社科网首页|客户端|官方微博|报刊投稿|邮箱 中国社会科学网

【张祥龙】The Coming Time “Between” Being and Daoist Emptiness

 

Abstract: In volume 75 of Heidegger’s Complete Works (Gesamtausgabe), there is an article written in 1943 in which Heidegger cited the whole chapter 11 of Lao Zi to illustrate his view of the uniqueness of the poet.  The paper is to present Heidegger’s rendering of the chapter and his interpretation of it.  Not only is the article the earliest record of Heidegger’s direct contact with Daoism found in the published literature up to now, but also the contact, differing from all others, relates directly to his earlier thought or the central concerns of Being and Time.  Heidegger interprets Lao Zi’s “wu” (emptiness) as a genetic “betweenness”, and considers it as the key of comprehending the “coming time” and thence the uniqueness of the poet.  It is both a deepened exegesis of his doctrine of “Being”, “time” in his earlier writing, and a methodological revealing of the guiding word “appropriation” (Ereignis) in his late works.

 Key words: the 11th chapter of Lao Zi, simplicity, wu (, emptieness), ontological difference, betweenness.

    We already know several facts indicating Heidegger’s interest of Daoism at the beginning of 1930’s.  For instance, Heidegger cited and rendered one line from chapter 28 of Lao Zi (Lao Tze or Tao Te Ching), “Der seine Helle kennt, sich in sein Dundel huellt (Lao-tse)” [The one who knows his brightness, hides himself in his darkness (Lao Zi)],[1] in the first version of his celebrated “On the Essence of Truth” (1930) to illustrate the interdependent relation of truth (disclosing, opening) and untruth (covering, concealing).  According to H. W. Petzet, O. Poeggeler and G. Parkes, Heidegger gave his lecture of “On the Essence of Truth” on Oct. 8, 1930 in Bremen.  Next day and in Kellner’s house a seminar was held, in which Heidegger asked for a copy of Zhuang Zi (Chuang Tzu) from the host and read to the audience the last part of the 17th chapter of the book, a dialogue between Zhuang Zi and Huishi about the possibility of knowing the happiness of fish under the bridge they stood on.[2]  With it, Heidegger explained successfully how a person could put himself into another one’s position.  In spite all these evidences, however, what we could find of Heidegger’s own writing in published materials relating directly to Daoism until near past were limited to his works in late 1950’s and to the issues of his later thought.  The newly published volume 75 of Heidegger’s Complete Works (Gesamtausgabe, Band 75) changes the situation radically.  In the article “The Uniqueness of the Poet” written in 1943, Heidegger appealed to Lao Zi for making possible a genuine understanding of the uniqueness of the poet, i.e. Hoelderlin.  In his indication of Lao Zi’s significance for knowing Heolderlin, and from his rendering of the whole chapter 11 of the ancient book as well as his interpretation of it, we see clearly that Lao Zi is highly meaningful for Heidegger not merely in regard to his late writings, but also to the central topics of his Being and Time (1927).  And, it is actually the earliest published literature of Heidegger’s writing on Daoism that are available to us now, earlier than all others at least for 14 years.  The paper is to inquire Heidegger’s views of Lao Zi’s relation to Hoelderlin, the way of his rendering of the 11th chapter of Lao Zi, and further to analyze their relevance for understanding Heidegger’s early and later thoughts.

 I.                    From Hoelderlin to Lao Zi

The title of the article expresses its issue: what is the uniqueness of the poet?  To Heidegger, the answer cannot be found in any way “vorhanden” (being-ready-made, objectifiable).  For instance, comparing all the poets in actual history (Historie), or finding out the conceptual essence of poetry, or both, will do little to solve the problem.  Only in an lively historical process (Geschichte) experienced (erlebt) by the poet, something authentically poetic is revealed or constituted.  Heidegger writes: “The poet himself says what is poetry; He says it ever according to the essence of what he poetizes.”[3]  There is a hermeneutic circle or an initiating “nothingness” in it: the poet must say according to the essence of poetry; but at same time, the essence of poetry must be formed during his saying.  To avoid making the circle vicious, the poet can petition for nothing other than the existential time process of Dasein (historical, ecstatic or situational human being).  This time is essentially the interplaying among the past, presence and future that are ecstatically experienced, and therewith allows a productive circling.  Hence we read: “If a poet has to expressly poetize the essence of poetry, and indeed poetize the essence as the original historical and calls the essence ‘coming’ (Kommendes), then, the poetizedness of this poet in regard to time is treated with distinction, so that the uniqueness of this poet enters directly into light.”[[4]  This paragraph shows that the timely “Kommende” or the “coming” is the key of discovering the essence of poetry and the uniqueness of the poet.  It is this coming or be-coming that transforms the actual history (Historie) into the original one (Geschichte).  Corresponding to the “future” or “to-come” (Zu-kunft) in Being and Time, the coming is a thorough “not yet (noch nicht) but be-come” and thus elicit happening.  Heidegger emphasizes the primacy of the “to-come” dimension of time in Being and Time [5] since it manifests most apparently the non-being-ready-made (zu-handen) and “to-be” (zu-sein) essence of Dasein.  For the same reason, the future or to-come is not anything substantial or independent, but has to be interweaving and inter-realizing with the past (having-been, Gewesen) and the present (Gegenwart), so as to constitute time phenomenon in mutual transforming or in the “‘out-of-self’ for itself”.[6]

In this perspective, comprehending the poet’s activity through the time-horizon of coming (future) that interweaves inherently with past, we will find his speech to be both “pre-saying” (Vorsagen) and “after-saying” (Nach-sagen).  The “after-saying”, radically interplaying with the “pre-saying”, does not mean to speak after something being somewhere already, but “to say after the word of Being”, or more precisely “the pre-saying that says after the word of Being” (das dem Wort des Seyns nach-sagende Vorsagen).[7]

“The unique poet [who can pre- and after-say at same time or in the meantime] is Hoelderlin.”[8]  Because his poems come out not from his subjectivity but from “the coming time” (die kommende Zeit) and thus poetize or create “the poet’s vocation or calling”.[9]  “The uniqueness”, therefore, “is sent (geschickt) to him from the Sending or Providence (Schickung) that decides thereto his Saying in the after-saying Pre-saying of Being’s issued calling.”[10]  In the coming time which can never be measured as object, there is nevertheless an original Measure (Mass) and rhythm, called by Heidegger “measuring and self-measured Measure”.[11]

Now there occurs a crucial question, i.e., how can we pay attention to (achten) the uniqueness of the poet?  Or, how can we “listen to his [the poet’s] Saying and the Said-ness of the Saying”, [12] so as to experience the coming time itself or the timely truth disclosed by the poetized Saying of the poet?[13]  Heidegger writes: “The unique problem is if we remain inattentive (achtlos) in respect to the time that is continuously and authentically the coming, or if we learn the Attention and from it obtain the primordial memory (Andenken) of thinking (Bedenende).”[14]  So long as we confuse the actual history with the original history, the time in measurable sense with the time in measuring sense, or the poetry as an object of literature investigation with the poetry as the pre-saying, we cannot have the Attention.  Metaphysics since Parmenides and Plato has refused to admit authentic connection between truth itself and time.  From Descartes, the main trend of the modern western philosophy is to take human’s nature as a conscious subject.  Whether the subject is considered to be a priori or empirical, timeless or being-in-time, it has covered or missed “the coming time”.[15]  The Christian God took time as a form of his world-creation and a projected timetable of salvation.  So the supreme God cannot pay genuine attention to the life-or-death relation between poetry and thinking, poet and coming time.  Hoelderlin is the poet, but his uniqueness was unknown to most people in most times.  His poems were neglected for a long time.  Half of his 73 year life was spent in a darkened madness.  Even after he was discovered in the beginning of 20 century, appropriate understanding of him has been always a challenge.

In such a desperate situation, Heidegger asks: “How do we, the belated-born ones of non-Attention during centuries, learn the Attention?”[16]  At this crucial point or moment, Heidegger turns to the ancient Lao Zi for a first help.

II.                 The Quotation and Interpretation of Lao Zi

To answer the question of “How to learn the Attention?”, Heidegger states:

In terms of looking at the unpretentious simplicity (Einfache), appropriating it more and more primordially, and becoming before it shyer and shyer, we learn the Attention.

Indeed the unpretentious simplicity of the simple things moves us to what we from the old usage of thinking call “Being” (das Sein) in the difference from “beings” (Seienden).

Lao Zi speaks of the Being in this difference in the eleventh epigram of his Tao-Te-Ching [Dao-De-Jing].[17]

Here Heidegger asserts that the 11th chapter of Lao Zi’s Dao-De-Jing (《道德经》, or Lao Zi) directly relates to the celebrated ontological difference made by him in Being and Time, i.e., it is necessary to distinguish Being from beings.[18]  In other words, what Lao Zi says in the 11th chapter is the Being in this difference!  This is really a quite fresh and remarkable assertion.  Heidegger, however, does not connect the two without a medium, “the unpretentious simplicity”.  The word “simplicity” (Einfache) often appears in Heidegger’s late works, indicating the pre-theoretical, non-dichotomous way of existence, and concerning his interpretation of Hoelderlin, inquiry of language’s essence, and criticism of the modern technological culture.  It sounds pretty fitting here to apply it to Lao Zi’s thought since Dao-De-Jing praises simplicity (pu- or su-, e.g., chapter 19, 28) highly and most German translations of Dao-De-Jing which Heidegger could find rendered the “pu” or “su” as “Einfachheit” or “Einfalt”.[19]  The translators often single out the “simplicity” or the “‘one’ (Einheit) in ‘many’ or ‘twofold’” as Lao Zi’s distinctive feature when comparing him with other ancient thinkers.[20]  To Heidegger, the “Einfache”, “Einfalt”, “Einheit” may have etymological or thinking link with the “Einzigkeit” (uniqueness) [of the poet].  He believes, by experiencing the simplicity more and more primordially and becoming before it shyer and shyer (which may be compared to Lao Zi’s “ week [ruo, chapter 40, 55]” and “not dare to act [bu gan wei, chapter 3, 64]” ), we are able to learn the crucial Attention paid to the existential time.  Further, the unpretentious simplicity of the simple things (which may collate to Lao Zi’s “things of Dao”, chapter 21) can get us going to where the “Being” is, in its difference from “beings”.  In such a way of observing “simplicity”, Heidegger bring readers to “the eleventh epigram of Tao-Te-Ching”.  He renders the whole epigram or chapter as this:

The words run thus:

Thirty spokes converge in a nave,

    But the emptiness between them grants the Being of the cart. 

Out of the clay grow the utensils,

    But the emptiness in them grants the Being of the utensil. 

Walls, windows and doors produce the house,

    But the emptiness between them grants the Being of the house. 

The being yields the utility.

    The Non-being grants the Being.[21]

The philological discrepancies between the German version and the original Chinese text can be attributed either to the linguistic-cultural incommensurability, to the published German translations of Lao Zi on which Heidegger’s translation depends, or to what Heidegger intends to make. 

       Among several German translations of Lao Zi available to Heidegger then, it is apparent that Heidegger’s version of this chapter is closest to that of Ular’s.[22]  Considering the fact that Heidegger himself did not know Chinese and he composed this article (“The Uniqueness of the Poet”) in 1943, earlier than his cooperation with Paul Shih-yi Hsiao in 1946 by which he obtained a kind of direct contact with Lao Zi in its original Chinese,[23] we can assume that his version of the 11th chapter depended most on Ular’s translation, although might refer to other versions such like Strauss’ and Wilhelm’s.

       After comparing Heidegger’s version with the original one of this chapter, it may be found that the most significant differences between them are: (1) Heidegger renders the “yong” (, utility, usefulness) which appears four times in the chapter as “Being” (Sein), while other German versions except Ular’s follow more literally the original and hence translate it as “Gebrauch” (usage, by Strauss) or “Werk” (performance, by Wilhelm).  Ular’s rendering is “Wesen” (essence) echoing the past participle of the “Sein”, “gewesen”.  (2)After Ular, Herdegger renders “wu” () as “Leere” (emptiness).  Other translators render it as “Nichts” (nothingness) or “Nicht-sein” (non-being).  (3) “Zwischen” (between) appears two times in Heidegger’s rendering, one time in Ular’s, but is absent in other versions.  From the differences, it becomes understandable why Heidegger basically relies on Ular’s translation.  By the same token, Heidegger’s special trend of laying out the chapter is disclosed as well.  It is distinctively shown in his following exposition and implied in some of his later works.[24]

       Now let us see how Heidegger interprets the chapter:

       This citation implies: When the betweenness (das Zwischen) of all things is first held open in itself, and extends in the extension of the time-staying and region (weitet in die Weite der Weile und Gegend), it may look to us too easily and frequently as the null (Nichtige).  … [However] The meanwhile (Indessen) is the gathering that gathers and stretches itself in moment and time.[25]

It may look somewhat strange to certain readers that Heidegger’s interpretation primarily deals with neither “emptiness” or “nothing” nor “Being” but “the betweenness of all things”.  The “betweenness” is taken as the origin of emptiness and Being, actually as a subtle perspective through which the phenomenological time is comprehended.  It lets us pay attention to the lively time between what has just passed and will come, among the genetic moments or time-stayings.  It is always the “in-between” or the “meanwhile”.  Therefore, for Heidegger, what Lao Zi says about the emptiness in utensils does not signify, as some interpreters believe, merely a useful space, but bears certain features of a phenomenological horizon, especially of the appropriating structure of the existential time in Heidegger’s discourses.  It is so dynamic, being unable to be presented at hand or objectified as any entity directly effable, while never departing from the phenomenal world, and therefore has to manifest itself as the purely transitive as well as genetic “between”.  The springy emptiness is neglected by those who pay attention to its effects only rather than the unfolding and extending of itself.

       In terms of the “between”, Heidegger links his understanding of the Lao Zi chapter with his exposure of time in Being and Time and a series of topics of his later thought, including the “cleft” (Rissin techne and language that renders human’s ek-sistential comprehension possible, the appropriation (Ereignis) among the fourfolds (heaven, earth, deity and human), the ontological significances of the “turning” (Kehre), complementariness, “way-opening” implication of the “Way” (Weg), etc.  The linkage also refers to Heidegger’s view mentioned above that the uniqueness of poet can be recognized only in poetizing rather than in any external relation, and the poetizing must be constituted in what between the poet speaks and hears.  In sum, it is a genetic “between” in methodological sense, obtained from Heidegger’s reading of Lao Zi’s “dang qi wu” (当其无, at the emptiness between them), that is extremely helpful in understanding the fabric of Heidegger’s whole thoughts.  He wrote thereafter:

       From the between of the opposing time-staying, which exists as the time-stay-ing region (verweilenden Gegend), every in-between (Inzwischen) receives its essence (Wesen) and the possibility of its differentiation in two senses: that of “in the midst” (Inmitten) and that of “meanwhile” (Indessen).  The “in the midst” is the gathering that gathers and stretches itself in place and space, while the “in-between” is the gathering that gathers and stretches itself in moment and time.[26]

The “time-stay-ing” suggests what oppose[s] but complement[s], and thus must maintain itself or themselves in appropriate happening.  So the genuine “time-stay-ing” cannot be anything present-at-hand, whether or not being subjective or objective.  It is the “region” in the sense of genetic phenomenology, manifesting itself as the existentially coming time whose three dimensions interplay with each other.  In this sense, it is also an “empty” space that elicits happening.  Thus the region can neither be conceptualized as physical field or primary material, nor taken as that in psychological sense, but should be understood to be “the between opposing time-staying[s]”, i.e., what is between past and future, here and there, yin and yang.  As William James who profoundly influenced Husserl writes: “The attempt at introspective analysis in these cases [of dynamic relation-feeling] is in fact like seizing a spinning top to catch its motion, or trying to turn up the gas quickly enough to see how the darkness looks.”[27]  Further, he does not consider the experiences of the betweenness to be mystical.  Rather, they exist everywhere in our life.  For instance, “what we hear when the thunder crashes is not thunder pure, but thunder-breaking-upon-silence-and-contrasting-with-it.”[28]

       Taking the “between” as origin, Heidegger distinguishes the “in the midst” from the “meanwhile”.  The former indicates the existential way of beings, or the unprimordial way of treating the between as a physically spacial relation such as “the chair is between ceiling and floor”.  The latter, the “meanwhile”, is the existential way of treating the between through temporalizing, that precedes the “in the midst”, opens possibilities for all beings, and thus provides existential measure for human.  The distinction actually is another version of Heidegger’s “ontological difference”.  Heidegger continues:

       In this [genuine] in-between, dwells the human if its dwelling is the memory (Andenken).  The memory is remained in remainness, and its remainness is preserved (verwahrt) in the testament of the Being in regard to truth or pre-serving (Wahr-heit).[29]

 

This paragraph, in terms of “memory”, “truth” (or pre-serving), “testament”, “preserving” and “Being”, bridges what he writes about the 11th chapter of Lao Zi and the uniqueness of poet.  Further, it expresses a view of human nature, i.e., “[i]n this in-between, dwells the human”, which is one of the major topics in his later thought.  According to this view, what distinguishes human from other beings is not any attribute such as “reflective reason”, “self-consciousness”, “will”, etc. that presumes a dichotomy of subject and object, but the original in-between.  Human lives between heaven and earth, past and future, brightness and darkness, subject and object, and exists as the final measure of the in-between’s maintaining itself.  Taking Heidegger’s description of “temporality”, we may designate the nature of human being as “the primordial ‘out-side-of-itself’ in and for itself”.[30]  In the last sentence of the cited paragraph, Heidegger puts a hyphen into the German word of “truth”---- “Wahr-heit”.  The verbalizing of its first half, “wahren”, means “to keep up”, and the modification (Umlaut) of the verbalized (waehren) signifies “to last” or “to exist”, linking up with the “to grant” (gewaehren) that appears repeatedly in Heidegger’s translation of the 11th chapter of Lao Zi.  In this way, he shows that truth is existentially temporal or time-related.  It is not merely lightening, opening or dis-covering but also needs hiding, covering or preserving.[31]  Human lives primarily in the preserving opening, or the becoming preservation.

       In the light (that presumes the dark), Heidegger ends the article with the following paragraph:

 

The in-between-the opposing time-staying-the remembrance (Gedaechtnis) -, the opposing time-stay-ing in the extension of the testament (dessen entgegenende Verweilen in der Weite des Vermaechtnisse) is the “innerness”, - “the emptiness” of human, out of which the dimensions of spirit, soul, life and their unity (presented metaphysically) receive their essence (Wesen).[32]

 

Most of the words, interposed or connected by the bigger hyphens, have been talked above and what they express as accounted are also connected with each others.  Heidegger here mentions “‘the emptiness’ of human”.  The “emptiness” comes from his translation and interpretation of the 11th chapter of Lao Zi, and therewith indicates the in-between or opposing time-staying.  For Heidegger, it is the very essence of human.  As what is just mentioned above, this view differs from the previous western comprehensions of human being and especially from the metaphysical conceptions of it.[33]  The discourse of human nature in the Letter on Humanism (1946) by Heidegger already got a start here that maintains the full tension of the in-between.  By which, the problem of the “uniqueness of poet” is further answered.  The non-being-ready-made “between” is the “unpretentious simplicity”, through experiencing which we can pay genuine attention to the coming time, and therefore understand the uniqueness of poet as well as the original meaning of Being itself.

 

 

III.               The Uniqueness of Heidegger’ Exposure of the Lao Zi Chapter

 

Before finding the material above presented, we know that Heidegger cited or discussed Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi four times in his published works, all from the essays of 1957 to 1960.  The first one is “The Principle of Identity” (1957) in which the Chinese guiding word “dao” (Tao) is compared to the western guiding word “logos” and Heidegger’s “Ereignis” (appropriation).  It is pointed out that the words are so original that it is extremely “difficult to [let them] be translated”, but still they hint the way of overcoming technology’s reign of human being.[34]  The second one, “The Essence of Language” (1957/58), interprets Lao Zi’s dao as an originating Way (Weg) or way-opening (beweegende), whose implication is more primordial than that of “reason”, “spirit”, “meaning”, etc.  In it hides the “the secret of all secrets” (comparable to Lao Zi’s “xuan zhi you xuan” or “玄之又玄”) of language or “thinking Saying (Sagen)”.[35]  In the third one, “the Basic Principle of Thinking” (1958)Heidegger cites “The one who knows his brightness, hides himself in his darkness” from the 28th chapter of Lao Zi, to indicate that the modern technology pursues the “brightness” without recognizing the necessity of the “darkness” that hides secret for human being, and therefore entails the threat of the deadly light that is “brighter than a thousand suns”.[36]  The last one comes from the “Traditional Language and Technical Language” (1960).  Heidegger quotes from the end of the first chapter of Zhuang Zi (Chuang Tze) a big paragraph talking on “a huge tree that is useless”, [37] and argues that the “uselessness” is rather the “significance of the thing” and thence more fundamental and important than the usefulness of consummation that prevails in our technical culture.

From the brief introduction, we may observe that Heidegger’s interpretation of Daoism involves almost all big topics in his later period, e.g.: the nature and threat of modern technology, the way of coping with the threat, the nature of language, appropriation, and the relation between east and west.  They have no direct relation to Heidegger’s earlier thought and the key words expressed mainly in the Being and Time (1927).  Numerous scholars have treated Being and Time as the main contribution of Heidegger to philosophy and neglected his later works by marking them as “poetical” or “non-philosophical”.  Consequently, they took Heidegger’s contacts with Daoism to be the by-product of the non-philosophizing and thus deserve no serious attention.  In spite of my completely disagreement with the opinion, it unfortunately has produced great impact.  At least partially for that reason, the relation of Heidegger with Daoism has not been seriously concerned by the main body of Heidegger researchers.  The biographies of Heidegger neglect the relation totally.

The occurrence of this new material changes the situation greatly.  The time of its writing precedes those just mentioned at least 14 years.  Moreover, it demonstrates apparently that Heidegger’s interest in Daoism concerns with not only the issues of his later thought, but also with the central themes of Being and Time as well, i.e., both the difference of Being from beings, the meaning of Being itself, and the original sense of time.  Heidegger writes: “Lao Zi speaks of the Being in this difference [‘Being’ (das Sein) in the difference from ‘beings’ (Seienden)] in the eleventh epigram of his Tao-Te-Ching [Dao-De-Jing].”[38]  From the earlier discussion, we have observed that one weighty reason for Heidegger to rely on Ular’s translation is that Ular’s version of the chapter 11 makes possible to render Lao Zi’s “yong” () as “Being” (Sein).  Consequently, in Heidegger version of this chapter, “Being” appears four times and the last stanza runs as “The being yields the utility, / The Non-being grants the Being”.[39]  In this way, he decisively combines his ontological differentiation and his understanding of Being with Lao Zi’s thought and terminology, and thus manifests a strong motive to build a bridge between “Being” and “dao”.  It suggests, the non-being or Lao Zi’s “wu” (emptiness) provides a chance to understand Being and to pay “attention” to the “coming time” (die kommende Zeit).

Now the problem is: what excellence does the non-being or wu have, so that through it the existential time, a horizon of understanding Being, can be opened and attended by us?  Here the key is Heidegger’s subtle interpretation of the wu as a “betweenness” (Zwischen) or “in-between” (Indessen).  According to it, wu is not a bare nothing, logical negation, but a thorough negation of all beings-ready-made (Vorhanden), and thence the non-being or wu can be expressed as “non-being-ready-made”.  In this perspective, Roger Ames and David Hall translate wu as “indeterminacy”.[40]  So the wu neither abandons the being absolutely nor is reduced to the being at present hand, but situates itself in the betweenness of the beings, between front and back, left and right, subject and object, etc.  As Heidegger’s version states: “Thirty spokes converge in a nave, / But the emptiness between them grants the Being of the cart.”  The “emptiness between [beings]” is what makes the beings possible.  The betweenness, if understood lively or genetically, will lead us to existential time since it is a formal as well as immanent indication of the time.  “The meanwhile (Indessen) is the gathering that gathers and stretch itself in moment and time.”[41]

Can we find some reasons for Heidegger’s dynamic and temporal reading of the 11th chapter, especially of the wu, that seems to contrast itself to the usually static and spatial comprehension?  Quite a few chapters of Lao Zi render the wu and dao (which is characterized by wu) in the sense of “non-being-ready-made” mentioned in last paragraph and therefore lay out a dynamic connection between wu and you (being).  It is read, for instance, “Therefore let there always be non-being [wu] so we may see their subtlety, / And let there always be being so we may see their outcome. / The two are the same.” (ch.1)[42]  “Being and non-being produce each other.” (ch.2)[43]  It implies, when being (you, Seiende) is treated as independent entity, it is an isolated object that must be denied by wu.  However, when it is observed through wu-perspective, it enjoys an interplaying (differentiating identical) relation with wu.  In this way, the wu and a big group of words associated with it are bestowed upon dynamic meanings explicitly or implicitly.  “Attain complete vacuity, / Maintain steadfast quietude. / [Thereby] All things come into being, / And I see thereby their return.” (ch. 16)  The dynamic connection between wu and you has a temporal significance also: “We look it and do not see it; / Its name is The Invisible. / We listen to it and do not hear it; / Its name is The Inaudible. / … / It reverts to nothingness [wu wu, 无物]. / This is called shape without [wu] shape, / Form (hsiang) without [wu] object. / It is the Vague and Elusive. / Meet it and you will not see its head. / Follow it and you will not see its back. / Hold on to the Tao [dao] of old in order to master the things of the present. / From this one may know the primeval beginning (of the universe). / This is called the bond of Tao.” (ch.14)[44]  Through the horizon exposed by the wu-group----“not”, “Invisible”, “Inaudible”, “nothingness”, “without”, “Vague and Elusive”----, the “old” is intimately interwoven with the “present” and therefore let us know the Origin (the primeval beginning) and “the bond of dao”.  To understand this dao, we do not need “to increase [our objectifiable knowledge] day after day”, but rather “decrease [them] day after day.” (ch.48)  “It is to decrease and further decrease until one reaches the point of taking no action [wu wei]. / No action is undertaken, and yet nothing is left undone [wu bu wei].” (ch. 48)  Based on all these reflections, Heidegger’s interpretation of wu and the 11th chapter is at least partially defended.[45]

Quite a few philosophers, including Husserl to certain extent, take time as “the extension of the present”.  But how can we find a “present” being-ready-made?  Every present, even an instant, is the interwoven of a just past and an immediate coming.  In other words, it exists between past and future.  By the same token, any past or future wins its existence by interweaving with present and another dimension of time.  From the standpoint of isolated you, the interweaving or the dynamic between-ing is nothing at all.  However, in the perspective of an existential time, although the “between” exceeds all being-ready-made, including all discrete time dimensions, it can be understood and experienced directly.  Actually, it is the very root of our consciousness and the world.  In the light of the time-betweenness, our thinking gets rid of metaphysics while resisting nihilism and relativism, since it denies merely the self-sufficiency of the being-ready-made and meanwhile discloses the constituting origin of all the beings as well as a life-form that is more natural and productive than that under the rule of metaphysics in broad senses.  It is the very Origin that “grants the Being” and thus makes our comprehension of Being and human nature possible.  So it is quite comprehensible that Heidegger tries to deepen his treatments of the core issues in his early thought by the betweenness obtained from his reading of Lao Zi.

After careful reading, we may find out that Heidegger’s translation and interpretation of the chapter 11 of Lao Zi relate intimately with his later thought as well.  He writes: “In this [genuine] in-between, dwells [wohnt] the human.”[46]  Because as said above the in-betweenness exceeds all being-ready-made, the original human dwelling or the human nature cannot be found in any objectifiable or “useful” being but in where prevails the “great usefulness of the useless” by which Heidegger later makes comment on Zhuang Zi about “a huge tree that is useless”.[47]  Through this, his discussions on the chapter 11 has something to do with his criticism of modern technology, while the “cart”, “utensil”, “house” appearing in his translation of the chapter, serve as the manifestations of the simple or handy technique in contrast with the framing (Gestell) of the modern technology.  The dao of Lao Zi, being set in parallel with Hoelderlin’s poetizing (Dichtung) by Heidegger, implies a sense of “Saying” (Sagen) and so relates to his discourses on the essence of language.  Certainly, the apparent discussion of the connection of dao with Saying had to wait after Heidegger tried to cooperate with a Chinese scholar (Paul Shih-yi Hsiao) to translate Lao Zi into German, so that he could firmly recognize the sense of “saying” (dao shuo 道说) embedded etymologically in the “dao” ().  It was therefore only later in 1950’s that he dared to assert in his later article that the dao contains “the secret of all secrets” of language or “of thinking Saying (Sagen)”.[48]  Moreover, the genetic betweenness is the pivot of his later talking on the Appropriation (Ereignis), meaning that the interplaying and mutual delivering of the two distinctive features is prior to the two features’ identifications themselves.[49]

In sum, Heidegger’s exposition of Lao Zi in “The Uniqueness of the Poet” written in 1943, connecting to his early and later thoughts, sheds considerable lights on both his relations to Daoism and our understanding of his own philosophy as a whole.

 

Notes:

 

[1] I got the colored copy of the first version of Heidegger’s manuscript of “On the Essence of Truth” from Prof. Walter Biemel.  In his letter sent to me dated May 15, 1997, he transcribed the paragraph that contains the quotation of Lao Zi and indicated that it occurs in the sixth part of “On the Essence of Truth”: “Untruth as Concealing”.  After finding out considerable differences between this version and the published version in Wegmarken, I wrote to Biemel again to inquire the relation between them.  In his following letter of July 3, 1997, Biemel sent me the colored Xeroxed copy of Heidegger’s manuscript which he obtained from Mrs. Heidegger and the rendering of the manuscript into printed letters made by himself.  He explained to me in the letter that because the paper was published in 1943, twelve years after the first version, Heidegger made quite a few changes, including the abandoning of the Lao Zi quotation.  All the information relating to the specially important quotation (we know from Heidegger himself that “On the Essence of Truth” marked his “turning” (Kehre) to later thought) was put in the 12 chapter of my book Heidegger’s Biography (《海德格尔传》, in Chinese, Shijiazhuang: Hebei Ren Min Publishing House, 1998).  The revised edition of this book was published in Taipei (Taiwan) in 2005 by Kant Publishing House, bearing the title Heidegger: The Most Original Thinker of 20 Century (海德格:二十世紀最原創的思想家》,臺北:康德出版社2005).  Its enriched new edition has been published in Shangwu [Commercial] Press (Beijing) in April, 2007.

[2] H. W. Petzet: “Die Bremer Freunde, Erinnerung an Martin Heidegger, Pfullingen: Neske, 1977, S.184.  O. Poeggeler: “West-East Dialogue: Heidegger and Lao-tzu”, Heidegger and Asian Thought, ed. G. Parkes, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987, p.52;  G. Parkes: “Thoughts on the Way: Being and Time via Lao-Chuang”, Heidegger and Asian Thought, p. 105.

[3] Martin Heidegger: Gesamtausgabe, Band 75, S.36.  The second part of the quote in German is: “er sagt es je nach dem Wesen dessen, was er dichtet.  The word “dichten” means “create”, “write poem” and “fiction”.

[4] Ibid., S.36-37.

[5] M. Heidegger: Being and Time: “This phenomenon has the unity of a future which makes present in the process of having been; we designate it as ‘temporality’.”  “The ‘essence’ of this entity [Dasein] lies in its ‘to be’ (Zu-sein).” (trans. John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, New York: Harper & Row, 1962, p.374, p.67)

[6] Heidegger: “Temporality is the primordial ‘out-side-of-itself’ in and for itself.  We therefore call the phenomena of future, the character of having been, and the Present, the ‘ecstases’ of temporality.  Temporality is not, prior to this, an entity which first emerges from itself;  its essence is a process of temporalizing in the unity of the ecstasies.” (Being and Time, p.377)

[7] Martin Heidegger: Gesamtausgabe, Band 75, S.37.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid. 

[10] Ibid.  “Die Einzigkeit ist ihm geschickt aus der Schickung, die sein Sagen dazu bestimmt, im nachsageden Vorsagen des ergangenen Rufes des Seyns …”

[11]  “messenden und selbst gemessenen Mass”.  Ibid., S.38.

[12] “seine Sage und deren Gesagtes zu hoeren”.  Ibid., S.41.

[13] “The Attention pays attention uniquely to the saying Word of poetry.” (Die Achtsamkeit achtet einzig auf das sagende Wort der Dichtung.)  Ibid., S.41.

[14] Ibid., S.42.

[15] Descartes’ “I” in “I think, therefore I exist” is essentially an isolated presence that relies on an eternal present only.  And the empirical “being-in-time”, according to Heidegger, has also lost the sight of the interplaying of future with past and present, and so cannot reach the phenomenon of the coming time (Cf. the quotation below indicated by note 26).

[16] Martin Heidegger: Gesamtausgabe, Band 75, S.42.

[17] Ibid., S.42-43.  “Wir lernen die Achtsamkeit, indem wir in das unscheinbare Einfache blicken, es je und je urspruenglicher aneignen und vor ihm scheuer und scheuer werden.  //  Schon das unscheinbare Einfache der einfachen Dinge rueckt uns Jenes zu, was wir aus alter Gewohnheit des Denkens das Sein nennen im Unterschied zum Seienden.  //  Genannt ist das Sein in diesem Unterschied bei Lao-Tse im elften Spruch seines Tao-Te-King.”

[18] Heidegger makes this difference at the beginning of Being and Time.  He writes: “The Being of beings (Seiende) ‘is’ not itself a being.    Accordingly, what is to be found out by the asking----the meaning of Being----also demands that it be conceived in a way of its own, essentially contrasting with the concepts in which beings acquire their determinate signification.” (Macquarrie & Robinson’s translation, p.26.  I alter the rendering of “Seiende” from “entity” to “being”.)  Basically, Heidegger takes the “being” (Seiende) as any kind of object, or the objectifiable, regardless of being physical, intellectual or spiritual.  “Being” (Sein) itself, on the contrary, is never an object but what makes the beings possible in an original or genetic sense.  It is through the non-objectifiable “Da” (there and here, “since” and “therefore”) of the “Da-sein” (i.e., the factual life of human being), and its temporality, that we begin to understand the meaning of Being itself.

[19] For example, Victor von Strauss’ translation, Lao-tse: Tao Te King, Conzett & Huber: Manesse, 1959 (this translation first appeared in 1870, Leipzig), S.79.

       Richard Wilhelm: Laotse: Tao Te King ---- Das Buch vom Sinn und Leben, Duesseldorf, Koeln: Eugen Diederichs, 1978 (the first edition of this version was published in 1911, Jena), S.59.

       Alexander Ular: Die Bahn und der Rechte Weg des Lao-Tse, Leipzig: Insel, 1921, S.34.

[20] E. g., Richard Wilhelm: Laotse: Tao Te King ---- Das Buch vom Sinn und Leben, S.34-36, S.164.

[21] Martin Heidegger: Gesamtausgabe, Band 75, S.43.  Heidegger’s rendering in German is: „Dreissig Speichen treffen die Nabe, / Aber das Leere zwischen ihnen gewaehrt das Sein des Rades. // Aus dem Ton ent-stehen die Gefaesse, / Aber das Leere in ihnen gewaehrt das Sein des Gefaesses. // Mauern und Fenster und Tueren stellen das Haus dar, /Aber das Leere zwischen ihnen gewaehrt das Sein des Hauses. // Das Seiende ergibt die Brauchbarkeit, / Das Nicht-Seiende gewaehrt das Sein.“

To indicate certain differences between Heidegger’s translation and the usual ones, here a translation by Wing-tsit Chan is transcribed: “Thirty spokes are united around the hub to make a wheel. / But it is on its non-being that the utility of the carriage depends. // Clay is molded to form a utensil, / But it is on its non-being that the utility of the utensil depends. // Doors and windows are cut out to make a room, / But it is on its non-being that the utility of the room depends. // Therefore turn being into advantage, and turn non-being into utility.” (A Source Book of Chinese Philosophy, trans. and compiled by Wing-tsit Chan, Princeton University Press, 1963, pp.144-145)

[22] Alexander Ular: Die Bahn und der Rechte Weg des Lao-Tse, S.17.  Ular renders the chapter as: Dreissig Speichen treffen die Nabe, /aber das Leere zwischen ihnen erwirkt das Wesen des Rades;  /Aus Ton entstehen Toepfe, /aber das Leere in ihnen wirkt das Wesen des Topfes;  /Mauern mit Fenstern und Tueren bilden das Haus, /aber das Leere in ihnen erwirkt das Wesen des Hauses.  /Grundsaetzlich: /Das Stoffliche birgt Nutzbarkeit;  /Das Unstofflich wirkt Wesenheit.

[23] Paul Shih-yi Hsiao: “Heidegger and Our Translation of the Tao Te Ching”, Heidegger and Asian Thought, ed. G. Parkes, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987, section II, pp.96-98.  In German, “Wir trafen uns am Holzmarktplatz”, Erinnerung an Martin Heidegger, hg. v. G. Neske, Pfullingen 1977, S.119-129.

[24] For instance, Heidegger’s essay “Thing” (Das Ding) written in 1950 was affected by his version of the 11th chapter.  In the essay, he interprets the “thingness” (Dinghafte) and the “capacity” (Fassende) of the utensil (Gefass) and jug (Krug) in terms of the “emptiness” (Leere).  Therewith, he lays bare the appropriate “simplicity” (Einfalt) of the fourfold: Heaven, Earth, deity and human.  These are all related to his criticism of the modern technology and his exegeses of Hoelderlin: From jug flows out wine, and in the flowing-out stays the simplicity of the fourfold. (Cf. Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabe, Band 7, Frankfurt am Main: V. Klostermann, 2000, S.170 and below.)

[25] Martin Heidegger: Gesamtausgabe, Band 75, S.43.

[26] Ibid.

[27] W. James: Psychology, Cleveland and New York: The World Publishing Company, 1948, p.161.

[28] Ibid., p.159.

[29] Martin Heidegger: Gesamtausgabe, Band 75, S.43, “In diesem Inzwischen wohnt der Mensch, wenn sein Wohnen das Andenken ist, das im Bleibenden verbleibt, welches Bleibende verwahrt is im Vermaechtnis des Seyns an die Wahr-heit.”

[30] Heidegger: Being and Time, p.377.

[31] This is Heidegger’s view of truth since his writing of “On the Essence of Truth” (1930) which according his telling in “Letter on Humanism”, marks his “turning” from earlier stage to later one (Basic Writings, ed. D. Krell, Harper & Row, 1977, p.208).  Unlike Being and Time, this essay asserts that “truth” (opening, dis-covering, brightness) essentially presupposes “untruth” (concealing, covering, darkness) (Basic Writings, p.132), and therefore they in a sense “belong together” (Basic Writings, p.130).   To illustrate this strange view, he cited one sentence from chapter 28 of Lao Zi.  Please refer to the note 1 of this paper for more facts.

[32] Martin Heidegger: Gesamtausgabe, Band 75, S.43-44.

[33] There is a difference between Heidegger’s view of human nature and Aristotle’s that relies on rationality or rational wisdom.  Although Aristotelian middle-way interpretation of virtue is similar to Heidegger’s thought of “betweenness” in certain significant sense, it does not bear a coming-time ontology.  Furthermore, unlike Aristotle, Heidegger rejects to distinguish the practical wisdom (phronesis) to which the middle-way virtue belongs from the theoretical wisdom (sophia) in favor of the latter.

[34] Martin Heidegger: Identitaet und Differenz, Pfullingen: Guenther Neske, 1957, S.25.

[35] Martin Heidegger: Unterwegs zur Sprache, Pfullingen: G. Neske, 1959, S.198.

[36] Martin Heidegger: Gesamtausgabe, Band 79, Frankfurt: V. Klostermann, 1994, S.93.

[37] Martin Heidegger: Ueberlieferte Sprache und Technische Sprache, Erker, Herausgegeben von Hermann Heidegger, 1989, S.7-8.

[38] Martin Heidegger: Gesamtausgabe, Band 75, S.43.

[39] Ibid.

[40] Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall: Daodejing: “Making This Life Significant”----A Philosophical Translation, New York: Ballantine Books, 2003, p.80.  They state in the “Philosophical Introduction” of the book: “These three wu-forms----wuwei [无为]wuzhi [无知]wuyu [无欲]----all provide a way of entertaining, of deferring to , and of investing oneself in an objectless world.” (p.44)

[41] Martin Heidegger: Gesamtausgabe, Band 75, S.43.

[42] A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, trans. & compiled by Wing-Tsit Chan, p.139.

[43] Ibid., p.140.

[44] Ibid., p.146.  The italics in English verses are made by the author of this paper.

[45] Some scholars may blame Heidegger’s “violent” translation and interpretation of Lao Zi, and thence deny the dialogue nature of his engagement to Daoism.  They may insist that Heidegger willfully uses Lao Zi to build his own project and therefore his Daoist connections deserve no serious academic concern.

       One of this paper’s goals is to reduce such possible criticism to certain extent by a somewhat defense of Heidegger’s Daoist exegesis and an exposure of the significance of his relation to Daoism in comprehending his own philosophy.  Is this relation a genuine dialogue?  The answer partially depends on how to recognize “dialogue”.  Actually, nobody can monopolize the explanation of “dialogue” by her/his own format of dialogue.  Heidegger’s interpretations of Greek words as well as philosophies, and of some modern philosophers such as Kant and Hegel have also been charged by some scholars as “distorting” or “unfaithful”.  Should we likewise deny, due to these complaints, that there happened meaningful dialogue between Heidegger and these western philosophers?  I doubt anyone will make the denial.

       To illustrate the issue, a paragraph from Heidegger’s preface to the second edition of his Kantbook can provide help.  To answer the criticism of his interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, he writes:

 

Readers have taken constant offense at the violence of my interpretations.  Their allegation of violence can indeed be supported by this text.  Philosophicohistorical research is always correctly subject to this charge whenever it is directed against attempts to set in motion a thoughtful dialogue between thinkers.  In contrast to the methods of historical philology, which has its own agenda, a thoughtful dialogue is bound by other laws----laws which are more easily violated.  In a dialogue the possibility of going astray is more threatening, the shortcomings are more frequent.  (Martin Heidegger: Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, fourth edition, trans. R. Taft, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990, p.xviii)

 

With this, we may understand better Heidegger’s way or style of conducting dialogues with the thinkers whom he considers important, and so lessen the worry about the dialogue nature of Heidegger’s involvement in Daoism.

[46]  Martin Heidegger: Gesamtausgabe, Band 75, S.43.

[47]  Perhaps the thinking of “the useless” is one of the reasons that motivates Heidegger to render the “yong ()” as “Being” rather than the “usefulness” or “utility” as most translations do.  He wants to avoid the superficial understanding of the wu merely as a useful space of utensils and forgetting its “great usefulness of the useless”.  “Being” for him, in contrast to the isolated beings, internally involves both being and non-being (wu) and so is closer to the meaning of the “great usefulness”.

[48] Martin Heidegger: “Vielleicht verbirgt sich im Wort ‘Weg’ , Tao, das Geheimnis aller Geheimnisse des denkenden Sagens.”  Unterwegs zur Sprache, Pfullingen: G. Neske, 1959, S.198.  The fact that Heidegger gained a full confidence on his understanding of Lao Zi only after his cooperation with Paul Shih-yi Hsiao accounts also for his delaying the publication of the 1943’s article.

[49] Martin Heidegger: “What determines both, time and Being, in their own, that is, in their belonging together, we shall call: Ereignis, the event of Appropriation.    We now see: What lets the two matters belong together, what brings the two into their own and, even more, maintains and holds them in their belonging together----the way the two matters stand, the matter at stake----is Appropriation.  The matter at stake is not a relation retroactively superimposed on Being and time.  The matter at stake first appropriates Being and time into their own in virtue of their relation, and in the gift of opening out.” (On Time and Being, tr. By Joan Stambaugh, New York: Harper & Row, 1972, p.19)

       “We must experience simply this owning in which man and Being are delivered over to each other, that is, we must enter into what we call the event of appropriation.    The words event of appropriation, thought of in terms of the matter indicated, should now speak as a key term in the service of thinking.  As such a key term, it can not more be translated than the Greek λογος or the Chinese Tao.    The event of appropriation is that realm, vibrating within itself, through which man and Being reach each other in their nature, achieve their active nature by losing those qualities with which metaphysics has endowed them.    We dwell in the appropriation inasmuch as our active nature is given over to language.” (Identity and Difference, tr. Joan Stambaugh, New York: Harper & Row, 1969, pp.36-38)

 

                (原载于《Philosophy East and West, Volume 59, Number 1, January 2009。录入编辑:子客)