Language and Being: Heidegger's Linguistics(Bloomsbury Studies in Continental Philosophy)

About the Book

Martin Heidegger’s radical and, for that, controversial reflections on language were not simply a passing interest in his thinking, but a fundamental, career-long concern arguably as significant to him as his study of being.

This book traces the intimate connection between language and being in Heidegger’s philosophy, and shows how they cannot be understood apart from one another. It discusses why Heidegger’s undervalued philosophy of language is increasingly important, how it figures in the wider context of his work, and how it is to be approached and understood for our times. This includes the significance to Heidegger of being, the logos principle, etymology, phenomenology, mysticism, and poetry.

Illuminating a difficult yet highly significant area in Heidegger’s thinking, Williams provides an insightful and authoritative interpretation of the topic.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Interpreting Heidegger
Heidegger's Approach
Heidegger and Language
Mystical Heidegger
Heidegger and the Logos
Structure and Scope

Chapter 1. The Forgetting Of Being

1. 1. The Fundamental Question
1. 2. Ontotheology
1. 3. The Isness of Being
1. 4. The Ontological Difference

Chapter 2. The Attunement Of Language To Being

2. 1. The Whatness of What
2. 2. Co-respondence
2. 3. A Linguistic Concern

Chapter 3. Language Devalued

3. 1. Language as Logical Assertion
3. 2. Language as Interpretive Discourse
3. 3. Language as Idle Talk
3. 4. Curiosity and Duplicity

Chapter 4. Homelessness And The House Of Being

4. 1. Language as Sign System
4. 2. The Architectonic Structure of Language
4. 3. Two Theories of Language
4. 4. The Conventional View of Language
4. 5. Language as the House of Being

Chapter 5. In The Beginning Was The Word

5. 1. Manifestation or Creation?
5. 2. The Law of Mediacy
5. 3. The Irruption of Poiesis
5. 4. Poetry as Linguistic Work

Chapter 6. The Flower Of The Mouth

6. 1. Alethia and Lichtung
6. 2. Koto Ba that Names Iki
6. 3. Language as Saying

Chapter 7. The Dif-ference That Tears And Bears

7. 1. A Division in the Middle
7. 2. The Striving-Strife of the Rift-Design
7. 3. The Pain of the Threshold's Joining
7. 4. Language Speaks as the Peal of Stillness

Chapter 8. Language As It Gives And Not It Is

8. 1. The Nothing Noths
8. 2. Presence in Absence
8. 3. The Leitsatz

Chapter 9. The Way To Language

9. 1. Bringing Language As Language To Language
9. 2. The Way-Making Movement
9. 3. Seeking the Prize so Rich and Frail

Chapter 10. The Showing Of Saying As Owning-Event

10. 1. Propriation
10. 2. The Essence of Man
10. 3. An Apparent Contradiction
10. 4. Saying the Same with the Logos

Chapter 11. Language Alone Speaks

11. 1. Etymology
11. 2. The Peculiarity of Language
11. 3. Language is Language

Chapter 12. The Sayers Who More Sayingly Say

12. 1. The Destitute Time
12. 2. The Closing of the Open
12. 3. The Conversion of Consciousness
12. 4. More Daring by a Breath
12. 5. Poetically Man Dwells

Conclusion

Bibliography

About the Author :
Duane Williams teaches and researches in the Theology, Philosophy and Religious Studies Department at Liverpool Hope University. His first book, The Linguistic Christ was published in 2011. He is the editor of Medieval Mystical Theology: The Journal of the Eckhart Society, and co-facilitator of the Association for Continental Philosophy of Religion.

Review :
One of the virtues of this study is its direct and accessible style … [It] offers a helpful interpretation of the relation of language and Being in Heidegger's thought, and can be recommended as providing a courageous effort to grapple with an immensely difficult topic. Duane Williams’ new book is a further sign that Heidegger scholarship in Britain is alive and well. In this sustained and intensely focused exposition of what Heidegger can teach us about language Williams not only helps Heidegger beginners and sceptics to see that something important is going on in these texts, but also offers new insight to established Heidegger readers. Williams is especially attentive to the proximity of Heideggerian thinking to mystical and East Asian thought as well as to its poetic dimension. He shows how Heidegger can assist us in reflecting on human beings' spiritual needs in a time threatened by the seemingly unstoppable reduction of communication to information, management-speak, and data.