Martin Heidegger

“Metaphysics thinks about beings as beings. Wherever the question is asked what beings are, beings as such are in sight. Metaphysical representation owes this sight to the light of Being. The light itself, i.e., that which such thinking experiences as light, does not come within the range of metaphysical thinking; for metaphysics always represents beings only as beings. Within this perspective, metaphysical thinking does, of course, inquire into the being which is the source and originator of this light. But the light itself is considered sufficiently illuminated as soon as we recognize that we look through it whenever we look at beings.In whatever manner beings are interpreted―whether as spirit, after the fashion of spiritualism; or as becoming and life, or idea, will, substance, subject, or *energeia*; or as the eternal recurrence of the same events―every time, beings as beings appear in the light of Being. Wherever metaphysics represents beings, Being has entered into the light. Being has arrived in a state of unconcealedness (aletheia). But whether and how Being itself involves such unconcealedness, whether and how it manifests itself in, and as, metaphysics, remains obscure. Being in its revelatory essence, i.e., in its truth, is not recalled. Nevertheless, when metaphysics gives answers to its question concerning beings as such, metaphysics speaks out of the unnoticed revealedness of Being. The truth of Being may thus be called the ground in which metaphysics, as the root of the tree of philosophy, is kept and from which it is nourished.Because metaphysics inquires about beings as beings, it remains concerned with beings and does not devote itself to Being as Being. As the root of the tree, it sends all nourishment and all strength into the trunk and its branches. The root branches out in the soil to enable the tree to grow out of the ground and thus to leave it. The tree of philosophy grows out of the soil in which metaphysics is rooted. The ground is the element in which the root of the tree lives, but the growth of the tree is never able to absorb this soil in such a way that it disappears in the tree as part of the tree. Instead, the roots, down to the subtlest tendrils, lose themselves in the soil. The ground is ground for the roots, and in the ground the roots forget themselves for the sake of the tree...Metaphysics, insofar as it always represents only beings as beings, does not recall Being itself. Philosophy does not concentrate on its ground. It always leaves its ground―leaves it by means of metaphysics. And yet, it never escapes its ground...Insofar as a thinker sets out to experience the ground of metaphysics, insofar as the attempts to recall the truth of Being itself instead of merely representing beings as beings, his thinking has in a sense left metaphysics. From the point of view of metaphysics, such thinking goes back into the ground of metaphysics."―from_The Way Back to the Ground of Metaphysics_”

“Philosophy is metaphysics. Metaphysics thinks beings as a whole―the world, man, God―with respect to Being, with respect to the belonging together of beings in Being. Metaphysics thinks beings as being in the manner of representational thinking which gives reasons. For since the beginning of philosophy and with that beginning, the Being of beings has showed itself as the ground (arche, aition, principle). The ground is that from which beings as such are what they are in their becoming, perishing, and persisting as something that can be known, handled, and worked upon. As the ground, Being brings beings to their actual presencing. The ground shows itself as presence. The present of presence consists in the fact that it brings what is present each in its own way to presence. In accordance with the actual kind of presence, the ground has the character of grounding as the ontic causation of the real, as the transcendental making possible of the objectivity of objects, as the dialectical mediation of the movement of the absolute Spirit and of the historical process of production, as the will to power positing values."―from_The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking_”

“Why are there beings at all, instead of Nothing?”

“Every man is born as many men and dies as a single one.”

“Thus with the question of the Being of truth and the necessity of presupposing it, just as with the question of the essence of knowledge, an 'ideal subject' has generally been posited. The motive for this, whether explicit or tacit, lies in the requirement that philosophy should have the '*a priori*' as its theme, rather than 'empirical facts' as such. There is some justification for this requirement, though it still needs to be grounded ontologically. Yet is this requirement satisfied by positing an 'ideal subject'? Is not such a subject *a fanciful idealization*? With such a conception have we not missed precisely the *a priori* character of that merely 'factual' subject, Dasein? Is it not an attribute of the *a priori* character of the factical subject (that is, an attribute of Dasein's facticity) that it is in the truth and in untruth equiprimordially?The ideas of a 'pure "I"' and of a 'consciousness in general' are so far from including the *a priori* character of 'actual' subjectivity that the ontological characters of Dasein's facticity and its state of being are either passed over or not seen at all. Rejection of a 'consciousness in general' does not signify that the *a priori* is negated, any more than the positing of an idealized subject guarantees that Dasein has an *a priori* character grounded upon fact.Both the contention that there are 'eternal truths' and the jumbling together of Dasein's phenomenally grounded 'ideality' with an idealized absolute subject, belong to those residues of Christian theology within philosophical problematics which have not as yet been radically extruded.The Being of truth is connected primordially with Dasein. And only because Dasein is as constituted by disclosedness (that is, by understanding), can anything like Being be understood; only so is it possible to understand Being."―from_Being and Time_. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, p. 272”

“The ‘I’ is a bare consciousness, accompanying all concepts. In the ‘I’, ‘nothing more is represented than a transcendental subject of thoughts’. ‘Consciousness in itself (is) not so much a representation…as it is a form of representation in general.’ The ‘I think’ is ‘the form of apperception, which clings to every experience and precedes it.’Kant grasps the phenomenal content of the ‘I’ correctly in the expression ‘I think’, or—if one also pays heed to including the ‘practical person’ when one speaks of ‘intelligence’—in the expression ‘I take action’. In Kant’s sense we must take saying “I” as saying “I think.” Kant tries to establish the phenomenal content of the “I” as *res cogitans*. If in doing so he calls this “I” a ‘logical subject’, that does not mean that the “I” in general is a concept obtained merely by way of logic. The “I” is rather the subject of logical behavior, of binding together. ‘I think’ means ‘I bind together’. All binding together is an ‘*I* bind together’. In any taking-together or relating, the “I” always underlies—the ὑποκείμενον [hypokeimenon; subjectum; subject]. The *subjectum* is therefore ‘consciousness in itself’, not a representation but rather the ‘form’ of representation. That is to say, the “I think” is not something represented, but the formal structure of representing as such, and this formal structure alone makes it possible for anything to have been represented. When we speak of the “form” of representation, we have in view neither a framework nor a universal concept, but that which, as εἶδος [eidos], makes every representing and everything represented be what it is. If the “I” is understood as the form of representation, this amounts to saying that it is the ‘logical subject’.Kant’s analysis has two positive aspects. For one thing, he sees the impossibility of ontically reducing the “I” to a substance; for another thing, he holds fast to the “I” as ‘I think’. Nevertheless, he takes this “I” as subject again, and he does so in a sense which is ontologically inappropriate. For the ontological concept of the subject *characterizes not the Selfhood of the “I” qua Self, but the self-sameness and steadiness of something that is always present-at-hand*. To define the “I” ontologically as “*subject*” means to regard it as something always present-at-hand. The Being of the “I” is understood as the Reality of the *res cogitans*."―from_Being and Time_. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, pp. 366-367”

“But anyone who only expects thinking to give assurances, and awaits the day when we can go beyond it as unnecessary, is demanding that thought annihilate itself.”

“Being and time determine each other reciprocally, but in such a manner that neither can the former - Being - be addressed as something temporal nor can the latter - time - be addressed as a being.”

“היידגר בהרצאותיו הרבות ממש תבע מתלמידיו ומעצמו לאמץ בחיי היומיום את המודוס 'היות לקראת מוות', שמסלק את ההשפעה של 'ההם' ומקנה לאדם את האפשרות לחיות חיים אותנטיים.”

“היידגר מפרק את ההיררכיה בין השתיים, תוך שהוא מקנה להן אותו ערך ומציב אותן באותו מישור... הפרקטיקה והתיאוריה הם אינם אלא שמות שונים ליחס האותנטי של האדם להוויה.”

“אחד הדברים המקסימים ביותר בילד היא יכולתו להתפלא ולהשתאות מול החיים ומרכיביהם. במשך הזמן מאבד הילד את הנכס הזה וכמבוגרים אנו מפתחים גישה הלוקחת את מה שקורה לנו וסביבנו כמובן מאליו. היידגר, כמו הילד הקטן, לא פסק מעולם להשתאות מול מה שבעיננו הוא המובן מאליו ביותר: ישֶנותו של ה'יש'... הדרך לחוות את הישות היא בעיקר דרך החושים.”

“בכל מקום אנו נשארים לא חופשיים וקשורים באזיקים לטכנולוגיה, אם נודה בכך ואם לאו.”

“שלוש סכנות מאיימות על החשיבה. הטובה, המבריאה את הסכנה, היא השכנות עם המשוררים המזמרים. המרושעת, המשחיזה את הסכנה, היא החשיבה עצמה. היא זקוקה לחשיבה כנגדה, דבר הנחפץ רק לעתים רחוקות. הגרועה המבלבלת את הסכנה היא ההתפלספות.”

“אנו מאחרים להגיע אל האלילים, ומקדימים מדי להגיע אל היישות.”

“חושב דגול - טועה דגול.”

“השפה מהווה את ביתה של ההוויה האמיתית.”

“המטפיזיקה היא אפלטונית מן המסד ועד הטפחות.”

“המצוקה מהווה תכונה יסודית של האדם המציבה אותו מול האיין.”

“מאז שהאדם בא לעולם הוא היה זקן דיו כדי למות.”

“האופן שבו דבר־מה נעשה לניתן להבנה כדבר־מה.”