¿Qué significa pensar?

by Martin Heidegger

Pensar sólo acontece como aprendizaje, pues el pensar mismo está siempre de camino hacia el pensar. Cuando se pregunta «¿qué significa pensar?», no se trata sólo de saber qué se requiere para realizar correctamente el pensamiento, sino de remontarse a aquello que lleva al ser humano imperativamente a pensar. ¿Desde dónde llama este mandato a pensar? ¿Y en qué manera llega esta llamada a la esencia humana? Partiendo de la constatación de que «lo que más merece pensarse en nuestro tiempo problemático es el hecho de que no pensamos», en estas lecciones de 1951-1952 Martin Heidegger se mide con otros pensadores (Nietzsche, Parménides, Aristóteles o Kant) y su experiencia del pensar.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, German Literature, Psychology, Classics, Theory, Science

233 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was a German philosopher whose work is perhaps most readily associated with phenomenology and existentialism, although his thinking should be identified as part of such philosophical movements only with extreme care and qualification. His ideas have exerted a seminal influence on the development of contemporary European philosophy. They have also had an impact far beyond philosophy, for example in architectural theory (see e.g., Sharr 2007), literary criticism (see e.g., Ziarek 1989), theology (see e.g., Caputo 1993), psychotherapy (see e.g., Binswanger 1943/1964, Guignon 1993) and cognitive science (see e.g., Dreyfus 1992, 2008; Wheeler 2005; Kiverstein and Wheeler forthcoming).

Reviews

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 4 out of 5]

For Heidegger, thinking is something to be Valued! Not a preliminary exercise to getting what we want.

Society sees thinking as a means to an end. Is it right to do that? Well, Heidegger says no. For all thinking has now been existentially transvalued.

And now thinking is now not inner. It's outer. That's the unspoken law. Thinking must be useful.

Heidegger, of course, disagrees:

By thinking of what matters to us inside - our values, our past, and our loved ones - we can, in a world without true values, reestablish the love for these things in the forefront of our thinking.

And we can do that now. There are no thought police... Yet.

Thinking, which is ever vigilant in a rapidly changing world, thinks on the edge. For we are working always in our thinking towards the vision of a whole self in an increasingly fragmented and disjointed world.

But only by doing this, as we say, on the edge.

There is now no hiding place but in our valued memories.

Why is there something rather than nothing at all? That's Heidegger's other main point. The answer, according to a 2016 article in New Scientist, is that nothingness doesn't exist.

Elementary particles are forever in motion.

For us, that means if our thoughts are continually in motion, ever moving, we will never be out of the race for long. We will be a state of active energy no matter what state we return to.

Being is thus simple yet not, being flux.

And nothingness is not.

Heidegger wants US to work that out within our own minds, but in real terms I believe his answer would be the same:

Nothingness has never existed.

[Geoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

~~

This series of lectures are etymological investigations as much as they are philosophical. (Or perhaps they should just be called etymological-philosophical investigations.) Through exhaustive etymological-philosophical “translations” of a handful of statements - The “What is called thinking?” of the title, Nietzsche’s “The wasteland grows; woe to him who hides wastelands within!”, and Parmenides’ “One should both say and think that being is” - Heidegger confronts the entire problematic of Western metaphysics in a context of modern and ancient thought.

Part One primarily deals with posing the titular question and then discoursing on Nietzsche’s idea of “the wasteland grows” in relation to the ideas of “the last men”, the superman, and the “highest and heaviest thought to emerge from Western metaphysics”, the eternal recurrence of the same. These are contrasted with an indictment of “technological” thinking- the pervading mode of thought in contemporary societies, “common usage” of language, which propagates a dulling of the true world-exploratory power of language, through abuse and degradation of the fullness of the meaning of words. “Technological” thinking by nature does not reveal essences, but is rather devoted to sapping as much energy as possible from the objects of our experience for the purposes of material progress. This is where Heidegger makes the (in)famous claim that “science does not think." By this he does not mean to dismiss or degrade natural science as a valuable practice, but to put it in its proper element. By its very nature, science seeks and discloses one side of a multi-sided existence, sticks to one track of thinking toward a specific end, and is barred by its form from seeing or explaining its essential relation to Being or beings. Heidegger identifies this scientific, progressive, and ends-oriented mode of thinking as coming to have subsumed almost the entirety of modern thought and thus now is to be taken for the whole of thought - which implies the beginning of the age of Nietzsche’s last men, who blink in the place of thinking. (His analysis of the term “blink” as used by Nietzsche is unforgettable.) Heidegger then discusses what he determines to be the culmination of Western metaphysics, Nietzsche’s idea of the eternal recurrence of the same, in relation to the emergence of the superman - the mortal being capable of Thinking equal to the task of confronting the modern world.

The eternal recurrence of the same is used as a bridge into Part Two, where Heidegger makes claims that its central ideas were already to be found in pre-Platonic, pre-Socratic thought, that Greek thinking was instinctively more at home in its duality in Being than modern thought; this is elucidated through Parmenides’ “One should both say and think that being is” in relation to Heidegger’s question of what is called thinking and its various linguistic/philosophic/historic components. Again, an etymological-philosophical analysis takes up most of this half of the book, and through multiple iterations and thinkings-through we reach a new translation of Parmenides’ saying : “Useful is the letting-lie-before-us, so (the) taking-to-heart, too : beings in being.”

Heidegger’s main claim is that since Plato thought has been dulled by the overuse and low valuation of language, and that the problematics of Being in Western metaphysics are related to a fundamental lack in the way we speak of things, and therefore in our concepts, that our common usage of words has blighted our relation to the objects that they envelope and to which we are disclosed as they are disclosed to us. Our relationship to the presences in the world and what they leave unconcealed when they are present depend on the path we take to Thinking them, so that we must relearn the "radiant" value of each word, since words are the only medium through which we come know the world - a limited sense of the potentiality of language would mean a delimited path to knowing. For instance, my favorite part of these lectures might have been the section on the Old English origin of “To think”, thanc, which originally implied a simultaneous gathering together of perception, memory, and thanks into a projecting-forward of the total fullness of ourselves- Thinking as a kind of devotional activity, almost in the religious sense, in relation to Being, to the presences that emerge in the world, involving and amassing every aspect of ourselves and our past experiences. This idea of thanc might ultimately come the nearest to what Heidegger would value as Thinking- an inseparable, essential duality of Being and Thinking.

So what is called thinking? Paying heed to the presence of what is present. Letting what lies before us in the world lie before us, while at the same time taking it to heart, to keep it in the only place where it is safely kept, in the thinking of our own Being as beings. ”Unconcealedness, the rising from unconcealedness, the entry into unconcealedness, the coming and the going away, the duration, the gathering, the radiance, the rest, the hidden suddenness of possible absenting.” These lectures make for a deep and slow moving, wide-flowing book, generous, gentle, actually quite simple in its conclusions that we should take seriously our call to Being, to search out what it is that calls us into being, and be grateful and humble and thankful for our fate as rational animals, to take up our mortal task.

[Kamakana · Rating 5 out of 5]

010815: this is a later later addition: think i should try to answer the title question with the insistence that what hd is most concerned with is never an 'answer', but describing the process, which involves close inspection, etymological, historical, empathic- 'thinking'. that is, not received wisdom, not recounted theory, not philosophy as a body of knowledge, but as an attitude of questioning. which does not mean you should not question him as well...

this is a later addition: reading my review, i discover that i speak more of the ways of thinking, the ways of questioning- rather than trying to summarize response to the the title question 'what is called thinking?'. this is not unusual for me, mainly because i want to encourage or qualify something of the questioning experience for the reader. if, however, a summary is desired, i suggest this review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

first review: this is a curious five. often i have given five to introductory, or perceptive but particular work on, rather than by, certain philosophers. this rule is broken by two texts by bergson, by husserl, a few collections by bergson, merleau-ponty, heidegger, sartre, de beauvoir, which were organized, ordered, and perhaps designed for the reader's progress rather than simply the author's whole thoughts...

this is a curious five because it not only directs inquisitive readers to other work, interests, insures fascination, but is itself a central work that must be read, according to blurbs and intro, as necessary to engage heidegger as his (by me unread) masterwork Being and Time . that was his original, massively influential, incomplete, essential early thought. this is a selection of the last lectures he gave, and in word, in thought, characterise and exemplify his later thought. or, rather, the innovations of how he will explore his abiding concern: 'the question of being'. this is not new. this is what he started on, this is not a break in subject, object, original ontological precis- though it is a new way of asking the question, of compelling 'thinking'...

'what is called thinking?' is a series of lectures, each with helpful repetition, and though not declaimed in non-philosophical poetry, he does use poetry, he gets etymological, he translates, transforms, interprets previous works- primarily parmenides but also socrates, plato, aristotle. and this is the doubling of a problem for me. i read neither modern german nor ancient greek, so there are two levels of interpretation on the go which i must accept. does the ancient greek work that way, how does that work for modern german, is there significance in modern german lost in translation to contemporary english, is there something that simply confuses, that does not clarify but rather muddies this or that quote, these are all questions inspired by his writing...

'what is called thinking?' part one goes into nietzsche a lot, and not much in a way i understand, only interesting in his prescient diagnosis of where 'european man' was headed, some time before anyone else was concerned. 'the wasteland grows', well yes that sounds like n. the superman (overman) must be understood as exactly the same and thus 'heaviest thought' as 'eternal recurrence', must be understood in plain meaning as: 1) the passing over 2) the site from which passage leaves 3) the site to which passage goes... but this is just all h warming up. and then i do not know if i will appreciate n as he should be...

'what is called thinking?' has four interpretations of the question, all apparently using the same words in german. i recall once reading that the seemingly-repetitive, nonsensical, deployment of the word 'being' and 'beings' and 'Being' (capitalized), was all down to the fact german has several words with the right meaning each case, which all translate into the one english word. and that in english you could use 'existents' and 'Being' but then you lose the obvious poetic similarity that reminds of the philosophical kinship... or, also, hearing that his exotic name 'Dasein' for something like human/being, is in fact common german for 'be' and 'there'... so forgive my poor german and greek, i really am not able to follow much of his translation-elaboration of the title question...

'what is called thinking?' offers the four ways that question works in lecture one of part two. perhaps part one is all warmup, all setting the stage, training the reader, to understand that there are four ways to understand this apparently transparent question. there is 1) what is designated by the word 'thinking'? 2) what does the prevailing theory of thought, namely logic, understand by thinking? 3) what are the prerequisites we need to perform thinking rightly? 4) what is it that commands us to think? h asserts we must answer 4) first. and that all are one question seen different ways. if your mind is not warmed-up by now, best read part one again- or, like me, soldier on in relative ignorance...

'what is called thinking?' in 4) can only lead the reader into the twisty ways of translation by way of h, for whom it is the questioning aspect of the question that must be understood, rather than headlong rushes of something traditional and empty as propositions, orders, truths, such as is usual in analytic attempts, answering when you do not yet understand the question. and here it comes for me, when to say 'it is all greek to me' is not polite, deprecating escape when the topics addressed escape my limits of thought. for yes, it is all greek. through german. h starts by interpreting the question/answer in a new translation: 'one should both say and think that Being is'... and here is the first hurdle for those who think language and thus corresponding logic are always already there rather than work in progress...

'one should both say and think that Being is' sounds like saying the same thing twice. not if you are h. for whom every word in that translation is in question: 'one' 'should' 'both' 'say' 'and' 'think' 'that' 'Being' and most importantly 'is'. perhaps had i been taking these lectures over some time with like-minded, equally inquisitive, fellow students, i would be able to follow the ins and outs of h's arguments for this or that interpretation/translation. i am not in his or any prof's class. so i think of all the other books i have read somewhat on h: 21, and by h: 6. some few collections of h's work, some few works by other philosophers such as sartre, merleau-ponty, husserl, that engage with his thought. i am overwhelmed. there is so much, there are a thousand thoughts stimulated by each argument. such is the experience of reading h, and why even in my relative ignorance this book must be a five...

'one should both say and think that Being is' becomes what the rest of the book is dedicated to explicate, such that i think of later 'deconstruction' and all those post-structuralists, postmodernists, of continental lineage, who can no more escape h than say nietzsche. so i take refuge, i comfort myself, i soften my lack of comprehension, all by finding or recognizing quotes i had read elsewhere or original formulations that i discover again. for there is 'shifting sands, better billowing waves of the ocean' as finding words not yet 'over-used' to get his ideas across. there is the use of thinking, or rather uselessness: 1) does not bring knowledge as in sciences 2) does not produce usable practical wisdom 3) solves no cosmic riddles 4) does not endow with power to act... this certainly suggests 'thinking' is not dependent, constrained, supported by/supporting anything other than thinking...

'one should both say and think that Being is' is eventually rendered as 'needful: the saying also thinking too: being: to be' but by the end of this text has become 'useful is the letting-lie-before-us, so (the) taking-to-heart, too: beings in being'. h has led through these two parts, 21 lectures, to something like an answer, more a question for a questioning, of 'what is called thinking?' but what a long, torturous, difficult way to get there... he finally uses 'unconcealed' as something like 'truth' in the last two lectures, something beyond/before identity of 'verifactionist' truth theory... this is when h's idea of 'thinking' is so much different than the much narrower 'scientific' or 'instrumental' concept of thought...

as i read this book, particularly part two, i began to question the entire process h uses to set and question 'what is thinking?'. part one, well he refers to nietzsche and it is usual that philosophers build on other philosophers' works, so that i could sort of follow... but part two is more problematic for me: even if in another universe my greek and german was fluent, i do not know it i would agree that tracing heritage of, finding genesis of, comparing meanings of words that a previous series of thinkers used, is necessarily the best way to research your subject or offer your argument. is the ancientness of terms closer to truth? well that sounds like hermeneutics deployed in religious texts, discovering say ancient christianity is the more truthful christianity. regardless of era. so i am ambivalent about this entire way-of-interpretation, not as entirely skeptical about words and representations and so on, but maybe ready for more argument. i believe that original terms, original translations, are significant not as 'dogma' of thought but as inspiration for further exploratory 'thinking', as pointing out paths that may lead to 'clearing' of being. maybe...

020220: more The Philosophy of Heidegger
Heidegger: Thinking of Being
Basic Writings
The Heidegger Reader
The New Heidegger
Poetry, Language, Thought
The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays
Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil
Introduction to Metaphysics

[Uğur Karabürk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okuması da anlaması da zor bir kitaptı. Ayrıca kitabın içinde Heidegger'in verdiği dersler olduğu için biraz tekrara düşmüş. Ama kitabın özellikle Nietzsche kısmı çok iyiydi.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heidegger states that the “most thought-provoking in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking”. As such, he asks the question: “What is called thinking?” To answer this question, he follows four interrelated questions: what is designated by the word “thinking”, how the prevailing theory of thought – that is logic - understand thinking, what do we need in order to perform thinking rightly, and - most importantly - what is it that commands/calls us to think? He answers the first question by tracing back the origins of the word “thinking” as memory, recall, thanks, and so on. What calls on us to think and what determines the essential nature of thinking is the presence of what is present, the Being of beings, and the duality of beings and Being.
In the first part of the book, Heidegger engages with Nietzsche to show us what thinking is and how thinking takes over the thinker. Heidegger takes as starting points some of Nietzsche sayings like: “the wasteland grows: woe to him who hides wastelands within”, “this alone is revenge itself: the will's revulsion against time and its 'it was'”, and “that everything recurs is the extremest approximation of a world of Becoming to the world of Being: - the highest point of meditation.” As such, Nietzsche's fundamental thought is “the eternal recurrence of the same”, a thought that is wrapped in a darkness from which even Nietzsche had to shrink back in terror. Zarathustra is the first man to be delivered from this revengeful/metaphysical thinking and to think properly, lightly, and joyfully. Nietzsche's thinking is sharply opposed to the modern men who just “blink” and do not think at all.
In the second part of the book, Heidegger goes all the way back to Parmenides. He starts by reminding us that what we encounter at first is never what is near, but always what is common. As such, the common possesses the unearthly power to break us of the habit of abiding in what is essential, often so definitively that we never come to abide anywhere. Moreover, Heidegger points to Plato and Parmenides in order to remind us that everything that lies near and right before us is ambiguous and that thoughtful questioning is by its nature unsettling. Such ambiguity and unsettling declares itself in Parmenides saying: “it is useful to let-lie-before-us and so the taking-to-heart also: beings in being.“ In this saying, thinking is “taking-to-heart”, it is preceded by “letting-lie-before-us” as the presence of what is present, and it is called by and focused on “beings in being”. Moreover, for Parmenides “it is the same thing to think and to be”. For Heidegger, Parmenides' saying is the basic theme of all Western-European thinking; and consequently the entire history of this Western thinking is at the bottom just a sequence of variations on this one theme. As such, Kant's fundamental saying that "the conditions of the possibility of experience in general are at the same time conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience" is such a variation of Parmenides' saying. For the modern Kant, the individual being appears as an object of experience, while "Being" indicates the objectivity of the object. Kant's saying limited the original Parmenides' insight and trapped us into an objective, scientific, technological, subjective, logical, and so thinking/understanding of Being.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's important to understand facts to help the contemporary reader understand how and why this text gathers so much critical praise and attention.

As Rector of the University of Freiburg, Heidegger's opinions had structural implications and broad influence. This did not deter him from conducting an unprecedented, careful and thorough dissection of Western intellectual traditions -- traditions intrinsic to the University around him.

Not more than 50 years in advance of the initial publication date, reinforced concrete was being developed and submarines were still on the drawing boards. In his lifetime, technology had progressed from an almost comical state to nuclear weaponry delivered by aircraft. Heidegger gave voice to the vague skepticism probably held by a majority of the world toward new technology.

Without petulance in his criticisms, or as slanted an attack on values, morals, religion and the like, as Nietzsche, Heidegger's observations were organized and heavily researched.

Yet the lectures here hold an informal tone -- intended mainly to be heard spoken aloud in seminars -- pleading others and entreating them to think differently. In examining the way certain trends in thinking affect our perception and behavior, Heidegger reveals both the potential for substantial behavioral change, and helping to acknowledge how they may occlude or obfuscate past developments, arbitrarily considered no longer valuable. Readers in particular should try and piece together the significance of Parmenides, throughout.

Last, we take Heidegger for granted. Anyone born after the seventies has already been influenced by his philosophy, which had very serious implications for everyone -- from psychology to civil rights to literary criticism.

Unfortunately, Heidegger walks a thin line between innovation and using philosophical tools and operations to underpin intuition. Nowadays, concepts like national and cultural unity hinted at in this work and others are viewed with some suspicion. Heidegger strongly embraced some of these concepts, in re-formulating the question(s?) of Being in this work and others. Likewise, his apparent acquiescence to the Nazi party remains a troubling aspect of his life. I am often led to wonder whether the conviction I feel in reading his work will lead me toward accepting beliefs that led to the inflexible xenophobia of that period of geopolitical politics.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

طی مقایسه‌ی سطحی‌ای که بین این ترجمه و ترجمه‌ی سیاوش جمادی کردم، به این نتیجه رسیدم که با اینکه در دومی از زبان ثقیل‌تری استفاده شده، در بعضی عبارات در رساندن مفهوم شیواتر است

[Yonina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent working through of Heidegger's question "What is called thinking?" (which is actually 4 questions in one). To understand thinking we must ask what calls us into thinking- "what is That" which gives us the call toward thinking? "That" is the presence of what is present - the Being of beings - that we, in attempting to describe (lay out before us) also perceive, receive, take in (take to heart).

Time is here, too, in the question of memory, and that is the element that is least developed here, though overwhelmingly "behind" the issues of the text: Cyril Welch says in the blurb that Heidegger here "has tried to reinterpret the purport of...Being and Time, as meaning an opening of the horizon of Being through man's horizon of thinking." The man who can think is related to Nietzsche's superman, in that he is not defined by the spirit of revenge that resents the going-past of time. And so maybe in thinking man is able to not only take in the world and take it to heart, but also change the nature of what is means to be "present" in Being. Heidegger doesn't talk about this, but I think that his project emphasizes the way in which thinking is not only something necessary, something we are drawn to by our very being, but also something that is utterly transformative (of experience, of the nature of being in time). On the last page he says, "Thinking is thinking only when it recalls in thought the ėóv" - what is crucial here is the nature of recalling, that which summons again the presence of what was once present, that which now dwells in memory. The supposed opposition in Heidegger between dwelling and thinking seems least strong here: thinking requires the dwelling of the presence-of-what-is-present within myself. But this taking-to-heart must always be accompanied by a laying-out, a telling, and so the nature of language is implicated as well. Thinking can only be done in language, and can only be done in terms of the presentness of what is present -- we can get "outside" of neither language nor presentness, but in memory we can transform our experience of both.

Now I'm onto Poetry, Language, and Thought, where I anticipate that I will encounter these questions once more. Poesy is touched on briefly here, and I'm looking forward to more of that.

[Cameron · Rating 5 out of 5]

This lecture series is as close a companion and critique of Being & Time as I've come across and contains some of the clearest and most profound demonstrations of Heidegger's late thought. Throughout this series, he asks: what is thinking? what calls upon us to think? For Heidegger, the intellectual history of the West has been a deviation from the true content of thought: the thinking about the Being of beings, a notion misunderstood and neglected since Plato. Heidegger is trying to rewind two thousand years of intellectual history to the originary state of the Greek mind, to think as the Greeks thought when Parmenides grappled with Being as the essential question - a mystery for which even mighty Aristotle was afforded no relief. A weighty read & highly recommended for anyone who's read Being & Time without killing themselves.

[Omid Milanifard · Rating 3 out of 5]

اندیشه برانگیزترین امر آن است که ما هنوز فکر نمی کنیم..

[Mojtaba Asghari · Rating 5 out of 5]

در ارتباط با شناخت موضوع بازگشت جاودانه همان که توسط نیچه مطرح شده مطالعه این کتاب را پیشنهاد میکنم

[Rêbwar Kurd · Rating 5 out of 5]

معنای تفکر چیست؟ یکی از تأمل‌برانگیزترین آثار مارتین هایدگر است؛ کتابی که نه تنها دربارهٔ «تفکر» است، بلکه خود تفکر را – به‌عنوان تجربه‌ای هستی‌شناختی – در عمل اجرا می‌کند. این اثر نه یک رساله‌ی نظری‌ست، نه یک پاسخ مستقیم، بلکه سفری‌ست پُر پیچ‌وخم در تاریکیِ زبان، حافظه، و فراموشی؛ سفری که با پرسشی ساده آغاز می‌شود: تفکر چیست؟ اما هرچه بیشتر پیش می‌رویم، درمی‌یابیم که خود این پرسش ساده، ما را به آستانه‌ی پرتگاهی فلسفی می‌برد.

هایدگر در این کتاب، ما را به تماشای «تفکر به‌مثابه فراخوانده‌شدن» دعوت می‌کند. تفکر، برای او، نه فعالیتی ذهنی یا محصول تحلیل منطقی‌ست؛ بلکه پاسخ‌دادن به یک دعوت است. دعوتی از سوی هستی، از سوی چیزی که از ما پیش‌تر است، اما ما را فرامی‌خواند تا آن را به‌یاد آوریم. او به‌جای آن‌که تفکر را تعریف کند، سعی می‌کند نشان دهد که چگونه ما از تفکر واقعی روی‌گردان شده‌ایم. در دنیای مدرن، در میان محاسبات، تولید، علم، و بهره‌وری، فراموش کرده‌ایم چگونه فکر کنیم – نه درباره چیزها، بلکه درباره خود هستی چیزها.

زبان در این اثر، عنصری کلیدی‌ست. هایدگر، با دقتی شاعرانه، نشان می‌دهد که چگونه واژه‌ها، نه فقط ابزارهایی برای انتقال معنا، بلکه جایگاه‌هایی برای سکونت هستی هستند. او با استناد به شعر، به ویژه اشعار هولدرلین، تلاش می‌کند نشان دهد که شعر و تفکر، هر دو از یک خاک تغذیه می‌کنند: خاکی که در آن، معنا ریشه می‌دواند، نه به‌شیوه‌ی تحلیل، بلکه به‌شیوه‌ی پرسش‌گری خاموش و مدام.

برخلاف فلسفه‌های تحلیلی، این کتاب نه در پی اثبات است و نه در پی نتیجه. بلکه راهی‌ست برای آموزش‌دادن سکوت، شکیبایی، و گوش‌سپردن. برای هایدگر، تفکر واقعی نوعی «صبرکردن در برابر آن چیزی‌ست که هنوز نمی‌توان آن را گفت». و این رویکرد، هرچند ممکن است برای خواننده‌ی بی‌حوصله یا جویای تعریف‌های آماده آزاردهنده باشد، اما برای کسی که با فلسفه به‌عنوان یک شیوهٔ زیستن برخورد می‌کند، ژرفا و صداقتی کمیاب دارد.

در جای‌جای کتاب، هایدگر جمله‌هایی می‌نویسد که بیشتر به مناجات شبیه‌اند تا استدلال:
«آن‌چه سزاوار تفکر است، هنوز نیامده. و شاید هرگز نیاید. اما ما باید برایش آماده باشیم.»
یا:
«آن‌چه فکرکردن می‌نامیم، شاید دقیقاً همان چیزی‌ست که از آن روی‌گردان شده‌ایم.»

معنای تفکر چیست؟، نه راهنمای تفکر است، نه کتاب درسی. بلکه مانند کوهستانی مه‌گرفته است که در آن باید آهسته، بدون نقشه، پیش بروی؛ جایی که «یادگیری تفکر» به‌معنای یادگیری گم‌شدن است. گم‌شدن در پرسش‌هایی که پاسخی صریح ندارند، اما همین بی‌پاسخی، تو را به عمقی ناشناخته‌ می‌برد.

اگر کسی به‌دنبال فلسفه‌ای کاربردی، عقلانی یا تکنیکی‌ست، این کتاب برایش آزاردهنده خواهد بود. اما اگر کسی بخواهد از سطح مفاهیم عبور کند و در خود پرسش بماند، آن‌گاه هایدگر با این کتاب، هم‌سفر کم‌نظیری خواهد بود؛ هم‌سفری که بیشتر سکوت می‌کند، اما وقتی لب باز می‌کند، لایه‌ای از هستی را کنار می‌زند.

زیستن در دنیایی که پاسخ‌های فوری می‌خواهد، کار هایدگر و کتابش این است که بگوید:
پیش از هر پاسخی، باید آموخت چگونه بپرسیم.
و برای پرسیدنِ راستین، باید از نو، و بی‌ادعا، یاد بگیریم چگونه فکر کنیم.

[Rita · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Zeit ist freilich ein Kommen, aber ein Kommen, das geht, indem es vergeht. Das Kommende der Zeit kommt nie, um zu bleiben, sondern um zu gehen."

Leid entsteht laut Heidegger durch Kontrollverlust von dem "was war".

"Diesen Rechnen mit der Zeit begann in dem Augenblick, da der Mensch plötzlich in die Un-Ruhe kam, dass er keine Zeit mehr hatte. Dieser Augenblick ist der Beginn der Neuzeit."

Durch das Leben im immerwährenden Jetzt schaffen wir es, mehr zu sein.

[Sajid · Rating 5 out of 5]

“What is called thinking?” is unlike anything you have read. Specifically, if I limit it to the field of philosophy. Of course What is called thinking? was a course at university lectures. But what can we do except read it in a textual form? Of course, through the translation, something has been lost, something very definitive. Maybe it's the essence.

So what does Heidegger mean when he says that we are still not thinking? And what does he mean again when he asserts that the fact we are still not thinking is the most thought-provoking thing to think about? It is not a traditional defect of modern man. We are not thinking because the very word “thinking” has lost its essential characteristics. And this very fact is food for thinking. Only by thinking can we get to the root of the question of why we are not thinking.

But Heidegger points out the question: What is called thinking? isn't alone in its being the only question. Before asking this question we have to understand what calls us to think? And what did we understand traditionally by the term thinking or think? And Heidegger spends most of his time ameliorating the question: What calls us to think? Then he goes back to the root of some of these important words. He turns back to the essence of these words. Mostly he goes back to talk about Plato, Aristotle, and Parmenides. “Letting-lie-before us” and “take-to-the-heart”--are the root meanings toward which he looks and gets his help sometimes from Nietzsche and sometimes from Parmenides.

This is not a book where we have answers or statements in a concrete sense. Because Heidegger questions the very meaning of the word “statement” “judgment” and “logic”. This is not even a vague undertaking. Because he thinks that it is the simplest and the closest thing to us. But their meanings have been concealed by their very act of revealing. What Heidegger talks about I can't concisely put it here. It is impossible in this review(it is not even a review, just a basic outline of my reading of this book). It is impossible for everybody. Because this book is nothing but a journey where questioning is the only way to walk, not even expecting the answer, hardly is there any answer. But it is thrilling. I can't even say enjoyably, because this very word “enjoyable” will make my view of this book superficial. The only way to understand this book is to read it. Heidegger's way of questioning might influence us to think and then question the very concept of “think”. This is the way.

[Dr. Chad Newton, PhD-HRD · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not experience as much satisfaction as I hoped to experience after finishing this recording of lectures. Heidegger wrote highly in the abstract vocabulary to the point that substance was in want. The last four lectures focused on Greek words so much that I lost interest several times. However, some interesting points appeared in the lectures.

"Most thought-provoking is that we are still not thinking." Page 4

"Memory is the gathering of recollection, thinking back." Page 11

"Despite the invention of happiness, man is driven from one world war into the next." Page 83

"War-peace: war as the securing of peace, and peace as the elimination of war. How is peace to be secured by what it eliminates?" Page 83

"The question 'What is called thinking?' can be asked in four ways:
1. What is designated by the word 'thinking?'
2. What does the prevailing theory of thought understand by thinking?
3. What are the prerequisites we need to perform thinking rightly?
4. What is it that commands us to think?" Page 122

[Vladivostok · Rating 3 out of 5]

With language as his flashlight, Heidegger calls for us to follow him into the daunting and labyrinthine question: "What is Called Thinking?" Along the way, one runs into dimly-lit dead ends as frequently as one stumbles upon glittering gold. With every twist and turn of Heidegger's Brownian-motion brain, we encounter innumerable new paths -- each beckoning for exploration.
Naturally, this has the discomforting effect of instilling self-doubt. Could there be a method to this madness or are we wandering aimlessly? Perhaps that is Heidegger's point: only by allowing ourselves to be washed away in the billowing tides of metaphysical questioning can we even hope to explore the greater depths of truth.

[Ariadna73 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este es un artículo maravilloso en el cual Heidegger nos dice que pensar es tan pero tan difícil, que a la vez que nadie lo hace, todos lo hacemos sin darnos cuenta. Es maravilloso y escalofriante. Es cortito, y lo recomiendo. Además, ahí se puede ver lo que digo de las ideas tan brillantes de un filósofo, contra el lío de cabeza que se arma un pésimo escritor.

[Mohammad · Rating 3 out of 5]

کتاب خوب و ترجمه‌ی بد.

[Sina · Rating 4 out of 5]

اگر پرسش رهنمای کتاب- ?Was heisst Denken- را بماهو و پیش از رفتن به سوی چهار معنای شمرده شده، کسری در نظر بگیریم، این کسر در نهایت پس از ساده شدن‌ها، با گذر از کلام نیچه و پارمنیدس، به اینجا می‌رسد: « حضورِ امرِ حاضر.»
حال مختاریم مسیرِ به سختی طی شده با توقف‌های طولانی را از یاد ببریم و به همین «چیزی» بچسبیم که بدون در نظر گرفتن ِ راهِ رفته، همان کمتر چیزی است که گویا اصلن از اول آن را داشتیم و در دستمان بود، ولو آنکه به آن توجهی نداشتیم. اما اگر مسیر را «به یاد آوریم»، «ذکر» کین را بگوییم، همان پاد اراده‌ای که زمان را بخاطر گذشته کردن «امرِ حاضر» نمی‌بخشود، «شُکرِ» حضورِ امرِ حاضر را در نسبت با رهایی از رفتگیِ امرِ رفته خواهیم گفت.
هایدگر در هستی و زمان صراحتن می‌گوید که: « دازاین گذشته است.» نه اینکه گذشته دارد که لابد در نسبتش با چیزی به اسم حافظه،خاطره یا یادگار تعریف می‌شود و یا اینکه گذشته‌ای بر او رفته و تمام شده است؛ نه، این‌ها باز محملی می‌شوند برای کین، کینی که در بن‌اش کینی است از زمان و آنچه بوده آن. دازاین، خودْ، گذشته است.
پس حضورِ امرِ حاضر که در اینجا معادل با هستیِ هستندگان گرفته می‌شود، اگر بتواند افاده شود، دری است/ می‌شود به رهایی از کین؛ همان حضوری که نیچه « سنگین‌ترین بار» خوانده بودش و « بازگشتِ جاودانه‌ی همان» نامیده بودش.
شاید اینکه در اینجا هایدگر نیچه را در عین والاداشت، از خوارداشت هم بی‌نصیب نمی‌گذارد و در ادامه‌ی راهش سراغ کلامِ سرآغازینِ پارمنیدس می‌رود و در انتها آنچه کاویده با کاویده‌ی نیچه به چشممان کمابیش یکی می‌نماید، بخاطر بی‌توجهی به کلیّتی است که در فرم ساده‌ شده‌ی کسر کذایی به محاق رفته است؛ و این همان جایی است که باید به پرسشِ معیارگذارِ چهارم بازگردیم: « چیست آنی که ما را به تفکر فرمان می‌دهد؟»
نیچه، در راه قدم گذاشته و از فکر و ذکر مقصد و مقصود هم دست برنداشته بود، اما شاید این سنگین‌ترین بار، دیگر رمقی برایش نگذاشته بود تا ببیند آنچه در جستجویش مشقّتِ زیستن در دامنه‌ی آتشفشان را بر خود هموار کرده است، خودْ او را به راه آورده است و این راهی است از حضور به حضور؛ « شُکر» در عینِ « رخصت دادن به فراپیش قرار داشتن و دل نهادن هم» ، دیدنِ فراخوانیِ این فراخواننده.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A remarkable representation of the phenomenological Heidegger, What Is Called Thinking should be on the "required reading" list for those desiring to actually think and be capable of transformative thought. While certainly a read that merits close attention, its recursive exploration brings forward remarkable insight into the unthinking of our Modern epoch and provides perspective for paths forward.

For instance, Heidegger's perspective on Nietzsche's representation of blinking, prevalent and dominant across corporate senior management and progressive governments globally, provides remarkable insight into the continued nature of the catastrophe latent within the hierarchies constructed by der letzte Mensch (Nietzsche's Last Man).

[Ferhat Elmas · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a course taught and it has overlapping pieces in each lesson which becomes repetitive quick since you can't start a lesson without reminding what is said before or can't end without asking questions that would warm up/prime the brain for the new material. A problem of the book format, not the content though.

It's closely related to Being & Time, and the explanation of Nietzsche's work was mind opener for me. When I had read Thus Spoke Zarathustra, clearly I did understood nothing (so a reread is a must) because it seems he says 3 incomprehensible words like some nonsense poem while explaining deep thoughts (btw, another good example of this sense of getting lost for me is the Disconnected from Oguz Atay).

The main idea feels simple. If I am reading this book and thinking that I am thinking then I am not thinking. I need to merge thinking into my existence and this will shape my being into what is to come next so each person can find what the thinking means only by doing thyself (Uberman screams that why do you close your senses? Do we really need to lose so as to understand its worth?). Corollary, ignoring an old idea is a bullshit because each person is unique and it could mean something different within your being. If somebody is fighting you there, then it's more valuable, worth of pursuing (Heidegger and Nietzsche both puts it into words many times in this text).

You might read in most places that this is a book against science by saying science is not thinking. I would replace science with technology in his sentences (forgive him for his time in history) then we clearly see he is right, look at what we get with Instagram or TikTok (James Williams does some thinking in Stand Out of Our Light for us if you want to dive in). Idea feels simple again. We can't answer questions in our preferences, the first question must be thought first. Heidegger says what we will get a Nietzsche's desert eventually with science/tech, which doesn't only destroy the good but prevents from growing any good (Oswald Spengler/Hans Sedlmayr are good to read on this).

What is a candle without enlightened? What is happiness? What is a human? What is a happy human?

[Will Attig · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t usually put reading I did for school on here but I limped through this recently so f it. Pretty accessible as far as Heidegger goes, repetition actually helps retention. Lost me at the end with some of the Greek semantics. Will hopefully clear up once I read some papers.

[Griffin Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is transcription of lectures given at the University of Freiburg in 1951/52 and is an important component of Heidegger's later work. I found it quite enjoyable and much easier to follow than some of his other writings. In the first section he mainly expounds upon and elucidates Nietzsche's doctrine of the superman as tool for answering the question. In the second section he deals mostly with Parmenides' work and thought on Being (eov); he dives into the Greek and unearths many helpful interpretations. He also brings in various helpful insights from Hölderlin, Eckhart, Kant, Plato, Hegel, etc. when relevant.

So, "what is called thinking?":
It is "being present to thought" or "continuing to ask the question" or "the letting-lie-before-us and so taking-to-heart" by being present to what is present.

He seems to want to engage in a similar project as Nietzsche by trying to "reach back" and grab some insights he thinks have been especially overlooked since after the rise of Platonism and subsequent Western philosophies (but were present for the pre-Socratics and in the tragic age of the Greeks) and their emphasis on the supersensible; however, he does this in a less polemical way.

[Soeine · Rating 4 out of 5]

The core of the book's question is if we can elevate ourselves above the way we are, examine ourselves from the distance of the "leap", and depart for somewhere beyond ourselves. This leap cannot be possible through a human intention, since an intention can only originate from the way we are. It should happen like a thunderstorm, as an unexpected encounter. The leap is fatal, if one cannot reach the other end. It is only for the ones who dare to leap and go beyond. The rest will dig into the mud of daily illusions. It is a profound reading that strikes one's heart like the shriek of thunder, once it is read. But, the writing is not as sharp as that sound, so I give 4 stars.

[K.guli · Rating 1 out of 5]

Heidegger resorts yet again to constructing a labyrinth of ambiguous terms which, despite their attempt at portraying his erudition, display nothing but the thought of a second-rate philologist.

A colossal waste of time and paper.

[Alex Obrigewitsch · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great Heidegger book. Even one without prior experience in Heidegger can get something from it. A valuable reflection of thinking on thought and reflection.

[Liam · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Demolishing (‘Clearing’) of Heidegger (All Paths Lead to Tyranny, O’ Royal Regia):

‘There is’ a ‘worthless’ furnishing of (to ‘me’) ‘incorrect’ motifs prevailing ‘in this work’, the following is a ‘scholarly format’ of H’s comments and their disastrous implications (& already inherent):

Lecture 1: ‘‘Spirit and substance of the original’’(Introduction), ‘‘essential being as the keeper who holds us in our essential being’’, ‘‘in themselves, intrinsically, innately’’, ‘‘unbroken chain of hollow assertions’’[why unbroken, why sequential causality of thought/memory?], ‘‘appearance and that which has its essence in the appearance’’, ‘‘original nature’’, ‘‘the God’s withdrawal’’ [which ‘God’ since God’s has apostrophe before the s, instead of ‘the Gods’’], ‘‘source’’[where? Presumed?], ‘‘the leap’’[German idealist/Nietzschean nonsense, ‘and then ‘we’ will find ‘it’, oh object of our memoria...’], ‘‘cabinetmakers apprentice’’ (allusions to Jesus figure as carpetmaker).

Lecture 2: Constant theory about ‘inhabited space’, residence, ‘‘to reach a more open territory’’, ‘‘realm of the essence of technology’’(so ideas can have a constituted, vaguely delineated ‘realm’ hey H, for H’s inclined purposes, not exactly ‘objectively definable’): easy (& valid, not just for H) linkages with Lebensraum, Mitteleuropa, ‘modern Orphism’ ‘reinvigorated’ from Kant onward (usually as reaction or counter-reformation, though ‘imperative’s provoke applying substance’, romanticism, pre-Raphaelites, Sturm und Drang, a ‘chronology’ such as: Augustine(City of God as ‘formative residues’, internalization of Plato, Herodotus, Homer, ‘general Grecian pantheon’)-Dante(formative)-Shakespeare(generally paean)-Milton(formative)-Vico(preliminary)-Holy Roman Empire-Rousseau-Goethe-Fichte-Schiller-Schelling-Blake-Hegel-Coleridge-Byron(‘interestingly enough’ juxtaposed against Shelley’s Frankenstein)-Schopenhauer(‘inadvertently or by reversal’)-Marx-Nietzsche-Bergson-Spengler-Lenin-Thomas Mann(elements, contrast to Viennese societal influences, though a similar strain, ‘in-overt’, for e.g. Zweig, Freud, Rank)-Rilke-Pound(early)-Joyce-Eliot-Jung(elements)-Heidegger-Wittgenstein(later parts, ‘in-overt’)-Kazantzakis-Kaufmann-Tillich-Bloom-Fukuyama-Sloterdijk; these thinkers do not have to agree except ‘by form’, versions of a spiritual Geist/dialectical materialism/’systematic absolute classification’/’train of history’/’myth of Being’ (as Capitalized ‘subject’), ‘individual as society, society as an individual’, intimate with a Christian rendering of ‘selfhood’); and divisions of those who posit (a) mythological chronicles (b) were used/themselves sought ‘universal’ praxis are intercontextually combinatory. These could be delimited from those ‘strictly individual’ relative contemporaries such as (preliminaries eg. Descartes-Berkeley-Hume) Dickinson-Rimbaud-Pessoa-Cioran; & Russian literary/poetry sits ‘somewhere inbetween’, anarchist (quietist) & ‘revolutionary’.

Further nonvalent ‘incorrect mythical substantialist notations’:
Lecture 3: ‘‘Presence of their radiant appearance’’, ‘‘this truth is called beauty’’(‘‘poetic statement’’), ‘‘eternally non-apparent and therefore invisible’’, Platonic regard [why should anything of Plato be believed today?], anti-techne & psychoanalysis, formal logic/analytic philosophy, ‘‘the essence of technology lies in what from the beginning and before all else gives food for thought’’[‘in the beginning there was the word...’], ‘‘beginning of our journey’’[philosophy?], quasi-Marxist ‘description of working conditions’ (i.e. ‘anti-matter, for spirit, liberated from the machines’)(lecture 2); aversion to ‘‘every form of nothingness-the nihilistic phenomena’’, ‘‘unearthly’’, ‘‘joyous, beautiful and gracious’’[am ‘I’ reading Lessing?], ‘‘mysterious and gracious things’’, ‘‘lofty’’, ‘‘the essence of their sphere-history, art, poetry, language, nature, man, God -remains inaccessible to the sciences’’(fetishistic alchemy), ‘‘greatest riches’’, ‘‘character as a statement’’.

Lecture 4: ‘‘Representation ideas of those objects’’(‘vital’ forms?) ‘‘correct and incorrect idea’’, ‘‘soul’’, ‘‘as a marker on our path of thought, we quoted the words of the West's last thinker, Nietzsche’’(these lectures were given in 1951/52! Shows ‘split’ with Husserl. & H stated ‘thinker’, not ‘philosopher’-which ‘to me’ N was not, more a social commentator/classicist-, ludicrous), ‘‘Nietzsche neither made nor chose his way himself, no more than any other thinker ever did. He is sent on his way’’(‘I’ suppose H supposes ‘this’ determinism not materialistic, so reinvoking of ‘a kind of’ (& what exactly?) ‘divine providence’).

Lecture 5: ‘‘What if he had known that it was his own thought which would first have to bring about a devastation in whose midst, in another day and from other sources, oases would rise here and there and springs well up? What if he had known that he himself had to be a precursor, a transition, pointing before and behind, leading and rebuffing, and therefore everywhere ambiguous, even in the manner and in the sense of the transition’’(‘justifying’ or excusing world wars here Herr H?), ‘‘Let us not be deluded into the view that Nietzsche's thought has been found’’(this treating of N as an idol or ‘spiritual disciple’ tells us us of H’s desperation (and how far did ‘it’ extend!) to ‘find’, and when ‘found’, disappear again (pretend hide and seek) ‘demigods’. ‘One’ is not impressed.), ‘‘but no thinker can ever be overcome by our refuting him and stacking up around him a literature of refutation’’(so apparently said ‘thinker’ is inviolable, unfalsifiable, irrefutable, apply this maxim to any other field and the ‘wastelands’ will ‘truly arise’, ‘thought’ crumbles, tyrants reign, convention at one time remains/says ‘for all time’...), ‘‘back to its originary truth’’(and you think this will be made explicit, or even exists, cannot be disputed; no, just another means of obfuscation ‘but that was not what ‘X’ really thought… Commence a hermeneutics of gospels for thinker N?! ‘‘we must extricate ourselves again from the error into which we have fallen, that one can think through Nietzsche's thinking by dealing with it historically’’, confirmed, ahistorical).

Lecture 6: ‘‘Then what must happen to man as he is, so that he can make the earth "subject" to himself and thus fulfill the words of an old testament?’’, ‘‘through reason, man raises himself above the animal’’, ‘‘passing from the physical to the non-physical, the supraphysical : thus man himself is the metaphysical’’, ‘‘but we must never look for the superman's figure and nature in those characters who by a shallow and misconceived will to power are pushed to the top as the chief functionaries of the various organizations in which that will to power incorporates itself’’(too late to retract or rehabilitate yourself H in 1951/2), ‘‘reason's perception unfolds as this manifold providing, which is first of all and always a confrontation(...)A mere animal, such as a dog, never confronts anything, it can never confront anything to its face; to do so, the animal would have to perceive itself’’(and those who by definition do not have sufficient reason are then dogs? ‘We’ must not think, as H says, that such references to ‘other men’ so far are blithely stated with no underlying -‘underfoot’- motivations/actions), ‘‘Zarathustra tries directly to teach the people "the superman" as "the meaning of the earth." But the people only laughed at Zarathustra, who had to realize that the time had not yet come’’(why this universalising of a theory espoused by said finite organism, as if addressed ‘to all mankind’, applicable & ‘true’ to all, the certainty of ‘foresight’? Observe the use to ‘‘teach the people’’, who presumes holding power & access to knowledge, imposition by will), ‘‘his race is as ineradicable as the flea-beetle’’(from N’s Zarathustra, sincerely non-ominous), ‘‘but we must not equate such a shaking of the foundations with revolution and collapse. The shaking of that which exists may be the way by which an equilibrium arises’’(more odes to justify a ‘change of groundwork’, prospective slaughter), ‘‘is the man of today in his metaphysical nature prepared to assume dominion over the earth as a whole? Has the man of today yet given thought in any way to what conditions will determine the nature of such worldwide government?(...)No. Man as he is today is not prepared to form and assume a world government. For today's man lags behind, not just here and there-no, in everything he is, in all his ways, he lags curiously behind that which is and has long been’’(but thou wishes does thou not?), ‘‘I already characterized modern democracy, together with its mongrel forms such as the 'German Reich,' as the form of decline of the state’’(yes H denounces the Nazi’s 6 years later since they have lost/not acceptable to defend, but notice democracy is linked as a ‘‘mongrel form’’, so what does H propose?: ‘‘If there are to be institutions there must be a kind of will, instinct, imperative[example of Kant’s influence, derived Christian duty], anti-liberal to the point of malice: the will to tradition, to authority, to responsibility for centuries to come, to the solidarity of chains of generations forward and backward ad infinitum [gulags? And ad infinitum means forever!, Thou flatters/disciples of N/H/all-above-mentioned!]. When that will is present, something like the lmperium Romanum [remember ‘Holy Roman Empire’]is founded: or something like Russia, the only power today that has endurance in its bones, that can wait, that still can have promise-Russia the counterconcept to that miserable European particularism and nervousness which has entered a critical condition with the foundation of the German Reich’‘[H says not modelled by the Soviet Union, but/then why Russia in particular?], ‘‘Nietzsche understands the standard that all men are not equal, that not everybody has aptitude and claim to everything, that not everybody may set up his everyman's tribunal to judge everything’’[like in any practical standard ‘equality’ extends past theory & bare legality ‘in the West’, at any time ‘securities’ retractable/mutable, conflating ‘general culture’ with apparatus of ‘hard’-power], ‘‘The rank order carried out, in a system of world government: the masters of the earth last of all, a new ruling caste. Arising from them, here and there, all Epicurean god, the superman, he who transfigures existence: Caesar with the soul of Christ.’’(H’s quotation of an unpublished N passage, something of an aristocratic dictatorship. If you wish to prove otherwise, why invoke Caesar or Christ?), ‘‘in one of Hoelderlin's late hymns: there Christ, who is "of still another nature," is called the brother of Heracles and Dionysos’’(recurring Pan/Orphic markers), For there is no universal schema which could be applied mechanically to the interpretation of the writings of thinkers, or even to a single work of a single thinker’’(so why as you before spoke H, did you say ‘‘not everybody may set up his everyman’s tribunal to judge everything’’(subjective opinion for example?), and that the ‘‘last great thinker Nietzsche’’ ‘irrefutable’, since diverse opinions means to ‘ultimate’ interpretation or creed, no one prescriptive framework for human action?). ‘‘But we shall never find the superman as long as we look for him in the places of remote-controlled public opinion’’(conspiracist paranoic?).

Lecture 7: ‘‘Blink is related to Middle English blenchen, which means deceive, and to blenken, blinken, which means gleam or glitter. To blink-that means to play up and set up a glittering deception which is then agreed upon as true and valid-with the mutual tacit understanding not to question the setup’’ - so when H quotes N again with: ‘‘We have invented happiness’—say the last men, and they blink’’, apparently either happiness doesn’t exist, or has some ‘fundamental objective essence’? Though if invented how everyone on earth can/has agreed with this proposition again is skirted around in both H/N’s hyperbolizing/hypostasis. ‘‘It makes no difference if we assert in passing that Kant was nonetheless a very significant thinker. Such praises from below are always an insult’’ - ‘noble aristocracy’, ‘kings of Being’ returns again. ‘‘Even when we make every effort to abandon the commonplace, the obvious as the standard of thinking’’ - Are not incantations to customary absolutes, creating/structuring your entire life ‘around’ phantoms such as ‘Being/substance/God (‘‘Being of beings’’)/in-itself/soul/beauty/history/overcoming ‘man’’ the most commonplace ideals of lust, complexes humanity repeatedly fixes upon? Wake up yourself, Heidegger!

Lecture 8: Wholly null of any thinking except talk (mere speculations) of ‘‘savages’’, ‘‘the thinkers' thinking would thus be the relatedness to the Being of beings’’ (leave your absolutes!)

Lecture 9: ‘’It is prior to all weak donothingism and shirking of sacrifice’’ - This ‘Deliverance from revenge’ would reject pacifism and see no allowed actual individuation, the refusal of participation to N’s master/slave dialectic...What would the H do himself, in practice over words? Side (by thought, by deed, ideology/creed) with National Socialism, who you cannot in any ‘reality’ say their prime motivation is not revenge (where the ‘elevation’ H?). ‘‘Time is not a cage in which the "no longer now," the "not yet now," and the "now" are cooped up together’’ - oh really? Where/how does memory arrive & retain ‘itself’ (‘collection of thoughts towards it’) then as you were waxing lyrical in the first lectures? ‘‘only that will is primal being which as will is independent of time, and eternal(...)it says that will is primal being only when it is eternal as will. And it is that when, as will, it eternally wills the eternity of willing’’ - either tautologous or ‘self-reflexive’, pick one. ‘‘The will that is eternal in this sense no longer follows and depends on the temporal in what it wills, or in its willing. It is independent of time. And so it can no longer be affronted by time’’ - where is Nietzsche now? You could be coherent, but use this Bergsonian/mythophysical garb, without this you have vitalism, ‘I’ can read Aristotle if to indulge that penchance, why do you report such undeserving ‘high standing’ in 20th Century philosophers?.

Lecture 10: ‘‘Sin is the lack of faith, the revolt against God as the Redeemer. If repentance, joined to the forgiveness of sin and only that way, can will the return of the past, this will of repentance, seen in the terms of thinking, is always determined metaphysically, and is possible only that way-possible only by its relation to the eternal will of the redeeming God’’ (sigh)

Avoid/'do not be fooled’ by preachers of theologized ‘philosophy’ (e.g. ‘seeking destination’, myth as tools, etymological roots super-excessively seen as important and referenced, ‘eschatology of the sign’, ‘lost meaning’, ‘origin of all things’ etcetc; notably sons/related to other ‘parsons’), totalizing dictators awaiting for your consent. + The wished primacy of speech ‘over’ writing, some extinguishing of persona (digressions, additions as mentioned) is favorable, tolerable, necessary for ‘what is called thinking’ (& ‘not simply negation’).

Lecture 11: ‘‘Good thinking’’(moral diktat’s commencing motion here), ‘‘the directions that come from what directs us into thought are much more than merely the given impetus to do some thinking’’(has to be ‘‘much more’’ for H or else his transcendental project crumbles, and if you oppose said project doesn’t reduce you solely to ‘dogmatic materialism’)), ‘‘that man is naturally the performer of thinking, need not further concern the investigation of thinking. The fact goes without saying. Being irrelevant, it may be left out of our reflection on thinking. Indeed, it must be left out. For the laws of thought are after all valid independently of the man who performs the individual acts of thinking’’ (yes, let’s ignore any inquiry outside my desired subjectivism, any logical or experiential knowledge, again H must ‘’le[ave it] out’’ as otherwise his reliance on ‘technological methods’ is apparent, must concede to what preceded neural correlates -comprehensive scope from his lack of clarification-). ‘‘"What calls on us to think?" strikes us directly, like a lightning bolt’’ - Homeric tradition of ‘phenomenal serendipity’ ascribed to Zeus, the subsequent paragraph on Greek roots ‘to call’ misses the ‘divine invocation’ to Gods hypothesis. ‘‘But it is unhabitual not because our spoken speech has never yet been at home in it, but rather because we are no longer at home with this telling word, because we no longer really live in it’’ - rather arbitrary selection of when we are ‘‘at home’’, at hearth with Hestia; ‘‘Say Heidegger, can you give a precise distinction in time from when we were at home, from when we were not? What were the effects of this expulsion (or was ‘the hearth’ destroyed?), whence did ‘we’ lie in ignorance unto hence? Were ‘we’, as ‘I’ assume means everyone, every-body of the community, nay, here in ‘X’: separated from birth, afterwards, adolescence, corrupted by the elders(wink), an early senility? Was the work of human or divine origin? Whence reason for the latter, and biases of the former? ‘I’ am calling for this clarification because, as you know, meanings can be mistaken and ridden with errors if ‘we’ do not resolve there conflicts and motives for misdirection, and when done, the horses neighing in their stables return to calm…’’ (in form of Socratic address, ‘X’ ‘calls upon’ H). ‘‘The current meaning of the word cannot simply be pushed aside in favor of the rare one, even though the rare signification may still be the real one. That would be an open violation of language(...)On the contrary, the presently customary signification is rooted in the other, original, decisive one’’ - lexical imperialism, the encyclopedists rejoice, in denial (again) of the manners in which ‘individualism’ can *begin* presentiment. [More ‘levity’ in this since the only ‘redeemable’ lecture so far, since albeit ‘from here onward’ H casts off ‘the prostitution of Nietzsche’].

Lecture 12: Anti-Cartesian verbiage (if H says only, ‘in hues around the words/lines/’pointers’, willing misdirection): ‘‘Sculpture, painting, and music operate and express themselves in the medium of stone and wood and color and tone’’, ‘‘What is perceived by the senses is considered as immediately given’’.

Lecture 13: ‘‘The nature of technology is itself nothing technological’’, ‘‘The nature of technology is not a merely human fabrication which, given an appropriate moral constitution, could be subdued by superior human wisdom and judgment’’ - according to H nothing can ever be ‘subdued’ because he has to create ‘hidden influences’, ‘irremediable essences behind things’ he wishes to denigrate, ‘‘What is called thinking?" is-if it is at all permissible to put this into words-a world-historical question. Usually, the name "world history" signifies the same thing as universal history’’ - Hegel speaks from the dead! ‘‘But can thinking, the philosophical, supra-historical knowledge of eternal truths, ever be grounded on historical findings?’’ - A new Reich dawns!

Lecture 14: ‘‘The soul then pours forth its wealth of images-of visions envisioning the soul itself’’, ‘‘essential nature’’, ‘‘Such thanks is not a recompense; but it remains an offering’’ - to Zeus again, ‘‘in our Alemannic usage’’(‘Holy Roman Empire’ precursor).

[Continued as Comment due to no characters:]

[Lucas Sipe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many critics (and even some fans) of Heidegger claim that later in his career Heidegger substituted God with Being. Such ideas never made much sense until reading "What Is Called Thinking?". Here, you will hear much about calling, sending, and other such ideas. What is sending our though, what is calling us to think is never (fully) explained by Heidegger but we are placed on the right path if we're endowed with the gift.

Always difficult, Heidegger has rarely been incomprehensible but this text borders on that. There is an intense focus on Nietzsche and Parmenides; both thinkers are crucial to Heidegger but in 'Being & Time', 'Basic Problems of Phenomenology', and other texts Heidegger talks about the entire corpus of western philosophy. His focus has become so tight that it borders on a different thought entirely. Heidegger scholars speak of Die Kehre, the turn in Heidegger's thought, but I believe the turn is rather a tightening, a more focused look into Being that excludes much of what he considered important. Take, for example, the discussion of language in 'What Is Called Thinking?" which marks a new way into Being for Heidegger.

Fundamentally, this text is a microcosm of Heidegger. Always more questions than answers - which is his goal. He wants to open up a question as a problematic, as a path. He is not interested in answers, in a system of thought, but of heeding the call of thinking which is given by the Being of beings. As only the first read, we cannot expect everything to be clear. There are moments of brilliance despite the confusion. His short discourse on teaching (as a letting learning happen) is brilliant and a phenomenal way of viewing many things. Teaching is not regulated to words or proclamation but rather of a way of being. Likewise is the insight into interpretation - discussion about interpretations are really a discussion about presuppositions.

Still, those brilliant passages are only moments. Overall, the text is about thinking and that is a difficult topic for anyone to discuss. With Heidegger it's only more so. Hopefully, next year, when I re-read all of his texts the path will be made more clear. Either way, the problem of thinking has been made a problematic so in one aspect, Heidegger's lecture was successful.

[Andrés García · Rating 5 out of 5]

Muy chido, la extensión del libro yace en el hecho de que está creado por seminarios que recitó. Entonces se entiende su tendencia a recapitular/repasar ideas. Fuera de eso, no me deja de sorprender la obsesión que tiene Heidegger con la cuestión del pensamiento, pues es lo que permite comprender nuestra relación ontológica. Motiva mucho tomarse en serio el pensamiento. No existen preguntas ingenuas, todo afecta el modo en el que le damos sentido a la realidad; es de suma importancia plantearse las preguntas: ¿qué significa pensar? ¿Para qué pensamos? ¿Qué es lo que merece pensarse? Para tener un entendimiento más genuino y significativo con las cosas.

[Seth · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Heidegger probably has many interesting things to say about technology, science, and Nietzsche, but none of them are the focus of this book. Instead, he spends most of the text (lecture series) on Greek etymology and related metaphysical implications, which felt more logically compelling than interesting or useful to me.

The prose of the Gray translation consistently reads concisely and directly, very well done. I obviously can't speak for accuracy, though.