Être et Liberté. Une étude sur le dernier Heidegger (review)

308 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY JEtre et LibertJ. Une Jtude sur le dernier Heidegger. By Reuben Guilead. Preface by Paul Ricoeur. (Louvain: ]~ditions Nauwelaerts, 1965. Pp. 184. 180FB.) Guilead's study represents a largely successful attempt to trace the development of the notion of freedom in Martin Heidegger's philosophy. Its major shortcoming is at the same time the source of much of the book's rich insight: Guilead sets himself too large a task for the short space he allows himself. The book is divided into three major parts and is enhanced by the inclusion of a preface by the noted French phenomenologist Paul Ricoeur. The first part is devoted to a consideration of freedom in Heidegger's early writings. In chapter one Guilead analyzes the transition in Sein und Zeit from the inauthentic self (das man) to the authentic self. The relation between transcendence and freedom is considered in the second chapter, and the relation between truth and freedom in the third. The second part has for its subject matter the overstepping (ddpassement) of subjectivity and of the "metaphysical" determination of man in general. Here Guilead examines the philosophical positions of Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche, and considers contemporary philosophical technique also in the light of Heidegger's position as it develops after Sein und Zeit. The third part is devoted to an examination of the notion of freedom as it appears in Heidegger's more recent works--the works of the so-called "later" Heidegger. In chapter one of this part Guilead concerns himself with Heidegger's views on the place of man in the destiny of Being. The word of Being and the word of man are considered in the second chapter, and the third has for its subject matter the notion of authentic existence in the light of the Kehre. There follows a brief eleven-page conclusion. No study of Heidegger can hope to be illuminating or relevant to contemporary philosophy if it does not grapple with Heidegger's views on the nature and function of language. These views are in no small measure puzzling. At the same time they are central to Heidegger's thought---a fact which has only recently begun to gain the amount of attention it deserves. It is often suggested that the emergence of Heidegger's concern with language marks the transition to his later philosophy. This would make language one of the prime elements to be discussed in explaining Heidegger's controversial Kehre, the "reversal" in his thought of which he writes in ~]ber den Humanismus. Guilead devotes a chapter to Heidegger's views on language. The chapter is on the whole an insightful one, but it fails, I think, to emphasize properly the ontological importance of language in Sein und Zeit. This has for its result a slight distortion of the significance of the Kehre in Heidegger's thought as well. Guilead writes: Dans la pens~e actuelle de Heidegger la r~flexion sur le myst~re du langage devient de plus en plus capitale. Cela s'explique par le statut ontologique extraordinaire que Heidegger conf~re au langage darts le cadre de l'~v~nement; le langage est, en effet, comme nous le disions dans l'Introduction, ~ la fois la maison de l'Etre et la demeure de l'homme. Cette conception actuelle du langage marque encore un changement depuis Sein und Zeit. Certes, dans cet ouvrage Heidegger ~non~ait d~j~ clairement l'incapacit~ o~a sont toutes les theories et toutes les philosophies du langage d'expliquer son essence. Toute interpretation instrumentale du langage ~tait refus~e. Le langage ~tait d~duit de 1existential du discours et valait comme 1~nonc6 du discours qui lui-meme n 4tait que 1articulation int~rieure d une totalit$ du monde. Ainsi le sens d'un monde acc~dait ~ la parole dans et par le langage. Toutefois, apr~s la Kehre, on note un changement d'optique qui s'exprime doublement concernant le langage: d'abord, le langage ne sera plus d~duit d'un existential, mais il sera expliqu~ comme le langage de l'Etre; et deuxi~mement, c'est seulement le langage ainsi compris qui fournit ~ l...