Heidegger's Pragmatism: Understanding, Being and the Critique of Metaphysics, and: Heidegger, Kant and Time (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 631 criterion of ordinary language had a conventionalist outcome which sought to create a common set of legitimate language uses. That this is not even mentioned in this context is a serious omission. There is an objectivist thrust in recent linguist philosophy which, like structuralism, is antisubjectivistic. If there is a negativism in it, it involves the virtual deletion of the subjective individual. An instance of linguistic nihilism is perhaps found in the free play of language and the capricious interpretation of texts espoused by Derrida. At any rate, justice is not done to the issue of the suppressed nihilistic consequences of "the philosophy of language." The Specter of the Absurd invites criticism because it is an ambitious and comprehensive work that deals with many complex and contentious issues. Like similar studies, it tends to disclose metastasizing sources of nihilism and finds nihilistic tendencies and implications in numerous places. Crosby's strengths are his recognition of the value of certain insights of the philosophy of nihilism--its emphasis on perspectival knowledge, its sensitivity to human differences and differential values, its awareness of the tragic dimensions of human life, its valuation of freedom, its appreciation of the contingencies of existence and the insecurities of life---and his compassion for those who suffer from the unjust, senseless, and random negativities of existence. In his moving accounts of the personal experience of "existential nihilism," as well as his literary illustrations of this theme, he approaches a sensitivity to the human condition and a wisdom that is rare in recent philosophical discourse. Although some of the details in this wide-ranging work are contestable, it is an accessible, interesting, and serious study that can be read with profit by many. P.S. One curiosity, which has nothing to do with the content of the book, is that the commentary on its back cover mentions Derrida as one of the sources of contemporary nihilism. This is certainly an arguable point, but unfortunately Derrida is not mentioned anywhere in The SpecteroftheAbsurd! If possible, SUNY Press should correct this oddity. GEORGE J. STACK State University ofNew York, Brockport Mark Okrent. Heidegger'sPragmatism: Understanding, Being and the Critique of Metaphys- /cs. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988. Pp. xiii + 3ou. $29.95. Charles M. Sherover. tteidegger, Kant and Time. Current Continental Research, vol. 8o5. Washington: Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology and University Press of America, 1988. Pp. xvii + 32~. Paper, $18.75. The two books under review here both adopt a common strategy in response to the problem of philosophical writing about Heidegger. As anyone who has read him in German or another language realizes, Heidegger constructed a strange new idiom, "Heideggerese," which spans the time before and after he abjured the term "philosophy " for his work. How then is one to write, philosophically, in English, about Heidegger's work? Should one jump into the project enthusiastically, perhaps coining a few hyphenations of one's own in an anglified new idiom, "Heideggerlish"? Or 632 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 28:4 OCTOBER 1990 should one attempt to translate not only Heidegger's German into English, but also the idiom of his work into some supposedly neutral "philosophical" language? The working out of other options is a pressing need, although it need not be taken up by everyone. In these two books, the second approach is adopted by Okrent and Sheruver. To varying degrees, they both attempt such a double translation of Heidegger. The difficulties faced by all translators are intensified in the case of Heidegger, especially considering his insistence that all translation is interpretation, and that all interpretation--especially his own--is "violent." In other words, Heidegger consistently denies that one can translate without losing something. The questions then become: What is lost in the translation? and, Is the loss worth the gain? (The major gain in translation, obviously, is time saved. One need not lose time struggling with another language or style of thought if one can read a version of it in one's own language. Heidegger, of course, had a lot to say about saving and losing time in Beingand Time.) Along with these concerns, it would also seem that Heidegger...