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Parvis Emad. On the Way to Heideggers Contributions to Philosophy. Madison: University of WisconsinPress, 2007. 254 pp. $55.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-299-22220-8.

Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe. Heidegger and the Politics of Poetry. Urbana: University of Illinois Press,2007. 136 pp. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-252-03153-3.

Ian Rory Owen. Psychotherapy and Phenomenology: On Freud, Husserl and Heidegger. New York:iUniverse, 2006. xviii + 352 pp. $24.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-595-41752-0.

Alison Ross. The Aesthetic Paths of Philosophy: Presentation in Kant, Heidegger, Lacoue-Labarthe, and

Nancy. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007. 256 pp. $24.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8047-5488-0.

Mark Sinclair. Heidegger, Aristotle and the Work of Art: Poeisis in Being. Houndsmills: PalgraveMacmillan, 2006. x + 219 pp. $74.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-4039-8978-9.

Reviewed by Thomas O. Haakenson (Department of Liberal Arts, Minneapolis College of Art and Design)Published on H-German (January, 2010)Commissioned by Susan R. Boettcher

Heidegger, Still Standing

In assessing five recent volumes that deal withthe work of German philosopher Martin Heidegger,it becomes clear that debates over the relevance of

Heideggers thought in light of his relationship to Na-tional Socialism are tantamount to blips on the radarscreen of this unique thinkers own war on philos-ophy. The significance of these moments, which stilloccupy historians, philosophers, and others, remainsa topic of debate. It is clear that these new contri-butions to the continued unpacking of Heideggerscomplex thought are significant, indeedalbeit somemore so than others.

Jeff Forts essay, The Courage of Thought, setsthe stage for his translation of Philippe Lacoue-Labarthes Heidegger and the Politics of Poetry.

Lacoue-Labarthe and Fort both declare that the so-called Heidegger affair of the late 1980s revealednothing essentially new about Heidegger (Lacoue-Labarthe, p. xii). Lacoue-Labarthes interest in Hei-degger is less concerned with salvaging what remainsviable from Heideggers corpus than with demonstrat-ing the profound connection between metaphysicsand poetry at the heart of Heideggers reading ofFriedrich Holderlin. The latters thinking poetryand the formers efforts to weigh poetry down with

a historical mission provide the foundation for theseries of essays by Lacoue-Labarthe that comprisethis short yet dense volume (Lacoue-Labarthe, p. ix).

What Lacoue-Labarthe finds in poetry, and in Hei-deggers engagement with Holderlin in particular, is atask of thinking that reveals a strategic and even acalculated historical inscription (Lacoue-Labarthe,p. xiv).

Seeking to illuminate Heideggers insights in thecontextand againsthis affiliations with NationalSocialism, Lacoue-Labarthe situates the Germanphilosophers work in light of one of the final re-sults, and the most terrifying by far, of the meta-physics of the Moderns (Lacoue-Labarthe, pp. 4-5). Lacoue-Labarthe invokes Walter Benjamin and

Theodor Adorno in situating Heidegger at this par-ticular juncture of myth and the unthought; thelegacy, Fort notes, has its roots in Romanticismsmimetic aporias and its own longing for, and ri-valry with, the grandeur of the Greek beginning(Lacoue-Labarthe, p. xiii). Extracting Holder-lin from Heidegger means recognizing that Heideg-ger internally colonized the poets ideas (Lacoue-Labarthe, p. xiii); Lacoue-Labarthes efforts to dis-lodge Holderin from Heideggers grasp is simultane-

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ously an effort to find what is most promising in Hei-deggers own work. The endeavor is, at root, a re-thinking of the nexus of philosophy and poetry.

It is in the debate with Alain Badiou that Lacoue-Labarthes intervention and rethinking become mostfruitful, according to Fort: there is a task of think-ing proper to poetry, and ... this task does involvea strategic and even calculated historical inscrip-tion (Lacoue-Labarthe, p. xv). The historical in-scription Fort speaks of is that imperative in poetryto bear witness to life and world as an art formthat, necessarily and inevitably, reveals theconstitu-tive failure already legible in the imperative(Lacoue-Labarthe, p. xv). Adornos similar approach to thework of art in Aesthetic Theory (1970) rings in har-mony with these insights.

While poetry may itself represent one particularmanifestation of the work of art, the overall concep-tion of the work of art is the focus of Mark Sin-clairs efforts. Like several of the other volumes un-der review, his Heidegger, Aristotle, and the Work ofArt: Poiesis in Being explores Heideggers orienta-tion toward aesthetics. Summarized in a few words,Sinclairs intervention might best be described as areturn to Aristotle. But the choice of the word re-turn here is far from unproblematic, as Sinclairsclose readings make quite clear. Sinclair argues inhis dense and detailed investigation that both a pos-

itive appropriation and a critique of Aristotle lie atthe very heart of Heideggers philosophical enterprisefrom the early 1920s onwards (Sinclair, p. 1). Muchlike return, the word appropriate appears highlycontentious, a point we can best comprehend by ex-amining explicitly the phases of Heideggers intellec-tual development (as outlined by Sinclair) and im-plicitly by outlining Sinclairs concerns with misun-derstanding Heideggers methodology.

Sinclair provides an historical overview of Hei-deggers work, primarily in the 1920s and 1930s, tosuggest three key features in Heideggers intellectual

development. First, Heideggers phenomenologicalthinking is to be understood as inseparable from hisearly, apparent appropriation of Aristotle, a step Sin-clair situates in the early 1920s. The key moment inthis first historical trajectory is Heideggers effortsto excavate Aristotles writings for an analytical ofDasein. In the mid-1920s, Heidegger began to aban-don his earlier readings. The newwhat Sinclair sug-gests is more criticalmovement in Heideggers think-ing leads to a focus on ecstatic temporality in Hei-

deggers work, a temporalitymore original than anytraditional determination of time as a series of nows(Sinclair, p. 11). The third and final development in

Sinclairs historical accounting of Heideggers thoughtis not understandable, Sinclair explains, as the end ofa historical progression but rather as enabling Heideg-gers approach to philosophy to be adequately com-prehended (Sinclair, p. 12). Only in his reflectionon the work of art does Heideggers radical engage-ment with metaphysics become clear. In other words,these three phases are to be understood as aids to thereader rather than as a simple historical accountingof Heideggers increasing intellectual sophistication.

Much like the historical development of Heideg-gers thought, however, Sinclair argues, the threedifferent moments or aspects of the method and

idea of phenomenology should not be separated ei-ther: it is, in the end, impossible to offer a sim-ple formula that would express the relation of eachof these three moments to each other (Sinclair, pp.7-8). If the three key dimensions of Heideggersapproach to philosophical traditionreduction, con-struction, destructioncannot be separated, the sameappears true for Sinclairs own historical assessmentof Heidegger.

As Sinclair makes clear, the key to comprehend-ing both Heideggers method and Heideggers devel-opment lies in a conceptfundamental ontologyand

the presupposition that it is impossible to overcomethe metaphysical tradition as others would have it(Rene Descartes, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, G. W.F. Hegel, and Immanuel Kant are mentioned explic-itly). To the latter point, Sinclair raises a provocativequestion: Yet the difference between Heidegger andthese modern philosophers resides in the fact that ifthe former claims to make advances in philosophy,then these advances are made possibly only by a stepback, ein Schritt zur uck, to the more or less hiddensources of the Aristotelian tradition itself. But what,then, is achieved by this step backward? (Sinclair, p.9). In contrast to the failedstep backwardof others,

then, Heideggers contribution lies in his recognitionthat overcoming metaphysics is not an act of dis-carding it, and that one cannot free oneself from themetaphysical tradition as one can free oneself from anopinion (Sinclair, p. 10). The debt to Aristotle andthe metaphysical tradition makes Heideggers philo-sophical intervention a defining moment in the mod-ern age, an intervention that manifests itself mostreadily in Heideggers engagement with the work ofart.

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According to Sinclair, fundamental ontology isthe key to understanding Heideggers reflection onart. Fundamental ontology is a leading-back of

metaphysics to its own presuppositions (Sinclair, p.14); it is fundamental not only in that it seeks to ar-ticulate the question of the meaning of being, but alsoin that it would seek to make explicit the very founda-tions of Greek ontology (Sinclair, p. 193). Art func-tions as a revelatory moment, for it allows us to real-ize how potential has already been transformed fromwhat isto what can be used, dominated and set tohuman ends (Sinclair, p. 194). Fundamental ontol-ogy thus reveals the presuppositions of metaphysicsfor Heideggers thinking, and this thinking becomesmost comprehensible in Heideggers writings that en-gage the work of art.

In The Aesthetic Paths of Philosophy, AlisonRoss, too, explores the aesthetic dimensions of Hei-deggers thought. Ross jumps into the philosophicalforay by focusing on reading Heidegger along withother thinkers, most notably Lacoue-Labarthe andJean-Luc Nancy, from the perspective of a philosoph-ical tradition both (frequently) honorific and (less of-ten) critical. Ross reads these three thinkers throughthe lens of Kants concept of presentation and itsrelationship to Kants own critical philosophy. Rosswrites that presentation in Kant might be accessi-ble to the common understanding if it is thoughtof as the problem of seeing in existence fundamen-tal or orientating meanings or the pattern of din-ing meaning in sensible forms (Ross, p. 166). Per-haps even more clearly phrased is Rosss suggestionthat aesthetic presentation playsthe role of a type ofco-articulation of ideas and sensible forms in Kantsthinking (Ross, p. 164). Collectively, Rosss clarifi-cations mean one thing: understanding Kant is keyto understanding Heidegger.

Kants use of presentation reveals his efforts toreconcile the individual subjects own dialectical rela-tion to the empirical world in ways that might be un-derstood systematically and universally. Through his

use of the aesthetic categories of the beautiful and thesublime in his third critiquethe Critique of Judgment(1790)Kant finds an acceptable if ultimately prob-lematic way to acknowledge the individual subjectsbody in ways that speak to his desire for a transcen-dental subject available to and for all subjects. Rossdescribes Kant is similar terms, but with less of anemphasis on embodied, sensory experience: the aes-thetic attitude is Kants effort to find a satisfactorymode of relation between the forms of material na-

ture and human freedom (Ross, p. 1). For Ross, theproblem of presentation in Kant is posed in the dis-embodied mode of relation able to reconcile human

freedom with the constraints of materiality (Ross, p.2).

Ross rightly cautions the English-speaking readeragainst conflating terms that would appear almost in-terchangeable without understanding the Kantian di-mensions of their use, especially apperception,rep-resentation, and presentation: To simplify, repre-sentation, which we might say is reducible to the sub-

jects formal powers of apperception, contrasts withKants definition of presentation which explicitlysuspends the claims of the subjects power over ma-terial forms and inquires instead about the favoursthat the subject enjoys and that are extended to it bythe material forms of nature (Ross, p. 3). Ross thusgives force to the realm of the empirical world be-yond the body of the individual subject here in waysthat have proven problematic in aesthetic philosophy.In particular, the dialectical relation Kant seeks tomaintain between the empirical world and the in-dividual subjects embodied responses are conflatedin attributing to the empirical worldthe materialforms of naturea type of volition that is decidedlyundialectical. Material nature favors the individ-ual in a unilateral circuitry that all but abandons thenecessary exchange between the empirical object of

perception and the perceiving human subject.The dialectical possibilities of the Kantian aes-

thetic experience are not lost on Ross. She acknowl-edges other critical thinkers who have used the fea-tures identified by Kant as elements of the aestheticfield for projects of social criticism in ways thatforeground the dialectical aspects of his philosophy:Adorno and Jurgen Habermas, to name only two ofthe several thinkers Ross mentions in passing (Ross,pp. 6-7). But Heidegger, Lacoue-Labarthe, andNancy occupy the bulk of Rosss study.

As opposed to what Ross later describes as Kants

use of presentation as a technically posed problemof orientative coordination of the intelligible and sen-sible Heidegger, Lacoue-Labarthe, and Nancy mapalternative trajectories for the concept by focusingon aesthetic experience as burdened with the taskof articulating the ground (or, as Heidegger puts it,the giving) of the experience of meaning within thehorizon of a more or less rigorous immanence, with-out being reductive (Ross, p. 165). In short, thesethree twentieth-century philosophers isolate an as-

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pect of the Kantian systemthe aesthetic experienceand use that aspect as the foundation for an entirelynew metaphysics, a metaphysics Rosss study reveals

is sometimes at (productive) odds with Kants ownuse of presentation.

Heidegger, Lacoue-Labarthe, and Nancy all differ,of course, in their use of Kants concept of presenta-tion, and Ross goes to impressive lengths to maketheir differences (productively) clear. In Heidegger,Ross notes, presentation becomes the core problemfor thinking and is historicized in a decidedly un-dialectical fashion: In Heideggers thought, presen-tation is taken to precede the problem of the repre-sentation of the absolute, which is itself corroded bythe concomitant historicisation of the relations of pre-sentation (Ross, p. 8). As opposed to Heideggers

ahistorical understanding of the absolute, Ross sug-gests that both Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy recallthat Kants approach to this problem was developedin the context of his aesthetics (Ross, p. 9). Ex-posing the limits of Heideggers philosophy throughher focus on these two thinkers, Ross suggests thatwhile in Lacoue-Labarthes work man is the prod-uct of, rather than the term behind, literary forms ofpresentation, Nancys ontological project presentsthe genesis of meaning as a coming-to-presencerather than as a relation to a present thing (Ross,p. 10). Thus, while Heidegger appears to take Kantsconcept of presentation out of its aesthetic contextand to dehistoricize that to which the concept mightrefer, Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy both emphasize,albeit in various ways, the function of the aestheticexperience in creating a particular kind of experienceor in speaking to a (historically specific) kind of ex-istence.

While Rosss work might be read in conjunctionwith Forts excellent translation, it also has impli-cations for understanding comparatively the excel-lent contribution Parvis Emad makes to scholarshipon Heidegger. Given his eloquent translation efforts,Emads name should be familiar already to readers

interested in Heideggers works. Emads On the Wayto Heideggers Contributions to Philosophy is morethan a companion to his work in representing Hei-degger to English-language audiences. The volume isalso a clarification for anyone seek to project-openthe thinking of being (Emad, p. xii). To this end,Emad provides something of an explanation of theGerman thinker as well as something of a correctionto thosethe deconstructionists, the analysts, the bi-ographers, and others who simply seek to invent a

genesis for the thinking of being (Emad, p. xiii)whose focus on and supposed clarifications of Heideg-gers unique philosophical project have demonstrated

only their respective methods fundamental inabil-ityto explicate the projects innovative philosophicalaim (p. xiii).

In some ways, Emads book makes an implicitchallenge to those volumes discussed above, especiallyRosss and Sinclairs works, in that he refuses to situ-ate the meaning of Heidegger solely in historical con-text or in philosophical relation. Rather, somewhatlike Lacoue-Labarthes text, Emads original and ex-citing contribution to the scholarship on Heideggeris that he seeks to project-open ... being-historicalthinking, a task that amounts to showing that Hei-deggers thinking comes into its own only when it isenacted and not when it is treated unquestioninglyas a specific variety of theory (Emad, p. xii). Inoften altered forms of previously published chapters,Emad does just that. He walks us through the vari-ous parts of Heideggers Contributions to Philosophy(1936-38), then explores some of Heideggers connec-tions to Nietzsche and Christianity, among others.The volume in its entirety provides both an invalu-able aid for a close reading of Contributions to Phi-losophy, as well as the means by which to extrapolateHeideggers thought in relation to others.

The question of others, of the other, is indeed a

question for those interested in situating Heidegger:historically, philosophically, psychologically, person-ally. Emad claims that people cannot live by [Hei-deggers] thinking because it does not immediatelyoffer any means for dealing with and resolving theproblems people face in concrete situations in life(Emad, p. xiii; emphasis in original). Yet, Ian RoryOwens efforts to find connections among Heidegger,Sigmund Freud ,and Edmund Husserl, and to utilizethe thought of all three in a project devoted to men-tal health might, well, strike us as ironic, given themental gymnastics that Heideggers complex thoughtcan weave together and that the above four bookshave sought in various ways to unravel. It is thus notwithout a slight bit of irony that I have saved the lastfew paragraphs of this review for a text devoted totherapyor, more precisely, psychotherapy: indi-vidual talking and action therapies (Owen, p. xviii).

Indeed, Owen does not appear to recognize ex-actly how ambitiousperhaps impossible?his goalsare: After some research there appears to be no

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scholarly book-length appraisal of Husserl and Hei-degger [in relation to Freuds talking therapy].... Thistext focuses on the mind of others and oneself. It

aims to understand consciousness (Owen, p. xv).Yet, while Owens goals are ambitious, he is clear inthe very useful orientation of his text: This book isnot directly about practice but about theory for it(Owen, p. xv). Readers who find the four books dis-cussed above compelling may find Owens treatmentno pun intendedof Heidegger less satisfying. Owenseeks to situate Heidegger as a figure whose ideas,like those of Freud and Husserl, have practical ap-plication for those seeking to help othersor, indeed,help themselveswhile on the therapists couch.

Given that Owens targeted audience is presum-

ably comprised of therapists capable of grasping thecomplexity of thought of the three figures he invokesFreud, Husserl, and Heideggerand that they will beable to translate the texts own insights into prac-tice, the book appears to be directed at too limitedan audience and too narrow an application to makeit broadly significant. In no way do I seek to giveshort shrift to Owens provocative claims. For ex-ample, the suggestion that his text is an argumentfor the appreciation of the intellectual, affective andsocial processes that combine to make psychologicalsense itself makes much common sense to me (Owen,p. xv). Owen indicates, as well, the interesting idea

that his book satisfies a need, a need to understandhow phenomenology can play a major role in making

theory refer to conscious mental phenomena (Owen,p. xvi).

And, yet, while Owen should be commended for

seeking to bring Heidegger, Husserl, and Freud intoplay with one another for those therapists interestedand able to engage these thinkers, non-therapistsmay find the work less helpful. Despite its awkwardphrases and obviously less-than-perfectly-edited pas-sages, Owens text does contribute something newto the debates about Heidegger and his utility. Al-though Owens text is riddled with errors and incom-plete sentencessometimes making the author soundlike Yoda from Star Wars: However, difficult it isto specify what these things are (Owen, p. xvii)several moments in the work bring Heideggers workinto close relation to Husserls and Freuds in provoca-

tive, productive ways.

In concluding this expansive assessment of thesefive volumes on, toward, about, and in light of Hei-degger, it might be safe to say that they all shareone fundamental belief: Heidegger continues to berelevant, despiteperhaps sometimes because ofhispolitics. Therapy might not necessarily have savedHeidegger from his problematic identifications. Yet,as Lacoue-Labarthe, Sinclair, Ross, Emad, and Owensuggest, identifying the real Heidegger may provethe wonderfully difficult challenge that will keep usoccupied even if we refuse the therapists couch and,

instead, opt for a comfortablebut sometimes asdisconcertingreaders chair.

If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the list discussion logs at:http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl.

Citation: Thomas O. Haakenson. Review of Emad, Parvis, On the Way to Heideggers Contributionsto Philosophy and Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe, Heidegger and the Politics of Poetry and Owen, Ian Rory,Psychotherapy and Phenomenology: On Freud, Husserl and Heidegger and Ross, Alison, The Aesthetic Pathsof Philosophy: Presentation in Kant, Heidegger, Lacoue-Labarthe, and Nancy and Sinclair, Mark, Heidegger,Aristotle and the Work of Art: Poeisis in Being. H-German, H-Net Reviews. January, 2010.URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=25211

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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