Heidegger and the Issue of Space: Thinking on Exilic Grounds

5. Enactments of Alterity: Heidegger’s “Translation” of Spatiality

5 Enactments of Alterity Heidegger’s “Translation” of Spatiality Introduction Throughout this work spatiality appears as a figuration of the alterity of events of beings and events of thought. As such, the issue of spatiality bears the possibility of an opening toward a thought that will engage the occurrences of beings and their events and passages, in their alterity and on exilic grounds. In Chapter 1 the logos is discussed in terms of its limited function in Plato and Aristotle, i.e., as a mimetic tool for the representation of ever-present and unchanging ideas, essences, or first principles , a function that limits language to the service of entities present at hand and their ideal presence. As such, the logos appears at the limit of its representational power, as is indicated by the figure of chora in the Timaeus. In Chapters 3 and 4 this interpretation of language and philosophical discourse in terms of objective and ideal presence is interrupted, and along with this interruption, language and thought are caught in their alterity through philosophical discourse’s failure to ultimately articulate its event. This occurs as the figure of the spatiality of the disclosedness of beings withdraws from discourse into concealment. Furthermore, in this withdrawal, discourse encounters the loss operative in its events, and with it, intimations of its alterity and exilic grounds. In the case of Plato and Aristotle, the emphasis on objective and ideal presence leaves unheard the intimation performed by such figure as chora. In Heidegger’s case, in light of the withdrawal of the spatiality of the disclosedness of events of beings, philosophical discourse is caught in its alterity. However, rather than covering over alterity, Heidegger’s thought remains engaged with the alterity of events of beings and of its event. This chapter concerns the alterity operative in Heidegger’s thought in Being and Time. The transformative motion of Heidegger’s thought—thought’s motion beyond its transcendental articulation of the disclosedness of events of beings and its critique and interruption of the tradition, in light of which thought cannot seek ground in objective and ideal presence for the understanding of its events—gives rise to a series of questions concerning his philosophical discourse. How is one to understand Heidegger’s language in light of the interruption of the objective and ideal presence that traditionally gives meaning and form to language? How is one to engage Heidegger’s language in a way that lets the alterity of that thought and of language be heard? In short, how will one engage thought in light of its alterity and exilic character? The aim of this chapter is to engage the passage or event of Heidegger’s thought in its alterity and on exilic grounds. Once again this is done by taking up the figure of spatiality in Being and Time. This time the discussion will concentrate on Heidegger ’s analysis of spatiality in §§22–24. Again, the discussion follows closely both what Heidegger says and the motion or performative aspect of his thought. Heidegger’s discussion of spatiality in §§22–24 of Being and Time can be understood as an “ontological genealogy of space: how it arises in Dasein’s world.”1 As such, it can be read as a “regrounding” of spatiality. This regrounding occurs immediately after spatiality has been severed from its traditional interpretations,2 by Heidegger’s critique of traditional ontology in the sections that immediately precede it. The general direction of Being and Time sustains the interpretation of these sections as a regrounding of spatiality, since the fundamental analysis of being-in-the132 Scherzi 1. Edward Casey, The Fate of Place (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997), 252. 2. BT, §§19–21 (SZ, §§19–21). world and the existential structure of dasein’s care, and ultimately its temporality, can be read as the preconceptual ground for metaphysics, the philosophy of nature, and transcendental philosophy.3 But however powerful one’s drive to “reground” spatiality, Heidegger’s discussion must also be understood in terms of the critique of metaphysics and transcendental philosophy that introduces and precedes it. Therefore, in view of Heidegger’s critique of traditional ontology, and because of his use of the language of this tradition,4 his discussion of spatiality cannot be read but as a transformative appropriation, literally a “translation,”5 of the traditional lineages and conceptualities that sustain interpretations of spatiality in terms of objective...