Glazebrook-Heidegger's Philosophy of Science PDF
Glazebrook-Heidegger's Philosophy of Science PDF
Glazebrook-Heidegger's Philosophy of Science PDF
of Science
TRISH GLAZEBROOK
+,+ +'+ +
§
Glazebrook, Trish.
Heidegger's philosophy of science I Trish Glazebrook.-1st ed.
p. cm.-(Perspectives in continental philosophy; no. 12)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8232-2037-0 (hc)-ISBN 0-8232-2038-9 (pbk.)
1. Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976-{:ontributions in philosophy of science.
2. Science-Philosophy-History-20th century. l. Title. II. Series.
B3279.H49 G57 2000
193-<1c21 00-025802
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
Bibliography 255
Index 267
Index of Greek Expressions 277
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are many people to thank for their support and assistance
during the time I have been working on this book. Research was
funded by the University of Toronto, the government of Ontario,
and the German government, and further supported by the De
partment of Philosophy at Auckland University. I could not have
done without the productive commentary, advice, and discus
sion on the entire manuscript that I got from Graeme Nicholson,
Rebecca Comay, Will McNeill, and Dan Dahlstrom. Their close
readings and prompt responses were indispensable to the devel
opment of this book. I am further indebted to Will McNeill for
his enthusiastic and precise suggestions on translation. I am
grateful to Father Joseph Owens for teaching me to love Aris
totle. Jim Brown's support at the University of Toronto was su
pererogatory, and lowe Ian Hacking a great deal for his
contribution to my understanding of the philosophy of science,
despite his dislike of both Heidegger and this project. Jim Wetzel
and Marilyn Thie read and commented helpfully on individual
chapters. I wish I knew the names of those who asked questions
on the chapter on experimentation at the Ontario Philosophical
Association meeting at Waterloo University in 1993. Their com
ments were useful. Likewise my critique of Heidegger's reading
of Aristotle was all the better for rigorous scrutiny at the Society
for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy in New Orleans
in 1993 (on <jl1Jm� and 'tfXV!']) and Georgetown in 1996 (on Aris
totle's analogy of being). T he chapter on Heidegger and the
institution benefited from exposure to the Department of Phi
losophy at DePaul University in Chicago and at the annual con
ference of The Society for Phenomenology and Existential
Philosophy in Seattle in 1991. The original idea for the book was
conceived in conversation with David Wood, and first tried out
in the philosophy department at the University of Guelph in
x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Metaphysics, Mathematics,
and Science
ence. Hence this chapter shows how Heidegger moves from phi
losophy as science to philosophy of science.
first time" (KPM 8/ KM 13), by showing that ontic truth can only
achieve such correspondence if the being as a being is already
apparent in its being, that is, on the basis of ontological truth.
Kant's thinking is not revolutionary for Heidegger because it
shifts the focus of the question of truth to the subject. Yet Hei
degger sees in Kant's Copernican revolution the forcing of the
question of ontology. He says the year before that reading an
epistemological intent in Kant as a Copernican revolution is a
misunderstanding (MFL 142/MAL 179). For Heidegger reads
Kant as turning back the question of knowledge to its ground in
the pre-understanding of being that makes any knowledge of
particular beings possible (KPM l1 /KM 17).
Accordingly, the knowledge of beings that is the sciences, for
which an object is given in its being beforehand in a regional
ontology, is exactly what Heidegger does not wish to pursue
and does not see pursued in Kant's first Critique. Heidegger's
claim that the purpose of the Critique is not primarily to ground
the positive sciences is in essence the argument that ontology is
not Simply propaedeutic to the positive sciences. In 1929 Heideg
ger is concerned to distinguish ontology from the positive sci
ences, that is, metaphysics from physics, as he was in Basic
Problems of Phenomenology. In 1929 metaphysics is taken as
ground-laying for the sciences, but ground-laying is now under
stood as "elucidation of the essence of comporting toward be
ings in which this essence shows itself in itself so that all
assertions about it become provable on the basis of it" (KPM 7/
KM 10). Metaphysics establishes a comportment toward beings
on the basis of which hypotheses can be proven. This change in
view came about the year before. In fact, in 1928 Heidegger ar
gued, contrary to his earlier view, that ontology is not a science.
In 1928 Heidegger gave the lecture course that is published
under the title The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic. Here he
thought through the conjunction of the idea of being with the
idea of ground. He argues that the problem of ground is also
the central problem of logic (MFL 117/ MAL 144-45). But for
Heidegger, "logic is nothing other than the metaphysics of
truth" (MFL 213/ MAL 275). Truth is already thought in this text
as the presence of being that makes possible the assertion and
its correspondence. Ground is thus understood by Heidegger in
METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE 33
has argued that the ground for this question (i.e., metaphysics)
is precisely Kant's question, "How are synthetic a priori judg
ments possible?"-and read that question as, "How is being al
ways understood a priori?" But no answer is forthcoming.
Heidegger takes up Kant's account of synthetic a priori judg
ments again in the lecture course from 1935-36 published as Die
Frage nach dem Ding. Heidegger explains here the background
against which Kant makes the claim that there are synthetic a
priori judgments (FD 129-31). In the tradition, analytic judg
ments were always taken to be a priori, whereas synthetic judg
ments were a posteriori. Kant's account of the difference
between synthetic and analytic judgments is consistent with this
history, for Kant argues that while analytic judgments fail to go
beyond the concept in question, synthetic judgments are syn
thetic precisely in that they add something beyond what is con
tained in the concept. This is a straightforward reading of the
first Critique (A6-7/B10-11). Synthetic judgments are what Kant
calls "ampliative" in that they bring to a concept something
extra.
The "something extra" of synthetic judgments was accord
ingly taken to entail that such judgments are a posteriori, for if
the source of this "something extra" is not the concept, then
it must be the thing encountered in experience. Only analytic
judgments could be a priori, since they do not exceed the con
cept, and synthetic judgments were taken to be a posteriori,
since they add to the concept what is not already there and
hence require experience for their verification. Kant's task is to
break that correlation in order to show that synthetic a priori
judgments are possible.
Heidegger argues that the "something extra" of synthetic
judgments is the object (Gegenstand) (FD 142). As he argued in
Basic Problems of Phenomenology that, for Kant, being is position
as a relation between an object and thought, so he argues again
here that synthesis is the relation between an object and a con
cept that is an "alongsideness" (Beistellen) (FD 142). He asks not
simply, "How are synthetic a priori judgments possible?", but,
"How are they necessary?" He answers that they are necessary
for the possibility of human knowledge as experience (FD 132).
U knowledge had no "something extra," it would be knowledge
METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE 41
only of reason itself and not of what is other to reason, the object
which the thinker understands as alongside but precisely other
to the thinker. He takes this point to be precisely the thrust of
Kant's highest principle of synthetic knowledge: that the condi
tions for the possibility of experience are at the same time the
conditions for the possibility of the objects of experience (FD
143).
Heidegger argues that to understand this highest principle of
synthetic judgments is not just to understand Kant's text as a
book, but is to master the starting point of historical Dasein
which cannot be avoided, skipped, or in any other way denied
(FD 143). But, he claims, this principle must be brought to an
appropriate transformation for delivery into the future. This
appropriate transformation is recognition of the between
(Zwischen). Die Frage nach dem Ding concludes with the claim that
the highest principle of synthetic judgments-that the condi
tions for the possibility of experience are at the same time the
conditions for the possibility of the objectivity of the objects of
experience-points to what moves between human being and
thing. Kant's question concerning the thing is tied up with the
question of human being, since knowledge takes place precisely
between the two.
Die Frage nach dem Ding is then precisely the kind of retrieval
Heidegger called for earlier, that of a grounding of metaphysics
in the finitude of human understanding. But Heidegger reads
Kant here with an openness not earlier evident. Rather than at
tempt to adapt the Critique into the project and terminology of
Being and Time, this text seeks to explore what Kant's thought
makes possible in the history of metaphysics. Kant opens up a
dimension between thinker and thing in which to raise the ques
tion of being. Metaphysics need neither confine itself to a naive
inquiry into the nature of things nor collapse into idealism in an
entanglement with subjectivity.
Heidegger concludes in Introduction to Metaphysics that the a
priori was originally for the Greeks being as q)1J<JL�, nature.
42 '
HEIDEGGER S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
depending upon which texts one chooses as focus and how one
chooses to read them.
Certainly, taking the later of these texts as a culmination of
Heidegger's view on the question of transcendental subjectivity,
it is clear that Heidegger separates the transcendental from the
subject. He explains in Introduction to Metaphysics that insofar as
Being and Time is an exposition of a transcendental horizon, "the
'transcendental' there intended is not that of the subjective con
sciousness; rather, it defines itself in terms of the existential-ec
static temporality of human Dasein" (1M 18/EM 14). Likewise,
at §l1(a) of The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, Heidegger re
fuses to read transcendence for Kant as psychologistic. Rather,
it is based on "the immediate relation a subject has to the being
itself" (MFL 164/MAL 210). In fact, argues Heidegger, transcen
dence is being-in-the-world. His aim is to extricate the question
of being from its entanglement in subjectivity by arguing that
being is prior to understanding.
Heidegger's reading of Kant allows him to do precisely that.
In his reading of the A edition of the Critique, Heidegger argues
that in the ontological synthesis of imagination, the finitude of
human understanding is not a collapse into subjectivity and ide
alism but rather the very condition for the possibility of knowl
edge of things. If philosophical Copernican revolution is a move
from metaphysics to epistemology, from the question of the
thing to the question of knowledge, then Heidegger does not
achieve it, for to do so would be to fall into idealism. If, however,
the revolution takes up the question of human understanding in
the relation between the thinker and the thing, then Heidegger
does achieve it. But then Marjorie Grene is right: Heidegger's
thinking is not novel, for it is simply an exposition of Kant, a
retrieval of the first Critique from neo-Kantian interpretations.
The metaphor of Copernican revolution has become, however,
a strange way to describe Kant. Copernicus's revolutionary in
sight is that human being is not central to the universe. The neo
Kantian commitment to idealism is precisely the reverse in that
idealism puts human consciousness at the center of all that is
known. Yet Heidegger's insight into Kant on imagination is pre
cisely such a revolution, for it culminates in a rejection of ideal
ism in the claim made in 1935 in Introduction to Metaphysics and
METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE 45
again in the Beitrage, that for the Greeks being is <:pUOL�. This
claim is a location of the question of the human understanding
of being precisely in the relation between thinking and the
things it thinks about. And it is a Copernican revolution in the
sense that, by rejecting idealism, it removes human being from
the center of the issue and places the thing there instead.
In 1938, in §111 of the Beitrage, Heidegger argues that being
was <:pUOL� for the Greeks and prior to any understanding. Tran
sitional to this text are Introduction to Metaphysics and Heideg
ger's reading of Kant entitled Die Frage nach dem Ding, both from
1935. In Introduction to Metaphysics, Heidegger dispenses with
the term "ontology," which marks the traditional doctrine of
taking the question of the thing to be a branch in a philosophical
system. There is an alternative: "we can also take the word 'on
tology' in the 'broadest sense,' . . . [which) Signifies the endeavor
to make being manifest itself, and to do so by way of the ques
tion 'how does it stand with being?' (and not only with the es
sent as such)" (1M 41/EM 31). The terms "ontology" and
"ontological" should be abandoned, argues Heidegger, since
this question has been rejected by the schools of academic phi
losophy, which "strive for an 'ontology' in the traditional sense"
(1M 41/EM 31). The purpose is not to set up a traditional ontol
ogy, or to criticize the mistakes of the tradition, but to reestablish
a historical relation to being. Heidegger therefore asks in Intro
duction to Metaphysics whether philosophy and metaphysics are
historical sciences capable of such a task. His answer is that they
"are not sciences at all" (1M 43/EM 33). In fact, it is only philoso
phy, "as distinguished from all science" (1M 44/EM 33), that can
determine a fundamental relation to history in which that rela
tion itself is historical. Heidegger's rejection of neo-Kantianism
has led him to reject the thesis that philosophy is a science.
Yet as long as Heidegger raises the question of being as a ques
tion of human understanding-specifically, as the a priori pro
jected in scientific understanding-he cannot extricate the
question of being from the history of idealism, from Kant's a
priori. If being is taken as a concept, metaphysics remains em
broiled in the web of transcendental subjectivity in which con
cepts are to be found. That Being and Time and Basic Problems
of Phenomenology were never completed is not symptomatic of
46 '
HEIDEGGER S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
THE A PRIORI
is his preference for the A edition of the first Critique. The exam
ple "every alteration has a cause," which Kant used to distin
guish a priori from pure, appears there only once, yet twice in
the B edition, at A9/B13 and at B3. Elsewhere where the text is
common to both editions and Kant defines the pure, at All/
B24 and A20/B34, he uses it interchangeably with the a priori.
Heidegger clearly understands in Kilnt and the Problem of Meta
physics that the A edition argues for the inseparability of sensa
tion and understanding, while the B edition prioritizes reason in
its freedom from sensation. Hence it makes perfect sense that
Kant's emphasis on the pure would become apparent in the B
edition, and that Heidegger would miss it. After ail, what he is
interested in is precisely how being is a priori, but hardly pure,
since it must for Heidegger belong to beings. He attempts there
fore to retrieve the a priori from pure reason, and in doing so he
fails to see the definitive characteristic of the a priori for Kant.
What he takes Kant to mean by "a priori," Kant in fact conveys
by "pure." Since purity and aprioricity often go hand in hand,
this oversight would have little impact on many readers of Kant
who might fail prey to it. But the consequences are severe for
Heidegger, for he is intent on the question of being, and what is
pure can never figure in the question of being. Rather, since the
pure contains "no admixture of anything empirical" (B3), it is
bound to transcendental idealism.
Hence when Heidegger wishes in Die Frage nach dem Ding to
pursue the question of what is already given and therefore cer
tain in any knowledge, he does not do so on the basis of Kant's
a priori. Rather he turns to the Greeks and the mathematical,
despite the fact that Kant is the subject of the course and that the
Kantian a priori is the obvious candidate for such a discussion.
Heidegger intends the mathematical to do exactly the job Kant
assigned to the a priori. As the a priori carried the epistemic
force of certainty for Kant, so the mathematical entails the cer
tainty of givenness in Heidegger's analysis. Accordingly, Theo
dore Kisiel (1973) is right to identify the mathematical in
Heidegger with the Kantian a priori. Yet Heidegger himself did
not see this. He looks not to Kant but to the ancients to raise the
issue of epistemic certitude, and he raises that issue not as the
question of the a priori, but as the question of the mathematical.
METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE 51
the thing is already known: "The J!uOiuwtu are the things insofar
as we take cognizance of them as what we already know them
to be in advance, the body as bodily, the plant-like of the plant,
the animal-like of the animal, the thingness of the thing, and so
on" (MSMM 251/FD 56). The mathematical is the basis on
which we encounter things as already given. It is "the funda
mental presupposition of the knowledge [Grundvoraussetzung
des Wissens] of things" (MSMM 254/FD 58).
For Heidegger, a number is an instance of the mathematical.
He argues early in Die Frage nach dem Ding that although a num
ber-5, for example---can be called a thing in some sense (FD 3),
it is not a thing in the narrow sense of what is graspable and
visible (FD 4-5). It is not a spatiotemporally extended body.
Rather, it is brought to the thing by the understanding. Numbers
are found in things not because they are already there, but be
cause the understanding brings them to things as an aspect that
can be known about the thing. Numbers therefore carry episte
mic certainty insofar as they are found in experience by being
first projected there. Reason is certain of its own creation. Hei
degger means by the mathematical not just what is projective,
but also what carries epistemic force. His phrase "the mathemat
ical projection of nature" can be read as "the epistemically cer
tain projection of nature." He is interested in showing how
nature is projected in modem physics as something about which
certainty can be had. Later, in "The Age of the World Picture"
Heidegger will call this projection of certainty "rigor" (AWP
119/H 79) and once more appeal to what to. J!uOT)J!UtU meant for
the again unspecified Greeks. The rigor of science is exactitude,
numerical precision.
The relation between things and numbers as one of epistemic
force clearly holds in the case of measurement. Things are mea
surable insofar as they stand in time and space. But a clock,
which measures time, cannot tell or show one what time is. This
point is made both in Die Frage nach dem Ding (FD 17) and in
Basic Problems of Phenomenology, where Heidegger argues that
clock usage-that is, measurement of time-is possible only be
cause of an original having of time (BPP 245/GP 347-48). Hei
degger argues that we assign time to clocks. The measurement
of time is "a modification from the primary comportment
METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE 53
3 "Gegenstand der Physik ist-so konnen wir jetzt kurz sagen-die Geset
• "die Moglichkeit und Notwendigkeit von so etwas wie Kants »Kritik der
reinen Vermmft«" (FD 50).
METAPHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, AND SCIENCE 61
CONCLUSION
Experiment and
Representation
' All translations from this text are my own, with the generous guidance,
assistance, and advice of Will McNeill. The original will be given in footnotes.
EXPERIMENT AND REPRESENTATION 71
CRUCIAL EXPERIMENTS
Some twelve years after Galileo's death, and sixty years after
the event supposedly took place, Viviani recorded that Galileo
climbed the tower of Pisa and let fall two objects. This moment
began modem science, it is commonly believed, by establishing
the revolutionary experimental method. It is odd that such a
groundbreaking event took so long to be mentioned in print; so
odd, in fact, that Favaro, chief editor of the National Edition of
Galileo's works, suggests that it must be true, despite the lack of
remark in the literature of the time, because Viviani must have
heard it from Galileo himself. Lane Cooper suggests rather that
the story is a myth (1935:13ff.). Ernest Moody argues further that
even if the event did take place, "we may be assured on the
incontestable authority of Galileo himself that its physical mean
ing was totally different from that which is ascribed to it by the
tradition of our physics books" (1951:163).
Galileo does refer twice in De Motu, written while he was at
Pisa between 1589 and 1592 but unpublished until the late eigh
teenth century, to experiments involving throwing spheres from
towers (1960:31, n. 12; 107). Both references are strange in that
Galileo describes how, when two weights are thrown simultane
ously from a height, the lighter initially descends ahead of the
heavier, which then catches up and passes the lighter. His expla
nation is that the heavier must overcome more inertia to begin its
descent. That the heavier should initially descend more slowly
is so unexpected a claim that presumably its source must be
observation. Yet this evidence that Galileo performed the experi
ment is not conclusive. At this point in De Motu, Galileo inserts
a marginal note: "Borrius, part 3. ch. 12" (1960:106, n. 2). Borri
taught at Pisa while Galileo was a student there, and in his De
Motu Gravium et Levium he describes throwing weights from his
window with the result that the lighter descended more quickly.
He explains this observation along the lines of Galileo's later
'
74 HEIDEGGER S PIDLOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
least one of those hypotheses, but "the experiment does not des
ignate which one should be changed" (1954:187). Likewise, Irnre
Lakatos rejects crucial experiments because there is no "instant
rationality" (1970:154). Within a scientific research program, ex
periments that decide between similar versions of a theory are
common. But a research program is defeated only "with long
hindsight" (1970:173). Science advances by means of painstaking
and thorough labor, not sudden, theory-shattering experimental
results. Science is simply not that transparent to scientists, ar
gues Lakatos. Only long after the fact is it possible to see what
was significant, what pedestrian, in the progress of knowledge.
Hacking argues against Lakatos's view, suggesting that in a
crucial experiment one can see at the time that one is at a cross
roads. "Crucial experiment" is perhaps too strong a term, he
qualifies, but nonetheless, some kinds of experimental result
"serve as benchmarks, permanent facts about phenomena which
any future theory must accommodate, and which, in conjunction
with compatible theoretical benchmarks, pretty permanently
force us in one direction" (1983:254). The Michelson-Morley ex
periment produced just such a result, and is in fact the standard
case study of a crucial experiment in the debate among analytic
philosophers of science. It is an experiment designed to test the
hypothesis that a subluminiferous aether permeates all space.
The truth of the matter is that the Michelson-Morley experi
ment was not a onetime affair. It was first performed in 1881.
The most famous version was in 1887. Michelson did the experi
ment five times, the last in 1925, and it has been done officially
many times since. Do the many instances of this experiment,
decisive for subsequent science, count as evidence against the
crucial experiment, and thus also threaten Heidegger's claim
that the individual result can "claim strength of ground and
proof of validity"?
The idea of an all-pervading aether was long-standing and
embedded in several other theories. Thomas Young's wave the
ory of light and G. G. Stokes's account of astronomical aberra
tion, for example, depended upon it. Further corroboration
seemed evident in Maxwell's combining of electromagnetism
with the theory of light, and in Hertz's work on radio waves.
Lakatos describes a logic of discovery in which a scientific re-
'
80 HEIDEGGER S PIDLOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
3 Cf. Hacking 1983:254-61; see also Michelson 1881 and Resnik 1968:chapter
1 .5-7 for an account of the experiment and attempts to preserve aether through
adding additional hypotheses.
EXPERIMENT AND REPRESENTATION 81
improving the experiment, yet that is not the case here. Michel
son had what he considered an adequate and satisfactory ar
rangement of the apparatus before he published his results. And
despite the availability of the technology to improve experimen
tal conditions beyond any question, the experiment continued
to be repeated well into this century. Repeating experiments may
be about producing more stable, less noisy phenomena, or it
may be an indication that equipment is the first thing at which to
point the finger when awkward results are produced. Awkward
results like the negative result of Michelson-Morley threaten
hypotheses that have a history of success in a research program
and that rightly should not be thrown over too quickly. To aban
don a core hypothesis is to open a hole at the center of a group
of theories that may fall down without its support.
Indeed, one reason the experiment was so often repeated was
a reluctance on the part of the scientific community to relinquish
the aether theory, which had done quite well as a theory for so
long and figured prominently in other theories. Scientists resist
giving up such hard-core hypotheses because to do so threatens
other elements in a coherence of theory. This means, however,
that it was not the case that the experiment was repeated be
cause it was not yet clear that it was decisive. It did not become
decisive through repetition. Rather, the experiment was redone
precisely because its decisive nature was already recognized and re
sisted.
Kuhn argues likewise that crucial experiments are recognized
for their decisiveness, but he suggests that they do not in fact
illuminate scientists' decision-making processes, except as a ve
hicle for illustrating criteria of choice. "By the time they were
performed," he argues, meaning Foucault's pendulum, Caven
dish's demonstration of gravitational attraction, and Fizeau's
measurement of the relative speed of sound in air and water,
"no scientist still needed to be convinced of the validity of the
theory their outcome is now used to demonstrate" (1977:327).
Crucial experiments are, he suggests, pedagogical tools that
demonstrate criteria of choice long after the choices have been
made. They would only be relevant to theory choice if they pro
duced an unexpected result. It is certainly the case, however,
that the Michelson-Morley experiment produced such an unex-
'
82 HEIDEGGER S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
is not itself visible: the air's resistance (MSMM 266/FD 69). Like
wise, Newton's law of inertia applies to something that does not
exist: a body not impressed by any external force. There is no
such body (MSMM 265/FD 69). Although modem science ap
peals to the empirical in the experiment, it does not in fact ap
peal to ordinary experience. Rather, it appeals to an isolated,
controllable empirical situation. Modem science returns to the
empirical only insofar as it separates the empirical from ordi
nary experience.
Heidegger's claim that the empirical is distinct from ordinary
experience is in accord with Bacon's proposal of the experimen
tal method. Bacon based his method precisely on this difference,
arguing that "sense fails in two ways" (1980:24): by rendering
either no information or false information. The purpose of ex
periment was precisely to rectify the senses. Rather than use the
senses to judge nature, he suggested that "the office of the sense
shall be only to judge of the experiment, and that the experiment
itself shall judge of the thing" (1980:24). The empirical data pro
duced in an experiment are different-better, in fact-than ordi
nary experience.
The argument that the experiment is a separation of the em
pirical from ordinary experience can be found in the analytic
tradition of philosophy of science some fifty years after Heideg
ger first made it in Die Frage nach dem Ding. Ian Hacking argues
that experiments do not observe so much as they "create, pro
duce, refine and stabilize phenomena" (1983:230)-phenomena
that are not plentifully available in nature. He is not suggesting
that experiments create phenomena that exist nowhere else, but
rather that they produce phenomena that are easier to work with
than their counterparts in nature. At least that seems to be the
claim. But his analysis, despite its regular focus on examples
from quantum physics, overlooks the fact that many experi
ments produce phenomena not found in experience outside the
laboratory. In what sense does an experimental scientist produce
what she or he examines?
Thomas Kuhn argues in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
that science works on the basis of paradigms. The latter are
much like what Heidegger called ''basic concepts" (BT 29/ SZ 9):
the structures that demarcate and fix the area of subject matter
'
88 HEIDEGGER S PIDLOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
sind Setzung und Bestimmung von Realitaten als moglich dargetan" ("Realitat
sproblem" 11).
EXPERIMENT AND REPRESENTATION 89
in his life for two reasons. First, because the "healthy realism"
of empirical, natural science has produced such "dazzling re
sults" that science stands as an "irrefutable, epoch-making
fact."s Second, he believes that the "establishing of a conscious
ness-transcendent reality is above all demanded through the fact
that one and the same object is directly communicable to differ
ent individuals."· The success of the sciences and the intersub
jective availability of objects lead Heidegger to want to ground
the validity of scientific realism philosophically.
Accordingly, he asks whether first an establishing (Setzung),
and second a determination (Bestimmung), of the real are possi
ble. He answers that an establishing of the real is possible only
on the basis of both thinking and sensation. Neither alone can
suffice to establish the existence of an outer world (der Auflen
welt) ("Realitatsproblem" 13). And he further suggests that the
determination of the real-that is, the determination of the na
ture of the outer world above and beyond the establishing of
its' existence-is in fact the goal of the sciences themselves.' He
suggests that the history of science shows movement toward this
goal unambiguously.s Hence Heidegger holds as early as 1912
that the relation between philosophy and the sciences is such
that the assumption of realism by the latter can be validated by
the former.
But Heidegger's early realism is a naive realism. His interest
in and concern with the sciences is an unreflective commitment
to their success, of which he will only later begin to be critical.
Finding evidence of consciousness-transcendent objects on the
basis of their intersubjective availability, and in large part
through an account of nerves and physiology, is a position only
possible on the basis of realist assumptions. It is Heidegger's
9 "Wenn schon, dann zurtick auf die QueUe dieser mitteialterlichen »Mod
13 "eine Sammlung in der Absicht auf eine Ordnung, deren »Prinzip« noch
gar rticht aus den beobachteten Gegenstanden entnommen ist" (Beitrage 161) .
.. "dall iiberhaupt das Regelhafte und nur dieses das Gegenstandliche in
seinem Bereich im voraus bestimmt" (Beitrage 162).
15 "Wei! die neuzeitliche »Wissenschaft« (Physik) mathematisch (rticht em-
EXPERIMENT AND REPRESENTATION 93
pirisch) ist, deshalb ist sie notwendig experimentell im Sinne des messenden Ex
perimentes" (Beitrage 163).
16 "Gerade der Entwurf der Natur im mathematischen Sinne ist die Vorausset
zung fur die Notwendigkeit und Moglichkeit des »Experimentes« als des mes
senden" (Beitrage 163).
11 "
suchte das metaphysische Wesen der in der unmittelbaren Wirklichkeit
sich aufdrangenden Erscheinungen und deren verborgene Ursache zu erfor
schen" (ZG 418-19).
'
94 HEIDEGGER S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
VIOLENCE
20
"Jetzt das Experiment nicht mehr nur gegen bioSes argumentum ex verba
und gegen »5pekulation«, sondem gegen alles bloSe experiri" (Beitrage 163).
Cf. "Jetzt das Experiment gegen das experiri" (Beitrage 164).
21
"Jetzt der Unterschied nicht mehr gegen blojJes Reden und Zusammensetzen
von Meinungen, »Autoritaten« tiber einen 5achverhalt, sondeTn gegen nur Besch
reiben und Aufnehmen und Feststellen, was sich bietet, ohne den bestimmten,
das Vorgehen vorzeichnenden Vorgriff" (Beitrage 166).
EXPERIMENT AND REPRESENTATION 97
degger in which beings are exposed as what and how they are.
Hermeneutic violence and phenomenology are reconciled in
that Heidegger holds that an act of conceptual rupture is needed
to make scientific investigation possible.
Likewise, Heidegger's account of 1tOAElwc:; in Introduction to
Metaphysics is of such a rupture that opens up a world. He con
siders Heraclitus's Fragment 53, in which Heraclitus says that
1tOAEf-WC:; is the father and king of all. Heidegger translates the
fragment from Greek as "Auseinandersetzung ist allem (Anwes
enden) zwar Erzeuger (der aufgehen laBt), allem aber (auch)
waltender Bewahrer. Sie laBt namlich die einen als Gotter er
scheinen, die anderen als Menschen, die einen stellt sich her
(aus) als Knechte, die anderen aber als Freie" (EM 47). Manheim
translates Heidegger's translation into English as "Conflict is for
all (that is present) the creator that causes to emerge, but (also)
for all the dominant preseIVer. For it makes some to appear as
gods, others as men; it creates (shows) some as slaves, others as
freemen" (1M 61-62). Robinson renders the fragment in a more
standard translation as "War is father of all, and king of all. He
renders some gods, others men; he makes some slaves, others
free" (1987:37). Heidegger has in his translation a very specific
purpose. He reads Heraclitus not as commenting on war in the
ordinary sense, but as suggesting that the struggle that opens a
world for human understanding determines both human being
and the beings that appear in that world.
Heidegger argues that in this fragment 1tOAEIWC:; "is not a mere
assault on something already there"; rather, it "constitutes
unity, it is a binding-together" (1M 62/EM 47). IIoAEfwc:; is not a
forcing apart so much as it is a collecting together of the being
into its unity in being. The struggle that opens a world makes
visible beings in their being, for beings are only encountered in
Heidegger's account within a world. Here too a kind of violence
is the condition for understanding, but it is not a violent assault
on beings so much as it is the ground of their possibility for that
understanding. The struggle to open a world is not an assault,
but in the case of scientific understanding it is preparatory to an
assault. For the question of the violence of scientific understand
ing is not exhausted by this account of 1tOAEfWC:;.
A third sense of violence can be found in Die Frage nach dem
EXPERIMENT AND REPRESENTATION 101
Ding. Here Heidegger argues that there was for Aristotle a dis
tinction between what is "natural and [what is] against nature,
i.e. violent" (MSMM 264/FD 68). This difference has disap
peared in Newton's doctrine of motion. Heidegger argues that
for Aristotle, violence (�la) consists in making something do
what goes against its nature, that is, what it would not do ac
cording to its own nature. It is, for example, in the nature of
rocks to move toward the center of the earth. To throw a rock
upward is violent in this sense. Indeed, Aristotle distinguishes
at Physics 5.6.230a32 what happens as a result of natural neces
sity from what happens violently.
Heidegger's claim is that since for Newton "force [is] only a
measure of the change of motion and is no longer special in
kind" (MSMM 264/FD 68), the Greek distinction between natu
ral and violent motion can no longer be drawn in Newton's
physics. The implication of this argument is that there is an in
herent tendency to violence in modern science which itself re
mains concealed. The separation Heidegger draws in the Beitriige
between ordinary experience and the empirical nature of the
modern experiment also implies that the experiment is violent
in the sense of �la. The experiment seeks its object by constrain
ing it to behave in ways it in fact would not when left to itself.
Indeed, an experiment is performed in a laboratory precisely
because one attempts to establish the conditions under which a
thing will behave in a certain way, a way in which it would not
behave outside those determined conditions.
The problem of falling bodies, for example, is central to mod
ern physics. But, as Lane Cooper points out, "Aristotle in his
writings on physics never once used the word 'fall' in relation to
speed" (1935:14). It does not occur at all in De Cae/a, and appears
in the Physics as an example of the term "automatic" (197b30-
32). IIi.:rtTELv, to fall, and its nominal form, JtT&OL�, are terms Ar
istotle uses in grammar, logic, and mathematics. Applying
Heidegger's insights to the question of why this is the case, Aris
totle's lack of interest in the physics of falling bodies is due to
the fact that bodies simply do not fall regularly enough to make
free-fall an issue. Aristotle is more interested in how they do
regularly behave-for example, growth. Experience does not
present him with the problem of free-fall. That free-fall is a cen-
'
102 HEIDEGGER S PillLOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
REPRESENTATION
prehending. The Greek thinker apprehends what is, but for the
modem researcher, "to represent [vor-stellen] means to bring
what is present at hand [das Vor-handene] before oneself as some
thing standing over against, to relate it to oneself, to the one
representing it, and to force it back into this relationship to one
self as the normative realm" (AWP 131/H 91). Beings as objects
must conform to the requirements of the modem researching
mind. Likewise, Heidegger argued earlier in "On the Essence of
Truth" that propositional truth is possible only on the basis of
the adequacy of the thing to the intellect (adaequatio rei ad intel
lecturn) rather than the adequacy of the intellect to its object (ad
aequatio intellectus ad rem) (BW 120/W 181). In this sense, human
being places itself in the scientific, experimental picture in prece
dence over whatever is. The transcendental tum is the threat of
representational thinking to nature.
For this "setting before" is an objectification in representation
that secures for the researcher a certainty with respect to the
objects so represented. Representation is complicit in science as
research, for the representation of nature as a calculable coher
ence of forces determines the rigor of science as exactitude. The
representation of the objects of science determines the object
sphere of each specialized science and the certainty with which
those objects are known. Heidegger argues that science becomes
research "when and only when truth has been transformed into
the certainty of representation" (AWP 127/H 87).
This certainty of representation is secured, Heidegger argues,
and subsequently demanded by Cartesian metaphysics, in
which that which is, is defined as the objectness of representing
(AWP 127/H 87). There is no truth for Descartes about the exter
nal world-that is, the world of nature which includes even the
bodily subject-until the subject has first secured itself in the
cogito. In such an account, truth lies in the certainty of the sub
ject's representation of its object. That is to say, truth is taken to
be the correspondence of subject and object in representation.
Representational certainty in modem science is attained in the
experiment, for experimentation is precisely the method by
which science represents: "To set up an experiment means to
represent or conceive [vorstellen] the conditions under which a
specific series of motions can be made susceptible of being fol-
'
114 HEIDEGGER S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
clear out of context. The German reads: "Erscheinen im grossen 5inne der
Epiphanie einer Welt, wird jetzt zur herzeigbaren 5ichtbarkeit vorhandener
Dinge" (EM 48).
EXPERIMENT AND REPRESENTATION 115
modem age [der Neuzeit]" (AWP 130/H 90). But, argues Heideg
ger, the world as picture has its origin in Plato's dlio<;: "that the
beingness of whatever is, is defined for Plato as dlio<; [aspect,
view] is the presupposition, destined far in advance and long
ruling indirectly in concealment, for the world's having to be
come picture" (AWP 131/H 91). The dlio<; is transformed in the
history of thought into the idea. In the precedence of the idea
over its object, the aspect or view a thing reveals of itself ceases
to belong to the thing as U:TtOXELf.tEVOV.
Heidegger defines U:TtOxElf.tEVOV as "that-which-lies-before,
which, as ground, gathers everything onto itself" (AWP 128/H
88). Originally, Heidegger suggests, this gathering was consti
tuted by the unity of the thing under inquiry. The subject was
the thing under question and had no special relation to human
being or the "I" of Cartesian subjectivity. In the modem age,
however, human being becomes the subject and the ground of
the synthetic unity of the object in Descartes's assertion of the ego
cogito as the ground of knowledge. That human being becomes
subject and the thing object are simultaneous events for Heideg
ger (AWP 133, 151/H 93, 109).
The essence of the modem epoch is, for Heidegger, the world
picture. It is not a picture of the world, but "the world conceived
and grasped as picture" (AWP 129/H 89). For everything that is,
is only to the extent that human being sets it up and represents
it, that is, only to the extent that it is picturable. Likewise, what
is not available to be represented in experiment, simply is not
for science. Silvio Vietta recounts: "While I was still in school
Heidegger took me along on a walk and explained to me in per
ceiving the colors of one of the branches hanging over a garden
fence, the tendency of modem science and especially physics to
resolve its object into abstract measurements, here the frequency
of light waves"23 (1977:234). Color is as light waves for the scien
tist. Other possibilities, such as those for the artist or the person
strolling along a country lane, do not exist in the scientist's
23 "Noch wahrend meiner Schulzeit nahm Heidegger mich einmal auf einen
Spaziergang mit und eriauterte mir an der Wahrnehmung der Farben eines
iiber einen Gartenzaun hiniiberhangenden Zweiges die Tendenz modemer
Naturwissenschaft und insbesondere der Physik, ihren Gegenstand in abs
trakte Messgrossen, hier die Frequenzwerte der Lichtwellen, aufzulosen."
'
116 HEIDEGGER S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
24 "Das FrOheste, Erst-Anwesende, die Anwesung ist die 'Il1JliL<; selbst" (Bei
triige 222).
25 "Das Apriori wandelt sich mit der WEa zur perceptio, d.h. das Apriori wird
dem ego percipio und damit dem »5ubjekt« zugewiesen; es kommt zur Vorgan
gigkeit des Vor-steIlens" (Beitriige 223).
EXPERIMENT AND REPRESENTATION 117
CONCLUSION
THE NOTHING
The sciences are such that beyond, further, and besides the be
ings they investigate, there is nothing. Knowledge questions be
ings in opposition to the nothing, and, further, is grounded in
that very opposition. For it is only in the face of the nothing that
one wonders about beings and questions them.
For, Heidegger argues, the human pursuit of science is "the
irruption of one being called 'man' into the whole of beings . . .
in such a way that in and through this irruption beings break
SCIENCE IN THE INSTITUTION 125
open and show what they are and how they are" (WM 97/W
105). He has already held in Being and Time that human being
has an understanding of being which grounds it existentially. In
Basic Problems of Phenomenology he expressed this claim as the
thesis that human being stands in the ontological difference, that
is, the difference between being and beings. Here, in What Is
Metaphysics?, Heidegger claims that beyond beings, there is
nothing. This claim stands in marked contrast to his earlier claim
that beyond beings, there is being.
In 1929 Heidegger has taken to heart the Hegelian proposition
that "Pure Being and pure Nothing are therefore the same" (qtd.
at WM 1l0/W 120). The nothing, he suggests, belongs to the
being of beings such that the problem of being is not so much
expressed in the old proposition that ex nihil nihilo fit (nothing
comes from nothing) as in the proposition that ex nihilo omne ens
qua ens fit (from nothing comes every being as a being). The cen
tral question of metaphysics is then for Heidegger in 1929, "Why
are there beings at all, and why not rather nothing?" (WM 112/
W 122). This question is so central for him that he poses it in
1935 in Introduction to Metaphysics as the fundamental question
of metaphysics.
Heidegger has long been critical of accounts of the nothing
that take it to be derivative. In Basic Problems of Phenomenology
he criticizes Kant for taking negation to be the opposite of reality
(BPP 35/GP 47). He argues that the Kantian thesis that being is
not a real predicate renders possible a positive determination of
being only as position. Heidegger wishes to read the question of
being more deeply than the claim that "perception and absolute
position are the sole character of actuality" (BPP 47/GP 64). He
further objects to the logical conception that a negative judgment
is derivative upon a positive one, arguing that such interpreta
tions of the copula suffer a want of radical inquiry (BPP 201ff./
GP 286). In both cases the complaint is the same: interpreting
negation as determined primordially by affirmation, the nothing
as derivative upon being, forecloses upon the inquiry into being.
Heidegger calls instead for a radical inquiry. There is, he sug
gests, a deeper sense of the nothing. In both Basic Problems of
Phenomenology and Being and Time, he uncovers the nothing in
the constitution of Dasein itself. In the former text he argues
126 '
HEIDEGGER S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
DESTINY AS NIHILISM
his death ten years later, that the Rektoratsrede was an argument
against the devaluation of science in favor of the practical needs
of the people. He sees himself as having argued that a new
meaning for the university could come out of reflection on the
tradition of Western European thought. He did argue so in the
Rektoratsrede (SA 470/SU 9). In 1966 he says that what was
needed was "above all a discussion of the relationship between
philosophy and the sciences, for the technical and practical suc
cesses of the sciences make thinking in the sense of philosophy
appear today to be more and more superfluous" ("Only a
God . . . " 283). Echoing his claims against utility in 1941, he is
calling here for a different kind of thinking, one that does not
take philosophy to be superfluous in the face of the practical
success of the sciences.
In his 1945 retrospective essay on the rectorate, "Facts and
Thoughts," written shortly after the collapse of National Social
ism and first published in a bilingual French-German edition of
the Rektoratsrede in 1982, Heidegger suggests again that he
wanted to ground the sciences in the experience of the essential
region of their subject matter (FT 487/ SU 27). He argues that
"reflection on the realm to which science belongs by its essence,
reflection that also confronts that essence, must take place in
every science if that 'science' is not to be without knowing" (FT
489/SU 29). For the sciences to achieve knowledge meaning
fully, questions about the essence of science must be raised. He
explains the Rektoratsrede as the argument that "by returning to
the essence of truth itself instead of persisting in a technical or
ganization-institutional pseudo-unity, [the university] was to re
cover the primordial living unity that joins those who question
and those who know" (FT 482/SU 22). Thus he saw his task as
rector of Freiburg University to be the retrieval of knowledge
from its fragmentation under a superficial organization, a return
to a living unity of questioner and knower. What is common to
and clear in What Is Metaphysics? and the Rektoratsrede is that
Heidegger sees himself as offering the university an alternative
to its superficial organization into specialized disciplines.
Likewise, in "Facts and Thoughts" Heidegger argues that
there is a danger in the old view, that is, the commitment to
specialty. He became rector, he suggests, with the hope of pro
viding the inner self-collection of the people with a measure (FT
146 HEIDEGGER' S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
483/SU 23), and I take it he means here that his intention was to
achieve a meaningful unity of the knowledge in the university.
But no such hope was realized: the address "had been spoken
into the wind and was forgotten the day after the inaugural cele
bration" (FT 493/SU 34). No colleagues discussed it with him.
Rather, the university was to become split into professional
schools (FT 494/SU 35). He describes the experience of the rec
torate as "a sign of the metaphysical state of the essence of sci
ence, a science that can no longer be influenced by attempts at
its renewal" (FT 4971SU 39). In other words, his time as rector
of Freiburg University showed that his hope for the retrieval of
science had failed.
There are therefore adequate grounds to believe that Heideg
ger objected to the Nazi appropriation of the university into the
service of the people. His concern is the larger destiny of being
and human being rather than global conquest. There is a sense
in which he sees the university in the service of humanity, but
this sense is not one in which he envisions the university in the
service of the German people. Rather, he sees the university as
the locus for a turning to reflection on being that would retrieve
for knowledge a meaningfulness. That his vision for the univer
sity is distinct from the Nazi vision is further evident in his at
tack on the notion of worldview.
Heidegger attacks the notion of worldview originally in Basic
Problems of Phenomenology, where he argues that philosophy
must be scientific rather than worldview philosophy. He says
that the notion of a worldview first appeared in Kant's Critique
of Judgment, where it was "a beholding of the world as simple
apprehension of nature in the broadest sense" (BPP 4/CP 5-6).
Schelling shifted the meaning from sense-perception to intelli
gence, Heidegger argues, such that "the meaning we are familiar
with today [is] a self-realized, productive as well as conscious
way of apprehending and interpreting the universe of beings"
(BPP S/CP 6). After citing several usages of the term, Heidegger
concludes that "what is meant by this term is not only a concep
tion of the contexture of natural things but at the same time an
interpretation of the sense and purpose of the human Dasein"
(BPP S/CP 7). The notion of worldview is for Heidegger an ac
tive understanding rather than a passive apprehension. It impli
cates both beings and human being in a world.
SCIENCE IN THE INSTITUTION 147
Time: the world " 'wherein' a factical Dasein as such can be said
to 'live' " (BT 93/52 65). He will corne to understand the situa
tion of the sciences within the larger political realm of his day as
posing a political threat.
But Heidegger has not yet made this critical move in 1933. In
1933 the specialization of the sciences means for him that the
sciences succumb to errancy. He evaluates the sciences not in
terms of their truth or falsity, but on other grounds. Maria Lu
gones and Elizabeth Spelman offer a feminist evaluation of the
ory in which they likewise claim that a theory is not just the kind
of thing that can be true or false. They suggest that theories can
be true, but also bad insofar as they are, for example, "useless,
arrogant, disrespectful, ignorant, ethno-centric, imperialistic"
(1993:26). Decisions need to be made about what it is valuable
and worthwhile to know versus what is useless, arrogant, and
so forth, if science is to be directed. For Lugones and Spelman,
however, the threat is not just that unevaluated theory is a mean
ingless collection of information, but that it can be imperialist
and, in short, dangerous. Heidegger holds that the university is
the place where science can be evaluated and directed, but in
1933 his interest is still intellectually innocent. His concern is to
guard science against errancy, not its use as a tool of domination
or oppression. By 1937 that has changed.
1 "Man gibt Weltanschauung zu, aber halt sie fur die Wissenschaft an sich
der Grund denn tragen und wozu Grund sein?" (BdW 16).
3 "Wenn die 'Wissenschaft' nicht in der Hinsicht der Wesenswahrheit geset
zgebend und ertiffnend zu wirken vermag, hat sie keinen Sinn als geistige
Macht; sie wird eine Technik des Kennens und der Abrichtung in den verschie
denen Techniken und Practiken" (BdW 22).
150 HEIDEGGER'S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Das gilt von der Herstellung der Diingemittel und der Granaten ebenso! Nur
ist damit ja nicht bewiesen, daB sie irgend etwas fur »die Wissenschaft«, und
d.h. fur das Yolk als ein geschichtlich wissendes tun und tun k6nnen" (BdW
27).
6 "der Ausgleich hat . . . vor aIlem aile Krafte des Fragenwollens unterbun
8 "Es ist weder ein Ungliick noch ein Gliick, dall die Universitiit zu Ende ist,
sondem nur eine Notwendigkeit und eine lang vorbereitete; heute wird ihr
nur eine verbesserte Gelegenheit gegeben, an den Tag zu korrunen" (BdW 25).
9 "An der Universitiit: nicht sich nehmen lassen als die noeh Geduldeten, als die,
die man fur das Weitere noeh braucht und ausnutzt oder mit denen man gele
gentlieh sieh zeigt, sondem als die eigentlieh Schaffenden, die mit der Univers
itiit niehls zu tun haben, aber mit dem Wissen" (BdW 25).
152 HEIDEGGER'S PHIL OSOPHY OF SCIENCE
And he holds equally explicitly that the sciences are the modem
form of human knowledge. Yet he does not raise the question of
science in his lectures on Nietzsche in 1940. These lectures ad
dress exactly the question of valuative thought. I argue that in
the lecture course of 1940, Heidegger withdraws his attention
from the sciences because his earlier accounts-his call for deci
sion about value in 1929 and 1933-are embroiled in the very
destiny of nihilism these lectures describe. His call for the reeval
uation of what is worth knowing is an expression of his immer
sion in the metaphysics and hence destiny of his age, a valuative
thinking of which he is by 1940 critical. Heidegger is disillu
sioned with respect to his earlier vision, yet he never gives up
the call for reflection upon the sciences.
atsrede, that students "who have dared to act as men" (SA 476/
SU 16) will no longer permit their bond to the spiritual mission
of the German people, known as "Knowledge Service" (Wissens
dienst), to be "the dull and quick training for a distinguished
profession" (SA 477/SU 16). The Greeks took three centuries
"just to put the question of what knowledge is upon the right
basis and on a secure path" (SA 478/SU 17-18), so Heidegger
does not expect the question of knowledge to be asked and an
swered in one or two semesters. Nonetheless, if the German uni
versity is to establish what Heidegger is herein calling for as an
essence of science, it will do so, he suggests, in a battle of wills
between the faculty and the student body. This battle is the self
examination and assertion of the university. It is a willing of the
essence of the university as science, against its decay into a train
ing ground for the professions.
In "Facts and Thoughts," Heidegger explains that notion of
battle by reference to Heraclitus's Fragment 53 (FT 488/SU 28-
29), a text he also looked to in Introduction to Metaphysics, where
he argues that this struggle is the conflict wherein human being
first stands up to beings as a whole and opens up a world (1M
62/EM 47-48). This struggle could remedy the atmosphere of
confusion in his university, wherein "the most diverse political
power constellations and interest groups intervened in the uni
versity with their claims and demands" (FT 492/SU 32). This
was a different kind of struggle, a struggle for political power, in
which the Ministry of Education struggled to secure an auton
omy against Berlin, professional associations demanded the re
moval of professors they found troublesome (FT 492/ SU 32), and
Heidegger himself struggled against the Nazis' and students'
demands for the posting of the Jewish proclamation ("Only a
God . . . " 269) and for book burnings ("Only a God . . ." 271),
faculty power plays for promotion, and the education minister's
request for the dismissal of Jewish professors, over which Hei
degger subsequently resigned ("Only a God . . . " 273-74). Hei
degger understands these political struggles in opposition to the
struggle he was calling for: "reflection on the ethos that should
govern the pursuit of knowledge and on the essence of teach
ing" (FT 492/SU 32). He loses the administrative and political
battle, and gives up discussion of the task of the university and
SCIENCE IN THE INSTITUTION 159
its role in the larger human community. But he has come to the
question of ethical and evaluative reflection upon the sciences,
and the question of the relation between science and technology
is now incipient.
CONCLUSION
War II. The report argues that since the remaining third of the
research funds carne from industry, and since corporate ties
"provide useful leverage in dealing with the government" (Ros
sant et aI. 1984:7), corporate support helps preserve the tradi
tional independence of the university.
To what tradition, however, is the Twentieth Century Fund's
report referring? The history of church, government, and corpo
rate involvement in the university renders unclear exactly when
researchers in the university were ever free to pursue "knowl
edge for its own sake," or even what this phrase could mean in
the contemporary academy. Research is today driven by compet
ing interests, those of government, including the military, and
corporations whose concerns are of financial return in the age
of consumer culture. As Ursula Franklin has pointed out, there
"seems to be an increasing crossbreeding and drift towards mo
noculture in our institutions" (1994:10): universities are judged
in market terms and try to act like business enterprises, while
banks speak out on education and the future of research. The
university is itself both a competing interest and a mediator be
tween researchers and their funding sources.
Heidegger holds by 1938 that the university is no longer the
place where it is possible to raise the issues of the ends and value
of knowledge. Reflection upon such questions reveals them as
homeless. They cannot be raised from within the sciences, but
the larger forum of the university also proved inadequate. Such
questions do find a horne in Heidegger's work, but the results
are largely unsatisfying. Heidegger faces bureaucratic issues
about the organization and institutionalization of science in the
1930s, and he recognizes that the sciences are institutionalized
in "research programs," as Lakatos will name them in 1970. But
he leaves these insights to dissipate into claims about the institu
tionalization of science as research. Heidegger has raised, de
spite his unsatisfying treatment of it, what remains a largely
untouched question in philosophy of science: who should deter
mine the goals of the sciences?
For, if Heidegger's talk of the "saving power" of the sciences
was unsatisfying in 1937 in that he does not go on to say what
the saving power of the sciences is, what is saved, and how, then
nonetheless he does not relinquish the issue. But the role of the
SCIENCE IN THE INSTITUTION 161
Ancient Science
<l>uOL<; As TRUTH
sertion" (BT 261/52 218). That is to say, all that is shown is that
the assertion points to and uncovers some entity as askew. The
assertion is true only on the basis of the entity's showing itself
as askew. Assertion is simply one way of being toward entities
in which entities are revealed. It is apophantic. If there were no
unconcealment of entities, the truth of an assertion would not be
possible. Hence for Heidegger, the phenomenon of truth is only
possible on the basis of being in a world, wherein entities are
revealed to Dasein.
Thus Heidegger argues that the correspondence theory of
truth is derivative from this primordial and original phenome
non of unconcealment. He develops this claim more fully in the
1931 essay "On the Essence of Truth." Heidegger appeals in both
texts to the Greek word commonly translated as "truth":
aA�eELa. The alternative translation he suggests is Unverborgen
heit, which Sallis translates as "unconcealment" in "On the
Essence of Truth," while Macquarrie and Robinson use "unhid
denness" in Being and Time. Heidegger argues that to translate
aA�eELa with Unverborgenheit is to show how Dasein is in the
truth, that is, that Dasein is the being to which entities in the
world are uncovered. Dasein is existentially constituted as the
being who is in the truth.
Dasein can also, however, be in untruth. Heidegger develops
the view over three decades that truth has untruth at its very
essence. In §44(b) of Being and Time, Dasein is in untruth in fall
enness (BT 264/52 221-22). What is uncovered is disguised and
closed off by idle talk, curiosity, and ambiguity, wherein beings
show themselves in the mode of semblance. Dasein's falling is
not some accidental feature but rather an essential part of factic
ity: it is "a basic kind of Being which belongs to everydayness"
(BT 219/52 175). Heidegger argues that in Parmenides' poem,
the goddess of Truth offers two pathways precisely to signify
that Dasein stands in both truth and untruth.
In 1930 the belonging together of truth and untruth is thought
in "On the Essence of Truth" as a double concealment. In the
disclosure of particular beings, being is concealed. This conceal
ment of being is itself concealed in errancy, which is the "insis
tent turning toward what is readily available" (BW 135/WW
196), the preoccupation with beings which precludes the ques-
168 HEIDEGGER' S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
which here does not yet mean a particular sphere of beings but
rather beings as such as a whole, specifically in the sense of
emerging presence" (BW 129/WW 189-90). This notion of emer
gence in connection with <pUOU; comes to the fore again in 1935.
In Einfi1hrung in die Metaphysik, Heidegger describes <puOL� as
denoting "self-blossoming emergence (e.g. the blossoming of a
rose), opening up, unfolding, that which manifests itself in such
unfolding and perseveres and endures in it; in short, the realm
of things that emerge and linger on" (1M 14/EM 11). ct>UOL� is
not simply nature under this account, but the power by which
things come to be, by which they are available to be encountered
in their presence for human being. It is in this sense of "phys
ics," the thinking of <pUOL�, that Heidegger claims that " [from]
the very first 'physics' has determined the essence and history of
metaphysics . . . [and that] metaphysics has remained unalter
ably 'physics' " (1M 17/EM 14). Where being is <pUOL�, meta
physics is physics.
In 1969, Karl Lbwith echoed this sense of <pUOL� in a paper
given at a colloquium honoring Heidegger's eightieth birthday.
He asked, "What is nature supposed to be if it is not the one
nature of all beings, whose power of generation permits every
thing which in any way is-thus even man-to proceed from it
and to pass away again?" (1970:310). ct>UOL� in this sense is, how
ever, much more than is denoted by the contemporary word
"nature." For the history of human thinking about nature is for
Heidegger one of reduction, such that "the actual philosophical
force of the Greek word [<pUOU;] is destroyed" (IM 13/EM 10) by
its Romanization into natura.
For nature was being, Heidegger argues, at the beginning of
Western philosophy. He goes on to describe beings in terms of a
metaphysics of presence: "The thing 'sits.' It rests in the mani
festation, i.e. emergence, of its essence. . . . For the Greeks 'being'
basically meant this standing presence" (1M 60-61/EM 46). In
this reading, to be is to be present for thinking and conversation.
What unconceals itself originally and foundationally to all other
experience is <pUOL�. This is Parmenides' point, argues Heideg
ger, in saying that being and apprehension belong together (1M
183/EM 140; d. Parmenides, Fragment 5).
This interpretation of the pre-Socratic constellation of
ANCIENT SCIENCE 179
ence, both the skill of the craftsperson and the knowledge of the
student of science have their source (981a1). For in experience
the universal is stabilized within the soul as a single identity.
Scientific knowledge is accordingly of what is necessary, ungen
erated, and imperishable-that is, the universal-in that which
is itself neither necessary nor eternal but constantly changing.
So although Aristotle insists that natural science is knowledge
of that which has matter, he cannot be called a materialist.
Furthermore, Aristotle argues in the Metaphysics that natural
science must fall into one of three classes-practical, productive,
or theoretical-and that it cannot be either of the former two
(1064a19). Natural science is, then, theoretical (102Sb2S), in con
trast to "tEXVTJ, which is productive. The most obvious distinction
between qJ1JOU; and "tEXVTJ is readily discernible in Aristotle's tax
onomy of knowledge. TEXVTJ is a division of knowledge, as are
8EWQLU and JtQul;u;. <l>uou;, on the other hand, is the end, the
object of a particular branch of 8EWQLU; it is the thing under
study.
Yet this difference, between a way of knowing and a thing
known some other way, plays a role in neither Aristotle's nor
Heidegger's account. In The Basic Works of Aristotle, Hardie and
Gaye translate Physics 2.1.193a31 as follows: "For the word 'na
ture' is applied to what is according to nature and the natural in
the same way as 'art' is applied to what is artistic or a work of
art." Heidegger translates this passage his own way: "Just as we
(loosely) call by the name "tEXVTJ those things which are pro
duced in accordance with such a know-how, as well as those
which belong to this kind of being, so also we (loosely) call by
the name qJuou; those things which are in accordance with qJUOL£
and hence belong to beings of this kind" (BCP 2S0/W 276). Hei
degger has added the word "loosely" parenthetically to his
translation. Although one recoils at the thought of a translator
simply adding words to render the desired interpretation of the
text under scrutiny, Heidegger's move here cannot be taken as
cavalier. For indeed, to Aristotle, physics and productive knowl
edge are different ways of knowing precisely in virtue of the fact
that they are directed at differing things. The distinction be
tween knowledge and its object is Simply not as crucial to Aris
totle as to modern philosophers. In fact, for Aristotle, when one
190 HEIDEGGER' S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
knows, one becomes one with the thing known. Exactly what
that means is unclear, particularly under the influence of a mod
em epistemology in which the knowing subject remains op
posed by the object known: the thing remains other. Aristotle's
explanation is that in knowing one receives the form without
the matter. This is not overly helpful, although in the case of
perception, it is further explained by the analogy of a signet ring
impressing its form but not its matter into wax (De Anima
2.12.424a17-24). In Aristotle's account, knowledge consists in
having the form in the soul, and different kinds of knowledge
do so differently because they have different ends. In fact, that
the form is stabilized in the soul through experience in physics,
whereas in production the artist has the form in the soul prior
to production, is the crucial distinction between q)1Jm� and "tEXVT]
for both Aristotle and Heidegger.
Accordingly, I accept Heidegger's addition of the word
"loosely" to his translation of 193a31 as pedagogical. He is high
lighting Aristotle's point. For when Heidegger, following Aris
totle, uses the terms "tEXVT] and cpua�, he is talking about things
and not kinds of knowledge. What is at stake in Heidegger's
discussion is the distinction between natural things and things
that are produced: it is the difference between things that both
Heidegger and Aristotle wish to elucidate. This is why Aristotle
is the philosopher at stake in Heidegger's account of ancient sci
ence. It is Aristotle whose taxonomy of knowledge makes possi
ble a clear distinction between cpum� and "tEXVT] when he
distinguishes both theoretical and productive knowledge from
practical knowledge. The separation of the applied arts from
practical knowledge-whose end is an action, not a thing
grounds Heidegger's analysis not of knowledge, but of things.
Accordingly, I cannot follow Dennis Schmidt, who argues that
Heidegger is after an economy of production in his 1940 lecture
course on the Physics. Heidegger's intent is not to distinguish
kinds of knowledge. His point is precisely that cpum� cannot be
understood by economies of production, that is, by analogy with
"tEXVT]. Schmidt, reinvesting in an economy of production, is in
terested in a retrieval of ftlftT]m� from representation to repeti
tion. This question of ftlftT]m� is a thoroughly interesting issue,
and to pursue it is a task worth doing; in fact, Schmidt's account
ANCIENT SCIENCE 191
does the job well. Yet, Heidegger's task in 1940 is not to complete
that task. His critique of representational thinking will come in
the 1950s. The reading of Aristotle in 1940 is one of the building
blocks on the basis of which that later critique will be made.
Hence, Schmidt's interest in this text confirms the lectures as a
significant development in Heidegger's thinking toward that
end. But Schmidt mistakes the preparatory for the substantial,
and prematurely reads the incipient as the expressed.
Indeed, Heidegger's explicit purpose in the 1940 lecture is not
a critique of representational thinking, but rather the severing of
an analogy between <pUOL<; and 'tIlXVTj. The basis on which Hei
degger pries apart <pUOL<; and 'tExvTj-that is, things that come to
be from nature and things that are produced-is what is gener
ally known in the English tradition of Aristotelian scholarship
as potentiality.
ble of building, and the waking to the sleeping, and that which is
seeing to that which has its eyes shut but has sight, and that which
has been wrought to the unwrought. Let actuality be defined by
one member of this antithesis, and the potential by the other. (Met
9.6.1048a31-b5)
Potentiality Actuality
block of wood statue of Hermes
half-line line
scientist not studying scientist studying
builder not building builder building
sleeping person person awake
seer with eyes closed seer seeing
the unwrought the wrought
It is pretty clear how the actualities of the scientist studying, the
builder building, the seer seeing, and even the person who is
awake are cases of activities-of "doing," as Blair wishes to un
derstand EVEQYELU. But a statue of Hermes, a line, and something
that has been wrought are actualities that do not give themselves
so easily to a contrast against the static form. Statues, lines, and
things wrought just do not seem to do much. Blair's suggestion
is that Aristotle coined the word EvtEt..EXELU precisely to look
after this problem. For, if EV"tEt..EXELU means "having its end in
side it," as Blair suggests (1978:114), then the actuality of a thing
that does not in fact do much is easier to grasp: "a statue is a
statue when it contains the end ("tEA.O�) of a statue" is perhaps
more apt than "a statue is a statue when it does what statues
do." Yet the explanatory victory here is perhaps Pyrrhic. It is
still unclear how being a statue, a line, or a thing wrought is an
activity.
Furthermore, once Blair has explained why the second word
is introduced, he is faced with the question of why this use of
EvtEA.EXELU is subsequently superseded by EVEQYELU, the earlier
term. For apparently Aristotle introduced the second word only
to discover eventually, by slipping into using EVEQYELU in pre
Cisely the way he intended EvtEt..EXELU, that in fact a thing's hav-
ANCIENT SCIENCE 195
tween motion and rest to be that between the fleeting and the
eternal (BCP 243/ W 266-67). Eternal are the elements, which are
the material substratum of the ever-changing things encoun
tered in experience. But, points out Heidegger, the process of
growth and decay happens without interruption. The substra
tum may be permanent, but that does not distinguish it from the
changeable, because change is also a constant for the Greeks
(BCP 245/W 270).
An alternative interpretation of motion is put forward in Hei
degger's enigmatic claim that the Greeks conceived motion in
terms of rest (BCP 255/W 283): "The purest manifestation of
being-moved is to be sought where rest does not mean the
breaking off and stopping of movement, but rather where being
moved gathers itself up into standing still, and where this ingath
ering, far from excluding being-moved, includes and for the first
time discloses it" (BCP 256/W 284). Rest does not happen when
movement stops, but rather is a fulfillment of being moved. This
is the sense in which for Aristotle having its end in itself is an
activity on the part of a thing. 'EV"tE"-EXELU is an activity that is
also a stillness, a gathering up of movement into an end. The
activity that is movement toward an end does not cease when
that thing reaches its end. The end is a tension that gathers that
very movement together in the thing, and thus includes and dis
closes what that movement is a movement toward. Almost ten
years earlier, in his lectures on 9.1-3 of the Metaphysics, Heideg
ger gave the example of a runner at the starting line immediately
prior to a race in order to explain this notion of a stillness that is
a gathering together into movement. The runner is still, but the
stance and composure of the runner are a gathering together
that can only be dissipated by subsequently running. It is in this
moment of tension in stillness immediately prior to running that
the runner is most clearly actualized (AM 218). True to Aristot
le's refusal to account for EVEgYELU other than in conjunction
with the MVUf.lEL QV, it is by way of the latter that Heidegger has
reached his account of the former.
Heidegger's adeptness with this topic is perhaps due to the
fact that 1940 is not the first time he works with MVUf.lL<; in a
lecture course. The earlier lectures on the Metaphysics from the
summer semester of 1931, from which I took the example of the
ANCIENT SCIENCE 197
causes, for "cause" here does not mean "the manner and mode
in which one thing 'acts on' another" (BCP 227/W 245). Each is
an aQX� but not in the sense of "the starting-point of a push,
which pushes the thing away and leaves it to itself" (BCP 233/
W 254). Rather, q:nJa� and "tEXVT] are generative causes in that
each is a starting point and governing principle from which a
thing comes to be what it is, whether it be a thing in nature such
as a tree, for example, or an artifact such as a house. <l>UOL� and
"tEXVT] are generative causes: they cause yEVWL�. Hence, as aQXaL
they bring into being and determine development.
That is to say, they stand in a special relation to the final cause.
In fact, in the case of both qJUOL� and "tEXVT], the aQX� is also the
final cause ("tEAO�). The end of qJUOL� is qJUOL� in that things that
come from nature move toward other things that are specifically
identical. Things in nature reproduce. Likewise in the case of
"tEXVT], the final cause is the aQX�, for, as put clearly in Parts of
Animals, the final cause "is the reason, and the reason forms the
starting-point, alike in the works of art and in works of nature"
(639b15). The origin of "tEXVT] is the d1\o� in the head of the artist.
The end of "tEXVT] is the thing made in conformity with that d1\o� .
on the other hand, is that which comes into being of its own
accord. 1his is for Heidegger the original Greek distinction be
tween qnJoL<; and 1:EXVl'].
In Antiphon's account, however, nature and artifacts are un
derstood in the same terms. Nature is simply a self-making arti
fact. Heidegger's reading of the history of Western metaphysics
is the story of the failure of Antiphon's analogy between qnJOU;
and 1:EXVl'] to break down, the failure of the insight that nature
moves differently from the artifact. According to Heidegger, the
distinction between qnJOL<; and 1:EXVl'] is simply not sustained in
the Western tradition of thought. It is not even sustained in Aris
totle's thinking. For even though Metaphysics 4.1 raises the ques
tion of the being of beings as such in totality, 4.3 gives the same
information about qnJOL<; as the Physics: "<jlUOL<; is one kind of
ouota" (BCP 268/W 299). As one kind of being among others, it
is on a level with those others, such that it can be understood by
analogy. TEXVl'] consists in the imposition of form onto matter,
and <jJUOL<; as a parallel kind of being can be understood as form
imposed on matter. The only difference is that in 1:EXVl'], the artist
imposes the form on the matter, whereas in <jJUOU;, the form is
imposed on the matter by nature.
Heidegger's criticism is that this view falls short of what the
thinking of the pre-Socratics had already achieved. It encourages
a reduction of <jJUOU; to 1:EXVl'] by analogy. The older conception
of <jJUOL<; would preclude an analogy to artifacts, rather than con
ducing one. Such an analogy "fails from roery conceivable point of
view. That means: we must understand the Being of <jJUOU; en
tirely from itself, and we should not detract from the astonishing
fact of <jJUOL<; . . . by overhasty analogies and explanations" (BCP
262-63/W 292). In Heidegger's account, <jJUOU; is not simply a
self-making artifact but rather the self-placing into appearance
of what is encountered as already there. It is the astounding fact
that there are beings rather than nothing at all. Therefore <jJUOU;
must be understood for Heidegger on its own terms, not by re
duction to a derivative kind of being by analogy.
It is Heidegger's contention that the history of the concept of
nature since the Greeks is sustained and guided by Aristotle's
interpretation of <jJUOU;. Aristotle's assertion that being is <jJUOU;
is "barely expressed . . . an echo of the great origin of Greek
ANCIENT SCIENCE 205
CONCLUSION
Given this historical notion of essence, such that science is, for
Heidegger, essential to modernity, his claim in What Is Called
Thinking? that "science does not think is a critique of the mod
"
In the first lecture course he gave since 1944 and the last before
his formal retirement, at Freiburg in the winter and summer se
mesters of 1951 and 1952, Heidegger argued that science does
not think. That this claim is a disparagement is "emphatically
not the case" (WCT 13/WHD 49). It certainly sounds like one,
however, and the scanty consideration given to science by Hei
degger's readers is consistent with its being taken so. Likewise,
Efraim Shmueli's (1975) reading is very much that technology is
an evil spirit for Heidegger. Cyril Welch claims that Heidegger
and, following him, Macomber, in The Anatomy of Disillusion,
both "see in science and technology something of the devil's
work" (1970:145). Macomber claims, however, that Heidegger
does not oppose science and technology so much as he seeks to
understand them (1967:208). Both are right insofar as Heidegger
wants to understand science and technology, but also he under
stands them as something that threatens human being. He
certainly opposes the blind progress of either without consider-
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 215
I "Hinsitlich der Frage nach dem Charakter der Besinnung auf die Wissen
schaft ist vor allem eine Grundtatsache zu beachten, die wir nicht oft genug
durchdenken kllnnen. NamJich: Keine Wissenschajt leann von sich selbst wissen
von der von ihr selbst vollzogenen Wis5ensJorm. Auf die Physik als Wissenschaft
ktinnen wir uns nicht besinnen mit Hilfe des Vorgehens der Physik. Das Wesen
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 217
ing is, however, more than simply the determination of the ob
jects of the sciences prior to their investigation.
For Heidegger, thinking is a craft and skill. It can be learned.
The lectures that make up What Is Called Thinking? are in fact his
attempt to teach thinking. Heidegger characterizes thinking as
what the Greeks called TExvTj-that is, it is a producing. Yet he is
not attempting here simply to reinscribe thinking in an economy
of production. Thinking is a producing that is not the produc
tion of an artifact. A builder produces houses, but not all things
produced are quite so tangible. Aristotle, for example, fre
quently used medicine as an example of TEXVT]. A doctor pro
duces health. If thinking is human being's "simplest, and for
that reason hardest, handiwork" (WCT 16-17/WHD 51), and
"the handicraft par excellence" (WCT 23/WHD 53), then the ques
tion arises of what, exactly, thinking produces in Heidegger's
view.
I argue that for Heidegger, thinking produces neither being
nor ideas. He explicitly rejected the suggestion that thinking
produces being in 1943 in the postscript he added to What Is
Metaphysics?, where he argues that it is more likely that thinking
is an occurrence of being than that being is a product of thinking
(WMp 356/W 308). Indeed, being calls for thinking in What Is
Called Thinking?, and it could hardly call for what will produce
it. Furthermore, since Introduction to Metaphysics in 1935, Heideg
ger has held that being is the a priori, that is, prior to thinking.
Nor does thinking produce ideas. In What Is Called Thinking?,
Heidegger argues explicitly that thinking does not produce rep
resentational ideas. The question of what calls for thinking can,
he argues, easily be heard as "what is this-to form a represen
tational idea [das Vorstellen]?" (WCT 44/WHD 60), since this is
the traditional view of thinking. Further, producing ideas is "the
universally prevailing basic characteristic of traditional think
ing" (WCT 54-55/WHD 62), and "the long since dominant kind
of thinking . . . [is] ideational or representational thinking"
(WCT 64/WHD 63). Accordingly, the traditional answer to the
question of what thinking produces is representational ideas.
Heidegger rethinks the relation between production and repre
sentational ideas.
In Aristotle's thought, which Heidegger laid bare on the topic
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 219
ihr so gut geht wie noch nie, d.h. in ihrem Nutzen und ihrer Fortschrittbeschaf
tung bestatigt und ermuntert wird" (BdW 7).
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY z27
that is, reflect on their science. This means not simply evaluating
the science in terms of results and usefulness in practical appli
cation, but reflecting on how the science determines its object.
The task for the scientist is to pause from science and raise the
question of its origin and essence: the a priori determination of
its object.
Heidegger had held explicitly since Basic Problems of Phenome
nology that sciences proceed through a regional ontology-that
is, a science investigates an object that has been determined be
forehand. In this prior determination of its object, a science has
its source and its essence. On this basis, Heidegger's claim in
What Is Called Thinking? that the "sciences belong in the realm of
the essence of technology" (WCT 14/WHD 50) can be interpre
ted. The essence of technology is Ge-stell. Science too has its Ge
stell. In
explicating this claim, I show how it is only on the basis
of the scientific object that modem technology is possible for
Heidegger. That is, the essence of technology arises from the Ge
stell of science.
GE-STELL
QuANTUM THEORY
such that space and time are construed as containers for the
thing (FD 11-24). In characterizing the thing, the interiority and
exteriority of space and time are simply not adequate.
Furthermore, Heidegger objects in The Basic Problems of Phe
nomenology to Kant's separation of subject and object in his ac
count of perception because "it does not make possible any
access to the unity of the phenomenon" (BPP 314/GP 447). And
Heidegger argues that the subject-object relation is a correlation,
and that the concepts of subject and object require each other
(BPP 156-57/ GP 222-23). Accordingly, it is not so clear that Hei
degger's account of the subject-object relation focuses on opposi
tion and separation rather than unity and interdependence.
Second, Heidegger was not completely uninformed on the
topic of quantum theory. Joseph Kockelmans points out with
reference to Carl von Weizsacker's report on his meeting with
Heidegger, Heisenberg, and his uncle, Victor von Weizsacker,
that "it becomes clear that Heidegger had a remarkable knowl
edge of both physics and biology and that he was able to con
duct a penetrating discussion on important topics with leading
scientists" (1985:17).3 In the young von Weizsacker's account of
that meeting, Heisenberg finds Heidegger's insights satisfactory,
when the issue at stake is precisely how the subject-object rela
tion is to be understood in quantum theory.
Finally, it is not the case that Heidegger fails to address the
question of quantum theory in his analysis of science. In his
writing he cites Heisenberg, Bohr, and Planck. His comments
are sparse, but this is not because he has nothing to say on the
issue. Rather, it is because what he does have to say makes it
clear that he sees no essential difference between Newtonian
physics and quantum theory. He recognizes that they are not
identical. For example, in Die Frage nach dem Ding, as early as
1935, Heidegger suggests that in quantum theory, the relation
between matter and space is not so simple as in Newtonian
physics, but nor is it fundamentally different (FD 15). And in
"Science and Reflection" he acknowledges that the geometrical
point mechanics of Newtonian physics is different from the sta-
3 Kockelmans's reference is to von Weizsacker, 1977, but see also von Weiz
sacker, 1977a.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 249
CONCLUSION
gether essentially, such that the modem epoch is the age of sci
ence and technology. Under this account, the postmodem is not
novel, but simply a devolved and quintessential modernity.
In 1976 Heidegger raised the following question during his
last public address: "Is modem natural science the foundation
of modem technology-as is supposed-or is it, for its part, al
ready the basic form of technological thinking, the determining
fore-conception and incessant incursion of technological repre
sentation into the realized and organized machinations of mod
em technology?" (MNST 3). An account of the development of
Heidegger's thinking over the sixty years from 1916 until his
death in 1976 answers this question: Modern natural science is al
ready the basic form of technological thinking. Science shares its es
sence with technology such that technological representation,
Ge-stell, can intervene in modem technology. Science is not sim
ply the foundation of modem technology, but rather its essence
and origin.
Heidegger himself comes to this view only after long and
careful struggle with the question of science. He began with two
theses: that philosophy is a science, and that natural science is
the mathematical projection of nature. Through resisting neo
Kantianism, Heidegger began an extensive critique of subjectiv
ity which led him to reject both Kantian idealism and the former
of his two theses. He developed the second thesis by reflecting
on the experimental method, and discovered therein that the
thesis characterizes modem, not ancient, science. Looking back
to ancient philosophy, he confirmed his rejection of subjectivist
metaphysics by thinking being as the a priori, that which is prior
in understanding. The thesis that modem science is the mathe
matical projection of nature remained with Heidegger and from
1950 onward informed his account of technology. Ge-stell, in
fact, captures precisely the notion of projection at work in Hei
degger's account of modem science, such that he argues that
science and technology are essentially one. His critique of sci
ence is the background against which his understanding of the
history of metaphysics unfolds.
Heidegger's analysis of the projection at the core of science
leads him from basic concepts to representation to Ge-stell. It is
a development that flourishes as a critique of representational
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 253
28-35, 38-42, 44-40 49, 55-56, 93, 107, 113-14, 200, 202, 230,
60-64, 66-70, 83, 100, 103, 116- 235, 238, 243, 245
17, 120, 125-38, 140, 144, 149, circular motion, 57
155-50 163-65, 167-70, 172-73, cogito, 6, 61, 63, 113, 115, 171, 227
175-80, 183, 185-86, 195, 199, Cooper, L., 73-74, 101
202-5, 209-11, 214, 217-18, Copernican revolution, 30-32, 38,
220-22, 225-31, 236-37, 242, 41-47
247, 252 Cornford, E, 187
"Being and Conception of qnJOLC; Corrington, R S., 163
in Aristotle's Physics B.1, On Critique of Judgement, 24, 146
the," 174-75, 179-81, 185, 189, Critique of Pure Reason, 9, 19, 27,
191-93, 195-200, 202-5, 230 31-32, 35-40, 42-44, 48-50, 60,
Being and Time, 1-2, 7-9, 11, 14, 63, 72, 138
16-18, 20-21, 25-30, 34, 38-39, crucial experiments, 3, 9, 70, 73-
42-47, 49, 53, 55-56, 60-61, 64, 84, 250
70, 83, 87, 90, 93, 95-99, 107-8,
120-23, 125, 127-28, 133, 135-
Dasein, 16, 20, 22, 29-31, 33-34,
36, 147-48, 152, 164-67, 169-70,
37-39, 42, 44, 55, 61, 97, 120,
172, 174, 177, 182, 210-11, 215,
122, 126-34, 136-40, 143, 146,
217, 225, 236, 246
148, 167-68, 170-71, 220 247
Beitriige, 45, 68, 70-72, 75-76, 78,
David, P., 120
83-86, 90-96, 98-99, 101,
death, 128-29, 145
104-7, 114, 116, 141-42, 224
default of being, 138, 228
Bell's inequalities/the Bell in-
equality, 12, 77-78, 88, 250 Denken, 8, 162
Bergoffen, D., 129 Descartes, R, 18, 23, 27, 59, 61-63,
Bernasconi, R, 147 68-69, 107, 113, 115, 135, 171,
Besinnung, 2, 108, 151, 162, 232, 208, 219-20
237, 239 destiny, 7, 10, 120-21, 131-34,
Betrachtung, 103 136-41, 143-44, 146, 151, 153,
Betriebscharakter, 10, 119, 137, 155-56, 168, 225
161 Duhem, P., 77-78
Blair, G., 193-94
Bohr, N., 248-50 Early Greek Thinking, 174, 223, 236
Brentano, E, 10, 180, 183-84 ecology / ecological, 163, 253
Eignung, 201
Cae/o, De, 101 Einfiihrung in die Metaphysik, 44-
calculation, 108-9, 111, 142 45, 67, 100, 114, 124, 132, 158,
Caputo, J., 1-2, 98 170, 173, 175-77, 178, 185, 199,
Camap, R, 42 212, 230
Cartesian Meditations, 23 Einstein, 82
cause/ causes/ causation, 7, 33, 50, empirical! empiricism, 7, 21, 42,
INDEX 269
48-50, 71, 84, 87-92, 94, 96, 96, 101-2, ll6, 127, 136-37,
101-2, 105, 224 145-46, 188-89, 191, 199, 208,
"End of Philosophy and the Task 212, 224, 235
of Thinking, The," 220, 237 experiment/ experimentation/
environment/ environmental, experimental, 6, 8-9, 53-54, 59,
163, 206, 253 64-66, 68-88, 90-91, 93-90 99,
epistemology / epistemological, 101-2, 104-7, 109, 111-15, 117-
23-24, 28, 30-32, 42, 44, 62, 65, 18, 141, 154, 224, 239, 243-44,
190 247, 250, 252
epoch, 7, ll, 63, 67, 69, 91, 93, 109, extantness, 27-28
lll, l l5, ll7, 132-33, 137-38,
154, 200 209, 211, 213-15, 220, facticity, 132, 167
225-26, 228-30, 232, 238-39, Farias, v., 120
241-42, 246, 251-52 fate, 133, 137, 141
epoche, 18, 20, 23, 68 Ferry, L., 120
Ereignis, 192 Feyerabend, P. K., 65, 68, 76
errancy, 38, 148, 167 finitude, 37-39, 41, 44, 128
essence/essences, 33, 76, 83-85, form, ll, 179, 181-82, 186, 190-93,
93-94, 110, 114-15, 132, 134, 195, 198-205, 221
139-40, 144-45, 147, 149, 155, Fr"o'e nach dem Ding, Die, 9, 14, 17-
158-59, 164, 166, 170, 176, 178, 19, 40-41, 46-47, 49-53, 56-59,
205-0 209, 212-15, 217, 233, 61-64, 70-72, 84, 86-88, 92-94,
239-40, 242, 246 100-101, 104, 107, lll, l l4, 138,
essence of science, 1-3, 5-10, 12, 171, 210, 224, 247-48
53, 58, 63-64, 60 69, 71-73, 141, Franklin, u., 160
144-46, 152, 157-58, 205-7, 209, free/freedom, 96, 122, 159, 170-71
211, 213-15, 219, 222-23, 232- free-fall, 19, 53-54, 70, 75, 82-83,
33, 241, 245-40 250, 252 101
essence of technology, 5, 7, 12, 64, Fundamental Concepts of Metaphys
60 71-72, 157, 206-7, 209-10, ics, The, 15, 19, 66
213-14, 219, 222-23, 225-26, fundamental ontology, 6, 14, 16,
232, 240-41, 243, 245-47, 25, 33-34
251-52
"Essence of Truth, On the," 31, Galileo, 3, 5-6, 9, 14, 18-19, 51,
38-39, 96, 113, 123, 129-30, 53-54, 56-58, 60-61, 64-65, 69-
137-38, 160 170, 220 236, 241 71, 73-75, 82-86, 94, 102, 109,
essentia, 60 175, 211-12 114, 162, 244, 249, 251
existence, 26-28, 67, 129-33, 138, Geeignete, das/Geeignetheit, die,
168, 188 192, 201
existentia, 67, 175, 2ll-12 Geisteswissenschaft, 3
experience, 23, 37, 40-41, 47-49, geometry, 9
52, 71-72, 76, 83-84, 86-88, 90- Gesamtausgabe, 4, 20, 88, 175
270 INDEX
Ge-stell, 3, 5, 207, 209, 214, 240, 22, 230-31, 234, 236, 245-46,
242-46, 249-52 252
gravity, 74-75 History of the Concept of Time, 18,
Great Instauration, 74, 102 20, 24, 28
Greeks, the, 12, 41, 45, 50-52, 66, Hofstadter, 23
68, 109, 1 14, 116, 140, 143, 158, H6lderlin, 215
163, 169, 172, 174, 178, 184-85, Holzwege, 52, 59, 71, 92, 94, 109-16,
196, 199, 204, 211, 220-21, 229, 138, 142, 153-55, 171-72, 207-8,
231, 233-34, 236, 238, 253 210, 213, 220
Grene, M., 42-44 horizon, 39, 44, 98, 126-27, 175
ground/grounding, 6, 9, 14, 16- Husser!, E., 5-6, 18-25, 31, 88,
19, 25, 29, 31-34, 38-42, 53, 62- 217, 227
64, 98, 100, 105, 110, 115, 125,
138, 142, 145-46, 149, 206-7, idealisrn, 5-6, 8-9, 28, 30, 41-42,
227, 235, 240
44-45, 50, 72, 85, 90, 164-65,
Grundbegriffe, 144, 157
169, 170-73, 176-7� 191, 252
Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik, Die,
Ideas, 22-23
15, 66
Ideen, 23
GrUnder, K., 4, 12, 69
irnagination, 36-38, 44
Grundprobleme der Phiinomenologie,
inertia/law of inertia, 57-58, 73,
Die, 15, 22-24, 26-30, 46, 52-53,
87
117, 125-28, 146-47, 152, 211,
Introduction to Metaphysics, 14, 17,
247-48
41, 43-46, 67-68, 99-100, 107,
1 14, 116, 124-25, 132, 135, 158,
Hacking, I., 3, 76-77, 79-80, 87-
164-65, 170, 172-73, 175-78,
88, 95, 105-7
185, 199, 212, 218, 229-30, 234
Hanson, N. R., 104
intuition, 36-38
Harding, S., 123
irruption, 99, 124
Harries, K., 120
Heelen, P, 2, 122-23, 150
Hegel, G. W E, 18, 120, 125, 128, Kant, 1., 5, 8-9, 18-19, 23-28, 30-
130, 135 51, 55, 60, 62-63, 72, 90, 125,
Heidegger Studies, 108 135, 138, 228, 252
Heisenberg, W, 247-48, 251 Kant and the Problem of Metaphys
Heraclitus, 100, 158, 163-65, 173, ics, 25, 31-38, 43, 46, 49-50
174-75, 177, 179, 185 Kant und das Problem der Metaphy-
history, 4, 14, 26, 39, 53, 61, 65-69, sik, 19, 31-38, 49
74, 77, 89-91, 94, 98, 103, 110- "Kehre, Die," 141
11, 115, 121, 123, 133-37, 140, Kettering, E., 120
143, 152-53, 156, 160, 168-69, Kisiel, T., 2, 5, 50-51
177-79, 181-82, 185, 187, 204, Kockelrnans, J., 18, 104, 215, 248
206, 208, 210-11, 215-16, 221- Kuhn, T., 3, 7, 15, 65, 68, 81-82,
INDEX 271
motion, 19, 54, 57-58, 101, 110, object, 6, 8, 18-19, 21, 25-27, 31-
1 13-14, 126, 186-88, 195-96, 32, 36-3� 40-41, 46-47, 56, 63,
203, 230-31, 243, 245, 249-51 68, 78, 95, 98, 107, 109-11, 113,
Motu, De, 73 1 15-16, 124, 134, 137, 142, 150,
154, 166, 168, 190, 217-19, 223-
National Socialism/Socialist, 10, 24, 226, 228, 231-32, 238, 240,
145, 149-50 243, 245, 247-49, 251
nature, 6-8, 10-12, 24, 26, 39, 41, objectivity, 21, 23, 29, 41, 75, 92,
55-59, 67-68, 70-76, 87-88, 92- 98-99, 102, 121-22, 136, 143,
93, 95, 98-99, 101-2, 104-5, 209, 223, 227, 231, 236, 239, 241,
107-8, 1 10-13, 116, 143, 146, 246
153-55, 157, 163-65, 169, 172, observation, 9, 70-73, 84, 91, 93-
175, 178, 180-81, 184-85, 187, 96, 98, 103-5, 238
189, 191-92, 195, 200-202, "Only a God Can Save Us," 145,
204-6, 208, 223-25, 238-39, 149, 158
243-47, 249-50, 253 ontological difference, 29, 125,
Naturwissenschaft, 3, 115 129, 144, 210, 217, 229, 237
Nazi/Nazism, 10, 97, 1 19-20, 137, ontology/ ontological, 6, 14, 16,
146-48, 150-52, 154, 158, 226 18-19, 23, 25-35, 43, 45, 47, 97,
Neske, G., 120 120, 130-31, 14� 166
Newton, I., 3, 5-6, 8-9, 18-19, 49,
"Origin of the Work of Art, The,"
51, 53, 56-60, 64-65, 70-71, 74-
235
75, 77-78, 86-87, 94, 101, 1 14,
Ott, H., 120
230-31, 243-44, 247-50
overcoming, 2, 140, 143, 156, 219,
Nicomachean Ethics, 188, 200, 246
233
Nietzsche, F. W, 131, 134-35, 137,
149, 156, 164, 210, 220
Nietzsche, 69, 121, 131, 134-37, paradigm, 3, 15, 65, 68, 87-88, 109,
142, 150, 155-57, 164, 168, 175- 122, 209, 227, 231
76, 210, 220, 225, 244-45 Parrnenides, 163-67, 173, 176, 178,
Nietzsche I, 142 185, 228-29, 236
Nietzsche II, 131, 134-37, 150, 156- Parts of Animals, The, 200, 246
57, 168, 210, 220 Pathmarks, 170, 176-77
nihilism, 69, 120-21, 131, 133-38, perception, 27, 125, 146, 187-88,
156-57, 164, 175-77, 210, 213, 190
220, 226, 228, 245, 251 phenomenology /phenomeno
"Nihilism as Determined by the logical, 5-6, 16, 18, 20-23, 25,
History of Being," 135-37, 168, 28, 47, 95-97, 100, 102, 108, 163,
210 169-70, 182, 205-� 210
Nolte, E., 120 "Philosophy as Rigorous Sci
nothing, the, 38-39, 120-21, 124- ence," 20-22
26, 128-31, 134-35, 137 philosophy of natuIe, 163-64
Novum Organum, 74, 78 philosophy of science, 1, 3-5, 12-
INDEX 273
13, 65, 72, 98, 121-22, 163, 166, projection, 5-8, 14-17, 51-53, 55-
253 59, 63-64, 70, 72, 96, 98, 104,
Physics, 7, 11, 67, 101, 126, 169, 110-11, 142, 207, 209, 213, 241,
172-73, 17� 179-82, 184-86, 246, 252
188-90, 192-93, 195, 198-99, Prolegomena zur Geschichte des
201-6, 211, 230, 234, 243 Zeitbegriffs, 20, 24
physics, 3, 5, 19, 31-32, 34, 47, 49, pure, 48-50
53-56, 58, 60-61, 64, 68-69, 71, Putnam, H., 105
73, 84-85, 92, 101-2, 107, 111-
12, 117, 119, 141, 154, 161, 165, quantum theory/quantum phys
178, 180, 186-87, 189-90, 207, ics/quantum mechanics, 3, 8,
216, 230-31, 238-39, 243-44, 12, 77-78, 85, 87-88, 1 14, 122-
246-48, 250-51 23, 209, 244, 247-51
Pisa, 73-74, 86 "Question Concerning Technol
place, 55, 59, 187 ogy, The," 104, 108, 112, 141,
Planck, M., 248, 250 154, 186, 206-9, 212, 230, 232,
Plato, 8, 29, 51, 60, 67, 115-16, 121,
241-46
134-35, 164, 169, 171, 175-77,
Question Concerning Technology
186, 193, 212, 230, 236
and Other Essays, The, 112, 141,
"Plato's Doctrine of Truth," 67,
143, 154, 186, 212, 214-15, 230,
170, 176-77
241-46
Plumwood, v., 163
Poetry, Language, and Thought, 186
Popper, Sir Karl, 65 ready-to-hand/readiness-to
Porter, J. S., 144 hand, 55, 61, 97, 121
position, 27, 30-31, 40, 49, 58, 125, real, 26-27, 89, 104-7, 125, 202,
227, 234, 239, 250 223-24, 232, 234-38, 242-43,
positive sciences, 15, 25-29, 31- 250-51
34, 63, 147, 152 realism/realist, 4, 6, 9, 69, 71, 76,
Posterior Analytics, 188 78, 84-85, 88-90, 104-5, 164,
potentiality, 10, 165, 180, 183-84, 177, 250
191, 192-94, 197-98, 201 "Realitatsproblem in der moder
presence/presences/becorning nen Philosophie, Das," 4, 88-89
present, 11, 17, 20, 32, 39, 67, reality, 26-2� 69, 83, 104-8, 135,
116, 126, 164, 168, 174, 178, 186, 232, 235
198-99, 212-13, 231, 234-36 reason, 37, 50, 173, 175, 200, 230,
present-at-hand, 61, 97, 132, 168 249
Principia, 70, 74, 86 recoil, 16
Principle of Reason, The, 249 "Rectoral Address," 139-40
production, 6� 180, 182, 190, "Rectorate 1933/34: Facts and
202-3, 205, 211, 218-19, 221, Thoughts, The," 145, 149, 158
227, 241-42 reflection, 8, 103, 119, 121, 131,
274 INDEX