The Mystical Element in Heidegger's Thought (review)

320 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY ing the text or transposing its problems into different logical and ontological contexts . Lakebrink's book tries to follow a hermeneutical procedure that--in modern terms--one might call "reconstructive" insofar as it develops the internal logic of the dialectical process in order to verify the results of this construction in the light of the text itself. This self-controlling procedure seems to work effectively. Its advantage may be found in the interpretation of the "dialectical" transitions of the categories, which, to a large extent, Lakebrink succeeds in clarifying. It may be mentioned that this method seems to correspond exactly to the hermeneutical claim Hegel himself set up for any valuable interpretation. It is necessary to enter into the "strength" (Stiirke) of a philosophical system in order to be able to weigh its problems with reference to traditional and modern solutions. Lakebrink's commentary opens up a very subtle access to Hegel's Logic. Especially , the retrospective interpretations of Hegel's philosophy with regard to Plato, Aristotle, Neoplatonism, Thomas Aquinas, medieval Light-metaphysics, and Christian Trinitarian theology place Hegel's philosophy in a classical philosophical context that is often neglected today. On the whole, one may say that the complementary tie between the historical and the strictly literal-systematic approach to the commentary seems to trace a hermeneutically adequate perspective for future research in Hegelian texts. KLAUS HEDWIG Cologne John D. Caputo. The Mystical Element in Heidegger's Thought. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1978. PP. xvi + 292. $15.oo. When, in its October 1974 and January 1975 issues, the Journal of the History of Philosophy, published two-part essays by John D. Caputo and Reiner Schurmann on the topic of Heidegger and Meister Eckhart (Schfirmann also dealt with Zen Buddhism as described by D. T. Suzuki), the editors noted that it was rather unusual to receive almost simultaneously two excellent essays on the same rather specialized topic. Evidently, a new dimension of Heidegger-research had been opened up. The considerable interest provoked by these essays will be fed by the appearance of Caputo's new work, the first book-length treatment of the role of mysticism in Heidegger 's thinking. This sensitive, clear, well-organized, and insightful interpretation shows that the mystical element may well be the crucial key for understanding Heidegger 's "later" thinking. Caputo demonstrates that Heidegger always regarded mysticism as an inseparable companion of fundamental thinking. In 1915, Heidegger noted that in the Middle Ages, "scholasticism and mysticism belong essentially together " (p. 7). And in lectures from 1955 to 1956 he claimed that "the most extreme sharpness and depth of thought belongs to genuine and great mysticism" (p. 6). Such a great mystic was Meister Eckhart, from whom Heidegger drew insight and vocabulary crucial for the development of his thinking after the so-called turn away from the transcendental-horizontal-volitional thinking of Being and Time. The present book BOOK REVIEWS 321 delineates the sometimes striking parallels between the thinking of Eckhart and that of Heidegger, but it also makes clear that Heidegger's thinking is neither mystical nor religious nor poetic nor "philosophical" in the usual sense. Heidegger, whom Caputo regards as "the greater thinker of this century" (p. 262), followed his own unique path of thinking. The first of five chapters stakes out the basic themes to be elaborated in more detail in subsequent chapters. The structural parallel between Eckhart and Heidegger is expressed in approximately the following manner. Eckhart claims that "detachment " (Abgeschiedenheit) and "releasement" (Getazenheit) from self-will and egoism are necessary if the soul is to become what it is: pure Nothingness united with the Nothingness of God. Heidegger claims that only "releasement" (Gelassenheit) from subjectivistic-representational thinking, and hence from our technological Will to Power over beings, will enable us to become what we are: the "clearing" (no-thingness ) wherein beings can show themselves as what they are. Caputo refers to the works of three well-known critics of Heidegger--Hiihnerfeld, L6with, and Vers6nyi --to formulate six questions that guide the next three chapters and are answered in the final chapter: (1) Is Heidegger's "experience of Being" genuine, or is Heidegger merely a "false Eckhart...