Jacques Derrida, Of Spirit

document.write(parent.prscreen)

In a 1987 lecture, Heidegger: Open Questions, given by Jacques Derrida and afterwards transposed into a volume entitled, Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question, Derrida presents a critical analysis of the question of Being and the questioning of its meaning which is the focal point of Heideggerian philosophy. He examines this specifically in the light of another recurrent aspect of Heidegger’s work—that of Geist or spirit. Regarding this concept as one that is chronologically developed over the course of his works between 1927 and 1953, Derrida probes the shifting role of Geist and changes in Heidegger’s attitude toward it—between avoidance and glorification— and this is done especially in reference to philosophical nationalism and national socialism, in which Heidegger was involved. Moreover, three central themes are undertaken dealing with the question, animals, and technology. It is due to this variance of spirit in Heidegger, coupled with the nature of translation itself, that the meaning of “spirit” must be deconstructed, and given an “analytic of Gemüt” [disposition]. (22)
Derrida begins by questioning that which he has chosen to be the title this work, “Of Spirit”, acknowledging that “spirit” was never a title of any of Heidegger’s philosophical discourses, and hardly ever is there mention of spirit in terms of essence. While commenting how “no one ever speaks of spirit in Heidegger…even the anti-Heideggerrian specialists”, he still asserts that “…people avoid in their turn speaking of spirit in a work which nonetheless lets itself be magnetized, from its first to its last word, by that very thing”. He aims to perform an experiment of language, putting both German and his own native French to a “test of translation” so as to determine any level of interchangeability between Geist (including geistig, geistlich) and de l’Esprit. The objective here is to gain a transparency of meaning across languages, if possible, through translation and via deconstruction. Three initial arguments are given to this end. First, the aim of explicating the “quarrel” between the German language, and that of Rome, Latin, and Greek.(and thus to treat “of spirit”, as denoted by the Franco-Latin de) as well as attempting to describe a certain powerful force given to spirit in the German language particularly; second, Derrida wants to address a thematic element of spirit which is frequently inherent to very tense political atmospheres; lastly he says that if spirit cannot be classified thematically as just now mentioned, it needs another category of definition and is therefore not only “inscribed” in the political arena, but defines the “meaning…as such”. (1-13)
Delving into the question, Derrida says of Geist that “it is perhaps the name Heidegger gives…to this unquestioned possibility of the question”, and he says also that this is what “Heidegger wants to save from any destitution.” For him, Geist is contrary to the “thing” or “thing-ness”—it cannot be reified as with “the thingification of the subject, of the subjectivity of Descartes”; this must be partitioned in order to save the analytic of Dasein. Spirit, and similar words, is thus avoided, for they are tied to the Cartesian subjectum. Hence, the Fragen, the question itself and its possibility as such, provides the only “correct point of departure”. While Dasein is that which has “care for its Being”, Derrida says it can be indifferent by virtue of the fact that its being indifferent allows for the possibility of its interesting itself in the question of its own being—“[Dasein’s] indifference in this case is a modalization of its non-indifference.” He further elaborates on three types of indifference: the vorhandene being, such as an inanimate object; secondly, indifference as a “positive phenomenon of Dasein”; and lastly, that of the lack of urgency to ask the questions of Being, present before and since Descartes (to include Hegel), which allows for a “vulgar concept of time.” Desiring to escape such a paradigm, Heidegger avoids using the term “spirit” (much in the fashion of a Husserlian epoche, in a sense) by placing it in quotation marks; but in so doing, Derrida remarks that this is also an “un-avoidance” of the term. In this process, there is a “re-Germanization” of spirit occurring as the term comes to be appropriated again in relation to space and time. He avoids the traditional notion of spirit, for as Derrida explains, “it is by virtue of this ‘spirituality’ that Dasein is a being of space, and Heidegger even underlines it, only by virtue of such a spirituality.” As for time, Heidegger distinguishes his conception as different from that “vulgar” view of Hegel (since Hegel’s view of spirit continues in the path of the Cartesian cogito)—spirit is not external to time, it “exists as originary temporalization of temporality.” Furthermore, spirit does not “fall” into time, but from time to time, and hence, from spirit to spirit, thus into itself; in a related note Derrida says that, regardless of the presence of quotation marks or not, “spirit is not other than time”. (14-30)
In 1933 Martin Heidegger became rectorate of the German university in Freiburg, and spirit, free from quotation marks, returns to the fore anew as its own “double”, its own Geist, and “ghost”. In his Rectorship Address the face of spirit is transformed, in a “self-affirmation” of the German university and the “destiny” of the German people. In the address Heidegger defines spirit in terms of four categories: questioning (Fragen), and the responsibility that comes with it; the world; earth-and-blood; and resolution which gives its possibility of the opening to the authenticity of Dasein. In the address, spirit is first and foremost placed high on a pedestal. It is tied with history, “historicity”, in such a way that according to Derrida, their “union…makes of the Fragen the very assignment of spirit.” Here, the possibility of the Fragen is how one should interpret the “spirit of spiritual conduction”—spirit is then a “leap” to a questioning, the question—and this leap can only take place in a world which is necessarily spiritual. In fact, Heidegger says, “Spirituality is the name of that without which there is no world.” (51) Regarding this world of spirit, Derrida next continues to explain Dasein in relation to this spiritual having-of-a-world. The animal, though not Dasein, is described as having and not having a world. For instance, it has access to some tools, but not to art, or craftsmanship—thus, it is incapable of techné. It is not a “closed” entity such as being inanimate, rather the “animal is closed to the very o p e n ing of the entity” and has no access to faculties of meaningfully differentiating entities as such. This middle position of animality in regard to Dasein is described by Derrida as a difficulty present throughout Heidegger’s work which is “fundamentally teleological and traditional, not to say dialectical” (31-59)
As for the motivation from which Heidegger’s shifting expression of spirit gains direction, this is grounded in his desire to address a “destitution of spirit” which Heidegger views as a moving toward spirit, “from within it.” This again relates back to the movement of away from Cartesian preconceptions, but particularly Heidegger is concerned with spiritual “resignation” that he says is the cause of a misinterpretation of the meaning of spirit and thus also, of spirit itself. He focuses on four forms of this: that alongside understanding and mass-distribution (a debasement through over-rationalization of spirit); instrumentalization or “falsification” of spirit concerning technology and the precedence of the Fragen; the becoming of culture through resigning the spiritual world to instrumentalization; and finally a political appeal to spirit through cultural propaganda. Additionally, Heidegger sees evil as the “tormenting” of spirit, existing due to the division of Geist among men, and one source for this is the lack of “originary questioning.” Thus, spirit must be “re-awakened”; this task is a correlative aspect of the responsibility Heidegger attaches to a questioning, and for that matter, a questioning that is common to “a people”, and hence a linguistic community. German and Greek are given privilege in the question of Being (which is always has a ground in meaning), based on a spiritual quality made present in thought by their corresponding terminologies; but German ultimately surpasses this joint quality for Heidegger—“it is the only language in which spirit comes to name itself.” (58-72)
Moreover, Geist is “the unconditioned absolute which determines and gathers every entity.” (76) Derrida describes this as “that which gathers or in which what gathers is gathered.” Similarly, Heidegger has said, “In that it is a unity, spirit is das Wehen [breath].” Heidegger uses metaphor to describe spirit—aligning it with breath and respiration, its unity is brought about through love. As Heidegger sees spirit as a continual return to itself, (as Derrida states, “it is never at home”), spirit is characterized by a “nostalgia for its own essence.” Another metaphor employed is that of the likening of spirit to fire. This has bearing on the movement of spirit or soul, the latter being “given” by spirit (and not just lost by spirit upon one’s death). This movement Heidegger interprets conversely to Platonism, in that he sees meaning itself as what gives the soul direction; this occurs through a “listening to language.” (87-88) Geschlect, while nearly above translation and meaning anything from race, nation, stock, or generation, it is a geopolitical gathering of spirit, and it is said to be “fallen”. It is compared to its “following of a stranger” within the physical realm, not as though the soul or spirit were imprisoned but as though on a spiritual journey. Thus Derrida makes use of the term “revenant”, to describe Heidegger’s interpretive outlook of soul and spirit in his evaluation of Trakl’s poetry, for it is constantly returning to itself and its originary essence.
At the close, we are asked again, then, what is Geist? Derrida’s answer: “spirit-in-flames.” To help us understand this, he explains:
It is not a figure, not a metaphor. Heidegger, at least, would contest any rhetoricizing reading. One could attempt to bring the concepts of rhetoric to bear here only after making sure of some proper meaning for one or other of these words, spirit, flame, in such and such a determinate language, in such and such a text, in such and such a sentence. We are far from that and everything comes back to this difficulty. (96)
Indeed, everything does return to this ultimate difficulty, this paradoxical (inter)subjectivity of the metaphor—and this is especially so in regard to Geist, a spirit within its own spirit. We are constantly becoming lost within translation—yet it seems that it is here in the provenance of meaning in which we continually find ourselves. Thus as Derrida states, referring to the responsibility of questioning, “one must indeed sign this theorem over in one’s own language”, for the metaphorical symbolism of language is the medium of any thought, and thus any questioning of any Being. What is Being? How does one come to arrive at the opening of this questioning? The answer resides precisely in the consciousness of the asking, and certainly also the possibility of such an inquirer; but what of the conditions for the possibility of this interrogative experience? For Heidegger, this question (Fragen) is the condition, a conditionality revolving around the “care” of Da-sein, “the being for whom being is in question”; yet this inquiry is inextricably linked with Geist, or “spirit”, for Dasein is always a being-in-the-world, that is, a spiritual world. Geist makes possible such an existential inquiry—it allows for any sort of deconstruction of any meaning. In questioning Being, the complexity and breadth of inquiry is entirely contingent upon the contextual framework within which an individual may perform such an existential inquisition. The answer then, and hence the question, may well be one in the same. Just as Geist is to itself a duplicity, the two-fold question of being can become its own answer, via the materialization of the very inquiry. Certainly this question is solely one’s own, for the ‘individual’ [of] Dasein must affirm this responsibility within the idiom that guides their spiritual path to Truth—this is as it must be, if we are to learn to live within, live as, the Question.




Works Cited
Derrida, Jacques. Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question. Trans. Geoffrey Bennington and Rachel Bowlby. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1987.