Crisis and Its Resolution

Phenomenology and Heidegger's Project

The philosophy of the twentieth century is often regarded as a response to the crisis in which positivism found itself. It is worth noting, however, that when studying Western philosophy, one encounters a peculiar challenge of translation. In the Russian language, many words conveyed different meanings prior to philosophical translations. For instance, the term "being" (бытие) in the Pushkin era referred not only to "existence" but also to "life path," while in Church Slavonic, it translated the Greek "genesis," denoting origin or development. It was only through Hegel's translations that the word "being" came to signify an immutable substance that underlies all individual entities and sustains their existence over time.

Similarly, in colloquial language, the word "mind" (ум) once denoted cunning or practical ability, whereas in ecclesiastical texts, it corresponded to the Greek "nous," representing the highest capacity for contemplation. The term "reason" (разум), literally meaning "discernment," echoed the related Greek term but often simply indicated "knowledge" or "the recognition of the new" in Church Slavonic. Thus, the word "reasonable" in Russian carries a moral connotation, implying integrity, whereas "smart" can apply to a villainous character. Additionally, the relationship between "soul" (душа) and "spirit" (дух) diverged in popular and scholarly discourse: in common vernacular, "soul" was more akin to intellect, while "spirit" referred to life force; in academic contexts, "spirit" designated a higher intellectual ability, the capacity for contemplation and foresight. Hence, when Russian philosophers engage with Western problems, they invariably shift the meanings of the terms they employ. For example, Berdyaev begins his "Philosophy of Free Spirit" by stating:

"We have already lost faith in the possibility and fruitfulness of abstract metaphysics. Abstract metaphysics was founded on the hypostatization of either the phenomena of human psychological life, or the phenomena of the material world, or categories of thought, the realm of ideas. Thus, spiritualism, materialism, or idealism were formed. And all the while, the specificity of being, being as life, eluded these metaphysical teachings."

In this passage, the term "hypostatization" is employed not in its strict sense of "gaining independent existence," but rather in a looser sense of "attributing self-sufficient (ideal, divine) being," where hypostatization becomes equated with absolutization. Similarly, "abstract" and "concrete" are used not in their strict meanings of "subjected to logical procedures" and "connecting various concepts," respectively, but rather in everyday terms of "not related to life" and "having the closest relation to life." Thus, philosophical language is not reduced to colloquial language (as would occur in practical philosophy) but to a "vernacular metalanguage," a language that simultaneously describes the everyday and the properties of the language itself in discussing that everyday experience, pointing out those qualities that remain obscure from within the everyday. Consequently, expressions such as "essentially the existent" or "ontological content of being" are permissible in Russian philosophy, where the basis for differentiating similar concepts rests not on their intrinsic meanings or the questions they address, as in scholasticism, but on their positioning along a spectrum from the abstract to the concrete: ontological seems, for some reason, more concrete than existential.

In ordinary speech, we refer to any notable, often exceptional phenomenon as a "phenomenon": "This person is very talented; he is a phenomenon." However, in philosophy, "phenomenon" signifies any manifestation of a thing that allows us to conclude that it is this specific thing, rather than any other. In this sense, each of us is a phenomenon for another, while our mind becomes an epiphenomenon for others (an accompanying phenomenon), as it does not manifest outside of us. Therefore, phenomenology is the study of the capacity of our consciousness to infer anything about things.

Emerging in the last third of the nineteenth century, Neo-Kantianism sought to preserve Kant's method entirely, but to apply it not to knowledge in general but specifically to scientific knowledge. Thus, Hermann Cohen, in his work "The Theory of Kant's Experience" (1871), undertook to reassess the foundations of all sciences, not from the standpoint of the organization of knowledge, but through the lens of simple logic. Cohen's primary task was to demonstrate that when Kant speaks of necessity, he does not refer to personal necessity, nor does he indicate that a specific individual must do something that is already known. For him, necessity is a property of being that can only be acknowledged by free thought, provided it wishes to maintain a sufficiently free relationship with being.

To Cohen, the sciences appeared as cumbersome apparatuses, playing with concepts, whereas each science needed to be tied to the most definite concepts, the clearest and most precisely defined intentions. The sciences claim to seize our understanding and alter the very conditions of our lives; however, according to Cohen, they must learn to appreciate the space and time within which they operate. Only scientific knowledge can teach us to view space not merely as a venue for the placement of various phenomena but as the original presupposition of thought, a formatted demand for clarity and distinctness in judgments. Yet phenomenology, the study of how consciousness is directed towards an object, advanced even further, including a reevaluation of Kant's legacy. As Heidegger noted in his course "Basic Problems of Phenomenology":

"In Kant, as well as in the scholastic tradition to which Kant is linked, reality does not signify what is now understood by the term reality, as when one speaks of the reality of the external world. Today, reality denotes the actuality of a thing, its existence as accounted for. (...)

However, the real pertains to the thing itself, to the matter at hand, res. Reality, then, corresponds to Leibniz's expression 'possibility,' possibilitas. Realities are the essential (answering the question of what?) contents of possible things, abstractions produced to ascertain whether they will come into play (whether they will become 'real' in the contemporary sense) or not. The concept of reality corresponds to the Platonic idea, for the idea likewise provides knowledge of the existent, answering the question of what this existent is."

As we can see, Heidegger, summarizing the development of modern European philosophy, observes that if in the common sense "reality" signifies existence (the reality surrounding us, what exists around us), then in philosophical terms, it refers not to existence but to essence. The challenge lies in the fact that philosophers, to avoid confusion, have had to refer to this essence using alternative terms, such as "possibility" or "abstraction." For the ordinary person, abstraction is something remote; yet, a mathematician or physicist would assert that it is the very essence of their work.

According to Heidegger, existence is a relationship to being, and as soon as this relationship arises, existence becomes essential, returning directly to essence. "To arise," in this context, can only occur in time; thus, for Heidegger, existence converges with the time of the world, while being aligns with detachment. It is noteworthy that in medieval philosophy, as valued by Heidegger, Augustine also spoke of time as the sole realm wherein one can discover not only one's properties but also one's existence, say, by sensing the transience of time.

For Heidegger, it follows that time uniquely participates in being, revealing it or generally indicating it, penetrating it; this unique participation must be termed "there-being," "here-being," or "presence" (Dasein). Imagine we are flying out of a city on an airplane, ascending to altitude, and from the porthole, we once again see that beloved city as a singular, grand presence. This, too, is what Heidegger expressed, recognizing that within humanity—no less than in the world—there exists but one variant of such "presence."

Heidegger observed that when we attempt to define Being, we invariably find ourselves ensnared in a "hermeneutic circle"—a definition stemming from the unknown, which only becomes known once we furnish a definition. We define Being through the fact that something exists, yet to grasp what "exists" truly signifies, we must define Being. In the old philosophy, beginning with antiquity, this hermeneutic circle culminated in the affect of wonder, which is also referred to as metaphysical astonishment or the "great philosophical passion." This wonder arises from the fact that something exists, that we can indeed assert the presence of "Being," despite the multitude of things that could just as easily not be, and our inability to fully discern all the reasons why something exists. For Heidegger, however, what holds greater significance is the notion that Being manifests itself independently of whether we perceive its causes or not; "existence" does not correspond to "essence" but merely signifies the Being of Being when it suddenly begins to present itself with intense immediacy.

In conversations with his French admirer and translator Jean Beaufret, Heidegger noted that his philosophical journey commenced with an accidental encounter with Aristotle's writings during his senior year in high school, a journey that continues to this day: Aristotle's formulations serve as the best clues. As a budding philosopher, he was struck by confusion: Aristotle poses the question of what is existent but neglects to inquire about what Being itself is. In his "Metaphysics," Aristotle defines Being only through complex formulations, such as "that which is as it was," yet it remains unclear how the existence of the world or of humanity correlates with this Being. Modern philosophy typically pointed to the intellectual or material components of Being that allowed for its understanding or corresponding sensation, leading only to interminable disputes between idealists and materialists, each forming their own "consciousness" while never ceasing their debates.

When Heidegger became a pupil of Edmund Husserl, he discerned that "consciousness" is not a construct formed through encounters with ideas or objects but possesses its own inherent properties. Above all, the significance of Husserl's thought on "intentionality" emerged—this intrinsic ability of consciousness to be directed toward an object, a concept Husserl borrowed from Franz Brentano (the nephew of the romantic poet Clemens Brentano, who recorded Anna Katharina Emmerich's "Living Gospel"), who, in turn, derived it from medieval philosophy. Intentionality signifies the capacity of consciousness to recognize things independently of how those things may affect that consciousness and the frameworks of existence they impose. Thus, Husserl transformed the problematic concerns of earlier philosophy, the "critique of reason," into a new inquiry regarding the relationship between consciousness and the factuality of Being.

However, Heidegger found aspects of Husserl's approach unsatisfactory. It appeared that Being reveals itself to us solely in its factuality, while all other properties of Being disintegrate into affects. In Heidegger's view, Husserl underestimated time: for him, time is an object of anthropology, a study of individual human habits, a segment of natural experiences that may transition into philosophical insights or may not. Certainly, Husserl examined this internal experience of time, yet only to reveal what is "natural" within humanity rather than what is "natural" within Being itself.

Consequently, Heidegger composed his work "Being and Time," exploring how "presence" manifests as Being itself within human experience of time. It becomes evident that an individual's awareness of their mortality and transience, their limitations and fragility, does not constitute a fact of consciousness, as philosophers prior to Heidegger believed; rather, it represents an "existential" mode of existence as one experiences their own temporality through Being. Humanity finds itself within the openness of Being, implying that it does not merely perform isolated actions to comprehend the world; instead, it confronts the world as something already realized and "its own." To ascertain when and where such an encounter occurred, Heidegger required "language" as the "house of Being," a domain where individual actions become less significant than the direct experience of Being, liberating us from the conventional dichotomy of the "private" and the "universal." Only by departing from this opposition can we articulate the "truth of Being," which is delineated in "Being and Time" and becomes the theme of his later works.

Heidegger confessed to Beaufret that he was inspired by ancient philosophy, wherein the experience of the present moment—events occurring right now—is of utmost importance. The spirit of modern philosophy stands in stark contrast; it fixates on what occurred long ago, at the dawn of Being, or what lies ahead, portraying the history of spirit as receding into a distant past while unveiling the prospect of an uncertain future. Heidegger sought to meld this vibrant ancient experience of the present with the achievements of modern philosophy, coining the term "clearing" or "opening," signifying humanity's capacity, as a historical being, not merely to participate in Being but to possess clarity and self-revelation within it. Animals perceive the world, perhaps even more acutely than humans, sensing distant earthquakes or foreign scents that humans no longer detect. Yet the animal does not stand in the clearing; it cannot realize that its mortality, for instance, pertains not only to non-Being but also to Being, wherein lies not only our frailty but also our potentiality—the capacity to engage directly with oneself.

The inquiry into humanity as a being capable of recognizing not only its frailty but also its potentiality was derived by Heidegger from Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche, a philosopher endowed with a literary flair, approached this question melodramatically, speaking of the "overman," "the joyous science," "beyond good and evil," crafting a multitude of striking formulations. In contrast, Heidegger eschewed all theatrical machinery, simply speaking of humanity within the clearing.

Another source of inspiration for Heidegger was Søren Kierkegaard (1813—1855), often regarded as a precursor to existentialism. Kierkegaard emphasized that no meaning of human existence can be derived from the meaning of things, as things reveal themselves to us in their existence, while we cannot disclose ourselves in existence without immediately plunging into the act of actualization. One may assert that a tree or a cat is loved, but we cannot claim that we ourselves are loved, except in describing a situation where we are loved. Consequently, Kierkegaard observed, we cannot, as Hegel did, derive humanity's position in the world from the development of the world or the "spirit" within it, nor from the actions of intelligible principles. Notably, children can indeed praise themselves and state that they are loved, which reflects not so much the theatricality of their behavior as the absence of the customary adult "self"; children act simply because they act, and this can be described either as "play" (as Johan Huizinga would have it, in his book "Homo Ludens," 1938) or as a specific engagement with signs, wherein a sign exists solely within interaction and performance (as our compatriot Vladimir Veniaminovich Bibikhin articulated).

Heidegger clarified that in posing the question about the truth of Being, he does not raise the question of the meaning of this inquiry, of what individual representation must lie behind it. The individual, with his or her interests and discoveries, is of lesser importance compared to how Being calls forth the human being, who, in their interests and plans, seeks to forget Being. Thus, Being summons humanity in its "poverty," its utmost need, when the individual realizes that it is no longer possible to rely on ready-made concepts and that their own interests continually betray them.

For Heidegger, philosophy is not a science but rather a "foundational event" that transpires within humanity, such that being finds its own measure in the human and in the language of that human—its manifestations, as it were. In this regard, Heidegger converges with another great philosopher of the twentieth century, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889—1951), for whom language was the measure of the world, and language games served as an indication that human existence never fully aligns with the structure of the world. As articulated by another of Heidegger's French disciples, François Fédier, in his "Introduction to Metaphysics":

"Metaphysics is not knowledge, but an experience in which knowledge is communion. An example of a metaphysical experience can be found in play. Play possesses two essential properties: (1) it grants oblivion; when we immerse ourselves in play, we forget everything else; (2) play can only occur when it stands in opposition to seriousness, and thus, until a person learns their own seriousness, they do not know play. A person must learn to relate to things with seriousness, and only then will they experience play as play. This relationship between play and seriousness unfolds not at the level of the existent, but at the level of being. One cannot explain play by the arrangement of neurons alone; it can only be understood through that engagement with being that forms the foundation of metaphysics."

The primary inspiration for Heidegger was the German Romantic poet Friedrich Hölderlin. In his work, Hölderlin navigates the ancient world, distinctly differentiating between Greek and Roman antiquity, a departure from classical philological and archaeological humanism. He translated Homer into prose while rendering Roman poets like Ovid and Lucan into verse, thereby highlighting Rome's uniqueness and preserving its distinctiveness. In his novel "Hyperion," Hölderlin notes the "shyness" and "reticence" of Greece as the cause of the Greek miracle: Greece did not become a victim of world history but became a form of world history itself. Indeed, ancient Greece abounds with "accidental" cultural forms that were not necessitated by historical conflicts, ranging from statues that are unlike one another to theatrical productions.

Hölderlin’s idealism embodies a reverence for nature—a reverence that would prove significant for many thinkers of the twentieth century, both non-confessional figures like M. Heidegger and Christian philosophers like Gabriel Marcel, who found in the Greek "reverence for life" a deeper piety than that typically found in commonplace religious sentiments. Hölderlin envisioned a golden age when "man would not be inferior to the mountains, rivers, and all of nature," and this prophecy encapsulates the "positive destiny" of the poet. He perceived himself as somewhat less than fully human, as expressed in the poem "When I Was a Boy": "Friendly gods… I understood the silence of the ether, but the words of man I could never comprehend." This adult perspective, arising from a primordial "pre-human" perception, establishes a distinctive relationship between Romanticism and both the preceding system of genres and the genres yet to come.

The cult of friendship became one of the most essential principles of Romanticism. Friendship is not a cultural universal but is "opened" by Aristotle in the "Nicomachean Ethics" as a mode of relation among noble individuals: only free people can truly be friends, gaining self-knowledge through each other, while slaves may only obey commands or unite in rebellion. The friendly disposition toward the higher and lower, toward art and nature, produces thematic justifications of genres—direct consequences of the antiquizing cult of friendship among the Romantics. This friendship has taken on significant importance for twentieth-century metaphysics, particularly within French theory, which has much to say about the nature of friendship. It was also significant for existentialists, for whom friendship, even in the atheism of Camus or Sartre, emerged as a metaphysical bond. As the modern Greek philosopher Christos Yannaras defines it, existentialism in the twentieth century offers:

"The definition and reverence for the boundaries of inquiry—yet also the transgression of those boundaries through the adoption of a more universal instrument of knowledge, which is human existence itself, in its tragic self-awareness and in its existential universality (experiential knowledge of freedom, temporality, locality, struggle, essential absence, and the ontological 'bringing oneself to light')—has led philosophical existentialism, even in its atheistic and nihilistic representatives, very close to the language of theological apophaticism [that is, the language of statements about God articulated in negation]."