Blackwell Reference Online

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‘A philosopher, for instance, a rearranger of facts and ideas, who is endowed with this spirit, can fascinate his listeners even when they don't understand a word of his lecture. Spellbound, they will hang on to his lips’. Ernst Jünger was thinking of his friend Heidegger; perplexing but spellbinding. Why is he so perplexing? The difficulty of his subject matter is no doubt part of the answer. But it is not the whole answer. Heidegger was constantly ‘on the way’. Never, at the end of a lecture, book or essay by Heidegger, do we feel that we now know what he believes. His answers to questions invariably raise deeper questions, questions that propel his thought along. The questions point beyond the confines of any particular work. His works often end with a question, or with a quotation, say, from Hölderlin, the obscurity of which makes it as good as a question. This helps to explain Heidegger's spell, as well as his difficulty. He is not, we feel, presenting us with truths that he has worked out in advance, not leading us across terrain that he has already explored. He is working out problems as he goes along; the terrain is as new and unfamiliar to him as it is to us. He often needs to retrace his steps and cover the same ground in a different way. He does not know our destination any more than we do; he is on the way – but to where? Questions are easier to handle if we can tackle ... log in or subscribe to read full text