Mapping the Present

Heidegger, Foucault and the Project of a Spatial History

Stuart Elden

• Publisher: Continuum
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN: 9780826458469
• eBook ISBN: 9781441136558
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

In a late interview, Foucault, suggested that Heidegger was for him the "essential philosopher." Taking this claim seriously, Mapping the Present assesses the relationship between these two thinkers, particularly on the issue of space and history. It suggests that space and history need to be rethought, and combined as a spatial history, rather than as a history of space. In other words, space should become not merely an object of analysis, but a tool of analysis.The first half of the book concentrates on Heidegger: from the early occlusion of space, through the politically charged readings of Nietzsche and Holderlin, to the later work on art, technology and the polis which accord equal status to issues of spatiality. Foucault's work is then rethought in the light of the analysis of Heidegger, and the project of a spatial history established through re-readings of his works on madness and discipline..

Chapter 1

Space and History in Being and Time

What we know of the early Heidegger has changed dramatically since the mid-1970s. Until relatively recently Being and Time, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics and odd lectures were the only texts available from the 1920s. The incompleteness of Being and Time – only two of a projected six divisions were published – and the fact that it appeared after more than a decade of silence on Heidegger’s part, has always caused difficulties in understanding its importance and situating its insights. With the publication of Heidegger’s lecture courses in the Gesamtausgabe and the coming to light of some other pieces several issues become much clearer. At the same time a number of complications arise: some because they require the rethinking of Heidegger’s thought; some because of the problematic nature of this edition itself.¹ The lecture courses develop material originally scheduled for the unpublished divisions, situate Heidegger in relation to the tradition of phenomenology in greater detail, and provide closer analysis of key figures in his development, notably Kant and Aristotle. Most of the material covered in this chapter was produced while Heidegger was lecturing at the University of Marburg, the significance of which will be remarked upon below. Recently the wider context of the genesis of Being and Time has been discussed in great detail in Kisiel’s pathbreaking work,² and this study is indebted to it. However, regarding the issues of space and history, some elucidation is still required.

Ontology, History and Time

Husserlian phenomenology was basically ahistorical,³ perhaps because of Husserl’s background in mathematics and logic. For Heidegger however, as Krell has argued, the history of philosophy was an ‘essential counterweight to phenomenology’: whereas Husserl had once remarked that he had ‘forgotten about history’, Heidegger never did.⁴ In Being and Time Heidegger makes some comments indicating the importance of the historical project, though, as shall be seen, his later work suggests that here he did not go far enough. The basic issues at stake can be seen if the distinction Heidegger makes between ontic and ontological knowledge is examined. Ontic knowledge is knowledge pertaining to the distinctive nature of beings as such, it is the knowledge of the sciences, whereas ontological knowledge is the basis on which any such theory (of ontic knowledge) could be constructed, the a priori conditions for the possibility of such sciences. Heidegger’s own exercise of fundamental ontology deals with the conditions of possibility not just of the ontic sciences, but also of the ontologies that precede and found them. This is the question of being (GA2, 11; see GA26, 195–202).⁵

A glimpse of the possibility this insight allows is found in Heidegger’s discussion of Newton:

To say that before Newton his laws were neither true nor false, cannot signify that before him there were no such beings as have been uncovered and pointed out by those laws. Through Newton the laws became true; and with them, beings became accessible in themselves to Dasein. Once beings have been uncovered, they show themselves precisely as beings which beforehand already were. Such uncovering is the kind of being which belongs to ‘truth’.

That there are ‘eternal truths’ will not be adequately proved until someone has succeeded in demonstrating that Dasein has been and will be for all eternity. As long as such a proof is still outstanding, this principle remains a fanciful contention which does not gain in legitimacy from having philosophers commonly ‘believe’ it. Because the kind of being that is essential to truth is of the character of Dasein, all truth is relative to Dasein’s being (GA2, 227).⁶

From this, it is clear that Dasein and truth are fundamentally linked, that truth is context dependent. This does not mean that truth is only what an individual thinks, but that truth only has a context dependent on the existence of Dasein (GA3, 281–2). Any eternal truths must rest on an eternal immutability to Dasein. It clearly follows from this that if being changes, or is historicized, so too is truth. It has been remarked by some critics that Heidegger does indeed, in Being and Time, suggest such an immutability to Dasein, examining it and its structures as if they were true eternally. Such critics sometimes point to a shift in the later Heidegger towards an understanding of historical nature of being, through a historical sense of Dasein, which would, following the quotation and explication here, lead to a historicizing of truth.⁷ The ontic/ontological difference – especially when historicized – is one that Foucault would go on to elaborate and use in the distinction between connaissance and savoir in The Archaeology of Knowledge, where he examined what he called the ‘historical a priori’.⁸

The idea of the history of being does not appear as an explicit theme until later works, although it would appear that the second part of Being and Time would have covered some of this area. However, Heidegger does offer some thoughts on history in what was published of Being and Time. These theses are developed in the second division of the work, and are designed for an examination of the historical nature of existence. Lest there be confusion between what Heidegger does in Being and Time, and what I will argue he does later, the following point should be considered. In Being and Time, Heidegger attempts to understand the structures of Dasein, among which is the sense of history. In his later works, Heidegger historicizes these very structures; in the specific case effectively historicizing the sense of history. If in Being and Time Heidegger attempts an ontology of history (for which the ground must be Dasein rather than historiography),⁹ in his later work he attempts a history of ontology. This radical shift is central to the influence he was to have on Foucault.

The model of history that Heidegger uses is that of Nietzsche in the second Untimely Meditation, ‘On the Uses and Disadvantages of Historiography for Life’. This is the only passage of Being and Time that treats Nietzsche at any length, a point that shall be returned to. It is worth rehearsing the arguments of Nietzsche here, for Heidegger’s reading departs in some important ways. For Nietzsche, history is not capable of objectivity, and where this is aimed for often great harm results. Instead, history has to be subjective, and therefore historians need to be aware of the uses to which their work is being put. In the preface to this work, Nietzsche provides a succinct summary of how he sees the use of historical study:

For I do not know what meaning classical philology would have for our time if not to have an untimely effect within it, that is, to act against the time and so have an effect on the time, to the advantage, it is to be hoped, of a coming time. (UB II, Preface)

In other words, Nietzsche is aware that studying the past allows us to effect the present, and through this, the future. This much was clear from his The Birth of Tragedy, written immediately before this work. Nietzsche sees that there is something fundamentally wrong with the present, that there may be things in the past that may be of interest and illumination, and that knowing these things may be useful to change both how we see the present, and the future. Nietzsche’s diagnosis of the cultural malaise of his own time – exacerbated by the threat of war and the Paris Commune – can be cured by seeing how Greece dealt with a parallel problem. Wagner’s music dramas can, once reinterpreted in a particular way, provide future benefit.

The Untimely Meditation suggests that history is a necessary part of human lives. Unlike the animal, which forgets and is therefore able to live unhistorically, what distinguishes humans is that they remember. Humans live with a sense of time, they remain attached to the past as if chained. The fleeting moment, although it flashes by, can return as a ‘spectre’ to haunt a later moment. The human therefore has a need of history, but we need to be careful to ensure that it is used to the best advantage of life. This involves a number of balances. First, we must learn that if we remember everything we would never act. Some degree of unhistorical living is necessary (UB II, 1).¹⁰ Nietzsche then distinguishes between three types of history – the monumental, the antiquarian and the critical. As far as humans are active and striving, they have need of monumental history; where they preserve and admire, antiquarian; and where they suffer and are in need of liberation, critical (UB II, 2).

Monumental history is the kind of history needed by someone who aspires to greatness. Nietzsche suggests that by looking back into the past one can see what might be possible again in the future, because what was once possible can be possible again. The question arises as to what difference there is between a monumental past and a mythical fiction. In order to serve its ends, the monumental approach has to generalize and be selective. A dominance of this mode of history would be dangerous because of the fear that some things might be forgotten, and because this mode deceives by analogies, as things will not be the same again (UB II, 2). Antiquarian history is for use by those who preserve and revere – who give thanks for their existence by acknowledging their debt to the past. However, like monumental history, antiquarian history has its problems. It has a tendency to inflate the past, runs the risk of nostalgia and is possibly not entirely critical. Without some critical perspective there is the danger that all is equally revered – without selection – and that the new is despised in relation to the past. Nietzsche suggests that this could mean that life is no longer preserved but is mummified (UB II, 3). The antiquarian and the monumental thus both complement and contradict each other: one takes the spirit from the past in order to elevate the future whereas the other praises heritage.

To accompany these modes of history Nietzsche thinks that the human ‘must have the strength, and use it from time to time, to shatter and dissolve something to enable them to live’. As he would repeatedly stress in his later work, he who wishes to create must first destroy. This is the critical attitude to the past (UB II, 3). It is clear from this early essay that Nietzsche sees each of the three modes of history as having its particular context. He suggests that much harm is caused by thoughtless transplanting of the modes. Out of their native soil they will grow as weeds (UB II, 2). At the start of the essay Nietzsche had quoted from Goethe: ‘Moreover I hate anything which merely instructs me without increasing or directly enlivening [beleben] my activity’ (UB II, Preface). Nietzsche uses this quotation to suggest that we need history, but for life [Leben] and action, in order to serve life, rather than for narrow, scholarly, scientific goals. Given the choice of life ruling over knowledge, over science, or knowledge ruling over life, we should choose life, for any knowledge that destroys life would also have destroyed itself: knowledge presupposes life (UB II, 4).¹¹

Heidegger suggests that although Nietzsche ‘distinguished three kinds of historiography – the monumental, the antiquarian, and the critical’, he failed to explicitly point out ‘the necessity of this triad or the ground of its unity’ (GA2, 396). In fact, although his later genealogical approach is arguably a fusion of these three types of historiography, Nietzsche never explicitly states that the three should be conflated.¹² Given Heidegger’s purpose, this joining together is of key importance. ‘The threefold character of historiography [Historie] is adumbrated in the historicality [Geschichtlichkeit] of Dasein . . . [which] enables us to understand to what extent these three possibilities must be united factically and concretely in any historiography which is authentic [eigentliche]’ (GA2, 396). It is important to note the distinction Heidegger draws between Historie and Geschichte. Historie is, for Heidegger, the writing of history, the discipline of historiography; Geschichte is history as it actually happens [geschieht], the events.¹³

Heidegger reads these three types of historiography as having distinct attitudes to time. The antiquarian approach orientates itself to the past, the having been; the monumental to the future; and the critical to the present. It is in the reading of the last of these that Heidegger departs from Nietzsche, for Nietzsche used the critical approach as an orientation to the past.¹⁴ As far back as 1922 Heidegger had suggested this: ‘The critique of history is always only the critique of the present [Kritik der Gegenwart]’ (PIA 4). As Bambach notes, this may be due to Heidegger’s reading Kierkegaard’s Two Ages in the German translation Kritik der Gegenwart.¹⁵ We find this critical attitude exemplified in Heidegger’s reading of philosophy:

Ruthlessness toward the tradition is reverence toward the past, and it is genuine only in an appropriation of the latter (the past) out of a de-struction of the former (the tradition). On this basis, all actual historiographical work, something quite different from historiography in the usual sense, must dovetail with philosophy’s research into the matters themselves. (GA19, 414)

In other words, the ‘tradition’ as received in the present covers over the past. This notion of de-struction is therefore far from negative: it is an uncovering, a de-structuring, an archaeology of the levels of interpretation, the layers of sedimentation of the tradition that have obscured the issue...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter One: Space and History in Being and Time
• Chapter Two: In the Shadow of Nazism: Reading Hölderlin and Nietzsche
• Chapter Three: Art, Technology, Place and the Political
• Chapter Four: Towards a Spatial History
• Chapter Five: The Spaces of Power
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• eCopyright