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[Andrzej_Wiercinski_(ed ... - WordPress.com

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We now ne<strong>ed</strong> to quote a second, well-known Heideggerian saying: “Rather, language isthe house of Being, in which the human being ek-sists by dwelling, in that he belongs to thetruth of Being, guarding it.” 16 This saying implies that language is not a m<strong>ed</strong>ium that isseparate from Being, a m<strong>ed</strong>ium in which Being is express<strong>ed</strong>, but that it is Being itself thatoccurs in language. In other words, language, as the house of Being, is the occurrence ofBeing, since it is only in language that Being appears and stays preserv<strong>ed</strong>. As a result, thefabric of language-with-Being as occurrence calls for a different type of “description” thanthat which is still dominant in Being and Time. This new type of description -- as the demonstration(die Aufzeigung) of the thing from itself -- assumes the form of a permanentmeta-phorization of Being in language. This results in the tendency to “poetize” thelanguage us<strong>ed</strong> in the “description” of Being, a tendency that increases apace and be<strong>com</strong>es,in its turn, dominant in Heidegger’s late works.At this point, we should not forget that the term “description,” when us<strong>ed</strong> to describeBeing as an occurrence enjoys quite a different status from that accord<strong>ed</strong> to it by Husserl’sphenomenological description of the “thing itself.” The aim of the former “description”is neither to make the “thing” originally visible, nor to clarify it by interpretation. It is,rather, to transform the very description into an ‘occurrence,’ so that the “thing” <strong>com</strong>esto light in its very occurrence. Accordingly, the phenomenological description assumes aperformative character. It realizes in itself what in Being and Time still appear<strong>ed</strong> as themere horizon of language (which makes possible the description/interpretation of anythingat all). In this sense, Heidegger does not abandon the idea of phenomenological description,but realizes it in its most radical form: as a factual description of “the thing fromitself.”The idea of phenomenological description as formulat<strong>ed</strong> in Being and Time thus <strong>com</strong>esto a transforming climax in Heidegger’s work after the “turn.” The description of the“thing from itself” emerges as the ‘thing’s self-presentation,’ that is, it has been transform<strong>ed</strong>into the thing’s direct occurrence in words. Differently express<strong>ed</strong>, phenomenologicaldescription has be<strong>com</strong>e a direct “activity” of the thing itself. It is, literally, the thing itselfwhich calls phenomenological description into being. We are not speaking only of a particularfusion between phenomenological description and Being itself, as the new characteristicof the philosophical language us<strong>ed</strong> by the later Heidegger. We are now speakingof the transformation of the very “description” into the occurrence itself of Being. Consequently,the early Husserlian idea of phenomenology as a “descriptive science” hasmetamorphos<strong>ed</strong> into phenomenology as a “performative science,” in which the descriptionof Being be<strong>com</strong>es the occurrence of Being itself in the process of being express<strong>ed</strong>.Phenomenology has be<strong>com</strong>e language, and language <strong>com</strong>es into being in the veryoccurring of Being.16Heidegger, Pathmarks, 254; idem, Wegmarken, 330: “Vielmehr ist die Sprache das Haus des Seins,darin wohnend der Mensch eksistiert, indem er der Wahrheit des Seins, sie hütend, gehört.”258

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