from the mid-1930s and 40s, replaces the early concept of "being-in-the-world" (In-der-Welt-sein) in Heidegger's philosophy. Yet, since we will already talk about the core matter of the "fourfold" in terms of the "making-space" and "belonging-together" of dwelling, we will not engage with that concept per se11. First, let's clarify what dwelling (wohnen, Aufenthalten) means.
The poetic nature of dwelling appears to be one of the most important themes in Heidegger's late philosophy as his topological thinking becomes explicit in his writings in the 1950's and onwards. However, that does not mean that his topological philosophy spontaneously occurred around that time. His thinking of space and place matured over time, and it encompassed different topics in his consequent reflections. Heidegger's own formulation of "topology of being" (topologie des Seins) describes the historical-thematical development of his thought, according to which the "meaning-truth-place" trifold (Heidegger, 2005, 344) is key in grasping it in its entirety. The-matically and historically, the middle term and step in Heidegger's thought, namely un-concealment or the "truth" of being (aA^Bsia) ties the former and latter of these together: The un-concealment that is at issue does not only refer to the disclosure of (the meaning of) particular entities, but more primordially to the dis-closure of the openness of meaningfulness (Sinnlichkeit), which is related to how this is made possible emerging in and of the place (totcoc) of experience. In that regard, how one is to sustain the open region of un-concealment turns out to be inextricably related to the problem of "dwelling," which Heidegger problematized with the notion of ethos.
10 For another crucial parallel between Heidegger's early and later idea of "dwelling" in connection with the etymological meaning of the word "being" as "building" (bauen) (Heidegger,1967, 54; 2000, 149).
11 In a nutshell, Sky (Himmel) and earth (Erde) respectively delineate the openness and boundedness of dwelling, while immortals-divinities (Göttlichen) and mortals (Sterblichen), as the inhabitants of those two domains, imply the relationality between different experiences of (im)mortality. Fourfold is the play-field (Spielraum) of the unity of these four elements, and if there is to be dwelling at all, these four need to be gathered in their mutual conditioning and belonging. Dwelling takes place in this "dimension". With the "fourfold," Heidegger's aim is to emphasize the holistic sense of dwelling by pointing out that an appropriate experience of situatedness in the world requires an experience of limit, being conditioned by that which one cannot regulate, manipulate.
Following Heidegger's own indications, many commentators such as Malpas (2006, 277-278), Nancy (2007, 42) and more recently Artemenko (2016, 65) draw our attention to the nuance between £0o; and ^0oc, which implies a thinking that tries to make sense of "ethics" not in the sense of a person's morality, but as ethos in the sense of "dwelling". Indeed, one of the clearest and most important indications regarding the significance of "poetic dwelling" can be found in Letter on Humanism (Heidegger, 1976, 358). Here, Heidegger overtly speaks of his overall philosophical project as an attempt to think the foundations of both "ontology" and "ethics" (as well as "logic" as that which pertains to Aoyoc;. Approaching the issue within that framework brings into focus that with the idea of poetic dwelling, Heidegger attempts to resituate our thinking towards the issue of "being" (Sein) by finding a non-dualistic access to the Ur-problems of "ontology" (nature of being) and "ethics" (nature of human conduct).
For Heidegger, in order to achieve this goal, the objective must be to think what he called the "truth of being," which neither ethics nor ontology are capable of achieving (Heidegger, 1976, 357). To that end, according to Heidegger, we need to consider "being" (Sein) from the "clearing of being" (Lichtung des Seins), or the "Da" (there, openness), which the human being (as ek-sistence) sustains (Heidegger, 1976, 325). Dwelling is the human being's proper 'relation' to the clearing, or as Heidegger specifies in the footnote, "ekstatic in-standing (Innestehen) within the clearing" (1976, 325). This means that Heidegger looks into problematizing ethos of "ek-sistence" through an analysis of the "belonging together" of the clearing and the human being. If we regard the clearing as the openness in and through which things become meaningful, then Kda^oq (not cosmos as the world within which there are things encountered, but the world as the occurrence of 'un-concealment' itself) and the human being's qdoq are not to be thought as two phenomena detached from one another that need to be bridged by an external relation. On the contrary, their "relation" is a "belonging together" in the openness of experience via meaningful presence (Anwesung). The aim is to find the appropriate mode of "belonging" to one's existential, open-bounded situatedness by orienting oneself in Koa^oq as a mortal, which is the core matter of "poetic dwelling" as the enactment of this pre-onto-ethi-cal "belonging together" of being.
At this point, we should ask what renders "dwelling" poetical? For Heidegger, the poetic element at issue is clearly not a mere quality of literary production, but rather points at a certain way of inhabiting the earth. noi^aiq stems from the infinitive form of the verb noieiv, meaning to "make" (Heidegger, 2000, 192). The "making" that is at stake here concerns the relation (Bezug) that one must hold to a thing in order to be able to let it come to the fore (hervorbringen) from its hiddenness.
This is in line with Heidegger's characterization of the notion of "poetry" (Dichtung, from dichten via Latin dictare) as telling something that has not been told, indicating an original beginning (Heidegger, 1993, 7-8). In this line of thinking, the adjective "poetic" signifies a way of realizing our relatedness to the world by an original "making," a kind of creation that prioritizes the disclosure of that which is concealed. However, the specific kind of "making" at issue with both poetic and dichterisch does not connote a concept of disclosure that occurs by "pro-ducing," "leading-forth" and "commanding," but first and foremost by letting a phenomenon (or an aspect of a thing) come into the open on its own accord. In 'making', the human being appears to clear the "way," letting the unconcealment of meaning of things in different ways. Therefore, what makes us the distinct kind of beings that we are (the "clearing" of "being") is not our capacity to effect, give form and product, but simply to be the "freeing" of the way of coming-to-be of things12. Dwelling, which requires building, first needs "making-space" (einräumen) in the existential dimension to which the human being belongs. In other words, the act of building, before it comes to mean erecting buildings, needs the openness and freed space. In that sense, in and through dwelling, the human being attempts to find the proper '"measure" (petpov) in the world where such building-dwelling can happen. Yet measuring the world (Heidegger, 2000, 199-200) is not counting or quantifying some distance in a geometrical way13, but has the sense of allowing our belonging to "being" to determine our place in the world.
By this way of seeing the matter, "poetic dwelling" appears as a probe into the essence of the notion of "freedom," yet again, one that precedes an ontological and ethical determinations, primarily bringing to the fore its "taking place" as such. According to Heidegger, "to dwell, to be set at peace, means to remain at peace within the free, the preserve, the free sphere that safeguards each thing in its essence. The fundamental character of dwelling is this freeing' (Heidegger, 2000, 151). This passage
12 An interesting parallel can be traced via the etymology of the verb meaning to 'create'. The original meaning of Latin crescere is to "cause," or "let grow," also related to the name of the Roman goddess Ceres, namely, ancient Greek Demeter. As such, the sense of letting that is at issue is primarily related to letting something emerge and grow from place, from the earth (Klein, 1971, 175).
13 Mitchell's analyses of Heidegger's "fourfold" also approaches the issue in terms of the question of "relationality," which he puts as the "hospitality of things." Accordingly, things can exist as things insofar as there is the between as that which makes them present for one another. The middle space "hosts" and provides space for distinct ends of a dimension in the same body and place (Mitchell, 2015, 5, 282). However, Mitchell's remark that the "between" refers to some "geometrical-abstract" sense in which it surrounds things seems to be off the mark given Heidegger's explicit reminder against such an interpretation.
overtly ties together the topological aspect of making-space with the question of freedom. The etymological connection that Heidegger draws between "peace" (Frieden), "freedom" (Freiheit), "free" (Freie-Frye) and "freeing" (freien) links up with the way in which Heidegger understands the creative "making" at issue in the sense of "engaged releasement" or "letting-be"14. "Poetic dwelling" amounts to undergoing an experience with the "taking place" of that which human beings cannot control and master, but that which they have to bear and endure by first making space for its unfolding. According to Heidegger, as long as one "dwells" (ek-sists), one dwells poetically, or else, dwelling does not happen at all. In that case, the human beings continue to be present in the world, yet with no space or freedom to be what they potentially can be. As a result, dwelling un-poetically, there remain only detached human "subjects" standing against an objectified "world" that consists of stuff to be infinitely restored, controlled and manipulated in line with subjectivist, and often conflicting needs and ambitions: we are out of measure.
3. APPROACHING BEING AND TIME TOPOLOGICALLY
Late Heidegger's emphasis is that the core matter of "poetic dwelling" is making-space for the unconcealment of being, which is not a subjectivist achievement of the individual, but an occurrence that comes about by the human being's partaking in its manifestation. Now, even though in SZ Heidegger does not have any explicit and sustained discussions of the "poetical," there is a short and important passage which is often omitted in recent scholarship: "In 'poetical' discourse, the communication of the existential possibilities of one's disposition (Befindlichkeit) can become an aim in itself, and this amounts to a disclosing of existence'' (Heidegger, 1967, 162)15. What that means is, we must focus on the human being's different modes (authenticity and inauthenticity) of disclosedness in and through which the very limits of this dwelling
14 Bret Davis considers possible translations of the notion of Gelassenheit, submitting that "release-ment" does not do justice to the nuances of the German, while "letting-be" preserves the "lassen" in Gelassenheit. Yet, this runs the risk of giving a sense of mere "allowance" or "letting go." Therefore, Davis clarifies that Heidegger's emphasis is on the sense of 'getting into, engaging with, getting involved with things' [Sicheinlassen auf as "actively letting beings be themselves." Thus, Gelassenheit is 'engaged releasement' (Davis, 2007, xxv-xxvii).
15 As early as 1925, Heidegger argues that poetry is a "setting-free" of the human being's new possibilities of being (Heidegger, 1988, 375-376). These lecture courses that Heidegger gave during the summer semester at the Marburg University are considered to contain the first drafts of Sein und
Zeit.
come into view. We find this idea in SZ in regards with the setting free of the human beings from their inauthentic idleness16.
In SZ, the question of "being" (Sein) is taken up in regards with the ontolog-ical-existential analysis of Dasein, who is capable of problematizing its own being, which is a specific kind of entity that has an understanding of being on the basis of its world (Heidegger, 1967, 200). Recall that the notion of Dasein is a correlation of das Da (the there as the openness of the world) and Sein. Simply meaning "existence" in ordinary German lexicon, for Heidegger the concept denotes specifically the essence of the human existence as "being-in-the-world"17. Krell provides a comprehensive etymological explanation of the word "existence," which can further clarify the wide range of connotations that Heidegger's interpretation of Dasein implicates:
Whence the terms Ekstase, ekstatikon, derived from the verb existanai, existemi "to displace," in Heidegger's analysis of temporality? His own etymology, the reference to Existenz and ex(s)istere, "to stand out," is hardly the place to terminate the discussion. True, the words "existence" and "ecstacy" share the same root: sto, "stare" derives from the Greek sta- histemi ("to set," "to place"), the Sanskrit stha, sthalam meaning "locus" or "place." The Latin ex(s)isto or ex(s)to has an extensive history: in Livy, Cicero, and Augustine it means "to step out" "to come forth," "emerge," "appear": in Lucretius, Caesar, and Cicero "to spring," "proceed," "arise," "become". (Krell, 1986, 54)
The core matter at issue with Dasein analysis is neither an investigation of the nature of Dasein as the subject of metaphysics as mind, consciousness, spirit etc. (Heidegger, 1967, 46), nor the relationship between human subjectivity and the world as two detached entities. The central problem is to find out how the worldhood of the world always opens up through the specific way of being of Dasein18, which is Dasein s disclosedness. This means that it is a questioning that first necessitates laying out the
16 Heidegger argues that this is not to be seen as a moral deficiency of the human being. The "fallen-ness" of Dasein is simply an ontological tendency. The human being's fallen mode of being in the world indicates the ordinary self, one that is content with an average interpretation of the world: namely, "the they," or "one" (Das Man). Thus, freeing oneself from this mode of being rather means "appropriating" it by releasing oneself from being enchained to such a mode of being.
17 For an overview of the worldhood of the world in SZ, see Heidegger (1967, 65).
18 In the 1940s and 50s, Heidegger expressed discontent with certain aspects of his early thought as well as with its reception (Heidegger, 1985, 89; 1998, 357). Yet, far from disparaging or even casting off the basic insights of SZ (Heidegger, 1976, 343, 372), Heidegger pointed out that the major difficulty lied in the lack of a non-metaphysical language to speak about these issues, which points to a larger problem in Western metaphysics as such.
place-nature of the "belonging" between the human being and being19. Thus, SZ is an inquiry into the finite nature and conditions of 'dwelling' and the sense of situatedness without which 'being' cannot even occur as a meaningful question. Yet, precisely, the key question is, what can qualify this particular situatedness as a poetic "belonging".
Now, concerning the "authenticity" of dwelling, some commentators, such as Hubert Dreyfus (1995), focus on the first division of SZ, and thematize the "existential spatiality" of Dasein20. For instance, Dreyfus explicitly claims, "What is near is that with which I am currently absorbedly coping" (1995, 134). Criticizing the primacy of the epistemological modes of thinking that dominated Western philosophy since Plato and Descartes, Dreyfus argues that mindedness is the enemy of expert coping. As such, Dreyfus's Heidegger interpretations refute the representational mode of thinking that separates the inner from the outer, where the inner states of mind produce knowledge about the external reality via mental representations. According to Dreyfus, then, dwelling means skillfully mastering one's practical relation to the nearest world, that is, environment (Umwelt), therefore the human being can already dwell authentically in the everydayness. Nevertheless, although Dreyfus's vision of embodied mode of philosophizing, based on a hermeneutical reading of ordinary existence, is extremely important in its own regard, it does not do justice to the entire project of SZ. Considering the overall structure of SZ and Heidegger's own indications later on (1983b, 263), it should not be omitted that the first division of that book makes sense simply as a preliminary analysis, with the aim of explaining the human being's most immediate, absorbed mode of being in the world. Owing to the phenomeno-logical method of SZ, the way in which "ek-sistence" occurs in the world can only be approached by first taking into account the way in which it appears on the basis of human beings' ordinary and practical dealings and engagements. Consequently, the first division of SZ gets us as far as the inauthentic "belonging" to the world: "Idle talk, curiosity and ambiguity characterize the way in which, in an everyday manner, Dasein is its 'there'-the disclosedness of Being-in-the-world" (Heidegger, 1967, 175). This mode of failing to belonging to the world, being captivated in it, reveals a kind of fleeing from dwelling. The characteristic of the fleeing-absorbed human being is explicitly called "never dwelling anywhere" (Aufenthaltslosigkeit) (Heidegger, 1967,
19 In the later thought, the same issue of "belonging together" was taken up through the question of language as the "relation of all relations" (Heidegger, 1985, 203).
20 For instance, Malpas discusses in detail why Heidegger's early notions of space (Raum), place (Stelle, Platz) and "existential spatiality" do not amount to a topological mode of thinking as such (Malpas, 2006, 45-65). He argues that in SZ we see early beginnings of a topological thinking that brings into view a sense of "situatedness".
173), signifying the lack of dwelling. Through such a way of being, the human being loses the sight of her or his "end" in the world, missing of the wholeness of existence. What one needs to see is rather the existential reorientation of our disposition in the world, a kind of ethos whose relation to the world is one of "nearness" and belonging, but not absorption or spatial involvement for the latter two do not disclose the existence in its wholeness, but only one aspect of it.
Starting from the first chapter of the second division (§46-53), Heidegger commences developing his investigation of the human being's possibility for authenticity (Eigentlichkeit), meaning owning one's existential possibilities instead of fleeing from them. Although the human being is "thrown" into an infinite number of possibilities in the world, death (Tode), as the temporal "end" of being-in-the-world (Heidegger, 1967, 234), demarcates the definite limit of the human being's all other possibilities. In dying, which is always taking place through every moment, being-in-the-world comes into its proper wholeness, or completion. This is precisely where the individual human being finds (or loses) one's poetic freedom towards existence. The human being is situated between birth and death, where everydayness occupies this middle place. Whether the individual human being (existenziell) can inhabit human beings' (existenzial) unique ethos in the world, being thrown into it and being-open-towards-death, determines whether one can dwell, and not just be absorbed in one's environment. In other words, the discussion of "authenticity" can be considered to be Heidegger's early notion to designate the poetic element of existence.
4. FREEDOM FROM INAUTHENTICITY: 'KEEPING-STILL'
Let us recontextualize the issue: "Poetic dwelling" is a matter of our "relation" to being, i.e., how one is to sustain one's belonging to the world in an appropriate way. The core issue of "poetic dwelling" denotes discovering the appropriate comportment toward the world that makes-space for the disclosure of existence, instead of only mastering it from a closed-off region. In SZ, this idea is explicated in terms of the freedom towards death that the authentic self manages to appropriate, make her or his own. Inauthenticity simply refers to: "submitting and surrendering to the everyday manner of relating oneself to the world" (Heidegger, 1967, 139). This does not mean that the everydayness is inauthentic as such, but remaining stuck in such a "relation" to the world is. Thus, to show the implicit account of "poetic dwelling" in SZ, we interpret "keeping-still" as a way of releasing oneself from inauthentic absorption in "idle-talk."
For both early and late Heidegger, silence as "stillness" (Stille) possesses an evident existential priority over "discourse" in terms of its capacities of disclosing the boundaries of existence21. In his early thought, Heidegger calls the inauthentic use of discourse (Rede) "dle-talk" (Gerede), which does not disclose, but repeats and gossips around, denoting the absence of a clear sight as to discern whether what one talks about actually says (shows) something or not. The discussion of the "idle-talk" is closely tied to the problem of inauthentic-un-poetic mode of dwelling, as Heidegger substantiates his arguments regarding the link between one's situatedness in the world and discourse through a topological mode of thinking. The notion of "idle-talk" appears as the "groundlessness" (Bodenlosigkeit) of discourse (Heidegger, 1967, 176-177)22, designating the "uprootedness" and "lostness" (Verlorenheit) of the self in receiving and articulating the world. The lost self reveals the dis-oriented mode of being-in-the-world. Getting immersed in "idle-talk," one is carried away by the superficial (durchschnittlich) understanding of the world. More specifically, Heidegger argues that "Idle-talk, which closes things off [...] belongs to Dasein s understanding when that understanding has been uprooted" (Heidegger, 1967, 170). Seen from a topological point, the uprooting of the human being refers to the dis-placement from one's proper existential situation as a mortal, no longer remaining open towards one's finitude. What that also means is that the inauthentic human being, having been used to being stuck in midst of things, loses the sense of freedom towards the boundaries of her or his proper "ek-sistence."
The inauthentic self not only loses her or his free relation to the world, but is also either in ignorance or denial of this state of being. Yet, the lost space for "freedom" can be recovered with an experience of one's own "being-towards-death" (Sein-zum-Tode). Heidegger conceptualizes the possibility of regaining one's freedom via the notion of "anticipatory determinedness" (vorlaufende Entschlossneheit) (Heidegger, 1967, 329). With the notion of Ent-schlossenheit, what Heidegger has in mind is another word that says aXqdeia in the sense of "resolving" one's self to one's "limit" (terminus), thus arriv-
21 Later Heidegger makes this relationship clearer: "But speaking is at the same time also listening. It is the custom to put speaking and listening in opposition: one man speaks, the other listens. But listening accompanies and surround, not only speaking such as takes place in conversation. The simultaneousness of speaking and listening has a larger meaning. Speaking is of itself a listening. Speaking is listening to the language which we speak. Thus, it is a listening not while but before we are speaking" (Heidegger, 1985, 243).
22 Grondin puts the matters concisely: « L'homme est, littéralement, déraciné dès lorsqu'il a perdu le sens de la terre. Terre et sol, avant d'être des échos de l'idéologie Blut and Boden, sont pour Heidegger, comme pour d'autres et à d'autres titres, des symboles de la finitude du Dasein » (Grondin, 1988, 391).
ing at a sense of "releasedness"23. As regards the idea of resoluteness, we consider the attempt to regain one's open-boundedness as an act of "reorientation". The "releasing" of "releasedness" is in fact the same "letting" of Gelassenheit. As such, neither early nor late Heidegger was interested in mere "tranquility" of being-free from an experience of Angst. The freedom at issue always implies a sense of freedom from a certain mode of absorbedness-for early Heidegger from inauthenticity and for late Heidegger from "das Gestell" of modern technology, which brings the human being to the liberated, cleared region of letting. The de-termined human being, which means the self that is resolved to keep her or his proper "end" in sight, needs to recover her or his authentic relationship to the world by way of finding a space of existential freedom, which is what Heidegger calls in SZ the "freedom towards death" (Heidegger, 1967, 266).
It is in this context that the discussion of "keeping-still" (Schweigen) provides a key access to the fledgling account of "poetic dwelling." Accordingly, (1) Stillness is the key constituent of discourse, (2) Stillness is not mere muteness, or lack of utterance (Heidegger, 1988, 368-369). In SZ, Heidegger argues: "Keeping-still has been characterized as an essential possibility of discourse. Anyone who keeps still when he wants to give us to understand something, must 'have something to say'" (1967, 296). Here, it clearly appears that "having something to say" differs from uttering words, being talkative or expressing oneself. Here, translating "Schweigen" as "keeping-still" instead of "reticence" shifts our attention from mere muteness toward to the act of listening (zuhören). The act of "keeping-stil," which brings out our being given over to 'stillness' Verschwiegenheit, appears as a way of disclosing existence in its entirety -in terms of its finitude.
To clarify what is at stake with the notion of "stillness" here, we must recall that one discloses of existence neither by refusing to talk nor by talking a lot. In "keeping-silent," one primarily enables hearing, which remains unintelligible to the inau-thentic human being who is absorbed and lost in abundance of things to express (or without anything to say). The inauthentic human being speaks either too much, not really saying anything, or has nothing to say, because she or he has not understood anything. The ability to step back from "idle-talk" means enacting an existential reorientation of one's interpretation and understanding of the world by "keeping-still." This is the sense in which "keeping-still" refers to the making-space for a poetic mode of disclosure, differing from "speaking-at-length" (viel-sprechen) (Heidegger, 1967, 164). Yet, "idle-talk" and poetic discourse should not be seen as the two extremes
23 In Heidegger scholarship, Sheehan astutely acknowledges (2015, 262) this point by explicitly arguing that the later Gelassenheit is the parallel of early "authenticity."
of the same pole. In relation to that, Heidegger takes precaution by arguing that, "In no case is Dasein, untouched and unseduced by this way in which things have been interpreted, set before the open country of a 'world-in-itself', so that it just beholds what it encounters" (1967, 169). What that also implicates is that poetic discourse does not refer to a higher speech by which the human being can have direct access to the essence of things. We have no way of simply discovering or expressing the "truth of being," or of things out there as real facts by merely "keeping-still." One does not spontaneously arrive at "poetic discourse" and stay there in a realm of absolute authenticity, for one always has to wrestle the possibility of such a discourse by being-in-the-world, constantly falling back to "idle-talk." The freedom from "idle-talk" is not a permanent state of being. One has to awaken again and again through a specific mode of attentiveness. "Keeping-still" makes space for such an attentiveness that will bring the human being face to face with one's open-boundedness.
In SZ, the poetic nature of "stillness" comes to the fore again via the discussion of the "call of conscience" (Ruf des Gewissens) (Heidegger, 1967, § 55-58). For Heidegger "conscience" (Gewissen) does not refer to some theological, biological or similar ontic dimension of factuality. He writes, "Conscience gives us something to understand, it discloses" (Heidegger, 1967, 269). That which it discloses only occurs in the form of a "call" (Stimme), a call that "attunes" the human being to own one's basic determination as disclosedness. Here, it is important to see that the "voice of conscience" occurs as a "call" (Ruf), and it is within this context that we can consider its primary existential relation to the space-making of listening. In "hearkening" (hortchen) to the call, "the Self, which the appeal has robbed of this lodgment and hiding-place, gets brought to itself by the call" (Heidegger, 1967, 273). This means that hearkening to the "call of conscience" opens up a way to "return" to one's own: one's finite being. This aspect can be observed in regards to Heidegger's discussion of the "voice of conscience" (Stimme des Gewissens), especially in relation with the human being's "being-towards-death," as that to which the authentic self is attuned and disposed. In hearkening to the "call of conscience," one takes a step back from the kind of hearing that produces "idle-talk." The self that hearkens to the "call of conscience" can no longer remain satisfied with the tranquilizing coveredness of one's mortal being as is the case through an everyday manner of understanding and interpreting the world. One frees oneself from being-free-of Angst, which covers over the temporal disclosedness of Dasein. In other words, "hearkening" makes-space for an authentic understanding and interpretation of the world in and through which one can dwell poetically.
What is particularly interesting vis-à-vis the "call of conscience" is precisely the non-linguistic nature of the call, since the conscience discloses its matter without
speech. In that regard, even if the discussion of the "call of conscience" is not specifically on language, it brings out Heidegger's early idea of "no-thingness" in SZ, which offers an interesting avenue of thinking the matter of language beyond the metaphysics of presence, and redeem it as the openness, (or as the later "abyss" [Abgrund]) of the possibility of any "meaningful presencing"24. As Schalow argues, hearkening opens up a dialogue that emerges from our openness to listening, emplacing the human being in a position to be able to "have something to say"25. When we read the "call of conscience" under this light, it appears that our authentic relation towards our discursiveness does not come about by our capacity of manipulating the signs of language, but by our capacity to heed the openness that is directed towards meaningfulness, which is also Heidegger's later account of language. We certainly need "discourse" to be able to speak and communicate, but the disclosive nature of "discourse" first needs the "stillness" of listening. Heidegger's later idea of "poetic dwelling" requires an experience of our open-boundedness through language which is the "way-making movement" of the "clearing." In turn, in the early account, the call of conscience shows forth "nothingness" (Nichts),-or emptiness-as the way in and through which "being" (Sein), as a non-entity, occurs. The "call of conscience" reveals this very "no-thingness" of being, through its non-linguistic emergence. It conveys "no-thing" just as it comes from "no-where." It gives no information regarding one's existential situation, and it provides no moral guidelines as to how to act in a certain circumstance. As the "call" transmits "no-thing," the "call of conscience" brings the human existence to encounter the incompleteness of its temporal being as a whole. Indeed, the 'call of conscience' brings the human existence into its unique, finite "situation" of emptiness, to its proper "disposition" of belonging to the world, where one finds oneself exposed to one's futural "no-longer-being-there" (Nicht-mehr-Dasein). What this means is that the call appeals the human being to appropriate her or his place, which is not a location in space, but simply the world-situation into which the human being is always already thrown. This place, which is a "no-place," a ground which is a "no-ground,"
24 18th century German philosopher Hamann, who also considered language as logos in opposition to reason, talks about the abysmal essence of logos (Hamann, 1825, 151). Heidegger acknowledged Hamann's designation of language as an 'abyss' (Abgrund) in his later thought, in the 1950 essay Language (Heidegger, 2001, 189).
25 "While Heidegger maintains that the call of conscience provides the first clue to Daseins participation in the disclosive power of language, scholars often overlook the dialogic power of this silent voice. For in saying 'nothing,' the call of conscience illustrates that hearing precedes saying, and hence it is only by first 'listening' that human beings acquire the power to speak" (Schalow, 2002, 38).
bounded by emptiness, is the definitive-resolved "situation" of human existence26. As such, instead of considering the "call of conscience" as the site or location of "poetic dwelling"27, we should rather conceive it as the "limit" at which the inauthentic human being regathers the possibility of becoming authentic.
5. CONCLUSION
In this essay, I have shown that dwelling is neither mere spatial containment, nor aesthetic-psychological attachment to a certain landscape. (a) If the meaning of dwelling poetically on the earth is to sustain the human ethos that safeguards the "clearing of being," and if this requires (b) a poetic experience of the open-bounded-ness (opened towards the world-determined by finitude) of existence by keeping-still, we can conclude that Heidegger's "poetic dwelling" was already taking shape in that early work.
As such, Heidegger's fledgling account of "poetic dwelling" implies that the whole point of being is not to try to occupy the emptiness that surrounds us, but let it flourish, be the proper boundary of our existence. What we are experiencing in our technologically-determined world is a sense of limitlessness, an incapacity to appropriately situate ourselves where we stand existentially, which shows itself noticeably in pressing economic, environmental, and ethical challenges. Looking at the issue from a pre-onto-ethical and post-philosophical standpoint, Heidegger offers no help as to how to tackle such problems. This, however, cannot be considered a mere default of his thinking. On the contrary, Heidegger appears to be following such a route on purpose, explicitly arguing that we should stop expecting too much out of philosophy (Heidegger, 1976, 364). What we cannot determine is whether Heidegger's idea of poetic dwelling is convincing or not. Yet any critical assessment that disagrees with Heidegger's way of seeing the matter, then, must not disregard that one is not only standing against one period or aspect of his thinking, but rather his entire philosophical project.
26 Kotoh puts the matter in a concise way: "It is not logos, but the silence as the 'basic mood/voice' (Grundstimme) that encounters the wonder of the presencing of being." His concluding remarks are very worthwhile considering: ''One should listen [...] belongingly to the sound of silence, which constantly emanates from the depths of the indescribable, and continue to let this be the source of one's own language'' (Kotoh, 1987, 211).
27 Here I am referring to Brogan's idea that the "conscience" appears as the "site" of the transition from the inauthenticity to authenticity (Brogan, 2013, 34-36).
Acknowledgements: I started writing parts of this paper as a doctoral student at the University of Tasmania, therefore I would like to acknowledge the generous Tasma-nian Graduate Research Scholarship which helped me conduct my research. I would like to give my thanks to my former supervisors, Ingo Farin and Jeff Malpas, as well as dear colleagues and friends Lee Braver, Edward McDougall and my wife Camille Longépé for reading early drafts of this paper and their much-appreciated suggestions regarding the structure and content. I also would like to thank Thomas Sheehan for his helpful insights regarding the translation of some of the key concepts in Being and Time.
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