The Fourfold: Reading the Late Heidegger

by Andrew Mitchell, Anthony J. Steinbock (Editor)

Heidegger’s later thought is a thinking of things, so argues Andrew J. Mitchell in The Fourfold. Heidegger understands these things in terms of what he names “the fourfold”—a convergence of relationships bringing together the earth, the sky, divinities, and mortals—and Mitchell’s book is the first detailed exegesis of this neglected aspect of Heidegger’s later thought. As such it provides entrée to the full landscape of Heidegger’s postwar thinking, offering striking new interpretations of the atomic bomb, technology, plants, animals, weather, time, language, the holy, mortality, dwelling, and more. What results is a conception of things as ecstatic, relational, singular, and, most provocatively, as intrinsically tied to their own technological commodification. A major new work that resonates beyond the confines of Heidegger scholarship, The Fourfold proposes nothing less than a new phenomenological thinking of relationality and mediation for understanding the things around us.

Genres: Philosophy

392 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2015

Reviews

[Taka · Rating 5 out of 5]

This came to me as a GODSEND (arr, DIVINITY-SENT) as I was getting a little discouraged chugging through one book after another by Heidegger. Mitchell does such a good job of connecting and elucidating MANY of the perplexing ideas found in the late Heidegger, especially those centered around the Fourfold (the round dance, the holy, the aether, the hale/unhale, granting, grace, whiling, etc.), and GOSH this helped me tremendously. Of course, there are things (dare I say that?) I'm still perplexed about, things Mitchell tries to explain but no matter how many times I read the relevant passages the meaning eluded me (withdrawing from me in its unconcealment, as it were), such as how language is a medium, and why there are SO many media (or are they all name the same?), what differentiation and gesture really are, how death shrines nothing, the concept (or relation, should I say?) of groundless bearing, the whole complicated relations among the truth of being, the holy, godhood, and gods, and what the damn "sanctioning" region is. Despite these, though, the book has been IMMENSELY helpful for me in wrapping my head around the dizzying array of concepts (that reifying word again...) and their interrelationships, and I understood enough to be blown away by some of the things Heidegger—according to Mitchell—meant.

Like in essencing where there's no complete arrival, though, or just as we mortals are not-yet mortals, I'll always be ever arriving in understanding Heidegger without ever reaching it—not completely perplexed but never in a complete grasp of him (then he'd cease to be other, without secrets), allowed to be in the between of philosophical journey. I will always be on the way.

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A remarkable bit of scholarship. I can't claim to quite understand it all yet after only one read, but I will be sure to return to it regularly over the next few years.

[Shareef muhammed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent interpretation of Heidegger's later works, especially the Fourfold and Thing. This book centers on the basic notion of how Heidegger's later thinking is fundamentally related to a thinking of relationality. Such a wonderful read.

[Andrew]

Only partially read.

[Jack L. Sammons · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply put this is the best book ever written on the Fourfold. It is brilliant!

[Marks54 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to follow once I do a lot of processing.