Echoes: After Heidegger

by John Sallis

Mobilizes the figure of echo, used by Heidegger to characterize originary thinking, as the motif around which to organize a radical reading of Heidegger's most important texts.

Genres: Philosophy

213 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1990

About the author

John Sallis was an American philosopher well known for his work in the tradition of phenomenology. From 2005 until his death, he was the Frederick J. Adelmann Professor of Philosophy at Boston College. He previously taught at Pennsylvania State University (1996–2005), Vanderbilt University (1990–1995), Loyola University of Chicago (1983–1990), Duquesne University (1966–1983) and the University of the South (1964–1966).

Reviews

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The double return of Truth back to Being creates a circularity that only get obfuscated by Heidegger and becomes his search for the resolution of the ‘echo.” The question of Being and its importance is discussed in “Being and Time,” while never getting resolved such that Heidegger writes that the most important question and primal to the human experience is: “why there is something rather than nothing?” in “What is Metaphysics?” without realizing that Being is assumed within the premise of the question itself. As Kant says Being is not a predicate otherwise Anslem’s God would exist.

Sallis is a master explicator of the complex nature of Heidegger’s philosophy. Published today this book would standout like a sore-thumb since Heidegger comes with all sorts of philosophical baggage. In 1991 Heidegger was easily the most important philosopher from the 20th century for the 20th century, today not so much. To read Heidegger is to realize that he was a full-blown Nazi and he would be at home with the MAGA movement of today (except MAGA people are dullards and wouldn’t understand the complex philosophy). Sallis dances around Heidegger’s Nazism while apologizing for Heidegger’s early dalliances with fascism.

Sure, Heidegger is a full-blown Nazi, but that doesn’t mean at times his philosophy is not spell-binding when the fascism is conveniently ignored. This book doesn’t mention Heidegger’s early influence by Oswald Spengler and his “Decline of the West” book. To read Spengler one immediately must ask Spengler where did he think the Germans were going to take his blueprint for history madness, and similarly with Heidegger’s body of work up to and during the Germans reign of terror. Also, for the vast majority who haven’t read Spengler his cyclic morphological culture-based history is moronic and is just a lot of long-winded non-sense justifying the superiority of the Germans and Germanness as they wait for the return of a Caesar or a Napoleon. MAGA thinks Trump is their savior, we’ll see.

Sallis does mention art, poetry, politics, and sacrifice as Heidegger’s post B&T search for the resolution of the ‘echo’ inherent in the quest for Being. Heidegger’s politics was a plea for the sublimation of the individual over the state and he thought the double return of Truth back to being would be resolved through nationhood. The being of beings needs relationships and lacks the ground unless the echo gets resolved and Heidegger doesn’t resolve it and never writes his Division III for B&T but got side track by the shiny object of Nazism, and he even warns against such distractions within B&T! Heidegger shows by example that we get thrown into the world such that the world we are thrown into makes us inauthentic and at best he is a warning against following the stupidity around us as he himself ignored his own advice!

Being-unto-death, mortality, existential thought, and some other of Heidegger’s philosophy gets tossed around in this book. Sallis reminds me why I do like Heidegger; Heidegger gives me comfort about my own finite existence and experiences and makes me aware the specialness of my own Dasein and the most I can ever do is take a stand on my own understanding about the world and create my own meaning through my care and it must come from myself. There is value in Heidegger, but he can be a slippery slope.

It’s not necessary to read this book from 1991 today. Heidegger had his century last century and the world is sort of moving past him. That doesn’t mean I didn’t thoroughly enjoy reading this book because I did.