Heidegger and the Question of Renaissance Humanism (review)

192 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 24:1 JANUARY 198~ of an up-to-date and coherent anthology of a subject which now lies at the heart ol historiographic and systematic philosophical debate'. EZEQUIEL DE OLASO National Council for Scientific Research, Argentina Ernesto Grassi. Heidegger and the Question of Renaissance Humanism. Four Studies. Medieval and Renaissance Studies, vol. 94. Binghamton: Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, ~983. These studies are based on lectures delivered at Barnard College..Professor Grassi, who taught at the University of Munich, tries to establish connections between some major thoughts of Heidegger, such as the end of metaphysics, the ontological difference , and what he calls the reversal of negative theology, and some Italian humanists of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and Vico. Grassi has a quarrel with Heidegger's and some present-day humanist scholars' interpretation of Italian humanism. Quoting from Heidegger's famous Letter on Humanisra where he states, "that every Humanism begins with a definition of the essence of man and so with an anthropological philosophy," Grassi claims that this is not true for the Italian humanists of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries or for Vico, whom he considers the crowning achievement of humanism (50). Furthermore, Grassi blames humanist scholars for Heidegger's misconception. I have my doubts whether Heidegger was familiar with their writings. In addition, Professor Kristeller--to name one scholar whom Grassi mentions-~never defined "the significance of Italian Humanism primarily in its Platonic and Neo-platonic systems" (31)? But there is a more serious difficulty with Grassi's approach to his subject. He righdy points out that language and poetry occupy a central role in Heidegger's philosophy. It is wrong, however, to conclude, "that the poet is the one who founds the dme and place of being-there [Da~ein]" 03)- In a lecture Heidegger said, "Poetry and thinking encounter each other in the same [dimension] only then and as long as they firmly adhere to the differences in their [respective] essences."2 In "The Saying of Anaximander" we read, "Thinking is the archetypal poem that precedes all poetry. ''3 The reader of the little volume should keep the distinction between poetry and thinking before him. In the first chapter Grassi applies Heidegger's thesis about the end of philosophy (that is, of metaphysical thinking), the question of unhiddenness and the so-called ~ See P. O. Kristeller, The Humanist Movement in RenaissanceThought. The Classic,Scholastic, and Humanistic Strains (New York: Harper & Brothers, ~96~), to. "Thus Renaissance humanism was not as such a philosophical tendency or system, but rather a cultural and educational program which emphasized and developed an important but limited area of studies." ' "... Dichterisch wohnet der Mensch... " in Vortriigeund Aufs~tze (Pfullingen: Giinther Neske, a954), x93. "Das Dichten und das Denken begegnen sich nur dann und nur so lange im selben, als sie entschieden in der Verschiedenheit ihres Wesens bleiben" (translation mine). a "Der Spruch des Anaximander" in Holzwege (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 195~), 3o3. "Das Denken ist die Urdichtung die aller Poesie vorausgeht..." (translation mine). BOOK REVIEWS 12 3 primacy of poetic speech to the Italian humanists. In De Vulgari Eloquentia and Convivio, Dante formulates the thesis that the poet is the founder of the community and that he originates "historicity" (19). With the latter term Grassi has Heidegger's concept of Being as historicity in mind. Leonardo Bruni further develops the meaning of language. Words have no static meaning, he claims, rather what they indicate depends upon their situation and the circumstances surrounding it (2o). Boccaccio affirms that the poetic fable lifts the veil covering every res (thing, object). Unlike Heidegger, for whom Being brings a world into the open, Boccaccio sees poets inspired by god or gods. As a Christian, Grassi affirms, Boccaccio identifies poetry with theology. For Coluccio Salutati, "poetry assumes a pathetic function as the foundation of the human order" (24). Salutati's concept of truth as the "self-revelation of the human world" (25) needs more elaboration. In Vico, the author finds the most mature expression of Heidegger's anti-metaphysical stance and of his concept of openness. But how Vico's lud, meaning the clearing of the woods by...