CLOSENESS OF BEING
The language of the true self emerges from this silence and is nourished by silence to become something which expresses this silence - Tetsuaki Kotoh
Heidegger pointed out to his students that the German word for thinking – denken, is etymologically akin to the word for gratitude – danken.
Heidegger emphasized that we are not truly thinking until every thought we have is one of gratitude for Being. This revelation amounts to a third “Copernican Revolution” in the discipline of philosophy. Kant created the first one in terms of the metaphysical tradition, and Nietzsche had instigated the second, with his incendiary and iconoclastic critiques of Christianity, religion, humanism, metaphysics and Rationalism.
Heidegger didn’t describe himself as a bone fide Existentialist because he was disinclined to associate himself with any movement filled with people who didn’t “get” what he was talking about. He was also cautious of schools and paradigms infected with “metaphysical” principles and ideologies. His entire project serves as the replacement for outworn metaphysical doctrines.
Heidegger’s philosophy is neither atheism nor theism, but a description of the world from which God is absent – William Barrett
…Heidegger takes his central task to be the overcoming of ‘metaphysics’ – Julian Young
Heidegger declares a great war on metaphysics in his later works and attacks such notions as matter, form, subjectivity, cause, substance, time, and truth as contrivances which have led to the false stereotyping of the Being of beings – John A. Taber
Nevertheless, Heidegger’s revolutionary ideas certainly constitute the soil from which a great many Existentialist insights and principles grew. Existentialist ideas make greater sense because of Heidegger’s superlative contribution. An “esoteric” reading of his texts confirms him as a quasi-Existentialist thinker, even though we acknowledge his expertise in reaching and surpassing the furthest perimeters of all recognized philosophical paradigms, offering us a much wider openness to thought than any other discipline or school provides. This includes Eastern traditions.
Heidegger’s search for the appropriate language with which to build in this realm, that is to think it, leads him progressively away from metaphysical, conceptualizing ways of speaking and makes him even wonder whether Western languages, just because they are superbly suited for metaphysical thinking, can ever lend themselves to non-representational utterance – J. L. Mehta
Indeed, Heidegger’s ideas had a major impact on what is known as the school of Existential Psychology. Despairing of academic philosophy (and of philosophy professors) he preferred addressing psychologists, clinicians and medical students. He worked with Medard Boss and Ludwig Binswanger (the founders of Existential Psychology) for seventeen years, up to the end of his life in 1976.
