Journal of the History of Philosophy

BOOK RZVlZWS 403 George Steiner. Heidegger. Fontana Modern Masters. Glasgow: Fontana/Wm. Collins Sons & Co., 1978. Pp. 157. $3-95. Is it possible to read Heidegger sympathetically and also critically? Professor Steiner directly confronts the impressions we receive from many Heideggerians and analytic philosophers in asserting that it is. He believes that the crucial problem is one of learning how to question Heidegger, to learn what to expect from him. Steiner's little book aims at breaking a path in this direction, one that can be taken up by both intelligent laymen and sophisticated philosophers in search of an introduction to the elusive German metaphysician. Steiner is wel] aware that there are several prima facie objections to undertaking such a task within the scope of a slim volume, and he appropriately addresses his opening remarks to this problem. The book's three chapters deal respectively with Heidegger's "basic terms," an introduction to Heidegger's chef d'oeuvre, Being and Time, and with what the French call the actualit~of his thought, its topicality. Steiner's discussion of "basic terms" is far more than a Heideggerian glossary. It is, rather, an account of his basic strategy for bringing his reader to an insight through contorting language. It is an introduction to Heidegger's way of doing things with words. As such it provides a valuable compliment to Joseph Kockelmans's On Heidegger and Language (Evanston, 197~). Steiner is well aware that in less than fifty small pages he can do litde more than suggest the perplexities which led Heidegger to write Being and Time, the chief intellectual influences which molded the style as well as the substance of his response, and the main lines which that response took. Yet, he manages to do just that admirably. In addition, he clearly and precisely raises the inevitable question about the relation of Heidegger's metaphysics to his politics in the mid-thirties. He rightly insists that any final answer to this distressing problem of how a man of insight in philosophy could have so little insight into the contemporary situation in politics cannot be given until the Heidegger papers are opened to the public. However, he gives us a lucid summary of the main facts and a sagacious judgment as to their significance when he insists that they neither indict nor exculpate Heidegger. Steiner's testimony concerning Heidegger's presence in Steiner's own work is as convincing as the mass of data to which he refers in the concluding chapter on his topicality. Convinced of Heidegger's significance for modern linguistics and aesthetics and uniquely qualified in virtue of his vast knowledge of languages and literature, Steiner offers a provocative justification for Heidegger's approach to such writers as H61derlin and Trakl. This is especially valuable for philosophers in the latter case, for Heidegger's Trakl lecture is as important for his conception of the relationship between language and Being as it appears to be obscure. In short, there is a great deal to be learned from Steiner's own way to Heidegger. However, the question remains as to whether he has shown the way between the Scylla of historical understanding and the Charybdis of philosophical criticism. Here, I fear, the answer is no, for he, too, remains too much under Heidegger's spell to get beyond suggesting that the master's views may be difficult to accept at certain junctures. What might he have 404 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY done? 1 shall offer two suggestions for points of departure for criticism which I think Steiner has failed to explore. The first question is just how far we must follow Heidegger when he makes assertions about his own thought. Clearly, we cannot ignore these statements, but must we on that account accept them? It is not impossible for philosophers to be mistaken about their own thought. So, for example, I do not think that it is necessary to agree with Heidegger when he says that his work is not at all ethical. If we take ethics to mean moral theory or a particular socially sanctioned moral code, his view is conceiveable. However, if we take ethics to signify a characteristic of human action...