Warning Concerning Copyright Restrictions The Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted materials. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research. If electronic transmission of reserve material is used for purposes in excess of what constitutes "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement. RELIGIOUS PERSPE.CTIVES RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVES • VOLUME TWENTY-ONE Planned and Edited by RUTH NANDA ANSHEN WHAT IS CALLED BOARD OF EDITORS W. H. Auden THIN-KING? K'arl Barth Martin CaD'rcy, S.J. Christopher awson by MARTIN HEIDEGGER / C. dd Mircea Eliade Muhammad Zafrulla Khan John Macquarrie A Translation of Was Heisst Denken? Jacques Maritain by James Muilenburg Sarvepall, Radhakrishnan Fred_D. Wieck and J. Glenn Gray Alexander Sachs - Gershom Scholem With an Introduction by]. Glenn Gray r tfj 1817 H~:RPER & ROW, PUBLISHERS NEW YORK, EVANSTON, AND LONDON LECTURE I ·-· - t,,J ..... 11'.·· ,A (we come to know what it means to think when we ourselves ('\.' 1i~- ~; =~!i!~~jP' is to be successful, we must be !•·' '.::;):;:,/ As soon as we allow ·ourselves to become involved in such !,_..; ,~(._ 0 learning, we ha.ve admitted that we are n:ot yet capable ,h,~ .•~,· · of thinking. .r Yet- man is called the being who can think, and rightly so. Man is the rational animal. Reason, ratio, evolves in ---. -- -~oc=- - •....- - ~ J thinking. Bepig the rational animal, man must be capable of thinking if he really wants to. Still, it may be that man · wants to think, but can't. Perhaps he wants i.2.0 much when he wants to think, and so can do too little.t Man can think \ in the sens~ that he possesses the. possibili~y to do -~~ This possibility alone, howeve.!,. is no guarantee to us that we are capable of thinking. F_orlwe are capable of doing only what \I we are inclined to do),_ And again, we truly incline orily toward something that in turn inclines toward us, ·toward our essential being, by appealing to our essential being as the keeper who holds us in our essential being. ·what keeps us in our-essential nature holds us only so long, however, as. we for our part keep holding on to what holds us. And we,_'·: k eep holding on' to it by not letting it out of our memory: .. · • / ✓ Memory is the gather;ing of thought. Thought of what?' V · ·, 5 4 WHAT IS CALLED THINKING? PART I 5 _. Thought of what holds us, in that we give it thought pre­ are the thinkers par excellence. They are called thinkers . cisely because It remains what. must be thought about. precis;ly because thinking properly takes place in phi­ Thought has the gif\_2f thinking back, a gift given because losophy. we incline toward id Only when we are so inclined toward Nobody wi~y th~t there is an interest in philosophy wh~t in itself is to be thought about, only then are we capa- today. But · ei;e "1Ilything at all left today in which \ ble of thinkingJ · , · man does no_:vtake an interest, in the sense in which he ,.)" \;'.·~,,.-)"In order to be capable of thinking, we need to learn it understands "interest"? _ ·. "-,."'~.. \·"'. :-. 1first. What is learning?\Jv.ran learns when he disposes every­ 1 0 Interest, int~resse, means to be among aIJ.d in the midst "'1 :S~~:} >< ,i\1lthing he does so that it answers to whatever essentials are of things, or_:to be at the center of a thing and to stay with · \:r-~,_t';1addressed to him at any given m?mentl We learn to think . it. But today's interest accepts as-valid onlywhatisinterest- r) ·::, I-:·.•. I ~y giving our mind to what there is to think about. · -;-g. And interesting is the sort of thing that can fre~ly be \~ \_;_,v,. .. ~Fi~~ What is e~sential in a friend, for example, is what we call regarded as indifferent the next moment, and be displaced , ~~, ·_i...."I "friendly." In the same sense we now call "thought-pro- by something else, which then concerns us just as little as voking" what in itself is to be thought about. Everything what went before. Many people today take the view that t!;~~g.!!_~kJE._~?"g~t-1:ts t~ ___th~- But it always gives they-are doing great honor to something by finding it inter-) I that gift just so far as the thought-provoking matter al­ esting. The truth is that such an opinion has already rele- ) ( ready is intrinsically what must be thought about. From J gated the interesting thing to the ranks of what is indiffer­ i! \ .,t ) now on, we will call "IJ?-ost thought-pr~\o!,:ing" what re- ent and soon boring. '-·..;:.- . ~ - ---=--~-=-.. _'.,,A I ) niains to be thought aboµt always, because it is at the begin- It is no evidence of any readiness to think that people • I f ! ' ning, before all else/What i;· most thought-provoking? show an interest in philosophy. There is, of course, sei-ious f How do";;-~If in our thought-provoking· time? preoccupation everywhere with philosophy and .its prob­ (!I 1\ ' ; i'. t lems. The learned world is expending commendable efforts i I l 't.~Most thought-provoking is that we are still not thinkin(J \ 1 : -not even yet, although the state of the world is becoming in the investigation of the history of philosophy. These are l constantly more thought-provoking. True, this course of useful i:i.nd worthy tasks, and only the best talents are good r. events seems to demand rather that man should act, with­ enough for them, especially when they present to us models out delay, instead of making speeches at conferences and of great thinking. But even if we have devoted many years I I international conventions and never getting beyond pro­ to the intensive study of the treatises. and writings of the I posing ideas on what ought to be, and how it ought _to be great thinkers, that fact is still no guarantee that we our­ l I (/ .../ done. What is lacking, then, is action, not thought . selves are thinking, or even are ready to learn thinking. On ; . { i And yet-it could be that prevailing man rurs-forcenturies the contrary-preoccupation with philosophy more than i now acted too much and thought too little. But how dare anything else may give us the stubborn illusion that we \ I anyone assert today that we are still not thinking, today are thinking just because we are incessantly "philoso­ I when there is everywhere a lively and constantly more . phizing." audible interest in philosophy, when almost everybody .' Even so, it remains strange, and seems presumptuous, to claims to know what philosophy is all about! .Philosophers assert that what is most thought-provoking in our ~hought- n I r 6 WHAT IS CALLED THINKING?, PART I 7 (,: provoking time is that we are still not thinking. Accord- th~~ing is by no means only because man does not yet turn \ ingly, we must prove the assertion. Even more advisable is sufficiently toward that which, by origin and innately, . first to explain it. For it could be that the demand for a wants to be thought about since in its essence its re~ains . proof_collapses as soo~ as enough lig~t is__ ~:~!-~~~ what must be thought about./Rather, that we are still not l 1 l ~~rt10n say,s_._Itxuns_,._ _______ ~-- · · , _._ \ : thinking steri!; from the fact that the thing itself that must i '<"'. ~<. ./',.)· M.ost thought-provoking in our thought-pro. vokzng tzme -\J be thought about turns away from man, has turned away t , I" ~: - is that we are still not thinking. _\ I long ago) · · · We will want to know at once when that event took ( f~~ -;::}:~~~~~~~g=~;:::~;::;~!~~:~:::~~!!; -\ place. Even before that, we will ask still more urgently how / gives us to think._ Let us look ~t 1t closely, ~d from the start \ w~ could pos:ibly know of any such event. And finally, the i allow each word its proper weight. Some thmgs are food for I problems :"hich here lie in wait come rushing at us when \ thought in themselves, intrinsically, so .to speak _innately. ' we add still further: that which really gives us food for r \ And some things make an appeal to us to give them thought did not turn away from man at somt:;! time or other ) thought~ to turn toward them in thought: to think them. which can be ~ixed in history-no, ~L!:~~JLJ~ust be \ - What is thought-:-provoking, what gives us to think, is _thoughLk~~P.~.J~:.~l!..J..1.!I.P.gg_away-from-man ·since ~the. b~:- i then not a:r_iythmgt~deteri:.nine, not anything that gtnning.----- ,.. \ only vve'-~~e iIIstituting,_ only we, _ij.I.l'Lpr.o.posing. According r·. On the othe~ hand, in our era man has always thought f to our assertion, what of itself gives us most to think about, m some way; m fact, man has thought the profoundest / what is most thought-provoking, is this-tha~ we are still. thoughts, and entrusted them to memory. By. thinking in ( not thinking. · that wa~he did and does remain related to what must b~ I This now means : We have still not come face to face, ~ thought.}~yet man is not capable of really thinking__as· _\ 7 \ have ·not yet come under the sway of what intrinsically ~o~ as that ~~!.£.J:i Ill_ust be thought ~bout, withdraws_J · )f~-- , desires to:·be .thought about in.