Between sound and silence. Sagic-sigetical reflections on the language in Martin Heidegger's "Contributions to Philosophy” Cover Image

Między brzmieniem a ciszą. Sagiczno-sygetyczne rozważania o języku w „Przyczynkach do filozofii” Martina Heideggera
Between sound and silence. Sagic-sigetical reflections on the language in Martin Heidegger's "Contributions to Philosophy”

Author(s): Jacek Surzyn
Subject(s): Philosophy, Language and Literature Studies, Philosophy of Language
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu w Białymstoku
Keywords: language; being; philosophy; sage; silence; Dasein

Summary/Abstract: The language used by Heidegger awakens almost the same emotions as his thought. According to many, it is full of negligible neologisms, grammatical and syntactic traps that “work well” with the content. This is a negative assessment. For the Heidegger’s followers, his language demonstrates revolutionary properties, because it comes to its own limits, it removes the historical semantic falsehood, distancing it from that what really “is – exists”. In the article, I would like to guide the reader through the discovery of such a language. To do so, I will rely on a book titled “Contributions to Philosophy. (From the Enowing)” – a unique text in Heigegger’s works. Heidegger comes to the source of language, so he looks for what is at the base and focuses on the fundamental “is”. Man is a being who is conscious not only of who he is, but of man in particular, who has conscious that he is. The question of “being” constructs the whole essence-nature of man. This expresses the linguistic term Dasein, in which prefix Da means “here, now”, that is, in some “specificity” at some point in time and place, while Sein means being. So man becomes “being here” that is, he is aware that he is and exists in a concrete way in time and space in the world. The language allows him to identify with Sein and follow what is hidden. Language is not artificial in any way, it is not a product or a construct. It is the most natural source, the sounding language, but also the sounding to the end, until the very silence.

  • Issue Year: 2/2017
  • Issue No: XXIX
  • Page Range: 5-24
  • Page Count: 20
  • Language: Polish