cavell - heidegger and thoreau

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1/17

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Night and Day: Heidegger and ThoreauAuthor(s): Stanley CavellSource: Revue franaise d'tudes amricaines, No. 91, Ralph Waldo Emerson: l'autorit duscepticisme (FVRIER 2002), pp. 110-125Published by: Editions BelinStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20874839.Accessed: 21/03/2013 22:57

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2/17

Night and Day:

Heidegger

and

Thoreau

Stanley

Cavell

Harvard

University

mots-cl6s/key-words

Holderlin;

Heidegger;

Thoreau;

Wittgenstein

;

Ordinaire

*

Holderlin;

Heidegger;

Thoreau;

Wittgenstein;

Ordinary

Uauteur

presente

un

parallele

entre

Heidegger

et

Thoreau,

mettant

en

evidence

successivement,

entre

les

deux

philosophes,

une

aveuglante

proximite

(dans

le

rapport

a

Vordinaire,

la

proximite/distance

de

I'etre,

I'idee

d

'installation

et

de

construction,

la

succession

de la

nuit

et

du

jour)

et

des

differences

tout

aussi

importantes

dans leurs

interpretations

respectives

d'une tdche

desormais

impartie

a

la

philosophic

que

Wittgenstein,

egalement

evoque

ici,

definissait

comme

?

ramener

les

mots a

la

maison

?.

In

the

preface

to

my

little

book

on

Walden,

published

in

1972,1

say

that

"I

assume

the

rhyming

of certain

concepts

I

emphasize?for example,

those

of

the

stranger,

of the

everyday,

of

dawning

and

clearing

and resolution?

with

concepts

at

play

in

Nietzsche and

Heidegger."

I had

then read of

Heidegger

only

Being

and

Time,

and I

say

nothing

about what it

might

mean

to

"assume" this

connection,

nor

why

I

invoke

a

metaphor

of

"rhyming"

to

mark it?as if

the connections

will,

or

should, by

the end become

unmistakable but

at

the

beginning

are

unpredicted.

Since

then

I

have

periodically

gone

in various

connections

somewhat furtherwith each of these

writers,

but what has

brought

me now

to

another

stop

with

Heidegger

specifically

in

conjunction

with

Thoreau

are

two

lecture

courses

of

Heidegger's published

posthumously

in

the

1980's

and

recently

translated

into

English,

most

obviously

the volume entitled Holderlin's

Hymn

"The

Ister,"

given

in

1942,

and behind it The Fundamental

Concepts

of

Metaphysics

(from

1929-1930,

the

years

immediately

after the

appearance

of

Being

and

Time).

The

Holderlin

text

is

an

obvious

cause

for

stopping given

that "Ister" is the name of a particular river (or of a significant part of the

river

Danube)

and "Walden" the

name

of

a

particular

woodland lake. But

while

we

will

find each writer

talking

about

fire and

earth and

sky

as

well

as

110

N?

91

F^VRIER

002

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/17

Night

and

Day:

Heidegger

and

Thoreau

about

water,

we

will

not

reach here

certain

matters

in

Walden

that

are

not

among Heidegger's, or Holderlin's, concerns in their related texts, for

example,

how

Walden

places

smoke after

fire,

nor

how

at

Walden the earth

inspires

a

vision of

excrement,

nor

what is heard there

to

give

voice

to

the

sky,

nor,

following

the

transformation

of

water

into

ice,

what the

significance

is of

bubbles

within

the ice. All in

all

I

leave

open

the

time

Thoreau

takes

for

a

hundred details

concerning

his

pond

that

a

single

ode

or

hymn

has

no

room

for,

and

so

leave

open

any

bearing

this

difference

of

time,

or some

difference

between

prose

and

poetry,

may

have

on

a

difference

in the

willingness

to

recognize

Holderlin and

Thoreau

as

inspiring

or

requiring philosophy.

Indeed

in

my

book

I

mostly

left

out,

or

open,

the

question

of what is

called,

or calls

for,

philosophy.

But the

difficulty

of

determining

what

philosophy

is,

or

rather

of

recognizing

who

is and who is

not

philosophizing,

is

something

that both Thoreau

and

Heidegger

each insist

upon.

Walden's

crack

on

the

subject

was once

famous

enough,

in

its

early

pages:

"There

are

nowadays professors

of

philosophy,

but

not

philosophers."

(9).

It is

a

claim that bears

various

interpretations,

perhaps

most

pertinently

by

Thoreau's

going

on

later in

this

first

chapter

to

characterize what

he

means

by

philosophy

as

"an

economy

of

living,"

a

description

that in effect

declares the

whole

of

Walden

to

be

a

work

of

philosophy,

hence

to

establish

itswriter as a philosopher, and accordingly to offer his unforeseen attributes

as

the marks

by

which

a

philosopher

may

be

recognized

(his

abode,

his

dress,

his

possessions,

his

companions,

his

reading,

his

ways

of

counting,

of

walking,

of

transposing

himself into

things, things moving

and

unmoving).

An obvious

implication

is that

nowadays philosophers

may

well

not

be

recognized by

that

title,

hence

more

than

likely

not

at

all.

Heidegger

rather

implies

as

much

when

he

says,

in The

Fundamental

Concepts

of

Metaphysics,

that

"[Ordinary understanding]

...

does

not

reflect

upon

the

fact and

cannot

even

understand,

that what

philosophy

deals with

only

discloses itself within

and

from

out

of

a

transformation of

human Dasein"

(292)

(a

transformation of our existence and in how we conceive its

possibilities).

Walden

explicitly

enough

declares

itself

to

be

a

text

about

crisis

and

metamorphosis:

"Our

moulting

season,

like that

of the

fowls,

must

be

a

crisis in

our

lives. The loon

retires

to

solitary

ponds

to

spend

it."

(15).

This

is

one

of

a

number

of

Thoreau's

declared

identifications with

the loon.

What

Heidegger

refers

to

as

the

"preparation"

for

his

transformation

(which

is the

most,

according

to

him,

that

philosophy

can

provide)

he

speaks

of

as

awakening,

also

a

fundamental

term

for

Walden,

heralded in

the

sentence

from

itself

that

Walden takes

as

its

epigraph:

"I do

not

propose

to

write an ode todejection, but tobrag as lustily as chanticleer in themorning,

standing

on

his

roost,

if

only

to

wake

my

neighbors

up." Nothing

short of

Walden itself

could

give

what

it

calls

a

faithful

account

of

what is

strung

in

REVUE

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4/17

Stanley Cavell

such

a

sentence,

of

the

relations

among

the

concepts

of

awakening,

hence

dawning

and

morning,

dejection

or

melancholy, bragging,

roosting,

standing, singing,

neighboring, writing;

and

then

tell

why

the audience

of

this

writing

must

be addressed

in

such

a

fashion,

meaning why

thus

allegorically,

let's call

it,

or

duplicitiously,

and

why

through

precisely

these

concepts.

But

what

I

ask

attention

to

here is

that

just

about all of these

are

concepts?variously

inflected,

together

with associated others?at

work

in

Heidegger's

texts

as

well. The

beginnings

of

my

project

of mutual

assessment

between

Heidegger

and

Thoreau,

hence

potentially

between the

philosophical

traditions

contending

for

our

allegiance

(anyway,

for

mine),

will happen most surely if I can convey a due astonishment at the sheer

extent

of

coincidence,

hence

of

significant

difference,

between them.

Heidegger's

Fundamental

Concepts of

Metaphysics

goes

on

to

speak

of

the

alternative

to

awakening

as

"the

slumbering

of the

fundamental

relationship

of

Dasein

toward

beings

in

everydayness"

(xv),

and formulates

awakening

as

"letting

whatever is

sleeping

become wakeful"

(60),

where

this

"letting"

names

the relation

to

being

that forms

a

world,

the

distinct

privilege

of the human.

The

concept

of

letting things

be

what

they

are?as

it

were

leaving

things

to

themselves,

but

at

the

same

time

letting

them

happen

to

you?is

pervasive

in

Walden,

enacted in

the

main action

of

learning

to

leave

Walden

(the

place

and the

book,

most

notably

figured

in thedouble

concept

of

mourning/morning?the

pun

suggesting

that

English

is

itself under

investigation

by

an

American).

Thoreau's

morning

means

simultaneously

dawning

and

grieving?anticipating

the

dawning

of

a

new

day,

a

new

time,

an

always

earlier

or

original

time,

and

at

the

same

time

undergoing

what

Freud

calls the

work

of

mourning, letting

the

past

go,

giving

it

up,

giving

it

over,

giving

away

the

Walden

it

was

time for

him

to

leave,

without

nostalgia,

without

a

disabling

elegiacism.

Nostalgia

is

an

inability

to

open

the

past

to

the

future,

as

if the

strangers

who

will

replace

you

will

never

find what

you

have

found. Such a negative heritage would be a poor thing to leave

to

Walden's

readers,

whom

its

writer

identifies,

among many ways,

precisely

as

strangers.

Now

a

specific

linking

of

awakening

with

sleeping

and

with

questioning

is what

Thoreau finds

at

the

moment

he

actually depicts

himself

awakening

at

Walden,

in the

opening

sentences

of

Chapter

XVI,

"The Pond

in

Winter":

After

still

night

awoke

with the

impression

hat

ome

question

had been

put

to

me,

which I had been

endeavoring

in vain

to

answer

in

my

sleep,

as

what?how?

when?where?

But there

was

dawning

Nature,

in

whom all

things

ive,

looking

in

at

my

broad

windows

with

serene

and

satisfied ace,

and

no

question

on

her

lips.

awoke to an answered question, toNature and daylight. [...] Nature puts no

question

and

answers

none

which

we

mortals

ask. She

has

long

ago

taken

her

resolution.

(Thoreau

187)

112

N?

91

FtVRIER

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5/17

Night

and

Day:

Heidegger

and

Thoreau

Heidegger's

problematic

of

the

question

(his

mode,

as

often

in

philosophy, of awakening), comes under repeated suspicion in Jacques

Derrida's

text

entitled

Of

Spirit

(1987),

which

also

focuses

heavily

on

Heidegger's

Ister lectures.

Derrida's

textwill

come

back.

I

note

here

that

in

this

late

chapter

of

Walden

Thoreau

is

gently

enough

mocking

the

questions

which

his

opening

page

had

cited

as

"very

particular

inquiries

[...]

made

by

my

townsmen

concerning

my

mode

of

life

[...].

Some

have

asked

what

I

got

to

eat;

if

I

did

not feel

lonesome;

if

I

was

not

afraid;

[...]

how

many

poor

children

I

maintained."

Having

initially

taken

these

inquiries

as

his

justification

for

"obtrud[ing]

my

affairs

so

much

on

the notice

of

my

readers,"

he

now

declares

that

his

attempt

to

answer

such

questions

as

they

stand

has

heretofore

been

undertaken

in

a

sleeping

state;

accordingly,

as he achieves a

state

of

awakening,

he

is

to

awaken

from

the

sense

of

such

questions

(from,

let

us

say,

their

moralism).

This

is

not

to

deny

that

he

owes

his

townsmen

an

earnest

effort

to

make

himself

intelligible.

Walden

is

what

he

repeatedly

calls

his

account,

the

terms

in which

he

finds himself

accountable,

called

upon

to

settle

his

accounts.

(These

interact

with

the

scores

of

economic

terms that

woof

and

warp

his

text

throughout,

laid

out most

graphically

in

his

opening

chapter,

called

"Economy".)

If

this

is

a

moral task

why

does

it look

so

unlike

what academic

philosophy

understands

as

moral

philosophy?

I found myself asking a version of this question some years ago in

recognizing

that

two

of

the

philosophical

texts

of

this

century

just

past

that

have

meant

most

to

me?namely, Heidegger's

Being

and

Time and

Wittgenstein's

Philosophical

Investigations?can

each

of them

present

themselves,

on

any

and

every page,

as

carrying

some

urgent

message

for

our

lives,

while

neither

raises

any

issue

that

is

explicitly

about

any

act

we

ought

to

be

doing

or

refraining

rom

doing,

or

any

rights

we

have

denied,

or

any

goods

we

have

neglected

to

share

fairly.

It

seems,

reading

them,

rather

that

some

moral

claim

upon

us

is

leveled

by

the

act

of

philosophizing

itself,

a

claim

that

no

separate

subject

of

ethics would

serve

to

study?as

ifwhat

is

wrong

with

us,

what

needs attention

from

philosophy,

is our life as a whole

(a

claim that

does

not

at

once

require

us

to

articulate

what

that

means,

"our

life

as

a

whole").

Heidegger

prefaces

Being

and

Time

with

the

charge

that

our

Dasein,

our

human

existence,

fails

today

(and

has for

an

indeterminate

time)

to

be

stirred

by

the

question

of

Being,

that

philosophy's

first

task

is

accordingly

to

reawaken

an

understanding

for

the

meaning

of this

question;

and

it

seems

clear

enough

that

for

him

there

is

no

more

urgent

task

philosophy

can

assign

itself,

or

us.

When

Wittgenstein

in

the

Investigations

allows

himself

to

be

questioned as to 'Where [...] our investigation get[s] its importance from,

since

it

seems

only

to

destroy

everything

interesting,

that

is,

all

that is

great

and

important"

(?

118)?

his

answer

amounts

to

the

implication

that

we

do

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6/17

Stanley

Cavell

not

know what is

truly

great

and

important,

that

we

have lost

touch with

what

really

interests us. So thatwhen he comes to

say

(?

108),

"We need to

turn

our

investigation

around?specifically

around

the fixed

point

of

our

real

need,"

the

implication

is thatwhat

Wittgenstein

perceives

to

need

turning

around

are

our

lives.

It

goes

with

such

a

perception

of,

let

me

say,

philosophical

or

spiritual

disorientation that

we

will be

perceived

as

having

a

disturbed relation

to

our

language,

that

we

live

willing

neither

to

know

quite

what

we

wish

to

say

nor

why

others

say

what

they

say

to

us.

Heidegger

attributes

this

muffled

or

baffled

state to

our

being

sunk

in

the

everydayness

of

existence,

Wittgenstein attributes it to a craving for,or in, themetaphysical, call it the

flight

from

the

everyday.

This

state

of

inexpressibility,

of

words

not

matching

our

needs,

Emerson

describes

many

ways,

one

time

by saying,

"Every

word

they

say

chagrins

us,

and

we

know

not

where

to

begin

to set

them

right."

It is

a

state

that,

in

a

more

intellectualized

form,

or

in

more

proper

philosophy,

goes

under the

name

of

skepticism.

Emerson

and

Thoreau

perceive

this

state

of

unawakenness,

or

spiritual imprisonment

(most

famously

depicted

in Plato's

myth

of the

back-lit Cave from

which

the

philosopher

is

to

liberate

us)?in

an

American

way

and

place?as

a

fear

in

each of

us

of

liberating

ourselves,

something

as

it

were

producing

and

produced by

a refusal to discover America.

They

cannot

appeal

to the

great

philosophers

who have

struggled

with

skepticism?most

significantly,

I

suppose,

Descartes,

Hume,

and

Kant?(although

they

allude

to

them

repeatedly)

both

because

such

figures

are

not

part

of

our

common

American

intellectual

heritage

and

because

they

are

part

of the

problem

not

the

solution

of

our

intellectual

suffocation,

or

paralysis,

or

disappointment.

But

how

can

we

be told that

to

understand

ourselves

we

must

turn

ourselves

around,

if the

language

we

share has become

ineffective,

a

set

of

formulas drenched

in what

Emerson

calls

conformity,

and

what,

among

other things, Thoreau calls business (busyness), something thatNietzsche,

Emerson's other

great

19th

century

reader,

early

calls

philistinism.

Modern

philosophy

since

at

least the 17th

century

has

periodically

dreamt

of

constructing

a

perfect

language,

in which

misunderstanding

would

be

impossible.

Thoreau

learned

from

Emerson

to

make

sentences

that

may

attract

us

by

their

beauty

or

their

curiosity,

and

at

the

same

time

seem

to

play

with

our

desire for

some

transformative

understanding.

He sometimes

depicts

this

process

as

turning

us

around

(alluding

both

to

what has

to

happen

to

the

prisoners

in

Plato's

cave

if

they

are

to

find the

way

out,

as

well

as

invoking

the idea of

turning

found in

the

concept

of

conversion);

sometimes he

says

we need to see thatwe are lost

(that

is, to

recognize

perdition

in order

to

move us

to

find

ourselves);

sometimes

he shows

us

how

to

turn

theworld

upside

down

in

order

to

reorient

ourselves.

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Night

and

Day

:

Heidegger

and

Thoreau

This

topsy-turvy

world makes

an

appearance

in

a

late

chapter,

"The

Pond inWinter," in which after Thoreau has depicted his awakening,

specifically

to

an

answered

question,

he

continues:

Then

to

my

morning

work.

First I

take

an axe

and

pail

and

go

in

search

of

water,

if

that be

not

a

dream.

[...]

I

cut

my way

first through afoot of

snow,

and then

afoot

of

ice,

and

open

a

window under

my

feet,

where,

kneeling

to

drink,

I

look down

into the

quiet

parlor

of

the

fishes

[...]

with its

bright

anded

floor

the

same as

in

summer.

[...]

Heaven

is

under

our

feet

as

well

as

over

our

heads.

/rru

*

n\

J

J

(Thoreau 187)

At

some

stage,

writing

of

this

kind

carries its

weight

with

you

or

it

does

not.

Even

when

it

does

in

general,

we

cannot count

on

it

in

particular,

that

is,

count on its

making

sense,

say

waking

us

up

as to an answered

question

(learning

what

answering

it),

at

any

moment

one

of

us

would

speak

of it

to

another.

It

is

perhaps

a

good

moment,

after

hearing just

now

of the

possibility

that the search for

water

is

perhaps,

or

is

conducted

through,

a

dream,

and

hearing

about

some

connection between time and

a

stream,

or

river,

and

recalling

that

Walden fs irst

chapter

ends with

a

sentence

that,

with other

things,

contains

a

river,

the

Tigris

(which

Thoreau

allegorizes

in

this

instance

not

as

the

transitory

but

as

the

perpetual,

continuing

to

flow

"after

the race of caliphs is extinct"?a good moment forme to cross to the other

of

Heidegger's

texts

I

mentioned

as

motivating

these

present

remarks,

that

with

the titleHolderlin's

Hymn

"The

Ister,"

one

of his

most

extended and

remarkable

philosophical

appropriations

of

Holderlin's

poetry.

Holderlin's

poem

"The Ister" consists of

four

stophes,

three of

twenty

or

twenty-one

lines,

the last of twelve

lines

(perhaps

it

is

incomplete),

seventy-three

lines in

all,

many

as

short

as

three

or

four

words,

a

few lines

as

long

as

eight

words,

and

all

the

words,

except

names,

are

simple.

I

have

no

quarrel

to

pick

with

Heidegger's

reading

of the

poem,

that

is,

no

alternative

to

suggest

for his

various attributions of the

poem's

sense.

The

mystery

of his

commentary

is thathe endows these fewwords with the

strength

and

depth

to

bear

a

whole world of

philosophical

speculation

and

realization. Yet I

can

see

that

Heidegger's

text

would

not

exist

without

Holderlin's,

as

though

Heidgger's

text

would be unable

to

lend its

own

words

the

necessary

weight

and

depth

in

the

absence

of

Holderlin's.

And

I

am

interested

in

Heidegger's

words. It is

to

them

first

that I

relate

Thoreau's

words.

The

mystery

of

Heidegger's

interest

in

Holderlin will

not

be

solved

(not

by

me)

by

reading

the

poem,

but

we

should

at

least have

an

idea of it in

mind,

hence I

quote

the

first

strophe

from

the

translation

given

in the

translation of

Heidegger's

book:

The Ister

Now

come,

fire

Eager

are

we

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Stanley Cavell

To

see

the

day,

And when the trial

Has

passed through

our

knees,

May

someone sense

the

forest's

cry.

We,

however,

sing from

the Indus

Arrived

from afar

and

From

Alpheus, long

have

We

sought

what is

fitting,

Not without

pinions

may

Someone

grasp

at

what is

nearest

Directly

And

reach the other side.

Here, however,

we

wish

to

build.

For rivers make arable

The land.

Whenever

plants

grow

And there in

summer

The animals

go

to

drink,

So

humans

go

there

too.

Heidegger early

announces

that "The

poem

poetizes

a

river" and

more

specifically,

as

in

the

heading

of

the

next

section,

speaks

of

"Hymnal

poetry

as

poetizing

the

essence

of the rivers."

In

crossing

to

this

text

I

am

encouraged by such a passage fromHeidegger as this:

From the

irst

strophe

f

the ster

hymn,

..

and

likewise

rom

the ixth

strophe f

the

Rhine

hymn,

we

also learn that the rivers

are a

distinctive and

significant

locale

at

which human

beings, though

ot

only

human

beings,

ind

their

wellingplace.

The

pertinence

to

the

project

of

building

at

Walden

seems

incontestable,

but

my

encouragement

in

imagining

that

Thoreau's

words

may

illuminate

these,

ones

hence that

may

receive

illumination from

them,

is

quite

at

once

sorely

tested

by

the

following,

closing paragraph

of this first

section of

Heidegger's study,which begins: "Yet we wander around in errancy ifwe

proceed

to

bring together,

in

our

extrinsic and

disjointed

manner,

suitable

'passages'

about rivers and

waters

from

Holderlin's various

poems

in order

then

to construct

for ourselves

some

general

idea of

what Holderlin

might

have 'meant'

by

'rivers' and

'waters.'" Here

is

one

of those

signatures,

condescending pedagogical

asides

of

Heidegger's

that

I have

never

learned

to

take

in

stride,

with

their

insinuation of

depths

to

come

(a

place

not

"extrinsic

and

disjointed,"

and

guess

who alone

knows

the

measure

of

what

is intrinsic

and

joined),

and

a

demoralizing description

of

where,

if I fail

it,

I will be

helplessly

left,

looking hopelessly,

tactlessly,

for

some

general

idea of

what

a

great

writer

might

have meant

by

his focal themes.

True,

Heidegger

does

say

that

we

wander

in

errancy,

and there is that

in

his

philosophy

that

requires

him

not to

exempt

himself

from his insinuations.

Do I

trust

it?

Here

I

am.

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Night

and

Day

:

Heidegger

and

Thoreau

The

following

explicitly pedagogical

section,

called

a

"Review"

of

the

opening section, speaks of theGreek word for hymn, "humnos," which

"means

song

in

praise

of the

gods,

ode

to

the

glory

of heroes

and

in honor

of

the

victors

in

contests.

[...]

The

humnos is

not

the

'means'

to

some

event,

it

does

not

provide

the

'framework'

for

the celebration.

Rather,

the

celebrating

and

festiveness

lie

in the

telling

itself."

This

familiar

Heideggerean

performative

turn

(away,

as

it

were,

from

the

extrinsic),

speaks

directly

to

the

duplicitous

tone in

Thoreau's

epigraph,

something

I

did

not

stop

over

when

I

introduced

it

a

while

ago:

"I

do

not

propose

to

write

an

ode

to

dejection,

but

to

brag

Leaving

open

what

relation

he

is

proposing

of his

work

to

Romanticism

(for

example,

whether

the

allusion

to

Coleridge's

poem

"On

Dejection"

is

meant

as

invoking

an

example

to

avoid

or to

reconstitute),

why

does

he

caution

that

he

does

not

propose

an

ode

to

dejection?

Is it

because

it

may

turn

out,

whatever

he

imagines

his

purpose

to

be,

that

he has

written

some

such

thing

notwithstanding,

or

several

hundred times

one

such

ode?

Is

it,

before

that,

to

ask

why,

or

how,

one

could

do

such

a

thing

as

write

a

song,

as

of

praise,

to

the

victory

of

spiritual

loss?

Is it

to

raise

some

further

question

of the relation

of

dejection

to

bragging,

for

example

that

what

he is

manic

about?his

poverty,

his

civil

disobedience,

his

isolation,

his

"revising

of

mythology"

(most

specifically,

the

revising

of

our

major

Testaments)?will

strike others as causes for depression? I am reminded here of Heidegger's

citing

"melancholy"

as

the

mood of

philosophizing

(and

his

asserting

that

mourning pervades

Holderlin's

Ister

hymn),

for

which

one

can

imagine

the

mood

of

an

Ode

to

promise

a

certain

relief,

as

it

were

before

philosophy

actually

catches

up

with

it.

Walden

notably,

if

implicitly,

once

contrasts

a

river,

or

rather

a

stream,

with

a

pond.

When thewriter

asks,

"Why

should

we

knock

under and

go

with

the

stream?"

(66),

that

is,

hurry along

with

the

transitory things

others

institutionalize

as

necessities,

he

cites

the

institution

of the

dinner;

and

he

assumes

the associated

customs

of

our

civilization

that

support

one

another

in

his

text?big

houses

and barns that

don't

fit

us,

steady

jobs

we don't

like,

many

changes

of

clothes

for

no

good

reason,

foreign

travel,

war,

slavery,

swallowing

things

as

natural

that

should

disgust

us.

He

goes

on

to contrast

this

image

of

a

rushing

stream with what he

calls,

in the

preceding

paragraph,

"the

perpetual

instilling

and

drenching

of

the

reality

that

surrounds

us"

(65),

the

image

of

which

is

quite

evidently

a

pond,

Walden

for

example.

While

Heidegger

cautions,

still

early,

that "The

rivers

belong

to

the

waters.

Whenever

we

make

remarks

on

such

poetry,

we

must

ponder

what

is said

elsewhere

concerning

the waters"

(6),

he does

not,

as

I

recall,

include

enclosed bodies of water, such as the lakes perhaps dearer to English

romanticism.

He

of

course

comments

upon

Holderlin's

line "For rivers make

arable/

The

land,"

that

is,

suits the

land

for

plowing,

hence for

settling

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Stanley Cavell

(instead

of

wandering,

as

nomads).

I

note

in

passing

that the

writer of

Walden

irritably goes as itwere out of his way to plow a field for beans. He

announces

that he would

rather

do without

this,

but

he

undertakes

it "to

serve

a

parable-maker

one

day"

(108),

namely

to

share

in

authorizing

his

eventual

parables

of

settling,

or

as

he

also

says,

sojourning,

so

of

preparations

for

departure,

adventure,

futurity;

and since

plowing

(like

settling,

and

accounting,

and

warbling

in

his

nest,

and

hammering

a

nail,

and

so

on)

is

one

of his

concepts

for

writing,

the

writing

it

prepares

for is

(also)

writing

about

departure,

which is

to

say,

in

view

of his

death;

so

it is

a

testament.

(This

little

outburst is

a

sort

of

summary

of

my

book

on

Walden.)

There is

no

likelihood of knowing, inour fewmoments here, how far the

contrast

of Holderlin's

river

and Thoreau's

pond

may

take

us.

It

may

well

seem

unpromisingly

banal,

or

irremediably

obvious. It is

true

that both offer

these bodies

both

as

instructions

in

where and

how

to

live,

or

dwell,

and

as

bound

up

with

the

fate of their

nations?Heidegger,

in

1942,

takes

Holderlin's

Ister

as

marking

a

hopeful, privileged

destiny

for

Germany,

as

well

as

for the

German

language;

Thoreau,

ten

decades

earlier,

fighting

despair,

takes

his

Walden

as

revealing

the

ways

America fails

to

become

itself,

say

to

find its

language

(he

calls it the father

tongue)

in which

to

rebuke

its

pretensions

in

theMexican

War,

in

the forced

migration

of its

natives,

in

its

curse

of

slavery.

But the

contradictory

perspectives

of these thinkers arise

pretty

well at once

from the

one

taking

rivers

as

"marking

the

path

of

a

people"

(Holderlin's

Hymn

31),

and

from the other

taking

the

pond

as a

"perpetual

instilling

and

drenching

of the

reality

that surrounds

it"

(80).

Instilling

and

drenching

are

concepts

that

articulate the individual's

mode of

what the writer calls

"apprehending,"

that

is,

thinking,

and

thinking specifically

of whatever

is

culminating

in

the

present.

It is

when the writer is

kneeling

alone

on

the ice

(the

posture

of

prayer?)

that

he shows himself

to

drink from

Walden,

that

is,

to

be drenched

by

it,

to

receive

what it

gives

to

drink.

The difficulty of measuring

such

differences,

here

as

elsewhere,

is

perhaps

not

so

much that

there

are so

many

apparent

attractions

and

repulsions

in

play,

but that it

seems

both

imperative

and unfeasible

to

weigh

them. Take

a

coincidence

of

examples

evidently

far

removed from

politics

or

epistemology.

Heidegger

profitably

devotes

the

largest

part

of the

first section

of

his

text to

the

three-word

opening

line

of the Ister

Hymn:

"Now

come,

fire." He

comments

(with

that

special

innocence

cultivated

by philosophers):

"Were

it

not

for this

most

everyday

event

[taking

the

event

as

sunrise],

then

there

would be

no

days.

Still,

to

explicitly

call

out

'Now

come'

to

one

thus

coming,

to

the

rising

sun,

is

a

superfluous

and

futile act."

(7)

As

Thoreau,

early

in his first

chapter,

"attempt[s]

to tell how [he] ha[s] desired to

spend

[his]

life,"

he

lists,

among many

others,

"trying

to

hear

what

was

in thewind

[...]

and

waiting

at

evening

on

the

hill-tops

for the

sky

to

fall,

that

I

might

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Night

and

Day: Heidegger

and

Thoreau

catch

something"

(11).

Along

with,

or

implied

by,

such

activities,

he

includes

thework of "[anticipating], not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if

possible

Nature

herself "

(11).

Later

in

that

paragraph

he

concedes:

"It is

true,

I

never

assisted the

sun

materially

in

his

rising,

but,

doubt

not,

it

was

of

the

last

importance only

to

be

present

at

it."

("To

assist"

at

a

social

event,

for

example,

a

theater

performance,

is

an

old-fashioned

term

for

making

oneself

present,

or

attending.

An

importance

of his

observance,

as

elsewhere,

is

his

showing

that he

can

make

sunrise

a

communal

event

even

when

what

is

called

religion

has

forgotten

how.

I

observe

that "assistance"

etymologically

contains the idea of

standing

beside,

hence

helping.

This will

find

further

resonance.)

"Assisting

the

sun"

participates

in

Thoreau's theme of

"making

a

day

of

it,"

of

refusing

to live what he will not call his

life,

so

that,

in

Thoreau's

tone,

it

would

be

true

to

say,

in

Heidegger's

words,

that

"Were

it

not

for

this

most

everyday

event

[namely,

now,

of

Thoreau's

assistance

at

the

sun],

then there

would be

no

days."

Heidegger

says

about

Holderlin's

line,

"Now

come,

fire"

that it

is

a

call,

and "The

call

says:

we,

the

ones

thus

calling,

are

ready.

And

something

else is

also

concealed

in

such

calling

out:

we

are

ready

and

are

so

only

because

we

are

called

by

the

coming

fire

itself."

Thoreau's

anticipating

is

a

case

of

being

ready,

something

he

thematizes

as

being

early,

and

earlier,

and

earliest?morning

work.

Heidegger reads the tint of earliness in the ideas of anticipation and of

dawning

and

morning

more

elaborately

out

of the

poetry

of

Georg

Trakl,

from which

(in

connection

with

Heidegger's

essay,

"Language

in

the

Poem")

Derrida

takes it

up

in

Of

Spirit,

where he

refers

to

the

idea

as one

of

seeking

a

more

matutinal

morning,

something

he

emphasizes

(92,

94, 107,

110,

113),

but does

not,

I

believe,

pursue.

How

far

a

fuller

occasion

should

take

us

is

marked

in

Walden's

great

concluding

lines:

"There is

more

day

to

dawn.

The

sun

is

but

a

morning

star"

(221)?his

rewriting

of

Emerson's

having

said,

"We

shall

have

a new

dawn at

noon",

which is

itself

a

reinscribing

of

Wordsworth

inscribing

Milton.

The

concept

of

calling

as

questioning

the

given

names of

things

and

as

naming

a

vocation

permeates

Thoreau's

work.

More

specifically,

anticipating

Nature

herself

seems

interpreted

by

Thoreau's

announcing,

"The

universe

constantly

and

obediently

answers

to

our

conceptions,"

which

I

have

taken

as a

mock

summary

of

Kantian

Idealism and

its

progeny,

implying

a

quarrel

about

how to

get

our

concepts

(say

of

the

understanding)

pure.

That

is,

you

can

get

the

world

to

call

things

houses

that

are

prisons,

or

to

call

things

necessary

which

are

the

merest

luxuries,

or

to

call

things

accidents

(such

as

the deaths

of

a

certain

number of

workers

building

the

railroads) which are not accidents but inevitabilities of theway we live.

When he

asks,

"Which

is

the

real

bed?" he

is

similarly

mocking

Plato's

picture

according

to

which

the

real

bed

is

not

the

one

we

actually

sleep

on,

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Stanley

Cavell

and

at

the

same

time

mocking

our

inability

to

recognize

that the

one

we

actually

sleep

on

may

be an

arbitrary

measure of what we need a bed tobe.

I

quoted

a

moment

ago

Heidegger's

saying

"the river determines

the

dwelling place

of

human

beings

upon

the earth."

Substituting

"pond"

for

"river,"

it

might

be

an

epigraph

for

Walden.

It

is

in

fact

Heidegger's

gloss

on

Holderlin's

line:

"Here,

however,

we

wish

to

build."

Comparably

early

in

Walden,

its

writer

says,

somewhere around

the

pond,

"here

I

will

begin

to

mine"

(66),

namely

to

prepare

the

ground

for

his house. Thoreau's

context

is

the

paragraph

in

which he has declared

his head

to

be hands and feet

and

adds:

"My

instinct

tells

me

that

my

head

is

an

organ

for

burrowing,

[...]

and

with it Iwould mine," another identification of his writing with thedetails of

his

building

and his

preparations

for

building.

Holderlin

precedes

his

naming

of

his

site

with

the

lines,

"Not

without

pinions may/Someone

grasp

at

what

is

nearest/Directly."

The

"however"

in

Heidegger's

declaration

"Here, however,

we

wish

to

build,"

suggests

that,

however

it

may

be

with

things

with

wings,

with human

beings

and

their hands and

feet,

nearness

is

a

matter

of

not

of

grasping

but of

dwelling.

Now

it

is

when

a

few

chapters

later,

in

"Solitude,"

Thoreau

recurs

to

the

moment

of

discovering

"the

place

where

a

wise

man

will

dig

his cellar" that

he

asks,

"What

sort

of

space

is

that which

separates

a man

from

his

fellows and

makes

him

solitary?"

(raising

the old Emersonian theme of the distance and the

point

at which

souls

touch),

and

declares: "Nearest

to

all

things

is that

power

which

fashions their

being.

Next

to

us

the

grandest

laws

are

continually

being

executed. Next

to

us

is

not

the workman

whom

we

have

hired,

with whom

we

love

so

well

to

talk,

but theworkman

whose

work

we

are"

(90).

This is

brought

on

as

his

response

to

the

sense

that

"For

the

most

part

we

allow

only

outlying

and transient circumstances

to

make

our

occasions"

(shall

we

say,

to

provide

the

events

of

our

appropriation?),

make

our

day,

make

our

living,

make

our

excuses,

make

our

escapes,

make

our

friends

and

our

enemies.

In

Heidegger's formulation: one's own is what ismost remote (vii).

Nextness

is

a

task

then,

a

poise

or

stance

of

existence,

as

of

assistance,

not

assignable

or

measurable

from

any

given place,

for it

is the

sign

that

you

are

at

home

in

the

world,

such

as

home

might

be for the

essentially

strange

creatures

Thoreau

has

visions of

at

the

opening

of his

book

("I

have

traveled

a

good

deal

in

Concord;

and

everywhere,

in

shops,

and

offices,

and

fields,

the

inhabitants

have

appeared

to

me

to

be

doing

penance

in

a

thousand

remarkable

ways."

[21).

He

is

not

there

speaking

alone

of

others,

but

confessing

his

own

strangeness,

and

first

of all

to

the

way

others

confess

or

express

theirs.

Heidegger's

book

on

the

Ister

Hymn

takes

Holderlin's

text

to

be

locating

the

work of

becoming

at

home,

namely

as "the encounter of the

foreign

and one's

own

as

the

fundamental

truth

f

history"

(v).

The river

poetizes

the

human

being

because,

in

providing

"the

unity

of

locality

and

journeying,"

it

conceals

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Night

and

Day:

Heidegger

and

Thoreau

and

reveals Dasein's

being

and

becoming

"homely,"

homelike,

I

might

say

homeboimd. Walden's word formaintaining something like thisunity is, in its

opening

paragraph,

sojourning,

living

each

day,

everywhere

and

nowhere,

as

a

task and

an

event.

I have called

this

state,

in

speaking

of Emerson's idea

of

abandonment,

the essential

immigrancy

of the

human,

a

pertinent

feature

for

an

American

thinker

of

democracy

to

wish

to

ground

philosophically.

Heidegger's

term

for the

stance

of

maintaining

the

unity

of

locality

and

journeying

is

"to

be

in

the

between"

(166),

between

gods

and humans.

This

is

to

be

what

Heidegger

names

demigods,

and since both

poets

and

rivers

are

in

the

between,

both

are

demigods.

Thoreau's word

for

being

between

is

being

interested.

And

Heidegger too, elsewhere,

takes

up

this

registering

of

what

is

"inter-". But

in Thoreau the word takes

its

part,

not

surprisingly

a

disruptive

part,

in the

immensity

of economic

terms

I

have noted his

text

to

put

in

motion,

for,

in

a

counter-move

within

what is

commonly

called

economics,

Thoreau's interest

names

a

withholding

or

displacement

as

well

as

a

placing

of investment.

I

went

so

far in

my

book about

Walden

as

to

relate

its

concept

of interest

to

what,

in

translations

of the

Bhavagad-Gita

(a

work

mentioned

in

Walden),

is called

unattachment.

Does

it

take

a

demigod

to

learn and

exemplify

the

interval of

being

between?

Let's

at

least

note

that the writer

of

Walden

as

surely

identifies

himself with thepond as Heidegger's poet does with theriver. In chapter nine,

called "The

Ponds,"

Thoreau

records

that,

having

seen

Walden almost

daily

for

more

than

twenty

years,

he is struck

again by

its sheer

existence,

that it

is

the

same

woodland

lake,

still

drenching, reviving,

its

surroundings;

and he

continues:

"I

see

by

its face

that it is visited

by

the

same

reflection;

and

I

can

almost

say,

Walden,

is

it

you?"

(129)

He

sees

his

reflection

in the

pond.

Is

it

him?

He

can

almost

say,

but

perhaps

he is

still

unsure

of

his

right

to

praise,

to

raise

a

hymn;

or

perhaps

he is

at

the

moment

simply

stripped

of

words.

I

have

to

look

for

some

place

to

stop

soon.

What

relation do

I

propose

between

Heidegger

and Thoreau

in

saying

of

Thoreau,

as

I do

in that

early

book

of

mine,

that

he is his

own

Holderlin? This

apparently

takes for

granted

thatThoreau is also his

own

philosopher,

which

accordingly

would,

according

to

Heidegger,

imply

both that he

poetizes

and that he

philosophizes

what

he

poetizes.

Are there in

Walden what

Heidegger

calls

philosophical

concepts,

as

examples

of

which,

in The

Fundamental

Concepts

ofMetaphysics,

he takes

"death, freedom,

and the

nothing"

(300).

Heidegger's

attention

to

how

the

concepts

in

question

are

to

be

taken

does

not

invoke

a

systematic

listing

of

philosophical

or

metaphysical

concepts.

Do

the

terms

"nearest"

or

"earliest"

or

"between"

or

"dwelling"

or

"whiling"

or

"building" name peculiarly philosophical concepts? Let's grant thatwhat

makes

them

philosophical

is

the

controlling

feature in

Heidegger's

account,

that

understanding

them

requires

a

transformationof

our

Dasein,

our

existence

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Stanley Cavell

(going,

I

assume,

with

Heidegger's

various

affirmations

that

philosophy

calls

one out of the realm of the

ordinary,

everyday

understanding).

Then in

principle

any

concept,

used in such

a

way

as

to

require

such

a

transformation,

might

count

as

philosophical.

Then

if

Walden

is,

as

it

seems

everywhere

to

insist,

an

account

of transformed

understanding,

any

and

every

word in

it

may

perhaps

be

philosophical.

The transformationwould be of

our

relation

to

our

language

and therewith?or

because of?a

transformation in

our

relation

to

the

world. When

Wittgenstein

says

in

Philosophical

Investigations,

"What

we

do is

return

words

from

their

metaphysical

to

their

everyday

use,"

he is

speaking

of

such

a

transformation

in

our

relation

to

words. But

in

his

case,

as

in the

case

of

thephilosophical practice of J.L. Austin, it follows that there are no peculiarly

philosophical

concepts,

none

requiring,

or

entitled

to,

super-ordinary

understanding;

which in

a

sense

means

that

there

are

no

ordinary

concepts

either,

none

exempt

from

philosophical

strain.

When Emerson defines

thinking

as

transfiguring

and

converting

our

words

(as

in the

opening

pages

of "The American

Scholar"),

traditional

philosophical

words

notably

rub

elbows

with civilian

words,

words

familiar in

philosophy

such

as

"experience," "impression,"

"form," "idea,"

"necessity,"

"accident," "existence,"

"constraint";

here the idea

is

not

so

much

to

deny

that

there

are

philosophical

concepts

as

to

assert,

if

somewhat

in

irony,

that

an

American can handle them.

Heidegger

says

that

philosophical

concepts

are

indicative of

a

further

meaning. Wittgenstein

says

that

in

philosophy

concepts

sublime themselves. Derrida

says

they

haunt themselves. Whom do

you

believe?

If there

can

be

religion

without

religion,

can

there be

philosophy

without

philosophy?

Do

not

both

Wittgenstein

and

Heidegger

in

a sense

desire

it? Is this

a

reasonable

proposal

for

what Thoreau enacts?

Go back

for

a

moment

to

my

crossing

of

Heidegger

with Thoreau

on

the

matter

of

letting things

lie

as

a

condition of

knowing

them.

I

have

elsewhere linkedwith them on thispoint Wittgenstein's claim, or challenge,

that

"Philosophy

leaves

everything

as

it

is,"

a

claim

blatantly,

to

most

ears,

conservative.

But if

Wittgenstein

is

naming

a

philosophical

task

there,

then

in the

light

of the other

claims

for

leaving

or

letting,

Wittgenstein

may

be

seen as

detecting

and

resisting philosophy's

chronic

tendency

to

violence,

principally

toward the

ordinary,

measured

in its

treatment

of

ordinary

language,

against letting

it

speak,

having

decided time

out

of mind that

it

is

vague

and

misleading,

to

say

the least.

Heidegger

also detects violence

in

classical

philosophy's

association

of

concepts

with

grasping

and

synthesizing.

Should

Wittgenstein

find

Heidegger companionable

here?

In The Fundamental

Concepts

of

Metaphysics,

Heidegger

goes

at

length,

in

the effort

to

characterize the

human and what he calls

world,

into

the differences between

man

as

world-building,

animals

as

poor

in

world,

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Night

and

Day: Heidegger

and

Thoreau

and

stones

as

worldless.

Early

along

this

path

he

observes:

"There is

[...]

an

important

and fundamental

question

here: Can we

transpose

[versetzen]

ourselves

into

an

animal

at

all?

For

we

are

hardly

able

to

transpose

ourselves into another

being

of

our

own

kind,

into

another human

being.

And what

then of the

stone?can

we

transpose

ourselves into

a

stone?"

(201)

Heidegger

calls

this

fundamental

question

a

methodological

one.

How

is it

fundamental?

How

can we

locate

it?

Compare

thiswith

Wittgenstein's

Investigations:

What

give

us so

much

as

the idea

that

iving eings, things,

an

feel?

Is

it

that

my

education has led

me

to

it

by drawing

my

attention

o

feelings

in

myself,

nd

now

I

transfer the idea to objects outside myself? [...] I do not transfer [ubertrage] my

idea

to

stones,

plants,

etc.

[...]

And

now

look

at

a

wriggling

fly

and

at

once

these

difficulties

vanish and

pain

seems

able

to

get

a

foothold

here,

where

before

everything

was,

so

to

speak,

too

smooth

for

it.

(?283)

Here

the idea of

getting

over

to

the other is shown

as

motivated

by

a

prior

step

in which

we

take

our own case

as

primary.

What makes that

step,

perhaps seemingly

obvious,

in

turn

fundamental?

An

importance

to

me

of

making

this issue

explicit

is that

taking

one's

own

case as

the

given

from

which

to

transfer

concepts

to

others

is

a

moment

in

a

certain

portrayal

of the

progress

of

skepticism

with

respect

to other minds. The idea of transfer

here,

or

of

transposition

in

Heidegger's

discussion,

should

accordingly

come

under

philosophical suspicion. Heidegger's

pleasantry

about

our

being

"hardly

able

to

transpose

ourselves

into

another

being

of

our

own

kind,

another

human

being,"

is

part

of

what is

suspicious.

It

seems

to

me

an

indication,

as

of

a

somewhat

guilty

intellectual

conscience,

of

avoiding

the issue

of

skepticism.

(Heidegger perhaps

inherited

this

avoidance from

Husserl.)

And

what shall

we

say

of

Thoreau,

as

when,

for

example,

in "Brute

Neighbors",

he

depicts

himself,

inwhat he

calls

a

pretty

game

with

a

loon

on

thepond, tryingforbetter than an hour topredict this fowl's sailings out and

to

anticipate

his

divings,

a

pastime

the writer

describes

by

saying,

among

many

things,

"While he

was

thinking

one

thing

in

his

brain,

I

was

endeavoring

to

divine

his

thought

in mine"

(156).

Here

one

is

taking

the

problem

of

the other in rather

the

reverse

direction from

the

way

philosophers

tend

to

conceive the

matter,

letting

it

provoke

him

to

learn

something

about

himself

from the

encounter:

it is

not

the other

that

poses

the first barrier

to

my

knowledge

of

him

or

her,

but

myself.

The

direction

is

confirmed

early

in

Thoreau's

recounting

of

his

"business"

prospects

at

Walden

(anticipating

Nature,

assisting

the

sun,

waiting

for

the

sky

to

fall),

when,

finding

that his

fellow-citizens were not

likely

to offer him a

living,

"I turned

my

facemore

exclusively

than

ever

to

the

woods,

where

I

was

better

known"

("Economy,"

12).

Do I

trust

these sallies

of

speculation

in

Thoreau?

I

treasure

them.

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Cavell

But what

are

Thoreau's

native

notes,

or

local

gems

(however many

of

them we might go on to unearth), worth??let's say on the international

market.

What

good

is

this

testament,

or

legacy,

or

what

bad

is

it,

compared

with

the

legacies,

Heidegger's

principally

among

them, that,

in the text I

mentioned

earlier,

Derrida

gestures

at

inheriting

and

disinheriting

at

the

close

of

Of

Spirit?

Well,

for

one

thing,

since

Heidegger's

political

sensibilities

(shall

we

call

them?)

should

not

on

the

whole

inspire

the

democratically

inclined,

or

let's

say,

the

immigrant,

with

much

confidence,

a

thinker

who,

as

in the

case

of

Thoreau, matches,

I

would

say

uncannily,

so

many

of

the

philosophical configurations

of

Heidegger,

while

reversing

his

political sensibilities,

is

a

notable

curiosity,

one

which

I

find

curiously

heartens

me?as

when,

coming

upon

Heidegger's

rivers

that

carve

the

historical

path

of

a

people,

I

recall

Thoreau's

cautioning, "Every path

but

your

own

is

the

path

of

fate"

(Chapter

IV,

"Sounds"

80),

having

declared,

"I

would

fain be

a

track-repairer

somewhere

on

this

earth",

meaning,

I

take

it,

not

that he wishes

to

repair

the track

we are

on,

but that he

would have

us

repair,

each of

us,

to

a

different

track,

one we

have

lost,

and

at

once

to

a

different

way

of

thinking

about

paths

and

destiny.

At

this

oint

t

sworth

uoting eidegger's

appropriations

f the

de

to

Man

from

Sophocles' Antigone,

containing

the

great

lines

(roughly

in

Heidegger's

version) "Many thewonders but nothingmore uncanny than the

human,"

where

he

takes

centrally

the lines in

which

the

chorus

expels

uncanny

man

from

its

hearth;

I

put

this

together

with

Derrida's

criticism of

Heidegger's

Ister

text

as

an

attempt

to

de-Christianize

and thus inherit

the

poetry

of

Georg

Trakl,

in

whose

terms

Heidegger

has

invoked the

concept

of

the

spirit

as

flame;

and

put

these

further

together

against

Thoreau's

account

of

his

laying

the

bricks

for

his

fireplace

(in

the

chapter

of

Walden called

"House-Warming")

where he

casually

announces

his

surprise,

in

watering

the

brick,

at

what

it

takes "to christen

a new

hearth."

I ask in

effect,

about this

announcement,

whether

we

know how

to

balance

its

strange

playfulness

with

its

utter

seriousness,

whether it is

metaphor,

myth,

inheritance,

rejection.

Here

I

ask

a

question

about

it,

or

what

perhaps

amounts

to

the

same

question

asked

another

way,

that

concerns so

many

of

the

citations

I

have taken

up

in these

remarks,

namely

whether

it

should

find

a

welcome

place

in

an

ambitious

philosophical

classroom

on

what

Emerson

calls these

bleak

rocks,

namely

the

place

of America.

Heidegger

includes in the

opening

paragraphs

of his

Fundamental

Concepts

ofMetaphysics

a

meditation

on

a

fragment

of theGerman romantic

writer Novalis

that

says:

"Philosophy

is

really

homesickness,

an

urge

to

be

at

home everywhere." If for a moment a serious philosopher who respects, or

say

wishes

to

inherit,

the

English

tradition

of

philosophy

after

Kant,

or

after

the interventions of

Frege

and

Russell,

may

suspend

her

or

his

sense

of the

124

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and

Day:

Heidegger

and

Thoreau

indecorousness

of this

procedure,

may

such

a one

reconsider

in this

light

a

familiar moment of

Wittgenstein's

Investigations

(?116)?: "When

philosophers

use a

word?'knowledge,' 'being,' 'object,'

'I,'

'proposition,'

'name'?and

try

to

grasp

the

essence

of

the

thing,

one

must

always

ask

oneself:

is theword

ever

actually

used

in this

way

in

the

language

inwhich

it

has its home"

[Wittgenstein's

word

for

home here is

"Heimat"].

I

mean,

may

this

one

reconsider that

if,

in

Wittgenstein's

articulation,

philosophy's

task

becomes

that

of?as

his

following

sentence

puts

the

matter?"leading

words

back

from

their

metaphysical

t

cavell - heidegger and thoreau

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