HEIDEGGER AND THE MEANINGFULNESS OF QUESTIONING AND THINKING by Derek Beamer A thesis submitted to the Department of Philosophy In conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada (September, 2017) Copyright © Derek Beamer, 2017 Abstract What does it mean to question and think? Questioning and thinking are two activities which we consider imperative to doing philosophy and the two activities that we involve ourselves in most of the time, albeit without much thought given to that involvement. Are questioning and thinking those activities normally thought of as those belonging to reason alone and among the ranks of various mental activities? I would like to argue that, according to Heidegger, questioning and thinking carry a different essence than just mental activities, all the while still being imperative to philosophy. The following study seeks to investigate Heidegger’s reconceptualization of the themes of questioning and thinking and the meaning that lies therein. My aim is in the vein of a reconstructive exposure: to lay out and follow along Heidegger’s thought behind his conceptions of questioning and thinking and, through building them back up, to expose their deeper meaning, new understanding, and potential for interpreting the situation of one’s “historical time.” In order to argue this deeper meaning, new understanding, and interpretation, I put forth the following statement: where we find questioning, there too do we find thinking, meaning that if we take questioning to be that activity which opens up one’s situation, it is then thinking that confronts the opened-up situation as a struggle against it. This struggle against, however, is not to be conceptualized as a struggle against something so as to end it. On the contrary, the struggle against is that which runs up against the confrontation opened-up through questioning; a running up against that, while a struggle, nevertheless is intimately related to the confrontation that it struggles against. Ultimately, what is revealed through questioning and thinking is the “place” which most concerns the being who questions and thinks: the always-already there. i Acknowledgements I wish to express my deepest gratitude and heartfelt thanks to my supervisor Paul Fairfield of the department of philosophy at Queen’s University for his invaluable help and guidance throughout the writing of this thesis. Much of what is contained in this thesis stems from our many discussions revolving around the study of a few of Heidegger’s writings and lectures and if it were not for these fruitful discussions, the thesis would not be in its present form. I would also like to give thanks to Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg for all their support during my university career. Finally, I wish to dedicate this thesis to my mother, sister, and brother. Thank you for all your love, encouragement, and support throughout this writing process—without you, this could not be possible. I also wish to dedicate this to my uncle Glenn McConini who passed away suddenly this year. Migwetch, Derek Beamer, September 2017 ii Table of Contents Abstract ..........................................................................................................................................................i Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................................... ii Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: The Elucidation of the Idea of Questioning and Questionableness - The Seinsfrage .................. 9 Chapter 2: Thinking as the Struggle Against the Confrontation: The Re-turn to Being-There................... 58 Conclusion: The Relation Between Questioning and Thinking: A Synthesis ........................................... 101 Bibliography .............................................................................................................................................. 106 iii Introduction Nearing the end of the nineteenth century, Friedrich Nietzsche, witnessing the beginning of the end of “traditional” values, sought to establish, in the face of impending meaninglessness and nihilism, new values that would bring a sense of urgency to the people of Europe and to actively create something “great” that would set them apart. While this moment had not reached its zenith, Nietzsche saw this as something that was to come and which we must prepare to face whether we like it or not. Despite Nietzsche’s awareness of this impending moment, he felt that this statement of urgency had come too early for the ears of the modern European, for who would take seriously such a statement as “God is dead”? However, this proclamation which Nietzsche had placed in the mouth of Zarathustra or the so-called “madman” contained a bitter- sweet tone: while it was great that we were finally coming to a time that we could be released from the shackles of traditional values which were becoming increasingly meaningless, this freedom from brought with it a burden and responsibility to something. This burden and responsibility that was placed upon us was to “name” ourselves, so to speak, in the face of (or in spite of) this increasing meaninglessness through the creation of values. This called for a more or less “noble” enterprise (hence his emphasis on nobility in Genealogy of Morals) to confront this meaninglessness, take on the burden and responsibility, and to create. This moment that Nietzsche often wrote of is what we know as a “crisis,” and the turn of the twentieth century was certainly an event which brought along with it many a crisis concerning what it means to be human, which was tied to the crisis of the unity of the sciences seeing that, although dealing with objectivity, was something that was carried out by human beings. The turn of the century not only brought significant changes and challenges to academic circles, but to everyday life in general. Ushering in the new century was the First World War, a war that produced warfare tactics that had never been witnessed before. Cities reduced to rubble, 1 farmland transformed into battlegrounds, countless people including both soldiers and civilians killed, and the ever-increasing importance and veracity of technology coming into focus were just some of the fallout from the First World War. Ultimately, the turn of the century provided an environment riddled with confrontational change, but also was ripe for new ways to philosophize. If Nietzsche was giving a warning of the crisis, thinkers such as Heidegger who found themselves within the midst of the crisis (Heidegger in his lifetime witnessed two world wars which ravaged Germany) were then responding to it. Crisis, etymologically stemming from the Greek meaning “decision,” was for Heidegger of utmost importance. He saw the crisis as that decision-moment which provided the possibility for philosophy. The question is then: was philosophy as one of the activities intimately concerned with being human then burdened with the responsibility to address and respond “back” to the crisis? It was not enough for philosophy to simply arrive on the scene of the crisis and begin philosophizing without further ado. There must be a way to position oneself so as to “genuinely” respond to such an event, and what better activities to look at (which are imperative for philosophy) than questioning and thinking? Not only are they a necessary part of philosophizing, they are two activities that we do most often and otherwise take for granted. The following study is then concerned with analyzing and laying out what Heidegger means by the concepts of questioning and thinking. However, the study goes further than stopping at an analysis of two concepts as this might lead to a misunderstanding that the themes of questioning and thinking in Heidegger’s thought that, while interesting in their own right, are unrelated to each other. I would like to suggest that questioning and thinking in Heidegger’s thought are related to each other and constitute a much deeper meaning than meets the eye. The study does not just deal with questioning and thinking in the way that they are commonly talked about. As with much of what Heidegger has written and lectured on, the themes and concepts that find their 2 way into his thought are brought before a new understanding and given new meaning—and the themes of questioning and thinking are no exception. What is being asked in the study is not simply what questioning and thinking are, according to Heidegger, but what meaning they hold or, to put it differently, what rank do questioning and thinking find themselves in. Are they in rank based on their roles in mental/psychological activities and their relative abilities to bring about abstract ideas? Not at all. Instead I propose that Heidegger’s work on questioning and thinking demonstrates that these activities are tied to something far more fundamental and intimate than just an activity carried out here and there. This is accomplished by looking at Heidegger’s reconceptualization of questioning and questionableness in terms of what he called in Being and Time the “Seinsfrage,” and looking at thinking as “poetic thinking” which received most attention in Heidegger’s later period. Therefore, the reader should be aware that the themes of questioning and thinking are not to be taken as