Heidegger on Ontological Education orHow We Become What We Are

Iain ThomsonUniversity of New Mexico

Heidegger presciently diagnosed the current crisis in higher education Contemporarytheorists like Bill Readings extend and update Heideggerrsquos critique documenting theincreasing instrumentalization professionalization vocationalization corporatizationand technologization of the modern university the dissolution of its unifying andguiding ideals and consequently the growing hyper-specialization and ruinousfragmentation of its departments Unlike Heidegger however these critics do notrecognize such disturbing trends as interlocking symptoms of an underlyingontological problem and so they provide no positive vision for the future of highereducation By understanding our educational crisis lsquoontohistoricallyrsquo Heidegger isable to develop an alternative ontological conception of education which he hopeswill help bring about a renaissance of the university In a provocative reading ofPlatorsquos famous lsquoallegory of the caversquo Heidegger excavates and appropriates theoriginal Western educational ideal of Platonic paideia outlining the pedagogy of anontological education capable of directly challenging the lsquotechnologicalunderstanding of beingrsquo he holds responsible for our contemporary educational crisisThis notion of ontological education can best be understood as a philosophicalperfectionism a re-essentialization of the currently empty ideal of educationallsquoexcellencersquo by which Heidegger believes we can reconnect teaching to research andultimately reunify and revitalize the university itself

I Introduction

Heidegger sought to deconstruct education Rather than deny this we shouldsimply reject the polemical reduction of lsquodeconstructionrsquo (Destruktion) tolsquodestructionrsquo (Zerstorung) and instead be clear that the goal of Heideggerrsquosdeconstruction of education is not to destroy our traditional Westerneducational institutions but to lsquoloosen uprsquo this lsquohardened tradition anddissolve the concealments it has engenderedrsquo in order to lsquorecoverrsquo from thebeginning of the educational tradition those lsquoprimordial experiencesrsquo whichhave fundamentally shaped its subsequent historical development1 In factHeideggerrsquos deconstructions are so far from being simple destructions thatnot only do they always include a positive as well as a negative moment butthis negative moment in which the sedimented layers of distortinginterpretations are cleared away is invariably in the service of the positivemoment in which something long concealed is recovered To understand howthis double deconstructive strategy operates in the case of education then weneed simply clarify and develop these two moments What distortions does

Inquiry 44 243ndash68

2001 Taylor amp Francis

Heideggerrsquos deconstruction of education seek to cut through And moreimportantly what does it seek to recover Let us answer this second moreimportant question rst

Through a hermeneutic excavation of the famous lsquoallegory of the caversquo inPlatorsquos Republic ndash the textual site where pedagogical theory emerged fromthe noonday shadows of Orphic mystery and Protagorean obscurity in order toinstitute for the rst time the lsquoAcademyrsquo as such ndash Heidegger seeks to placebefore our eyes the most in uential understanding of lsquoeducationrsquo in Westernhistory Platorsquos conception of paideia Heidegger maintains that aspects ofPlatorsquos founding pedagogical vision have exerted an unparalleled in uenceon our subsequent historical understandings of lsquoeducationrsquo (its natureprocedures and goals) while other even more profound aspects have beenforgotten These forgotten aspects of paideia are what his deconstruction ofeducation seeks to recover Back then to our rst question Whathermeneutic misconceptions or distortions stand in the way of this recoveryand so must rst be cleared away Heideggerrsquos focus here is on amisconception about education which also forms part of the legacy ofPlatorsquos cave a distortion embodied in and perpetuated by those institutionswhich re ect and transmit our historical understanding of education

Now one might expect Heideggerrsquos assessment of the future prospects forour educational institutions to be unremittingly pessimistic given that his laterlsquoontohistoricalrsquo (seinsgeschichtliche) perspective allowed him to discern sopresciently those interlocking trends whereby we increasingly instrumenta-lize professionalize vocationalize corporatize and ultimately technologizeeducation Heideggerrsquos powerful critique of the way in which our educationalinstitutions have come to express a nihilistic lsquotechnological understanding ofbeingrsquo will be developed in section II But before assuming that this diagnosisof education amounts to a death sentence we need to recall the point withwhich we began Heideggerrsquos deconstructive strategies always have twomoments Thus when he seeks to recover the ontological core of Platonicpaideia his intent is not only to trace the technologization of education back toan ontological ambiguity already inherent in Platorsquos founding pedagogicalvision (thereby demonstrating the historical contingency of these disturbingeducational trends and so loosening their grip on us) More importantly healso means to show how forgotten aspects of the original Platonic notion ofpaideia remain capable of inspiring heretofore unthought of possibilities forthe future of education Indeed only Heideggerrsquos hope for the future of oureducational institutions can explain his otherwise entirely mysterious claimthat his paideia lsquointerpretationrsquo is lsquomade necessary from out of a future need[aus einer kunftigen Not notwendige]rsquo2

This oracular pronouncement sounds mysterious yet I believe Heideggerrsquosdeconstruction of education is motivated entirely by this lsquofuture needrsquo Isubmit that this future need is double like the deconstruction mobilized in its

244 Iain Thomson

service it contains a positive as well as a negative moment These twomoments are so important that the rest of this essay will be devoted to theirexplication Negatively we need a critical perspective which will allow us tograsp the underlying historical logic according to which our educationalinstitutions have developed and will continue to develop if nothing is done toalter their course As we will see in section II Heidegger was one of the rstto diagnose correctly what a growing number of incisive critics ofcontemporary education have subsequently con rmed We now stand inthe midst of an historical crisis in higher education Heideggerrsquos profoundunderstanding of the nature of this crisis ndash his insight that it can be understoodas a total eclipse of Platorsquos original educational ideal ndash reveals theontohistorical trajectory leading up to our current educational crisis andmore importantly illuminates a path which might lead us out of it

This is fortunate since the gravity of Heideggerrsquos diagnosis immediatelysuggests a complementary positive need We need an alternative to ourcontemporary understanding of education an alternative capable of favorablyresolving our educational crisis by averting the technological dissolution ofthe historical essence of education Heideggerrsquos hope is this Since anambiguity at the heart of Platorsquos original understanding of education lentitself to an historical misunderstanding in which the essence of education hasbeen obscured and is now in danger of being forgotten the deconstructiverecovery of this long-obscured essence of education can now help us envisiona way to restore substance to the increasingly formal and empty ideals guidingcontemporary education It thus makes perfect sense that this need for apositive alternative leads Heidegger back to Platorsquos cave Retracing his stepsin section III I reconstruct lsquothe essence of educationrsquo that Heidegger seeks torecover from the shadows of history thereby eshing out his positive visionIn section IV I consider brie y how this re-ontologization of education mighthelp us begin to envision a path leading beyond our contemporary educationalcrisis

II Heideggerrsquos Ontohistorical Critique of the Technologization ofEducation

The rst aspect of our lsquofuture needrsquo is for a critical perspective which willallow us to discern the underlying logic that has long guided the historicaldevelopment of our educational institutions a perspective which will rendervisible the developmental trajectory these institutions continue to follow Asintimated above Heidegger maintains that his lsquohistory of beingrsquo (Seins-geschichte) provides precisely this perspective As he puts it lsquothe essence oftruth and the kinds of transformations it undergoes rst make possible [thehistorical unfolding of] ldquoeducationrdquo in its basic structuresrsquo3 Heidegger means

Heidegger on Ontological Education 245

by this that the history of being makes possible the historical development ofour educational institutions although to see this we must carefully unpackthis initially puzzling reference to lsquothe essence of truth and the kinds oftransformations it undergoesrsquo

1 From the Essence of Truth to the History of Being

Heideggerrsquos pronouncement that the essence of truth transforms soundsparadoxical how can an essence change This will seem impossible tosomeone like Kripke who holds that an essence is a property an entitypossesses necessarily the referent of a lsquorigid designatorrsquo the extension ofwhich is xed across all possible worlds4 The paradox disappears howeveronce we realize that Heidegger too uses lsquoessencersquo (Wesen) as a technical termalbeit quite differently from Kripke To understand lsquoessencersquo in phrases suchas lsquothe essence of truthrsquo and lsquothe essence of technologyrsquo Heidegger explainswe cannot conceive of lsquoessencersquo the way we have been doing since Plato aswhat lsquopermanently enduresrsquo for that makes it seem as if by lsquoessencersquo lsquowemean some mythological abstractionrsquo Instead Heidegger insists we need tothink of lsquoessencersquo as a verb as the way in which things lsquoessencersquo (west) orlsquoremain in playrsquo (im Spiel bleibt)5 In Heideggerrsquos usage lsquoessencersquo picks outthe extension of an entity unfolding itself in historical intelligibilityOtherwise put Heidegger understands lsquoessencersquo in terms of being and sincebeing is not a real predicate (as Kant showed) there is little likelihood that anentityrsquos lsquoessencersquo can be picked out by a single xed predicate or underlyingproperty (as substance metaphysics assumes) Rather for Heideggerlsquoessencersquo simply denotes the historical way in which an entity comes toreveal itself ontologically and be understood by Dasein6 Accordinglylsquoessencersquo must be understood in terms of the lsquoek-sistencersquo of Da-sein that isin terms of lsquobeing set-out into the disclosedness of beingsrsquo7

In lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo (1929) Heidegger applies this historicalunderstanding of lsquoessencersquo to truth contending famously (if no longer terriblycontroversially) that the original historical lsquoessence of truthrsquo is not simplylsquounforgottennessrsquo (Unvergessenheit a literal translation of the original Greekword for lsquotruthrsquo Aletheia ndash the alpha-privative lsquoun-rsquo plus Lethe themythological lsquoriver of forgettingrsquo) but phenomenological lsquoun-concealednessrsquo(Un-verborgenheit) more generally Historically lsquotruthrsquo rst refers torevealedness or phenomenological manifestation rather than to accuraterepresentation the lsquolocus of truthrsquo is not originally the correspondence of anassertion to a state of affairs but the antecedent fact that there is somethingthere to which the assertion might correspond So conceived the lsquoessence oftruthrsquo is a lsquorevealednessrsquo fully co-extensional with Daseinrsquos lsquoexistencersquo thebasic fact of our lsquostanding-outrsquo (ek-sistere) historically into phenomenolo-gical intelligibility lsquoThe essence of truthrsquo thus refers to the way in which this

246 Iain Thomson

lsquorevealednessrsquo takes shape historically namely as a series of differentontological constellations of intelligibility It is not surprising then thatHeidegger rst began to elaborate his lsquohistory of beingrsquo in lsquoOn the Essence ofTruthrsquo for him lsquothe essence of truthrsquo is lsquothe history of beingrsquo

Of course such strong claims about the radically historical character of ourconcepts (even cherished concepts like lsquoessencersquo lsquotruthrsquo lsquohistoryrsquo lsquoconceptrsquoand lsquobeingrsquo) tend to make philosophers nervous When Heidegger historicizesontology by re-rooting it in the historical existence of Dasein how does hisaccount avoid simply dissolving intelligibility into the ux of timeHeideggerrsquos answer is surprising it is the metaphysical tradition thatprevents intelligibility from dissolving into a pure temporal ux Indeedcareful readers will notice that when Heidegger writes that lsquoek-sistentdisclosive Da-sein possesses the human being so originarily that only itsecures for humanity that distinctive relatedness to the totality of beings assuch which rst grounds all historyrsquo he is subtly invoking his account of theway in which metaphysics grounds intelligibility Unfortunately thecomplexity of Heideggerrsquos idiosyncratic understanding of Western meta-physics as ontotheology coupled with his seemingly strong antipathy tometaphysics has tended to obscure the unparalleled pride of place he in factassigns to metaphysics in the historical construction contestation andmaintenance of intelligibility Put simply Heidegger holds that ourmetaphysiciansrsquo ontological understandings of what entities are lsquoas suchrsquoground intelligibility from the inside-out (as it were) while their theologicalunderstandings of the way in which the lsquototalityrsquo of beings existsimultaneously secure the intelligible order from the outside-in Westernhistoryrsquos successive constellations of intelligibility are thus lsquodoublygroundedrsquo in a series of ontotheologically structured understandings of lsquothebeing of beingsrsquo (das Sein des Seienden) understandings that is of both whatand how beings are or of lsquothe totality of beings as suchrsquo (as Heidegger puts itabove)8

This account answers our worry for although none of these ontotheolo-gical grounds has served the history of intelligibility as an unshakeablelsquofoundationrsquo (Grund) nor have any of the major ontotheologies instantlygiven way like a groundless lsquoabyssrsquo (Abgrund) Rather each ontotheology hasserved its historical constellation of intelligibility as an Ungrund lsquoa perhapsnecessary appearance of groundrsquo that is as that point at which ontologicalinquiry comes to a rest9 Because each ontotheology serves for a time as thepoint where lsquothe spade turnsrsquo (as Wittgenstein put it) the history ofintelligibility has taken the form of a series of relatively durable overlappinghistorical lsquoepochsrsquo rather than either a single monolithic understanding ofwhat-is or a formless ontological ux10 Thus metaphysics by repeatedlysupplying intelligibility with dual ontotheological anchors is able lsquoto holdbackrsquo (epoche) the oodwaters of intelligibility for a time ndash the time of an

Heidegger on Ontological Education 247

lsquoepochrsquo It is this lsquooverlappingrsquo historical series of ontotheologicallygrounded epochs that Heidegger calls the history of being

2 The History of Being as the Ground of Education

With this philosophical background in place we can now understand thereasoning behind Heideggerrsquos claim that our changing historical under-standing of lsquoeducationrsquo is grounded in the history of being11 Heideggerdefends a kind of ontological holism By giving shape to our historicalunderstanding of lsquowhat isrsquo metaphysics determines the most basicpresuppositions of what anything is including lsquoeducationrsquo As he puts itlsquoWestern humanity in all its comportment toward beings and even towarditself is in every respect sustained and guided by metaphysicsrsquo12 The lsquogreatmetaphysiciansrsquo focus and disseminate an ontotheological understanding ofwhat and how beings are thereby establishing the most basic conceptualparameters and ultimate standards of legitimacy for their historical epochsThese ontotheologies function historically like self-ful lling propheciesreshaping intelligibility from the ground up For as a new ontotheologicalunderstanding of what and how beings are takes hold and spreads ittransforms our basic understanding of what all entities are13 Our under-standing of education is lsquomade possiblersquo by the history of being then sincewhen our understanding of what beings are changes historically ourunderstanding of what lsquoeducationrsquo is transforms as well

This conclusion is crucial not only does it answer the question that hasguided us thus far it positions us to understand what exactly Heidegger ndsobjectionable about our contemporary understanding of education (and theeducational institutions which embody this understanding) For Heidegger ourchanging historical understanding of what lsquoeducationrsquo is has its place in anhistorical series of ontological lsquoepochsrsquo holistic constellations of intelligibilitywhich are themselves grounded in a series of ontotheological understandings ofwhat and how beings are In order fully to comprehend Heideggerrsquos critique ofcontemporary education then we need to answer three interrelated questionsFirst what exactly is the nature of our own ontological epoch Second inwhich ontotheology is our constellation of intelligibility grounded And thirdhow has this underlying ontotheology shaped our present understanding ofeducation I will take these questions in order

Heideggerrsquos name for our contemporary constellation of intelligibility isof course lsquoenframingrsquo (das Gestell) Heidegger chooses this polysemic termbecause by etymologically connoting a gathering together (lsquoGe-rsquo) of themyriad forms of stellen (lsquoto set stand regulate secure ready establishrsquo andso on) it succinctly conveys his understanding of the way in which ourpresent lsquomode of revealingrsquo ndash a lsquosetting-upon that challenges forthrsquo ndash forcesthe lsquopresencingrsquo (anwesen) of entities into its metaphysical lsquostamp or moldrsquo

248 Iain Thomson

(Pragung)14 Yet this is not simply to substitute etymology for argument asdetractors allege Heidegger uses etymology in order to come up with anappropriate name for our contemporary lsquomode of revealingrsquo but theargumentative work in his account is done by his understanding ofmetaphysics This means that to really understand why Heideggercharacterizes our contemporary epoch as das Gestell we must take themeasure of his claim that lsquoenframingrsquo is grounded in an ontotheologytransmitted to us by Nietzsche On Heideggerrsquos reading Nietzschersquos staunchanti-metaphysical stance merely hides the fact that he actually philosophizedon the basis of an lsquounthoughtrsquo metaphysics Nietzschersquos Nachlab clearlydemonstrates that he conceptualized lsquothe totality of beings as suchrsquoontotheologically as lsquoeternally recurring will-to-powerrsquo that is as anunending disaggregation and reaggregation of forces without purpose orgoal15 This Nietzschean ontotheology not only inaugurates the lsquometaphysicsof the atomic agersquo it grounds enframing Our unthinking reliance onNietzschersquos ontotheology is leading us to transform all beings ourselvesincluded into mere lsquoresourcesrsquo (Bestand) entities lacking intrinsic meaningwhich are thus simply optimized and disposed of with maximal ef ciency16

Heidegger famously characterizes enframing as a technological under-standing of being As an historical lsquomode of revealingrsquo in which entitiesincreasingly show up only as resources to be optimized enframing generatesa lsquocalculative thinkingrsquo which like the mythic touch of King Midasquanti es all qualitative relations This lsquolimitless ldquoquanti cationrdquorsquo whichabsorbs all qualitative relations (until we come to treat lsquoquantity as qualityrsquo)is rooted in enframingrsquos ontologically reductive mode of revealing wherebylsquo[o]nly what is calculable in advance counts as beingrsquo Enframing thus tendsto reduce all entities to bivalent programmable lsquoinformationrsquo digitized datawhich increasingly enters into lsquoa state of pure circulationrsquo17 Indeed asHeideggerrsquos phenomenological meditation on a highway interchangerevealed to him in the 1950s ndash and as our lsquoinformation superhighwayrsquo theInternet now makes plain ndash we exhibit a growing tendency to relate to ourworld and ourselves merely as a lsquonetwork of long distance traf c paced ascalculated for maximum yieldrsquo18 Reading quotidian historical developmentsin terms of this ontohistorical logic Heidegger believed our passage fromCartesian modernity to Nietzschean postmodernity was already visible in thetransformation of employment agencies into lsquohuman resourcersquo departmentsThe technological move afoot to reduce teachers and scholars to lsquoon-linecontent providersrsquo merely extends ndash and so clari es ndash the logic wherebymodern subjects transform themselves into postmodern resources by turningtechniques developed for controlling nature back onto themselves19

Unfortunately as this historical transformation of subjects into resourcesbecomes more pervasive it further eludes our critical gaze indeed we cometo treat ourselves in the very terms which underlie our technological

Heidegger on Ontological Education 249

refashioning of the world no longer as conscious Cartesian subjects takingcontrol of an objective world but rather as one more resource to be optimizedordered and enhanced with maximal ef ciency ndash whether cosmeticallypsychopharmacologically or educationally

Here then Heidegger believes he has uncovered the subterraneanontohistorical logic guiding the development of our educational institutionsBut how does contemporary education re ect this nihilistic logic ofenframing In what sense are todayrsquos educational institutions caught up inan unlimited quanti cation of qualitative relations which strips beings of theirintrinsic meanings transforming them into mere resources to be optimizedwith maximal ef ciency

3 Education as Enframing

Heidegger began developing his critique of higher education in 1911 andcontinued elaborating it well into the 1960s but perhaps his most directanswer to this question comes in 192920 Having nally been awarded a fullprofessorship (on the basis of Being and Time) the 39-year-old Heideggergives his of cial lsquoInaugural Lecturersquo at Freiburg University the famouslsquoWhat is Metaphysicsrsquo He begins boldly directing his critical attention to theuniversity itself by emphasizing philosophyrsquos concrete lsquoexistentialrsquo founda-tions (since lsquometaphysical questioning must be posed from the essentialposition of the existence [Dasein] that questionsrsquo) Within the lifeworld of theuniversity Heidegger observes lsquoexistencersquo (Dasein) is determined byWissenschaft the knowledge embodied in the humanities and naturalsciences lsquoOur Dasein ndash in the community of researchers teachers andstudents ndash is determined by science or knowledge [durch die Wissenschaftbestimmt]rsquo21 Our very lsquobeing-in-the-worldrsquo is shaped by the knowledge wepursue uncover and embody When Heidegger claims that existence isfundamentally shaped by knowledge he is not thinking of a professoriateshifting in the winds of academic trends nor simply arguing for a kind ofpedagogical or performative consistency according to which we shouldpractice what we know His intent rather is to emphasize a troubling sense inwhich it seems that we cannot help practicing what we know since we arelsquoalways alreadyrsquo implicitly shaped by our guiding metaphysical presupposi-tions Heideggerrsquos question thus becomes What is the ontological impact ofour unquestioned reliance on the particular metaphysical presuppositionswhich tacitly dominate the academy lsquoWhat happens to us essentially in theground of our existencersquo when the Wissenschaft pursued in the contemporaryuniversity becomes our guiding lsquopassionrsquo fundamentally shaping our view ofthe world and of ourselves

Heideggerrsquos dramatic answer introduces his radical critique of the hyper-specialization and consequent fragmentation of the modern university

250 Iain Thomson

The elds of science are widely separated Their ways of handling the objects of theirinquiries differ fundamentally Today only the technical organization of universitiesand faculties consolidates this multiplicity of dispersed disciplines only throughpractical and instrumental goals do they maintain any meaning The rootedness of thesciences in their essential ground has dried up and died2 2

Here in 1929 Heidegger accurately describes the predicament of thatinstitution which almost half a century later Clark Kerr would satiricallylabel the lsquoMulti-versityrsquo an internally fragmented Uni-versity-in-name-onlywhere the sole communal unity stems from a common grievance aboutparking spaces23 Historically as the modern university loses sight of theshared goals which originally justi ed the endeavors of the academiccommunity as a whole (at rst the common pursuit of the uni ed lsquosystemrsquo ofknowledge then the communal dedication to the formation of cultivatedindividuals) its members begin to look outside the university for somepurpose to give meaning to lives of research Since only those disciplines (orsub-disciplines) able to produce instrumentally useful results regularly ndsuch external support all disciplines increasingly try to present themselves interms of their use-value Without a counter-ideal students too will adopt thisinstrumental mentality coming to see education merely as a means to anincreased salary down the road In this way fragmentation leads to theprofessionalization of the university and eventually its deterioration intovocationalism At the same time moreover the different disciplines lackingany shared substantive sense of a unifying purpose or common subject-matter tend by the logic of specialization to develop internal standardsappropriate to their particular object-domains As these domains becomeincreasingly specialized these internal standards become ever moredisparate if not simply incommensurable In this way disciplinaryfragmentation leaves the university without common standards ndash other thanthe now ubiquitous but entirely empty and formal ideal of excellence

Following in Heideggerrsquos footsteps critics such as Bill Readings andTimothy Clark show how our contemporary lsquouniversity of excellencersquo owingto lsquothe very emptiness of the idea of excellencersquo is lsquobecoming an excellentbureaucratic corporationrsquo lsquogeared to no higher idea than its own maximizedself-perpetuation according to optimal inputoutput ratiosrsquo24 Such diagnosesmake clear that the development of our educational institutions continues tofollow the underlying metaphysical logic of enframing the progressivetransformation of all entities into mere resources to be optimizedUnfortunately these critics fail to recognize this underlying ontohistoricallogic and so offer diagnoses without cures Indeed Readingsrsquo materialistexplanation for the historical obsolescence of Bildung as the unifying ideal ofthe modern university (the result of an lsquoimplacable bourgeois economicrevolutionrsquo) leads him to succumb to a cynicism in which future denizens ofthe university can hope for nothing more than lsquopragmaticrsquo situational

Heidegger on Ontological Education 251

responses in an environment increasingly transformed by lsquothe logic ofconsumerismrsquo25 While such critiques of the university convincingly extendand update aspects of Heideggerrsquos analysis they lack his philosophical visionfor a revitalizing reuni cation of the university

To see that Heidegger himself did not relinquish all hope for the future ofhigher education we need only attend carefully to the performativedimension of his lsquoInaugural Lecturersquo On the surface it may seem as ifHeidegger welcomed fully into the arms of the university rather perverselyuses his celebratory lecture to pronounce the death of the institution which hasjust hired him proclaiming that lsquoThe rootedness of the sciences in theiressential ground has dried up and diedrsquo Yet with this deliberate provocationHeidegger is not beating a dead horse his pronouncement that the universityis dead at its roots implies that it is fated to wither and decay unless it isrevivi ed reinvigorated from the root Heidegger uses this organic metaphorof lsquorootednessrsquo (Verwurzelung) to put into effect what Derrida (who willrestage this scene himself) recognizes as lsquoa phoenix motifrsquo lsquoOne burns orburies what is already dead so that life will be reborn and regenerated fromthese ashesrsquo26 Indeed Heidegger begins to outline his program for arenaissance of the university in the lecturersquos conclusion Existence isdetermined by science but science itself remains rooted in metaphysicswhether it realizes it or not Since the roots of the university are metaphysicala reinstauration of the scienti c lifeworld requires a renewed attention to thisunderlying metaphysical dimension lsquoOnly if science exists on the basis ofmetaphysics can it achieve anew its essential task which is not to amass andclassify bits of knowledge but to disclose in ever-renewed fashion the entireexpanse of truth in nature and historyrsquo27

What exactly is Heidegger proposing here To understand his vision for arebirth of the university we need to turn to a text he began writing the nextyear lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo28 Here tracing the ontohistorical roots ofour educational crisis back to Platorsquos cave Heidegger (quite literally)excavates an alternative

III Heideggerrsquos Return to Platorsquos Cave Ontological Education asthe Essence of Paideia

Plato seeks to show that the essence of paideia does notconsist in merely pouring knowledge into the unpreparedsoul as if it were a container held out empty and waitingOn the contrary real education lays hold of the soul itselfand transforms it in its entirety by rst of all leading us tothe place of our essential being and accustoming us toit2 9

252 Iain Thomson

Our contemporary educational crisis can be understood as an ontohistoricaldissolution of Platorsquos original conception of education Heidegger contendsso the deconstructive recovery of this lsquoessence of paideiarsquo is crucial tosuccessfully resolving the crisis A deeply resonant Greek word paideiameans lsquocivilizationrsquo lsquoculturersquo lsquodevelopmentrsquo lsquotraditionrsquo lsquoliteraturersquo andlsquoeducationrsquo thus it encompasses what to our ears seems to be a rather widerange of semantic frequencies30 Heidegger was deeply drawn to the wordnot only because thanks largely to Werner Jaeger it served as a key term inthat intersection of German academic and political life which Heideggersought to occupy during the 1930s but also because he had an undeniablefondness for what (with a wink to Freud) we could call the polysemicperversity of language that is the fortuitous ambiguities and unpredictableinterconnections which help form the warp and weave of its semantic webRecognizing that such rich language tends to resist the analystrsquos pursuit of anunambiguous exactness Heidegger argued that lsquorigorousrsquo philosophicalprecision calls instead for an attempt to do justice to this semantic richness31

Yet as Gadamer and Derrida have shown this demand for us to do justiceto language is aporetic ndash a lsquonecessary impossibilityrsquo ndash since the holism ofmeaning renders the attempt ultimately impossible not only practically (for nite beings like ourselves who cannot follow all the strands in the semanticweb at once) but also in principle (despite our Borgesian dreams of acomplete hypertext which would exhaustively represent the semantic web adream even the vaunted lsquoworld-wide webrsquo barely inches toward realizing)This unful llable call for the philosopher to do justice to language isnevertheless ethical in the Kantian sense it constitutes a regulative idealorienting our progress while remaining unreachable like a guiding star It isalso and for Heidegger more primordially lsquoethos-icalrsquo (so to speak) sincesuch a call can be answered lsquoauthenticallyrsquo only if it is taken up existentiallyand embodied in an ethos a way of being In Being and Time Heideggerdescribes the called-for comportment as Ent-schlossenheit lsquodis-closednessor re-solversquo later he will teach it as Gelassenheit lsquoreleasement or letting-bersquo32 Ent-schlossenheit and Gelassenheit are not of course simplyequivalent terms releasement evolves out of resolve through a series ofintermediary formulations and notably lacks resolversquos voluntarism But bothentail a responsive hermeneutic receptivity (whether existential or phenom-enological) and both designate comportments whereby we embodyre exively an understanding of what we are ontologically namely Da-sein lsquobeing [the] therersquo a making intelligible of the place in which we ndourselves

Such considerations allow us to see that we are the place to whichHeidegger is referring ndash in the epigraph above this section ndash when he writesthat lsquoreal education lays hold of the soul itself and transforms it in its entiretyby rst of all leading us to the place of our essential being [Wesensort] and

Heidegger on Ontological Education 253

accustoming us to itrsquo As this epigraph shows Heidegger believes he hasful lled the ethical dictate to do justice to language by recovering lsquotheessence of paideiarsquo the ontological carrier wave underlying paideiarsquosmultiple semantic frequencies Ventriloquizing Plato Heidegger deploys thisnotion of the essence of paideia in order to oppose two conceptions ofeducation He warns rst against a lsquofalse interpretationrsquo We cannotunderstand education as the transmission of lsquoinformationrsquo the lling of thepsyche with knowledge as if inscribing a tabula rasa or in morecontemporary parlance lsquotraining-uprsquo a neural net This understanding ofeducation is false because (in the terms of Being and Time) we are lsquothrownrsquobeings lsquoalways alreadyrsquo shaped by a tradition we can never lsquoget behindrsquo andso we cannot be blank slates or lsquoempty containersrsquo waiting to be lled33

Indeed this lsquoreductive and atrophiedrsquo misconception of education as thetransmission of information re ects the nihilistic logic of enframing thatontohistorical trend by which intelligibility is lsquoleveled out into the uniformstorage of informationrsquo34 Yet here again we face a situation in which as theproblem gets worse we become less likely to recognize it the lsquoimpactrsquo of thisontological drift toward meaninglessness can lsquobarely be noticed bycontemporary humanity because they are continually covered over with thelatest informationrsquo35

Against this self-insulating but lsquofalse interpretationrsquo of educationHeidegger advances his conception of lsquoreal or genuine educationrsquo (echteBildung) the lsquoessence of paideiarsquo Drawing on the allegory of the cave ndashwhich lsquoillustrates the essence of ldquoeducationrdquo [paideia]rsquo (as Plato claims at thebeginning of Book VII of the Republic) ndash Heidegger seeks to effect nothingless than a re-ontologizing revolution in our understanding of education36

Recall Heideggerrsquos succinct and powerful formulation lsquoReal education layshold of the soul itself and transforms it in its entirety by rst of all leading usto the place of our essential being and accustoming [eingewohnt] us to itrsquoGenuine education leads us back to ourselves to the place we are (the Da ofour Sein) teaches us lsquoto dwellrsquo (wohnen) lsquotherersquo and transforms us in theprocess This transformative journey to ourselves is not a ight away from theworld into thought but a re exive return to the fundamental lsquorealm of thehuman sojournrsquo (Aufenthaltsbezirk des Menschen)37 The goal of thiseducational odyssey is simple but literally revolutionary to bring us fullcircle back to ourselves rst by turning us away from the world in which weare most immediately immersed then by turning us back to this world in amore re exive way As Heidegger explains lsquoPaideia means the turningaround of the whole human being in the sense of displacing them out of theregion of immediate encountering and accustoming them to another realm inwhich beings appearrsquo38

How can we accomplish such an ontological revolution in education Whatare the pedagogical methods of this alternative conception of education And

254 Iain Thomson

how nally can this ontological conception of education help us overturn theenframing of education

1 Ontological Education Against Enframing

In lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo Heideggerrsquos exposition is complicated by thefact that he is simultaneously explicating his own positive understanding oflsquoeducationrsquo and critiquing an important transformation in the history of lsquotruthrsquoinaugurated by Plato the transition from truth understood as aletheiaphenomenological lsquounhiddennessrsquo to orthotes the lsquocorrectnessrsquo of anassertion From this lsquoambiguity in Platorsquos doctrinersquo in which lsquotruth still isat one and the same time unhiddenness and correctnessrsquo the subsequenttradition will develop only the orthotic understanding of truth at the expenseof the aletheiac39 In so doing we lose lsquothe original essence of truthrsquo themanifestation of beings themselves and come to understand truth solely as afeature of our own representational capacities According to Heidegger thisdisplacement of the locus of truth from being to human subjectivity paves theway for that metaphysical humanism (or subjectivism) in which the lsquoessenceof paideiarsquo will be eclipsed allowing lsquoeducationrsquo to be absorbed byenframing becoming merely a means for lsquobringing ldquohuman beingsrdquo to theliberation of their possibilities the certitude of their destination and thesecuring of their ldquolivingrdquorsquo40

Despite some dramatic rhetorical ourishes however Heidegger has notentirely given up on lsquoeducationrsquo (Bildung) He dismisses the modernunderstanding of Bildung (the deliberate cultivation of lsquosubjective qualitiesrsquo)as a lsquomisinterpretation to which the notion fell victim in the nineteenthcenturyrsquo yet maintains that once Bildung is lsquogiven back its original namingpowerrsquo it is the word which lsquocomes closest to capturing the [meaning of the]word paideiarsquo Bildung is literally ambiguous Heidegger tells us its lsquonamingforcersquo drives in two directions

What lsquoBildungrsquo expresses is twofold rst Bildung means forming [Bilden] in thesense of impressing a character that unfolds But at the same time this lsquoformingrsquo[lsquoBildenrsquo ] lsquoformsrsquo [lsquobildetrsquo ] (or impresses a character) by antecedently taking itsmeasure from some measure-giving vision which for that reason is called the pre-conception [Vor-bild]

lsquoThusrsquo Heidegger concludes lsquoldquoeducationrdquo [ldquoBildungrdquo] means impressing acharacter especially as guiding by a pre-conceptionrsquo41

Few would quibble with the rst claim education stamps us with acharacter which unfolds within us But what forms the lsquostamprsquo which formsus Who educates the educators According to Heidegger the answer to thisquestion is built into the very meaning of paideia it is the second sense he

Heidegger on Ontological Education 255

lsquorestoresrsquo to Bildung To further lsquounfoldrsquo these two senses of lsquoeducationrsquoHeidegger immediately introduces the contrast class lsquothe contrary of paideiais apaideusia lack of education [Bildunglosigkeit] where no fundamentalcomportment is awakened no measure-giving preconception establishedrsquo42

This helpfully clari es Heideggerrsquos rst claim It is by awakening alsquofundamental comportmentrsquo that education stamps us with a character thatunfolds within us In the educational situation ndash a situation without pre-delimitable boundaries indeed a situation the boundaries of whichHeidegger ceaselessly seeks to expand (for he holds that lsquopaideia isessentially a movement of passage from apaideusia to paideiarsquo such thateducation is not something that can ever be completed) ndash the lsquofundamentalcomportmentrsquo perhaps most frequently called for is not the heroic Ent-schlossenheit nor even the gentler Gelassenheit but rather a more basic formof receptive spontaneity Heidegger will simply call hearing or hearkening(horen) that is (as we will see) an attentive and responsive way of dwellingin onersquos environment But whether the comportment implicitly guidingeducation is lsquoresolutenessrsquo lsquoreleasementrsquo lsquohearingrsquo or that anxiety-tranquillizing hurry which generally characterizes contemporary life dependson the second sense of Bildung which remains puzzling From where do wederive the measure-giving vision which implicitly informs all genuineeducation

Heideggerrsquos answer is complicated let us recall by the fact that he is bothelaborating his own philosophy of education (as it were) and performing acritical exegesis of Platorsquos decisive metaphysical contribution to lsquothe historythat we arersquo the history of metaphysics These two aims are in tension withone another because the education Heidegger seeks to impart ndash thefundamental attunement he would awaken in his students ndash is itself anattempt to awaken us from the ontological education that we have lsquoalwaysalreadyrsquo received from the metaphysical tradition For this generallyunnoticed antecedent measure comes to us from metaphysics from theontotheologically conceived understanding of the being of beings In shortHeidegger seeks to educate his students against their pre-existingontotheological education (He will sometimes call this educating-against-education simply lsquoteachingrsquo) The crucial question then is How canHeideggerrsquos ontological education combat the metaphysical education wehave always already received

2 The Pedagogy of Ontological Freedom

Heideggerrsquos suggestions about how the ontological education he advocatescan transcend enframing are surprisingly speci c Recall that in Platorsquosallegory the prisoner (1) begins in captivity within the cave (2) escapes thechains and turns around to discover the re and objects responsible for the

256 Iain Thomson

shadows on the wall previously taken as reality then (3) ascends from thecave into the light of the outside world coming to understand what is seenthere as made possible by the light of the sun and (4) nally returns to thecave taking up the struggle to free the other prisoners (who violently resisttheir would-be liberator) For Heidegger this well-known scenario suggeststhe pedagogy of ontological education On his remarkable interpretation theprisonerrsquos lsquofour different dwelling placesrsquo communicate the four successivestages whereby ontological education breaks studentsrsquo bondage to thetechnological mode of revealing freeing them to understand what-isdifferently

When studentsrsquo ontological educations begin they lsquoare engrossed in whatthey immediately encounterrsquo taking the shadows cast by the re on the wallto be the ultimate reality of things Yet this lsquo rersquo is only lsquoman-madersquo thelsquoconfusingrsquo light it casts represents enframingrsquos ontologically reductive modeof revealing Here in this rst stage all entities show up to students merely asresources to be optimized including the students themselves Thus if pressedstudents will ultimately lsquojustifyrsquo even their education itself merely as a meansto making more money getting the most out of their potentials or some otherequally empty optimization imperative Stage two is only reached when astudentrsquos lsquogaze is freed from its captivity to shadowsrsquo this happens when astudent recognizes lsquothe rersquo (enframing) as the source of lsquothe shadowsrsquo(entities understood as mere resources) In stage two the metaphysical chainsof enframing are thus broken But how does this liberation occur Despite theimportance of this question Heidegger answers it only in an aside lsquoto turnonersquos gaze from the shadows to entities as they show themselves withinthe glow of the relight is dif cult and failsrsquo43 His point I take it is thatentities do not show themselves as they are when forced into the meta-physical mould of enframing the ontotheology which reduces them to mereresources to be optimized Students can be led to this realization through aguided investigation of the being of any entity which they will tend tounderstand only as eternally recurring will-to-power that is as forcesendlessly coming together and breaking apart Because this metaphysicalunderstanding dissolves being into becoming the attempt to see entities asthey are in its light is doomed to failure resources have no being they arelsquoconstantly becomingrsquo (as Nietzsche realized) With this recognition ndash and theanxiety it tends to induce ndash students can attain a negative freedom fromenframing

Still Heidegger insists that lsquoreal freedomrsquo lsquoeffective freedomrsquo (wirklicheFreiheit) ndash the positive freedom in which students realize that entities aremore than mere resources and so become free for understanding themotherwise ndash lsquois attained only in stage three in which someone who has beenunchained is conveyed outside the cave ldquointo the openrdquorsquo (Notice the implicitreference to someone doing the unchaining and conveying here for

Heidegger on Ontological Education 257

Heidegger the educator plays a crucial role facilitating studentsrsquo passagebetween each of the stages) The open is one of Heideggerrsquos names for lsquobeingas suchrsquo that is for lsquowhat appears antecedently in everything that appears and makes whatever appears be accessiblersquo44 The attainment of ndash or bettercomportmental attunement to ndash this lsquoopenrsquo is what Heidegger famously callslsquodwellingrsquo45 When such positive ontological freedom is achieved lsquowhatthings are no longer appear merely in the man-made and confusing glow ofthe re within the cave The things themselves stand there in the binding forceand validity of their own visible formrsquo46 Ontological freedom is achievedwhen entities show themselves in their full phenomenological richness Thegoal of the third stage of ontological education then is to teach students tolsquodwellrsquo to help attune them to the being of entities and thus to teach them tosee that the being of an entity ndash be it a book cup rose or to use a particularlysalient example they themselves ndash cannot be fully understood in theontologically-reductive terms of enframing47

With the attainment of this crucial third stage Heideggerrsquos lsquogenuinersquoontological education may seem to have reached its completion since lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo48 This claim that genuineeducation teaches students to recognize lsquoessencesrsquo is not merely a Platonicconceit but plays an absolutely crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for areuni cation of the university (as we will see in the conclusion) Neverthelessontological education reaches its true culmination only in the fourth stage thereturn to the cave Heidegger clearly understood his own role as a teacher interms of just such a return that is as a struggle to free ontologicallyanaesthetized enframers from their bondage to a self-reifying mode ofontological revealing49 But his ranking of the return to the cave as the higheststage of ontological education is not merely an evangelistic call for others toadopt his vision of education as a revolution in consciousness it also re ectshis recognition that in ontological education learning culminates in teachingWe must thus ask What is called lsquoteachingrsquo

3 What Is Called Teaching

The English lsquoteachrsquo comes from the same linguistic family as the Germanverb zeigen lsquoto point or showrsquo50 As this etymology suggests to teach is toreveal to point out or make manifest through words But to reveal whatWhat does the teacher who lsquopoints outrsquo (or reveals) with words point to (orindicate)51 What do teachers teach The question seems to presuppose thatall teaching shares a common lsquosubject-matterrsquo not simply a shared method orgoal (the inculcation of critical thinking persuasive writing and the like) butsomething more substantive a common subject-matter unifying the Uni-versity Of course all teachers use words to disclose but to disclose a common

258 Iain Thomson

subject-matter How could such a supposition not sound absurd to usprofessional denizens of a postmodern polyversity where relentless hyper-specialization continues to fragment our subjects and even re-unifying forceslike interdisciplinarity seem to thrive only in so far they open new sub-specialties for a relentless vascular-to-capillary colonization of the scienti clifeworld In such a situation is it surprising that the Heideggerian idea of allteachers ultimately sharing a uni ed subject sounds absurd or at best like anoutdated myth ndash albeit the myth that founded the modern university But isthe idea of such a shared subject-matter a myth What do teachers teach Letus approach this question from what might at rst seem to be anotherdirection attempting to learn its answer

If teaching is revealing through words then conversely learning isexperiencing what a teacherrsquos words reveal That is to learn is actively toallow oneself to share in what the teacherrsquos words disclose But again whatdo the teacherrsquos words reveal We will notice if we read closely enough thatHeidegger answers this question in 1951 when he writes lsquoTo learn means tomake everything we do answer to whatever essentials address us at a giventimersquo52 Here it might sound at rst as if Heidegger is simply claimingthat learning as the complement of teaching means actively allowing oneselfto share in that which the teacherrsquos words disclose But Wittgenstein used tosay that philosophy is like a bicycle race the point of which is to go as slowlyas possible without falling off and if we slow down we will notice thatHeideggerrsquos words ndash the words of a teacher who would teach what learningmeans (in fact the performative situation is even more complex)53ndash saymore Learning means actively allowing ourselves to respond to what isessential in that which always addresses us that which has always alreadyclaimed us

In a sense then learning means responding appropriately to thesolicitations of the environment Of course Heidegger is thinking of theontological environment (the way in which what-is discloses itself to us)but even ontic analogues show that this capacity to respond appropriately tothe environment is quite dif cult to learn We learn to respond appropriatelyto environmental solicitations through a long process of trial and error Wemust in other words learn how to learn Here problems abound for it isnot clear that learning to learn can be taught To the analytically minded thisdemand seems to lead to a regress (for if we need to learn to learn then weneed to learn to learn to learn and so on) But logic misleads phenomenologyhere as Heidegger realized it is simply a question of jumping into thispedagogical circle in the right way Such a train of thought leads Heidegger toclaim that if lsquoteaching is even more dif cult than learningrsquo this is onlybecause the teacher must be an exemplary learner capable of teaching his orher students to learn that is capable of learning-in-public activelyresponding to the emerging demands of each unique educational situation

Heidegger on Ontological Education 259

Recall the famous passage

Why is teaching more dif cult than learning Not because the teacher must have alarger store of information and have it always ready Teaching is more dif cult thanlearning because what teaching calls for is this to let learn The real teacher in factlets nothing else be learned than learning The teacher is ahead of his apprentices inthis alone that he has still far more to learn than they ndash he has to learn to let themlearn The teacher must be capable of being more teachable than his apprentices5 4

The teacher teaches students to learn ndash to respond appropriately to thesolicitations of the ontological environment ndash by responding appropriately tothe solicitations of his or her environment which is after all the studentsrsquoenvironment too Learning culminates in teaching then because teaching isthe highest form of learning unlike lsquoinstructingrsquo (belehren) lsquoteachingrsquo(lehren) is ultimately a lsquoletting learnrsquo (lernen lassen) lsquoThe true teacher isahead of the students only in that he has more to learn than they namely theletting learn (To learn [means] to bring what we do and allow into a co-respondence [or a suitable response Entsprechung] with that which in eachcase grants itself to us as the essential)rsquo55

This last assertion should remind us of Heideggerrsquos earlier claim that lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo56 I said previously that thisclaim plays a crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for a reuni cation of theuniversity By way of conclusion let us brie y develop this claim and therebyfurther elaborate Heideggerrsquos positive vision for the future of highereducation

IV Conclusion Envisioning a University of Teachers

How can Heideggerrsquos understanding of ontological education help us restoresubstance to our currently empty guiding ideal of educational lsquoexcellencersquoand in so doing provide the contemporary university with a renewed sense ofunity not only restoring substance to our shared commitment to formingexcellent students but also helping us recognize the sense in which we are infact all working on the same project The answer is surprisingly simple Byre-essentializing the notion of excellence Heidegger like Aristotle is aperfectionist he argues that there is a distinctive human essence and that thegood life the life of lsquoexcellencersquo (arete) is the life spent cultivating thisdistinctively human essence For Heidegger as we have seen the humanlsquoessencersquo is Dasein lsquobeing-therersquo that is the making-intelligible of the placein which we nd ourselves or even more simply world disclosing For aworld-disclosing being to cultivate its essence then is for it to recognize and

260 Iain Thomson

develop this essence not only acknowledging its participation in the creationand maintenance of an intelligible world but actively embracing itsontological role in such world disclosure The full rami cations of thisseemingly simple insight are profound and revolutionary57 We will restrictourselves to brie y developing the two most important implications ofHeideggerrsquos re-essentialization of excellence for the future of the university

Heideggerrsquos ontological conception of education would transform theexisting relations between teaching and research on the one hand andbetween the now fragmented departments on the other Thus in effectHeidegger dedicates himself nally to redeeming the two central ideals whichguided the formation of the modern university Teaching and research shouldbe harmoniously integrated and the university community should understanditself as committed to a common substantive task58 How does Heideggerthink he can help us nally achieve such ambitions First his conception oflsquoteachingrsquo would reunite research and teaching because when studentsdevelop the aforementioned lsquoinsight into essencersquo they are being taught todisclose and investigate the ontological presuppositions which underlie allresearch on Heideggerrsquos view For todayrsquos academic departments are what hecalls lsquopositive sciencesrsquo that is they all rest on ontological lsquopositsrsquoontological assumptions about what the class of entities they study areBiology for example allows us to understand the logos of the bios the orderand structure of living beings Nevertheless Heidegger asserts biologyproper cannot tell us what life is59 Instead biology takes over its implicitontological understanding of what life is from the metaphysical under-standing governing our Nietzschean epoch of enframing (When contempor-ary philosophers of biology claim that life is lsquoa self-replicating systemrsquo theyhave unknowingly adopted the basic ontological presupposition ofNietzschersquos metaphysics according to which life is ultimately the eternalrecurrence of will to power that is sheer will-to-will unlimited self-augmentation)60 Analogously psychology can tell us a great deal about howconsciousness (the psyche) functions but it cannot tell us what consciousnessis The same holds true for the understanding of lsquothe corporeality of bodiesthe vegetable character of plants the animality of animals and the humannessof humanityrsquo within physics botany zoology and anthropology respec-tively these sciences all presuppose an ontological posit a pre-understandingof the being of the class of entities they study61 Heideggerrsquos ontologicallyreconceived notion of teaching is inextricably entwined with research thenbecause ontological education teaches students to question the veryontological presuppositions which guide research thereby opening a spacefor understanding the being of the entities they study otherwise than inenframingrsquos ontologically reductive terms Heideggerrsquos reconceptualizationof education would thus encourage revolutionary transformations in thesciences and humanities by teaching students to focus on and explicitly

Heidegger on Ontological Education 261

investigate the ontological presuppositions which implicitly guide research ineach domain of knowledge

Despite such revolutionary goals Heidegger thought that his ontologicalreconceptualization of education could also restore a substantive sense ofunity to the university community if only this community could learn lsquotoengage in [this lsquore ection on the essential foundationsrsquo] as re ection and tothink and belong to the university from the base of this engagementrsquo62 Fromits founding one of the major concerns about the modern university has beenhow it could maintain the unity of structure and purpose thought to bede nitive of the lsquoUni-versityrsquo as such German Idealists like Fichte andSchelling believed that this unity would follow organically from the totalityof the system of knowledge But this faith in the system proved to be far lessin uential on posterity than Humboldtrsquos alternative lsquohumanistrsquo idealaccording to which the universityrsquos unity would come from a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of character Humboldtrsquos famousidea was to link lsquoobjective Wissenschaft with subjective Bildungrsquo theuniversity would be responsible for forming fully-cultivated individuals arequirement Humboldt hoped would serve to guide and unify the newfreedom of research Historically of course neither the German Idealistsrsquoreliance on the unity of research nor Humboldtrsquos emphasis on a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of students succeeded in unifyingthe university community In effect however Heideggerrsquos re-ontologizationof education would combine (his versions of) these two strategies Theuniversity community would be uni ed both by its shared commitment toforming excellent individuals (where excellence is understood in terms of theontological perfectionism outlined above) and by the shared recognition onthe part of this community that its members are all committed to the samesubstantive pursuit The ultimately revolutionary task not simply ofunderstanding what is but of investigating the ontological presuppositionsimplicitly guiding all the various elds of knowledge Heidegger thusbelieved that ontological education by restoring substance to the notion ofexcellence and so teaching us lsquoto disclose the essential in all thingsrsquo could nally succeed in lsquoshattering the encapsulation of the sciences in theirdifferent disciplines and bringing them back from their boundless and aimlessdispersal in individual elds and cornersrsquo6364

NOTES

1 See Heidegger Being and Time (New York Harper amp Row 1962) trans J Macquarrie andE Robinson p 44 Sein und Zeit (Tubingen M Niemeyer 1993) p 22

2 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo in William McNeill (ed) Pathmarks(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998) p 167Heidegger Wegmarken 3rd edGesamtausgabe vol 9 (Frankfurt aM V Klostermann 1996) (hereafter GA9) p 218(On my translation of this title see note 28 below) I am aware that the preceding sentence

262 Iain Thomson

ominously echoes the title of Nietzschersquos politically compromised and deeply problematicearly lectures lsquoOn the Future of Our Educational Institutionsrsquo (which culminate with a callfor a lsquogreat Fuhrerrsquo [see Nietzsche On the Future of Our Educational Institutions in OLevy (ed) The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Edinburgh T N Foulis 1909)vol 6 Jacques Derrida The Ear of the Other ed C V McDonald trans Kamuf andRonell (New York Shocken Books 1985) p 28]) I bracket such political connectionshere but a complementary essay examines the darker side of Heideggerrsquos philosophicalcritique of education showing that it played a central role in his decision to join with theNazis in the early 1930s see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo(forthcoming)

3 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo ibid p 167GA9 p 2184 See Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

1980) On Heideggerrsquos distinctive understanding of lsquoessencersquo see my lsquoWhatrsquos Wrong withBeing a Technological Essentialist A Response to Feenbergrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 429ndash44

5 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo in The Question ConcerningTechnology and Other Essays trans W Lovitt (New York Harper amp Row 1977) p 4ibid pp 30ndash31

6 Cf Feenbergrsquos Hegelian misinterpretation of Heideggerrsquos understanding of essence in lsquoTheOntic and the Ontological in Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Technology Response toThomsonrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 445ndash50

7 Heidegger lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo op cit p 145GA9 p 1898 Ibid pp 145ndash46 (my italics)GA9 p 190 I am of necessity simplifying Heideggerrsquos

complex account here but see my lsquoOntotheology Understanding Heideggerrsquos Destruktionof Metaphysicsrsquo International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (October 2000) pp 297ndash327

9 See Heidegger An Introduction to Metaphysics trans R Manheim (New Haven YaleUniversity Press 1959) p 3Einfuhrung in die Metaphysik (Tubingen M Niemeyer1953) p 2

10 See Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations 3rd ed trans G E M Anscombe(New York Macmillan 1968) sect 217 p 85

11 See also Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 170GA9 p 222 lsquoThe essenceof ldquoeducationrdquo is grounded in the essence of ldquotruthrdquorsquo

12 See Heidegger Nietzsche Nihilism ed David Krell trans F Capuzzi (New York Harperamp Row 1982) p 205Nietzsche (Pfullingen Neske 1961) vol II p 343

13 Eventually either a new ontotheology emerges (perhaps as Kuhn suggests out of theinvestigation of those lsquoanomalousrsquo entities which resist being understood in terms of thedominant ontotheology) or else our underlying conception of the being of all entities wouldbe brought into line with this spreading ontotheology Although this latter alternative hasnever yet occurred Heidegger calls it lsquothe greatest dangerrsquo he is worried that ourNietzschean ontotheology could become totalizing lsquodriving out every other possibility ofrevealingrsquo by overwriting Daseinrsquos lsquospecial naturersquo our de ning capacity for world-disclosure with the lsquototal thoughtlessnessrsquo of a merely instrumental lsquocalculative reasoningrsquo See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo op cit p 27 HeideggerDiscourse on Thinking trans J Anderson and E Freund (New York Harper amp Row1966) p 56

14 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo ibid pp 16ndash2015 See esp Friedrich Nietzsche The Will To Power ed and trans Walter Kaufmann (New

York Random House 1967) pp 549ndash50 Here Nietzsche clearly conceives of beings assuch as will to power and of the way the totality exists as eternally recurring Nor canHeideggerrsquos controversial reading be rejected simply by excluding this problematic text onthe basis of its politically compromised ancestry since Nietzschersquos ontotheology can alsobe found in his other works

16 Heidegger lsquoNihilism as Determined by the History of Beingrsquo Nietzsche Nihilism op citpp 199ndash250

17 See Heidegger Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) trans P Emad and K Maly(Bloomington IN Indiana University Press 1999) p 95Beitrage zur Philosophie (Vom

Heidegger on Ontological Education 263

Heideggerrsquos deconstruction of education seek to cut through And moreimportantly what does it seek to recover Let us answer this second moreimportant question rst

Through a hermeneutic excavation of the famous lsquoallegory of the caversquo inPlatorsquos Republic ndash the textual site where pedagogical theory emerged fromthe noonday shadows of Orphic mystery and Protagorean obscurity in order toinstitute for the rst time the lsquoAcademyrsquo as such ndash Heidegger seeks to placebefore our eyes the most in uential understanding of lsquoeducationrsquo in Westernhistory Platorsquos conception of paideia Heidegger maintains that aspects ofPlatorsquos founding pedagogical vision have exerted an unparalleled in uenceon our subsequent historical understandings of lsquoeducationrsquo (its natureprocedures and goals) while other even more profound aspects have beenforgotten These forgotten aspects of paideia are what his deconstruction ofeducation seeks to recover Back then to our rst question Whathermeneutic misconceptions or distortions stand in the way of this recoveryand so must rst be cleared away Heideggerrsquos focus here is on amisconception about education which also forms part of the legacy ofPlatorsquos cave a distortion embodied in and perpetuated by those institutionswhich re ect and transmit our historical understanding of education

Now one might expect Heideggerrsquos assessment of the future prospects forour educational institutions to be unremittingly pessimistic given that his laterlsquoontohistoricalrsquo (seinsgeschichtliche) perspective allowed him to discern sopresciently those interlocking trends whereby we increasingly instrumenta-lize professionalize vocationalize corporatize and ultimately technologizeeducation Heideggerrsquos powerful critique of the way in which our educationalinstitutions have come to express a nihilistic lsquotechnological understanding ofbeingrsquo will be developed in section II But before assuming that this diagnosisof education amounts to a death sentence we need to recall the point withwhich we began Heideggerrsquos deconstructive strategies always have twomoments Thus when he seeks to recover the ontological core of Platonicpaideia his intent is not only to trace the technologization of education back toan ontological ambiguity already inherent in Platorsquos founding pedagogicalvision (thereby demonstrating the historical contingency of these disturbingeducational trends and so loosening their grip on us) More importantly healso means to show how forgotten aspects of the original Platonic notion ofpaideia remain capable of inspiring heretofore unthought of possibilities forthe future of education Indeed only Heideggerrsquos hope for the future of oureducational institutions can explain his otherwise entirely mysterious claimthat his paideia lsquointerpretationrsquo is lsquomade necessary from out of a future need[aus einer kunftigen Not notwendige]rsquo2

This oracular pronouncement sounds mysterious yet I believe Heideggerrsquosdeconstruction of education is motivated entirely by this lsquofuture needrsquo Isubmit that this future need is double like the deconstruction mobilized in its

244 Iain Thomson

service it contains a positive as well as a negative moment These twomoments are so important that the rest of this essay will be devoted to theirexplication Negatively we need a critical perspective which will allow us tograsp the underlying historical logic according to which our educationalinstitutions have developed and will continue to develop if nothing is done toalter their course As we will see in section II Heidegger was one of the rstto diagnose correctly what a growing number of incisive critics ofcontemporary education have subsequently con rmed We now stand inthe midst of an historical crisis in higher education Heideggerrsquos profoundunderstanding of the nature of this crisis ndash his insight that it can be understoodas a total eclipse of Platorsquos original educational ideal ndash reveals theontohistorical trajectory leading up to our current educational crisis andmore importantly illuminates a path which might lead us out of it

This is fortunate since the gravity of Heideggerrsquos diagnosis immediatelysuggests a complementary positive need We need an alternative to ourcontemporary understanding of education an alternative capable of favorablyresolving our educational crisis by averting the technological dissolution ofthe historical essence of education Heideggerrsquos hope is this Since anambiguity at the heart of Platorsquos original understanding of education lentitself to an historical misunderstanding in which the essence of education hasbeen obscured and is now in danger of being forgotten the deconstructiverecovery of this long-obscured essence of education can now help us envisiona way to restore substance to the increasingly formal and empty ideals guidingcontemporary education It thus makes perfect sense that this need for apositive alternative leads Heidegger back to Platorsquos cave Retracing his stepsin section III I reconstruct lsquothe essence of educationrsquo that Heidegger seeks torecover from the shadows of history thereby eshing out his positive visionIn section IV I consider brie y how this re-ontologization of education mighthelp us begin to envision a path leading beyond our contemporary educationalcrisis

II Heideggerrsquos Ontohistorical Critique of the Technologization ofEducation

The rst aspect of our lsquofuture needrsquo is for a critical perspective which willallow us to discern the underlying logic that has long guided the historicaldevelopment of our educational institutions a perspective which will rendervisible the developmental trajectory these institutions continue to follow Asintimated above Heidegger maintains that his lsquohistory of beingrsquo (Seins-geschichte) provides precisely this perspective As he puts it lsquothe essence oftruth and the kinds of transformations it undergoes rst make possible [thehistorical unfolding of] ldquoeducationrdquo in its basic structuresrsquo3 Heidegger means

Heidegger on Ontological Education 245

by this that the history of being makes possible the historical development ofour educational institutions although to see this we must carefully unpackthis initially puzzling reference to lsquothe essence of truth and the kinds oftransformations it undergoesrsquo

1 From the Essence of Truth to the History of Being

Heideggerrsquos pronouncement that the essence of truth transforms soundsparadoxical how can an essence change This will seem impossible tosomeone like Kripke who holds that an essence is a property an entitypossesses necessarily the referent of a lsquorigid designatorrsquo the extension ofwhich is xed across all possible worlds4 The paradox disappears howeveronce we realize that Heidegger too uses lsquoessencersquo (Wesen) as a technical termalbeit quite differently from Kripke To understand lsquoessencersquo in phrases suchas lsquothe essence of truthrsquo and lsquothe essence of technologyrsquo Heidegger explainswe cannot conceive of lsquoessencersquo the way we have been doing since Plato aswhat lsquopermanently enduresrsquo for that makes it seem as if by lsquoessencersquo lsquowemean some mythological abstractionrsquo Instead Heidegger insists we need tothink of lsquoessencersquo as a verb as the way in which things lsquoessencersquo (west) orlsquoremain in playrsquo (im Spiel bleibt)5 In Heideggerrsquos usage lsquoessencersquo picks outthe extension of an entity unfolding itself in historical intelligibilityOtherwise put Heidegger understands lsquoessencersquo in terms of being and sincebeing is not a real predicate (as Kant showed) there is little likelihood that anentityrsquos lsquoessencersquo can be picked out by a single xed predicate or underlyingproperty (as substance metaphysics assumes) Rather for Heideggerlsquoessencersquo simply denotes the historical way in which an entity comes toreveal itself ontologically and be understood by Dasein6 Accordinglylsquoessencersquo must be understood in terms of the lsquoek-sistencersquo of Da-sein that isin terms of lsquobeing set-out into the disclosedness of beingsrsquo7

In lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo (1929) Heidegger applies this historicalunderstanding of lsquoessencersquo to truth contending famously (if no longer terriblycontroversially) that the original historical lsquoessence of truthrsquo is not simplylsquounforgottennessrsquo (Unvergessenheit a literal translation of the original Greekword for lsquotruthrsquo Aletheia ndash the alpha-privative lsquoun-rsquo plus Lethe themythological lsquoriver of forgettingrsquo) but phenomenological lsquoun-concealednessrsquo(Un-verborgenheit) more generally Historically lsquotruthrsquo rst refers torevealedness or phenomenological manifestation rather than to accuraterepresentation the lsquolocus of truthrsquo is not originally the correspondence of anassertion to a state of affairs but the antecedent fact that there is somethingthere to which the assertion might correspond So conceived the lsquoessence oftruthrsquo is a lsquorevealednessrsquo fully co-extensional with Daseinrsquos lsquoexistencersquo thebasic fact of our lsquostanding-outrsquo (ek-sistere) historically into phenomenolo-gical intelligibility lsquoThe essence of truthrsquo thus refers to the way in which this

246 Iain Thomson

lsquorevealednessrsquo takes shape historically namely as a series of differentontological constellations of intelligibility It is not surprising then thatHeidegger rst began to elaborate his lsquohistory of beingrsquo in lsquoOn the Essence ofTruthrsquo for him lsquothe essence of truthrsquo is lsquothe history of beingrsquo

Of course such strong claims about the radically historical character of ourconcepts (even cherished concepts like lsquoessencersquo lsquotruthrsquo lsquohistoryrsquo lsquoconceptrsquoand lsquobeingrsquo) tend to make philosophers nervous When Heidegger historicizesontology by re-rooting it in the historical existence of Dasein how does hisaccount avoid simply dissolving intelligibility into the ux of timeHeideggerrsquos answer is surprising it is the metaphysical tradition thatprevents intelligibility from dissolving into a pure temporal ux Indeedcareful readers will notice that when Heidegger writes that lsquoek-sistentdisclosive Da-sein possesses the human being so originarily that only itsecures for humanity that distinctive relatedness to the totality of beings assuch which rst grounds all historyrsquo he is subtly invoking his account of theway in which metaphysics grounds intelligibility Unfortunately thecomplexity of Heideggerrsquos idiosyncratic understanding of Western meta-physics as ontotheology coupled with his seemingly strong antipathy tometaphysics has tended to obscure the unparalleled pride of place he in factassigns to metaphysics in the historical construction contestation andmaintenance of intelligibility Put simply Heidegger holds that ourmetaphysiciansrsquo ontological understandings of what entities are lsquoas suchrsquoground intelligibility from the inside-out (as it were) while their theologicalunderstandings of the way in which the lsquototalityrsquo of beings existsimultaneously secure the intelligible order from the outside-in Westernhistoryrsquos successive constellations of intelligibility are thus lsquodoublygroundedrsquo in a series of ontotheologically structured understandings of lsquothebeing of beingsrsquo (das Sein des Seienden) understandings that is of both whatand how beings are or of lsquothe totality of beings as suchrsquo (as Heidegger puts itabove)8

This account answers our worry for although none of these ontotheolo-gical grounds has served the history of intelligibility as an unshakeablelsquofoundationrsquo (Grund) nor have any of the major ontotheologies instantlygiven way like a groundless lsquoabyssrsquo (Abgrund) Rather each ontotheology hasserved its historical constellation of intelligibility as an Ungrund lsquoa perhapsnecessary appearance of groundrsquo that is as that point at which ontologicalinquiry comes to a rest9 Because each ontotheology serves for a time as thepoint where lsquothe spade turnsrsquo (as Wittgenstein put it) the history ofintelligibility has taken the form of a series of relatively durable overlappinghistorical lsquoepochsrsquo rather than either a single monolithic understanding ofwhat-is or a formless ontological ux10 Thus metaphysics by repeatedlysupplying intelligibility with dual ontotheological anchors is able lsquoto holdbackrsquo (epoche) the oodwaters of intelligibility for a time ndash the time of an

Heidegger on Ontological Education 247

lsquoepochrsquo It is this lsquooverlappingrsquo historical series of ontotheologicallygrounded epochs that Heidegger calls the history of being

2 The History of Being as the Ground of Education

With this philosophical background in place we can now understand thereasoning behind Heideggerrsquos claim that our changing historical under-standing of lsquoeducationrsquo is grounded in the history of being11 Heideggerdefends a kind of ontological holism By giving shape to our historicalunderstanding of lsquowhat isrsquo metaphysics determines the most basicpresuppositions of what anything is including lsquoeducationrsquo As he puts itlsquoWestern humanity in all its comportment toward beings and even towarditself is in every respect sustained and guided by metaphysicsrsquo12 The lsquogreatmetaphysiciansrsquo focus and disseminate an ontotheological understanding ofwhat and how beings are thereby establishing the most basic conceptualparameters and ultimate standards of legitimacy for their historical epochsThese ontotheologies function historically like self-ful lling propheciesreshaping intelligibility from the ground up For as a new ontotheologicalunderstanding of what and how beings are takes hold and spreads ittransforms our basic understanding of what all entities are13 Our under-standing of education is lsquomade possiblersquo by the history of being then sincewhen our understanding of what beings are changes historically ourunderstanding of what lsquoeducationrsquo is transforms as well

This conclusion is crucial not only does it answer the question that hasguided us thus far it positions us to understand what exactly Heidegger ndsobjectionable about our contemporary understanding of education (and theeducational institutions which embody this understanding) For Heidegger ourchanging historical understanding of what lsquoeducationrsquo is has its place in anhistorical series of ontological lsquoepochsrsquo holistic constellations of intelligibilitywhich are themselves grounded in a series of ontotheological understandings ofwhat and how beings are In order fully to comprehend Heideggerrsquos critique ofcontemporary education then we need to answer three interrelated questionsFirst what exactly is the nature of our own ontological epoch Second inwhich ontotheology is our constellation of intelligibility grounded And thirdhow has this underlying ontotheology shaped our present understanding ofeducation I will take these questions in order

Heideggerrsquos name for our contemporary constellation of intelligibility isof course lsquoenframingrsquo (das Gestell) Heidegger chooses this polysemic termbecause by etymologically connoting a gathering together (lsquoGe-rsquo) of themyriad forms of stellen (lsquoto set stand regulate secure ready establishrsquo andso on) it succinctly conveys his understanding of the way in which ourpresent lsquomode of revealingrsquo ndash a lsquosetting-upon that challenges forthrsquo ndash forcesthe lsquopresencingrsquo (anwesen) of entities into its metaphysical lsquostamp or moldrsquo

248 Iain Thomson

(Pragung)14 Yet this is not simply to substitute etymology for argument asdetractors allege Heidegger uses etymology in order to come up with anappropriate name for our contemporary lsquomode of revealingrsquo but theargumentative work in his account is done by his understanding ofmetaphysics This means that to really understand why Heideggercharacterizes our contemporary epoch as das Gestell we must take themeasure of his claim that lsquoenframingrsquo is grounded in an ontotheologytransmitted to us by Nietzsche On Heideggerrsquos reading Nietzschersquos staunchanti-metaphysical stance merely hides the fact that he actually philosophizedon the basis of an lsquounthoughtrsquo metaphysics Nietzschersquos Nachlab clearlydemonstrates that he conceptualized lsquothe totality of beings as suchrsquoontotheologically as lsquoeternally recurring will-to-powerrsquo that is as anunending disaggregation and reaggregation of forces without purpose orgoal15 This Nietzschean ontotheology not only inaugurates the lsquometaphysicsof the atomic agersquo it grounds enframing Our unthinking reliance onNietzschersquos ontotheology is leading us to transform all beings ourselvesincluded into mere lsquoresourcesrsquo (Bestand) entities lacking intrinsic meaningwhich are thus simply optimized and disposed of with maximal ef ciency16

Heidegger famously characterizes enframing as a technological under-standing of being As an historical lsquomode of revealingrsquo in which entitiesincreasingly show up only as resources to be optimized enframing generatesa lsquocalculative thinkingrsquo which like the mythic touch of King Midasquanti es all qualitative relations This lsquolimitless ldquoquanti cationrdquorsquo whichabsorbs all qualitative relations (until we come to treat lsquoquantity as qualityrsquo)is rooted in enframingrsquos ontologically reductive mode of revealing wherebylsquo[o]nly what is calculable in advance counts as beingrsquo Enframing thus tendsto reduce all entities to bivalent programmable lsquoinformationrsquo digitized datawhich increasingly enters into lsquoa state of pure circulationrsquo17 Indeed asHeideggerrsquos phenomenological meditation on a highway interchangerevealed to him in the 1950s ndash and as our lsquoinformation superhighwayrsquo theInternet now makes plain ndash we exhibit a growing tendency to relate to ourworld and ourselves merely as a lsquonetwork of long distance traf c paced ascalculated for maximum yieldrsquo18 Reading quotidian historical developmentsin terms of this ontohistorical logic Heidegger believed our passage fromCartesian modernity to Nietzschean postmodernity was already visible in thetransformation of employment agencies into lsquohuman resourcersquo departmentsThe technological move afoot to reduce teachers and scholars to lsquoon-linecontent providersrsquo merely extends ndash and so clari es ndash the logic wherebymodern subjects transform themselves into postmodern resources by turningtechniques developed for controlling nature back onto themselves19

Unfortunately as this historical transformation of subjects into resourcesbecomes more pervasive it further eludes our critical gaze indeed we cometo treat ourselves in the very terms which underlie our technological

Heidegger on Ontological Education 249

refashioning of the world no longer as conscious Cartesian subjects takingcontrol of an objective world but rather as one more resource to be optimizedordered and enhanced with maximal ef ciency ndash whether cosmeticallypsychopharmacologically or educationally

Here then Heidegger believes he has uncovered the subterraneanontohistorical logic guiding the development of our educational institutionsBut how does contemporary education re ect this nihilistic logic ofenframing In what sense are todayrsquos educational institutions caught up inan unlimited quanti cation of qualitative relations which strips beings of theirintrinsic meanings transforming them into mere resources to be optimizedwith maximal ef ciency

3 Education as Enframing

Heidegger began developing his critique of higher education in 1911 andcontinued elaborating it well into the 1960s but perhaps his most directanswer to this question comes in 192920 Having nally been awarded a fullprofessorship (on the basis of Being and Time) the 39-year-old Heideggergives his of cial lsquoInaugural Lecturersquo at Freiburg University the famouslsquoWhat is Metaphysicsrsquo He begins boldly directing his critical attention to theuniversity itself by emphasizing philosophyrsquos concrete lsquoexistentialrsquo founda-tions (since lsquometaphysical questioning must be posed from the essentialposition of the existence [Dasein] that questionsrsquo) Within the lifeworld of theuniversity Heidegger observes lsquoexistencersquo (Dasein) is determined byWissenschaft the knowledge embodied in the humanities and naturalsciences lsquoOur Dasein ndash in the community of researchers teachers andstudents ndash is determined by science or knowledge [durch die Wissenschaftbestimmt]rsquo21 Our very lsquobeing-in-the-worldrsquo is shaped by the knowledge wepursue uncover and embody When Heidegger claims that existence isfundamentally shaped by knowledge he is not thinking of a professoriateshifting in the winds of academic trends nor simply arguing for a kind ofpedagogical or performative consistency according to which we shouldpractice what we know His intent rather is to emphasize a troubling sense inwhich it seems that we cannot help practicing what we know since we arelsquoalways alreadyrsquo implicitly shaped by our guiding metaphysical presupposi-tions Heideggerrsquos question thus becomes What is the ontological impact ofour unquestioned reliance on the particular metaphysical presuppositionswhich tacitly dominate the academy lsquoWhat happens to us essentially in theground of our existencersquo when the Wissenschaft pursued in the contemporaryuniversity becomes our guiding lsquopassionrsquo fundamentally shaping our view ofthe world and of ourselves

Heideggerrsquos dramatic answer introduces his radical critique of the hyper-specialization and consequent fragmentation of the modern university

250 Iain Thomson

The elds of science are widely separated Their ways of handling the objects of theirinquiries differ fundamentally Today only the technical organization of universitiesand faculties consolidates this multiplicity of dispersed disciplines only throughpractical and instrumental goals do they maintain any meaning The rootedness of thesciences in their essential ground has dried up and died2 2

Here in 1929 Heidegger accurately describes the predicament of thatinstitution which almost half a century later Clark Kerr would satiricallylabel the lsquoMulti-versityrsquo an internally fragmented Uni-versity-in-name-onlywhere the sole communal unity stems from a common grievance aboutparking spaces23 Historically as the modern university loses sight of theshared goals which originally justi ed the endeavors of the academiccommunity as a whole (at rst the common pursuit of the uni ed lsquosystemrsquo ofknowledge then the communal dedication to the formation of cultivatedindividuals) its members begin to look outside the university for somepurpose to give meaning to lives of research Since only those disciplines (orsub-disciplines) able to produce instrumentally useful results regularly ndsuch external support all disciplines increasingly try to present themselves interms of their use-value Without a counter-ideal students too will adopt thisinstrumental mentality coming to see education merely as a means to anincreased salary down the road In this way fragmentation leads to theprofessionalization of the university and eventually its deterioration intovocationalism At the same time moreover the different disciplines lackingany shared substantive sense of a unifying purpose or common subject-matter tend by the logic of specialization to develop internal standardsappropriate to their particular object-domains As these domains becomeincreasingly specialized these internal standards become ever moredisparate if not simply incommensurable In this way disciplinaryfragmentation leaves the university without common standards ndash other thanthe now ubiquitous but entirely empty and formal ideal of excellence

Following in Heideggerrsquos footsteps critics such as Bill Readings andTimothy Clark show how our contemporary lsquouniversity of excellencersquo owingto lsquothe very emptiness of the idea of excellencersquo is lsquobecoming an excellentbureaucratic corporationrsquo lsquogeared to no higher idea than its own maximizedself-perpetuation according to optimal inputoutput ratiosrsquo24 Such diagnosesmake clear that the development of our educational institutions continues tofollow the underlying metaphysical logic of enframing the progressivetransformation of all entities into mere resources to be optimizedUnfortunately these critics fail to recognize this underlying ontohistoricallogic and so offer diagnoses without cures Indeed Readingsrsquo materialistexplanation for the historical obsolescence of Bildung as the unifying ideal ofthe modern university (the result of an lsquoimplacable bourgeois economicrevolutionrsquo) leads him to succumb to a cynicism in which future denizens ofthe university can hope for nothing more than lsquopragmaticrsquo situational

Heidegger on Ontological Education 251

responses in an environment increasingly transformed by lsquothe logic ofconsumerismrsquo25 While such critiques of the university convincingly extendand update aspects of Heideggerrsquos analysis they lack his philosophical visionfor a revitalizing reuni cation of the university

To see that Heidegger himself did not relinquish all hope for the future ofhigher education we need only attend carefully to the performativedimension of his lsquoInaugural Lecturersquo On the surface it may seem as ifHeidegger welcomed fully into the arms of the university rather perverselyuses his celebratory lecture to pronounce the death of the institution which hasjust hired him proclaiming that lsquoThe rootedness of the sciences in theiressential ground has dried up and diedrsquo Yet with this deliberate provocationHeidegger is not beating a dead horse his pronouncement that the universityis dead at its roots implies that it is fated to wither and decay unless it isrevivi ed reinvigorated from the root Heidegger uses this organic metaphorof lsquorootednessrsquo (Verwurzelung) to put into effect what Derrida (who willrestage this scene himself) recognizes as lsquoa phoenix motifrsquo lsquoOne burns orburies what is already dead so that life will be reborn and regenerated fromthese ashesrsquo26 Indeed Heidegger begins to outline his program for arenaissance of the university in the lecturersquos conclusion Existence isdetermined by science but science itself remains rooted in metaphysicswhether it realizes it or not Since the roots of the university are metaphysicala reinstauration of the scienti c lifeworld requires a renewed attention to thisunderlying metaphysical dimension lsquoOnly if science exists on the basis ofmetaphysics can it achieve anew its essential task which is not to amass andclassify bits of knowledge but to disclose in ever-renewed fashion the entireexpanse of truth in nature and historyrsquo27

What exactly is Heidegger proposing here To understand his vision for arebirth of the university we need to turn to a text he began writing the nextyear lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo28 Here tracing the ontohistorical roots ofour educational crisis back to Platorsquos cave Heidegger (quite literally)excavates an alternative

III Heideggerrsquos Return to Platorsquos Cave Ontological Education asthe Essence of Paideia

Plato seeks to show that the essence of paideia does notconsist in merely pouring knowledge into the unpreparedsoul as if it were a container held out empty and waitingOn the contrary real education lays hold of the soul itselfand transforms it in its entirety by rst of all leading us tothe place of our essential being and accustoming us toit2 9

252 Iain Thomson

Our contemporary educational crisis can be understood as an ontohistoricaldissolution of Platorsquos original conception of education Heidegger contendsso the deconstructive recovery of this lsquoessence of paideiarsquo is crucial tosuccessfully resolving the crisis A deeply resonant Greek word paideiameans lsquocivilizationrsquo lsquoculturersquo lsquodevelopmentrsquo lsquotraditionrsquo lsquoliteraturersquo andlsquoeducationrsquo thus it encompasses what to our ears seems to be a rather widerange of semantic frequencies30 Heidegger was deeply drawn to the wordnot only because thanks largely to Werner Jaeger it served as a key term inthat intersection of German academic and political life which Heideggersought to occupy during the 1930s but also because he had an undeniablefondness for what (with a wink to Freud) we could call the polysemicperversity of language that is the fortuitous ambiguities and unpredictableinterconnections which help form the warp and weave of its semantic webRecognizing that such rich language tends to resist the analystrsquos pursuit of anunambiguous exactness Heidegger argued that lsquorigorousrsquo philosophicalprecision calls instead for an attempt to do justice to this semantic richness31

Yet as Gadamer and Derrida have shown this demand for us to do justiceto language is aporetic ndash a lsquonecessary impossibilityrsquo ndash since the holism ofmeaning renders the attempt ultimately impossible not only practically (for nite beings like ourselves who cannot follow all the strands in the semanticweb at once) but also in principle (despite our Borgesian dreams of acomplete hypertext which would exhaustively represent the semantic web adream even the vaunted lsquoworld-wide webrsquo barely inches toward realizing)This unful llable call for the philosopher to do justice to language isnevertheless ethical in the Kantian sense it constitutes a regulative idealorienting our progress while remaining unreachable like a guiding star It isalso and for Heidegger more primordially lsquoethos-icalrsquo (so to speak) sincesuch a call can be answered lsquoauthenticallyrsquo only if it is taken up existentiallyand embodied in an ethos a way of being In Being and Time Heideggerdescribes the called-for comportment as Ent-schlossenheit lsquodis-closednessor re-solversquo later he will teach it as Gelassenheit lsquoreleasement or letting-bersquo32 Ent-schlossenheit and Gelassenheit are not of course simplyequivalent terms releasement evolves out of resolve through a series ofintermediary formulations and notably lacks resolversquos voluntarism But bothentail a responsive hermeneutic receptivity (whether existential or phenom-enological) and both designate comportments whereby we embodyre exively an understanding of what we are ontologically namely Da-sein lsquobeing [the] therersquo a making intelligible of the place in which we ndourselves

Such considerations allow us to see that we are the place to whichHeidegger is referring ndash in the epigraph above this section ndash when he writesthat lsquoreal education lays hold of the soul itself and transforms it in its entiretyby rst of all leading us to the place of our essential being [Wesensort] and

Heidegger on Ontological Education 253

accustoming us to itrsquo As this epigraph shows Heidegger believes he hasful lled the ethical dictate to do justice to language by recovering lsquotheessence of paideiarsquo the ontological carrier wave underlying paideiarsquosmultiple semantic frequencies Ventriloquizing Plato Heidegger deploys thisnotion of the essence of paideia in order to oppose two conceptions ofeducation He warns rst against a lsquofalse interpretationrsquo We cannotunderstand education as the transmission of lsquoinformationrsquo the lling of thepsyche with knowledge as if inscribing a tabula rasa or in morecontemporary parlance lsquotraining-uprsquo a neural net This understanding ofeducation is false because (in the terms of Being and Time) we are lsquothrownrsquobeings lsquoalways alreadyrsquo shaped by a tradition we can never lsquoget behindrsquo andso we cannot be blank slates or lsquoempty containersrsquo waiting to be lled33

Indeed this lsquoreductive and atrophiedrsquo misconception of education as thetransmission of information re ects the nihilistic logic of enframing thatontohistorical trend by which intelligibility is lsquoleveled out into the uniformstorage of informationrsquo34 Yet here again we face a situation in which as theproblem gets worse we become less likely to recognize it the lsquoimpactrsquo of thisontological drift toward meaninglessness can lsquobarely be noticed bycontemporary humanity because they are continually covered over with thelatest informationrsquo35

Against this self-insulating but lsquofalse interpretationrsquo of educationHeidegger advances his conception of lsquoreal or genuine educationrsquo (echteBildung) the lsquoessence of paideiarsquo Drawing on the allegory of the cave ndashwhich lsquoillustrates the essence of ldquoeducationrdquo [paideia]rsquo (as Plato claims at thebeginning of Book VII of the Republic) ndash Heidegger seeks to effect nothingless than a re-ontologizing revolution in our understanding of education36

Recall Heideggerrsquos succinct and powerful formulation lsquoReal education layshold of the soul itself and transforms it in its entirety by rst of all leading usto the place of our essential being and accustoming [eingewohnt] us to itrsquoGenuine education leads us back to ourselves to the place we are (the Da ofour Sein) teaches us lsquoto dwellrsquo (wohnen) lsquotherersquo and transforms us in theprocess This transformative journey to ourselves is not a ight away from theworld into thought but a re exive return to the fundamental lsquorealm of thehuman sojournrsquo (Aufenthaltsbezirk des Menschen)37 The goal of thiseducational odyssey is simple but literally revolutionary to bring us fullcircle back to ourselves rst by turning us away from the world in which weare most immediately immersed then by turning us back to this world in amore re exive way As Heidegger explains lsquoPaideia means the turningaround of the whole human being in the sense of displacing them out of theregion of immediate encountering and accustoming them to another realm inwhich beings appearrsquo38

How can we accomplish such an ontological revolution in education Whatare the pedagogical methods of this alternative conception of education And

254 Iain Thomson

how nally can this ontological conception of education help us overturn theenframing of education

1 Ontological Education Against Enframing

In lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo Heideggerrsquos exposition is complicated by thefact that he is simultaneously explicating his own positive understanding oflsquoeducationrsquo and critiquing an important transformation in the history of lsquotruthrsquoinaugurated by Plato the transition from truth understood as aletheiaphenomenological lsquounhiddennessrsquo to orthotes the lsquocorrectnessrsquo of anassertion From this lsquoambiguity in Platorsquos doctrinersquo in which lsquotruth still isat one and the same time unhiddenness and correctnessrsquo the subsequenttradition will develop only the orthotic understanding of truth at the expenseof the aletheiac39 In so doing we lose lsquothe original essence of truthrsquo themanifestation of beings themselves and come to understand truth solely as afeature of our own representational capacities According to Heidegger thisdisplacement of the locus of truth from being to human subjectivity paves theway for that metaphysical humanism (or subjectivism) in which the lsquoessenceof paideiarsquo will be eclipsed allowing lsquoeducationrsquo to be absorbed byenframing becoming merely a means for lsquobringing ldquohuman beingsrdquo to theliberation of their possibilities the certitude of their destination and thesecuring of their ldquolivingrdquorsquo40

Despite some dramatic rhetorical ourishes however Heidegger has notentirely given up on lsquoeducationrsquo (Bildung) He dismisses the modernunderstanding of Bildung (the deliberate cultivation of lsquosubjective qualitiesrsquo)as a lsquomisinterpretation to which the notion fell victim in the nineteenthcenturyrsquo yet maintains that once Bildung is lsquogiven back its original namingpowerrsquo it is the word which lsquocomes closest to capturing the [meaning of the]word paideiarsquo Bildung is literally ambiguous Heidegger tells us its lsquonamingforcersquo drives in two directions

What lsquoBildungrsquo expresses is twofold rst Bildung means forming [Bilden] in thesense of impressing a character that unfolds But at the same time this lsquoformingrsquo[lsquoBildenrsquo ] lsquoformsrsquo [lsquobildetrsquo ] (or impresses a character) by antecedently taking itsmeasure from some measure-giving vision which for that reason is called the pre-conception [Vor-bild]

lsquoThusrsquo Heidegger concludes lsquoldquoeducationrdquo [ldquoBildungrdquo] means impressing acharacter especially as guiding by a pre-conceptionrsquo41

Few would quibble with the rst claim education stamps us with acharacter which unfolds within us But what forms the lsquostamprsquo which formsus Who educates the educators According to Heidegger the answer to thisquestion is built into the very meaning of paideia it is the second sense he

Heidegger on Ontological Education 255

lsquorestoresrsquo to Bildung To further lsquounfoldrsquo these two senses of lsquoeducationrsquoHeidegger immediately introduces the contrast class lsquothe contrary of paideiais apaideusia lack of education [Bildunglosigkeit] where no fundamentalcomportment is awakened no measure-giving preconception establishedrsquo42

This helpfully clari es Heideggerrsquos rst claim It is by awakening alsquofundamental comportmentrsquo that education stamps us with a character thatunfolds within us In the educational situation ndash a situation without pre-delimitable boundaries indeed a situation the boundaries of whichHeidegger ceaselessly seeks to expand (for he holds that lsquopaideia isessentially a movement of passage from apaideusia to paideiarsquo such thateducation is not something that can ever be completed) ndash the lsquofundamentalcomportmentrsquo perhaps most frequently called for is not the heroic Ent-schlossenheit nor even the gentler Gelassenheit but rather a more basic formof receptive spontaneity Heidegger will simply call hearing or hearkening(horen) that is (as we will see) an attentive and responsive way of dwellingin onersquos environment But whether the comportment implicitly guidingeducation is lsquoresolutenessrsquo lsquoreleasementrsquo lsquohearingrsquo or that anxiety-tranquillizing hurry which generally characterizes contemporary life dependson the second sense of Bildung which remains puzzling From where do wederive the measure-giving vision which implicitly informs all genuineeducation

Heideggerrsquos answer is complicated let us recall by the fact that he is bothelaborating his own philosophy of education (as it were) and performing acritical exegesis of Platorsquos decisive metaphysical contribution to lsquothe historythat we arersquo the history of metaphysics These two aims are in tension withone another because the education Heidegger seeks to impart ndash thefundamental attunement he would awaken in his students ndash is itself anattempt to awaken us from the ontological education that we have lsquoalwaysalreadyrsquo received from the metaphysical tradition For this generallyunnoticed antecedent measure comes to us from metaphysics from theontotheologically conceived understanding of the being of beings In shortHeidegger seeks to educate his students against their pre-existingontotheological education (He will sometimes call this educating-against-education simply lsquoteachingrsquo) The crucial question then is How canHeideggerrsquos ontological education combat the metaphysical education wehave always already received

2 The Pedagogy of Ontological Freedom

Heideggerrsquos suggestions about how the ontological education he advocatescan transcend enframing are surprisingly speci c Recall that in Platorsquosallegory the prisoner (1) begins in captivity within the cave (2) escapes thechains and turns around to discover the re and objects responsible for the

256 Iain Thomson

shadows on the wall previously taken as reality then (3) ascends from thecave into the light of the outside world coming to understand what is seenthere as made possible by the light of the sun and (4) nally returns to thecave taking up the struggle to free the other prisoners (who violently resisttheir would-be liberator) For Heidegger this well-known scenario suggeststhe pedagogy of ontological education On his remarkable interpretation theprisonerrsquos lsquofour different dwelling placesrsquo communicate the four successivestages whereby ontological education breaks studentsrsquo bondage to thetechnological mode of revealing freeing them to understand what-isdifferently

When studentsrsquo ontological educations begin they lsquoare engrossed in whatthey immediately encounterrsquo taking the shadows cast by the re on the wallto be the ultimate reality of things Yet this lsquo rersquo is only lsquoman-madersquo thelsquoconfusingrsquo light it casts represents enframingrsquos ontologically reductive modeof revealing Here in this rst stage all entities show up to students merely asresources to be optimized including the students themselves Thus if pressedstudents will ultimately lsquojustifyrsquo even their education itself merely as a meansto making more money getting the most out of their potentials or some otherequally empty optimization imperative Stage two is only reached when astudentrsquos lsquogaze is freed from its captivity to shadowsrsquo this happens when astudent recognizes lsquothe rersquo (enframing) as the source of lsquothe shadowsrsquo(entities understood as mere resources) In stage two the metaphysical chainsof enframing are thus broken But how does this liberation occur Despite theimportance of this question Heidegger answers it only in an aside lsquoto turnonersquos gaze from the shadows to entities as they show themselves withinthe glow of the relight is dif cult and failsrsquo43 His point I take it is thatentities do not show themselves as they are when forced into the meta-physical mould of enframing the ontotheology which reduces them to mereresources to be optimized Students can be led to this realization through aguided investigation of the being of any entity which they will tend tounderstand only as eternally recurring will-to-power that is as forcesendlessly coming together and breaking apart Because this metaphysicalunderstanding dissolves being into becoming the attempt to see entities asthey are in its light is doomed to failure resources have no being they arelsquoconstantly becomingrsquo (as Nietzsche realized) With this recognition ndash and theanxiety it tends to induce ndash students can attain a negative freedom fromenframing

Still Heidegger insists that lsquoreal freedomrsquo lsquoeffective freedomrsquo (wirklicheFreiheit) ndash the positive freedom in which students realize that entities aremore than mere resources and so become free for understanding themotherwise ndash lsquois attained only in stage three in which someone who has beenunchained is conveyed outside the cave ldquointo the openrdquorsquo (Notice the implicitreference to someone doing the unchaining and conveying here for

Heidegger on Ontological Education 257

Heidegger the educator plays a crucial role facilitating studentsrsquo passagebetween each of the stages) The open is one of Heideggerrsquos names for lsquobeingas suchrsquo that is for lsquowhat appears antecedently in everything that appears and makes whatever appears be accessiblersquo44 The attainment of ndash or bettercomportmental attunement to ndash this lsquoopenrsquo is what Heidegger famously callslsquodwellingrsquo45 When such positive ontological freedom is achieved lsquowhatthings are no longer appear merely in the man-made and confusing glow ofthe re within the cave The things themselves stand there in the binding forceand validity of their own visible formrsquo46 Ontological freedom is achievedwhen entities show themselves in their full phenomenological richness Thegoal of the third stage of ontological education then is to teach students tolsquodwellrsquo to help attune them to the being of entities and thus to teach them tosee that the being of an entity ndash be it a book cup rose or to use a particularlysalient example they themselves ndash cannot be fully understood in theontologically-reductive terms of enframing47

With the attainment of this crucial third stage Heideggerrsquos lsquogenuinersquoontological education may seem to have reached its completion since lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo48 This claim that genuineeducation teaches students to recognize lsquoessencesrsquo is not merely a Platonicconceit but plays an absolutely crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for areuni cation of the university (as we will see in the conclusion) Neverthelessontological education reaches its true culmination only in the fourth stage thereturn to the cave Heidegger clearly understood his own role as a teacher interms of just such a return that is as a struggle to free ontologicallyanaesthetized enframers from their bondage to a self-reifying mode ofontological revealing49 But his ranking of the return to the cave as the higheststage of ontological education is not merely an evangelistic call for others toadopt his vision of education as a revolution in consciousness it also re ectshis recognition that in ontological education learning culminates in teachingWe must thus ask What is called lsquoteachingrsquo

3 What Is Called Teaching

The English lsquoteachrsquo comes from the same linguistic family as the Germanverb zeigen lsquoto point or showrsquo50 As this etymology suggests to teach is toreveal to point out or make manifest through words But to reveal whatWhat does the teacher who lsquopoints outrsquo (or reveals) with words point to (orindicate)51 What do teachers teach The question seems to presuppose thatall teaching shares a common lsquosubject-matterrsquo not simply a shared method orgoal (the inculcation of critical thinking persuasive writing and the like) butsomething more substantive a common subject-matter unifying the Uni-versity Of course all teachers use words to disclose but to disclose a common

258 Iain Thomson

subject-matter How could such a supposition not sound absurd to usprofessional denizens of a postmodern polyversity where relentless hyper-specialization continues to fragment our subjects and even re-unifying forceslike interdisciplinarity seem to thrive only in so far they open new sub-specialties for a relentless vascular-to-capillary colonization of the scienti clifeworld In such a situation is it surprising that the Heideggerian idea of allteachers ultimately sharing a uni ed subject sounds absurd or at best like anoutdated myth ndash albeit the myth that founded the modern university But isthe idea of such a shared subject-matter a myth What do teachers teach Letus approach this question from what might at rst seem to be anotherdirection attempting to learn its answer

If teaching is revealing through words then conversely learning isexperiencing what a teacherrsquos words reveal That is to learn is actively toallow oneself to share in what the teacherrsquos words disclose But again whatdo the teacherrsquos words reveal We will notice if we read closely enough thatHeidegger answers this question in 1951 when he writes lsquoTo learn means tomake everything we do answer to whatever essentials address us at a giventimersquo52 Here it might sound at rst as if Heidegger is simply claimingthat learning as the complement of teaching means actively allowing oneselfto share in that which the teacherrsquos words disclose But Wittgenstein used tosay that philosophy is like a bicycle race the point of which is to go as slowlyas possible without falling off and if we slow down we will notice thatHeideggerrsquos words ndash the words of a teacher who would teach what learningmeans (in fact the performative situation is even more complex)53ndash saymore Learning means actively allowing ourselves to respond to what isessential in that which always addresses us that which has always alreadyclaimed us

In a sense then learning means responding appropriately to thesolicitations of the environment Of course Heidegger is thinking of theontological environment (the way in which what-is discloses itself to us)but even ontic analogues show that this capacity to respond appropriately tothe environment is quite dif cult to learn We learn to respond appropriatelyto environmental solicitations through a long process of trial and error Wemust in other words learn how to learn Here problems abound for it isnot clear that learning to learn can be taught To the analytically minded thisdemand seems to lead to a regress (for if we need to learn to learn then weneed to learn to learn to learn and so on) But logic misleads phenomenologyhere as Heidegger realized it is simply a question of jumping into thispedagogical circle in the right way Such a train of thought leads Heidegger toclaim that if lsquoteaching is even more dif cult than learningrsquo this is onlybecause the teacher must be an exemplary learner capable of teaching his orher students to learn that is capable of learning-in-public activelyresponding to the emerging demands of each unique educational situation

Heidegger on Ontological Education 259

Recall the famous passage

Why is teaching more dif cult than learning Not because the teacher must have alarger store of information and have it always ready Teaching is more dif cult thanlearning because what teaching calls for is this to let learn The real teacher in factlets nothing else be learned than learning The teacher is ahead of his apprentices inthis alone that he has still far more to learn than they ndash he has to learn to let themlearn The teacher must be capable of being more teachable than his apprentices5 4

The teacher teaches students to learn ndash to respond appropriately to thesolicitations of the ontological environment ndash by responding appropriately tothe solicitations of his or her environment which is after all the studentsrsquoenvironment too Learning culminates in teaching then because teaching isthe highest form of learning unlike lsquoinstructingrsquo (belehren) lsquoteachingrsquo(lehren) is ultimately a lsquoletting learnrsquo (lernen lassen) lsquoThe true teacher isahead of the students only in that he has more to learn than they namely theletting learn (To learn [means] to bring what we do and allow into a co-respondence [or a suitable response Entsprechung] with that which in eachcase grants itself to us as the essential)rsquo55

This last assertion should remind us of Heideggerrsquos earlier claim that lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo56 I said previously that thisclaim plays a crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for a reuni cation of theuniversity By way of conclusion let us brie y develop this claim and therebyfurther elaborate Heideggerrsquos positive vision for the future of highereducation

IV Conclusion Envisioning a University of Teachers

How can Heideggerrsquos understanding of ontological education help us restoresubstance to our currently empty guiding ideal of educational lsquoexcellencersquoand in so doing provide the contemporary university with a renewed sense ofunity not only restoring substance to our shared commitment to formingexcellent students but also helping us recognize the sense in which we are infact all working on the same project The answer is surprisingly simple Byre-essentializing the notion of excellence Heidegger like Aristotle is aperfectionist he argues that there is a distinctive human essence and that thegood life the life of lsquoexcellencersquo (arete) is the life spent cultivating thisdistinctively human essence For Heidegger as we have seen the humanlsquoessencersquo is Dasein lsquobeing-therersquo that is the making-intelligible of the placein which we nd ourselves or even more simply world disclosing For aworld-disclosing being to cultivate its essence then is for it to recognize and

260 Iain Thomson

develop this essence not only acknowledging its participation in the creationand maintenance of an intelligible world but actively embracing itsontological role in such world disclosure The full rami cations of thisseemingly simple insight are profound and revolutionary57 We will restrictourselves to brie y developing the two most important implications ofHeideggerrsquos re-essentialization of excellence for the future of the university

Heideggerrsquos ontological conception of education would transform theexisting relations between teaching and research on the one hand andbetween the now fragmented departments on the other Thus in effectHeidegger dedicates himself nally to redeeming the two central ideals whichguided the formation of the modern university Teaching and research shouldbe harmoniously integrated and the university community should understanditself as committed to a common substantive task58 How does Heideggerthink he can help us nally achieve such ambitions First his conception oflsquoteachingrsquo would reunite research and teaching because when studentsdevelop the aforementioned lsquoinsight into essencersquo they are being taught todisclose and investigate the ontological presuppositions which underlie allresearch on Heideggerrsquos view For todayrsquos academic departments are what hecalls lsquopositive sciencesrsquo that is they all rest on ontological lsquopositsrsquoontological assumptions about what the class of entities they study areBiology for example allows us to understand the logos of the bios the orderand structure of living beings Nevertheless Heidegger asserts biologyproper cannot tell us what life is59 Instead biology takes over its implicitontological understanding of what life is from the metaphysical under-standing governing our Nietzschean epoch of enframing (When contempor-ary philosophers of biology claim that life is lsquoa self-replicating systemrsquo theyhave unknowingly adopted the basic ontological presupposition ofNietzschersquos metaphysics according to which life is ultimately the eternalrecurrence of will to power that is sheer will-to-will unlimited self-augmentation)60 Analogously psychology can tell us a great deal about howconsciousness (the psyche) functions but it cannot tell us what consciousnessis The same holds true for the understanding of lsquothe corporeality of bodiesthe vegetable character of plants the animality of animals and the humannessof humanityrsquo within physics botany zoology and anthropology respec-tively these sciences all presuppose an ontological posit a pre-understandingof the being of the class of entities they study61 Heideggerrsquos ontologicallyreconceived notion of teaching is inextricably entwined with research thenbecause ontological education teaches students to question the veryontological presuppositions which guide research thereby opening a spacefor understanding the being of the entities they study otherwise than inenframingrsquos ontologically reductive terms Heideggerrsquos reconceptualizationof education would thus encourage revolutionary transformations in thesciences and humanities by teaching students to focus on and explicitly

Heidegger on Ontological Education 261

investigate the ontological presuppositions which implicitly guide research ineach domain of knowledge

Despite such revolutionary goals Heidegger thought that his ontologicalreconceptualization of education could also restore a substantive sense ofunity to the university community if only this community could learn lsquotoengage in [this lsquore ection on the essential foundationsrsquo] as re ection and tothink and belong to the university from the base of this engagementrsquo62 Fromits founding one of the major concerns about the modern university has beenhow it could maintain the unity of structure and purpose thought to bede nitive of the lsquoUni-versityrsquo as such German Idealists like Fichte andSchelling believed that this unity would follow organically from the totalityof the system of knowledge But this faith in the system proved to be far lessin uential on posterity than Humboldtrsquos alternative lsquohumanistrsquo idealaccording to which the universityrsquos unity would come from a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of character Humboldtrsquos famousidea was to link lsquoobjective Wissenschaft with subjective Bildungrsquo theuniversity would be responsible for forming fully-cultivated individuals arequirement Humboldt hoped would serve to guide and unify the newfreedom of research Historically of course neither the German Idealistsrsquoreliance on the unity of research nor Humboldtrsquos emphasis on a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of students succeeded in unifyingthe university community In effect however Heideggerrsquos re-ontologizationof education would combine (his versions of) these two strategies Theuniversity community would be uni ed both by its shared commitment toforming excellent individuals (where excellence is understood in terms of theontological perfectionism outlined above) and by the shared recognition onthe part of this community that its members are all committed to the samesubstantive pursuit The ultimately revolutionary task not simply ofunderstanding what is but of investigating the ontological presuppositionsimplicitly guiding all the various elds of knowledge Heidegger thusbelieved that ontological education by restoring substance to the notion ofexcellence and so teaching us lsquoto disclose the essential in all thingsrsquo could nally succeed in lsquoshattering the encapsulation of the sciences in theirdifferent disciplines and bringing them back from their boundless and aimlessdispersal in individual elds and cornersrsquo6364

NOTES

1 See Heidegger Being and Time (New York Harper amp Row 1962) trans J Macquarrie andE Robinson p 44 Sein und Zeit (Tubingen M Niemeyer 1993) p 22

2 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo in William McNeill (ed) Pathmarks(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998) p 167Heidegger Wegmarken 3rd edGesamtausgabe vol 9 (Frankfurt aM V Klostermann 1996) (hereafter GA9) p 218(On my translation of this title see note 28 below) I am aware that the preceding sentence

262 Iain Thomson

ominously echoes the title of Nietzschersquos politically compromised and deeply problematicearly lectures lsquoOn the Future of Our Educational Institutionsrsquo (which culminate with a callfor a lsquogreat Fuhrerrsquo [see Nietzsche On the Future of Our Educational Institutions in OLevy (ed) The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Edinburgh T N Foulis 1909)vol 6 Jacques Derrida The Ear of the Other ed C V McDonald trans Kamuf andRonell (New York Shocken Books 1985) p 28]) I bracket such political connectionshere but a complementary essay examines the darker side of Heideggerrsquos philosophicalcritique of education showing that it played a central role in his decision to join with theNazis in the early 1930s see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo(forthcoming)

3 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo ibid p 167GA9 p 2184 See Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

1980) On Heideggerrsquos distinctive understanding of lsquoessencersquo see my lsquoWhatrsquos Wrong withBeing a Technological Essentialist A Response to Feenbergrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 429ndash44

5 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo in The Question ConcerningTechnology and Other Essays trans W Lovitt (New York Harper amp Row 1977) p 4ibid pp 30ndash31

6 Cf Feenbergrsquos Hegelian misinterpretation of Heideggerrsquos understanding of essence in lsquoTheOntic and the Ontological in Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Technology Response toThomsonrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 445ndash50

7 Heidegger lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo op cit p 145GA9 p 1898 Ibid pp 145ndash46 (my italics)GA9 p 190 I am of necessity simplifying Heideggerrsquos

complex account here but see my lsquoOntotheology Understanding Heideggerrsquos Destruktionof Metaphysicsrsquo International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (October 2000) pp 297ndash327

9 See Heidegger An Introduction to Metaphysics trans R Manheim (New Haven YaleUniversity Press 1959) p 3Einfuhrung in die Metaphysik (Tubingen M Niemeyer1953) p 2

10 See Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations 3rd ed trans G E M Anscombe(New York Macmillan 1968) sect 217 p 85

11 See also Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 170GA9 p 222 lsquoThe essenceof ldquoeducationrdquo is grounded in the essence of ldquotruthrdquorsquo

12 See Heidegger Nietzsche Nihilism ed David Krell trans F Capuzzi (New York Harperamp Row 1982) p 205Nietzsche (Pfullingen Neske 1961) vol II p 343

13 Eventually either a new ontotheology emerges (perhaps as Kuhn suggests out of theinvestigation of those lsquoanomalousrsquo entities which resist being understood in terms of thedominant ontotheology) or else our underlying conception of the being of all entities wouldbe brought into line with this spreading ontotheology Although this latter alternative hasnever yet occurred Heidegger calls it lsquothe greatest dangerrsquo he is worried that ourNietzschean ontotheology could become totalizing lsquodriving out every other possibility ofrevealingrsquo by overwriting Daseinrsquos lsquospecial naturersquo our de ning capacity for world-disclosure with the lsquototal thoughtlessnessrsquo of a merely instrumental lsquocalculative reasoningrsquo See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo op cit p 27 HeideggerDiscourse on Thinking trans J Anderson and E Freund (New York Harper amp Row1966) p 56

14 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo ibid pp 16ndash2015 See esp Friedrich Nietzsche The Will To Power ed and trans Walter Kaufmann (New

York Random House 1967) pp 549ndash50 Here Nietzsche clearly conceives of beings assuch as will to power and of the way the totality exists as eternally recurring Nor canHeideggerrsquos controversial reading be rejected simply by excluding this problematic text onthe basis of its politically compromised ancestry since Nietzschersquos ontotheology can alsobe found in his other works

16 Heidegger lsquoNihilism as Determined by the History of Beingrsquo Nietzsche Nihilism op citpp 199ndash250

17 See Heidegger Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) trans P Emad and K Maly(Bloomington IN Indiana University Press 1999) p 95Beitrage zur Philosophie (Vom

Heidegger on Ontological Education 263

service it contains a positive as well as a negative moment These twomoments are so important that the rest of this essay will be devoted to theirexplication Negatively we need a critical perspective which will allow us tograsp the underlying historical logic according to which our educationalinstitutions have developed and will continue to develop if nothing is done toalter their course As we will see in section II Heidegger was one of the rstto diagnose correctly what a growing number of incisive critics ofcontemporary education have subsequently con rmed We now stand inthe midst of an historical crisis in higher education Heideggerrsquos profoundunderstanding of the nature of this crisis ndash his insight that it can be understoodas a total eclipse of Platorsquos original educational ideal ndash reveals theontohistorical trajectory leading up to our current educational crisis andmore importantly illuminates a path which might lead us out of it

This is fortunate since the gravity of Heideggerrsquos diagnosis immediatelysuggests a complementary positive need We need an alternative to ourcontemporary understanding of education an alternative capable of favorablyresolving our educational crisis by averting the technological dissolution ofthe historical essence of education Heideggerrsquos hope is this Since anambiguity at the heart of Platorsquos original understanding of education lentitself to an historical misunderstanding in which the essence of education hasbeen obscured and is now in danger of being forgotten the deconstructiverecovery of this long-obscured essence of education can now help us envisiona way to restore substance to the increasingly formal and empty ideals guidingcontemporary education It thus makes perfect sense that this need for apositive alternative leads Heidegger back to Platorsquos cave Retracing his stepsin section III I reconstruct lsquothe essence of educationrsquo that Heidegger seeks torecover from the shadows of history thereby eshing out his positive visionIn section IV I consider brie y how this re-ontologization of education mighthelp us begin to envision a path leading beyond our contemporary educationalcrisis

II Heideggerrsquos Ontohistorical Critique of the Technologization ofEducation

The rst aspect of our lsquofuture needrsquo is for a critical perspective which willallow us to discern the underlying logic that has long guided the historicaldevelopment of our educational institutions a perspective which will rendervisible the developmental trajectory these institutions continue to follow Asintimated above Heidegger maintains that his lsquohistory of beingrsquo (Seins-geschichte) provides precisely this perspective As he puts it lsquothe essence oftruth and the kinds of transformations it undergoes rst make possible [thehistorical unfolding of] ldquoeducationrdquo in its basic structuresrsquo3 Heidegger means

Heidegger on Ontological Education 245

by this that the history of being makes possible the historical development ofour educational institutions although to see this we must carefully unpackthis initially puzzling reference to lsquothe essence of truth and the kinds oftransformations it undergoesrsquo

1 From the Essence of Truth to the History of Being

Heideggerrsquos pronouncement that the essence of truth transforms soundsparadoxical how can an essence change This will seem impossible tosomeone like Kripke who holds that an essence is a property an entitypossesses necessarily the referent of a lsquorigid designatorrsquo the extension ofwhich is xed across all possible worlds4 The paradox disappears howeveronce we realize that Heidegger too uses lsquoessencersquo (Wesen) as a technical termalbeit quite differently from Kripke To understand lsquoessencersquo in phrases suchas lsquothe essence of truthrsquo and lsquothe essence of technologyrsquo Heidegger explainswe cannot conceive of lsquoessencersquo the way we have been doing since Plato aswhat lsquopermanently enduresrsquo for that makes it seem as if by lsquoessencersquo lsquowemean some mythological abstractionrsquo Instead Heidegger insists we need tothink of lsquoessencersquo as a verb as the way in which things lsquoessencersquo (west) orlsquoremain in playrsquo (im Spiel bleibt)5 In Heideggerrsquos usage lsquoessencersquo picks outthe extension of an entity unfolding itself in historical intelligibilityOtherwise put Heidegger understands lsquoessencersquo in terms of being and sincebeing is not a real predicate (as Kant showed) there is little likelihood that anentityrsquos lsquoessencersquo can be picked out by a single xed predicate or underlyingproperty (as substance metaphysics assumes) Rather for Heideggerlsquoessencersquo simply denotes the historical way in which an entity comes toreveal itself ontologically and be understood by Dasein6 Accordinglylsquoessencersquo must be understood in terms of the lsquoek-sistencersquo of Da-sein that isin terms of lsquobeing set-out into the disclosedness of beingsrsquo7

In lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo (1929) Heidegger applies this historicalunderstanding of lsquoessencersquo to truth contending famously (if no longer terriblycontroversially) that the original historical lsquoessence of truthrsquo is not simplylsquounforgottennessrsquo (Unvergessenheit a literal translation of the original Greekword for lsquotruthrsquo Aletheia ndash the alpha-privative lsquoun-rsquo plus Lethe themythological lsquoriver of forgettingrsquo) but phenomenological lsquoun-concealednessrsquo(Un-verborgenheit) more generally Historically lsquotruthrsquo rst refers torevealedness or phenomenological manifestation rather than to accuraterepresentation the lsquolocus of truthrsquo is not originally the correspondence of anassertion to a state of affairs but the antecedent fact that there is somethingthere to which the assertion might correspond So conceived the lsquoessence oftruthrsquo is a lsquorevealednessrsquo fully co-extensional with Daseinrsquos lsquoexistencersquo thebasic fact of our lsquostanding-outrsquo (ek-sistere) historically into phenomenolo-gical intelligibility lsquoThe essence of truthrsquo thus refers to the way in which this

246 Iain Thomson

lsquorevealednessrsquo takes shape historically namely as a series of differentontological constellations of intelligibility It is not surprising then thatHeidegger rst began to elaborate his lsquohistory of beingrsquo in lsquoOn the Essence ofTruthrsquo for him lsquothe essence of truthrsquo is lsquothe history of beingrsquo

Of course such strong claims about the radically historical character of ourconcepts (even cherished concepts like lsquoessencersquo lsquotruthrsquo lsquohistoryrsquo lsquoconceptrsquoand lsquobeingrsquo) tend to make philosophers nervous When Heidegger historicizesontology by re-rooting it in the historical existence of Dasein how does hisaccount avoid simply dissolving intelligibility into the ux of timeHeideggerrsquos answer is surprising it is the metaphysical tradition thatprevents intelligibility from dissolving into a pure temporal ux Indeedcareful readers will notice that when Heidegger writes that lsquoek-sistentdisclosive Da-sein possesses the human being so originarily that only itsecures for humanity that distinctive relatedness to the totality of beings assuch which rst grounds all historyrsquo he is subtly invoking his account of theway in which metaphysics grounds intelligibility Unfortunately thecomplexity of Heideggerrsquos idiosyncratic understanding of Western meta-physics as ontotheology coupled with his seemingly strong antipathy tometaphysics has tended to obscure the unparalleled pride of place he in factassigns to metaphysics in the historical construction contestation andmaintenance of intelligibility Put simply Heidegger holds that ourmetaphysiciansrsquo ontological understandings of what entities are lsquoas suchrsquoground intelligibility from the inside-out (as it were) while their theologicalunderstandings of the way in which the lsquototalityrsquo of beings existsimultaneously secure the intelligible order from the outside-in Westernhistoryrsquos successive constellations of intelligibility are thus lsquodoublygroundedrsquo in a series of ontotheologically structured understandings of lsquothebeing of beingsrsquo (das Sein des Seienden) understandings that is of both whatand how beings are or of lsquothe totality of beings as suchrsquo (as Heidegger puts itabove)8

This account answers our worry for although none of these ontotheolo-gical grounds has served the history of intelligibility as an unshakeablelsquofoundationrsquo (Grund) nor have any of the major ontotheologies instantlygiven way like a groundless lsquoabyssrsquo (Abgrund) Rather each ontotheology hasserved its historical constellation of intelligibility as an Ungrund lsquoa perhapsnecessary appearance of groundrsquo that is as that point at which ontologicalinquiry comes to a rest9 Because each ontotheology serves for a time as thepoint where lsquothe spade turnsrsquo (as Wittgenstein put it) the history ofintelligibility has taken the form of a series of relatively durable overlappinghistorical lsquoepochsrsquo rather than either a single monolithic understanding ofwhat-is or a formless ontological ux10 Thus metaphysics by repeatedlysupplying intelligibility with dual ontotheological anchors is able lsquoto holdbackrsquo (epoche) the oodwaters of intelligibility for a time ndash the time of an

Heidegger on Ontological Education 247

lsquoepochrsquo It is this lsquooverlappingrsquo historical series of ontotheologicallygrounded epochs that Heidegger calls the history of being

2 The History of Being as the Ground of Education

With this philosophical background in place we can now understand thereasoning behind Heideggerrsquos claim that our changing historical under-standing of lsquoeducationrsquo is grounded in the history of being11 Heideggerdefends a kind of ontological holism By giving shape to our historicalunderstanding of lsquowhat isrsquo metaphysics determines the most basicpresuppositions of what anything is including lsquoeducationrsquo As he puts itlsquoWestern humanity in all its comportment toward beings and even towarditself is in every respect sustained and guided by metaphysicsrsquo12 The lsquogreatmetaphysiciansrsquo focus and disseminate an ontotheological understanding ofwhat and how beings are thereby establishing the most basic conceptualparameters and ultimate standards of legitimacy for their historical epochsThese ontotheologies function historically like self-ful lling propheciesreshaping intelligibility from the ground up For as a new ontotheologicalunderstanding of what and how beings are takes hold and spreads ittransforms our basic understanding of what all entities are13 Our under-standing of education is lsquomade possiblersquo by the history of being then sincewhen our understanding of what beings are changes historically ourunderstanding of what lsquoeducationrsquo is transforms as well

This conclusion is crucial not only does it answer the question that hasguided us thus far it positions us to understand what exactly Heidegger ndsobjectionable about our contemporary understanding of education (and theeducational institutions which embody this understanding) For Heidegger ourchanging historical understanding of what lsquoeducationrsquo is has its place in anhistorical series of ontological lsquoepochsrsquo holistic constellations of intelligibilitywhich are themselves grounded in a series of ontotheological understandings ofwhat and how beings are In order fully to comprehend Heideggerrsquos critique ofcontemporary education then we need to answer three interrelated questionsFirst what exactly is the nature of our own ontological epoch Second inwhich ontotheology is our constellation of intelligibility grounded And thirdhow has this underlying ontotheology shaped our present understanding ofeducation I will take these questions in order

Heideggerrsquos name for our contemporary constellation of intelligibility isof course lsquoenframingrsquo (das Gestell) Heidegger chooses this polysemic termbecause by etymologically connoting a gathering together (lsquoGe-rsquo) of themyriad forms of stellen (lsquoto set stand regulate secure ready establishrsquo andso on) it succinctly conveys his understanding of the way in which ourpresent lsquomode of revealingrsquo ndash a lsquosetting-upon that challenges forthrsquo ndash forcesthe lsquopresencingrsquo (anwesen) of entities into its metaphysical lsquostamp or moldrsquo

248 Iain Thomson

(Pragung)14 Yet this is not simply to substitute etymology for argument asdetractors allege Heidegger uses etymology in order to come up with anappropriate name for our contemporary lsquomode of revealingrsquo but theargumentative work in his account is done by his understanding ofmetaphysics This means that to really understand why Heideggercharacterizes our contemporary epoch as das Gestell we must take themeasure of his claim that lsquoenframingrsquo is grounded in an ontotheologytransmitted to us by Nietzsche On Heideggerrsquos reading Nietzschersquos staunchanti-metaphysical stance merely hides the fact that he actually philosophizedon the basis of an lsquounthoughtrsquo metaphysics Nietzschersquos Nachlab clearlydemonstrates that he conceptualized lsquothe totality of beings as suchrsquoontotheologically as lsquoeternally recurring will-to-powerrsquo that is as anunending disaggregation and reaggregation of forces without purpose orgoal15 This Nietzschean ontotheology not only inaugurates the lsquometaphysicsof the atomic agersquo it grounds enframing Our unthinking reliance onNietzschersquos ontotheology is leading us to transform all beings ourselvesincluded into mere lsquoresourcesrsquo (Bestand) entities lacking intrinsic meaningwhich are thus simply optimized and disposed of with maximal ef ciency16

Heidegger famously characterizes enframing as a technological under-standing of being As an historical lsquomode of revealingrsquo in which entitiesincreasingly show up only as resources to be optimized enframing generatesa lsquocalculative thinkingrsquo which like the mythic touch of King Midasquanti es all qualitative relations This lsquolimitless ldquoquanti cationrdquorsquo whichabsorbs all qualitative relations (until we come to treat lsquoquantity as qualityrsquo)is rooted in enframingrsquos ontologically reductive mode of revealing wherebylsquo[o]nly what is calculable in advance counts as beingrsquo Enframing thus tendsto reduce all entities to bivalent programmable lsquoinformationrsquo digitized datawhich increasingly enters into lsquoa state of pure circulationrsquo17 Indeed asHeideggerrsquos phenomenological meditation on a highway interchangerevealed to him in the 1950s ndash and as our lsquoinformation superhighwayrsquo theInternet now makes plain ndash we exhibit a growing tendency to relate to ourworld and ourselves merely as a lsquonetwork of long distance traf c paced ascalculated for maximum yieldrsquo18 Reading quotidian historical developmentsin terms of this ontohistorical logic Heidegger believed our passage fromCartesian modernity to Nietzschean postmodernity was already visible in thetransformation of employment agencies into lsquohuman resourcersquo departmentsThe technological move afoot to reduce teachers and scholars to lsquoon-linecontent providersrsquo merely extends ndash and so clari es ndash the logic wherebymodern subjects transform themselves into postmodern resources by turningtechniques developed for controlling nature back onto themselves19

Unfortunately as this historical transformation of subjects into resourcesbecomes more pervasive it further eludes our critical gaze indeed we cometo treat ourselves in the very terms which underlie our technological

Heidegger on Ontological Education 249

refashioning of the world no longer as conscious Cartesian subjects takingcontrol of an objective world but rather as one more resource to be optimizedordered and enhanced with maximal ef ciency ndash whether cosmeticallypsychopharmacologically or educationally

Here then Heidegger believes he has uncovered the subterraneanontohistorical logic guiding the development of our educational institutionsBut how does contemporary education re ect this nihilistic logic ofenframing In what sense are todayrsquos educational institutions caught up inan unlimited quanti cation of qualitative relations which strips beings of theirintrinsic meanings transforming them into mere resources to be optimizedwith maximal ef ciency

3 Education as Enframing

Heidegger began developing his critique of higher education in 1911 andcontinued elaborating it well into the 1960s but perhaps his most directanswer to this question comes in 192920 Having nally been awarded a fullprofessorship (on the basis of Being and Time) the 39-year-old Heideggergives his of cial lsquoInaugural Lecturersquo at Freiburg University the famouslsquoWhat is Metaphysicsrsquo He begins boldly directing his critical attention to theuniversity itself by emphasizing philosophyrsquos concrete lsquoexistentialrsquo founda-tions (since lsquometaphysical questioning must be posed from the essentialposition of the existence [Dasein] that questionsrsquo) Within the lifeworld of theuniversity Heidegger observes lsquoexistencersquo (Dasein) is determined byWissenschaft the knowledge embodied in the humanities and naturalsciences lsquoOur Dasein ndash in the community of researchers teachers andstudents ndash is determined by science or knowledge [durch die Wissenschaftbestimmt]rsquo21 Our very lsquobeing-in-the-worldrsquo is shaped by the knowledge wepursue uncover and embody When Heidegger claims that existence isfundamentally shaped by knowledge he is not thinking of a professoriateshifting in the winds of academic trends nor simply arguing for a kind ofpedagogical or performative consistency according to which we shouldpractice what we know His intent rather is to emphasize a troubling sense inwhich it seems that we cannot help practicing what we know since we arelsquoalways alreadyrsquo implicitly shaped by our guiding metaphysical presupposi-tions Heideggerrsquos question thus becomes What is the ontological impact ofour unquestioned reliance on the particular metaphysical presuppositionswhich tacitly dominate the academy lsquoWhat happens to us essentially in theground of our existencersquo when the Wissenschaft pursued in the contemporaryuniversity becomes our guiding lsquopassionrsquo fundamentally shaping our view ofthe world and of ourselves

Heideggerrsquos dramatic answer introduces his radical critique of the hyper-specialization and consequent fragmentation of the modern university

250 Iain Thomson

The elds of science are widely separated Their ways of handling the objects of theirinquiries differ fundamentally Today only the technical organization of universitiesand faculties consolidates this multiplicity of dispersed disciplines only throughpractical and instrumental goals do they maintain any meaning The rootedness of thesciences in their essential ground has dried up and died2 2

Here in 1929 Heidegger accurately describes the predicament of thatinstitution which almost half a century later Clark Kerr would satiricallylabel the lsquoMulti-versityrsquo an internally fragmented Uni-versity-in-name-onlywhere the sole communal unity stems from a common grievance aboutparking spaces23 Historically as the modern university loses sight of theshared goals which originally justi ed the endeavors of the academiccommunity as a whole (at rst the common pursuit of the uni ed lsquosystemrsquo ofknowledge then the communal dedication to the formation of cultivatedindividuals) its members begin to look outside the university for somepurpose to give meaning to lives of research Since only those disciplines (orsub-disciplines) able to produce instrumentally useful results regularly ndsuch external support all disciplines increasingly try to present themselves interms of their use-value Without a counter-ideal students too will adopt thisinstrumental mentality coming to see education merely as a means to anincreased salary down the road In this way fragmentation leads to theprofessionalization of the university and eventually its deterioration intovocationalism At the same time moreover the different disciplines lackingany shared substantive sense of a unifying purpose or common subject-matter tend by the logic of specialization to develop internal standardsappropriate to their particular object-domains As these domains becomeincreasingly specialized these internal standards become ever moredisparate if not simply incommensurable In this way disciplinaryfragmentation leaves the university without common standards ndash other thanthe now ubiquitous but entirely empty and formal ideal of excellence

Following in Heideggerrsquos footsteps critics such as Bill Readings andTimothy Clark show how our contemporary lsquouniversity of excellencersquo owingto lsquothe very emptiness of the idea of excellencersquo is lsquobecoming an excellentbureaucratic corporationrsquo lsquogeared to no higher idea than its own maximizedself-perpetuation according to optimal inputoutput ratiosrsquo24 Such diagnosesmake clear that the development of our educational institutions continues tofollow the underlying metaphysical logic of enframing the progressivetransformation of all entities into mere resources to be optimizedUnfortunately these critics fail to recognize this underlying ontohistoricallogic and so offer diagnoses without cures Indeed Readingsrsquo materialistexplanation for the historical obsolescence of Bildung as the unifying ideal ofthe modern university (the result of an lsquoimplacable bourgeois economicrevolutionrsquo) leads him to succumb to a cynicism in which future denizens ofthe university can hope for nothing more than lsquopragmaticrsquo situational

Heidegger on Ontological Education 251

responses in an environment increasingly transformed by lsquothe logic ofconsumerismrsquo25 While such critiques of the university convincingly extendand update aspects of Heideggerrsquos analysis they lack his philosophical visionfor a revitalizing reuni cation of the university

To see that Heidegger himself did not relinquish all hope for the future ofhigher education we need only attend carefully to the performativedimension of his lsquoInaugural Lecturersquo On the surface it may seem as ifHeidegger welcomed fully into the arms of the university rather perverselyuses his celebratory lecture to pronounce the death of the institution which hasjust hired him proclaiming that lsquoThe rootedness of the sciences in theiressential ground has dried up and diedrsquo Yet with this deliberate provocationHeidegger is not beating a dead horse his pronouncement that the universityis dead at its roots implies that it is fated to wither and decay unless it isrevivi ed reinvigorated from the root Heidegger uses this organic metaphorof lsquorootednessrsquo (Verwurzelung) to put into effect what Derrida (who willrestage this scene himself) recognizes as lsquoa phoenix motifrsquo lsquoOne burns orburies what is already dead so that life will be reborn and regenerated fromthese ashesrsquo26 Indeed Heidegger begins to outline his program for arenaissance of the university in the lecturersquos conclusion Existence isdetermined by science but science itself remains rooted in metaphysicswhether it realizes it or not Since the roots of the university are metaphysicala reinstauration of the scienti c lifeworld requires a renewed attention to thisunderlying metaphysical dimension lsquoOnly if science exists on the basis ofmetaphysics can it achieve anew its essential task which is not to amass andclassify bits of knowledge but to disclose in ever-renewed fashion the entireexpanse of truth in nature and historyrsquo27

What exactly is Heidegger proposing here To understand his vision for arebirth of the university we need to turn to a text he began writing the nextyear lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo28 Here tracing the ontohistorical roots ofour educational crisis back to Platorsquos cave Heidegger (quite literally)excavates an alternative

III Heideggerrsquos Return to Platorsquos Cave Ontological Education asthe Essence of Paideia

Plato seeks to show that the essence of paideia does notconsist in merely pouring knowledge into the unpreparedsoul as if it were a container held out empty and waitingOn the contrary real education lays hold of the soul itselfand transforms it in its entirety by rst of all leading us tothe place of our essential being and accustoming us toit2 9

252 Iain Thomson

Our contemporary educational crisis can be understood as an ontohistoricaldissolution of Platorsquos original conception of education Heidegger contendsso the deconstructive recovery of this lsquoessence of paideiarsquo is crucial tosuccessfully resolving the crisis A deeply resonant Greek word paideiameans lsquocivilizationrsquo lsquoculturersquo lsquodevelopmentrsquo lsquotraditionrsquo lsquoliteraturersquo andlsquoeducationrsquo thus it encompasses what to our ears seems to be a rather widerange of semantic frequencies30 Heidegger was deeply drawn to the wordnot only because thanks largely to Werner Jaeger it served as a key term inthat intersection of German academic and political life which Heideggersought to occupy during the 1930s but also because he had an undeniablefondness for what (with a wink to Freud) we could call the polysemicperversity of language that is the fortuitous ambiguities and unpredictableinterconnections which help form the warp and weave of its semantic webRecognizing that such rich language tends to resist the analystrsquos pursuit of anunambiguous exactness Heidegger argued that lsquorigorousrsquo philosophicalprecision calls instead for an attempt to do justice to this semantic richness31

Yet as Gadamer and Derrida have shown this demand for us to do justiceto language is aporetic ndash a lsquonecessary impossibilityrsquo ndash since the holism ofmeaning renders the attempt ultimately impossible not only practically (for nite beings like ourselves who cannot follow all the strands in the semanticweb at once) but also in principle (despite our Borgesian dreams of acomplete hypertext which would exhaustively represent the semantic web adream even the vaunted lsquoworld-wide webrsquo barely inches toward realizing)This unful llable call for the philosopher to do justice to language isnevertheless ethical in the Kantian sense it constitutes a regulative idealorienting our progress while remaining unreachable like a guiding star It isalso and for Heidegger more primordially lsquoethos-icalrsquo (so to speak) sincesuch a call can be answered lsquoauthenticallyrsquo only if it is taken up existentiallyand embodied in an ethos a way of being In Being and Time Heideggerdescribes the called-for comportment as Ent-schlossenheit lsquodis-closednessor re-solversquo later he will teach it as Gelassenheit lsquoreleasement or letting-bersquo32 Ent-schlossenheit and Gelassenheit are not of course simplyequivalent terms releasement evolves out of resolve through a series ofintermediary formulations and notably lacks resolversquos voluntarism But bothentail a responsive hermeneutic receptivity (whether existential or phenom-enological) and both designate comportments whereby we embodyre exively an understanding of what we are ontologically namely Da-sein lsquobeing [the] therersquo a making intelligible of the place in which we ndourselves

Such considerations allow us to see that we are the place to whichHeidegger is referring ndash in the epigraph above this section ndash when he writesthat lsquoreal education lays hold of the soul itself and transforms it in its entiretyby rst of all leading us to the place of our essential being [Wesensort] and

Heidegger on Ontological Education 253

accustoming us to itrsquo As this epigraph shows Heidegger believes he hasful lled the ethical dictate to do justice to language by recovering lsquotheessence of paideiarsquo the ontological carrier wave underlying paideiarsquosmultiple semantic frequencies Ventriloquizing Plato Heidegger deploys thisnotion of the essence of paideia in order to oppose two conceptions ofeducation He warns rst against a lsquofalse interpretationrsquo We cannotunderstand education as the transmission of lsquoinformationrsquo the lling of thepsyche with knowledge as if inscribing a tabula rasa or in morecontemporary parlance lsquotraining-uprsquo a neural net This understanding ofeducation is false because (in the terms of Being and Time) we are lsquothrownrsquobeings lsquoalways alreadyrsquo shaped by a tradition we can never lsquoget behindrsquo andso we cannot be blank slates or lsquoempty containersrsquo waiting to be lled33

Indeed this lsquoreductive and atrophiedrsquo misconception of education as thetransmission of information re ects the nihilistic logic of enframing thatontohistorical trend by which intelligibility is lsquoleveled out into the uniformstorage of informationrsquo34 Yet here again we face a situation in which as theproblem gets worse we become less likely to recognize it the lsquoimpactrsquo of thisontological drift toward meaninglessness can lsquobarely be noticed bycontemporary humanity because they are continually covered over with thelatest informationrsquo35

Against this self-insulating but lsquofalse interpretationrsquo of educationHeidegger advances his conception of lsquoreal or genuine educationrsquo (echteBildung) the lsquoessence of paideiarsquo Drawing on the allegory of the cave ndashwhich lsquoillustrates the essence of ldquoeducationrdquo [paideia]rsquo (as Plato claims at thebeginning of Book VII of the Republic) ndash Heidegger seeks to effect nothingless than a re-ontologizing revolution in our understanding of education36

Recall Heideggerrsquos succinct and powerful formulation lsquoReal education layshold of the soul itself and transforms it in its entirety by rst of all leading usto the place of our essential being and accustoming [eingewohnt] us to itrsquoGenuine education leads us back to ourselves to the place we are (the Da ofour Sein) teaches us lsquoto dwellrsquo (wohnen) lsquotherersquo and transforms us in theprocess This transformative journey to ourselves is not a ight away from theworld into thought but a re exive return to the fundamental lsquorealm of thehuman sojournrsquo (Aufenthaltsbezirk des Menschen)37 The goal of thiseducational odyssey is simple but literally revolutionary to bring us fullcircle back to ourselves rst by turning us away from the world in which weare most immediately immersed then by turning us back to this world in amore re exive way As Heidegger explains lsquoPaideia means the turningaround of the whole human being in the sense of displacing them out of theregion of immediate encountering and accustoming them to another realm inwhich beings appearrsquo38

How can we accomplish such an ontological revolution in education Whatare the pedagogical methods of this alternative conception of education And

254 Iain Thomson

how nally can this ontological conception of education help us overturn theenframing of education

1 Ontological Education Against Enframing

In lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo Heideggerrsquos exposition is complicated by thefact that he is simultaneously explicating his own positive understanding oflsquoeducationrsquo and critiquing an important transformation in the history of lsquotruthrsquoinaugurated by Plato the transition from truth understood as aletheiaphenomenological lsquounhiddennessrsquo to orthotes the lsquocorrectnessrsquo of anassertion From this lsquoambiguity in Platorsquos doctrinersquo in which lsquotruth still isat one and the same time unhiddenness and correctnessrsquo the subsequenttradition will develop only the orthotic understanding of truth at the expenseof the aletheiac39 In so doing we lose lsquothe original essence of truthrsquo themanifestation of beings themselves and come to understand truth solely as afeature of our own representational capacities According to Heidegger thisdisplacement of the locus of truth from being to human subjectivity paves theway for that metaphysical humanism (or subjectivism) in which the lsquoessenceof paideiarsquo will be eclipsed allowing lsquoeducationrsquo to be absorbed byenframing becoming merely a means for lsquobringing ldquohuman beingsrdquo to theliberation of their possibilities the certitude of their destination and thesecuring of their ldquolivingrdquorsquo40

Despite some dramatic rhetorical ourishes however Heidegger has notentirely given up on lsquoeducationrsquo (Bildung) He dismisses the modernunderstanding of Bildung (the deliberate cultivation of lsquosubjective qualitiesrsquo)as a lsquomisinterpretation to which the notion fell victim in the nineteenthcenturyrsquo yet maintains that once Bildung is lsquogiven back its original namingpowerrsquo it is the word which lsquocomes closest to capturing the [meaning of the]word paideiarsquo Bildung is literally ambiguous Heidegger tells us its lsquonamingforcersquo drives in two directions

What lsquoBildungrsquo expresses is twofold rst Bildung means forming [Bilden] in thesense of impressing a character that unfolds But at the same time this lsquoformingrsquo[lsquoBildenrsquo ] lsquoformsrsquo [lsquobildetrsquo ] (or impresses a character) by antecedently taking itsmeasure from some measure-giving vision which for that reason is called the pre-conception [Vor-bild]

lsquoThusrsquo Heidegger concludes lsquoldquoeducationrdquo [ldquoBildungrdquo] means impressing acharacter especially as guiding by a pre-conceptionrsquo41

Few would quibble with the rst claim education stamps us with acharacter which unfolds within us But what forms the lsquostamprsquo which formsus Who educates the educators According to Heidegger the answer to thisquestion is built into the very meaning of paideia it is the second sense he

Heidegger on Ontological Education 255

lsquorestoresrsquo to Bildung To further lsquounfoldrsquo these two senses of lsquoeducationrsquoHeidegger immediately introduces the contrast class lsquothe contrary of paideiais apaideusia lack of education [Bildunglosigkeit] where no fundamentalcomportment is awakened no measure-giving preconception establishedrsquo42

This helpfully clari es Heideggerrsquos rst claim It is by awakening alsquofundamental comportmentrsquo that education stamps us with a character thatunfolds within us In the educational situation ndash a situation without pre-delimitable boundaries indeed a situation the boundaries of whichHeidegger ceaselessly seeks to expand (for he holds that lsquopaideia isessentially a movement of passage from apaideusia to paideiarsquo such thateducation is not something that can ever be completed) ndash the lsquofundamentalcomportmentrsquo perhaps most frequently called for is not the heroic Ent-schlossenheit nor even the gentler Gelassenheit but rather a more basic formof receptive spontaneity Heidegger will simply call hearing or hearkening(horen) that is (as we will see) an attentive and responsive way of dwellingin onersquos environment But whether the comportment implicitly guidingeducation is lsquoresolutenessrsquo lsquoreleasementrsquo lsquohearingrsquo or that anxiety-tranquillizing hurry which generally characterizes contemporary life dependson the second sense of Bildung which remains puzzling From where do wederive the measure-giving vision which implicitly informs all genuineeducation

Heideggerrsquos answer is complicated let us recall by the fact that he is bothelaborating his own philosophy of education (as it were) and performing acritical exegesis of Platorsquos decisive metaphysical contribution to lsquothe historythat we arersquo the history of metaphysics These two aims are in tension withone another because the education Heidegger seeks to impart ndash thefundamental attunement he would awaken in his students ndash is itself anattempt to awaken us from the ontological education that we have lsquoalwaysalreadyrsquo received from the metaphysical tradition For this generallyunnoticed antecedent measure comes to us from metaphysics from theontotheologically conceived understanding of the being of beings In shortHeidegger seeks to educate his students against their pre-existingontotheological education (He will sometimes call this educating-against-education simply lsquoteachingrsquo) The crucial question then is How canHeideggerrsquos ontological education combat the metaphysical education wehave always already received

2 The Pedagogy of Ontological Freedom

Heideggerrsquos suggestions about how the ontological education he advocatescan transcend enframing are surprisingly speci c Recall that in Platorsquosallegory the prisoner (1) begins in captivity within the cave (2) escapes thechains and turns around to discover the re and objects responsible for the

256 Iain Thomson

shadows on the wall previously taken as reality then (3) ascends from thecave into the light of the outside world coming to understand what is seenthere as made possible by the light of the sun and (4) nally returns to thecave taking up the struggle to free the other prisoners (who violently resisttheir would-be liberator) For Heidegger this well-known scenario suggeststhe pedagogy of ontological education On his remarkable interpretation theprisonerrsquos lsquofour different dwelling placesrsquo communicate the four successivestages whereby ontological education breaks studentsrsquo bondage to thetechnological mode of revealing freeing them to understand what-isdifferently

When studentsrsquo ontological educations begin they lsquoare engrossed in whatthey immediately encounterrsquo taking the shadows cast by the re on the wallto be the ultimate reality of things Yet this lsquo rersquo is only lsquoman-madersquo thelsquoconfusingrsquo light it casts represents enframingrsquos ontologically reductive modeof revealing Here in this rst stage all entities show up to students merely asresources to be optimized including the students themselves Thus if pressedstudents will ultimately lsquojustifyrsquo even their education itself merely as a meansto making more money getting the most out of their potentials or some otherequally empty optimization imperative Stage two is only reached when astudentrsquos lsquogaze is freed from its captivity to shadowsrsquo this happens when astudent recognizes lsquothe rersquo (enframing) as the source of lsquothe shadowsrsquo(entities understood as mere resources) In stage two the metaphysical chainsof enframing are thus broken But how does this liberation occur Despite theimportance of this question Heidegger answers it only in an aside lsquoto turnonersquos gaze from the shadows to entities as they show themselves withinthe glow of the relight is dif cult and failsrsquo43 His point I take it is thatentities do not show themselves as they are when forced into the meta-physical mould of enframing the ontotheology which reduces them to mereresources to be optimized Students can be led to this realization through aguided investigation of the being of any entity which they will tend tounderstand only as eternally recurring will-to-power that is as forcesendlessly coming together and breaking apart Because this metaphysicalunderstanding dissolves being into becoming the attempt to see entities asthey are in its light is doomed to failure resources have no being they arelsquoconstantly becomingrsquo (as Nietzsche realized) With this recognition ndash and theanxiety it tends to induce ndash students can attain a negative freedom fromenframing

Still Heidegger insists that lsquoreal freedomrsquo lsquoeffective freedomrsquo (wirklicheFreiheit) ndash the positive freedom in which students realize that entities aremore than mere resources and so become free for understanding themotherwise ndash lsquois attained only in stage three in which someone who has beenunchained is conveyed outside the cave ldquointo the openrdquorsquo (Notice the implicitreference to someone doing the unchaining and conveying here for

Heidegger on Ontological Education 257

Heidegger the educator plays a crucial role facilitating studentsrsquo passagebetween each of the stages) The open is one of Heideggerrsquos names for lsquobeingas suchrsquo that is for lsquowhat appears antecedently in everything that appears and makes whatever appears be accessiblersquo44 The attainment of ndash or bettercomportmental attunement to ndash this lsquoopenrsquo is what Heidegger famously callslsquodwellingrsquo45 When such positive ontological freedom is achieved lsquowhatthings are no longer appear merely in the man-made and confusing glow ofthe re within the cave The things themselves stand there in the binding forceand validity of their own visible formrsquo46 Ontological freedom is achievedwhen entities show themselves in their full phenomenological richness Thegoal of the third stage of ontological education then is to teach students tolsquodwellrsquo to help attune them to the being of entities and thus to teach them tosee that the being of an entity ndash be it a book cup rose or to use a particularlysalient example they themselves ndash cannot be fully understood in theontologically-reductive terms of enframing47

With the attainment of this crucial third stage Heideggerrsquos lsquogenuinersquoontological education may seem to have reached its completion since lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo48 This claim that genuineeducation teaches students to recognize lsquoessencesrsquo is not merely a Platonicconceit but plays an absolutely crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for areuni cation of the university (as we will see in the conclusion) Neverthelessontological education reaches its true culmination only in the fourth stage thereturn to the cave Heidegger clearly understood his own role as a teacher interms of just such a return that is as a struggle to free ontologicallyanaesthetized enframers from their bondage to a self-reifying mode ofontological revealing49 But his ranking of the return to the cave as the higheststage of ontological education is not merely an evangelistic call for others toadopt his vision of education as a revolution in consciousness it also re ectshis recognition that in ontological education learning culminates in teachingWe must thus ask What is called lsquoteachingrsquo

3 What Is Called Teaching

The English lsquoteachrsquo comes from the same linguistic family as the Germanverb zeigen lsquoto point or showrsquo50 As this etymology suggests to teach is toreveal to point out or make manifest through words But to reveal whatWhat does the teacher who lsquopoints outrsquo (or reveals) with words point to (orindicate)51 What do teachers teach The question seems to presuppose thatall teaching shares a common lsquosubject-matterrsquo not simply a shared method orgoal (the inculcation of critical thinking persuasive writing and the like) butsomething more substantive a common subject-matter unifying the Uni-versity Of course all teachers use words to disclose but to disclose a common

258 Iain Thomson

subject-matter How could such a supposition not sound absurd to usprofessional denizens of a postmodern polyversity where relentless hyper-specialization continues to fragment our subjects and even re-unifying forceslike interdisciplinarity seem to thrive only in so far they open new sub-specialties for a relentless vascular-to-capillary colonization of the scienti clifeworld In such a situation is it surprising that the Heideggerian idea of allteachers ultimately sharing a uni ed subject sounds absurd or at best like anoutdated myth ndash albeit the myth that founded the modern university But isthe idea of such a shared subject-matter a myth What do teachers teach Letus approach this question from what might at rst seem to be anotherdirection attempting to learn its answer

If teaching is revealing through words then conversely learning isexperiencing what a teacherrsquos words reveal That is to learn is actively toallow oneself to share in what the teacherrsquos words disclose But again whatdo the teacherrsquos words reveal We will notice if we read closely enough thatHeidegger answers this question in 1951 when he writes lsquoTo learn means tomake everything we do answer to whatever essentials address us at a giventimersquo52 Here it might sound at rst as if Heidegger is simply claimingthat learning as the complement of teaching means actively allowing oneselfto share in that which the teacherrsquos words disclose But Wittgenstein used tosay that philosophy is like a bicycle race the point of which is to go as slowlyas possible without falling off and if we slow down we will notice thatHeideggerrsquos words ndash the words of a teacher who would teach what learningmeans (in fact the performative situation is even more complex)53ndash saymore Learning means actively allowing ourselves to respond to what isessential in that which always addresses us that which has always alreadyclaimed us

In a sense then learning means responding appropriately to thesolicitations of the environment Of course Heidegger is thinking of theontological environment (the way in which what-is discloses itself to us)but even ontic analogues show that this capacity to respond appropriately tothe environment is quite dif cult to learn We learn to respond appropriatelyto environmental solicitations through a long process of trial and error Wemust in other words learn how to learn Here problems abound for it isnot clear that learning to learn can be taught To the analytically minded thisdemand seems to lead to a regress (for if we need to learn to learn then weneed to learn to learn to learn and so on) But logic misleads phenomenologyhere as Heidegger realized it is simply a question of jumping into thispedagogical circle in the right way Such a train of thought leads Heidegger toclaim that if lsquoteaching is even more dif cult than learningrsquo this is onlybecause the teacher must be an exemplary learner capable of teaching his orher students to learn that is capable of learning-in-public activelyresponding to the emerging demands of each unique educational situation

Heidegger on Ontological Education 259

Recall the famous passage

Why is teaching more dif cult than learning Not because the teacher must have alarger store of information and have it always ready Teaching is more dif cult thanlearning because what teaching calls for is this to let learn The real teacher in factlets nothing else be learned than learning The teacher is ahead of his apprentices inthis alone that he has still far more to learn than they ndash he has to learn to let themlearn The teacher must be capable of being more teachable than his apprentices5 4

The teacher teaches students to learn ndash to respond appropriately to thesolicitations of the ontological environment ndash by responding appropriately tothe solicitations of his or her environment which is after all the studentsrsquoenvironment too Learning culminates in teaching then because teaching isthe highest form of learning unlike lsquoinstructingrsquo (belehren) lsquoteachingrsquo(lehren) is ultimately a lsquoletting learnrsquo (lernen lassen) lsquoThe true teacher isahead of the students only in that he has more to learn than they namely theletting learn (To learn [means] to bring what we do and allow into a co-respondence [or a suitable response Entsprechung] with that which in eachcase grants itself to us as the essential)rsquo55

This last assertion should remind us of Heideggerrsquos earlier claim that lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo56 I said previously that thisclaim plays a crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for a reuni cation of theuniversity By way of conclusion let us brie y develop this claim and therebyfurther elaborate Heideggerrsquos positive vision for the future of highereducation

IV Conclusion Envisioning a University of Teachers

How can Heideggerrsquos understanding of ontological education help us restoresubstance to our currently empty guiding ideal of educational lsquoexcellencersquoand in so doing provide the contemporary university with a renewed sense ofunity not only restoring substance to our shared commitment to formingexcellent students but also helping us recognize the sense in which we are infact all working on the same project The answer is surprisingly simple Byre-essentializing the notion of excellence Heidegger like Aristotle is aperfectionist he argues that there is a distinctive human essence and that thegood life the life of lsquoexcellencersquo (arete) is the life spent cultivating thisdistinctively human essence For Heidegger as we have seen the humanlsquoessencersquo is Dasein lsquobeing-therersquo that is the making-intelligible of the placein which we nd ourselves or even more simply world disclosing For aworld-disclosing being to cultivate its essence then is for it to recognize and

260 Iain Thomson

develop this essence not only acknowledging its participation in the creationand maintenance of an intelligible world but actively embracing itsontological role in such world disclosure The full rami cations of thisseemingly simple insight are profound and revolutionary57 We will restrictourselves to brie y developing the two most important implications ofHeideggerrsquos re-essentialization of excellence for the future of the university

Heideggerrsquos ontological conception of education would transform theexisting relations between teaching and research on the one hand andbetween the now fragmented departments on the other Thus in effectHeidegger dedicates himself nally to redeeming the two central ideals whichguided the formation of the modern university Teaching and research shouldbe harmoniously integrated and the university community should understanditself as committed to a common substantive task58 How does Heideggerthink he can help us nally achieve such ambitions First his conception oflsquoteachingrsquo would reunite research and teaching because when studentsdevelop the aforementioned lsquoinsight into essencersquo they are being taught todisclose and investigate the ontological presuppositions which underlie allresearch on Heideggerrsquos view For todayrsquos academic departments are what hecalls lsquopositive sciencesrsquo that is they all rest on ontological lsquopositsrsquoontological assumptions about what the class of entities they study areBiology for example allows us to understand the logos of the bios the orderand structure of living beings Nevertheless Heidegger asserts biologyproper cannot tell us what life is59 Instead biology takes over its implicitontological understanding of what life is from the metaphysical under-standing governing our Nietzschean epoch of enframing (When contempor-ary philosophers of biology claim that life is lsquoa self-replicating systemrsquo theyhave unknowingly adopted the basic ontological presupposition ofNietzschersquos metaphysics according to which life is ultimately the eternalrecurrence of will to power that is sheer will-to-will unlimited self-augmentation)60 Analogously psychology can tell us a great deal about howconsciousness (the psyche) functions but it cannot tell us what consciousnessis The same holds true for the understanding of lsquothe corporeality of bodiesthe vegetable character of plants the animality of animals and the humannessof humanityrsquo within physics botany zoology and anthropology respec-tively these sciences all presuppose an ontological posit a pre-understandingof the being of the class of entities they study61 Heideggerrsquos ontologicallyreconceived notion of teaching is inextricably entwined with research thenbecause ontological education teaches students to question the veryontological presuppositions which guide research thereby opening a spacefor understanding the being of the entities they study otherwise than inenframingrsquos ontologically reductive terms Heideggerrsquos reconceptualizationof education would thus encourage revolutionary transformations in thesciences and humanities by teaching students to focus on and explicitly

Heidegger on Ontological Education 261

investigate the ontological presuppositions which implicitly guide research ineach domain of knowledge

Despite such revolutionary goals Heidegger thought that his ontologicalreconceptualization of education could also restore a substantive sense ofunity to the university community if only this community could learn lsquotoengage in [this lsquore ection on the essential foundationsrsquo] as re ection and tothink and belong to the university from the base of this engagementrsquo62 Fromits founding one of the major concerns about the modern university has beenhow it could maintain the unity of structure and purpose thought to bede nitive of the lsquoUni-versityrsquo as such German Idealists like Fichte andSchelling believed that this unity would follow organically from the totalityof the system of knowledge But this faith in the system proved to be far lessin uential on posterity than Humboldtrsquos alternative lsquohumanistrsquo idealaccording to which the universityrsquos unity would come from a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of character Humboldtrsquos famousidea was to link lsquoobjective Wissenschaft with subjective Bildungrsquo theuniversity would be responsible for forming fully-cultivated individuals arequirement Humboldt hoped would serve to guide and unify the newfreedom of research Historically of course neither the German Idealistsrsquoreliance on the unity of research nor Humboldtrsquos emphasis on a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of students succeeded in unifyingthe university community In effect however Heideggerrsquos re-ontologizationof education would combine (his versions of) these two strategies Theuniversity community would be uni ed both by its shared commitment toforming excellent individuals (where excellence is understood in terms of theontological perfectionism outlined above) and by the shared recognition onthe part of this community that its members are all committed to the samesubstantive pursuit The ultimately revolutionary task not simply ofunderstanding what is but of investigating the ontological presuppositionsimplicitly guiding all the various elds of knowledge Heidegger thusbelieved that ontological education by restoring substance to the notion ofexcellence and so teaching us lsquoto disclose the essential in all thingsrsquo could nally succeed in lsquoshattering the encapsulation of the sciences in theirdifferent disciplines and bringing them back from their boundless and aimlessdispersal in individual elds and cornersrsquo6364

NOTES

1 See Heidegger Being and Time (New York Harper amp Row 1962) trans J Macquarrie andE Robinson p 44 Sein und Zeit (Tubingen M Niemeyer 1993) p 22

2 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo in William McNeill (ed) Pathmarks(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998) p 167Heidegger Wegmarken 3rd edGesamtausgabe vol 9 (Frankfurt aM V Klostermann 1996) (hereafter GA9) p 218(On my translation of this title see note 28 below) I am aware that the preceding sentence

262 Iain Thomson

ominously echoes the title of Nietzschersquos politically compromised and deeply problematicearly lectures lsquoOn the Future of Our Educational Institutionsrsquo (which culminate with a callfor a lsquogreat Fuhrerrsquo [see Nietzsche On the Future of Our Educational Institutions in OLevy (ed) The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Edinburgh T N Foulis 1909)vol 6 Jacques Derrida The Ear of the Other ed C V McDonald trans Kamuf andRonell (New York Shocken Books 1985) p 28]) I bracket such political connectionshere but a complementary essay examines the darker side of Heideggerrsquos philosophicalcritique of education showing that it played a central role in his decision to join with theNazis in the early 1930s see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo(forthcoming)

3 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo ibid p 167GA9 p 2184 See Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

1980) On Heideggerrsquos distinctive understanding of lsquoessencersquo see my lsquoWhatrsquos Wrong withBeing a Technological Essentialist A Response to Feenbergrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 429ndash44

5 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo in The Question ConcerningTechnology and Other Essays trans W Lovitt (New York Harper amp Row 1977) p 4ibid pp 30ndash31

6 Cf Feenbergrsquos Hegelian misinterpretation of Heideggerrsquos understanding of essence in lsquoTheOntic and the Ontological in Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Technology Response toThomsonrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 445ndash50

7 Heidegger lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo op cit p 145GA9 p 1898 Ibid pp 145ndash46 (my italics)GA9 p 190 I am of necessity simplifying Heideggerrsquos

complex account here but see my lsquoOntotheology Understanding Heideggerrsquos Destruktionof Metaphysicsrsquo International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (October 2000) pp 297ndash327

9 See Heidegger An Introduction to Metaphysics trans R Manheim (New Haven YaleUniversity Press 1959) p 3Einfuhrung in die Metaphysik (Tubingen M Niemeyer1953) p 2

10 See Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations 3rd ed trans G E M Anscombe(New York Macmillan 1968) sect 217 p 85

11 See also Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 170GA9 p 222 lsquoThe essenceof ldquoeducationrdquo is grounded in the essence of ldquotruthrdquorsquo

12 See Heidegger Nietzsche Nihilism ed David Krell trans F Capuzzi (New York Harperamp Row 1982) p 205Nietzsche (Pfullingen Neske 1961) vol II p 343

13 Eventually either a new ontotheology emerges (perhaps as Kuhn suggests out of theinvestigation of those lsquoanomalousrsquo entities which resist being understood in terms of thedominant ontotheology) or else our underlying conception of the being of all entities wouldbe brought into line with this spreading ontotheology Although this latter alternative hasnever yet occurred Heidegger calls it lsquothe greatest dangerrsquo he is worried that ourNietzschean ontotheology could become totalizing lsquodriving out every other possibility ofrevealingrsquo by overwriting Daseinrsquos lsquospecial naturersquo our de ning capacity for world-disclosure with the lsquototal thoughtlessnessrsquo of a merely instrumental lsquocalculative reasoningrsquo See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo op cit p 27 HeideggerDiscourse on Thinking trans J Anderson and E Freund (New York Harper amp Row1966) p 56

14 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo ibid pp 16ndash2015 See esp Friedrich Nietzsche The Will To Power ed and trans Walter Kaufmann (New

York Random House 1967) pp 549ndash50 Here Nietzsche clearly conceives of beings assuch as will to power and of the way the totality exists as eternally recurring Nor canHeideggerrsquos controversial reading be rejected simply by excluding this problematic text onthe basis of its politically compromised ancestry since Nietzschersquos ontotheology can alsobe found in his other works

16 Heidegger lsquoNihilism as Determined by the History of Beingrsquo Nietzsche Nihilism op citpp 199ndash250

17 See Heidegger Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) trans P Emad and K Maly(Bloomington IN Indiana University Press 1999) p 95Beitrage zur Philosophie (Vom

Heidegger on Ontological Education 263

by this that the history of being makes possible the historical development ofour educational institutions although to see this we must carefully unpackthis initially puzzling reference to lsquothe essence of truth and the kinds oftransformations it undergoesrsquo

1 From the Essence of Truth to the History of Being

Heideggerrsquos pronouncement that the essence of truth transforms soundsparadoxical how can an essence change This will seem impossible tosomeone like Kripke who holds that an essence is a property an entitypossesses necessarily the referent of a lsquorigid designatorrsquo the extension ofwhich is xed across all possible worlds4 The paradox disappears howeveronce we realize that Heidegger too uses lsquoessencersquo (Wesen) as a technical termalbeit quite differently from Kripke To understand lsquoessencersquo in phrases suchas lsquothe essence of truthrsquo and lsquothe essence of technologyrsquo Heidegger explainswe cannot conceive of lsquoessencersquo the way we have been doing since Plato aswhat lsquopermanently enduresrsquo for that makes it seem as if by lsquoessencersquo lsquowemean some mythological abstractionrsquo Instead Heidegger insists we need tothink of lsquoessencersquo as a verb as the way in which things lsquoessencersquo (west) orlsquoremain in playrsquo (im Spiel bleibt)5 In Heideggerrsquos usage lsquoessencersquo picks outthe extension of an entity unfolding itself in historical intelligibilityOtherwise put Heidegger understands lsquoessencersquo in terms of being and sincebeing is not a real predicate (as Kant showed) there is little likelihood that anentityrsquos lsquoessencersquo can be picked out by a single xed predicate or underlyingproperty (as substance metaphysics assumes) Rather for Heideggerlsquoessencersquo simply denotes the historical way in which an entity comes toreveal itself ontologically and be understood by Dasein6 Accordinglylsquoessencersquo must be understood in terms of the lsquoek-sistencersquo of Da-sein that isin terms of lsquobeing set-out into the disclosedness of beingsrsquo7

In lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo (1929) Heidegger applies this historicalunderstanding of lsquoessencersquo to truth contending famously (if no longer terriblycontroversially) that the original historical lsquoessence of truthrsquo is not simplylsquounforgottennessrsquo (Unvergessenheit a literal translation of the original Greekword for lsquotruthrsquo Aletheia ndash the alpha-privative lsquoun-rsquo plus Lethe themythological lsquoriver of forgettingrsquo) but phenomenological lsquoun-concealednessrsquo(Un-verborgenheit) more generally Historically lsquotruthrsquo rst refers torevealedness or phenomenological manifestation rather than to accuraterepresentation the lsquolocus of truthrsquo is not originally the correspondence of anassertion to a state of affairs but the antecedent fact that there is somethingthere to which the assertion might correspond So conceived the lsquoessence oftruthrsquo is a lsquorevealednessrsquo fully co-extensional with Daseinrsquos lsquoexistencersquo thebasic fact of our lsquostanding-outrsquo (ek-sistere) historically into phenomenolo-gical intelligibility lsquoThe essence of truthrsquo thus refers to the way in which this

246 Iain Thomson

lsquorevealednessrsquo takes shape historically namely as a series of differentontological constellations of intelligibility It is not surprising then thatHeidegger rst began to elaborate his lsquohistory of beingrsquo in lsquoOn the Essence ofTruthrsquo for him lsquothe essence of truthrsquo is lsquothe history of beingrsquo

Of course such strong claims about the radically historical character of ourconcepts (even cherished concepts like lsquoessencersquo lsquotruthrsquo lsquohistoryrsquo lsquoconceptrsquoand lsquobeingrsquo) tend to make philosophers nervous When Heidegger historicizesontology by re-rooting it in the historical existence of Dasein how does hisaccount avoid simply dissolving intelligibility into the ux of timeHeideggerrsquos answer is surprising it is the metaphysical tradition thatprevents intelligibility from dissolving into a pure temporal ux Indeedcareful readers will notice that when Heidegger writes that lsquoek-sistentdisclosive Da-sein possesses the human being so originarily that only itsecures for humanity that distinctive relatedness to the totality of beings assuch which rst grounds all historyrsquo he is subtly invoking his account of theway in which metaphysics grounds intelligibility Unfortunately thecomplexity of Heideggerrsquos idiosyncratic understanding of Western meta-physics as ontotheology coupled with his seemingly strong antipathy tometaphysics has tended to obscure the unparalleled pride of place he in factassigns to metaphysics in the historical construction contestation andmaintenance of intelligibility Put simply Heidegger holds that ourmetaphysiciansrsquo ontological understandings of what entities are lsquoas suchrsquoground intelligibility from the inside-out (as it were) while their theologicalunderstandings of the way in which the lsquototalityrsquo of beings existsimultaneously secure the intelligible order from the outside-in Westernhistoryrsquos successive constellations of intelligibility are thus lsquodoublygroundedrsquo in a series of ontotheologically structured understandings of lsquothebeing of beingsrsquo (das Sein des Seienden) understandings that is of both whatand how beings are or of lsquothe totality of beings as suchrsquo (as Heidegger puts itabove)8

This account answers our worry for although none of these ontotheolo-gical grounds has served the history of intelligibility as an unshakeablelsquofoundationrsquo (Grund) nor have any of the major ontotheologies instantlygiven way like a groundless lsquoabyssrsquo (Abgrund) Rather each ontotheology hasserved its historical constellation of intelligibility as an Ungrund lsquoa perhapsnecessary appearance of groundrsquo that is as that point at which ontologicalinquiry comes to a rest9 Because each ontotheology serves for a time as thepoint where lsquothe spade turnsrsquo (as Wittgenstein put it) the history ofintelligibility has taken the form of a series of relatively durable overlappinghistorical lsquoepochsrsquo rather than either a single monolithic understanding ofwhat-is or a formless ontological ux10 Thus metaphysics by repeatedlysupplying intelligibility with dual ontotheological anchors is able lsquoto holdbackrsquo (epoche) the oodwaters of intelligibility for a time ndash the time of an

Heidegger on Ontological Education 247

lsquoepochrsquo It is this lsquooverlappingrsquo historical series of ontotheologicallygrounded epochs that Heidegger calls the history of being

2 The History of Being as the Ground of Education

With this philosophical background in place we can now understand thereasoning behind Heideggerrsquos claim that our changing historical under-standing of lsquoeducationrsquo is grounded in the history of being11 Heideggerdefends a kind of ontological holism By giving shape to our historicalunderstanding of lsquowhat isrsquo metaphysics determines the most basicpresuppositions of what anything is including lsquoeducationrsquo As he puts itlsquoWestern humanity in all its comportment toward beings and even towarditself is in every respect sustained and guided by metaphysicsrsquo12 The lsquogreatmetaphysiciansrsquo focus and disseminate an ontotheological understanding ofwhat and how beings are thereby establishing the most basic conceptualparameters and ultimate standards of legitimacy for their historical epochsThese ontotheologies function historically like self-ful lling propheciesreshaping intelligibility from the ground up For as a new ontotheologicalunderstanding of what and how beings are takes hold and spreads ittransforms our basic understanding of what all entities are13 Our under-standing of education is lsquomade possiblersquo by the history of being then sincewhen our understanding of what beings are changes historically ourunderstanding of what lsquoeducationrsquo is transforms as well

This conclusion is crucial not only does it answer the question that hasguided us thus far it positions us to understand what exactly Heidegger ndsobjectionable about our contemporary understanding of education (and theeducational institutions which embody this understanding) For Heidegger ourchanging historical understanding of what lsquoeducationrsquo is has its place in anhistorical series of ontological lsquoepochsrsquo holistic constellations of intelligibilitywhich are themselves grounded in a series of ontotheological understandings ofwhat and how beings are In order fully to comprehend Heideggerrsquos critique ofcontemporary education then we need to answer three interrelated questionsFirst what exactly is the nature of our own ontological epoch Second inwhich ontotheology is our constellation of intelligibility grounded And thirdhow has this underlying ontotheology shaped our present understanding ofeducation I will take these questions in order

Heideggerrsquos name for our contemporary constellation of intelligibility isof course lsquoenframingrsquo (das Gestell) Heidegger chooses this polysemic termbecause by etymologically connoting a gathering together (lsquoGe-rsquo) of themyriad forms of stellen (lsquoto set stand regulate secure ready establishrsquo andso on) it succinctly conveys his understanding of the way in which ourpresent lsquomode of revealingrsquo ndash a lsquosetting-upon that challenges forthrsquo ndash forcesthe lsquopresencingrsquo (anwesen) of entities into its metaphysical lsquostamp or moldrsquo

248 Iain Thomson

(Pragung)14 Yet this is not simply to substitute etymology for argument asdetractors allege Heidegger uses etymology in order to come up with anappropriate name for our contemporary lsquomode of revealingrsquo but theargumentative work in his account is done by his understanding ofmetaphysics This means that to really understand why Heideggercharacterizes our contemporary epoch as das Gestell we must take themeasure of his claim that lsquoenframingrsquo is grounded in an ontotheologytransmitted to us by Nietzsche On Heideggerrsquos reading Nietzschersquos staunchanti-metaphysical stance merely hides the fact that he actually philosophizedon the basis of an lsquounthoughtrsquo metaphysics Nietzschersquos Nachlab clearlydemonstrates that he conceptualized lsquothe totality of beings as suchrsquoontotheologically as lsquoeternally recurring will-to-powerrsquo that is as anunending disaggregation and reaggregation of forces without purpose orgoal15 This Nietzschean ontotheology not only inaugurates the lsquometaphysicsof the atomic agersquo it grounds enframing Our unthinking reliance onNietzschersquos ontotheology is leading us to transform all beings ourselvesincluded into mere lsquoresourcesrsquo (Bestand) entities lacking intrinsic meaningwhich are thus simply optimized and disposed of with maximal ef ciency16

Heidegger famously characterizes enframing as a technological under-standing of being As an historical lsquomode of revealingrsquo in which entitiesincreasingly show up only as resources to be optimized enframing generatesa lsquocalculative thinkingrsquo which like the mythic touch of King Midasquanti es all qualitative relations This lsquolimitless ldquoquanti cationrdquorsquo whichabsorbs all qualitative relations (until we come to treat lsquoquantity as qualityrsquo)is rooted in enframingrsquos ontologically reductive mode of revealing wherebylsquo[o]nly what is calculable in advance counts as beingrsquo Enframing thus tendsto reduce all entities to bivalent programmable lsquoinformationrsquo digitized datawhich increasingly enters into lsquoa state of pure circulationrsquo17 Indeed asHeideggerrsquos phenomenological meditation on a highway interchangerevealed to him in the 1950s ndash and as our lsquoinformation superhighwayrsquo theInternet now makes plain ndash we exhibit a growing tendency to relate to ourworld and ourselves merely as a lsquonetwork of long distance traf c paced ascalculated for maximum yieldrsquo18 Reading quotidian historical developmentsin terms of this ontohistorical logic Heidegger believed our passage fromCartesian modernity to Nietzschean postmodernity was already visible in thetransformation of employment agencies into lsquohuman resourcersquo departmentsThe technological move afoot to reduce teachers and scholars to lsquoon-linecontent providersrsquo merely extends ndash and so clari es ndash the logic wherebymodern subjects transform themselves into postmodern resources by turningtechniques developed for controlling nature back onto themselves19

Unfortunately as this historical transformation of subjects into resourcesbecomes more pervasive it further eludes our critical gaze indeed we cometo treat ourselves in the very terms which underlie our technological

Heidegger on Ontological Education 249

refashioning of the world no longer as conscious Cartesian subjects takingcontrol of an objective world but rather as one more resource to be optimizedordered and enhanced with maximal ef ciency ndash whether cosmeticallypsychopharmacologically or educationally

Here then Heidegger believes he has uncovered the subterraneanontohistorical logic guiding the development of our educational institutionsBut how does contemporary education re ect this nihilistic logic ofenframing In what sense are todayrsquos educational institutions caught up inan unlimited quanti cation of qualitative relations which strips beings of theirintrinsic meanings transforming them into mere resources to be optimizedwith maximal ef ciency

3 Education as Enframing

Heidegger began developing his critique of higher education in 1911 andcontinued elaborating it well into the 1960s but perhaps his most directanswer to this question comes in 192920 Having nally been awarded a fullprofessorship (on the basis of Being and Time) the 39-year-old Heideggergives his of cial lsquoInaugural Lecturersquo at Freiburg University the famouslsquoWhat is Metaphysicsrsquo He begins boldly directing his critical attention to theuniversity itself by emphasizing philosophyrsquos concrete lsquoexistentialrsquo founda-tions (since lsquometaphysical questioning must be posed from the essentialposition of the existence [Dasein] that questionsrsquo) Within the lifeworld of theuniversity Heidegger observes lsquoexistencersquo (Dasein) is determined byWissenschaft the knowledge embodied in the humanities and naturalsciences lsquoOur Dasein ndash in the community of researchers teachers andstudents ndash is determined by science or knowledge [durch die Wissenschaftbestimmt]rsquo21 Our very lsquobeing-in-the-worldrsquo is shaped by the knowledge wepursue uncover and embody When Heidegger claims that existence isfundamentally shaped by knowledge he is not thinking of a professoriateshifting in the winds of academic trends nor simply arguing for a kind ofpedagogical or performative consistency according to which we shouldpractice what we know His intent rather is to emphasize a troubling sense inwhich it seems that we cannot help practicing what we know since we arelsquoalways alreadyrsquo implicitly shaped by our guiding metaphysical presupposi-tions Heideggerrsquos question thus becomes What is the ontological impact ofour unquestioned reliance on the particular metaphysical presuppositionswhich tacitly dominate the academy lsquoWhat happens to us essentially in theground of our existencersquo when the Wissenschaft pursued in the contemporaryuniversity becomes our guiding lsquopassionrsquo fundamentally shaping our view ofthe world and of ourselves

Heideggerrsquos dramatic answer introduces his radical critique of the hyper-specialization and consequent fragmentation of the modern university

250 Iain Thomson

The elds of science are widely separated Their ways of handling the objects of theirinquiries differ fundamentally Today only the technical organization of universitiesand faculties consolidates this multiplicity of dispersed disciplines only throughpractical and instrumental goals do they maintain any meaning The rootedness of thesciences in their essential ground has dried up and died2 2

Here in 1929 Heidegger accurately describes the predicament of thatinstitution which almost half a century later Clark Kerr would satiricallylabel the lsquoMulti-versityrsquo an internally fragmented Uni-versity-in-name-onlywhere the sole communal unity stems from a common grievance aboutparking spaces23 Historically as the modern university loses sight of theshared goals which originally justi ed the endeavors of the academiccommunity as a whole (at rst the common pursuit of the uni ed lsquosystemrsquo ofknowledge then the communal dedication to the formation of cultivatedindividuals) its members begin to look outside the university for somepurpose to give meaning to lives of research Since only those disciplines (orsub-disciplines) able to produce instrumentally useful results regularly ndsuch external support all disciplines increasingly try to present themselves interms of their use-value Without a counter-ideal students too will adopt thisinstrumental mentality coming to see education merely as a means to anincreased salary down the road In this way fragmentation leads to theprofessionalization of the university and eventually its deterioration intovocationalism At the same time moreover the different disciplines lackingany shared substantive sense of a unifying purpose or common subject-matter tend by the logic of specialization to develop internal standardsappropriate to their particular object-domains As these domains becomeincreasingly specialized these internal standards become ever moredisparate if not simply incommensurable In this way disciplinaryfragmentation leaves the university without common standards ndash other thanthe now ubiquitous but entirely empty and formal ideal of excellence

Following in Heideggerrsquos footsteps critics such as Bill Readings andTimothy Clark show how our contemporary lsquouniversity of excellencersquo owingto lsquothe very emptiness of the idea of excellencersquo is lsquobecoming an excellentbureaucratic corporationrsquo lsquogeared to no higher idea than its own maximizedself-perpetuation according to optimal inputoutput ratiosrsquo24 Such diagnosesmake clear that the development of our educational institutions continues tofollow the underlying metaphysical logic of enframing the progressivetransformation of all entities into mere resources to be optimizedUnfortunately these critics fail to recognize this underlying ontohistoricallogic and so offer diagnoses without cures Indeed Readingsrsquo materialistexplanation for the historical obsolescence of Bildung as the unifying ideal ofthe modern university (the result of an lsquoimplacable bourgeois economicrevolutionrsquo) leads him to succumb to a cynicism in which future denizens ofthe university can hope for nothing more than lsquopragmaticrsquo situational

Heidegger on Ontological Education 251

responses in an environment increasingly transformed by lsquothe logic ofconsumerismrsquo25 While such critiques of the university convincingly extendand update aspects of Heideggerrsquos analysis they lack his philosophical visionfor a revitalizing reuni cation of the university

To see that Heidegger himself did not relinquish all hope for the future ofhigher education we need only attend carefully to the performativedimension of his lsquoInaugural Lecturersquo On the surface it may seem as ifHeidegger welcomed fully into the arms of the university rather perverselyuses his celebratory lecture to pronounce the death of the institution which hasjust hired him proclaiming that lsquoThe rootedness of the sciences in theiressential ground has dried up and diedrsquo Yet with this deliberate provocationHeidegger is not beating a dead horse his pronouncement that the universityis dead at its roots implies that it is fated to wither and decay unless it isrevivi ed reinvigorated from the root Heidegger uses this organic metaphorof lsquorootednessrsquo (Verwurzelung) to put into effect what Derrida (who willrestage this scene himself) recognizes as lsquoa phoenix motifrsquo lsquoOne burns orburies what is already dead so that life will be reborn and regenerated fromthese ashesrsquo26 Indeed Heidegger begins to outline his program for arenaissance of the university in the lecturersquos conclusion Existence isdetermined by science but science itself remains rooted in metaphysicswhether it realizes it or not Since the roots of the university are metaphysicala reinstauration of the scienti c lifeworld requires a renewed attention to thisunderlying metaphysical dimension lsquoOnly if science exists on the basis ofmetaphysics can it achieve anew its essential task which is not to amass andclassify bits of knowledge but to disclose in ever-renewed fashion the entireexpanse of truth in nature and historyrsquo27

What exactly is Heidegger proposing here To understand his vision for arebirth of the university we need to turn to a text he began writing the nextyear lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo28 Here tracing the ontohistorical roots ofour educational crisis back to Platorsquos cave Heidegger (quite literally)excavates an alternative

III Heideggerrsquos Return to Platorsquos Cave Ontological Education asthe Essence of Paideia

Plato seeks to show that the essence of paideia does notconsist in merely pouring knowledge into the unpreparedsoul as if it were a container held out empty and waitingOn the contrary real education lays hold of the soul itselfand transforms it in its entirety by rst of all leading us tothe place of our essential being and accustoming us toit2 9

252 Iain Thomson

Our contemporary educational crisis can be understood as an ontohistoricaldissolution of Platorsquos original conception of education Heidegger contendsso the deconstructive recovery of this lsquoessence of paideiarsquo is crucial tosuccessfully resolving the crisis A deeply resonant Greek word paideiameans lsquocivilizationrsquo lsquoculturersquo lsquodevelopmentrsquo lsquotraditionrsquo lsquoliteraturersquo andlsquoeducationrsquo thus it encompasses what to our ears seems to be a rather widerange of semantic frequencies30 Heidegger was deeply drawn to the wordnot only because thanks largely to Werner Jaeger it served as a key term inthat intersection of German academic and political life which Heideggersought to occupy during the 1930s but also because he had an undeniablefondness for what (with a wink to Freud) we could call the polysemicperversity of language that is the fortuitous ambiguities and unpredictableinterconnections which help form the warp and weave of its semantic webRecognizing that such rich language tends to resist the analystrsquos pursuit of anunambiguous exactness Heidegger argued that lsquorigorousrsquo philosophicalprecision calls instead for an attempt to do justice to this semantic richness31

Yet as Gadamer and Derrida have shown this demand for us to do justiceto language is aporetic ndash a lsquonecessary impossibilityrsquo ndash since the holism ofmeaning renders the attempt ultimately impossible not only practically (for nite beings like ourselves who cannot follow all the strands in the semanticweb at once) but also in principle (despite our Borgesian dreams of acomplete hypertext which would exhaustively represent the semantic web adream even the vaunted lsquoworld-wide webrsquo barely inches toward realizing)This unful llable call for the philosopher to do justice to language isnevertheless ethical in the Kantian sense it constitutes a regulative idealorienting our progress while remaining unreachable like a guiding star It isalso and for Heidegger more primordially lsquoethos-icalrsquo (so to speak) sincesuch a call can be answered lsquoauthenticallyrsquo only if it is taken up existentiallyand embodied in an ethos a way of being In Being and Time Heideggerdescribes the called-for comportment as Ent-schlossenheit lsquodis-closednessor re-solversquo later he will teach it as Gelassenheit lsquoreleasement or letting-bersquo32 Ent-schlossenheit and Gelassenheit are not of course simplyequivalent terms releasement evolves out of resolve through a series ofintermediary formulations and notably lacks resolversquos voluntarism But bothentail a responsive hermeneutic receptivity (whether existential or phenom-enological) and both designate comportments whereby we embodyre exively an understanding of what we are ontologically namely Da-sein lsquobeing [the] therersquo a making intelligible of the place in which we ndourselves

Such considerations allow us to see that we are the place to whichHeidegger is referring ndash in the epigraph above this section ndash when he writesthat lsquoreal education lays hold of the soul itself and transforms it in its entiretyby rst of all leading us to the place of our essential being [Wesensort] and

Heidegger on Ontological Education 253

accustoming us to itrsquo As this epigraph shows Heidegger believes he hasful lled the ethical dictate to do justice to language by recovering lsquotheessence of paideiarsquo the ontological carrier wave underlying paideiarsquosmultiple semantic frequencies Ventriloquizing Plato Heidegger deploys thisnotion of the essence of paideia in order to oppose two conceptions ofeducation He warns rst against a lsquofalse interpretationrsquo We cannotunderstand education as the transmission of lsquoinformationrsquo the lling of thepsyche with knowledge as if inscribing a tabula rasa or in morecontemporary parlance lsquotraining-uprsquo a neural net This understanding ofeducation is false because (in the terms of Being and Time) we are lsquothrownrsquobeings lsquoalways alreadyrsquo shaped by a tradition we can never lsquoget behindrsquo andso we cannot be blank slates or lsquoempty containersrsquo waiting to be lled33

Indeed this lsquoreductive and atrophiedrsquo misconception of education as thetransmission of information re ects the nihilistic logic of enframing thatontohistorical trend by which intelligibility is lsquoleveled out into the uniformstorage of informationrsquo34 Yet here again we face a situation in which as theproblem gets worse we become less likely to recognize it the lsquoimpactrsquo of thisontological drift toward meaninglessness can lsquobarely be noticed bycontemporary humanity because they are continually covered over with thelatest informationrsquo35

Against this self-insulating but lsquofalse interpretationrsquo of educationHeidegger advances his conception of lsquoreal or genuine educationrsquo (echteBildung) the lsquoessence of paideiarsquo Drawing on the allegory of the cave ndashwhich lsquoillustrates the essence of ldquoeducationrdquo [paideia]rsquo (as Plato claims at thebeginning of Book VII of the Republic) ndash Heidegger seeks to effect nothingless than a re-ontologizing revolution in our understanding of education36

Recall Heideggerrsquos succinct and powerful formulation lsquoReal education layshold of the soul itself and transforms it in its entirety by rst of all leading usto the place of our essential being and accustoming [eingewohnt] us to itrsquoGenuine education leads us back to ourselves to the place we are (the Da ofour Sein) teaches us lsquoto dwellrsquo (wohnen) lsquotherersquo and transforms us in theprocess This transformative journey to ourselves is not a ight away from theworld into thought but a re exive return to the fundamental lsquorealm of thehuman sojournrsquo (Aufenthaltsbezirk des Menschen)37 The goal of thiseducational odyssey is simple but literally revolutionary to bring us fullcircle back to ourselves rst by turning us away from the world in which weare most immediately immersed then by turning us back to this world in amore re exive way As Heidegger explains lsquoPaideia means the turningaround of the whole human being in the sense of displacing them out of theregion of immediate encountering and accustoming them to another realm inwhich beings appearrsquo38

How can we accomplish such an ontological revolution in education Whatare the pedagogical methods of this alternative conception of education And

254 Iain Thomson

how nally can this ontological conception of education help us overturn theenframing of education

1 Ontological Education Against Enframing

In lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo Heideggerrsquos exposition is complicated by thefact that he is simultaneously explicating his own positive understanding oflsquoeducationrsquo and critiquing an important transformation in the history of lsquotruthrsquoinaugurated by Plato the transition from truth understood as aletheiaphenomenological lsquounhiddennessrsquo to orthotes the lsquocorrectnessrsquo of anassertion From this lsquoambiguity in Platorsquos doctrinersquo in which lsquotruth still isat one and the same time unhiddenness and correctnessrsquo the subsequenttradition will develop only the orthotic understanding of truth at the expenseof the aletheiac39 In so doing we lose lsquothe original essence of truthrsquo themanifestation of beings themselves and come to understand truth solely as afeature of our own representational capacities According to Heidegger thisdisplacement of the locus of truth from being to human subjectivity paves theway for that metaphysical humanism (or subjectivism) in which the lsquoessenceof paideiarsquo will be eclipsed allowing lsquoeducationrsquo to be absorbed byenframing becoming merely a means for lsquobringing ldquohuman beingsrdquo to theliberation of their possibilities the certitude of their destination and thesecuring of their ldquolivingrdquorsquo40

Despite some dramatic rhetorical ourishes however Heidegger has notentirely given up on lsquoeducationrsquo (Bildung) He dismisses the modernunderstanding of Bildung (the deliberate cultivation of lsquosubjective qualitiesrsquo)as a lsquomisinterpretation to which the notion fell victim in the nineteenthcenturyrsquo yet maintains that once Bildung is lsquogiven back its original namingpowerrsquo it is the word which lsquocomes closest to capturing the [meaning of the]word paideiarsquo Bildung is literally ambiguous Heidegger tells us its lsquonamingforcersquo drives in two directions

What lsquoBildungrsquo expresses is twofold rst Bildung means forming [Bilden] in thesense of impressing a character that unfolds But at the same time this lsquoformingrsquo[lsquoBildenrsquo ] lsquoformsrsquo [lsquobildetrsquo ] (or impresses a character) by antecedently taking itsmeasure from some measure-giving vision which for that reason is called the pre-conception [Vor-bild]

lsquoThusrsquo Heidegger concludes lsquoldquoeducationrdquo [ldquoBildungrdquo] means impressing acharacter especially as guiding by a pre-conceptionrsquo41

Few would quibble with the rst claim education stamps us with acharacter which unfolds within us But what forms the lsquostamprsquo which formsus Who educates the educators According to Heidegger the answer to thisquestion is built into the very meaning of paideia it is the second sense he

Heidegger on Ontological Education 255

lsquorestoresrsquo to Bildung To further lsquounfoldrsquo these two senses of lsquoeducationrsquoHeidegger immediately introduces the contrast class lsquothe contrary of paideiais apaideusia lack of education [Bildunglosigkeit] where no fundamentalcomportment is awakened no measure-giving preconception establishedrsquo42

This helpfully clari es Heideggerrsquos rst claim It is by awakening alsquofundamental comportmentrsquo that education stamps us with a character thatunfolds within us In the educational situation ndash a situation without pre-delimitable boundaries indeed a situation the boundaries of whichHeidegger ceaselessly seeks to expand (for he holds that lsquopaideia isessentially a movement of passage from apaideusia to paideiarsquo such thateducation is not something that can ever be completed) ndash the lsquofundamentalcomportmentrsquo perhaps most frequently called for is not the heroic Ent-schlossenheit nor even the gentler Gelassenheit but rather a more basic formof receptive spontaneity Heidegger will simply call hearing or hearkening(horen) that is (as we will see) an attentive and responsive way of dwellingin onersquos environment But whether the comportment implicitly guidingeducation is lsquoresolutenessrsquo lsquoreleasementrsquo lsquohearingrsquo or that anxiety-tranquillizing hurry which generally characterizes contemporary life dependson the second sense of Bildung which remains puzzling From where do wederive the measure-giving vision which implicitly informs all genuineeducation

Heideggerrsquos answer is complicated let us recall by the fact that he is bothelaborating his own philosophy of education (as it were) and performing acritical exegesis of Platorsquos decisive metaphysical contribution to lsquothe historythat we arersquo the history of metaphysics These two aims are in tension withone another because the education Heidegger seeks to impart ndash thefundamental attunement he would awaken in his students ndash is itself anattempt to awaken us from the ontological education that we have lsquoalwaysalreadyrsquo received from the metaphysical tradition For this generallyunnoticed antecedent measure comes to us from metaphysics from theontotheologically conceived understanding of the being of beings In shortHeidegger seeks to educate his students against their pre-existingontotheological education (He will sometimes call this educating-against-education simply lsquoteachingrsquo) The crucial question then is How canHeideggerrsquos ontological education combat the metaphysical education wehave always already received

2 The Pedagogy of Ontological Freedom

Heideggerrsquos suggestions about how the ontological education he advocatescan transcend enframing are surprisingly speci c Recall that in Platorsquosallegory the prisoner (1) begins in captivity within the cave (2) escapes thechains and turns around to discover the re and objects responsible for the

256 Iain Thomson

shadows on the wall previously taken as reality then (3) ascends from thecave into the light of the outside world coming to understand what is seenthere as made possible by the light of the sun and (4) nally returns to thecave taking up the struggle to free the other prisoners (who violently resisttheir would-be liberator) For Heidegger this well-known scenario suggeststhe pedagogy of ontological education On his remarkable interpretation theprisonerrsquos lsquofour different dwelling placesrsquo communicate the four successivestages whereby ontological education breaks studentsrsquo bondage to thetechnological mode of revealing freeing them to understand what-isdifferently

When studentsrsquo ontological educations begin they lsquoare engrossed in whatthey immediately encounterrsquo taking the shadows cast by the re on the wallto be the ultimate reality of things Yet this lsquo rersquo is only lsquoman-madersquo thelsquoconfusingrsquo light it casts represents enframingrsquos ontologically reductive modeof revealing Here in this rst stage all entities show up to students merely asresources to be optimized including the students themselves Thus if pressedstudents will ultimately lsquojustifyrsquo even their education itself merely as a meansto making more money getting the most out of their potentials or some otherequally empty optimization imperative Stage two is only reached when astudentrsquos lsquogaze is freed from its captivity to shadowsrsquo this happens when astudent recognizes lsquothe rersquo (enframing) as the source of lsquothe shadowsrsquo(entities understood as mere resources) In stage two the metaphysical chainsof enframing are thus broken But how does this liberation occur Despite theimportance of this question Heidegger answers it only in an aside lsquoto turnonersquos gaze from the shadows to entities as they show themselves withinthe glow of the relight is dif cult and failsrsquo43 His point I take it is thatentities do not show themselves as they are when forced into the meta-physical mould of enframing the ontotheology which reduces them to mereresources to be optimized Students can be led to this realization through aguided investigation of the being of any entity which they will tend tounderstand only as eternally recurring will-to-power that is as forcesendlessly coming together and breaking apart Because this metaphysicalunderstanding dissolves being into becoming the attempt to see entities asthey are in its light is doomed to failure resources have no being they arelsquoconstantly becomingrsquo (as Nietzsche realized) With this recognition ndash and theanxiety it tends to induce ndash students can attain a negative freedom fromenframing

Still Heidegger insists that lsquoreal freedomrsquo lsquoeffective freedomrsquo (wirklicheFreiheit) ndash the positive freedom in which students realize that entities aremore than mere resources and so become free for understanding themotherwise ndash lsquois attained only in stage three in which someone who has beenunchained is conveyed outside the cave ldquointo the openrdquorsquo (Notice the implicitreference to someone doing the unchaining and conveying here for

Heidegger on Ontological Education 257

Heidegger the educator plays a crucial role facilitating studentsrsquo passagebetween each of the stages) The open is one of Heideggerrsquos names for lsquobeingas suchrsquo that is for lsquowhat appears antecedently in everything that appears and makes whatever appears be accessiblersquo44 The attainment of ndash or bettercomportmental attunement to ndash this lsquoopenrsquo is what Heidegger famously callslsquodwellingrsquo45 When such positive ontological freedom is achieved lsquowhatthings are no longer appear merely in the man-made and confusing glow ofthe re within the cave The things themselves stand there in the binding forceand validity of their own visible formrsquo46 Ontological freedom is achievedwhen entities show themselves in their full phenomenological richness Thegoal of the third stage of ontological education then is to teach students tolsquodwellrsquo to help attune them to the being of entities and thus to teach them tosee that the being of an entity ndash be it a book cup rose or to use a particularlysalient example they themselves ndash cannot be fully understood in theontologically-reductive terms of enframing47

With the attainment of this crucial third stage Heideggerrsquos lsquogenuinersquoontological education may seem to have reached its completion since lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo48 This claim that genuineeducation teaches students to recognize lsquoessencesrsquo is not merely a Platonicconceit but plays an absolutely crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for areuni cation of the university (as we will see in the conclusion) Neverthelessontological education reaches its true culmination only in the fourth stage thereturn to the cave Heidegger clearly understood his own role as a teacher interms of just such a return that is as a struggle to free ontologicallyanaesthetized enframers from their bondage to a self-reifying mode ofontological revealing49 But his ranking of the return to the cave as the higheststage of ontological education is not merely an evangelistic call for others toadopt his vision of education as a revolution in consciousness it also re ectshis recognition that in ontological education learning culminates in teachingWe must thus ask What is called lsquoteachingrsquo

3 What Is Called Teaching

The English lsquoteachrsquo comes from the same linguistic family as the Germanverb zeigen lsquoto point or showrsquo50 As this etymology suggests to teach is toreveal to point out or make manifest through words But to reveal whatWhat does the teacher who lsquopoints outrsquo (or reveals) with words point to (orindicate)51 What do teachers teach The question seems to presuppose thatall teaching shares a common lsquosubject-matterrsquo not simply a shared method orgoal (the inculcation of critical thinking persuasive writing and the like) butsomething more substantive a common subject-matter unifying the Uni-versity Of course all teachers use words to disclose but to disclose a common

258 Iain Thomson

subject-matter How could such a supposition not sound absurd to usprofessional denizens of a postmodern polyversity where relentless hyper-specialization continues to fragment our subjects and even re-unifying forceslike interdisciplinarity seem to thrive only in so far they open new sub-specialties for a relentless vascular-to-capillary colonization of the scienti clifeworld In such a situation is it surprising that the Heideggerian idea of allteachers ultimately sharing a uni ed subject sounds absurd or at best like anoutdated myth ndash albeit the myth that founded the modern university But isthe idea of such a shared subject-matter a myth What do teachers teach Letus approach this question from what might at rst seem to be anotherdirection attempting to learn its answer

If teaching is revealing through words then conversely learning isexperiencing what a teacherrsquos words reveal That is to learn is actively toallow oneself to share in what the teacherrsquos words disclose But again whatdo the teacherrsquos words reveal We will notice if we read closely enough thatHeidegger answers this question in 1951 when he writes lsquoTo learn means tomake everything we do answer to whatever essentials address us at a giventimersquo52 Here it might sound at rst as if Heidegger is simply claimingthat learning as the complement of teaching means actively allowing oneselfto share in that which the teacherrsquos words disclose But Wittgenstein used tosay that philosophy is like a bicycle race the point of which is to go as slowlyas possible without falling off and if we slow down we will notice thatHeideggerrsquos words ndash the words of a teacher who would teach what learningmeans (in fact the performative situation is even more complex)53ndash saymore Learning means actively allowing ourselves to respond to what isessential in that which always addresses us that which has always alreadyclaimed us

In a sense then learning means responding appropriately to thesolicitations of the environment Of course Heidegger is thinking of theontological environment (the way in which what-is discloses itself to us)but even ontic analogues show that this capacity to respond appropriately tothe environment is quite dif cult to learn We learn to respond appropriatelyto environmental solicitations through a long process of trial and error Wemust in other words learn how to learn Here problems abound for it isnot clear that learning to learn can be taught To the analytically minded thisdemand seems to lead to a regress (for if we need to learn to learn then weneed to learn to learn to learn and so on) But logic misleads phenomenologyhere as Heidegger realized it is simply a question of jumping into thispedagogical circle in the right way Such a train of thought leads Heidegger toclaim that if lsquoteaching is even more dif cult than learningrsquo this is onlybecause the teacher must be an exemplary learner capable of teaching his orher students to learn that is capable of learning-in-public activelyresponding to the emerging demands of each unique educational situation

Heidegger on Ontological Education 259

Recall the famous passage

Why is teaching more dif cult than learning Not because the teacher must have alarger store of information and have it always ready Teaching is more dif cult thanlearning because what teaching calls for is this to let learn The real teacher in factlets nothing else be learned than learning The teacher is ahead of his apprentices inthis alone that he has still far more to learn than they ndash he has to learn to let themlearn The teacher must be capable of being more teachable than his apprentices5 4

The teacher teaches students to learn ndash to respond appropriately to thesolicitations of the ontological environment ndash by responding appropriately tothe solicitations of his or her environment which is after all the studentsrsquoenvironment too Learning culminates in teaching then because teaching isthe highest form of learning unlike lsquoinstructingrsquo (belehren) lsquoteachingrsquo(lehren) is ultimately a lsquoletting learnrsquo (lernen lassen) lsquoThe true teacher isahead of the students only in that he has more to learn than they namely theletting learn (To learn [means] to bring what we do and allow into a co-respondence [or a suitable response Entsprechung] with that which in eachcase grants itself to us as the essential)rsquo55

This last assertion should remind us of Heideggerrsquos earlier claim that lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo56 I said previously that thisclaim plays a crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for a reuni cation of theuniversity By way of conclusion let us brie y develop this claim and therebyfurther elaborate Heideggerrsquos positive vision for the future of highereducation

IV Conclusion Envisioning a University of Teachers

How can Heideggerrsquos understanding of ontological education help us restoresubstance to our currently empty guiding ideal of educational lsquoexcellencersquoand in so doing provide the contemporary university with a renewed sense ofunity not only restoring substance to our shared commitment to formingexcellent students but also helping us recognize the sense in which we are infact all working on the same project The answer is surprisingly simple Byre-essentializing the notion of excellence Heidegger like Aristotle is aperfectionist he argues that there is a distinctive human essence and that thegood life the life of lsquoexcellencersquo (arete) is the life spent cultivating thisdistinctively human essence For Heidegger as we have seen the humanlsquoessencersquo is Dasein lsquobeing-therersquo that is the making-intelligible of the placein which we nd ourselves or even more simply world disclosing For aworld-disclosing being to cultivate its essence then is for it to recognize and

260 Iain Thomson

develop this essence not only acknowledging its participation in the creationand maintenance of an intelligible world but actively embracing itsontological role in such world disclosure The full rami cations of thisseemingly simple insight are profound and revolutionary57 We will restrictourselves to brie y developing the two most important implications ofHeideggerrsquos re-essentialization of excellence for the future of the university

Heideggerrsquos ontological conception of education would transform theexisting relations between teaching and research on the one hand andbetween the now fragmented departments on the other Thus in effectHeidegger dedicates himself nally to redeeming the two central ideals whichguided the formation of the modern university Teaching and research shouldbe harmoniously integrated and the university community should understanditself as committed to a common substantive task58 How does Heideggerthink he can help us nally achieve such ambitions First his conception oflsquoteachingrsquo would reunite research and teaching because when studentsdevelop the aforementioned lsquoinsight into essencersquo they are being taught todisclose and investigate the ontological presuppositions which underlie allresearch on Heideggerrsquos view For todayrsquos academic departments are what hecalls lsquopositive sciencesrsquo that is they all rest on ontological lsquopositsrsquoontological assumptions about what the class of entities they study areBiology for example allows us to understand the logos of the bios the orderand structure of living beings Nevertheless Heidegger asserts biologyproper cannot tell us what life is59 Instead biology takes over its implicitontological understanding of what life is from the metaphysical under-standing governing our Nietzschean epoch of enframing (When contempor-ary philosophers of biology claim that life is lsquoa self-replicating systemrsquo theyhave unknowingly adopted the basic ontological presupposition ofNietzschersquos metaphysics according to which life is ultimately the eternalrecurrence of will to power that is sheer will-to-will unlimited self-augmentation)60 Analogously psychology can tell us a great deal about howconsciousness (the psyche) functions but it cannot tell us what consciousnessis The same holds true for the understanding of lsquothe corporeality of bodiesthe vegetable character of plants the animality of animals and the humannessof humanityrsquo within physics botany zoology and anthropology respec-tively these sciences all presuppose an ontological posit a pre-understandingof the being of the class of entities they study61 Heideggerrsquos ontologicallyreconceived notion of teaching is inextricably entwined with research thenbecause ontological education teaches students to question the veryontological presuppositions which guide research thereby opening a spacefor understanding the being of the entities they study otherwise than inenframingrsquos ontologically reductive terms Heideggerrsquos reconceptualizationof education would thus encourage revolutionary transformations in thesciences and humanities by teaching students to focus on and explicitly

Heidegger on Ontological Education 261

investigate the ontological presuppositions which implicitly guide research ineach domain of knowledge

Despite such revolutionary goals Heidegger thought that his ontologicalreconceptualization of education could also restore a substantive sense ofunity to the university community if only this community could learn lsquotoengage in [this lsquore ection on the essential foundationsrsquo] as re ection and tothink and belong to the university from the base of this engagementrsquo62 Fromits founding one of the major concerns about the modern university has beenhow it could maintain the unity of structure and purpose thought to bede nitive of the lsquoUni-versityrsquo as such German Idealists like Fichte andSchelling believed that this unity would follow organically from the totalityof the system of knowledge But this faith in the system proved to be far lessin uential on posterity than Humboldtrsquos alternative lsquohumanistrsquo idealaccording to which the universityrsquos unity would come from a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of character Humboldtrsquos famousidea was to link lsquoobjective Wissenschaft with subjective Bildungrsquo theuniversity would be responsible for forming fully-cultivated individuals arequirement Humboldt hoped would serve to guide and unify the newfreedom of research Historically of course neither the German Idealistsrsquoreliance on the unity of research nor Humboldtrsquos emphasis on a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of students succeeded in unifyingthe university community In effect however Heideggerrsquos re-ontologizationof education would combine (his versions of) these two strategies Theuniversity community would be uni ed both by its shared commitment toforming excellent individuals (where excellence is understood in terms of theontological perfectionism outlined above) and by the shared recognition onthe part of this community that its members are all committed to the samesubstantive pursuit The ultimately revolutionary task not simply ofunderstanding what is but of investigating the ontological presuppositionsimplicitly guiding all the various elds of knowledge Heidegger thusbelieved that ontological education by restoring substance to the notion ofexcellence and so teaching us lsquoto disclose the essential in all thingsrsquo could nally succeed in lsquoshattering the encapsulation of the sciences in theirdifferent disciplines and bringing them back from their boundless and aimlessdispersal in individual elds and cornersrsquo6364

NOTES

1 See Heidegger Being and Time (New York Harper amp Row 1962) trans J Macquarrie andE Robinson p 44 Sein und Zeit (Tubingen M Niemeyer 1993) p 22

2 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo in William McNeill (ed) Pathmarks(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998) p 167Heidegger Wegmarken 3rd edGesamtausgabe vol 9 (Frankfurt aM V Klostermann 1996) (hereafter GA9) p 218(On my translation of this title see note 28 below) I am aware that the preceding sentence

262 Iain Thomson

ominously echoes the title of Nietzschersquos politically compromised and deeply problematicearly lectures lsquoOn the Future of Our Educational Institutionsrsquo (which culminate with a callfor a lsquogreat Fuhrerrsquo [see Nietzsche On the Future of Our Educational Institutions in OLevy (ed) The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Edinburgh T N Foulis 1909)vol 6 Jacques Derrida The Ear of the Other ed C V McDonald trans Kamuf andRonell (New York Shocken Books 1985) p 28]) I bracket such political connectionshere but a complementary essay examines the darker side of Heideggerrsquos philosophicalcritique of education showing that it played a central role in his decision to join with theNazis in the early 1930s see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo(forthcoming)

3 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo ibid p 167GA9 p 2184 See Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

1980) On Heideggerrsquos distinctive understanding of lsquoessencersquo see my lsquoWhatrsquos Wrong withBeing a Technological Essentialist A Response to Feenbergrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 429ndash44

5 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo in The Question ConcerningTechnology and Other Essays trans W Lovitt (New York Harper amp Row 1977) p 4ibid pp 30ndash31

6 Cf Feenbergrsquos Hegelian misinterpretation of Heideggerrsquos understanding of essence in lsquoTheOntic and the Ontological in Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Technology Response toThomsonrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 445ndash50

7 Heidegger lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo op cit p 145GA9 p 1898 Ibid pp 145ndash46 (my italics)GA9 p 190 I am of necessity simplifying Heideggerrsquos

complex account here but see my lsquoOntotheology Understanding Heideggerrsquos Destruktionof Metaphysicsrsquo International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (October 2000) pp 297ndash327

9 See Heidegger An Introduction to Metaphysics trans R Manheim (New Haven YaleUniversity Press 1959) p 3Einfuhrung in die Metaphysik (Tubingen M Niemeyer1953) p 2

10 See Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations 3rd ed trans G E M Anscombe(New York Macmillan 1968) sect 217 p 85

11 See also Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 170GA9 p 222 lsquoThe essenceof ldquoeducationrdquo is grounded in the essence of ldquotruthrdquorsquo

12 See Heidegger Nietzsche Nihilism ed David Krell trans F Capuzzi (New York Harperamp Row 1982) p 205Nietzsche (Pfullingen Neske 1961) vol II p 343

13 Eventually either a new ontotheology emerges (perhaps as Kuhn suggests out of theinvestigation of those lsquoanomalousrsquo entities which resist being understood in terms of thedominant ontotheology) or else our underlying conception of the being of all entities wouldbe brought into line with this spreading ontotheology Although this latter alternative hasnever yet occurred Heidegger calls it lsquothe greatest dangerrsquo he is worried that ourNietzschean ontotheology could become totalizing lsquodriving out every other possibility ofrevealingrsquo by overwriting Daseinrsquos lsquospecial naturersquo our de ning capacity for world-disclosure with the lsquototal thoughtlessnessrsquo of a merely instrumental lsquocalculative reasoningrsquo See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo op cit p 27 HeideggerDiscourse on Thinking trans J Anderson and E Freund (New York Harper amp Row1966) p 56

14 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo ibid pp 16ndash2015 See esp Friedrich Nietzsche The Will To Power ed and trans Walter Kaufmann (New

York Random House 1967) pp 549ndash50 Here Nietzsche clearly conceives of beings assuch as will to power and of the way the totality exists as eternally recurring Nor canHeideggerrsquos controversial reading be rejected simply by excluding this problematic text onthe basis of its politically compromised ancestry since Nietzschersquos ontotheology can alsobe found in his other works

16 Heidegger lsquoNihilism as Determined by the History of Beingrsquo Nietzsche Nihilism op citpp 199ndash250

17 See Heidegger Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) trans P Emad and K Maly(Bloomington IN Indiana University Press 1999) p 95Beitrage zur Philosophie (Vom

Heidegger on Ontological Education 263

lsquorevealednessrsquo takes shape historically namely as a series of differentontological constellations of intelligibility It is not surprising then thatHeidegger rst began to elaborate his lsquohistory of beingrsquo in lsquoOn the Essence ofTruthrsquo for him lsquothe essence of truthrsquo is lsquothe history of beingrsquo

Of course such strong claims about the radically historical character of ourconcepts (even cherished concepts like lsquoessencersquo lsquotruthrsquo lsquohistoryrsquo lsquoconceptrsquoand lsquobeingrsquo) tend to make philosophers nervous When Heidegger historicizesontology by re-rooting it in the historical existence of Dasein how does hisaccount avoid simply dissolving intelligibility into the ux of timeHeideggerrsquos answer is surprising it is the metaphysical tradition thatprevents intelligibility from dissolving into a pure temporal ux Indeedcareful readers will notice that when Heidegger writes that lsquoek-sistentdisclosive Da-sein possesses the human being so originarily that only itsecures for humanity that distinctive relatedness to the totality of beings assuch which rst grounds all historyrsquo he is subtly invoking his account of theway in which metaphysics grounds intelligibility Unfortunately thecomplexity of Heideggerrsquos idiosyncratic understanding of Western meta-physics as ontotheology coupled with his seemingly strong antipathy tometaphysics has tended to obscure the unparalleled pride of place he in factassigns to metaphysics in the historical construction contestation andmaintenance of intelligibility Put simply Heidegger holds that ourmetaphysiciansrsquo ontological understandings of what entities are lsquoas suchrsquoground intelligibility from the inside-out (as it were) while their theologicalunderstandings of the way in which the lsquototalityrsquo of beings existsimultaneously secure the intelligible order from the outside-in Westernhistoryrsquos successive constellations of intelligibility are thus lsquodoublygroundedrsquo in a series of ontotheologically structured understandings of lsquothebeing of beingsrsquo (das Sein des Seienden) understandings that is of both whatand how beings are or of lsquothe totality of beings as suchrsquo (as Heidegger puts itabove)8

This account answers our worry for although none of these ontotheolo-gical grounds has served the history of intelligibility as an unshakeablelsquofoundationrsquo (Grund) nor have any of the major ontotheologies instantlygiven way like a groundless lsquoabyssrsquo (Abgrund) Rather each ontotheology hasserved its historical constellation of intelligibility as an Ungrund lsquoa perhapsnecessary appearance of groundrsquo that is as that point at which ontologicalinquiry comes to a rest9 Because each ontotheology serves for a time as thepoint where lsquothe spade turnsrsquo (as Wittgenstein put it) the history ofintelligibility has taken the form of a series of relatively durable overlappinghistorical lsquoepochsrsquo rather than either a single monolithic understanding ofwhat-is or a formless ontological ux10 Thus metaphysics by repeatedlysupplying intelligibility with dual ontotheological anchors is able lsquoto holdbackrsquo (epoche) the oodwaters of intelligibility for a time ndash the time of an

Heidegger on Ontological Education 247

lsquoepochrsquo It is this lsquooverlappingrsquo historical series of ontotheologicallygrounded epochs that Heidegger calls the history of being

2 The History of Being as the Ground of Education

With this philosophical background in place we can now understand thereasoning behind Heideggerrsquos claim that our changing historical under-standing of lsquoeducationrsquo is grounded in the history of being11 Heideggerdefends a kind of ontological holism By giving shape to our historicalunderstanding of lsquowhat isrsquo metaphysics determines the most basicpresuppositions of what anything is including lsquoeducationrsquo As he puts itlsquoWestern humanity in all its comportment toward beings and even towarditself is in every respect sustained and guided by metaphysicsrsquo12 The lsquogreatmetaphysiciansrsquo focus and disseminate an ontotheological understanding ofwhat and how beings are thereby establishing the most basic conceptualparameters and ultimate standards of legitimacy for their historical epochsThese ontotheologies function historically like self-ful lling propheciesreshaping intelligibility from the ground up For as a new ontotheologicalunderstanding of what and how beings are takes hold and spreads ittransforms our basic understanding of what all entities are13 Our under-standing of education is lsquomade possiblersquo by the history of being then sincewhen our understanding of what beings are changes historically ourunderstanding of what lsquoeducationrsquo is transforms as well

This conclusion is crucial not only does it answer the question that hasguided us thus far it positions us to understand what exactly Heidegger ndsobjectionable about our contemporary understanding of education (and theeducational institutions which embody this understanding) For Heidegger ourchanging historical understanding of what lsquoeducationrsquo is has its place in anhistorical series of ontological lsquoepochsrsquo holistic constellations of intelligibilitywhich are themselves grounded in a series of ontotheological understandings ofwhat and how beings are In order fully to comprehend Heideggerrsquos critique ofcontemporary education then we need to answer three interrelated questionsFirst what exactly is the nature of our own ontological epoch Second inwhich ontotheology is our constellation of intelligibility grounded And thirdhow has this underlying ontotheology shaped our present understanding ofeducation I will take these questions in order

Heideggerrsquos name for our contemporary constellation of intelligibility isof course lsquoenframingrsquo (das Gestell) Heidegger chooses this polysemic termbecause by etymologically connoting a gathering together (lsquoGe-rsquo) of themyriad forms of stellen (lsquoto set stand regulate secure ready establishrsquo andso on) it succinctly conveys his understanding of the way in which ourpresent lsquomode of revealingrsquo ndash a lsquosetting-upon that challenges forthrsquo ndash forcesthe lsquopresencingrsquo (anwesen) of entities into its metaphysical lsquostamp or moldrsquo

248 Iain Thomson

(Pragung)14 Yet this is not simply to substitute etymology for argument asdetractors allege Heidegger uses etymology in order to come up with anappropriate name for our contemporary lsquomode of revealingrsquo but theargumentative work in his account is done by his understanding ofmetaphysics This means that to really understand why Heideggercharacterizes our contemporary epoch as das Gestell we must take themeasure of his claim that lsquoenframingrsquo is grounded in an ontotheologytransmitted to us by Nietzsche On Heideggerrsquos reading Nietzschersquos staunchanti-metaphysical stance merely hides the fact that he actually philosophizedon the basis of an lsquounthoughtrsquo metaphysics Nietzschersquos Nachlab clearlydemonstrates that he conceptualized lsquothe totality of beings as suchrsquoontotheologically as lsquoeternally recurring will-to-powerrsquo that is as anunending disaggregation and reaggregation of forces without purpose orgoal15 This Nietzschean ontotheology not only inaugurates the lsquometaphysicsof the atomic agersquo it grounds enframing Our unthinking reliance onNietzschersquos ontotheology is leading us to transform all beings ourselvesincluded into mere lsquoresourcesrsquo (Bestand) entities lacking intrinsic meaningwhich are thus simply optimized and disposed of with maximal ef ciency16

Heidegger famously characterizes enframing as a technological under-standing of being As an historical lsquomode of revealingrsquo in which entitiesincreasingly show up only as resources to be optimized enframing generatesa lsquocalculative thinkingrsquo which like the mythic touch of King Midasquanti es all qualitative relations This lsquolimitless ldquoquanti cationrdquorsquo whichabsorbs all qualitative relations (until we come to treat lsquoquantity as qualityrsquo)is rooted in enframingrsquos ontologically reductive mode of revealing wherebylsquo[o]nly what is calculable in advance counts as beingrsquo Enframing thus tendsto reduce all entities to bivalent programmable lsquoinformationrsquo digitized datawhich increasingly enters into lsquoa state of pure circulationrsquo17 Indeed asHeideggerrsquos phenomenological meditation on a highway interchangerevealed to him in the 1950s ndash and as our lsquoinformation superhighwayrsquo theInternet now makes plain ndash we exhibit a growing tendency to relate to ourworld and ourselves merely as a lsquonetwork of long distance traf c paced ascalculated for maximum yieldrsquo18 Reading quotidian historical developmentsin terms of this ontohistorical logic Heidegger believed our passage fromCartesian modernity to Nietzschean postmodernity was already visible in thetransformation of employment agencies into lsquohuman resourcersquo departmentsThe technological move afoot to reduce teachers and scholars to lsquoon-linecontent providersrsquo merely extends ndash and so clari es ndash the logic wherebymodern subjects transform themselves into postmodern resources by turningtechniques developed for controlling nature back onto themselves19

Unfortunately as this historical transformation of subjects into resourcesbecomes more pervasive it further eludes our critical gaze indeed we cometo treat ourselves in the very terms which underlie our technological

Heidegger on Ontological Education 249

refashioning of the world no longer as conscious Cartesian subjects takingcontrol of an objective world but rather as one more resource to be optimizedordered and enhanced with maximal ef ciency ndash whether cosmeticallypsychopharmacologically or educationally

Here then Heidegger believes he has uncovered the subterraneanontohistorical logic guiding the development of our educational institutionsBut how does contemporary education re ect this nihilistic logic ofenframing In what sense are todayrsquos educational institutions caught up inan unlimited quanti cation of qualitative relations which strips beings of theirintrinsic meanings transforming them into mere resources to be optimizedwith maximal ef ciency

3 Education as Enframing

Heidegger began developing his critique of higher education in 1911 andcontinued elaborating it well into the 1960s but perhaps his most directanswer to this question comes in 192920 Having nally been awarded a fullprofessorship (on the basis of Being and Time) the 39-year-old Heideggergives his of cial lsquoInaugural Lecturersquo at Freiburg University the famouslsquoWhat is Metaphysicsrsquo He begins boldly directing his critical attention to theuniversity itself by emphasizing philosophyrsquos concrete lsquoexistentialrsquo founda-tions (since lsquometaphysical questioning must be posed from the essentialposition of the existence [Dasein] that questionsrsquo) Within the lifeworld of theuniversity Heidegger observes lsquoexistencersquo (Dasein) is determined byWissenschaft the knowledge embodied in the humanities and naturalsciences lsquoOur Dasein ndash in the community of researchers teachers andstudents ndash is determined by science or knowledge [durch die Wissenschaftbestimmt]rsquo21 Our very lsquobeing-in-the-worldrsquo is shaped by the knowledge wepursue uncover and embody When Heidegger claims that existence isfundamentally shaped by knowledge he is not thinking of a professoriateshifting in the winds of academic trends nor simply arguing for a kind ofpedagogical or performative consistency according to which we shouldpractice what we know His intent rather is to emphasize a troubling sense inwhich it seems that we cannot help practicing what we know since we arelsquoalways alreadyrsquo implicitly shaped by our guiding metaphysical presupposi-tions Heideggerrsquos question thus becomes What is the ontological impact ofour unquestioned reliance on the particular metaphysical presuppositionswhich tacitly dominate the academy lsquoWhat happens to us essentially in theground of our existencersquo when the Wissenschaft pursued in the contemporaryuniversity becomes our guiding lsquopassionrsquo fundamentally shaping our view ofthe world and of ourselves

Heideggerrsquos dramatic answer introduces his radical critique of the hyper-specialization and consequent fragmentation of the modern university

250 Iain Thomson

The elds of science are widely separated Their ways of handling the objects of theirinquiries differ fundamentally Today only the technical organization of universitiesand faculties consolidates this multiplicity of dispersed disciplines only throughpractical and instrumental goals do they maintain any meaning The rootedness of thesciences in their essential ground has dried up and died2 2

Here in 1929 Heidegger accurately describes the predicament of thatinstitution which almost half a century later Clark Kerr would satiricallylabel the lsquoMulti-versityrsquo an internally fragmented Uni-versity-in-name-onlywhere the sole communal unity stems from a common grievance aboutparking spaces23 Historically as the modern university loses sight of theshared goals which originally justi ed the endeavors of the academiccommunity as a whole (at rst the common pursuit of the uni ed lsquosystemrsquo ofknowledge then the communal dedication to the formation of cultivatedindividuals) its members begin to look outside the university for somepurpose to give meaning to lives of research Since only those disciplines (orsub-disciplines) able to produce instrumentally useful results regularly ndsuch external support all disciplines increasingly try to present themselves interms of their use-value Without a counter-ideal students too will adopt thisinstrumental mentality coming to see education merely as a means to anincreased salary down the road In this way fragmentation leads to theprofessionalization of the university and eventually its deterioration intovocationalism At the same time moreover the different disciplines lackingany shared substantive sense of a unifying purpose or common subject-matter tend by the logic of specialization to develop internal standardsappropriate to their particular object-domains As these domains becomeincreasingly specialized these internal standards become ever moredisparate if not simply incommensurable In this way disciplinaryfragmentation leaves the university without common standards ndash other thanthe now ubiquitous but entirely empty and formal ideal of excellence

Following in Heideggerrsquos footsteps critics such as Bill Readings andTimothy Clark show how our contemporary lsquouniversity of excellencersquo owingto lsquothe very emptiness of the idea of excellencersquo is lsquobecoming an excellentbureaucratic corporationrsquo lsquogeared to no higher idea than its own maximizedself-perpetuation according to optimal inputoutput ratiosrsquo24 Such diagnosesmake clear that the development of our educational institutions continues tofollow the underlying metaphysical logic of enframing the progressivetransformation of all entities into mere resources to be optimizedUnfortunately these critics fail to recognize this underlying ontohistoricallogic and so offer diagnoses without cures Indeed Readingsrsquo materialistexplanation for the historical obsolescence of Bildung as the unifying ideal ofthe modern university (the result of an lsquoimplacable bourgeois economicrevolutionrsquo) leads him to succumb to a cynicism in which future denizens ofthe university can hope for nothing more than lsquopragmaticrsquo situational

Heidegger on Ontological Education 251

responses in an environment increasingly transformed by lsquothe logic ofconsumerismrsquo25 While such critiques of the university convincingly extendand update aspects of Heideggerrsquos analysis they lack his philosophical visionfor a revitalizing reuni cation of the university

To see that Heidegger himself did not relinquish all hope for the future ofhigher education we need only attend carefully to the performativedimension of his lsquoInaugural Lecturersquo On the surface it may seem as ifHeidegger welcomed fully into the arms of the university rather perverselyuses his celebratory lecture to pronounce the death of the institution which hasjust hired him proclaiming that lsquoThe rootedness of the sciences in theiressential ground has dried up and diedrsquo Yet with this deliberate provocationHeidegger is not beating a dead horse his pronouncement that the universityis dead at its roots implies that it is fated to wither and decay unless it isrevivi ed reinvigorated from the root Heidegger uses this organic metaphorof lsquorootednessrsquo (Verwurzelung) to put into effect what Derrida (who willrestage this scene himself) recognizes as lsquoa phoenix motifrsquo lsquoOne burns orburies what is already dead so that life will be reborn and regenerated fromthese ashesrsquo26 Indeed Heidegger begins to outline his program for arenaissance of the university in the lecturersquos conclusion Existence isdetermined by science but science itself remains rooted in metaphysicswhether it realizes it or not Since the roots of the university are metaphysicala reinstauration of the scienti c lifeworld requires a renewed attention to thisunderlying metaphysical dimension lsquoOnly if science exists on the basis ofmetaphysics can it achieve anew its essential task which is not to amass andclassify bits of knowledge but to disclose in ever-renewed fashion the entireexpanse of truth in nature and historyrsquo27

What exactly is Heidegger proposing here To understand his vision for arebirth of the university we need to turn to a text he began writing the nextyear lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo28 Here tracing the ontohistorical roots ofour educational crisis back to Platorsquos cave Heidegger (quite literally)excavates an alternative

III Heideggerrsquos Return to Platorsquos Cave Ontological Education asthe Essence of Paideia

Plato seeks to show that the essence of paideia does notconsist in merely pouring knowledge into the unpreparedsoul as if it were a container held out empty and waitingOn the contrary real education lays hold of the soul itselfand transforms it in its entirety by rst of all leading us tothe place of our essential being and accustoming us toit2 9

252 Iain Thomson

Our contemporary educational crisis can be understood as an ontohistoricaldissolution of Platorsquos original conception of education Heidegger contendsso the deconstructive recovery of this lsquoessence of paideiarsquo is crucial tosuccessfully resolving the crisis A deeply resonant Greek word paideiameans lsquocivilizationrsquo lsquoculturersquo lsquodevelopmentrsquo lsquotraditionrsquo lsquoliteraturersquo andlsquoeducationrsquo thus it encompasses what to our ears seems to be a rather widerange of semantic frequencies30 Heidegger was deeply drawn to the wordnot only because thanks largely to Werner Jaeger it served as a key term inthat intersection of German academic and political life which Heideggersought to occupy during the 1930s but also because he had an undeniablefondness for what (with a wink to Freud) we could call the polysemicperversity of language that is the fortuitous ambiguities and unpredictableinterconnections which help form the warp and weave of its semantic webRecognizing that such rich language tends to resist the analystrsquos pursuit of anunambiguous exactness Heidegger argued that lsquorigorousrsquo philosophicalprecision calls instead for an attempt to do justice to this semantic richness31

Yet as Gadamer and Derrida have shown this demand for us to do justiceto language is aporetic ndash a lsquonecessary impossibilityrsquo ndash since the holism ofmeaning renders the attempt ultimately impossible not only practically (for nite beings like ourselves who cannot follow all the strands in the semanticweb at once) but also in principle (despite our Borgesian dreams of acomplete hypertext which would exhaustively represent the semantic web adream even the vaunted lsquoworld-wide webrsquo barely inches toward realizing)This unful llable call for the philosopher to do justice to language isnevertheless ethical in the Kantian sense it constitutes a regulative idealorienting our progress while remaining unreachable like a guiding star It isalso and for Heidegger more primordially lsquoethos-icalrsquo (so to speak) sincesuch a call can be answered lsquoauthenticallyrsquo only if it is taken up existentiallyand embodied in an ethos a way of being In Being and Time Heideggerdescribes the called-for comportment as Ent-schlossenheit lsquodis-closednessor re-solversquo later he will teach it as Gelassenheit lsquoreleasement or letting-bersquo32 Ent-schlossenheit and Gelassenheit are not of course simplyequivalent terms releasement evolves out of resolve through a series ofintermediary formulations and notably lacks resolversquos voluntarism But bothentail a responsive hermeneutic receptivity (whether existential or phenom-enological) and both designate comportments whereby we embodyre exively an understanding of what we are ontologically namely Da-sein lsquobeing [the] therersquo a making intelligible of the place in which we ndourselves

Such considerations allow us to see that we are the place to whichHeidegger is referring ndash in the epigraph above this section ndash when he writesthat lsquoreal education lays hold of the soul itself and transforms it in its entiretyby rst of all leading us to the place of our essential being [Wesensort] and

Heidegger on Ontological Education 253

accustoming us to itrsquo As this epigraph shows Heidegger believes he hasful lled the ethical dictate to do justice to language by recovering lsquotheessence of paideiarsquo the ontological carrier wave underlying paideiarsquosmultiple semantic frequencies Ventriloquizing Plato Heidegger deploys thisnotion of the essence of paideia in order to oppose two conceptions ofeducation He warns rst against a lsquofalse interpretationrsquo We cannotunderstand education as the transmission of lsquoinformationrsquo the lling of thepsyche with knowledge as if inscribing a tabula rasa or in morecontemporary parlance lsquotraining-uprsquo a neural net This understanding ofeducation is false because (in the terms of Being and Time) we are lsquothrownrsquobeings lsquoalways alreadyrsquo shaped by a tradition we can never lsquoget behindrsquo andso we cannot be blank slates or lsquoempty containersrsquo waiting to be lled33

Indeed this lsquoreductive and atrophiedrsquo misconception of education as thetransmission of information re ects the nihilistic logic of enframing thatontohistorical trend by which intelligibility is lsquoleveled out into the uniformstorage of informationrsquo34 Yet here again we face a situation in which as theproblem gets worse we become less likely to recognize it the lsquoimpactrsquo of thisontological drift toward meaninglessness can lsquobarely be noticed bycontemporary humanity because they are continually covered over with thelatest informationrsquo35

Against this self-insulating but lsquofalse interpretationrsquo of educationHeidegger advances his conception of lsquoreal or genuine educationrsquo (echteBildung) the lsquoessence of paideiarsquo Drawing on the allegory of the cave ndashwhich lsquoillustrates the essence of ldquoeducationrdquo [paideia]rsquo (as Plato claims at thebeginning of Book VII of the Republic) ndash Heidegger seeks to effect nothingless than a re-ontologizing revolution in our understanding of education36

Recall Heideggerrsquos succinct and powerful formulation lsquoReal education layshold of the soul itself and transforms it in its entirety by rst of all leading usto the place of our essential being and accustoming [eingewohnt] us to itrsquoGenuine education leads us back to ourselves to the place we are (the Da ofour Sein) teaches us lsquoto dwellrsquo (wohnen) lsquotherersquo and transforms us in theprocess This transformative journey to ourselves is not a ight away from theworld into thought but a re exive return to the fundamental lsquorealm of thehuman sojournrsquo (Aufenthaltsbezirk des Menschen)37 The goal of thiseducational odyssey is simple but literally revolutionary to bring us fullcircle back to ourselves rst by turning us away from the world in which weare most immediately immersed then by turning us back to this world in amore re exive way As Heidegger explains lsquoPaideia means the turningaround of the whole human being in the sense of displacing them out of theregion of immediate encountering and accustoming them to another realm inwhich beings appearrsquo38

How can we accomplish such an ontological revolution in education Whatare the pedagogical methods of this alternative conception of education And

254 Iain Thomson

how nally can this ontological conception of education help us overturn theenframing of education

1 Ontological Education Against Enframing

In lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo Heideggerrsquos exposition is complicated by thefact that he is simultaneously explicating his own positive understanding oflsquoeducationrsquo and critiquing an important transformation in the history of lsquotruthrsquoinaugurated by Plato the transition from truth understood as aletheiaphenomenological lsquounhiddennessrsquo to orthotes the lsquocorrectnessrsquo of anassertion From this lsquoambiguity in Platorsquos doctrinersquo in which lsquotruth still isat one and the same time unhiddenness and correctnessrsquo the subsequenttradition will develop only the orthotic understanding of truth at the expenseof the aletheiac39 In so doing we lose lsquothe original essence of truthrsquo themanifestation of beings themselves and come to understand truth solely as afeature of our own representational capacities According to Heidegger thisdisplacement of the locus of truth from being to human subjectivity paves theway for that metaphysical humanism (or subjectivism) in which the lsquoessenceof paideiarsquo will be eclipsed allowing lsquoeducationrsquo to be absorbed byenframing becoming merely a means for lsquobringing ldquohuman beingsrdquo to theliberation of their possibilities the certitude of their destination and thesecuring of their ldquolivingrdquorsquo40

Despite some dramatic rhetorical ourishes however Heidegger has notentirely given up on lsquoeducationrsquo (Bildung) He dismisses the modernunderstanding of Bildung (the deliberate cultivation of lsquosubjective qualitiesrsquo)as a lsquomisinterpretation to which the notion fell victim in the nineteenthcenturyrsquo yet maintains that once Bildung is lsquogiven back its original namingpowerrsquo it is the word which lsquocomes closest to capturing the [meaning of the]word paideiarsquo Bildung is literally ambiguous Heidegger tells us its lsquonamingforcersquo drives in two directions

What lsquoBildungrsquo expresses is twofold rst Bildung means forming [Bilden] in thesense of impressing a character that unfolds But at the same time this lsquoformingrsquo[lsquoBildenrsquo ] lsquoformsrsquo [lsquobildetrsquo ] (or impresses a character) by antecedently taking itsmeasure from some measure-giving vision which for that reason is called the pre-conception [Vor-bild]

lsquoThusrsquo Heidegger concludes lsquoldquoeducationrdquo [ldquoBildungrdquo] means impressing acharacter especially as guiding by a pre-conceptionrsquo41

Few would quibble with the rst claim education stamps us with acharacter which unfolds within us But what forms the lsquostamprsquo which formsus Who educates the educators According to Heidegger the answer to thisquestion is built into the very meaning of paideia it is the second sense he

Heidegger on Ontological Education 255

lsquorestoresrsquo to Bildung To further lsquounfoldrsquo these two senses of lsquoeducationrsquoHeidegger immediately introduces the contrast class lsquothe contrary of paideiais apaideusia lack of education [Bildunglosigkeit] where no fundamentalcomportment is awakened no measure-giving preconception establishedrsquo42

This helpfully clari es Heideggerrsquos rst claim It is by awakening alsquofundamental comportmentrsquo that education stamps us with a character thatunfolds within us In the educational situation ndash a situation without pre-delimitable boundaries indeed a situation the boundaries of whichHeidegger ceaselessly seeks to expand (for he holds that lsquopaideia isessentially a movement of passage from apaideusia to paideiarsquo such thateducation is not something that can ever be completed) ndash the lsquofundamentalcomportmentrsquo perhaps most frequently called for is not the heroic Ent-schlossenheit nor even the gentler Gelassenheit but rather a more basic formof receptive spontaneity Heidegger will simply call hearing or hearkening(horen) that is (as we will see) an attentive and responsive way of dwellingin onersquos environment But whether the comportment implicitly guidingeducation is lsquoresolutenessrsquo lsquoreleasementrsquo lsquohearingrsquo or that anxiety-tranquillizing hurry which generally characterizes contemporary life dependson the second sense of Bildung which remains puzzling From where do wederive the measure-giving vision which implicitly informs all genuineeducation

Heideggerrsquos answer is complicated let us recall by the fact that he is bothelaborating his own philosophy of education (as it were) and performing acritical exegesis of Platorsquos decisive metaphysical contribution to lsquothe historythat we arersquo the history of metaphysics These two aims are in tension withone another because the education Heidegger seeks to impart ndash thefundamental attunement he would awaken in his students ndash is itself anattempt to awaken us from the ontological education that we have lsquoalwaysalreadyrsquo received from the metaphysical tradition For this generallyunnoticed antecedent measure comes to us from metaphysics from theontotheologically conceived understanding of the being of beings In shortHeidegger seeks to educate his students against their pre-existingontotheological education (He will sometimes call this educating-against-education simply lsquoteachingrsquo) The crucial question then is How canHeideggerrsquos ontological education combat the metaphysical education wehave always already received

2 The Pedagogy of Ontological Freedom

Heideggerrsquos suggestions about how the ontological education he advocatescan transcend enframing are surprisingly speci c Recall that in Platorsquosallegory the prisoner (1) begins in captivity within the cave (2) escapes thechains and turns around to discover the re and objects responsible for the

256 Iain Thomson

shadows on the wall previously taken as reality then (3) ascends from thecave into the light of the outside world coming to understand what is seenthere as made possible by the light of the sun and (4) nally returns to thecave taking up the struggle to free the other prisoners (who violently resisttheir would-be liberator) For Heidegger this well-known scenario suggeststhe pedagogy of ontological education On his remarkable interpretation theprisonerrsquos lsquofour different dwelling placesrsquo communicate the four successivestages whereby ontological education breaks studentsrsquo bondage to thetechnological mode of revealing freeing them to understand what-isdifferently

When studentsrsquo ontological educations begin they lsquoare engrossed in whatthey immediately encounterrsquo taking the shadows cast by the re on the wallto be the ultimate reality of things Yet this lsquo rersquo is only lsquoman-madersquo thelsquoconfusingrsquo light it casts represents enframingrsquos ontologically reductive modeof revealing Here in this rst stage all entities show up to students merely asresources to be optimized including the students themselves Thus if pressedstudents will ultimately lsquojustifyrsquo even their education itself merely as a meansto making more money getting the most out of their potentials or some otherequally empty optimization imperative Stage two is only reached when astudentrsquos lsquogaze is freed from its captivity to shadowsrsquo this happens when astudent recognizes lsquothe rersquo (enframing) as the source of lsquothe shadowsrsquo(entities understood as mere resources) In stage two the metaphysical chainsof enframing are thus broken But how does this liberation occur Despite theimportance of this question Heidegger answers it only in an aside lsquoto turnonersquos gaze from the shadows to entities as they show themselves withinthe glow of the relight is dif cult and failsrsquo43 His point I take it is thatentities do not show themselves as they are when forced into the meta-physical mould of enframing the ontotheology which reduces them to mereresources to be optimized Students can be led to this realization through aguided investigation of the being of any entity which they will tend tounderstand only as eternally recurring will-to-power that is as forcesendlessly coming together and breaking apart Because this metaphysicalunderstanding dissolves being into becoming the attempt to see entities asthey are in its light is doomed to failure resources have no being they arelsquoconstantly becomingrsquo (as Nietzsche realized) With this recognition ndash and theanxiety it tends to induce ndash students can attain a negative freedom fromenframing

Still Heidegger insists that lsquoreal freedomrsquo lsquoeffective freedomrsquo (wirklicheFreiheit) ndash the positive freedom in which students realize that entities aremore than mere resources and so become free for understanding themotherwise ndash lsquois attained only in stage three in which someone who has beenunchained is conveyed outside the cave ldquointo the openrdquorsquo (Notice the implicitreference to someone doing the unchaining and conveying here for

Heidegger on Ontological Education 257

Heidegger the educator plays a crucial role facilitating studentsrsquo passagebetween each of the stages) The open is one of Heideggerrsquos names for lsquobeingas suchrsquo that is for lsquowhat appears antecedently in everything that appears and makes whatever appears be accessiblersquo44 The attainment of ndash or bettercomportmental attunement to ndash this lsquoopenrsquo is what Heidegger famously callslsquodwellingrsquo45 When such positive ontological freedom is achieved lsquowhatthings are no longer appear merely in the man-made and confusing glow ofthe re within the cave The things themselves stand there in the binding forceand validity of their own visible formrsquo46 Ontological freedom is achievedwhen entities show themselves in their full phenomenological richness Thegoal of the third stage of ontological education then is to teach students tolsquodwellrsquo to help attune them to the being of entities and thus to teach them tosee that the being of an entity ndash be it a book cup rose or to use a particularlysalient example they themselves ndash cannot be fully understood in theontologically-reductive terms of enframing47

With the attainment of this crucial third stage Heideggerrsquos lsquogenuinersquoontological education may seem to have reached its completion since lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo48 This claim that genuineeducation teaches students to recognize lsquoessencesrsquo is not merely a Platonicconceit but plays an absolutely crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for areuni cation of the university (as we will see in the conclusion) Neverthelessontological education reaches its true culmination only in the fourth stage thereturn to the cave Heidegger clearly understood his own role as a teacher interms of just such a return that is as a struggle to free ontologicallyanaesthetized enframers from their bondage to a self-reifying mode ofontological revealing49 But his ranking of the return to the cave as the higheststage of ontological education is not merely an evangelistic call for others toadopt his vision of education as a revolution in consciousness it also re ectshis recognition that in ontological education learning culminates in teachingWe must thus ask What is called lsquoteachingrsquo

3 What Is Called Teaching

The English lsquoteachrsquo comes from the same linguistic family as the Germanverb zeigen lsquoto point or showrsquo50 As this etymology suggests to teach is toreveal to point out or make manifest through words But to reveal whatWhat does the teacher who lsquopoints outrsquo (or reveals) with words point to (orindicate)51 What do teachers teach The question seems to presuppose thatall teaching shares a common lsquosubject-matterrsquo not simply a shared method orgoal (the inculcation of critical thinking persuasive writing and the like) butsomething more substantive a common subject-matter unifying the Uni-versity Of course all teachers use words to disclose but to disclose a common

258 Iain Thomson

subject-matter How could such a supposition not sound absurd to usprofessional denizens of a postmodern polyversity where relentless hyper-specialization continues to fragment our subjects and even re-unifying forceslike interdisciplinarity seem to thrive only in so far they open new sub-specialties for a relentless vascular-to-capillary colonization of the scienti clifeworld In such a situation is it surprising that the Heideggerian idea of allteachers ultimately sharing a uni ed subject sounds absurd or at best like anoutdated myth ndash albeit the myth that founded the modern university But isthe idea of such a shared subject-matter a myth What do teachers teach Letus approach this question from what might at rst seem to be anotherdirection attempting to learn its answer

If teaching is revealing through words then conversely learning isexperiencing what a teacherrsquos words reveal That is to learn is actively toallow oneself to share in what the teacherrsquos words disclose But again whatdo the teacherrsquos words reveal We will notice if we read closely enough thatHeidegger answers this question in 1951 when he writes lsquoTo learn means tomake everything we do answer to whatever essentials address us at a giventimersquo52 Here it might sound at rst as if Heidegger is simply claimingthat learning as the complement of teaching means actively allowing oneselfto share in that which the teacherrsquos words disclose But Wittgenstein used tosay that philosophy is like a bicycle race the point of which is to go as slowlyas possible without falling off and if we slow down we will notice thatHeideggerrsquos words ndash the words of a teacher who would teach what learningmeans (in fact the performative situation is even more complex)53ndash saymore Learning means actively allowing ourselves to respond to what isessential in that which always addresses us that which has always alreadyclaimed us

In a sense then learning means responding appropriately to thesolicitations of the environment Of course Heidegger is thinking of theontological environment (the way in which what-is discloses itself to us)but even ontic analogues show that this capacity to respond appropriately tothe environment is quite dif cult to learn We learn to respond appropriatelyto environmental solicitations through a long process of trial and error Wemust in other words learn how to learn Here problems abound for it isnot clear that learning to learn can be taught To the analytically minded thisdemand seems to lead to a regress (for if we need to learn to learn then weneed to learn to learn to learn and so on) But logic misleads phenomenologyhere as Heidegger realized it is simply a question of jumping into thispedagogical circle in the right way Such a train of thought leads Heidegger toclaim that if lsquoteaching is even more dif cult than learningrsquo this is onlybecause the teacher must be an exemplary learner capable of teaching his orher students to learn that is capable of learning-in-public activelyresponding to the emerging demands of each unique educational situation

Heidegger on Ontological Education 259

Recall the famous passage

Why is teaching more dif cult than learning Not because the teacher must have alarger store of information and have it always ready Teaching is more dif cult thanlearning because what teaching calls for is this to let learn The real teacher in factlets nothing else be learned than learning The teacher is ahead of his apprentices inthis alone that he has still far more to learn than they ndash he has to learn to let themlearn The teacher must be capable of being more teachable than his apprentices5 4

The teacher teaches students to learn ndash to respond appropriately to thesolicitations of the ontological environment ndash by responding appropriately tothe solicitations of his or her environment which is after all the studentsrsquoenvironment too Learning culminates in teaching then because teaching isthe highest form of learning unlike lsquoinstructingrsquo (belehren) lsquoteachingrsquo(lehren) is ultimately a lsquoletting learnrsquo (lernen lassen) lsquoThe true teacher isahead of the students only in that he has more to learn than they namely theletting learn (To learn [means] to bring what we do and allow into a co-respondence [or a suitable response Entsprechung] with that which in eachcase grants itself to us as the essential)rsquo55

This last assertion should remind us of Heideggerrsquos earlier claim that lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo56 I said previously that thisclaim plays a crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for a reuni cation of theuniversity By way of conclusion let us brie y develop this claim and therebyfurther elaborate Heideggerrsquos positive vision for the future of highereducation

IV Conclusion Envisioning a University of Teachers

How can Heideggerrsquos understanding of ontological education help us restoresubstance to our currently empty guiding ideal of educational lsquoexcellencersquoand in so doing provide the contemporary university with a renewed sense ofunity not only restoring substance to our shared commitment to formingexcellent students but also helping us recognize the sense in which we are infact all working on the same project The answer is surprisingly simple Byre-essentializing the notion of excellence Heidegger like Aristotle is aperfectionist he argues that there is a distinctive human essence and that thegood life the life of lsquoexcellencersquo (arete) is the life spent cultivating thisdistinctively human essence For Heidegger as we have seen the humanlsquoessencersquo is Dasein lsquobeing-therersquo that is the making-intelligible of the placein which we nd ourselves or even more simply world disclosing For aworld-disclosing being to cultivate its essence then is for it to recognize and

260 Iain Thomson

develop this essence not only acknowledging its participation in the creationand maintenance of an intelligible world but actively embracing itsontological role in such world disclosure The full rami cations of thisseemingly simple insight are profound and revolutionary57 We will restrictourselves to brie y developing the two most important implications ofHeideggerrsquos re-essentialization of excellence for the future of the university

Heideggerrsquos ontological conception of education would transform theexisting relations between teaching and research on the one hand andbetween the now fragmented departments on the other Thus in effectHeidegger dedicates himself nally to redeeming the two central ideals whichguided the formation of the modern university Teaching and research shouldbe harmoniously integrated and the university community should understanditself as committed to a common substantive task58 How does Heideggerthink he can help us nally achieve such ambitions First his conception oflsquoteachingrsquo would reunite research and teaching because when studentsdevelop the aforementioned lsquoinsight into essencersquo they are being taught todisclose and investigate the ontological presuppositions which underlie allresearch on Heideggerrsquos view For todayrsquos academic departments are what hecalls lsquopositive sciencesrsquo that is they all rest on ontological lsquopositsrsquoontological assumptions about what the class of entities they study areBiology for example allows us to understand the logos of the bios the orderand structure of living beings Nevertheless Heidegger asserts biologyproper cannot tell us what life is59 Instead biology takes over its implicitontological understanding of what life is from the metaphysical under-standing governing our Nietzschean epoch of enframing (When contempor-ary philosophers of biology claim that life is lsquoa self-replicating systemrsquo theyhave unknowingly adopted the basic ontological presupposition ofNietzschersquos metaphysics according to which life is ultimately the eternalrecurrence of will to power that is sheer will-to-will unlimited self-augmentation)60 Analogously psychology can tell us a great deal about howconsciousness (the psyche) functions but it cannot tell us what consciousnessis The same holds true for the understanding of lsquothe corporeality of bodiesthe vegetable character of plants the animality of animals and the humannessof humanityrsquo within physics botany zoology and anthropology respec-tively these sciences all presuppose an ontological posit a pre-understandingof the being of the class of entities they study61 Heideggerrsquos ontologicallyreconceived notion of teaching is inextricably entwined with research thenbecause ontological education teaches students to question the veryontological presuppositions which guide research thereby opening a spacefor understanding the being of the entities they study otherwise than inenframingrsquos ontologically reductive terms Heideggerrsquos reconceptualizationof education would thus encourage revolutionary transformations in thesciences and humanities by teaching students to focus on and explicitly

Heidegger on Ontological Education 261

investigate the ontological presuppositions which implicitly guide research ineach domain of knowledge

Despite such revolutionary goals Heidegger thought that his ontologicalreconceptualization of education could also restore a substantive sense ofunity to the university community if only this community could learn lsquotoengage in [this lsquore ection on the essential foundationsrsquo] as re ection and tothink and belong to the university from the base of this engagementrsquo62 Fromits founding one of the major concerns about the modern university has beenhow it could maintain the unity of structure and purpose thought to bede nitive of the lsquoUni-versityrsquo as such German Idealists like Fichte andSchelling believed that this unity would follow organically from the totalityof the system of knowledge But this faith in the system proved to be far lessin uential on posterity than Humboldtrsquos alternative lsquohumanistrsquo idealaccording to which the universityrsquos unity would come from a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of character Humboldtrsquos famousidea was to link lsquoobjective Wissenschaft with subjective Bildungrsquo theuniversity would be responsible for forming fully-cultivated individuals arequirement Humboldt hoped would serve to guide and unify the newfreedom of research Historically of course neither the German Idealistsrsquoreliance on the unity of research nor Humboldtrsquos emphasis on a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of students succeeded in unifyingthe university community In effect however Heideggerrsquos re-ontologizationof education would combine (his versions of) these two strategies Theuniversity community would be uni ed both by its shared commitment toforming excellent individuals (where excellence is understood in terms of theontological perfectionism outlined above) and by the shared recognition onthe part of this community that its members are all committed to the samesubstantive pursuit The ultimately revolutionary task not simply ofunderstanding what is but of investigating the ontological presuppositionsimplicitly guiding all the various elds of knowledge Heidegger thusbelieved that ontological education by restoring substance to the notion ofexcellence and so teaching us lsquoto disclose the essential in all thingsrsquo could nally succeed in lsquoshattering the encapsulation of the sciences in theirdifferent disciplines and bringing them back from their boundless and aimlessdispersal in individual elds and cornersrsquo6364

NOTES

1 See Heidegger Being and Time (New York Harper amp Row 1962) trans J Macquarrie andE Robinson p 44 Sein und Zeit (Tubingen M Niemeyer 1993) p 22

2 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo in William McNeill (ed) Pathmarks(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998) p 167Heidegger Wegmarken 3rd edGesamtausgabe vol 9 (Frankfurt aM V Klostermann 1996) (hereafter GA9) p 218(On my translation of this title see note 28 below) I am aware that the preceding sentence

262 Iain Thomson

ominously echoes the title of Nietzschersquos politically compromised and deeply problematicearly lectures lsquoOn the Future of Our Educational Institutionsrsquo (which culminate with a callfor a lsquogreat Fuhrerrsquo [see Nietzsche On the Future of Our Educational Institutions in OLevy (ed) The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Edinburgh T N Foulis 1909)vol 6 Jacques Derrida The Ear of the Other ed C V McDonald trans Kamuf andRonell (New York Shocken Books 1985) p 28]) I bracket such political connectionshere but a complementary essay examines the darker side of Heideggerrsquos philosophicalcritique of education showing that it played a central role in his decision to join with theNazis in the early 1930s see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo(forthcoming)

3 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo ibid p 167GA9 p 2184 See Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

1980) On Heideggerrsquos distinctive understanding of lsquoessencersquo see my lsquoWhatrsquos Wrong withBeing a Technological Essentialist A Response to Feenbergrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 429ndash44

5 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo in The Question ConcerningTechnology and Other Essays trans W Lovitt (New York Harper amp Row 1977) p 4ibid pp 30ndash31

6 Cf Feenbergrsquos Hegelian misinterpretation of Heideggerrsquos understanding of essence in lsquoTheOntic and the Ontological in Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Technology Response toThomsonrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 445ndash50

7 Heidegger lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo op cit p 145GA9 p 1898 Ibid pp 145ndash46 (my italics)GA9 p 190 I am of necessity simplifying Heideggerrsquos

complex account here but see my lsquoOntotheology Understanding Heideggerrsquos Destruktionof Metaphysicsrsquo International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (October 2000) pp 297ndash327

9 See Heidegger An Introduction to Metaphysics trans R Manheim (New Haven YaleUniversity Press 1959) p 3Einfuhrung in die Metaphysik (Tubingen M Niemeyer1953) p 2

10 See Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations 3rd ed trans G E M Anscombe(New York Macmillan 1968) sect 217 p 85

11 See also Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 170GA9 p 222 lsquoThe essenceof ldquoeducationrdquo is grounded in the essence of ldquotruthrdquorsquo

12 See Heidegger Nietzsche Nihilism ed David Krell trans F Capuzzi (New York Harperamp Row 1982) p 205Nietzsche (Pfullingen Neske 1961) vol II p 343

13 Eventually either a new ontotheology emerges (perhaps as Kuhn suggests out of theinvestigation of those lsquoanomalousrsquo entities which resist being understood in terms of thedominant ontotheology) or else our underlying conception of the being of all entities wouldbe brought into line with this spreading ontotheology Although this latter alternative hasnever yet occurred Heidegger calls it lsquothe greatest dangerrsquo he is worried that ourNietzschean ontotheology could become totalizing lsquodriving out every other possibility ofrevealingrsquo by overwriting Daseinrsquos lsquospecial naturersquo our de ning capacity for world-disclosure with the lsquototal thoughtlessnessrsquo of a merely instrumental lsquocalculative reasoningrsquo See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo op cit p 27 HeideggerDiscourse on Thinking trans J Anderson and E Freund (New York Harper amp Row1966) p 56

14 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo ibid pp 16ndash2015 See esp Friedrich Nietzsche The Will To Power ed and trans Walter Kaufmann (New

York Random House 1967) pp 549ndash50 Here Nietzsche clearly conceives of beings assuch as will to power and of the way the totality exists as eternally recurring Nor canHeideggerrsquos controversial reading be rejected simply by excluding this problematic text onthe basis of its politically compromised ancestry since Nietzschersquos ontotheology can alsobe found in his other works

16 Heidegger lsquoNihilism as Determined by the History of Beingrsquo Nietzsche Nihilism op citpp 199ndash250

17 See Heidegger Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) trans P Emad and K Maly(Bloomington IN Indiana University Press 1999) p 95Beitrage zur Philosophie (Vom

Heidegger on Ontological Education 263

lsquoepochrsquo It is this lsquooverlappingrsquo historical series of ontotheologicallygrounded epochs that Heidegger calls the history of being

2 The History of Being as the Ground of Education

With this philosophical background in place we can now understand thereasoning behind Heideggerrsquos claim that our changing historical under-standing of lsquoeducationrsquo is grounded in the history of being11 Heideggerdefends a kind of ontological holism By giving shape to our historicalunderstanding of lsquowhat isrsquo metaphysics determines the most basicpresuppositions of what anything is including lsquoeducationrsquo As he puts itlsquoWestern humanity in all its comportment toward beings and even towarditself is in every respect sustained and guided by metaphysicsrsquo12 The lsquogreatmetaphysiciansrsquo focus and disseminate an ontotheological understanding ofwhat and how beings are thereby establishing the most basic conceptualparameters and ultimate standards of legitimacy for their historical epochsThese ontotheologies function historically like self-ful lling propheciesreshaping intelligibility from the ground up For as a new ontotheologicalunderstanding of what and how beings are takes hold and spreads ittransforms our basic understanding of what all entities are13 Our under-standing of education is lsquomade possiblersquo by the history of being then sincewhen our understanding of what beings are changes historically ourunderstanding of what lsquoeducationrsquo is transforms as well

This conclusion is crucial not only does it answer the question that hasguided us thus far it positions us to understand what exactly Heidegger ndsobjectionable about our contemporary understanding of education (and theeducational institutions which embody this understanding) For Heidegger ourchanging historical understanding of what lsquoeducationrsquo is has its place in anhistorical series of ontological lsquoepochsrsquo holistic constellations of intelligibilitywhich are themselves grounded in a series of ontotheological understandings ofwhat and how beings are In order fully to comprehend Heideggerrsquos critique ofcontemporary education then we need to answer three interrelated questionsFirst what exactly is the nature of our own ontological epoch Second inwhich ontotheology is our constellation of intelligibility grounded And thirdhow has this underlying ontotheology shaped our present understanding ofeducation I will take these questions in order

Heideggerrsquos name for our contemporary constellation of intelligibility isof course lsquoenframingrsquo (das Gestell) Heidegger chooses this polysemic termbecause by etymologically connoting a gathering together (lsquoGe-rsquo) of themyriad forms of stellen (lsquoto set stand regulate secure ready establishrsquo andso on) it succinctly conveys his understanding of the way in which ourpresent lsquomode of revealingrsquo ndash a lsquosetting-upon that challenges forthrsquo ndash forcesthe lsquopresencingrsquo (anwesen) of entities into its metaphysical lsquostamp or moldrsquo

248 Iain Thomson

(Pragung)14 Yet this is not simply to substitute etymology for argument asdetractors allege Heidegger uses etymology in order to come up with anappropriate name for our contemporary lsquomode of revealingrsquo but theargumentative work in his account is done by his understanding ofmetaphysics This means that to really understand why Heideggercharacterizes our contemporary epoch as das Gestell we must take themeasure of his claim that lsquoenframingrsquo is grounded in an ontotheologytransmitted to us by Nietzsche On Heideggerrsquos reading Nietzschersquos staunchanti-metaphysical stance merely hides the fact that he actually philosophizedon the basis of an lsquounthoughtrsquo metaphysics Nietzschersquos Nachlab clearlydemonstrates that he conceptualized lsquothe totality of beings as suchrsquoontotheologically as lsquoeternally recurring will-to-powerrsquo that is as anunending disaggregation and reaggregation of forces without purpose orgoal15 This Nietzschean ontotheology not only inaugurates the lsquometaphysicsof the atomic agersquo it grounds enframing Our unthinking reliance onNietzschersquos ontotheology is leading us to transform all beings ourselvesincluded into mere lsquoresourcesrsquo (Bestand) entities lacking intrinsic meaningwhich are thus simply optimized and disposed of with maximal ef ciency16

Heidegger famously characterizes enframing as a technological under-standing of being As an historical lsquomode of revealingrsquo in which entitiesincreasingly show up only as resources to be optimized enframing generatesa lsquocalculative thinkingrsquo which like the mythic touch of King Midasquanti es all qualitative relations This lsquolimitless ldquoquanti cationrdquorsquo whichabsorbs all qualitative relations (until we come to treat lsquoquantity as qualityrsquo)is rooted in enframingrsquos ontologically reductive mode of revealing wherebylsquo[o]nly what is calculable in advance counts as beingrsquo Enframing thus tendsto reduce all entities to bivalent programmable lsquoinformationrsquo digitized datawhich increasingly enters into lsquoa state of pure circulationrsquo17 Indeed asHeideggerrsquos phenomenological meditation on a highway interchangerevealed to him in the 1950s ndash and as our lsquoinformation superhighwayrsquo theInternet now makes plain ndash we exhibit a growing tendency to relate to ourworld and ourselves merely as a lsquonetwork of long distance traf c paced ascalculated for maximum yieldrsquo18 Reading quotidian historical developmentsin terms of this ontohistorical logic Heidegger believed our passage fromCartesian modernity to Nietzschean postmodernity was already visible in thetransformation of employment agencies into lsquohuman resourcersquo departmentsThe technological move afoot to reduce teachers and scholars to lsquoon-linecontent providersrsquo merely extends ndash and so clari es ndash the logic wherebymodern subjects transform themselves into postmodern resources by turningtechniques developed for controlling nature back onto themselves19

Unfortunately as this historical transformation of subjects into resourcesbecomes more pervasive it further eludes our critical gaze indeed we cometo treat ourselves in the very terms which underlie our technological

Heidegger on Ontological Education 249

refashioning of the world no longer as conscious Cartesian subjects takingcontrol of an objective world but rather as one more resource to be optimizedordered and enhanced with maximal ef ciency ndash whether cosmeticallypsychopharmacologically or educationally

Here then Heidegger believes he has uncovered the subterraneanontohistorical logic guiding the development of our educational institutionsBut how does contemporary education re ect this nihilistic logic ofenframing In what sense are todayrsquos educational institutions caught up inan unlimited quanti cation of qualitative relations which strips beings of theirintrinsic meanings transforming them into mere resources to be optimizedwith maximal ef ciency

3 Education as Enframing

Heidegger began developing his critique of higher education in 1911 andcontinued elaborating it well into the 1960s but perhaps his most directanswer to this question comes in 192920 Having nally been awarded a fullprofessorship (on the basis of Being and Time) the 39-year-old Heideggergives his of cial lsquoInaugural Lecturersquo at Freiburg University the famouslsquoWhat is Metaphysicsrsquo He begins boldly directing his critical attention to theuniversity itself by emphasizing philosophyrsquos concrete lsquoexistentialrsquo founda-tions (since lsquometaphysical questioning must be posed from the essentialposition of the existence [Dasein] that questionsrsquo) Within the lifeworld of theuniversity Heidegger observes lsquoexistencersquo (Dasein) is determined byWissenschaft the knowledge embodied in the humanities and naturalsciences lsquoOur Dasein ndash in the community of researchers teachers andstudents ndash is determined by science or knowledge [durch die Wissenschaftbestimmt]rsquo21 Our very lsquobeing-in-the-worldrsquo is shaped by the knowledge wepursue uncover and embody When Heidegger claims that existence isfundamentally shaped by knowledge he is not thinking of a professoriateshifting in the winds of academic trends nor simply arguing for a kind ofpedagogical or performative consistency according to which we shouldpractice what we know His intent rather is to emphasize a troubling sense inwhich it seems that we cannot help practicing what we know since we arelsquoalways alreadyrsquo implicitly shaped by our guiding metaphysical presupposi-tions Heideggerrsquos question thus becomes What is the ontological impact ofour unquestioned reliance on the particular metaphysical presuppositionswhich tacitly dominate the academy lsquoWhat happens to us essentially in theground of our existencersquo when the Wissenschaft pursued in the contemporaryuniversity becomes our guiding lsquopassionrsquo fundamentally shaping our view ofthe world and of ourselves

Heideggerrsquos dramatic answer introduces his radical critique of the hyper-specialization and consequent fragmentation of the modern university

250 Iain Thomson

The elds of science are widely separated Their ways of handling the objects of theirinquiries differ fundamentally Today only the technical organization of universitiesand faculties consolidates this multiplicity of dispersed disciplines only throughpractical and instrumental goals do they maintain any meaning The rootedness of thesciences in their essential ground has dried up and died2 2

Here in 1929 Heidegger accurately describes the predicament of thatinstitution which almost half a century later Clark Kerr would satiricallylabel the lsquoMulti-versityrsquo an internally fragmented Uni-versity-in-name-onlywhere the sole communal unity stems from a common grievance aboutparking spaces23 Historically as the modern university loses sight of theshared goals which originally justi ed the endeavors of the academiccommunity as a whole (at rst the common pursuit of the uni ed lsquosystemrsquo ofknowledge then the communal dedication to the formation of cultivatedindividuals) its members begin to look outside the university for somepurpose to give meaning to lives of research Since only those disciplines (orsub-disciplines) able to produce instrumentally useful results regularly ndsuch external support all disciplines increasingly try to present themselves interms of their use-value Without a counter-ideal students too will adopt thisinstrumental mentality coming to see education merely as a means to anincreased salary down the road In this way fragmentation leads to theprofessionalization of the university and eventually its deterioration intovocationalism At the same time moreover the different disciplines lackingany shared substantive sense of a unifying purpose or common subject-matter tend by the logic of specialization to develop internal standardsappropriate to their particular object-domains As these domains becomeincreasingly specialized these internal standards become ever moredisparate if not simply incommensurable In this way disciplinaryfragmentation leaves the university without common standards ndash other thanthe now ubiquitous but entirely empty and formal ideal of excellence

Following in Heideggerrsquos footsteps critics such as Bill Readings andTimothy Clark show how our contemporary lsquouniversity of excellencersquo owingto lsquothe very emptiness of the idea of excellencersquo is lsquobecoming an excellentbureaucratic corporationrsquo lsquogeared to no higher idea than its own maximizedself-perpetuation according to optimal inputoutput ratiosrsquo24 Such diagnosesmake clear that the development of our educational institutions continues tofollow the underlying metaphysical logic of enframing the progressivetransformation of all entities into mere resources to be optimizedUnfortunately these critics fail to recognize this underlying ontohistoricallogic and so offer diagnoses without cures Indeed Readingsrsquo materialistexplanation for the historical obsolescence of Bildung as the unifying ideal ofthe modern university (the result of an lsquoimplacable bourgeois economicrevolutionrsquo) leads him to succumb to a cynicism in which future denizens ofthe university can hope for nothing more than lsquopragmaticrsquo situational

Heidegger on Ontological Education 251

responses in an environment increasingly transformed by lsquothe logic ofconsumerismrsquo25 While such critiques of the university convincingly extendand update aspects of Heideggerrsquos analysis they lack his philosophical visionfor a revitalizing reuni cation of the university

To see that Heidegger himself did not relinquish all hope for the future ofhigher education we need only attend carefully to the performativedimension of his lsquoInaugural Lecturersquo On the surface it may seem as ifHeidegger welcomed fully into the arms of the university rather perverselyuses his celebratory lecture to pronounce the death of the institution which hasjust hired him proclaiming that lsquoThe rootedness of the sciences in theiressential ground has dried up and diedrsquo Yet with this deliberate provocationHeidegger is not beating a dead horse his pronouncement that the universityis dead at its roots implies that it is fated to wither and decay unless it isrevivi ed reinvigorated from the root Heidegger uses this organic metaphorof lsquorootednessrsquo (Verwurzelung) to put into effect what Derrida (who willrestage this scene himself) recognizes as lsquoa phoenix motifrsquo lsquoOne burns orburies what is already dead so that life will be reborn and regenerated fromthese ashesrsquo26 Indeed Heidegger begins to outline his program for arenaissance of the university in the lecturersquos conclusion Existence isdetermined by science but science itself remains rooted in metaphysicswhether it realizes it or not Since the roots of the university are metaphysicala reinstauration of the scienti c lifeworld requires a renewed attention to thisunderlying metaphysical dimension lsquoOnly if science exists on the basis ofmetaphysics can it achieve anew its essential task which is not to amass andclassify bits of knowledge but to disclose in ever-renewed fashion the entireexpanse of truth in nature and historyrsquo27

What exactly is Heidegger proposing here To understand his vision for arebirth of the university we need to turn to a text he began writing the nextyear lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo28 Here tracing the ontohistorical roots ofour educational crisis back to Platorsquos cave Heidegger (quite literally)excavates an alternative

III Heideggerrsquos Return to Platorsquos Cave Ontological Education asthe Essence of Paideia

Plato seeks to show that the essence of paideia does notconsist in merely pouring knowledge into the unpreparedsoul as if it were a container held out empty and waitingOn the contrary real education lays hold of the soul itselfand transforms it in its entirety by rst of all leading us tothe place of our essential being and accustoming us toit2 9

252 Iain Thomson

Our contemporary educational crisis can be understood as an ontohistoricaldissolution of Platorsquos original conception of education Heidegger contendsso the deconstructive recovery of this lsquoessence of paideiarsquo is crucial tosuccessfully resolving the crisis A deeply resonant Greek word paideiameans lsquocivilizationrsquo lsquoculturersquo lsquodevelopmentrsquo lsquotraditionrsquo lsquoliteraturersquo andlsquoeducationrsquo thus it encompasses what to our ears seems to be a rather widerange of semantic frequencies30 Heidegger was deeply drawn to the wordnot only because thanks largely to Werner Jaeger it served as a key term inthat intersection of German academic and political life which Heideggersought to occupy during the 1930s but also because he had an undeniablefondness for what (with a wink to Freud) we could call the polysemicperversity of language that is the fortuitous ambiguities and unpredictableinterconnections which help form the warp and weave of its semantic webRecognizing that such rich language tends to resist the analystrsquos pursuit of anunambiguous exactness Heidegger argued that lsquorigorousrsquo philosophicalprecision calls instead for an attempt to do justice to this semantic richness31

Yet as Gadamer and Derrida have shown this demand for us to do justiceto language is aporetic ndash a lsquonecessary impossibilityrsquo ndash since the holism ofmeaning renders the attempt ultimately impossible not only practically (for nite beings like ourselves who cannot follow all the strands in the semanticweb at once) but also in principle (despite our Borgesian dreams of acomplete hypertext which would exhaustively represent the semantic web adream even the vaunted lsquoworld-wide webrsquo barely inches toward realizing)This unful llable call for the philosopher to do justice to language isnevertheless ethical in the Kantian sense it constitutes a regulative idealorienting our progress while remaining unreachable like a guiding star It isalso and for Heidegger more primordially lsquoethos-icalrsquo (so to speak) sincesuch a call can be answered lsquoauthenticallyrsquo only if it is taken up existentiallyand embodied in an ethos a way of being In Being and Time Heideggerdescribes the called-for comportment as Ent-schlossenheit lsquodis-closednessor re-solversquo later he will teach it as Gelassenheit lsquoreleasement or letting-bersquo32 Ent-schlossenheit and Gelassenheit are not of course simplyequivalent terms releasement evolves out of resolve through a series ofintermediary formulations and notably lacks resolversquos voluntarism But bothentail a responsive hermeneutic receptivity (whether existential or phenom-enological) and both designate comportments whereby we embodyre exively an understanding of what we are ontologically namely Da-sein lsquobeing [the] therersquo a making intelligible of the place in which we ndourselves

Such considerations allow us to see that we are the place to whichHeidegger is referring ndash in the epigraph above this section ndash when he writesthat lsquoreal education lays hold of the soul itself and transforms it in its entiretyby rst of all leading us to the place of our essential being [Wesensort] and

Heidegger on Ontological Education 253

accustoming us to itrsquo As this epigraph shows Heidegger believes he hasful lled the ethical dictate to do justice to language by recovering lsquotheessence of paideiarsquo the ontological carrier wave underlying paideiarsquosmultiple semantic frequencies Ventriloquizing Plato Heidegger deploys thisnotion of the essence of paideia in order to oppose two conceptions ofeducation He warns rst against a lsquofalse interpretationrsquo We cannotunderstand education as the transmission of lsquoinformationrsquo the lling of thepsyche with knowledge as if inscribing a tabula rasa or in morecontemporary parlance lsquotraining-uprsquo a neural net This understanding ofeducation is false because (in the terms of Being and Time) we are lsquothrownrsquobeings lsquoalways alreadyrsquo shaped by a tradition we can never lsquoget behindrsquo andso we cannot be blank slates or lsquoempty containersrsquo waiting to be lled33

Indeed this lsquoreductive and atrophiedrsquo misconception of education as thetransmission of information re ects the nihilistic logic of enframing thatontohistorical trend by which intelligibility is lsquoleveled out into the uniformstorage of informationrsquo34 Yet here again we face a situation in which as theproblem gets worse we become less likely to recognize it the lsquoimpactrsquo of thisontological drift toward meaninglessness can lsquobarely be noticed bycontemporary humanity because they are continually covered over with thelatest informationrsquo35

Against this self-insulating but lsquofalse interpretationrsquo of educationHeidegger advances his conception of lsquoreal or genuine educationrsquo (echteBildung) the lsquoessence of paideiarsquo Drawing on the allegory of the cave ndashwhich lsquoillustrates the essence of ldquoeducationrdquo [paideia]rsquo (as Plato claims at thebeginning of Book VII of the Republic) ndash Heidegger seeks to effect nothingless than a re-ontologizing revolution in our understanding of education36

Recall Heideggerrsquos succinct and powerful formulation lsquoReal education layshold of the soul itself and transforms it in its entirety by rst of all leading usto the place of our essential being and accustoming [eingewohnt] us to itrsquoGenuine education leads us back to ourselves to the place we are (the Da ofour Sein) teaches us lsquoto dwellrsquo (wohnen) lsquotherersquo and transforms us in theprocess This transformative journey to ourselves is not a ight away from theworld into thought but a re exive return to the fundamental lsquorealm of thehuman sojournrsquo (Aufenthaltsbezirk des Menschen)37 The goal of thiseducational odyssey is simple but literally revolutionary to bring us fullcircle back to ourselves rst by turning us away from the world in which weare most immediately immersed then by turning us back to this world in amore re exive way As Heidegger explains lsquoPaideia means the turningaround of the whole human being in the sense of displacing them out of theregion of immediate encountering and accustoming them to another realm inwhich beings appearrsquo38

How can we accomplish such an ontological revolution in education Whatare the pedagogical methods of this alternative conception of education And

254 Iain Thomson

how nally can this ontological conception of education help us overturn theenframing of education

1 Ontological Education Against Enframing

In lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo Heideggerrsquos exposition is complicated by thefact that he is simultaneously explicating his own positive understanding oflsquoeducationrsquo and critiquing an important transformation in the history of lsquotruthrsquoinaugurated by Plato the transition from truth understood as aletheiaphenomenological lsquounhiddennessrsquo to orthotes the lsquocorrectnessrsquo of anassertion From this lsquoambiguity in Platorsquos doctrinersquo in which lsquotruth still isat one and the same time unhiddenness and correctnessrsquo the subsequenttradition will develop only the orthotic understanding of truth at the expenseof the aletheiac39 In so doing we lose lsquothe original essence of truthrsquo themanifestation of beings themselves and come to understand truth solely as afeature of our own representational capacities According to Heidegger thisdisplacement of the locus of truth from being to human subjectivity paves theway for that metaphysical humanism (or subjectivism) in which the lsquoessenceof paideiarsquo will be eclipsed allowing lsquoeducationrsquo to be absorbed byenframing becoming merely a means for lsquobringing ldquohuman beingsrdquo to theliberation of their possibilities the certitude of their destination and thesecuring of their ldquolivingrdquorsquo40

Despite some dramatic rhetorical ourishes however Heidegger has notentirely given up on lsquoeducationrsquo (Bildung) He dismisses the modernunderstanding of Bildung (the deliberate cultivation of lsquosubjective qualitiesrsquo)as a lsquomisinterpretation to which the notion fell victim in the nineteenthcenturyrsquo yet maintains that once Bildung is lsquogiven back its original namingpowerrsquo it is the word which lsquocomes closest to capturing the [meaning of the]word paideiarsquo Bildung is literally ambiguous Heidegger tells us its lsquonamingforcersquo drives in two directions

What lsquoBildungrsquo expresses is twofold rst Bildung means forming [Bilden] in thesense of impressing a character that unfolds But at the same time this lsquoformingrsquo[lsquoBildenrsquo ] lsquoformsrsquo [lsquobildetrsquo ] (or impresses a character) by antecedently taking itsmeasure from some measure-giving vision which for that reason is called the pre-conception [Vor-bild]

lsquoThusrsquo Heidegger concludes lsquoldquoeducationrdquo [ldquoBildungrdquo] means impressing acharacter especially as guiding by a pre-conceptionrsquo41

Few would quibble with the rst claim education stamps us with acharacter which unfolds within us But what forms the lsquostamprsquo which formsus Who educates the educators According to Heidegger the answer to thisquestion is built into the very meaning of paideia it is the second sense he

Heidegger on Ontological Education 255

lsquorestoresrsquo to Bildung To further lsquounfoldrsquo these two senses of lsquoeducationrsquoHeidegger immediately introduces the contrast class lsquothe contrary of paideiais apaideusia lack of education [Bildunglosigkeit] where no fundamentalcomportment is awakened no measure-giving preconception establishedrsquo42

This helpfully clari es Heideggerrsquos rst claim It is by awakening alsquofundamental comportmentrsquo that education stamps us with a character thatunfolds within us In the educational situation ndash a situation without pre-delimitable boundaries indeed a situation the boundaries of whichHeidegger ceaselessly seeks to expand (for he holds that lsquopaideia isessentially a movement of passage from apaideusia to paideiarsquo such thateducation is not something that can ever be completed) ndash the lsquofundamentalcomportmentrsquo perhaps most frequently called for is not the heroic Ent-schlossenheit nor even the gentler Gelassenheit but rather a more basic formof receptive spontaneity Heidegger will simply call hearing or hearkening(horen) that is (as we will see) an attentive and responsive way of dwellingin onersquos environment But whether the comportment implicitly guidingeducation is lsquoresolutenessrsquo lsquoreleasementrsquo lsquohearingrsquo or that anxiety-tranquillizing hurry which generally characterizes contemporary life dependson the second sense of Bildung which remains puzzling From where do wederive the measure-giving vision which implicitly informs all genuineeducation

Heideggerrsquos answer is complicated let us recall by the fact that he is bothelaborating his own philosophy of education (as it were) and performing acritical exegesis of Platorsquos decisive metaphysical contribution to lsquothe historythat we arersquo the history of metaphysics These two aims are in tension withone another because the education Heidegger seeks to impart ndash thefundamental attunement he would awaken in his students ndash is itself anattempt to awaken us from the ontological education that we have lsquoalwaysalreadyrsquo received from the metaphysical tradition For this generallyunnoticed antecedent measure comes to us from metaphysics from theontotheologically conceived understanding of the being of beings In shortHeidegger seeks to educate his students against their pre-existingontotheological education (He will sometimes call this educating-against-education simply lsquoteachingrsquo) The crucial question then is How canHeideggerrsquos ontological education combat the metaphysical education wehave always already received

2 The Pedagogy of Ontological Freedom

Heideggerrsquos suggestions about how the ontological education he advocatescan transcend enframing are surprisingly speci c Recall that in Platorsquosallegory the prisoner (1) begins in captivity within the cave (2) escapes thechains and turns around to discover the re and objects responsible for the

256 Iain Thomson

shadows on the wall previously taken as reality then (3) ascends from thecave into the light of the outside world coming to understand what is seenthere as made possible by the light of the sun and (4) nally returns to thecave taking up the struggle to free the other prisoners (who violently resisttheir would-be liberator) For Heidegger this well-known scenario suggeststhe pedagogy of ontological education On his remarkable interpretation theprisonerrsquos lsquofour different dwelling placesrsquo communicate the four successivestages whereby ontological education breaks studentsrsquo bondage to thetechnological mode of revealing freeing them to understand what-isdifferently

When studentsrsquo ontological educations begin they lsquoare engrossed in whatthey immediately encounterrsquo taking the shadows cast by the re on the wallto be the ultimate reality of things Yet this lsquo rersquo is only lsquoman-madersquo thelsquoconfusingrsquo light it casts represents enframingrsquos ontologically reductive modeof revealing Here in this rst stage all entities show up to students merely asresources to be optimized including the students themselves Thus if pressedstudents will ultimately lsquojustifyrsquo even their education itself merely as a meansto making more money getting the most out of their potentials or some otherequally empty optimization imperative Stage two is only reached when astudentrsquos lsquogaze is freed from its captivity to shadowsrsquo this happens when astudent recognizes lsquothe rersquo (enframing) as the source of lsquothe shadowsrsquo(entities understood as mere resources) In stage two the metaphysical chainsof enframing are thus broken But how does this liberation occur Despite theimportance of this question Heidegger answers it only in an aside lsquoto turnonersquos gaze from the shadows to entities as they show themselves withinthe glow of the relight is dif cult and failsrsquo43 His point I take it is thatentities do not show themselves as they are when forced into the meta-physical mould of enframing the ontotheology which reduces them to mereresources to be optimized Students can be led to this realization through aguided investigation of the being of any entity which they will tend tounderstand only as eternally recurring will-to-power that is as forcesendlessly coming together and breaking apart Because this metaphysicalunderstanding dissolves being into becoming the attempt to see entities asthey are in its light is doomed to failure resources have no being they arelsquoconstantly becomingrsquo (as Nietzsche realized) With this recognition ndash and theanxiety it tends to induce ndash students can attain a negative freedom fromenframing

Still Heidegger insists that lsquoreal freedomrsquo lsquoeffective freedomrsquo (wirklicheFreiheit) ndash the positive freedom in which students realize that entities aremore than mere resources and so become free for understanding themotherwise ndash lsquois attained only in stage three in which someone who has beenunchained is conveyed outside the cave ldquointo the openrdquorsquo (Notice the implicitreference to someone doing the unchaining and conveying here for

Heidegger on Ontological Education 257

Heidegger the educator plays a crucial role facilitating studentsrsquo passagebetween each of the stages) The open is one of Heideggerrsquos names for lsquobeingas suchrsquo that is for lsquowhat appears antecedently in everything that appears and makes whatever appears be accessiblersquo44 The attainment of ndash or bettercomportmental attunement to ndash this lsquoopenrsquo is what Heidegger famously callslsquodwellingrsquo45 When such positive ontological freedom is achieved lsquowhatthings are no longer appear merely in the man-made and confusing glow ofthe re within the cave The things themselves stand there in the binding forceand validity of their own visible formrsquo46 Ontological freedom is achievedwhen entities show themselves in their full phenomenological richness Thegoal of the third stage of ontological education then is to teach students tolsquodwellrsquo to help attune them to the being of entities and thus to teach them tosee that the being of an entity ndash be it a book cup rose or to use a particularlysalient example they themselves ndash cannot be fully understood in theontologically-reductive terms of enframing47

With the attainment of this crucial third stage Heideggerrsquos lsquogenuinersquoontological education may seem to have reached its completion since lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo48 This claim that genuineeducation teaches students to recognize lsquoessencesrsquo is not merely a Platonicconceit but plays an absolutely crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for areuni cation of the university (as we will see in the conclusion) Neverthelessontological education reaches its true culmination only in the fourth stage thereturn to the cave Heidegger clearly understood his own role as a teacher interms of just such a return that is as a struggle to free ontologicallyanaesthetized enframers from their bondage to a self-reifying mode ofontological revealing49 But his ranking of the return to the cave as the higheststage of ontological education is not merely an evangelistic call for others toadopt his vision of education as a revolution in consciousness it also re ectshis recognition that in ontological education learning culminates in teachingWe must thus ask What is called lsquoteachingrsquo

3 What Is Called Teaching

The English lsquoteachrsquo comes from the same linguistic family as the Germanverb zeigen lsquoto point or showrsquo50 As this etymology suggests to teach is toreveal to point out or make manifest through words But to reveal whatWhat does the teacher who lsquopoints outrsquo (or reveals) with words point to (orindicate)51 What do teachers teach The question seems to presuppose thatall teaching shares a common lsquosubject-matterrsquo not simply a shared method orgoal (the inculcation of critical thinking persuasive writing and the like) butsomething more substantive a common subject-matter unifying the Uni-versity Of course all teachers use words to disclose but to disclose a common

258 Iain Thomson

subject-matter How could such a supposition not sound absurd to usprofessional denizens of a postmodern polyversity where relentless hyper-specialization continues to fragment our subjects and even re-unifying forceslike interdisciplinarity seem to thrive only in so far they open new sub-specialties for a relentless vascular-to-capillary colonization of the scienti clifeworld In such a situation is it surprising that the Heideggerian idea of allteachers ultimately sharing a uni ed subject sounds absurd or at best like anoutdated myth ndash albeit the myth that founded the modern university But isthe idea of such a shared subject-matter a myth What do teachers teach Letus approach this question from what might at rst seem to be anotherdirection attempting to learn its answer

If teaching is revealing through words then conversely learning isexperiencing what a teacherrsquos words reveal That is to learn is actively toallow oneself to share in what the teacherrsquos words disclose But again whatdo the teacherrsquos words reveal We will notice if we read closely enough thatHeidegger answers this question in 1951 when he writes lsquoTo learn means tomake everything we do answer to whatever essentials address us at a giventimersquo52 Here it might sound at rst as if Heidegger is simply claimingthat learning as the complement of teaching means actively allowing oneselfto share in that which the teacherrsquos words disclose But Wittgenstein used tosay that philosophy is like a bicycle race the point of which is to go as slowlyas possible without falling off and if we slow down we will notice thatHeideggerrsquos words ndash the words of a teacher who would teach what learningmeans (in fact the performative situation is even more complex)53ndash saymore Learning means actively allowing ourselves to respond to what isessential in that which always addresses us that which has always alreadyclaimed us

In a sense then learning means responding appropriately to thesolicitations of the environment Of course Heidegger is thinking of theontological environment (the way in which what-is discloses itself to us)but even ontic analogues show that this capacity to respond appropriately tothe environment is quite dif cult to learn We learn to respond appropriatelyto environmental solicitations through a long process of trial and error Wemust in other words learn how to learn Here problems abound for it isnot clear that learning to learn can be taught To the analytically minded thisdemand seems to lead to a regress (for if we need to learn to learn then weneed to learn to learn to learn and so on) But logic misleads phenomenologyhere as Heidegger realized it is simply a question of jumping into thispedagogical circle in the right way Such a train of thought leads Heidegger toclaim that if lsquoteaching is even more dif cult than learningrsquo this is onlybecause the teacher must be an exemplary learner capable of teaching his orher students to learn that is capable of learning-in-public activelyresponding to the emerging demands of each unique educational situation

Heidegger on Ontological Education 259

Recall the famous passage

Why is teaching more dif cult than learning Not because the teacher must have alarger store of information and have it always ready Teaching is more dif cult thanlearning because what teaching calls for is this to let learn The real teacher in factlets nothing else be learned than learning The teacher is ahead of his apprentices inthis alone that he has still far more to learn than they ndash he has to learn to let themlearn The teacher must be capable of being more teachable than his apprentices5 4

The teacher teaches students to learn ndash to respond appropriately to thesolicitations of the ontological environment ndash by responding appropriately tothe solicitations of his or her environment which is after all the studentsrsquoenvironment too Learning culminates in teaching then because teaching isthe highest form of learning unlike lsquoinstructingrsquo (belehren) lsquoteachingrsquo(lehren) is ultimately a lsquoletting learnrsquo (lernen lassen) lsquoThe true teacher isahead of the students only in that he has more to learn than they namely theletting learn (To learn [means] to bring what we do and allow into a co-respondence [or a suitable response Entsprechung] with that which in eachcase grants itself to us as the essential)rsquo55

This last assertion should remind us of Heideggerrsquos earlier claim that lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo56 I said previously that thisclaim plays a crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for a reuni cation of theuniversity By way of conclusion let us brie y develop this claim and therebyfurther elaborate Heideggerrsquos positive vision for the future of highereducation

IV Conclusion Envisioning a University of Teachers

How can Heideggerrsquos understanding of ontological education help us restoresubstance to our currently empty guiding ideal of educational lsquoexcellencersquoand in so doing provide the contemporary university with a renewed sense ofunity not only restoring substance to our shared commitment to formingexcellent students but also helping us recognize the sense in which we are infact all working on the same project The answer is surprisingly simple Byre-essentializing the notion of excellence Heidegger like Aristotle is aperfectionist he argues that there is a distinctive human essence and that thegood life the life of lsquoexcellencersquo (arete) is the life spent cultivating thisdistinctively human essence For Heidegger as we have seen the humanlsquoessencersquo is Dasein lsquobeing-therersquo that is the making-intelligible of the placein which we nd ourselves or even more simply world disclosing For aworld-disclosing being to cultivate its essence then is for it to recognize and

260 Iain Thomson

develop this essence not only acknowledging its participation in the creationand maintenance of an intelligible world but actively embracing itsontological role in such world disclosure The full rami cations of thisseemingly simple insight are profound and revolutionary57 We will restrictourselves to brie y developing the two most important implications ofHeideggerrsquos re-essentialization of excellence for the future of the university

Heideggerrsquos ontological conception of education would transform theexisting relations between teaching and research on the one hand andbetween the now fragmented departments on the other Thus in effectHeidegger dedicates himself nally to redeeming the two central ideals whichguided the formation of the modern university Teaching and research shouldbe harmoniously integrated and the university community should understanditself as committed to a common substantive task58 How does Heideggerthink he can help us nally achieve such ambitions First his conception oflsquoteachingrsquo would reunite research and teaching because when studentsdevelop the aforementioned lsquoinsight into essencersquo they are being taught todisclose and investigate the ontological presuppositions which underlie allresearch on Heideggerrsquos view For todayrsquos academic departments are what hecalls lsquopositive sciencesrsquo that is they all rest on ontological lsquopositsrsquoontological assumptions about what the class of entities they study areBiology for example allows us to understand the logos of the bios the orderand structure of living beings Nevertheless Heidegger asserts biologyproper cannot tell us what life is59 Instead biology takes over its implicitontological understanding of what life is from the metaphysical under-standing governing our Nietzschean epoch of enframing (When contempor-ary philosophers of biology claim that life is lsquoa self-replicating systemrsquo theyhave unknowingly adopted the basic ontological presupposition ofNietzschersquos metaphysics according to which life is ultimately the eternalrecurrence of will to power that is sheer will-to-will unlimited self-augmentation)60 Analogously psychology can tell us a great deal about howconsciousness (the psyche) functions but it cannot tell us what consciousnessis The same holds true for the understanding of lsquothe corporeality of bodiesthe vegetable character of plants the animality of animals and the humannessof humanityrsquo within physics botany zoology and anthropology respec-tively these sciences all presuppose an ontological posit a pre-understandingof the being of the class of entities they study61 Heideggerrsquos ontologicallyreconceived notion of teaching is inextricably entwined with research thenbecause ontological education teaches students to question the veryontological presuppositions which guide research thereby opening a spacefor understanding the being of the entities they study otherwise than inenframingrsquos ontologically reductive terms Heideggerrsquos reconceptualizationof education would thus encourage revolutionary transformations in thesciences and humanities by teaching students to focus on and explicitly

Heidegger on Ontological Education 261

investigate the ontological presuppositions which implicitly guide research ineach domain of knowledge

Despite such revolutionary goals Heidegger thought that his ontologicalreconceptualization of education could also restore a substantive sense ofunity to the university community if only this community could learn lsquotoengage in [this lsquore ection on the essential foundationsrsquo] as re ection and tothink and belong to the university from the base of this engagementrsquo62 Fromits founding one of the major concerns about the modern university has beenhow it could maintain the unity of structure and purpose thought to bede nitive of the lsquoUni-versityrsquo as such German Idealists like Fichte andSchelling believed that this unity would follow organically from the totalityof the system of knowledge But this faith in the system proved to be far lessin uential on posterity than Humboldtrsquos alternative lsquohumanistrsquo idealaccording to which the universityrsquos unity would come from a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of character Humboldtrsquos famousidea was to link lsquoobjective Wissenschaft with subjective Bildungrsquo theuniversity would be responsible for forming fully-cultivated individuals arequirement Humboldt hoped would serve to guide and unify the newfreedom of research Historically of course neither the German Idealistsrsquoreliance on the unity of research nor Humboldtrsquos emphasis on a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of students succeeded in unifyingthe university community In effect however Heideggerrsquos re-ontologizationof education would combine (his versions of) these two strategies Theuniversity community would be uni ed both by its shared commitment toforming excellent individuals (where excellence is understood in terms of theontological perfectionism outlined above) and by the shared recognition onthe part of this community that its members are all committed to the samesubstantive pursuit The ultimately revolutionary task not simply ofunderstanding what is but of investigating the ontological presuppositionsimplicitly guiding all the various elds of knowledge Heidegger thusbelieved that ontological education by restoring substance to the notion ofexcellence and so teaching us lsquoto disclose the essential in all thingsrsquo could nally succeed in lsquoshattering the encapsulation of the sciences in theirdifferent disciplines and bringing them back from their boundless and aimlessdispersal in individual elds and cornersrsquo6364

NOTES

1 See Heidegger Being and Time (New York Harper amp Row 1962) trans J Macquarrie andE Robinson p 44 Sein und Zeit (Tubingen M Niemeyer 1993) p 22

2 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo in William McNeill (ed) Pathmarks(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998) p 167Heidegger Wegmarken 3rd edGesamtausgabe vol 9 (Frankfurt aM V Klostermann 1996) (hereafter GA9) p 218(On my translation of this title see note 28 below) I am aware that the preceding sentence

262 Iain Thomson

ominously echoes the title of Nietzschersquos politically compromised and deeply problematicearly lectures lsquoOn the Future of Our Educational Institutionsrsquo (which culminate with a callfor a lsquogreat Fuhrerrsquo [see Nietzsche On the Future of Our Educational Institutions in OLevy (ed) The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Edinburgh T N Foulis 1909)vol 6 Jacques Derrida The Ear of the Other ed C V McDonald trans Kamuf andRonell (New York Shocken Books 1985) p 28]) I bracket such political connectionshere but a complementary essay examines the darker side of Heideggerrsquos philosophicalcritique of education showing that it played a central role in his decision to join with theNazis in the early 1930s see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo(forthcoming)

3 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo ibid p 167GA9 p 2184 See Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

1980) On Heideggerrsquos distinctive understanding of lsquoessencersquo see my lsquoWhatrsquos Wrong withBeing a Technological Essentialist A Response to Feenbergrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 429ndash44

5 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo in The Question ConcerningTechnology and Other Essays trans W Lovitt (New York Harper amp Row 1977) p 4ibid pp 30ndash31

6 Cf Feenbergrsquos Hegelian misinterpretation of Heideggerrsquos understanding of essence in lsquoTheOntic and the Ontological in Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Technology Response toThomsonrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 445ndash50

7 Heidegger lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo op cit p 145GA9 p 1898 Ibid pp 145ndash46 (my italics)GA9 p 190 I am of necessity simplifying Heideggerrsquos

complex account here but see my lsquoOntotheology Understanding Heideggerrsquos Destruktionof Metaphysicsrsquo International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (October 2000) pp 297ndash327

9 See Heidegger An Introduction to Metaphysics trans R Manheim (New Haven YaleUniversity Press 1959) p 3Einfuhrung in die Metaphysik (Tubingen M Niemeyer1953) p 2

10 See Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations 3rd ed trans G E M Anscombe(New York Macmillan 1968) sect 217 p 85

11 See also Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 170GA9 p 222 lsquoThe essenceof ldquoeducationrdquo is grounded in the essence of ldquotruthrdquorsquo

12 See Heidegger Nietzsche Nihilism ed David Krell trans F Capuzzi (New York Harperamp Row 1982) p 205Nietzsche (Pfullingen Neske 1961) vol II p 343

13 Eventually either a new ontotheology emerges (perhaps as Kuhn suggests out of theinvestigation of those lsquoanomalousrsquo entities which resist being understood in terms of thedominant ontotheology) or else our underlying conception of the being of all entities wouldbe brought into line with this spreading ontotheology Although this latter alternative hasnever yet occurred Heidegger calls it lsquothe greatest dangerrsquo he is worried that ourNietzschean ontotheology could become totalizing lsquodriving out every other possibility ofrevealingrsquo by overwriting Daseinrsquos lsquospecial naturersquo our de ning capacity for world-disclosure with the lsquototal thoughtlessnessrsquo of a merely instrumental lsquocalculative reasoningrsquo See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo op cit p 27 HeideggerDiscourse on Thinking trans J Anderson and E Freund (New York Harper amp Row1966) p 56

14 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo ibid pp 16ndash2015 See esp Friedrich Nietzsche The Will To Power ed and trans Walter Kaufmann (New

York Random House 1967) pp 549ndash50 Here Nietzsche clearly conceives of beings assuch as will to power and of the way the totality exists as eternally recurring Nor canHeideggerrsquos controversial reading be rejected simply by excluding this problematic text onthe basis of its politically compromised ancestry since Nietzschersquos ontotheology can alsobe found in his other works

16 Heidegger lsquoNihilism as Determined by the History of Beingrsquo Nietzsche Nihilism op citpp 199ndash250

17 See Heidegger Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) trans P Emad and K Maly(Bloomington IN Indiana University Press 1999) p 95Beitrage zur Philosophie (Vom

Heidegger on Ontological Education 263

(Pragung)14 Yet this is not simply to substitute etymology for argument asdetractors allege Heidegger uses etymology in order to come up with anappropriate name for our contemporary lsquomode of revealingrsquo but theargumentative work in his account is done by his understanding ofmetaphysics This means that to really understand why Heideggercharacterizes our contemporary epoch as das Gestell we must take themeasure of his claim that lsquoenframingrsquo is grounded in an ontotheologytransmitted to us by Nietzsche On Heideggerrsquos reading Nietzschersquos staunchanti-metaphysical stance merely hides the fact that he actually philosophizedon the basis of an lsquounthoughtrsquo metaphysics Nietzschersquos Nachlab clearlydemonstrates that he conceptualized lsquothe totality of beings as suchrsquoontotheologically as lsquoeternally recurring will-to-powerrsquo that is as anunending disaggregation and reaggregation of forces without purpose orgoal15 This Nietzschean ontotheology not only inaugurates the lsquometaphysicsof the atomic agersquo it grounds enframing Our unthinking reliance onNietzschersquos ontotheology is leading us to transform all beings ourselvesincluded into mere lsquoresourcesrsquo (Bestand) entities lacking intrinsic meaningwhich are thus simply optimized and disposed of with maximal ef ciency16

Heidegger famously characterizes enframing as a technological under-standing of being As an historical lsquomode of revealingrsquo in which entitiesincreasingly show up only as resources to be optimized enframing generatesa lsquocalculative thinkingrsquo which like the mythic touch of King Midasquanti es all qualitative relations This lsquolimitless ldquoquanti cationrdquorsquo whichabsorbs all qualitative relations (until we come to treat lsquoquantity as qualityrsquo)is rooted in enframingrsquos ontologically reductive mode of revealing wherebylsquo[o]nly what is calculable in advance counts as beingrsquo Enframing thus tendsto reduce all entities to bivalent programmable lsquoinformationrsquo digitized datawhich increasingly enters into lsquoa state of pure circulationrsquo17 Indeed asHeideggerrsquos phenomenological meditation on a highway interchangerevealed to him in the 1950s ndash and as our lsquoinformation superhighwayrsquo theInternet now makes plain ndash we exhibit a growing tendency to relate to ourworld and ourselves merely as a lsquonetwork of long distance traf c paced ascalculated for maximum yieldrsquo18 Reading quotidian historical developmentsin terms of this ontohistorical logic Heidegger believed our passage fromCartesian modernity to Nietzschean postmodernity was already visible in thetransformation of employment agencies into lsquohuman resourcersquo departmentsThe technological move afoot to reduce teachers and scholars to lsquoon-linecontent providersrsquo merely extends ndash and so clari es ndash the logic wherebymodern subjects transform themselves into postmodern resources by turningtechniques developed for controlling nature back onto themselves19

Unfortunately as this historical transformation of subjects into resourcesbecomes more pervasive it further eludes our critical gaze indeed we cometo treat ourselves in the very terms which underlie our technological

Heidegger on Ontological Education 249

refashioning of the world no longer as conscious Cartesian subjects takingcontrol of an objective world but rather as one more resource to be optimizedordered and enhanced with maximal ef ciency ndash whether cosmeticallypsychopharmacologically or educationally

Here then Heidegger believes he has uncovered the subterraneanontohistorical logic guiding the development of our educational institutionsBut how does contemporary education re ect this nihilistic logic ofenframing In what sense are todayrsquos educational institutions caught up inan unlimited quanti cation of qualitative relations which strips beings of theirintrinsic meanings transforming them into mere resources to be optimizedwith maximal ef ciency

3 Education as Enframing

Heidegger began developing his critique of higher education in 1911 andcontinued elaborating it well into the 1960s but perhaps his most directanswer to this question comes in 192920 Having nally been awarded a fullprofessorship (on the basis of Being and Time) the 39-year-old Heideggergives his of cial lsquoInaugural Lecturersquo at Freiburg University the famouslsquoWhat is Metaphysicsrsquo He begins boldly directing his critical attention to theuniversity itself by emphasizing philosophyrsquos concrete lsquoexistentialrsquo founda-tions (since lsquometaphysical questioning must be posed from the essentialposition of the existence [Dasein] that questionsrsquo) Within the lifeworld of theuniversity Heidegger observes lsquoexistencersquo (Dasein) is determined byWissenschaft the knowledge embodied in the humanities and naturalsciences lsquoOur Dasein ndash in the community of researchers teachers andstudents ndash is determined by science or knowledge [durch die Wissenschaftbestimmt]rsquo21 Our very lsquobeing-in-the-worldrsquo is shaped by the knowledge wepursue uncover and embody When Heidegger claims that existence isfundamentally shaped by knowledge he is not thinking of a professoriateshifting in the winds of academic trends nor simply arguing for a kind ofpedagogical or performative consistency according to which we shouldpractice what we know His intent rather is to emphasize a troubling sense inwhich it seems that we cannot help practicing what we know since we arelsquoalways alreadyrsquo implicitly shaped by our guiding metaphysical presupposi-tions Heideggerrsquos question thus becomes What is the ontological impact ofour unquestioned reliance on the particular metaphysical presuppositionswhich tacitly dominate the academy lsquoWhat happens to us essentially in theground of our existencersquo when the Wissenschaft pursued in the contemporaryuniversity becomes our guiding lsquopassionrsquo fundamentally shaping our view ofthe world and of ourselves

Heideggerrsquos dramatic answer introduces his radical critique of the hyper-specialization and consequent fragmentation of the modern university

250 Iain Thomson

The elds of science are widely separated Their ways of handling the objects of theirinquiries differ fundamentally Today only the technical organization of universitiesand faculties consolidates this multiplicity of dispersed disciplines only throughpractical and instrumental goals do they maintain any meaning The rootedness of thesciences in their essential ground has dried up and died2 2

Here in 1929 Heidegger accurately describes the predicament of thatinstitution which almost half a century later Clark Kerr would satiricallylabel the lsquoMulti-versityrsquo an internally fragmented Uni-versity-in-name-onlywhere the sole communal unity stems from a common grievance aboutparking spaces23 Historically as the modern university loses sight of theshared goals which originally justi ed the endeavors of the academiccommunity as a whole (at rst the common pursuit of the uni ed lsquosystemrsquo ofknowledge then the communal dedication to the formation of cultivatedindividuals) its members begin to look outside the university for somepurpose to give meaning to lives of research Since only those disciplines (orsub-disciplines) able to produce instrumentally useful results regularly ndsuch external support all disciplines increasingly try to present themselves interms of their use-value Without a counter-ideal students too will adopt thisinstrumental mentality coming to see education merely as a means to anincreased salary down the road In this way fragmentation leads to theprofessionalization of the university and eventually its deterioration intovocationalism At the same time moreover the different disciplines lackingany shared substantive sense of a unifying purpose or common subject-matter tend by the logic of specialization to develop internal standardsappropriate to their particular object-domains As these domains becomeincreasingly specialized these internal standards become ever moredisparate if not simply incommensurable In this way disciplinaryfragmentation leaves the university without common standards ndash other thanthe now ubiquitous but entirely empty and formal ideal of excellence

Following in Heideggerrsquos footsteps critics such as Bill Readings andTimothy Clark show how our contemporary lsquouniversity of excellencersquo owingto lsquothe very emptiness of the idea of excellencersquo is lsquobecoming an excellentbureaucratic corporationrsquo lsquogeared to no higher idea than its own maximizedself-perpetuation according to optimal inputoutput ratiosrsquo24 Such diagnosesmake clear that the development of our educational institutions continues tofollow the underlying metaphysical logic of enframing the progressivetransformation of all entities into mere resources to be optimizedUnfortunately these critics fail to recognize this underlying ontohistoricallogic and so offer diagnoses without cures Indeed Readingsrsquo materialistexplanation for the historical obsolescence of Bildung as the unifying ideal ofthe modern university (the result of an lsquoimplacable bourgeois economicrevolutionrsquo) leads him to succumb to a cynicism in which future denizens ofthe university can hope for nothing more than lsquopragmaticrsquo situational

Heidegger on Ontological Education 251

responses in an environment increasingly transformed by lsquothe logic ofconsumerismrsquo25 While such critiques of the university convincingly extendand update aspects of Heideggerrsquos analysis they lack his philosophical visionfor a revitalizing reuni cation of the university

To see that Heidegger himself did not relinquish all hope for the future ofhigher education we need only attend carefully to the performativedimension of his lsquoInaugural Lecturersquo On the surface it may seem as ifHeidegger welcomed fully into the arms of the university rather perverselyuses his celebratory lecture to pronounce the death of the institution which hasjust hired him proclaiming that lsquoThe rootedness of the sciences in theiressential ground has dried up and diedrsquo Yet with this deliberate provocationHeidegger is not beating a dead horse his pronouncement that the universityis dead at its roots implies that it is fated to wither and decay unless it isrevivi ed reinvigorated from the root Heidegger uses this organic metaphorof lsquorootednessrsquo (Verwurzelung) to put into effect what Derrida (who willrestage this scene himself) recognizes as lsquoa phoenix motifrsquo lsquoOne burns orburies what is already dead so that life will be reborn and regenerated fromthese ashesrsquo26 Indeed Heidegger begins to outline his program for arenaissance of the university in the lecturersquos conclusion Existence isdetermined by science but science itself remains rooted in metaphysicswhether it realizes it or not Since the roots of the university are metaphysicala reinstauration of the scienti c lifeworld requires a renewed attention to thisunderlying metaphysical dimension lsquoOnly if science exists on the basis ofmetaphysics can it achieve anew its essential task which is not to amass andclassify bits of knowledge but to disclose in ever-renewed fashion the entireexpanse of truth in nature and historyrsquo27

What exactly is Heidegger proposing here To understand his vision for arebirth of the university we need to turn to a text he began writing the nextyear lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo28 Here tracing the ontohistorical roots ofour educational crisis back to Platorsquos cave Heidegger (quite literally)excavates an alternative

III Heideggerrsquos Return to Platorsquos Cave Ontological Education asthe Essence of Paideia

Plato seeks to show that the essence of paideia does notconsist in merely pouring knowledge into the unpreparedsoul as if it were a container held out empty and waitingOn the contrary real education lays hold of the soul itselfand transforms it in its entirety by rst of all leading us tothe place of our essential being and accustoming us toit2 9

252 Iain Thomson

Our contemporary educational crisis can be understood as an ontohistoricaldissolution of Platorsquos original conception of education Heidegger contendsso the deconstructive recovery of this lsquoessence of paideiarsquo is crucial tosuccessfully resolving the crisis A deeply resonant Greek word paideiameans lsquocivilizationrsquo lsquoculturersquo lsquodevelopmentrsquo lsquotraditionrsquo lsquoliteraturersquo andlsquoeducationrsquo thus it encompasses what to our ears seems to be a rather widerange of semantic frequencies30 Heidegger was deeply drawn to the wordnot only because thanks largely to Werner Jaeger it served as a key term inthat intersection of German academic and political life which Heideggersought to occupy during the 1930s but also because he had an undeniablefondness for what (with a wink to Freud) we could call the polysemicperversity of language that is the fortuitous ambiguities and unpredictableinterconnections which help form the warp and weave of its semantic webRecognizing that such rich language tends to resist the analystrsquos pursuit of anunambiguous exactness Heidegger argued that lsquorigorousrsquo philosophicalprecision calls instead for an attempt to do justice to this semantic richness31

Yet as Gadamer and Derrida have shown this demand for us to do justiceto language is aporetic ndash a lsquonecessary impossibilityrsquo ndash since the holism ofmeaning renders the attempt ultimately impossible not only practically (for nite beings like ourselves who cannot follow all the strands in the semanticweb at once) but also in principle (despite our Borgesian dreams of acomplete hypertext which would exhaustively represent the semantic web adream even the vaunted lsquoworld-wide webrsquo barely inches toward realizing)This unful llable call for the philosopher to do justice to language isnevertheless ethical in the Kantian sense it constitutes a regulative idealorienting our progress while remaining unreachable like a guiding star It isalso and for Heidegger more primordially lsquoethos-icalrsquo (so to speak) sincesuch a call can be answered lsquoauthenticallyrsquo only if it is taken up existentiallyand embodied in an ethos a way of being In Being and Time Heideggerdescribes the called-for comportment as Ent-schlossenheit lsquodis-closednessor re-solversquo later he will teach it as Gelassenheit lsquoreleasement or letting-bersquo32 Ent-schlossenheit and Gelassenheit are not of course simplyequivalent terms releasement evolves out of resolve through a series ofintermediary formulations and notably lacks resolversquos voluntarism But bothentail a responsive hermeneutic receptivity (whether existential or phenom-enological) and both designate comportments whereby we embodyre exively an understanding of what we are ontologically namely Da-sein lsquobeing [the] therersquo a making intelligible of the place in which we ndourselves

Such considerations allow us to see that we are the place to whichHeidegger is referring ndash in the epigraph above this section ndash when he writesthat lsquoreal education lays hold of the soul itself and transforms it in its entiretyby rst of all leading us to the place of our essential being [Wesensort] and

Heidegger on Ontological Education 253

accustoming us to itrsquo As this epigraph shows Heidegger believes he hasful lled the ethical dictate to do justice to language by recovering lsquotheessence of paideiarsquo the ontological carrier wave underlying paideiarsquosmultiple semantic frequencies Ventriloquizing Plato Heidegger deploys thisnotion of the essence of paideia in order to oppose two conceptions ofeducation He warns rst against a lsquofalse interpretationrsquo We cannotunderstand education as the transmission of lsquoinformationrsquo the lling of thepsyche with knowledge as if inscribing a tabula rasa or in morecontemporary parlance lsquotraining-uprsquo a neural net This understanding ofeducation is false because (in the terms of Being and Time) we are lsquothrownrsquobeings lsquoalways alreadyrsquo shaped by a tradition we can never lsquoget behindrsquo andso we cannot be blank slates or lsquoempty containersrsquo waiting to be lled33

Indeed this lsquoreductive and atrophiedrsquo misconception of education as thetransmission of information re ects the nihilistic logic of enframing thatontohistorical trend by which intelligibility is lsquoleveled out into the uniformstorage of informationrsquo34 Yet here again we face a situation in which as theproblem gets worse we become less likely to recognize it the lsquoimpactrsquo of thisontological drift toward meaninglessness can lsquobarely be noticed bycontemporary humanity because they are continually covered over with thelatest informationrsquo35

Against this self-insulating but lsquofalse interpretationrsquo of educationHeidegger advances his conception of lsquoreal or genuine educationrsquo (echteBildung) the lsquoessence of paideiarsquo Drawing on the allegory of the cave ndashwhich lsquoillustrates the essence of ldquoeducationrdquo [paideia]rsquo (as Plato claims at thebeginning of Book VII of the Republic) ndash Heidegger seeks to effect nothingless than a re-ontologizing revolution in our understanding of education36

Recall Heideggerrsquos succinct and powerful formulation lsquoReal education layshold of the soul itself and transforms it in its entirety by rst of all leading usto the place of our essential being and accustoming [eingewohnt] us to itrsquoGenuine education leads us back to ourselves to the place we are (the Da ofour Sein) teaches us lsquoto dwellrsquo (wohnen) lsquotherersquo and transforms us in theprocess This transformative journey to ourselves is not a ight away from theworld into thought but a re exive return to the fundamental lsquorealm of thehuman sojournrsquo (Aufenthaltsbezirk des Menschen)37 The goal of thiseducational odyssey is simple but literally revolutionary to bring us fullcircle back to ourselves rst by turning us away from the world in which weare most immediately immersed then by turning us back to this world in amore re exive way As Heidegger explains lsquoPaideia means the turningaround of the whole human being in the sense of displacing them out of theregion of immediate encountering and accustoming them to another realm inwhich beings appearrsquo38

How can we accomplish such an ontological revolution in education Whatare the pedagogical methods of this alternative conception of education And

254 Iain Thomson

how nally can this ontological conception of education help us overturn theenframing of education

1 Ontological Education Against Enframing

In lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo Heideggerrsquos exposition is complicated by thefact that he is simultaneously explicating his own positive understanding oflsquoeducationrsquo and critiquing an important transformation in the history of lsquotruthrsquoinaugurated by Plato the transition from truth understood as aletheiaphenomenological lsquounhiddennessrsquo to orthotes the lsquocorrectnessrsquo of anassertion From this lsquoambiguity in Platorsquos doctrinersquo in which lsquotruth still isat one and the same time unhiddenness and correctnessrsquo the subsequenttradition will develop only the orthotic understanding of truth at the expenseof the aletheiac39 In so doing we lose lsquothe original essence of truthrsquo themanifestation of beings themselves and come to understand truth solely as afeature of our own representational capacities According to Heidegger thisdisplacement of the locus of truth from being to human subjectivity paves theway for that metaphysical humanism (or subjectivism) in which the lsquoessenceof paideiarsquo will be eclipsed allowing lsquoeducationrsquo to be absorbed byenframing becoming merely a means for lsquobringing ldquohuman beingsrdquo to theliberation of their possibilities the certitude of their destination and thesecuring of their ldquolivingrdquorsquo40

Despite some dramatic rhetorical ourishes however Heidegger has notentirely given up on lsquoeducationrsquo (Bildung) He dismisses the modernunderstanding of Bildung (the deliberate cultivation of lsquosubjective qualitiesrsquo)as a lsquomisinterpretation to which the notion fell victim in the nineteenthcenturyrsquo yet maintains that once Bildung is lsquogiven back its original namingpowerrsquo it is the word which lsquocomes closest to capturing the [meaning of the]word paideiarsquo Bildung is literally ambiguous Heidegger tells us its lsquonamingforcersquo drives in two directions

What lsquoBildungrsquo expresses is twofold rst Bildung means forming [Bilden] in thesense of impressing a character that unfolds But at the same time this lsquoformingrsquo[lsquoBildenrsquo ] lsquoformsrsquo [lsquobildetrsquo ] (or impresses a character) by antecedently taking itsmeasure from some measure-giving vision which for that reason is called the pre-conception [Vor-bild]

lsquoThusrsquo Heidegger concludes lsquoldquoeducationrdquo [ldquoBildungrdquo] means impressing acharacter especially as guiding by a pre-conceptionrsquo41

Few would quibble with the rst claim education stamps us with acharacter which unfolds within us But what forms the lsquostamprsquo which formsus Who educates the educators According to Heidegger the answer to thisquestion is built into the very meaning of paideia it is the second sense he

Heidegger on Ontological Education 255

lsquorestoresrsquo to Bildung To further lsquounfoldrsquo these two senses of lsquoeducationrsquoHeidegger immediately introduces the contrast class lsquothe contrary of paideiais apaideusia lack of education [Bildunglosigkeit] where no fundamentalcomportment is awakened no measure-giving preconception establishedrsquo42

This helpfully clari es Heideggerrsquos rst claim It is by awakening alsquofundamental comportmentrsquo that education stamps us with a character thatunfolds within us In the educational situation ndash a situation without pre-delimitable boundaries indeed a situation the boundaries of whichHeidegger ceaselessly seeks to expand (for he holds that lsquopaideia isessentially a movement of passage from apaideusia to paideiarsquo such thateducation is not something that can ever be completed) ndash the lsquofundamentalcomportmentrsquo perhaps most frequently called for is not the heroic Ent-schlossenheit nor even the gentler Gelassenheit but rather a more basic formof receptive spontaneity Heidegger will simply call hearing or hearkening(horen) that is (as we will see) an attentive and responsive way of dwellingin onersquos environment But whether the comportment implicitly guidingeducation is lsquoresolutenessrsquo lsquoreleasementrsquo lsquohearingrsquo or that anxiety-tranquillizing hurry which generally characterizes contemporary life dependson the second sense of Bildung which remains puzzling From where do wederive the measure-giving vision which implicitly informs all genuineeducation

Heideggerrsquos answer is complicated let us recall by the fact that he is bothelaborating his own philosophy of education (as it were) and performing acritical exegesis of Platorsquos decisive metaphysical contribution to lsquothe historythat we arersquo the history of metaphysics These two aims are in tension withone another because the education Heidegger seeks to impart ndash thefundamental attunement he would awaken in his students ndash is itself anattempt to awaken us from the ontological education that we have lsquoalwaysalreadyrsquo received from the metaphysical tradition For this generallyunnoticed antecedent measure comes to us from metaphysics from theontotheologically conceived understanding of the being of beings In shortHeidegger seeks to educate his students against their pre-existingontotheological education (He will sometimes call this educating-against-education simply lsquoteachingrsquo) The crucial question then is How canHeideggerrsquos ontological education combat the metaphysical education wehave always already received

2 The Pedagogy of Ontological Freedom

Heideggerrsquos suggestions about how the ontological education he advocatescan transcend enframing are surprisingly speci c Recall that in Platorsquosallegory the prisoner (1) begins in captivity within the cave (2) escapes thechains and turns around to discover the re and objects responsible for the

256 Iain Thomson

shadows on the wall previously taken as reality then (3) ascends from thecave into the light of the outside world coming to understand what is seenthere as made possible by the light of the sun and (4) nally returns to thecave taking up the struggle to free the other prisoners (who violently resisttheir would-be liberator) For Heidegger this well-known scenario suggeststhe pedagogy of ontological education On his remarkable interpretation theprisonerrsquos lsquofour different dwelling placesrsquo communicate the four successivestages whereby ontological education breaks studentsrsquo bondage to thetechnological mode of revealing freeing them to understand what-isdifferently

When studentsrsquo ontological educations begin they lsquoare engrossed in whatthey immediately encounterrsquo taking the shadows cast by the re on the wallto be the ultimate reality of things Yet this lsquo rersquo is only lsquoman-madersquo thelsquoconfusingrsquo light it casts represents enframingrsquos ontologically reductive modeof revealing Here in this rst stage all entities show up to students merely asresources to be optimized including the students themselves Thus if pressedstudents will ultimately lsquojustifyrsquo even their education itself merely as a meansto making more money getting the most out of their potentials or some otherequally empty optimization imperative Stage two is only reached when astudentrsquos lsquogaze is freed from its captivity to shadowsrsquo this happens when astudent recognizes lsquothe rersquo (enframing) as the source of lsquothe shadowsrsquo(entities understood as mere resources) In stage two the metaphysical chainsof enframing are thus broken But how does this liberation occur Despite theimportance of this question Heidegger answers it only in an aside lsquoto turnonersquos gaze from the shadows to entities as they show themselves withinthe glow of the relight is dif cult and failsrsquo43 His point I take it is thatentities do not show themselves as they are when forced into the meta-physical mould of enframing the ontotheology which reduces them to mereresources to be optimized Students can be led to this realization through aguided investigation of the being of any entity which they will tend tounderstand only as eternally recurring will-to-power that is as forcesendlessly coming together and breaking apart Because this metaphysicalunderstanding dissolves being into becoming the attempt to see entities asthey are in its light is doomed to failure resources have no being they arelsquoconstantly becomingrsquo (as Nietzsche realized) With this recognition ndash and theanxiety it tends to induce ndash students can attain a negative freedom fromenframing

Still Heidegger insists that lsquoreal freedomrsquo lsquoeffective freedomrsquo (wirklicheFreiheit) ndash the positive freedom in which students realize that entities aremore than mere resources and so become free for understanding themotherwise ndash lsquois attained only in stage three in which someone who has beenunchained is conveyed outside the cave ldquointo the openrdquorsquo (Notice the implicitreference to someone doing the unchaining and conveying here for

Heidegger on Ontological Education 257

Heidegger the educator plays a crucial role facilitating studentsrsquo passagebetween each of the stages) The open is one of Heideggerrsquos names for lsquobeingas suchrsquo that is for lsquowhat appears antecedently in everything that appears and makes whatever appears be accessiblersquo44 The attainment of ndash or bettercomportmental attunement to ndash this lsquoopenrsquo is what Heidegger famously callslsquodwellingrsquo45 When such positive ontological freedom is achieved lsquowhatthings are no longer appear merely in the man-made and confusing glow ofthe re within the cave The things themselves stand there in the binding forceand validity of their own visible formrsquo46 Ontological freedom is achievedwhen entities show themselves in their full phenomenological richness Thegoal of the third stage of ontological education then is to teach students tolsquodwellrsquo to help attune them to the being of entities and thus to teach them tosee that the being of an entity ndash be it a book cup rose or to use a particularlysalient example they themselves ndash cannot be fully understood in theontologically-reductive terms of enframing47

With the attainment of this crucial third stage Heideggerrsquos lsquogenuinersquoontological education may seem to have reached its completion since lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo48 This claim that genuineeducation teaches students to recognize lsquoessencesrsquo is not merely a Platonicconceit but plays an absolutely crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for areuni cation of the university (as we will see in the conclusion) Neverthelessontological education reaches its true culmination only in the fourth stage thereturn to the cave Heidegger clearly understood his own role as a teacher interms of just such a return that is as a struggle to free ontologicallyanaesthetized enframers from their bondage to a self-reifying mode ofontological revealing49 But his ranking of the return to the cave as the higheststage of ontological education is not merely an evangelistic call for others toadopt his vision of education as a revolution in consciousness it also re ectshis recognition that in ontological education learning culminates in teachingWe must thus ask What is called lsquoteachingrsquo

3 What Is Called Teaching

The English lsquoteachrsquo comes from the same linguistic family as the Germanverb zeigen lsquoto point or showrsquo50 As this etymology suggests to teach is toreveal to point out or make manifest through words But to reveal whatWhat does the teacher who lsquopoints outrsquo (or reveals) with words point to (orindicate)51 What do teachers teach The question seems to presuppose thatall teaching shares a common lsquosubject-matterrsquo not simply a shared method orgoal (the inculcation of critical thinking persuasive writing and the like) butsomething more substantive a common subject-matter unifying the Uni-versity Of course all teachers use words to disclose but to disclose a common

258 Iain Thomson

subject-matter How could such a supposition not sound absurd to usprofessional denizens of a postmodern polyversity where relentless hyper-specialization continues to fragment our subjects and even re-unifying forceslike interdisciplinarity seem to thrive only in so far they open new sub-specialties for a relentless vascular-to-capillary colonization of the scienti clifeworld In such a situation is it surprising that the Heideggerian idea of allteachers ultimately sharing a uni ed subject sounds absurd or at best like anoutdated myth ndash albeit the myth that founded the modern university But isthe idea of such a shared subject-matter a myth What do teachers teach Letus approach this question from what might at rst seem to be anotherdirection attempting to learn its answer

If teaching is revealing through words then conversely learning isexperiencing what a teacherrsquos words reveal That is to learn is actively toallow oneself to share in what the teacherrsquos words disclose But again whatdo the teacherrsquos words reveal We will notice if we read closely enough thatHeidegger answers this question in 1951 when he writes lsquoTo learn means tomake everything we do answer to whatever essentials address us at a giventimersquo52 Here it might sound at rst as if Heidegger is simply claimingthat learning as the complement of teaching means actively allowing oneselfto share in that which the teacherrsquos words disclose But Wittgenstein used tosay that philosophy is like a bicycle race the point of which is to go as slowlyas possible without falling off and if we slow down we will notice thatHeideggerrsquos words ndash the words of a teacher who would teach what learningmeans (in fact the performative situation is even more complex)53ndash saymore Learning means actively allowing ourselves to respond to what isessential in that which always addresses us that which has always alreadyclaimed us

In a sense then learning means responding appropriately to thesolicitations of the environment Of course Heidegger is thinking of theontological environment (the way in which what-is discloses itself to us)but even ontic analogues show that this capacity to respond appropriately tothe environment is quite dif cult to learn We learn to respond appropriatelyto environmental solicitations through a long process of trial and error Wemust in other words learn how to learn Here problems abound for it isnot clear that learning to learn can be taught To the analytically minded thisdemand seems to lead to a regress (for if we need to learn to learn then weneed to learn to learn to learn and so on) But logic misleads phenomenologyhere as Heidegger realized it is simply a question of jumping into thispedagogical circle in the right way Such a train of thought leads Heidegger toclaim that if lsquoteaching is even more dif cult than learningrsquo this is onlybecause the teacher must be an exemplary learner capable of teaching his orher students to learn that is capable of learning-in-public activelyresponding to the emerging demands of each unique educational situation

Heidegger on Ontological Education 259

Recall the famous passage

Why is teaching more dif cult than learning Not because the teacher must have alarger store of information and have it always ready Teaching is more dif cult thanlearning because what teaching calls for is this to let learn The real teacher in factlets nothing else be learned than learning The teacher is ahead of his apprentices inthis alone that he has still far more to learn than they ndash he has to learn to let themlearn The teacher must be capable of being more teachable than his apprentices5 4

The teacher teaches students to learn ndash to respond appropriately to thesolicitations of the ontological environment ndash by responding appropriately tothe solicitations of his or her environment which is after all the studentsrsquoenvironment too Learning culminates in teaching then because teaching isthe highest form of learning unlike lsquoinstructingrsquo (belehren) lsquoteachingrsquo(lehren) is ultimately a lsquoletting learnrsquo (lernen lassen) lsquoThe true teacher isahead of the students only in that he has more to learn than they namely theletting learn (To learn [means] to bring what we do and allow into a co-respondence [or a suitable response Entsprechung] with that which in eachcase grants itself to us as the essential)rsquo55

This last assertion should remind us of Heideggerrsquos earlier claim that lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo56 I said previously that thisclaim plays a crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for a reuni cation of theuniversity By way of conclusion let us brie y develop this claim and therebyfurther elaborate Heideggerrsquos positive vision for the future of highereducation

IV Conclusion Envisioning a University of Teachers

How can Heideggerrsquos understanding of ontological education help us restoresubstance to our currently empty guiding ideal of educational lsquoexcellencersquoand in so doing provide the contemporary university with a renewed sense ofunity not only restoring substance to our shared commitment to formingexcellent students but also helping us recognize the sense in which we are infact all working on the same project The answer is surprisingly simple Byre-essentializing the notion of excellence Heidegger like Aristotle is aperfectionist he argues that there is a distinctive human essence and that thegood life the life of lsquoexcellencersquo (arete) is the life spent cultivating thisdistinctively human essence For Heidegger as we have seen the humanlsquoessencersquo is Dasein lsquobeing-therersquo that is the making-intelligible of the placein which we nd ourselves or even more simply world disclosing For aworld-disclosing being to cultivate its essence then is for it to recognize and

260 Iain Thomson

develop this essence not only acknowledging its participation in the creationand maintenance of an intelligible world but actively embracing itsontological role in such world disclosure The full rami cations of thisseemingly simple insight are profound and revolutionary57 We will restrictourselves to brie y developing the two most important implications ofHeideggerrsquos re-essentialization of excellence for the future of the university

Heideggerrsquos ontological conception of education would transform theexisting relations between teaching and research on the one hand andbetween the now fragmented departments on the other Thus in effectHeidegger dedicates himself nally to redeeming the two central ideals whichguided the formation of the modern university Teaching and research shouldbe harmoniously integrated and the university community should understanditself as committed to a common substantive task58 How does Heideggerthink he can help us nally achieve such ambitions First his conception oflsquoteachingrsquo would reunite research and teaching because when studentsdevelop the aforementioned lsquoinsight into essencersquo they are being taught todisclose and investigate the ontological presuppositions which underlie allresearch on Heideggerrsquos view For todayrsquos academic departments are what hecalls lsquopositive sciencesrsquo that is they all rest on ontological lsquopositsrsquoontological assumptions about what the class of entities they study areBiology for example allows us to understand the logos of the bios the orderand structure of living beings Nevertheless Heidegger asserts biologyproper cannot tell us what life is59 Instead biology takes over its implicitontological understanding of what life is from the metaphysical under-standing governing our Nietzschean epoch of enframing (When contempor-ary philosophers of biology claim that life is lsquoa self-replicating systemrsquo theyhave unknowingly adopted the basic ontological presupposition ofNietzschersquos metaphysics according to which life is ultimately the eternalrecurrence of will to power that is sheer will-to-will unlimited self-augmentation)60 Analogously psychology can tell us a great deal about howconsciousness (the psyche) functions but it cannot tell us what consciousnessis The same holds true for the understanding of lsquothe corporeality of bodiesthe vegetable character of plants the animality of animals and the humannessof humanityrsquo within physics botany zoology and anthropology respec-tively these sciences all presuppose an ontological posit a pre-understandingof the being of the class of entities they study61 Heideggerrsquos ontologicallyreconceived notion of teaching is inextricably entwined with research thenbecause ontological education teaches students to question the veryontological presuppositions which guide research thereby opening a spacefor understanding the being of the entities they study otherwise than inenframingrsquos ontologically reductive terms Heideggerrsquos reconceptualizationof education would thus encourage revolutionary transformations in thesciences and humanities by teaching students to focus on and explicitly

Heidegger on Ontological Education 261

investigate the ontological presuppositions which implicitly guide research ineach domain of knowledge

Despite such revolutionary goals Heidegger thought that his ontologicalreconceptualization of education could also restore a substantive sense ofunity to the university community if only this community could learn lsquotoengage in [this lsquore ection on the essential foundationsrsquo] as re ection and tothink and belong to the university from the base of this engagementrsquo62 Fromits founding one of the major concerns about the modern university has beenhow it could maintain the unity of structure and purpose thought to bede nitive of the lsquoUni-versityrsquo as such German Idealists like Fichte andSchelling believed that this unity would follow organically from the totalityof the system of knowledge But this faith in the system proved to be far lessin uential on posterity than Humboldtrsquos alternative lsquohumanistrsquo idealaccording to which the universityrsquos unity would come from a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of character Humboldtrsquos famousidea was to link lsquoobjective Wissenschaft with subjective Bildungrsquo theuniversity would be responsible for forming fully-cultivated individuals arequirement Humboldt hoped would serve to guide and unify the newfreedom of research Historically of course neither the German Idealistsrsquoreliance on the unity of research nor Humboldtrsquos emphasis on a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of students succeeded in unifyingthe university community In effect however Heideggerrsquos re-ontologizationof education would combine (his versions of) these two strategies Theuniversity community would be uni ed both by its shared commitment toforming excellent individuals (where excellence is understood in terms of theontological perfectionism outlined above) and by the shared recognition onthe part of this community that its members are all committed to the samesubstantive pursuit The ultimately revolutionary task not simply ofunderstanding what is but of investigating the ontological presuppositionsimplicitly guiding all the various elds of knowledge Heidegger thusbelieved that ontological education by restoring substance to the notion ofexcellence and so teaching us lsquoto disclose the essential in all thingsrsquo could nally succeed in lsquoshattering the encapsulation of the sciences in theirdifferent disciplines and bringing them back from their boundless and aimlessdispersal in individual elds and cornersrsquo6364

NOTES

1 See Heidegger Being and Time (New York Harper amp Row 1962) trans J Macquarrie andE Robinson p 44 Sein und Zeit (Tubingen M Niemeyer 1993) p 22

2 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo in William McNeill (ed) Pathmarks(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998) p 167Heidegger Wegmarken 3rd edGesamtausgabe vol 9 (Frankfurt aM V Klostermann 1996) (hereafter GA9) p 218(On my translation of this title see note 28 below) I am aware that the preceding sentence

262 Iain Thomson

ominously echoes the title of Nietzschersquos politically compromised and deeply problematicearly lectures lsquoOn the Future of Our Educational Institutionsrsquo (which culminate with a callfor a lsquogreat Fuhrerrsquo [see Nietzsche On the Future of Our Educational Institutions in OLevy (ed) The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Edinburgh T N Foulis 1909)vol 6 Jacques Derrida The Ear of the Other ed C V McDonald trans Kamuf andRonell (New York Shocken Books 1985) p 28]) I bracket such political connectionshere but a complementary essay examines the darker side of Heideggerrsquos philosophicalcritique of education showing that it played a central role in his decision to join with theNazis in the early 1930s see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo(forthcoming)

3 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo ibid p 167GA9 p 2184 See Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

1980) On Heideggerrsquos distinctive understanding of lsquoessencersquo see my lsquoWhatrsquos Wrong withBeing a Technological Essentialist A Response to Feenbergrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 429ndash44

5 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo in The Question ConcerningTechnology and Other Essays trans W Lovitt (New York Harper amp Row 1977) p 4ibid pp 30ndash31

6 Cf Feenbergrsquos Hegelian misinterpretation of Heideggerrsquos understanding of essence in lsquoTheOntic and the Ontological in Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Technology Response toThomsonrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 445ndash50

7 Heidegger lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo op cit p 145GA9 p 1898 Ibid pp 145ndash46 (my italics)GA9 p 190 I am of necessity simplifying Heideggerrsquos

complex account here but see my lsquoOntotheology Understanding Heideggerrsquos Destruktionof Metaphysicsrsquo International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (October 2000) pp 297ndash327

9 See Heidegger An Introduction to Metaphysics trans R Manheim (New Haven YaleUniversity Press 1959) p 3Einfuhrung in die Metaphysik (Tubingen M Niemeyer1953) p 2

10 See Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations 3rd ed trans G E M Anscombe(New York Macmillan 1968) sect 217 p 85

11 See also Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 170GA9 p 222 lsquoThe essenceof ldquoeducationrdquo is grounded in the essence of ldquotruthrdquorsquo

12 See Heidegger Nietzsche Nihilism ed David Krell trans F Capuzzi (New York Harperamp Row 1982) p 205Nietzsche (Pfullingen Neske 1961) vol II p 343

13 Eventually either a new ontotheology emerges (perhaps as Kuhn suggests out of theinvestigation of those lsquoanomalousrsquo entities which resist being understood in terms of thedominant ontotheology) or else our underlying conception of the being of all entities wouldbe brought into line with this spreading ontotheology Although this latter alternative hasnever yet occurred Heidegger calls it lsquothe greatest dangerrsquo he is worried that ourNietzschean ontotheology could become totalizing lsquodriving out every other possibility ofrevealingrsquo by overwriting Daseinrsquos lsquospecial naturersquo our de ning capacity for world-disclosure with the lsquototal thoughtlessnessrsquo of a merely instrumental lsquocalculative reasoningrsquo See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo op cit p 27 HeideggerDiscourse on Thinking trans J Anderson and E Freund (New York Harper amp Row1966) p 56

14 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo ibid pp 16ndash2015 See esp Friedrich Nietzsche The Will To Power ed and trans Walter Kaufmann (New

York Random House 1967) pp 549ndash50 Here Nietzsche clearly conceives of beings assuch as will to power and of the way the totality exists as eternally recurring Nor canHeideggerrsquos controversial reading be rejected simply by excluding this problematic text onthe basis of its politically compromised ancestry since Nietzschersquos ontotheology can alsobe found in his other works

16 Heidegger lsquoNihilism as Determined by the History of Beingrsquo Nietzsche Nihilism op citpp 199ndash250

17 See Heidegger Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) trans P Emad and K Maly(Bloomington IN Indiana University Press 1999) p 95Beitrage zur Philosophie (Vom

Heidegger on Ontological Education 263

refashioning of the world no longer as conscious Cartesian subjects takingcontrol of an objective world but rather as one more resource to be optimizedordered and enhanced with maximal ef ciency ndash whether cosmeticallypsychopharmacologically or educationally

Here then Heidegger believes he has uncovered the subterraneanontohistorical logic guiding the development of our educational institutionsBut how does contemporary education re ect this nihilistic logic ofenframing In what sense are todayrsquos educational institutions caught up inan unlimited quanti cation of qualitative relations which strips beings of theirintrinsic meanings transforming them into mere resources to be optimizedwith maximal ef ciency

3 Education as Enframing

Heidegger began developing his critique of higher education in 1911 andcontinued elaborating it well into the 1960s but perhaps his most directanswer to this question comes in 192920 Having nally been awarded a fullprofessorship (on the basis of Being and Time) the 39-year-old Heideggergives his of cial lsquoInaugural Lecturersquo at Freiburg University the famouslsquoWhat is Metaphysicsrsquo He begins boldly directing his critical attention to theuniversity itself by emphasizing philosophyrsquos concrete lsquoexistentialrsquo founda-tions (since lsquometaphysical questioning must be posed from the essentialposition of the existence [Dasein] that questionsrsquo) Within the lifeworld of theuniversity Heidegger observes lsquoexistencersquo (Dasein) is determined byWissenschaft the knowledge embodied in the humanities and naturalsciences lsquoOur Dasein ndash in the community of researchers teachers andstudents ndash is determined by science or knowledge [durch die Wissenschaftbestimmt]rsquo21 Our very lsquobeing-in-the-worldrsquo is shaped by the knowledge wepursue uncover and embody When Heidegger claims that existence isfundamentally shaped by knowledge he is not thinking of a professoriateshifting in the winds of academic trends nor simply arguing for a kind ofpedagogical or performative consistency according to which we shouldpractice what we know His intent rather is to emphasize a troubling sense inwhich it seems that we cannot help practicing what we know since we arelsquoalways alreadyrsquo implicitly shaped by our guiding metaphysical presupposi-tions Heideggerrsquos question thus becomes What is the ontological impact ofour unquestioned reliance on the particular metaphysical presuppositionswhich tacitly dominate the academy lsquoWhat happens to us essentially in theground of our existencersquo when the Wissenschaft pursued in the contemporaryuniversity becomes our guiding lsquopassionrsquo fundamentally shaping our view ofthe world and of ourselves

Heideggerrsquos dramatic answer introduces his radical critique of the hyper-specialization and consequent fragmentation of the modern university

250 Iain Thomson

The elds of science are widely separated Their ways of handling the objects of theirinquiries differ fundamentally Today only the technical organization of universitiesand faculties consolidates this multiplicity of dispersed disciplines only throughpractical and instrumental goals do they maintain any meaning The rootedness of thesciences in their essential ground has dried up and died2 2

Here in 1929 Heidegger accurately describes the predicament of thatinstitution which almost half a century later Clark Kerr would satiricallylabel the lsquoMulti-versityrsquo an internally fragmented Uni-versity-in-name-onlywhere the sole communal unity stems from a common grievance aboutparking spaces23 Historically as the modern university loses sight of theshared goals which originally justi ed the endeavors of the academiccommunity as a whole (at rst the common pursuit of the uni ed lsquosystemrsquo ofknowledge then the communal dedication to the formation of cultivatedindividuals) its members begin to look outside the university for somepurpose to give meaning to lives of research Since only those disciplines (orsub-disciplines) able to produce instrumentally useful results regularly ndsuch external support all disciplines increasingly try to present themselves interms of their use-value Without a counter-ideal students too will adopt thisinstrumental mentality coming to see education merely as a means to anincreased salary down the road In this way fragmentation leads to theprofessionalization of the university and eventually its deterioration intovocationalism At the same time moreover the different disciplines lackingany shared substantive sense of a unifying purpose or common subject-matter tend by the logic of specialization to develop internal standardsappropriate to their particular object-domains As these domains becomeincreasingly specialized these internal standards become ever moredisparate if not simply incommensurable In this way disciplinaryfragmentation leaves the university without common standards ndash other thanthe now ubiquitous but entirely empty and formal ideal of excellence

Following in Heideggerrsquos footsteps critics such as Bill Readings andTimothy Clark show how our contemporary lsquouniversity of excellencersquo owingto lsquothe very emptiness of the idea of excellencersquo is lsquobecoming an excellentbureaucratic corporationrsquo lsquogeared to no higher idea than its own maximizedself-perpetuation according to optimal inputoutput ratiosrsquo24 Such diagnosesmake clear that the development of our educational institutions continues tofollow the underlying metaphysical logic of enframing the progressivetransformation of all entities into mere resources to be optimizedUnfortunately these critics fail to recognize this underlying ontohistoricallogic and so offer diagnoses without cures Indeed Readingsrsquo materialistexplanation for the historical obsolescence of Bildung as the unifying ideal ofthe modern university (the result of an lsquoimplacable bourgeois economicrevolutionrsquo) leads him to succumb to a cynicism in which future denizens ofthe university can hope for nothing more than lsquopragmaticrsquo situational

Heidegger on Ontological Education 251

responses in an environment increasingly transformed by lsquothe logic ofconsumerismrsquo25 While such critiques of the university convincingly extendand update aspects of Heideggerrsquos analysis they lack his philosophical visionfor a revitalizing reuni cation of the university

To see that Heidegger himself did not relinquish all hope for the future ofhigher education we need only attend carefully to the performativedimension of his lsquoInaugural Lecturersquo On the surface it may seem as ifHeidegger welcomed fully into the arms of the university rather perverselyuses his celebratory lecture to pronounce the death of the institution which hasjust hired him proclaiming that lsquoThe rootedness of the sciences in theiressential ground has dried up and diedrsquo Yet with this deliberate provocationHeidegger is not beating a dead horse his pronouncement that the universityis dead at its roots implies that it is fated to wither and decay unless it isrevivi ed reinvigorated from the root Heidegger uses this organic metaphorof lsquorootednessrsquo (Verwurzelung) to put into effect what Derrida (who willrestage this scene himself) recognizes as lsquoa phoenix motifrsquo lsquoOne burns orburies what is already dead so that life will be reborn and regenerated fromthese ashesrsquo26 Indeed Heidegger begins to outline his program for arenaissance of the university in the lecturersquos conclusion Existence isdetermined by science but science itself remains rooted in metaphysicswhether it realizes it or not Since the roots of the university are metaphysicala reinstauration of the scienti c lifeworld requires a renewed attention to thisunderlying metaphysical dimension lsquoOnly if science exists on the basis ofmetaphysics can it achieve anew its essential task which is not to amass andclassify bits of knowledge but to disclose in ever-renewed fashion the entireexpanse of truth in nature and historyrsquo27

What exactly is Heidegger proposing here To understand his vision for arebirth of the university we need to turn to a text he began writing the nextyear lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo28 Here tracing the ontohistorical roots ofour educational crisis back to Platorsquos cave Heidegger (quite literally)excavates an alternative

III Heideggerrsquos Return to Platorsquos Cave Ontological Education asthe Essence of Paideia

Plato seeks to show that the essence of paideia does notconsist in merely pouring knowledge into the unpreparedsoul as if it were a container held out empty and waitingOn the contrary real education lays hold of the soul itselfand transforms it in its entirety by rst of all leading us tothe place of our essential being and accustoming us toit2 9

252 Iain Thomson

Our contemporary educational crisis can be understood as an ontohistoricaldissolution of Platorsquos original conception of education Heidegger contendsso the deconstructive recovery of this lsquoessence of paideiarsquo is crucial tosuccessfully resolving the crisis A deeply resonant Greek word paideiameans lsquocivilizationrsquo lsquoculturersquo lsquodevelopmentrsquo lsquotraditionrsquo lsquoliteraturersquo andlsquoeducationrsquo thus it encompasses what to our ears seems to be a rather widerange of semantic frequencies30 Heidegger was deeply drawn to the wordnot only because thanks largely to Werner Jaeger it served as a key term inthat intersection of German academic and political life which Heideggersought to occupy during the 1930s but also because he had an undeniablefondness for what (with a wink to Freud) we could call the polysemicperversity of language that is the fortuitous ambiguities and unpredictableinterconnections which help form the warp and weave of its semantic webRecognizing that such rich language tends to resist the analystrsquos pursuit of anunambiguous exactness Heidegger argued that lsquorigorousrsquo philosophicalprecision calls instead for an attempt to do justice to this semantic richness31

Yet as Gadamer and Derrida have shown this demand for us to do justiceto language is aporetic ndash a lsquonecessary impossibilityrsquo ndash since the holism ofmeaning renders the attempt ultimately impossible not only practically (for nite beings like ourselves who cannot follow all the strands in the semanticweb at once) but also in principle (despite our Borgesian dreams of acomplete hypertext which would exhaustively represent the semantic web adream even the vaunted lsquoworld-wide webrsquo barely inches toward realizing)This unful llable call for the philosopher to do justice to language isnevertheless ethical in the Kantian sense it constitutes a regulative idealorienting our progress while remaining unreachable like a guiding star It isalso and for Heidegger more primordially lsquoethos-icalrsquo (so to speak) sincesuch a call can be answered lsquoauthenticallyrsquo only if it is taken up existentiallyand embodied in an ethos a way of being In Being and Time Heideggerdescribes the called-for comportment as Ent-schlossenheit lsquodis-closednessor re-solversquo later he will teach it as Gelassenheit lsquoreleasement or letting-bersquo32 Ent-schlossenheit and Gelassenheit are not of course simplyequivalent terms releasement evolves out of resolve through a series ofintermediary formulations and notably lacks resolversquos voluntarism But bothentail a responsive hermeneutic receptivity (whether existential or phenom-enological) and both designate comportments whereby we embodyre exively an understanding of what we are ontologically namely Da-sein lsquobeing [the] therersquo a making intelligible of the place in which we ndourselves

Such considerations allow us to see that we are the place to whichHeidegger is referring ndash in the epigraph above this section ndash when he writesthat lsquoreal education lays hold of the soul itself and transforms it in its entiretyby rst of all leading us to the place of our essential being [Wesensort] and

Heidegger on Ontological Education 253

accustoming us to itrsquo As this epigraph shows Heidegger believes he hasful lled the ethical dictate to do justice to language by recovering lsquotheessence of paideiarsquo the ontological carrier wave underlying paideiarsquosmultiple semantic frequencies Ventriloquizing Plato Heidegger deploys thisnotion of the essence of paideia in order to oppose two conceptions ofeducation He warns rst against a lsquofalse interpretationrsquo We cannotunderstand education as the transmission of lsquoinformationrsquo the lling of thepsyche with knowledge as if inscribing a tabula rasa or in morecontemporary parlance lsquotraining-uprsquo a neural net This understanding ofeducation is false because (in the terms of Being and Time) we are lsquothrownrsquobeings lsquoalways alreadyrsquo shaped by a tradition we can never lsquoget behindrsquo andso we cannot be blank slates or lsquoempty containersrsquo waiting to be lled33

Indeed this lsquoreductive and atrophiedrsquo misconception of education as thetransmission of information re ects the nihilistic logic of enframing thatontohistorical trend by which intelligibility is lsquoleveled out into the uniformstorage of informationrsquo34 Yet here again we face a situation in which as theproblem gets worse we become less likely to recognize it the lsquoimpactrsquo of thisontological drift toward meaninglessness can lsquobarely be noticed bycontemporary humanity because they are continually covered over with thelatest informationrsquo35

Against this self-insulating but lsquofalse interpretationrsquo of educationHeidegger advances his conception of lsquoreal or genuine educationrsquo (echteBildung) the lsquoessence of paideiarsquo Drawing on the allegory of the cave ndashwhich lsquoillustrates the essence of ldquoeducationrdquo [paideia]rsquo (as Plato claims at thebeginning of Book VII of the Republic) ndash Heidegger seeks to effect nothingless than a re-ontologizing revolution in our understanding of education36

Recall Heideggerrsquos succinct and powerful formulation lsquoReal education layshold of the soul itself and transforms it in its entirety by rst of all leading usto the place of our essential being and accustoming [eingewohnt] us to itrsquoGenuine education leads us back to ourselves to the place we are (the Da ofour Sein) teaches us lsquoto dwellrsquo (wohnen) lsquotherersquo and transforms us in theprocess This transformative journey to ourselves is not a ight away from theworld into thought but a re exive return to the fundamental lsquorealm of thehuman sojournrsquo (Aufenthaltsbezirk des Menschen)37 The goal of thiseducational odyssey is simple but literally revolutionary to bring us fullcircle back to ourselves rst by turning us away from the world in which weare most immediately immersed then by turning us back to this world in amore re exive way As Heidegger explains lsquoPaideia means the turningaround of the whole human being in the sense of displacing them out of theregion of immediate encountering and accustoming them to another realm inwhich beings appearrsquo38

How can we accomplish such an ontological revolution in education Whatare the pedagogical methods of this alternative conception of education And

254 Iain Thomson

how nally can this ontological conception of education help us overturn theenframing of education

1 Ontological Education Against Enframing

In lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo Heideggerrsquos exposition is complicated by thefact that he is simultaneously explicating his own positive understanding oflsquoeducationrsquo and critiquing an important transformation in the history of lsquotruthrsquoinaugurated by Plato the transition from truth understood as aletheiaphenomenological lsquounhiddennessrsquo to orthotes the lsquocorrectnessrsquo of anassertion From this lsquoambiguity in Platorsquos doctrinersquo in which lsquotruth still isat one and the same time unhiddenness and correctnessrsquo the subsequenttradition will develop only the orthotic understanding of truth at the expenseof the aletheiac39 In so doing we lose lsquothe original essence of truthrsquo themanifestation of beings themselves and come to understand truth solely as afeature of our own representational capacities According to Heidegger thisdisplacement of the locus of truth from being to human subjectivity paves theway for that metaphysical humanism (or subjectivism) in which the lsquoessenceof paideiarsquo will be eclipsed allowing lsquoeducationrsquo to be absorbed byenframing becoming merely a means for lsquobringing ldquohuman beingsrdquo to theliberation of their possibilities the certitude of their destination and thesecuring of their ldquolivingrdquorsquo40

Despite some dramatic rhetorical ourishes however Heidegger has notentirely given up on lsquoeducationrsquo (Bildung) He dismisses the modernunderstanding of Bildung (the deliberate cultivation of lsquosubjective qualitiesrsquo)as a lsquomisinterpretation to which the notion fell victim in the nineteenthcenturyrsquo yet maintains that once Bildung is lsquogiven back its original namingpowerrsquo it is the word which lsquocomes closest to capturing the [meaning of the]word paideiarsquo Bildung is literally ambiguous Heidegger tells us its lsquonamingforcersquo drives in two directions

What lsquoBildungrsquo expresses is twofold rst Bildung means forming [Bilden] in thesense of impressing a character that unfolds But at the same time this lsquoformingrsquo[lsquoBildenrsquo ] lsquoformsrsquo [lsquobildetrsquo ] (or impresses a character) by antecedently taking itsmeasure from some measure-giving vision which for that reason is called the pre-conception [Vor-bild]

lsquoThusrsquo Heidegger concludes lsquoldquoeducationrdquo [ldquoBildungrdquo] means impressing acharacter especially as guiding by a pre-conceptionrsquo41

Few would quibble with the rst claim education stamps us with acharacter which unfolds within us But what forms the lsquostamprsquo which formsus Who educates the educators According to Heidegger the answer to thisquestion is built into the very meaning of paideia it is the second sense he

Heidegger on Ontological Education 255

lsquorestoresrsquo to Bildung To further lsquounfoldrsquo these two senses of lsquoeducationrsquoHeidegger immediately introduces the contrast class lsquothe contrary of paideiais apaideusia lack of education [Bildunglosigkeit] where no fundamentalcomportment is awakened no measure-giving preconception establishedrsquo42

This helpfully clari es Heideggerrsquos rst claim It is by awakening alsquofundamental comportmentrsquo that education stamps us with a character thatunfolds within us In the educational situation ndash a situation without pre-delimitable boundaries indeed a situation the boundaries of whichHeidegger ceaselessly seeks to expand (for he holds that lsquopaideia isessentially a movement of passage from apaideusia to paideiarsquo such thateducation is not something that can ever be completed) ndash the lsquofundamentalcomportmentrsquo perhaps most frequently called for is not the heroic Ent-schlossenheit nor even the gentler Gelassenheit but rather a more basic formof receptive spontaneity Heidegger will simply call hearing or hearkening(horen) that is (as we will see) an attentive and responsive way of dwellingin onersquos environment But whether the comportment implicitly guidingeducation is lsquoresolutenessrsquo lsquoreleasementrsquo lsquohearingrsquo or that anxiety-tranquillizing hurry which generally characterizes contemporary life dependson the second sense of Bildung which remains puzzling From where do wederive the measure-giving vision which implicitly informs all genuineeducation

Heideggerrsquos answer is complicated let us recall by the fact that he is bothelaborating his own philosophy of education (as it were) and performing acritical exegesis of Platorsquos decisive metaphysical contribution to lsquothe historythat we arersquo the history of metaphysics These two aims are in tension withone another because the education Heidegger seeks to impart ndash thefundamental attunement he would awaken in his students ndash is itself anattempt to awaken us from the ontological education that we have lsquoalwaysalreadyrsquo received from the metaphysical tradition For this generallyunnoticed antecedent measure comes to us from metaphysics from theontotheologically conceived understanding of the being of beings In shortHeidegger seeks to educate his students against their pre-existingontotheological education (He will sometimes call this educating-against-education simply lsquoteachingrsquo) The crucial question then is How canHeideggerrsquos ontological education combat the metaphysical education wehave always already received

2 The Pedagogy of Ontological Freedom

Heideggerrsquos suggestions about how the ontological education he advocatescan transcend enframing are surprisingly speci c Recall that in Platorsquosallegory the prisoner (1) begins in captivity within the cave (2) escapes thechains and turns around to discover the re and objects responsible for the

256 Iain Thomson

shadows on the wall previously taken as reality then (3) ascends from thecave into the light of the outside world coming to understand what is seenthere as made possible by the light of the sun and (4) nally returns to thecave taking up the struggle to free the other prisoners (who violently resisttheir would-be liberator) For Heidegger this well-known scenario suggeststhe pedagogy of ontological education On his remarkable interpretation theprisonerrsquos lsquofour different dwelling placesrsquo communicate the four successivestages whereby ontological education breaks studentsrsquo bondage to thetechnological mode of revealing freeing them to understand what-isdifferently

When studentsrsquo ontological educations begin they lsquoare engrossed in whatthey immediately encounterrsquo taking the shadows cast by the re on the wallto be the ultimate reality of things Yet this lsquo rersquo is only lsquoman-madersquo thelsquoconfusingrsquo light it casts represents enframingrsquos ontologically reductive modeof revealing Here in this rst stage all entities show up to students merely asresources to be optimized including the students themselves Thus if pressedstudents will ultimately lsquojustifyrsquo even their education itself merely as a meansto making more money getting the most out of their potentials or some otherequally empty optimization imperative Stage two is only reached when astudentrsquos lsquogaze is freed from its captivity to shadowsrsquo this happens when astudent recognizes lsquothe rersquo (enframing) as the source of lsquothe shadowsrsquo(entities understood as mere resources) In stage two the metaphysical chainsof enframing are thus broken But how does this liberation occur Despite theimportance of this question Heidegger answers it only in an aside lsquoto turnonersquos gaze from the shadows to entities as they show themselves withinthe glow of the relight is dif cult and failsrsquo43 His point I take it is thatentities do not show themselves as they are when forced into the meta-physical mould of enframing the ontotheology which reduces them to mereresources to be optimized Students can be led to this realization through aguided investigation of the being of any entity which they will tend tounderstand only as eternally recurring will-to-power that is as forcesendlessly coming together and breaking apart Because this metaphysicalunderstanding dissolves being into becoming the attempt to see entities asthey are in its light is doomed to failure resources have no being they arelsquoconstantly becomingrsquo (as Nietzsche realized) With this recognition ndash and theanxiety it tends to induce ndash students can attain a negative freedom fromenframing

Still Heidegger insists that lsquoreal freedomrsquo lsquoeffective freedomrsquo (wirklicheFreiheit) ndash the positive freedom in which students realize that entities aremore than mere resources and so become free for understanding themotherwise ndash lsquois attained only in stage three in which someone who has beenunchained is conveyed outside the cave ldquointo the openrdquorsquo (Notice the implicitreference to someone doing the unchaining and conveying here for

Heidegger on Ontological Education 257

Heidegger the educator plays a crucial role facilitating studentsrsquo passagebetween each of the stages) The open is one of Heideggerrsquos names for lsquobeingas suchrsquo that is for lsquowhat appears antecedently in everything that appears and makes whatever appears be accessiblersquo44 The attainment of ndash or bettercomportmental attunement to ndash this lsquoopenrsquo is what Heidegger famously callslsquodwellingrsquo45 When such positive ontological freedom is achieved lsquowhatthings are no longer appear merely in the man-made and confusing glow ofthe re within the cave The things themselves stand there in the binding forceand validity of their own visible formrsquo46 Ontological freedom is achievedwhen entities show themselves in their full phenomenological richness Thegoal of the third stage of ontological education then is to teach students tolsquodwellrsquo to help attune them to the being of entities and thus to teach them tosee that the being of an entity ndash be it a book cup rose or to use a particularlysalient example they themselves ndash cannot be fully understood in theontologically-reductive terms of enframing47

With the attainment of this crucial third stage Heideggerrsquos lsquogenuinersquoontological education may seem to have reached its completion since lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo48 This claim that genuineeducation teaches students to recognize lsquoessencesrsquo is not merely a Platonicconceit but plays an absolutely crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for areuni cation of the university (as we will see in the conclusion) Neverthelessontological education reaches its true culmination only in the fourth stage thereturn to the cave Heidegger clearly understood his own role as a teacher interms of just such a return that is as a struggle to free ontologicallyanaesthetized enframers from their bondage to a self-reifying mode ofontological revealing49 But his ranking of the return to the cave as the higheststage of ontological education is not merely an evangelistic call for others toadopt his vision of education as a revolution in consciousness it also re ectshis recognition that in ontological education learning culminates in teachingWe must thus ask What is called lsquoteachingrsquo

3 What Is Called Teaching

The English lsquoteachrsquo comes from the same linguistic family as the Germanverb zeigen lsquoto point or showrsquo50 As this etymology suggests to teach is toreveal to point out or make manifest through words But to reveal whatWhat does the teacher who lsquopoints outrsquo (or reveals) with words point to (orindicate)51 What do teachers teach The question seems to presuppose thatall teaching shares a common lsquosubject-matterrsquo not simply a shared method orgoal (the inculcation of critical thinking persuasive writing and the like) butsomething more substantive a common subject-matter unifying the Uni-versity Of course all teachers use words to disclose but to disclose a common

258 Iain Thomson

subject-matter How could such a supposition not sound absurd to usprofessional denizens of a postmodern polyversity where relentless hyper-specialization continues to fragment our subjects and even re-unifying forceslike interdisciplinarity seem to thrive only in so far they open new sub-specialties for a relentless vascular-to-capillary colonization of the scienti clifeworld In such a situation is it surprising that the Heideggerian idea of allteachers ultimately sharing a uni ed subject sounds absurd or at best like anoutdated myth ndash albeit the myth that founded the modern university But isthe idea of such a shared subject-matter a myth What do teachers teach Letus approach this question from what might at rst seem to be anotherdirection attempting to learn its answer

If teaching is revealing through words then conversely learning isexperiencing what a teacherrsquos words reveal That is to learn is actively toallow oneself to share in what the teacherrsquos words disclose But again whatdo the teacherrsquos words reveal We will notice if we read closely enough thatHeidegger answers this question in 1951 when he writes lsquoTo learn means tomake everything we do answer to whatever essentials address us at a giventimersquo52 Here it might sound at rst as if Heidegger is simply claimingthat learning as the complement of teaching means actively allowing oneselfto share in that which the teacherrsquos words disclose But Wittgenstein used tosay that philosophy is like a bicycle race the point of which is to go as slowlyas possible without falling off and if we slow down we will notice thatHeideggerrsquos words ndash the words of a teacher who would teach what learningmeans (in fact the performative situation is even more complex)53ndash saymore Learning means actively allowing ourselves to respond to what isessential in that which always addresses us that which has always alreadyclaimed us

In a sense then learning means responding appropriately to thesolicitations of the environment Of course Heidegger is thinking of theontological environment (the way in which what-is discloses itself to us)but even ontic analogues show that this capacity to respond appropriately tothe environment is quite dif cult to learn We learn to respond appropriatelyto environmental solicitations through a long process of trial and error Wemust in other words learn how to learn Here problems abound for it isnot clear that learning to learn can be taught To the analytically minded thisdemand seems to lead to a regress (for if we need to learn to learn then weneed to learn to learn to learn and so on) But logic misleads phenomenologyhere as Heidegger realized it is simply a question of jumping into thispedagogical circle in the right way Such a train of thought leads Heidegger toclaim that if lsquoteaching is even more dif cult than learningrsquo this is onlybecause the teacher must be an exemplary learner capable of teaching his orher students to learn that is capable of learning-in-public activelyresponding to the emerging demands of each unique educational situation

Heidegger on Ontological Education 259

Recall the famous passage

Why is teaching more dif cult than learning Not because the teacher must have alarger store of information and have it always ready Teaching is more dif cult thanlearning because what teaching calls for is this to let learn The real teacher in factlets nothing else be learned than learning The teacher is ahead of his apprentices inthis alone that he has still far more to learn than they ndash he has to learn to let themlearn The teacher must be capable of being more teachable than his apprentices5 4

The teacher teaches students to learn ndash to respond appropriately to thesolicitations of the ontological environment ndash by responding appropriately tothe solicitations of his or her environment which is after all the studentsrsquoenvironment too Learning culminates in teaching then because teaching isthe highest form of learning unlike lsquoinstructingrsquo (belehren) lsquoteachingrsquo(lehren) is ultimately a lsquoletting learnrsquo (lernen lassen) lsquoThe true teacher isahead of the students only in that he has more to learn than they namely theletting learn (To learn [means] to bring what we do and allow into a co-respondence [or a suitable response Entsprechung] with that which in eachcase grants itself to us as the essential)rsquo55

This last assertion should remind us of Heideggerrsquos earlier claim that lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo56 I said previously that thisclaim plays a crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for a reuni cation of theuniversity By way of conclusion let us brie y develop this claim and therebyfurther elaborate Heideggerrsquos positive vision for the future of highereducation

IV Conclusion Envisioning a University of Teachers

How can Heideggerrsquos understanding of ontological education help us restoresubstance to our currently empty guiding ideal of educational lsquoexcellencersquoand in so doing provide the contemporary university with a renewed sense ofunity not only restoring substance to our shared commitment to formingexcellent students but also helping us recognize the sense in which we are infact all working on the same project The answer is surprisingly simple Byre-essentializing the notion of excellence Heidegger like Aristotle is aperfectionist he argues that there is a distinctive human essence and that thegood life the life of lsquoexcellencersquo (arete) is the life spent cultivating thisdistinctively human essence For Heidegger as we have seen the humanlsquoessencersquo is Dasein lsquobeing-therersquo that is the making-intelligible of the placein which we nd ourselves or even more simply world disclosing For aworld-disclosing being to cultivate its essence then is for it to recognize and

260 Iain Thomson

develop this essence not only acknowledging its participation in the creationand maintenance of an intelligible world but actively embracing itsontological role in such world disclosure The full rami cations of thisseemingly simple insight are profound and revolutionary57 We will restrictourselves to brie y developing the two most important implications ofHeideggerrsquos re-essentialization of excellence for the future of the university

Heideggerrsquos ontological conception of education would transform theexisting relations between teaching and research on the one hand andbetween the now fragmented departments on the other Thus in effectHeidegger dedicates himself nally to redeeming the two central ideals whichguided the formation of the modern university Teaching and research shouldbe harmoniously integrated and the university community should understanditself as committed to a common substantive task58 How does Heideggerthink he can help us nally achieve such ambitions First his conception oflsquoteachingrsquo would reunite research and teaching because when studentsdevelop the aforementioned lsquoinsight into essencersquo they are being taught todisclose and investigate the ontological presuppositions which underlie allresearch on Heideggerrsquos view For todayrsquos academic departments are what hecalls lsquopositive sciencesrsquo that is they all rest on ontological lsquopositsrsquoontological assumptions about what the class of entities they study areBiology for example allows us to understand the logos of the bios the orderand structure of living beings Nevertheless Heidegger asserts biologyproper cannot tell us what life is59 Instead biology takes over its implicitontological understanding of what life is from the metaphysical under-standing governing our Nietzschean epoch of enframing (When contempor-ary philosophers of biology claim that life is lsquoa self-replicating systemrsquo theyhave unknowingly adopted the basic ontological presupposition ofNietzschersquos metaphysics according to which life is ultimately the eternalrecurrence of will to power that is sheer will-to-will unlimited self-augmentation)60 Analogously psychology can tell us a great deal about howconsciousness (the psyche) functions but it cannot tell us what consciousnessis The same holds true for the understanding of lsquothe corporeality of bodiesthe vegetable character of plants the animality of animals and the humannessof humanityrsquo within physics botany zoology and anthropology respec-tively these sciences all presuppose an ontological posit a pre-understandingof the being of the class of entities they study61 Heideggerrsquos ontologicallyreconceived notion of teaching is inextricably entwined with research thenbecause ontological education teaches students to question the veryontological presuppositions which guide research thereby opening a spacefor understanding the being of the entities they study otherwise than inenframingrsquos ontologically reductive terms Heideggerrsquos reconceptualizationof education would thus encourage revolutionary transformations in thesciences and humanities by teaching students to focus on and explicitly

Heidegger on Ontological Education 261

investigate the ontological presuppositions which implicitly guide research ineach domain of knowledge

Despite such revolutionary goals Heidegger thought that his ontologicalreconceptualization of education could also restore a substantive sense ofunity to the university community if only this community could learn lsquotoengage in [this lsquore ection on the essential foundationsrsquo] as re ection and tothink and belong to the university from the base of this engagementrsquo62 Fromits founding one of the major concerns about the modern university has beenhow it could maintain the unity of structure and purpose thought to bede nitive of the lsquoUni-versityrsquo as such German Idealists like Fichte andSchelling believed that this unity would follow organically from the totalityof the system of knowledge But this faith in the system proved to be far lessin uential on posterity than Humboldtrsquos alternative lsquohumanistrsquo idealaccording to which the universityrsquos unity would come from a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of character Humboldtrsquos famousidea was to link lsquoobjective Wissenschaft with subjective Bildungrsquo theuniversity would be responsible for forming fully-cultivated individuals arequirement Humboldt hoped would serve to guide and unify the newfreedom of research Historically of course neither the German Idealistsrsquoreliance on the unity of research nor Humboldtrsquos emphasis on a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of students succeeded in unifyingthe university community In effect however Heideggerrsquos re-ontologizationof education would combine (his versions of) these two strategies Theuniversity community would be uni ed both by its shared commitment toforming excellent individuals (where excellence is understood in terms of theontological perfectionism outlined above) and by the shared recognition onthe part of this community that its members are all committed to the samesubstantive pursuit The ultimately revolutionary task not simply ofunderstanding what is but of investigating the ontological presuppositionsimplicitly guiding all the various elds of knowledge Heidegger thusbelieved that ontological education by restoring substance to the notion ofexcellence and so teaching us lsquoto disclose the essential in all thingsrsquo could nally succeed in lsquoshattering the encapsulation of the sciences in theirdifferent disciplines and bringing them back from their boundless and aimlessdispersal in individual elds and cornersrsquo6364

NOTES

1 See Heidegger Being and Time (New York Harper amp Row 1962) trans J Macquarrie andE Robinson p 44 Sein und Zeit (Tubingen M Niemeyer 1993) p 22

2 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo in William McNeill (ed) Pathmarks(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998) p 167Heidegger Wegmarken 3rd edGesamtausgabe vol 9 (Frankfurt aM V Klostermann 1996) (hereafter GA9) p 218(On my translation of this title see note 28 below) I am aware that the preceding sentence

262 Iain Thomson

ominously echoes the title of Nietzschersquos politically compromised and deeply problematicearly lectures lsquoOn the Future of Our Educational Institutionsrsquo (which culminate with a callfor a lsquogreat Fuhrerrsquo [see Nietzsche On the Future of Our Educational Institutions in OLevy (ed) The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Edinburgh T N Foulis 1909)vol 6 Jacques Derrida The Ear of the Other ed C V McDonald trans Kamuf andRonell (New York Shocken Books 1985) p 28]) I bracket such political connectionshere but a complementary essay examines the darker side of Heideggerrsquos philosophicalcritique of education showing that it played a central role in his decision to join with theNazis in the early 1930s see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo(forthcoming)

3 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo ibid p 167GA9 p 2184 See Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

1980) On Heideggerrsquos distinctive understanding of lsquoessencersquo see my lsquoWhatrsquos Wrong withBeing a Technological Essentialist A Response to Feenbergrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 429ndash44

5 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo in The Question ConcerningTechnology and Other Essays trans W Lovitt (New York Harper amp Row 1977) p 4ibid pp 30ndash31

6 Cf Feenbergrsquos Hegelian misinterpretation of Heideggerrsquos understanding of essence in lsquoTheOntic and the Ontological in Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Technology Response toThomsonrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 445ndash50

7 Heidegger lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo op cit p 145GA9 p 1898 Ibid pp 145ndash46 (my italics)GA9 p 190 I am of necessity simplifying Heideggerrsquos

complex account here but see my lsquoOntotheology Understanding Heideggerrsquos Destruktionof Metaphysicsrsquo International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (October 2000) pp 297ndash327

9 See Heidegger An Introduction to Metaphysics trans R Manheim (New Haven YaleUniversity Press 1959) p 3Einfuhrung in die Metaphysik (Tubingen M Niemeyer1953) p 2

10 See Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations 3rd ed trans G E M Anscombe(New York Macmillan 1968) sect 217 p 85

11 See also Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 170GA9 p 222 lsquoThe essenceof ldquoeducationrdquo is grounded in the essence of ldquotruthrdquorsquo

12 See Heidegger Nietzsche Nihilism ed David Krell trans F Capuzzi (New York Harperamp Row 1982) p 205Nietzsche (Pfullingen Neske 1961) vol II p 343

13 Eventually either a new ontotheology emerges (perhaps as Kuhn suggests out of theinvestigation of those lsquoanomalousrsquo entities which resist being understood in terms of thedominant ontotheology) or else our underlying conception of the being of all entities wouldbe brought into line with this spreading ontotheology Although this latter alternative hasnever yet occurred Heidegger calls it lsquothe greatest dangerrsquo he is worried that ourNietzschean ontotheology could become totalizing lsquodriving out every other possibility ofrevealingrsquo by overwriting Daseinrsquos lsquospecial naturersquo our de ning capacity for world-disclosure with the lsquototal thoughtlessnessrsquo of a merely instrumental lsquocalculative reasoningrsquo See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo op cit p 27 HeideggerDiscourse on Thinking trans J Anderson and E Freund (New York Harper amp Row1966) p 56

14 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo ibid pp 16ndash2015 See esp Friedrich Nietzsche The Will To Power ed and trans Walter Kaufmann (New

York Random House 1967) pp 549ndash50 Here Nietzsche clearly conceives of beings assuch as will to power and of the way the totality exists as eternally recurring Nor canHeideggerrsquos controversial reading be rejected simply by excluding this problematic text onthe basis of its politically compromised ancestry since Nietzschersquos ontotheology can alsobe found in his other works

16 Heidegger lsquoNihilism as Determined by the History of Beingrsquo Nietzsche Nihilism op citpp 199ndash250

17 See Heidegger Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) trans P Emad and K Maly(Bloomington IN Indiana University Press 1999) p 95Beitrage zur Philosophie (Vom

Heidegger on Ontological Education 263

The elds of science are widely separated Their ways of handling the objects of theirinquiries differ fundamentally Today only the technical organization of universitiesand faculties consolidates this multiplicity of dispersed disciplines only throughpractical and instrumental goals do they maintain any meaning The rootedness of thesciences in their essential ground has dried up and died2 2

Here in 1929 Heidegger accurately describes the predicament of thatinstitution which almost half a century later Clark Kerr would satiricallylabel the lsquoMulti-versityrsquo an internally fragmented Uni-versity-in-name-onlywhere the sole communal unity stems from a common grievance aboutparking spaces23 Historically as the modern university loses sight of theshared goals which originally justi ed the endeavors of the academiccommunity as a whole (at rst the common pursuit of the uni ed lsquosystemrsquo ofknowledge then the communal dedication to the formation of cultivatedindividuals) its members begin to look outside the university for somepurpose to give meaning to lives of research Since only those disciplines (orsub-disciplines) able to produce instrumentally useful results regularly ndsuch external support all disciplines increasingly try to present themselves interms of their use-value Without a counter-ideal students too will adopt thisinstrumental mentality coming to see education merely as a means to anincreased salary down the road In this way fragmentation leads to theprofessionalization of the university and eventually its deterioration intovocationalism At the same time moreover the different disciplines lackingany shared substantive sense of a unifying purpose or common subject-matter tend by the logic of specialization to develop internal standardsappropriate to their particular object-domains As these domains becomeincreasingly specialized these internal standards become ever moredisparate if not simply incommensurable In this way disciplinaryfragmentation leaves the university without common standards ndash other thanthe now ubiquitous but entirely empty and formal ideal of excellence

Following in Heideggerrsquos footsteps critics such as Bill Readings andTimothy Clark show how our contemporary lsquouniversity of excellencersquo owingto lsquothe very emptiness of the idea of excellencersquo is lsquobecoming an excellentbureaucratic corporationrsquo lsquogeared to no higher idea than its own maximizedself-perpetuation according to optimal inputoutput ratiosrsquo24 Such diagnosesmake clear that the development of our educational institutions continues tofollow the underlying metaphysical logic of enframing the progressivetransformation of all entities into mere resources to be optimizedUnfortunately these critics fail to recognize this underlying ontohistoricallogic and so offer diagnoses without cures Indeed Readingsrsquo materialistexplanation for the historical obsolescence of Bildung as the unifying ideal ofthe modern university (the result of an lsquoimplacable bourgeois economicrevolutionrsquo) leads him to succumb to a cynicism in which future denizens ofthe university can hope for nothing more than lsquopragmaticrsquo situational

Heidegger on Ontological Education 251

responses in an environment increasingly transformed by lsquothe logic ofconsumerismrsquo25 While such critiques of the university convincingly extendand update aspects of Heideggerrsquos analysis they lack his philosophical visionfor a revitalizing reuni cation of the university

To see that Heidegger himself did not relinquish all hope for the future ofhigher education we need only attend carefully to the performativedimension of his lsquoInaugural Lecturersquo On the surface it may seem as ifHeidegger welcomed fully into the arms of the university rather perverselyuses his celebratory lecture to pronounce the death of the institution which hasjust hired him proclaiming that lsquoThe rootedness of the sciences in theiressential ground has dried up and diedrsquo Yet with this deliberate provocationHeidegger is not beating a dead horse his pronouncement that the universityis dead at its roots implies that it is fated to wither and decay unless it isrevivi ed reinvigorated from the root Heidegger uses this organic metaphorof lsquorootednessrsquo (Verwurzelung) to put into effect what Derrida (who willrestage this scene himself) recognizes as lsquoa phoenix motifrsquo lsquoOne burns orburies what is already dead so that life will be reborn and regenerated fromthese ashesrsquo26 Indeed Heidegger begins to outline his program for arenaissance of the university in the lecturersquos conclusion Existence isdetermined by science but science itself remains rooted in metaphysicswhether it realizes it or not Since the roots of the university are metaphysicala reinstauration of the scienti c lifeworld requires a renewed attention to thisunderlying metaphysical dimension lsquoOnly if science exists on the basis ofmetaphysics can it achieve anew its essential task which is not to amass andclassify bits of knowledge but to disclose in ever-renewed fashion the entireexpanse of truth in nature and historyrsquo27

What exactly is Heidegger proposing here To understand his vision for arebirth of the university we need to turn to a text he began writing the nextyear lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo28 Here tracing the ontohistorical roots ofour educational crisis back to Platorsquos cave Heidegger (quite literally)excavates an alternative

III Heideggerrsquos Return to Platorsquos Cave Ontological Education asthe Essence of Paideia

Plato seeks to show that the essence of paideia does notconsist in merely pouring knowledge into the unpreparedsoul as if it were a container held out empty and waitingOn the contrary real education lays hold of the soul itselfand transforms it in its entirety by rst of all leading us tothe place of our essential being and accustoming us toit2 9

252 Iain Thomson

Our contemporary educational crisis can be understood as an ontohistoricaldissolution of Platorsquos original conception of education Heidegger contendsso the deconstructive recovery of this lsquoessence of paideiarsquo is crucial tosuccessfully resolving the crisis A deeply resonant Greek word paideiameans lsquocivilizationrsquo lsquoculturersquo lsquodevelopmentrsquo lsquotraditionrsquo lsquoliteraturersquo andlsquoeducationrsquo thus it encompasses what to our ears seems to be a rather widerange of semantic frequencies30 Heidegger was deeply drawn to the wordnot only because thanks largely to Werner Jaeger it served as a key term inthat intersection of German academic and political life which Heideggersought to occupy during the 1930s but also because he had an undeniablefondness for what (with a wink to Freud) we could call the polysemicperversity of language that is the fortuitous ambiguities and unpredictableinterconnections which help form the warp and weave of its semantic webRecognizing that such rich language tends to resist the analystrsquos pursuit of anunambiguous exactness Heidegger argued that lsquorigorousrsquo philosophicalprecision calls instead for an attempt to do justice to this semantic richness31

Yet as Gadamer and Derrida have shown this demand for us to do justiceto language is aporetic ndash a lsquonecessary impossibilityrsquo ndash since the holism ofmeaning renders the attempt ultimately impossible not only practically (for nite beings like ourselves who cannot follow all the strands in the semanticweb at once) but also in principle (despite our Borgesian dreams of acomplete hypertext which would exhaustively represent the semantic web adream even the vaunted lsquoworld-wide webrsquo barely inches toward realizing)This unful llable call for the philosopher to do justice to language isnevertheless ethical in the Kantian sense it constitutes a regulative idealorienting our progress while remaining unreachable like a guiding star It isalso and for Heidegger more primordially lsquoethos-icalrsquo (so to speak) sincesuch a call can be answered lsquoauthenticallyrsquo only if it is taken up existentiallyand embodied in an ethos a way of being In Being and Time Heideggerdescribes the called-for comportment as Ent-schlossenheit lsquodis-closednessor re-solversquo later he will teach it as Gelassenheit lsquoreleasement or letting-bersquo32 Ent-schlossenheit and Gelassenheit are not of course simplyequivalent terms releasement evolves out of resolve through a series ofintermediary formulations and notably lacks resolversquos voluntarism But bothentail a responsive hermeneutic receptivity (whether existential or phenom-enological) and both designate comportments whereby we embodyre exively an understanding of what we are ontologically namely Da-sein lsquobeing [the] therersquo a making intelligible of the place in which we ndourselves

Such considerations allow us to see that we are the place to whichHeidegger is referring ndash in the epigraph above this section ndash when he writesthat lsquoreal education lays hold of the soul itself and transforms it in its entiretyby rst of all leading us to the place of our essential being [Wesensort] and

Heidegger on Ontological Education 253

accustoming us to itrsquo As this epigraph shows Heidegger believes he hasful lled the ethical dictate to do justice to language by recovering lsquotheessence of paideiarsquo the ontological carrier wave underlying paideiarsquosmultiple semantic frequencies Ventriloquizing Plato Heidegger deploys thisnotion of the essence of paideia in order to oppose two conceptions ofeducation He warns rst against a lsquofalse interpretationrsquo We cannotunderstand education as the transmission of lsquoinformationrsquo the lling of thepsyche with knowledge as if inscribing a tabula rasa or in morecontemporary parlance lsquotraining-uprsquo a neural net This understanding ofeducation is false because (in the terms of Being and Time) we are lsquothrownrsquobeings lsquoalways alreadyrsquo shaped by a tradition we can never lsquoget behindrsquo andso we cannot be blank slates or lsquoempty containersrsquo waiting to be lled33

Indeed this lsquoreductive and atrophiedrsquo misconception of education as thetransmission of information re ects the nihilistic logic of enframing thatontohistorical trend by which intelligibility is lsquoleveled out into the uniformstorage of informationrsquo34 Yet here again we face a situation in which as theproblem gets worse we become less likely to recognize it the lsquoimpactrsquo of thisontological drift toward meaninglessness can lsquobarely be noticed bycontemporary humanity because they are continually covered over with thelatest informationrsquo35

Against this self-insulating but lsquofalse interpretationrsquo of educationHeidegger advances his conception of lsquoreal or genuine educationrsquo (echteBildung) the lsquoessence of paideiarsquo Drawing on the allegory of the cave ndashwhich lsquoillustrates the essence of ldquoeducationrdquo [paideia]rsquo (as Plato claims at thebeginning of Book VII of the Republic) ndash Heidegger seeks to effect nothingless than a re-ontologizing revolution in our understanding of education36

Recall Heideggerrsquos succinct and powerful formulation lsquoReal education layshold of the soul itself and transforms it in its entirety by rst of all leading usto the place of our essential being and accustoming [eingewohnt] us to itrsquoGenuine education leads us back to ourselves to the place we are (the Da ofour Sein) teaches us lsquoto dwellrsquo (wohnen) lsquotherersquo and transforms us in theprocess This transformative journey to ourselves is not a ight away from theworld into thought but a re exive return to the fundamental lsquorealm of thehuman sojournrsquo (Aufenthaltsbezirk des Menschen)37 The goal of thiseducational odyssey is simple but literally revolutionary to bring us fullcircle back to ourselves rst by turning us away from the world in which weare most immediately immersed then by turning us back to this world in amore re exive way As Heidegger explains lsquoPaideia means the turningaround of the whole human being in the sense of displacing them out of theregion of immediate encountering and accustoming them to another realm inwhich beings appearrsquo38

How can we accomplish such an ontological revolution in education Whatare the pedagogical methods of this alternative conception of education And

254 Iain Thomson

how nally can this ontological conception of education help us overturn theenframing of education

1 Ontological Education Against Enframing

In lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo Heideggerrsquos exposition is complicated by thefact that he is simultaneously explicating his own positive understanding oflsquoeducationrsquo and critiquing an important transformation in the history of lsquotruthrsquoinaugurated by Plato the transition from truth understood as aletheiaphenomenological lsquounhiddennessrsquo to orthotes the lsquocorrectnessrsquo of anassertion From this lsquoambiguity in Platorsquos doctrinersquo in which lsquotruth still isat one and the same time unhiddenness and correctnessrsquo the subsequenttradition will develop only the orthotic understanding of truth at the expenseof the aletheiac39 In so doing we lose lsquothe original essence of truthrsquo themanifestation of beings themselves and come to understand truth solely as afeature of our own representational capacities According to Heidegger thisdisplacement of the locus of truth from being to human subjectivity paves theway for that metaphysical humanism (or subjectivism) in which the lsquoessenceof paideiarsquo will be eclipsed allowing lsquoeducationrsquo to be absorbed byenframing becoming merely a means for lsquobringing ldquohuman beingsrdquo to theliberation of their possibilities the certitude of their destination and thesecuring of their ldquolivingrdquorsquo40

Despite some dramatic rhetorical ourishes however Heidegger has notentirely given up on lsquoeducationrsquo (Bildung) He dismisses the modernunderstanding of Bildung (the deliberate cultivation of lsquosubjective qualitiesrsquo)as a lsquomisinterpretation to which the notion fell victim in the nineteenthcenturyrsquo yet maintains that once Bildung is lsquogiven back its original namingpowerrsquo it is the word which lsquocomes closest to capturing the [meaning of the]word paideiarsquo Bildung is literally ambiguous Heidegger tells us its lsquonamingforcersquo drives in two directions

What lsquoBildungrsquo expresses is twofold rst Bildung means forming [Bilden] in thesense of impressing a character that unfolds But at the same time this lsquoformingrsquo[lsquoBildenrsquo ] lsquoformsrsquo [lsquobildetrsquo ] (or impresses a character) by antecedently taking itsmeasure from some measure-giving vision which for that reason is called the pre-conception [Vor-bild]

lsquoThusrsquo Heidegger concludes lsquoldquoeducationrdquo [ldquoBildungrdquo] means impressing acharacter especially as guiding by a pre-conceptionrsquo41

Few would quibble with the rst claim education stamps us with acharacter which unfolds within us But what forms the lsquostamprsquo which formsus Who educates the educators According to Heidegger the answer to thisquestion is built into the very meaning of paideia it is the second sense he

Heidegger on Ontological Education 255

lsquorestoresrsquo to Bildung To further lsquounfoldrsquo these two senses of lsquoeducationrsquoHeidegger immediately introduces the contrast class lsquothe contrary of paideiais apaideusia lack of education [Bildunglosigkeit] where no fundamentalcomportment is awakened no measure-giving preconception establishedrsquo42

This helpfully clari es Heideggerrsquos rst claim It is by awakening alsquofundamental comportmentrsquo that education stamps us with a character thatunfolds within us In the educational situation ndash a situation without pre-delimitable boundaries indeed a situation the boundaries of whichHeidegger ceaselessly seeks to expand (for he holds that lsquopaideia isessentially a movement of passage from apaideusia to paideiarsquo such thateducation is not something that can ever be completed) ndash the lsquofundamentalcomportmentrsquo perhaps most frequently called for is not the heroic Ent-schlossenheit nor even the gentler Gelassenheit but rather a more basic formof receptive spontaneity Heidegger will simply call hearing or hearkening(horen) that is (as we will see) an attentive and responsive way of dwellingin onersquos environment But whether the comportment implicitly guidingeducation is lsquoresolutenessrsquo lsquoreleasementrsquo lsquohearingrsquo or that anxiety-tranquillizing hurry which generally characterizes contemporary life dependson the second sense of Bildung which remains puzzling From where do wederive the measure-giving vision which implicitly informs all genuineeducation

Heideggerrsquos answer is complicated let us recall by the fact that he is bothelaborating his own philosophy of education (as it were) and performing acritical exegesis of Platorsquos decisive metaphysical contribution to lsquothe historythat we arersquo the history of metaphysics These two aims are in tension withone another because the education Heidegger seeks to impart ndash thefundamental attunement he would awaken in his students ndash is itself anattempt to awaken us from the ontological education that we have lsquoalwaysalreadyrsquo received from the metaphysical tradition For this generallyunnoticed antecedent measure comes to us from metaphysics from theontotheologically conceived understanding of the being of beings In shortHeidegger seeks to educate his students against their pre-existingontotheological education (He will sometimes call this educating-against-education simply lsquoteachingrsquo) The crucial question then is How canHeideggerrsquos ontological education combat the metaphysical education wehave always already received

2 The Pedagogy of Ontological Freedom

Heideggerrsquos suggestions about how the ontological education he advocatescan transcend enframing are surprisingly speci c Recall that in Platorsquosallegory the prisoner (1) begins in captivity within the cave (2) escapes thechains and turns around to discover the re and objects responsible for the

256 Iain Thomson

shadows on the wall previously taken as reality then (3) ascends from thecave into the light of the outside world coming to understand what is seenthere as made possible by the light of the sun and (4) nally returns to thecave taking up the struggle to free the other prisoners (who violently resisttheir would-be liberator) For Heidegger this well-known scenario suggeststhe pedagogy of ontological education On his remarkable interpretation theprisonerrsquos lsquofour different dwelling placesrsquo communicate the four successivestages whereby ontological education breaks studentsrsquo bondage to thetechnological mode of revealing freeing them to understand what-isdifferently

When studentsrsquo ontological educations begin they lsquoare engrossed in whatthey immediately encounterrsquo taking the shadows cast by the re on the wallto be the ultimate reality of things Yet this lsquo rersquo is only lsquoman-madersquo thelsquoconfusingrsquo light it casts represents enframingrsquos ontologically reductive modeof revealing Here in this rst stage all entities show up to students merely asresources to be optimized including the students themselves Thus if pressedstudents will ultimately lsquojustifyrsquo even their education itself merely as a meansto making more money getting the most out of their potentials or some otherequally empty optimization imperative Stage two is only reached when astudentrsquos lsquogaze is freed from its captivity to shadowsrsquo this happens when astudent recognizes lsquothe rersquo (enframing) as the source of lsquothe shadowsrsquo(entities understood as mere resources) In stage two the metaphysical chainsof enframing are thus broken But how does this liberation occur Despite theimportance of this question Heidegger answers it only in an aside lsquoto turnonersquos gaze from the shadows to entities as they show themselves withinthe glow of the relight is dif cult and failsrsquo43 His point I take it is thatentities do not show themselves as they are when forced into the meta-physical mould of enframing the ontotheology which reduces them to mereresources to be optimized Students can be led to this realization through aguided investigation of the being of any entity which they will tend tounderstand only as eternally recurring will-to-power that is as forcesendlessly coming together and breaking apart Because this metaphysicalunderstanding dissolves being into becoming the attempt to see entities asthey are in its light is doomed to failure resources have no being they arelsquoconstantly becomingrsquo (as Nietzsche realized) With this recognition ndash and theanxiety it tends to induce ndash students can attain a negative freedom fromenframing

Still Heidegger insists that lsquoreal freedomrsquo lsquoeffective freedomrsquo (wirklicheFreiheit) ndash the positive freedom in which students realize that entities aremore than mere resources and so become free for understanding themotherwise ndash lsquois attained only in stage three in which someone who has beenunchained is conveyed outside the cave ldquointo the openrdquorsquo (Notice the implicitreference to someone doing the unchaining and conveying here for

Heidegger on Ontological Education 257

Heidegger the educator plays a crucial role facilitating studentsrsquo passagebetween each of the stages) The open is one of Heideggerrsquos names for lsquobeingas suchrsquo that is for lsquowhat appears antecedently in everything that appears and makes whatever appears be accessiblersquo44 The attainment of ndash or bettercomportmental attunement to ndash this lsquoopenrsquo is what Heidegger famously callslsquodwellingrsquo45 When such positive ontological freedom is achieved lsquowhatthings are no longer appear merely in the man-made and confusing glow ofthe re within the cave The things themselves stand there in the binding forceand validity of their own visible formrsquo46 Ontological freedom is achievedwhen entities show themselves in their full phenomenological richness Thegoal of the third stage of ontological education then is to teach students tolsquodwellrsquo to help attune them to the being of entities and thus to teach them tosee that the being of an entity ndash be it a book cup rose or to use a particularlysalient example they themselves ndash cannot be fully understood in theontologically-reductive terms of enframing47

With the attainment of this crucial third stage Heideggerrsquos lsquogenuinersquoontological education may seem to have reached its completion since lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo48 This claim that genuineeducation teaches students to recognize lsquoessencesrsquo is not merely a Platonicconceit but plays an absolutely crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for areuni cation of the university (as we will see in the conclusion) Neverthelessontological education reaches its true culmination only in the fourth stage thereturn to the cave Heidegger clearly understood his own role as a teacher interms of just such a return that is as a struggle to free ontologicallyanaesthetized enframers from their bondage to a self-reifying mode ofontological revealing49 But his ranking of the return to the cave as the higheststage of ontological education is not merely an evangelistic call for others toadopt his vision of education as a revolution in consciousness it also re ectshis recognition that in ontological education learning culminates in teachingWe must thus ask What is called lsquoteachingrsquo

3 What Is Called Teaching

The English lsquoteachrsquo comes from the same linguistic family as the Germanverb zeigen lsquoto point or showrsquo50 As this etymology suggests to teach is toreveal to point out or make manifest through words But to reveal whatWhat does the teacher who lsquopoints outrsquo (or reveals) with words point to (orindicate)51 What do teachers teach The question seems to presuppose thatall teaching shares a common lsquosubject-matterrsquo not simply a shared method orgoal (the inculcation of critical thinking persuasive writing and the like) butsomething more substantive a common subject-matter unifying the Uni-versity Of course all teachers use words to disclose but to disclose a common

258 Iain Thomson

subject-matter How could such a supposition not sound absurd to usprofessional denizens of a postmodern polyversity where relentless hyper-specialization continues to fragment our subjects and even re-unifying forceslike interdisciplinarity seem to thrive only in so far they open new sub-specialties for a relentless vascular-to-capillary colonization of the scienti clifeworld In such a situation is it surprising that the Heideggerian idea of allteachers ultimately sharing a uni ed subject sounds absurd or at best like anoutdated myth ndash albeit the myth that founded the modern university But isthe idea of such a shared subject-matter a myth What do teachers teach Letus approach this question from what might at rst seem to be anotherdirection attempting to learn its answer

If teaching is revealing through words then conversely learning isexperiencing what a teacherrsquos words reveal That is to learn is actively toallow oneself to share in what the teacherrsquos words disclose But again whatdo the teacherrsquos words reveal We will notice if we read closely enough thatHeidegger answers this question in 1951 when he writes lsquoTo learn means tomake everything we do answer to whatever essentials address us at a giventimersquo52 Here it might sound at rst as if Heidegger is simply claimingthat learning as the complement of teaching means actively allowing oneselfto share in that which the teacherrsquos words disclose But Wittgenstein used tosay that philosophy is like a bicycle race the point of which is to go as slowlyas possible without falling off and if we slow down we will notice thatHeideggerrsquos words ndash the words of a teacher who would teach what learningmeans (in fact the performative situation is even more complex)53ndash saymore Learning means actively allowing ourselves to respond to what isessential in that which always addresses us that which has always alreadyclaimed us

In a sense then learning means responding appropriately to thesolicitations of the environment Of course Heidegger is thinking of theontological environment (the way in which what-is discloses itself to us)but even ontic analogues show that this capacity to respond appropriately tothe environment is quite dif cult to learn We learn to respond appropriatelyto environmental solicitations through a long process of trial and error Wemust in other words learn how to learn Here problems abound for it isnot clear that learning to learn can be taught To the analytically minded thisdemand seems to lead to a regress (for if we need to learn to learn then weneed to learn to learn to learn and so on) But logic misleads phenomenologyhere as Heidegger realized it is simply a question of jumping into thispedagogical circle in the right way Such a train of thought leads Heidegger toclaim that if lsquoteaching is even more dif cult than learningrsquo this is onlybecause the teacher must be an exemplary learner capable of teaching his orher students to learn that is capable of learning-in-public activelyresponding to the emerging demands of each unique educational situation

Heidegger on Ontological Education 259

Recall the famous passage

Why is teaching more dif cult than learning Not because the teacher must have alarger store of information and have it always ready Teaching is more dif cult thanlearning because what teaching calls for is this to let learn The real teacher in factlets nothing else be learned than learning The teacher is ahead of his apprentices inthis alone that he has still far more to learn than they ndash he has to learn to let themlearn The teacher must be capable of being more teachable than his apprentices5 4

The teacher teaches students to learn ndash to respond appropriately to thesolicitations of the ontological environment ndash by responding appropriately tothe solicitations of his or her environment which is after all the studentsrsquoenvironment too Learning culminates in teaching then because teaching isthe highest form of learning unlike lsquoinstructingrsquo (belehren) lsquoteachingrsquo(lehren) is ultimately a lsquoletting learnrsquo (lernen lassen) lsquoThe true teacher isahead of the students only in that he has more to learn than they namely theletting learn (To learn [means] to bring what we do and allow into a co-respondence [or a suitable response Entsprechung] with that which in eachcase grants itself to us as the essential)rsquo55

This last assertion should remind us of Heideggerrsquos earlier claim that lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo56 I said previously that thisclaim plays a crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for a reuni cation of theuniversity By way of conclusion let us brie y develop this claim and therebyfurther elaborate Heideggerrsquos positive vision for the future of highereducation

IV Conclusion Envisioning a University of Teachers

How can Heideggerrsquos understanding of ontological education help us restoresubstance to our currently empty guiding ideal of educational lsquoexcellencersquoand in so doing provide the contemporary university with a renewed sense ofunity not only restoring substance to our shared commitment to formingexcellent students but also helping us recognize the sense in which we are infact all working on the same project The answer is surprisingly simple Byre-essentializing the notion of excellence Heidegger like Aristotle is aperfectionist he argues that there is a distinctive human essence and that thegood life the life of lsquoexcellencersquo (arete) is the life spent cultivating thisdistinctively human essence For Heidegger as we have seen the humanlsquoessencersquo is Dasein lsquobeing-therersquo that is the making-intelligible of the placein which we nd ourselves or even more simply world disclosing For aworld-disclosing being to cultivate its essence then is for it to recognize and

260 Iain Thomson

develop this essence not only acknowledging its participation in the creationand maintenance of an intelligible world but actively embracing itsontological role in such world disclosure The full rami cations of thisseemingly simple insight are profound and revolutionary57 We will restrictourselves to brie y developing the two most important implications ofHeideggerrsquos re-essentialization of excellence for the future of the university

Heideggerrsquos ontological conception of education would transform theexisting relations between teaching and research on the one hand andbetween the now fragmented departments on the other Thus in effectHeidegger dedicates himself nally to redeeming the two central ideals whichguided the formation of the modern university Teaching and research shouldbe harmoniously integrated and the university community should understanditself as committed to a common substantive task58 How does Heideggerthink he can help us nally achieve such ambitions First his conception oflsquoteachingrsquo would reunite research and teaching because when studentsdevelop the aforementioned lsquoinsight into essencersquo they are being taught todisclose and investigate the ontological presuppositions which underlie allresearch on Heideggerrsquos view For todayrsquos academic departments are what hecalls lsquopositive sciencesrsquo that is they all rest on ontological lsquopositsrsquoontological assumptions about what the class of entities they study areBiology for example allows us to understand the logos of the bios the orderand structure of living beings Nevertheless Heidegger asserts biologyproper cannot tell us what life is59 Instead biology takes over its implicitontological understanding of what life is from the metaphysical under-standing governing our Nietzschean epoch of enframing (When contempor-ary philosophers of biology claim that life is lsquoa self-replicating systemrsquo theyhave unknowingly adopted the basic ontological presupposition ofNietzschersquos metaphysics according to which life is ultimately the eternalrecurrence of will to power that is sheer will-to-will unlimited self-augmentation)60 Analogously psychology can tell us a great deal about howconsciousness (the psyche) functions but it cannot tell us what consciousnessis The same holds true for the understanding of lsquothe corporeality of bodiesthe vegetable character of plants the animality of animals and the humannessof humanityrsquo within physics botany zoology and anthropology respec-tively these sciences all presuppose an ontological posit a pre-understandingof the being of the class of entities they study61 Heideggerrsquos ontologicallyreconceived notion of teaching is inextricably entwined with research thenbecause ontological education teaches students to question the veryontological presuppositions which guide research thereby opening a spacefor understanding the being of the entities they study otherwise than inenframingrsquos ontologically reductive terms Heideggerrsquos reconceptualizationof education would thus encourage revolutionary transformations in thesciences and humanities by teaching students to focus on and explicitly

Heidegger on Ontological Education 261

investigate the ontological presuppositions which implicitly guide research ineach domain of knowledge

Despite such revolutionary goals Heidegger thought that his ontologicalreconceptualization of education could also restore a substantive sense ofunity to the university community if only this community could learn lsquotoengage in [this lsquore ection on the essential foundationsrsquo] as re ection and tothink and belong to the university from the base of this engagementrsquo62 Fromits founding one of the major concerns about the modern university has beenhow it could maintain the unity of structure and purpose thought to bede nitive of the lsquoUni-versityrsquo as such German Idealists like Fichte andSchelling believed that this unity would follow organically from the totalityof the system of knowledge But this faith in the system proved to be far lessin uential on posterity than Humboldtrsquos alternative lsquohumanistrsquo idealaccording to which the universityrsquos unity would come from a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of character Humboldtrsquos famousidea was to link lsquoobjective Wissenschaft with subjective Bildungrsquo theuniversity would be responsible for forming fully-cultivated individuals arequirement Humboldt hoped would serve to guide and unify the newfreedom of research Historically of course neither the German Idealistsrsquoreliance on the unity of research nor Humboldtrsquos emphasis on a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of students succeeded in unifyingthe university community In effect however Heideggerrsquos re-ontologizationof education would combine (his versions of) these two strategies Theuniversity community would be uni ed both by its shared commitment toforming excellent individuals (where excellence is understood in terms of theontological perfectionism outlined above) and by the shared recognition onthe part of this community that its members are all committed to the samesubstantive pursuit The ultimately revolutionary task not simply ofunderstanding what is but of investigating the ontological presuppositionsimplicitly guiding all the various elds of knowledge Heidegger thusbelieved that ontological education by restoring substance to the notion ofexcellence and so teaching us lsquoto disclose the essential in all thingsrsquo could nally succeed in lsquoshattering the encapsulation of the sciences in theirdifferent disciplines and bringing them back from their boundless and aimlessdispersal in individual elds and cornersrsquo6364

NOTES

1 See Heidegger Being and Time (New York Harper amp Row 1962) trans J Macquarrie andE Robinson p 44 Sein und Zeit (Tubingen M Niemeyer 1993) p 22

2 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo in William McNeill (ed) Pathmarks(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998) p 167Heidegger Wegmarken 3rd edGesamtausgabe vol 9 (Frankfurt aM V Klostermann 1996) (hereafter GA9) p 218(On my translation of this title see note 28 below) I am aware that the preceding sentence

262 Iain Thomson

ominously echoes the title of Nietzschersquos politically compromised and deeply problematicearly lectures lsquoOn the Future of Our Educational Institutionsrsquo (which culminate with a callfor a lsquogreat Fuhrerrsquo [see Nietzsche On the Future of Our Educational Institutions in OLevy (ed) The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Edinburgh T N Foulis 1909)vol 6 Jacques Derrida The Ear of the Other ed C V McDonald trans Kamuf andRonell (New York Shocken Books 1985) p 28]) I bracket such political connectionshere but a complementary essay examines the darker side of Heideggerrsquos philosophicalcritique of education showing that it played a central role in his decision to join with theNazis in the early 1930s see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo(forthcoming)

3 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo ibid p 167GA9 p 2184 See Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

1980) On Heideggerrsquos distinctive understanding of lsquoessencersquo see my lsquoWhatrsquos Wrong withBeing a Technological Essentialist A Response to Feenbergrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 429ndash44

5 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo in The Question ConcerningTechnology and Other Essays trans W Lovitt (New York Harper amp Row 1977) p 4ibid pp 30ndash31

6 Cf Feenbergrsquos Hegelian misinterpretation of Heideggerrsquos understanding of essence in lsquoTheOntic and the Ontological in Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Technology Response toThomsonrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 445ndash50

7 Heidegger lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo op cit p 145GA9 p 1898 Ibid pp 145ndash46 (my italics)GA9 p 190 I am of necessity simplifying Heideggerrsquos

complex account here but see my lsquoOntotheology Understanding Heideggerrsquos Destruktionof Metaphysicsrsquo International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (October 2000) pp 297ndash327

9 See Heidegger An Introduction to Metaphysics trans R Manheim (New Haven YaleUniversity Press 1959) p 3Einfuhrung in die Metaphysik (Tubingen M Niemeyer1953) p 2

10 See Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations 3rd ed trans G E M Anscombe(New York Macmillan 1968) sect 217 p 85

11 See also Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 170GA9 p 222 lsquoThe essenceof ldquoeducationrdquo is grounded in the essence of ldquotruthrdquorsquo

12 See Heidegger Nietzsche Nihilism ed David Krell trans F Capuzzi (New York Harperamp Row 1982) p 205Nietzsche (Pfullingen Neske 1961) vol II p 343

13 Eventually either a new ontotheology emerges (perhaps as Kuhn suggests out of theinvestigation of those lsquoanomalousrsquo entities which resist being understood in terms of thedominant ontotheology) or else our underlying conception of the being of all entities wouldbe brought into line with this spreading ontotheology Although this latter alternative hasnever yet occurred Heidegger calls it lsquothe greatest dangerrsquo he is worried that ourNietzschean ontotheology could become totalizing lsquodriving out every other possibility ofrevealingrsquo by overwriting Daseinrsquos lsquospecial naturersquo our de ning capacity for world-disclosure with the lsquototal thoughtlessnessrsquo of a merely instrumental lsquocalculative reasoningrsquo See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo op cit p 27 HeideggerDiscourse on Thinking trans J Anderson and E Freund (New York Harper amp Row1966) p 56

14 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo ibid pp 16ndash2015 See esp Friedrich Nietzsche The Will To Power ed and trans Walter Kaufmann (New

York Random House 1967) pp 549ndash50 Here Nietzsche clearly conceives of beings assuch as will to power and of the way the totality exists as eternally recurring Nor canHeideggerrsquos controversial reading be rejected simply by excluding this problematic text onthe basis of its politically compromised ancestry since Nietzschersquos ontotheology can alsobe found in his other works

16 Heidegger lsquoNihilism as Determined by the History of Beingrsquo Nietzsche Nihilism op citpp 199ndash250

17 See Heidegger Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) trans P Emad and K Maly(Bloomington IN Indiana University Press 1999) p 95Beitrage zur Philosophie (Vom

Heidegger on Ontological Education 263

responses in an environment increasingly transformed by lsquothe logic ofconsumerismrsquo25 While such critiques of the university convincingly extendand update aspects of Heideggerrsquos analysis they lack his philosophical visionfor a revitalizing reuni cation of the university

To see that Heidegger himself did not relinquish all hope for the future ofhigher education we need only attend carefully to the performativedimension of his lsquoInaugural Lecturersquo On the surface it may seem as ifHeidegger welcomed fully into the arms of the university rather perverselyuses his celebratory lecture to pronounce the death of the institution which hasjust hired him proclaiming that lsquoThe rootedness of the sciences in theiressential ground has dried up and diedrsquo Yet with this deliberate provocationHeidegger is not beating a dead horse his pronouncement that the universityis dead at its roots implies that it is fated to wither and decay unless it isrevivi ed reinvigorated from the root Heidegger uses this organic metaphorof lsquorootednessrsquo (Verwurzelung) to put into effect what Derrida (who willrestage this scene himself) recognizes as lsquoa phoenix motifrsquo lsquoOne burns orburies what is already dead so that life will be reborn and regenerated fromthese ashesrsquo26 Indeed Heidegger begins to outline his program for arenaissance of the university in the lecturersquos conclusion Existence isdetermined by science but science itself remains rooted in metaphysicswhether it realizes it or not Since the roots of the university are metaphysicala reinstauration of the scienti c lifeworld requires a renewed attention to thisunderlying metaphysical dimension lsquoOnly if science exists on the basis ofmetaphysics can it achieve anew its essential task which is not to amass andclassify bits of knowledge but to disclose in ever-renewed fashion the entireexpanse of truth in nature and historyrsquo27

What exactly is Heidegger proposing here To understand his vision for arebirth of the university we need to turn to a text he began writing the nextyear lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo28 Here tracing the ontohistorical roots ofour educational crisis back to Platorsquos cave Heidegger (quite literally)excavates an alternative

III Heideggerrsquos Return to Platorsquos Cave Ontological Education asthe Essence of Paideia

Plato seeks to show that the essence of paideia does notconsist in merely pouring knowledge into the unpreparedsoul as if it were a container held out empty and waitingOn the contrary real education lays hold of the soul itselfand transforms it in its entirety by rst of all leading us tothe place of our essential being and accustoming us toit2 9

252 Iain Thomson

Our contemporary educational crisis can be understood as an ontohistoricaldissolution of Platorsquos original conception of education Heidegger contendsso the deconstructive recovery of this lsquoessence of paideiarsquo is crucial tosuccessfully resolving the crisis A deeply resonant Greek word paideiameans lsquocivilizationrsquo lsquoculturersquo lsquodevelopmentrsquo lsquotraditionrsquo lsquoliteraturersquo andlsquoeducationrsquo thus it encompasses what to our ears seems to be a rather widerange of semantic frequencies30 Heidegger was deeply drawn to the wordnot only because thanks largely to Werner Jaeger it served as a key term inthat intersection of German academic and political life which Heideggersought to occupy during the 1930s but also because he had an undeniablefondness for what (with a wink to Freud) we could call the polysemicperversity of language that is the fortuitous ambiguities and unpredictableinterconnections which help form the warp and weave of its semantic webRecognizing that such rich language tends to resist the analystrsquos pursuit of anunambiguous exactness Heidegger argued that lsquorigorousrsquo philosophicalprecision calls instead for an attempt to do justice to this semantic richness31

Yet as Gadamer and Derrida have shown this demand for us to do justiceto language is aporetic ndash a lsquonecessary impossibilityrsquo ndash since the holism ofmeaning renders the attempt ultimately impossible not only practically (for nite beings like ourselves who cannot follow all the strands in the semanticweb at once) but also in principle (despite our Borgesian dreams of acomplete hypertext which would exhaustively represent the semantic web adream even the vaunted lsquoworld-wide webrsquo barely inches toward realizing)This unful llable call for the philosopher to do justice to language isnevertheless ethical in the Kantian sense it constitutes a regulative idealorienting our progress while remaining unreachable like a guiding star It isalso and for Heidegger more primordially lsquoethos-icalrsquo (so to speak) sincesuch a call can be answered lsquoauthenticallyrsquo only if it is taken up existentiallyand embodied in an ethos a way of being In Being and Time Heideggerdescribes the called-for comportment as Ent-schlossenheit lsquodis-closednessor re-solversquo later he will teach it as Gelassenheit lsquoreleasement or letting-bersquo32 Ent-schlossenheit and Gelassenheit are not of course simplyequivalent terms releasement evolves out of resolve through a series ofintermediary formulations and notably lacks resolversquos voluntarism But bothentail a responsive hermeneutic receptivity (whether existential or phenom-enological) and both designate comportments whereby we embodyre exively an understanding of what we are ontologically namely Da-sein lsquobeing [the] therersquo a making intelligible of the place in which we ndourselves

Such considerations allow us to see that we are the place to whichHeidegger is referring ndash in the epigraph above this section ndash when he writesthat lsquoreal education lays hold of the soul itself and transforms it in its entiretyby rst of all leading us to the place of our essential being [Wesensort] and

Heidegger on Ontological Education 253

accustoming us to itrsquo As this epigraph shows Heidegger believes he hasful lled the ethical dictate to do justice to language by recovering lsquotheessence of paideiarsquo the ontological carrier wave underlying paideiarsquosmultiple semantic frequencies Ventriloquizing Plato Heidegger deploys thisnotion of the essence of paideia in order to oppose two conceptions ofeducation He warns rst against a lsquofalse interpretationrsquo We cannotunderstand education as the transmission of lsquoinformationrsquo the lling of thepsyche with knowledge as if inscribing a tabula rasa or in morecontemporary parlance lsquotraining-uprsquo a neural net This understanding ofeducation is false because (in the terms of Being and Time) we are lsquothrownrsquobeings lsquoalways alreadyrsquo shaped by a tradition we can never lsquoget behindrsquo andso we cannot be blank slates or lsquoempty containersrsquo waiting to be lled33

Indeed this lsquoreductive and atrophiedrsquo misconception of education as thetransmission of information re ects the nihilistic logic of enframing thatontohistorical trend by which intelligibility is lsquoleveled out into the uniformstorage of informationrsquo34 Yet here again we face a situation in which as theproblem gets worse we become less likely to recognize it the lsquoimpactrsquo of thisontological drift toward meaninglessness can lsquobarely be noticed bycontemporary humanity because they are continually covered over with thelatest informationrsquo35

Against this self-insulating but lsquofalse interpretationrsquo of educationHeidegger advances his conception of lsquoreal or genuine educationrsquo (echteBildung) the lsquoessence of paideiarsquo Drawing on the allegory of the cave ndashwhich lsquoillustrates the essence of ldquoeducationrdquo [paideia]rsquo (as Plato claims at thebeginning of Book VII of the Republic) ndash Heidegger seeks to effect nothingless than a re-ontologizing revolution in our understanding of education36

Recall Heideggerrsquos succinct and powerful formulation lsquoReal education layshold of the soul itself and transforms it in its entirety by rst of all leading usto the place of our essential being and accustoming [eingewohnt] us to itrsquoGenuine education leads us back to ourselves to the place we are (the Da ofour Sein) teaches us lsquoto dwellrsquo (wohnen) lsquotherersquo and transforms us in theprocess This transformative journey to ourselves is not a ight away from theworld into thought but a re exive return to the fundamental lsquorealm of thehuman sojournrsquo (Aufenthaltsbezirk des Menschen)37 The goal of thiseducational odyssey is simple but literally revolutionary to bring us fullcircle back to ourselves rst by turning us away from the world in which weare most immediately immersed then by turning us back to this world in amore re exive way As Heidegger explains lsquoPaideia means the turningaround of the whole human being in the sense of displacing them out of theregion of immediate encountering and accustoming them to another realm inwhich beings appearrsquo38

How can we accomplish such an ontological revolution in education Whatare the pedagogical methods of this alternative conception of education And

254 Iain Thomson

how nally can this ontological conception of education help us overturn theenframing of education

1 Ontological Education Against Enframing

In lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo Heideggerrsquos exposition is complicated by thefact that he is simultaneously explicating his own positive understanding oflsquoeducationrsquo and critiquing an important transformation in the history of lsquotruthrsquoinaugurated by Plato the transition from truth understood as aletheiaphenomenological lsquounhiddennessrsquo to orthotes the lsquocorrectnessrsquo of anassertion From this lsquoambiguity in Platorsquos doctrinersquo in which lsquotruth still isat one and the same time unhiddenness and correctnessrsquo the subsequenttradition will develop only the orthotic understanding of truth at the expenseof the aletheiac39 In so doing we lose lsquothe original essence of truthrsquo themanifestation of beings themselves and come to understand truth solely as afeature of our own representational capacities According to Heidegger thisdisplacement of the locus of truth from being to human subjectivity paves theway for that metaphysical humanism (or subjectivism) in which the lsquoessenceof paideiarsquo will be eclipsed allowing lsquoeducationrsquo to be absorbed byenframing becoming merely a means for lsquobringing ldquohuman beingsrdquo to theliberation of their possibilities the certitude of their destination and thesecuring of their ldquolivingrdquorsquo40

Despite some dramatic rhetorical ourishes however Heidegger has notentirely given up on lsquoeducationrsquo (Bildung) He dismisses the modernunderstanding of Bildung (the deliberate cultivation of lsquosubjective qualitiesrsquo)as a lsquomisinterpretation to which the notion fell victim in the nineteenthcenturyrsquo yet maintains that once Bildung is lsquogiven back its original namingpowerrsquo it is the word which lsquocomes closest to capturing the [meaning of the]word paideiarsquo Bildung is literally ambiguous Heidegger tells us its lsquonamingforcersquo drives in two directions

What lsquoBildungrsquo expresses is twofold rst Bildung means forming [Bilden] in thesense of impressing a character that unfolds But at the same time this lsquoformingrsquo[lsquoBildenrsquo ] lsquoformsrsquo [lsquobildetrsquo ] (or impresses a character) by antecedently taking itsmeasure from some measure-giving vision which for that reason is called the pre-conception [Vor-bild]

lsquoThusrsquo Heidegger concludes lsquoldquoeducationrdquo [ldquoBildungrdquo] means impressing acharacter especially as guiding by a pre-conceptionrsquo41

Few would quibble with the rst claim education stamps us with acharacter which unfolds within us But what forms the lsquostamprsquo which formsus Who educates the educators According to Heidegger the answer to thisquestion is built into the very meaning of paideia it is the second sense he

Heidegger on Ontological Education 255

lsquorestoresrsquo to Bildung To further lsquounfoldrsquo these two senses of lsquoeducationrsquoHeidegger immediately introduces the contrast class lsquothe contrary of paideiais apaideusia lack of education [Bildunglosigkeit] where no fundamentalcomportment is awakened no measure-giving preconception establishedrsquo42

This helpfully clari es Heideggerrsquos rst claim It is by awakening alsquofundamental comportmentrsquo that education stamps us with a character thatunfolds within us In the educational situation ndash a situation without pre-delimitable boundaries indeed a situation the boundaries of whichHeidegger ceaselessly seeks to expand (for he holds that lsquopaideia isessentially a movement of passage from apaideusia to paideiarsquo such thateducation is not something that can ever be completed) ndash the lsquofundamentalcomportmentrsquo perhaps most frequently called for is not the heroic Ent-schlossenheit nor even the gentler Gelassenheit but rather a more basic formof receptive spontaneity Heidegger will simply call hearing or hearkening(horen) that is (as we will see) an attentive and responsive way of dwellingin onersquos environment But whether the comportment implicitly guidingeducation is lsquoresolutenessrsquo lsquoreleasementrsquo lsquohearingrsquo or that anxiety-tranquillizing hurry which generally characterizes contemporary life dependson the second sense of Bildung which remains puzzling From where do wederive the measure-giving vision which implicitly informs all genuineeducation

Heideggerrsquos answer is complicated let us recall by the fact that he is bothelaborating his own philosophy of education (as it were) and performing acritical exegesis of Platorsquos decisive metaphysical contribution to lsquothe historythat we arersquo the history of metaphysics These two aims are in tension withone another because the education Heidegger seeks to impart ndash thefundamental attunement he would awaken in his students ndash is itself anattempt to awaken us from the ontological education that we have lsquoalwaysalreadyrsquo received from the metaphysical tradition For this generallyunnoticed antecedent measure comes to us from metaphysics from theontotheologically conceived understanding of the being of beings In shortHeidegger seeks to educate his students against their pre-existingontotheological education (He will sometimes call this educating-against-education simply lsquoteachingrsquo) The crucial question then is How canHeideggerrsquos ontological education combat the metaphysical education wehave always already received

2 The Pedagogy of Ontological Freedom

Heideggerrsquos suggestions about how the ontological education he advocatescan transcend enframing are surprisingly speci c Recall that in Platorsquosallegory the prisoner (1) begins in captivity within the cave (2) escapes thechains and turns around to discover the re and objects responsible for the

256 Iain Thomson

shadows on the wall previously taken as reality then (3) ascends from thecave into the light of the outside world coming to understand what is seenthere as made possible by the light of the sun and (4) nally returns to thecave taking up the struggle to free the other prisoners (who violently resisttheir would-be liberator) For Heidegger this well-known scenario suggeststhe pedagogy of ontological education On his remarkable interpretation theprisonerrsquos lsquofour different dwelling placesrsquo communicate the four successivestages whereby ontological education breaks studentsrsquo bondage to thetechnological mode of revealing freeing them to understand what-isdifferently

When studentsrsquo ontological educations begin they lsquoare engrossed in whatthey immediately encounterrsquo taking the shadows cast by the re on the wallto be the ultimate reality of things Yet this lsquo rersquo is only lsquoman-madersquo thelsquoconfusingrsquo light it casts represents enframingrsquos ontologically reductive modeof revealing Here in this rst stage all entities show up to students merely asresources to be optimized including the students themselves Thus if pressedstudents will ultimately lsquojustifyrsquo even their education itself merely as a meansto making more money getting the most out of their potentials or some otherequally empty optimization imperative Stage two is only reached when astudentrsquos lsquogaze is freed from its captivity to shadowsrsquo this happens when astudent recognizes lsquothe rersquo (enframing) as the source of lsquothe shadowsrsquo(entities understood as mere resources) In stage two the metaphysical chainsof enframing are thus broken But how does this liberation occur Despite theimportance of this question Heidegger answers it only in an aside lsquoto turnonersquos gaze from the shadows to entities as they show themselves withinthe glow of the relight is dif cult and failsrsquo43 His point I take it is thatentities do not show themselves as they are when forced into the meta-physical mould of enframing the ontotheology which reduces them to mereresources to be optimized Students can be led to this realization through aguided investigation of the being of any entity which they will tend tounderstand only as eternally recurring will-to-power that is as forcesendlessly coming together and breaking apart Because this metaphysicalunderstanding dissolves being into becoming the attempt to see entities asthey are in its light is doomed to failure resources have no being they arelsquoconstantly becomingrsquo (as Nietzsche realized) With this recognition ndash and theanxiety it tends to induce ndash students can attain a negative freedom fromenframing

Still Heidegger insists that lsquoreal freedomrsquo lsquoeffective freedomrsquo (wirklicheFreiheit) ndash the positive freedom in which students realize that entities aremore than mere resources and so become free for understanding themotherwise ndash lsquois attained only in stage three in which someone who has beenunchained is conveyed outside the cave ldquointo the openrdquorsquo (Notice the implicitreference to someone doing the unchaining and conveying here for

Heidegger on Ontological Education 257

Heidegger the educator plays a crucial role facilitating studentsrsquo passagebetween each of the stages) The open is one of Heideggerrsquos names for lsquobeingas suchrsquo that is for lsquowhat appears antecedently in everything that appears and makes whatever appears be accessiblersquo44 The attainment of ndash or bettercomportmental attunement to ndash this lsquoopenrsquo is what Heidegger famously callslsquodwellingrsquo45 When such positive ontological freedom is achieved lsquowhatthings are no longer appear merely in the man-made and confusing glow ofthe re within the cave The things themselves stand there in the binding forceand validity of their own visible formrsquo46 Ontological freedom is achievedwhen entities show themselves in their full phenomenological richness Thegoal of the third stage of ontological education then is to teach students tolsquodwellrsquo to help attune them to the being of entities and thus to teach them tosee that the being of an entity ndash be it a book cup rose or to use a particularlysalient example they themselves ndash cannot be fully understood in theontologically-reductive terms of enframing47

With the attainment of this crucial third stage Heideggerrsquos lsquogenuinersquoontological education may seem to have reached its completion since lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo48 This claim that genuineeducation teaches students to recognize lsquoessencesrsquo is not merely a Platonicconceit but plays an absolutely crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for areuni cation of the university (as we will see in the conclusion) Neverthelessontological education reaches its true culmination only in the fourth stage thereturn to the cave Heidegger clearly understood his own role as a teacher interms of just such a return that is as a struggle to free ontologicallyanaesthetized enframers from their bondage to a self-reifying mode ofontological revealing49 But his ranking of the return to the cave as the higheststage of ontological education is not merely an evangelistic call for others toadopt his vision of education as a revolution in consciousness it also re ectshis recognition that in ontological education learning culminates in teachingWe must thus ask What is called lsquoteachingrsquo

3 What Is Called Teaching

The English lsquoteachrsquo comes from the same linguistic family as the Germanverb zeigen lsquoto point or showrsquo50 As this etymology suggests to teach is toreveal to point out or make manifest through words But to reveal whatWhat does the teacher who lsquopoints outrsquo (or reveals) with words point to (orindicate)51 What do teachers teach The question seems to presuppose thatall teaching shares a common lsquosubject-matterrsquo not simply a shared method orgoal (the inculcation of critical thinking persuasive writing and the like) butsomething more substantive a common subject-matter unifying the Uni-versity Of course all teachers use words to disclose but to disclose a common

258 Iain Thomson

subject-matter How could such a supposition not sound absurd to usprofessional denizens of a postmodern polyversity where relentless hyper-specialization continues to fragment our subjects and even re-unifying forceslike interdisciplinarity seem to thrive only in so far they open new sub-specialties for a relentless vascular-to-capillary colonization of the scienti clifeworld In such a situation is it surprising that the Heideggerian idea of allteachers ultimately sharing a uni ed subject sounds absurd or at best like anoutdated myth ndash albeit the myth that founded the modern university But isthe idea of such a shared subject-matter a myth What do teachers teach Letus approach this question from what might at rst seem to be anotherdirection attempting to learn its answer

If teaching is revealing through words then conversely learning isexperiencing what a teacherrsquos words reveal That is to learn is actively toallow oneself to share in what the teacherrsquos words disclose But again whatdo the teacherrsquos words reveal We will notice if we read closely enough thatHeidegger answers this question in 1951 when he writes lsquoTo learn means tomake everything we do answer to whatever essentials address us at a giventimersquo52 Here it might sound at rst as if Heidegger is simply claimingthat learning as the complement of teaching means actively allowing oneselfto share in that which the teacherrsquos words disclose But Wittgenstein used tosay that philosophy is like a bicycle race the point of which is to go as slowlyas possible without falling off and if we slow down we will notice thatHeideggerrsquos words ndash the words of a teacher who would teach what learningmeans (in fact the performative situation is even more complex)53ndash saymore Learning means actively allowing ourselves to respond to what isessential in that which always addresses us that which has always alreadyclaimed us

In a sense then learning means responding appropriately to thesolicitations of the environment Of course Heidegger is thinking of theontological environment (the way in which what-is discloses itself to us)but even ontic analogues show that this capacity to respond appropriately tothe environment is quite dif cult to learn We learn to respond appropriatelyto environmental solicitations through a long process of trial and error Wemust in other words learn how to learn Here problems abound for it isnot clear that learning to learn can be taught To the analytically minded thisdemand seems to lead to a regress (for if we need to learn to learn then weneed to learn to learn to learn and so on) But logic misleads phenomenologyhere as Heidegger realized it is simply a question of jumping into thispedagogical circle in the right way Such a train of thought leads Heidegger toclaim that if lsquoteaching is even more dif cult than learningrsquo this is onlybecause the teacher must be an exemplary learner capable of teaching his orher students to learn that is capable of learning-in-public activelyresponding to the emerging demands of each unique educational situation

Heidegger on Ontological Education 259

Recall the famous passage

Why is teaching more dif cult than learning Not because the teacher must have alarger store of information and have it always ready Teaching is more dif cult thanlearning because what teaching calls for is this to let learn The real teacher in factlets nothing else be learned than learning The teacher is ahead of his apprentices inthis alone that he has still far more to learn than they ndash he has to learn to let themlearn The teacher must be capable of being more teachable than his apprentices5 4

The teacher teaches students to learn ndash to respond appropriately to thesolicitations of the ontological environment ndash by responding appropriately tothe solicitations of his or her environment which is after all the studentsrsquoenvironment too Learning culminates in teaching then because teaching isthe highest form of learning unlike lsquoinstructingrsquo (belehren) lsquoteachingrsquo(lehren) is ultimately a lsquoletting learnrsquo (lernen lassen) lsquoThe true teacher isahead of the students only in that he has more to learn than they namely theletting learn (To learn [means] to bring what we do and allow into a co-respondence [or a suitable response Entsprechung] with that which in eachcase grants itself to us as the essential)rsquo55

This last assertion should remind us of Heideggerrsquos earlier claim that lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo56 I said previously that thisclaim plays a crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for a reuni cation of theuniversity By way of conclusion let us brie y develop this claim and therebyfurther elaborate Heideggerrsquos positive vision for the future of highereducation

IV Conclusion Envisioning a University of Teachers

How can Heideggerrsquos understanding of ontological education help us restoresubstance to our currently empty guiding ideal of educational lsquoexcellencersquoand in so doing provide the contemporary university with a renewed sense ofunity not only restoring substance to our shared commitment to formingexcellent students but also helping us recognize the sense in which we are infact all working on the same project The answer is surprisingly simple Byre-essentializing the notion of excellence Heidegger like Aristotle is aperfectionist he argues that there is a distinctive human essence and that thegood life the life of lsquoexcellencersquo (arete) is the life spent cultivating thisdistinctively human essence For Heidegger as we have seen the humanlsquoessencersquo is Dasein lsquobeing-therersquo that is the making-intelligible of the placein which we nd ourselves or even more simply world disclosing For aworld-disclosing being to cultivate its essence then is for it to recognize and

260 Iain Thomson

develop this essence not only acknowledging its participation in the creationand maintenance of an intelligible world but actively embracing itsontological role in such world disclosure The full rami cations of thisseemingly simple insight are profound and revolutionary57 We will restrictourselves to brie y developing the two most important implications ofHeideggerrsquos re-essentialization of excellence for the future of the university

Heideggerrsquos ontological conception of education would transform theexisting relations between teaching and research on the one hand andbetween the now fragmented departments on the other Thus in effectHeidegger dedicates himself nally to redeeming the two central ideals whichguided the formation of the modern university Teaching and research shouldbe harmoniously integrated and the university community should understanditself as committed to a common substantive task58 How does Heideggerthink he can help us nally achieve such ambitions First his conception oflsquoteachingrsquo would reunite research and teaching because when studentsdevelop the aforementioned lsquoinsight into essencersquo they are being taught todisclose and investigate the ontological presuppositions which underlie allresearch on Heideggerrsquos view For todayrsquos academic departments are what hecalls lsquopositive sciencesrsquo that is they all rest on ontological lsquopositsrsquoontological assumptions about what the class of entities they study areBiology for example allows us to understand the logos of the bios the orderand structure of living beings Nevertheless Heidegger asserts biologyproper cannot tell us what life is59 Instead biology takes over its implicitontological understanding of what life is from the metaphysical under-standing governing our Nietzschean epoch of enframing (When contempor-ary philosophers of biology claim that life is lsquoa self-replicating systemrsquo theyhave unknowingly adopted the basic ontological presupposition ofNietzschersquos metaphysics according to which life is ultimately the eternalrecurrence of will to power that is sheer will-to-will unlimited self-augmentation)60 Analogously psychology can tell us a great deal about howconsciousness (the psyche) functions but it cannot tell us what consciousnessis The same holds true for the understanding of lsquothe corporeality of bodiesthe vegetable character of plants the animality of animals and the humannessof humanityrsquo within physics botany zoology and anthropology respec-tively these sciences all presuppose an ontological posit a pre-understandingof the being of the class of entities they study61 Heideggerrsquos ontologicallyreconceived notion of teaching is inextricably entwined with research thenbecause ontological education teaches students to question the veryontological presuppositions which guide research thereby opening a spacefor understanding the being of the entities they study otherwise than inenframingrsquos ontologically reductive terms Heideggerrsquos reconceptualizationof education would thus encourage revolutionary transformations in thesciences and humanities by teaching students to focus on and explicitly

Heidegger on Ontological Education 261

investigate the ontological presuppositions which implicitly guide research ineach domain of knowledge

Despite such revolutionary goals Heidegger thought that his ontologicalreconceptualization of education could also restore a substantive sense ofunity to the university community if only this community could learn lsquotoengage in [this lsquore ection on the essential foundationsrsquo] as re ection and tothink and belong to the university from the base of this engagementrsquo62 Fromits founding one of the major concerns about the modern university has beenhow it could maintain the unity of structure and purpose thought to bede nitive of the lsquoUni-versityrsquo as such German Idealists like Fichte andSchelling believed that this unity would follow organically from the totalityof the system of knowledge But this faith in the system proved to be far lessin uential on posterity than Humboldtrsquos alternative lsquohumanistrsquo idealaccording to which the universityrsquos unity would come from a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of character Humboldtrsquos famousidea was to link lsquoobjective Wissenschaft with subjective Bildungrsquo theuniversity would be responsible for forming fully-cultivated individuals arequirement Humboldt hoped would serve to guide and unify the newfreedom of research Historically of course neither the German Idealistsrsquoreliance on the unity of research nor Humboldtrsquos emphasis on a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of students succeeded in unifyingthe university community In effect however Heideggerrsquos re-ontologizationof education would combine (his versions of) these two strategies Theuniversity community would be uni ed both by its shared commitment toforming excellent individuals (where excellence is understood in terms of theontological perfectionism outlined above) and by the shared recognition onthe part of this community that its members are all committed to the samesubstantive pursuit The ultimately revolutionary task not simply ofunderstanding what is but of investigating the ontological presuppositionsimplicitly guiding all the various elds of knowledge Heidegger thusbelieved that ontological education by restoring substance to the notion ofexcellence and so teaching us lsquoto disclose the essential in all thingsrsquo could nally succeed in lsquoshattering the encapsulation of the sciences in theirdifferent disciplines and bringing them back from their boundless and aimlessdispersal in individual elds and cornersrsquo6364

NOTES

1 See Heidegger Being and Time (New York Harper amp Row 1962) trans J Macquarrie andE Robinson p 44 Sein und Zeit (Tubingen M Niemeyer 1993) p 22

2 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo in William McNeill (ed) Pathmarks(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998) p 167Heidegger Wegmarken 3rd edGesamtausgabe vol 9 (Frankfurt aM V Klostermann 1996) (hereafter GA9) p 218(On my translation of this title see note 28 below) I am aware that the preceding sentence

262 Iain Thomson

ominously echoes the title of Nietzschersquos politically compromised and deeply problematicearly lectures lsquoOn the Future of Our Educational Institutionsrsquo (which culminate with a callfor a lsquogreat Fuhrerrsquo [see Nietzsche On the Future of Our Educational Institutions in OLevy (ed) The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Edinburgh T N Foulis 1909)vol 6 Jacques Derrida The Ear of the Other ed C V McDonald trans Kamuf andRonell (New York Shocken Books 1985) p 28]) I bracket such political connectionshere but a complementary essay examines the darker side of Heideggerrsquos philosophicalcritique of education showing that it played a central role in his decision to join with theNazis in the early 1930s see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo(forthcoming)

3 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo ibid p 167GA9 p 2184 See Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

1980) On Heideggerrsquos distinctive understanding of lsquoessencersquo see my lsquoWhatrsquos Wrong withBeing a Technological Essentialist A Response to Feenbergrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 429ndash44

5 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo in The Question ConcerningTechnology and Other Essays trans W Lovitt (New York Harper amp Row 1977) p 4ibid pp 30ndash31

6 Cf Feenbergrsquos Hegelian misinterpretation of Heideggerrsquos understanding of essence in lsquoTheOntic and the Ontological in Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Technology Response toThomsonrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 445ndash50

7 Heidegger lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo op cit p 145GA9 p 1898 Ibid pp 145ndash46 (my italics)GA9 p 190 I am of necessity simplifying Heideggerrsquos

complex account here but see my lsquoOntotheology Understanding Heideggerrsquos Destruktionof Metaphysicsrsquo International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (October 2000) pp 297ndash327

9 See Heidegger An Introduction to Metaphysics trans R Manheim (New Haven YaleUniversity Press 1959) p 3Einfuhrung in die Metaphysik (Tubingen M Niemeyer1953) p 2

10 See Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations 3rd ed trans G E M Anscombe(New York Macmillan 1968) sect 217 p 85

11 See also Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 170GA9 p 222 lsquoThe essenceof ldquoeducationrdquo is grounded in the essence of ldquotruthrdquorsquo

12 See Heidegger Nietzsche Nihilism ed David Krell trans F Capuzzi (New York Harperamp Row 1982) p 205Nietzsche (Pfullingen Neske 1961) vol II p 343

13 Eventually either a new ontotheology emerges (perhaps as Kuhn suggests out of theinvestigation of those lsquoanomalousrsquo entities which resist being understood in terms of thedominant ontotheology) or else our underlying conception of the being of all entities wouldbe brought into line with this spreading ontotheology Although this latter alternative hasnever yet occurred Heidegger calls it lsquothe greatest dangerrsquo he is worried that ourNietzschean ontotheology could become totalizing lsquodriving out every other possibility ofrevealingrsquo by overwriting Daseinrsquos lsquospecial naturersquo our de ning capacity for world-disclosure with the lsquototal thoughtlessnessrsquo of a merely instrumental lsquocalculative reasoningrsquo See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo op cit p 27 HeideggerDiscourse on Thinking trans J Anderson and E Freund (New York Harper amp Row1966) p 56

14 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo ibid pp 16ndash2015 See esp Friedrich Nietzsche The Will To Power ed and trans Walter Kaufmann (New

York Random House 1967) pp 549ndash50 Here Nietzsche clearly conceives of beings assuch as will to power and of the way the totality exists as eternally recurring Nor canHeideggerrsquos controversial reading be rejected simply by excluding this problematic text onthe basis of its politically compromised ancestry since Nietzschersquos ontotheology can alsobe found in his other works

16 Heidegger lsquoNihilism as Determined by the History of Beingrsquo Nietzsche Nihilism op citpp 199ndash250

17 See Heidegger Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) trans P Emad and K Maly(Bloomington IN Indiana University Press 1999) p 95Beitrage zur Philosophie (Vom

Heidegger on Ontological Education 263

Our contemporary educational crisis can be understood as an ontohistoricaldissolution of Platorsquos original conception of education Heidegger contendsso the deconstructive recovery of this lsquoessence of paideiarsquo is crucial tosuccessfully resolving the crisis A deeply resonant Greek word paideiameans lsquocivilizationrsquo lsquoculturersquo lsquodevelopmentrsquo lsquotraditionrsquo lsquoliteraturersquo andlsquoeducationrsquo thus it encompasses what to our ears seems to be a rather widerange of semantic frequencies30 Heidegger was deeply drawn to the wordnot only because thanks largely to Werner Jaeger it served as a key term inthat intersection of German academic and political life which Heideggersought to occupy during the 1930s but also because he had an undeniablefondness for what (with a wink to Freud) we could call the polysemicperversity of language that is the fortuitous ambiguities and unpredictableinterconnections which help form the warp and weave of its semantic webRecognizing that such rich language tends to resist the analystrsquos pursuit of anunambiguous exactness Heidegger argued that lsquorigorousrsquo philosophicalprecision calls instead for an attempt to do justice to this semantic richness31

Yet as Gadamer and Derrida have shown this demand for us to do justiceto language is aporetic ndash a lsquonecessary impossibilityrsquo ndash since the holism ofmeaning renders the attempt ultimately impossible not only practically (for nite beings like ourselves who cannot follow all the strands in the semanticweb at once) but also in principle (despite our Borgesian dreams of acomplete hypertext which would exhaustively represent the semantic web adream even the vaunted lsquoworld-wide webrsquo barely inches toward realizing)This unful llable call for the philosopher to do justice to language isnevertheless ethical in the Kantian sense it constitutes a regulative idealorienting our progress while remaining unreachable like a guiding star It isalso and for Heidegger more primordially lsquoethos-icalrsquo (so to speak) sincesuch a call can be answered lsquoauthenticallyrsquo only if it is taken up existentiallyand embodied in an ethos a way of being In Being and Time Heideggerdescribes the called-for comportment as Ent-schlossenheit lsquodis-closednessor re-solversquo later he will teach it as Gelassenheit lsquoreleasement or letting-bersquo32 Ent-schlossenheit and Gelassenheit are not of course simplyequivalent terms releasement evolves out of resolve through a series ofintermediary formulations and notably lacks resolversquos voluntarism But bothentail a responsive hermeneutic receptivity (whether existential or phenom-enological) and both designate comportments whereby we embodyre exively an understanding of what we are ontologically namely Da-sein lsquobeing [the] therersquo a making intelligible of the place in which we ndourselves

Such considerations allow us to see that we are the place to whichHeidegger is referring ndash in the epigraph above this section ndash when he writesthat lsquoreal education lays hold of the soul itself and transforms it in its entiretyby rst of all leading us to the place of our essential being [Wesensort] and

Heidegger on Ontological Education 253

accustoming us to itrsquo As this epigraph shows Heidegger believes he hasful lled the ethical dictate to do justice to language by recovering lsquotheessence of paideiarsquo the ontological carrier wave underlying paideiarsquosmultiple semantic frequencies Ventriloquizing Plato Heidegger deploys thisnotion of the essence of paideia in order to oppose two conceptions ofeducation He warns rst against a lsquofalse interpretationrsquo We cannotunderstand education as the transmission of lsquoinformationrsquo the lling of thepsyche with knowledge as if inscribing a tabula rasa or in morecontemporary parlance lsquotraining-uprsquo a neural net This understanding ofeducation is false because (in the terms of Being and Time) we are lsquothrownrsquobeings lsquoalways alreadyrsquo shaped by a tradition we can never lsquoget behindrsquo andso we cannot be blank slates or lsquoempty containersrsquo waiting to be lled33

Indeed this lsquoreductive and atrophiedrsquo misconception of education as thetransmission of information re ects the nihilistic logic of enframing thatontohistorical trend by which intelligibility is lsquoleveled out into the uniformstorage of informationrsquo34 Yet here again we face a situation in which as theproblem gets worse we become less likely to recognize it the lsquoimpactrsquo of thisontological drift toward meaninglessness can lsquobarely be noticed bycontemporary humanity because they are continually covered over with thelatest informationrsquo35

Against this self-insulating but lsquofalse interpretationrsquo of educationHeidegger advances his conception of lsquoreal or genuine educationrsquo (echteBildung) the lsquoessence of paideiarsquo Drawing on the allegory of the cave ndashwhich lsquoillustrates the essence of ldquoeducationrdquo [paideia]rsquo (as Plato claims at thebeginning of Book VII of the Republic) ndash Heidegger seeks to effect nothingless than a re-ontologizing revolution in our understanding of education36

Recall Heideggerrsquos succinct and powerful formulation lsquoReal education layshold of the soul itself and transforms it in its entirety by rst of all leading usto the place of our essential being and accustoming [eingewohnt] us to itrsquoGenuine education leads us back to ourselves to the place we are (the Da ofour Sein) teaches us lsquoto dwellrsquo (wohnen) lsquotherersquo and transforms us in theprocess This transformative journey to ourselves is not a ight away from theworld into thought but a re exive return to the fundamental lsquorealm of thehuman sojournrsquo (Aufenthaltsbezirk des Menschen)37 The goal of thiseducational odyssey is simple but literally revolutionary to bring us fullcircle back to ourselves rst by turning us away from the world in which weare most immediately immersed then by turning us back to this world in amore re exive way As Heidegger explains lsquoPaideia means the turningaround of the whole human being in the sense of displacing them out of theregion of immediate encountering and accustoming them to another realm inwhich beings appearrsquo38

How can we accomplish such an ontological revolution in education Whatare the pedagogical methods of this alternative conception of education And

254 Iain Thomson

how nally can this ontological conception of education help us overturn theenframing of education

1 Ontological Education Against Enframing

In lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo Heideggerrsquos exposition is complicated by thefact that he is simultaneously explicating his own positive understanding oflsquoeducationrsquo and critiquing an important transformation in the history of lsquotruthrsquoinaugurated by Plato the transition from truth understood as aletheiaphenomenological lsquounhiddennessrsquo to orthotes the lsquocorrectnessrsquo of anassertion From this lsquoambiguity in Platorsquos doctrinersquo in which lsquotruth still isat one and the same time unhiddenness and correctnessrsquo the subsequenttradition will develop only the orthotic understanding of truth at the expenseof the aletheiac39 In so doing we lose lsquothe original essence of truthrsquo themanifestation of beings themselves and come to understand truth solely as afeature of our own representational capacities According to Heidegger thisdisplacement of the locus of truth from being to human subjectivity paves theway for that metaphysical humanism (or subjectivism) in which the lsquoessenceof paideiarsquo will be eclipsed allowing lsquoeducationrsquo to be absorbed byenframing becoming merely a means for lsquobringing ldquohuman beingsrdquo to theliberation of their possibilities the certitude of their destination and thesecuring of their ldquolivingrdquorsquo40

Despite some dramatic rhetorical ourishes however Heidegger has notentirely given up on lsquoeducationrsquo (Bildung) He dismisses the modernunderstanding of Bildung (the deliberate cultivation of lsquosubjective qualitiesrsquo)as a lsquomisinterpretation to which the notion fell victim in the nineteenthcenturyrsquo yet maintains that once Bildung is lsquogiven back its original namingpowerrsquo it is the word which lsquocomes closest to capturing the [meaning of the]word paideiarsquo Bildung is literally ambiguous Heidegger tells us its lsquonamingforcersquo drives in two directions

What lsquoBildungrsquo expresses is twofold rst Bildung means forming [Bilden] in thesense of impressing a character that unfolds But at the same time this lsquoformingrsquo[lsquoBildenrsquo ] lsquoformsrsquo [lsquobildetrsquo ] (or impresses a character) by antecedently taking itsmeasure from some measure-giving vision which for that reason is called the pre-conception [Vor-bild]

lsquoThusrsquo Heidegger concludes lsquoldquoeducationrdquo [ldquoBildungrdquo] means impressing acharacter especially as guiding by a pre-conceptionrsquo41

Few would quibble with the rst claim education stamps us with acharacter which unfolds within us But what forms the lsquostamprsquo which formsus Who educates the educators According to Heidegger the answer to thisquestion is built into the very meaning of paideia it is the second sense he

Heidegger on Ontological Education 255

lsquorestoresrsquo to Bildung To further lsquounfoldrsquo these two senses of lsquoeducationrsquoHeidegger immediately introduces the contrast class lsquothe contrary of paideiais apaideusia lack of education [Bildunglosigkeit] where no fundamentalcomportment is awakened no measure-giving preconception establishedrsquo42

This helpfully clari es Heideggerrsquos rst claim It is by awakening alsquofundamental comportmentrsquo that education stamps us with a character thatunfolds within us In the educational situation ndash a situation without pre-delimitable boundaries indeed a situation the boundaries of whichHeidegger ceaselessly seeks to expand (for he holds that lsquopaideia isessentially a movement of passage from apaideusia to paideiarsquo such thateducation is not something that can ever be completed) ndash the lsquofundamentalcomportmentrsquo perhaps most frequently called for is not the heroic Ent-schlossenheit nor even the gentler Gelassenheit but rather a more basic formof receptive spontaneity Heidegger will simply call hearing or hearkening(horen) that is (as we will see) an attentive and responsive way of dwellingin onersquos environment But whether the comportment implicitly guidingeducation is lsquoresolutenessrsquo lsquoreleasementrsquo lsquohearingrsquo or that anxiety-tranquillizing hurry which generally characterizes contemporary life dependson the second sense of Bildung which remains puzzling From where do wederive the measure-giving vision which implicitly informs all genuineeducation

Heideggerrsquos answer is complicated let us recall by the fact that he is bothelaborating his own philosophy of education (as it were) and performing acritical exegesis of Platorsquos decisive metaphysical contribution to lsquothe historythat we arersquo the history of metaphysics These two aims are in tension withone another because the education Heidegger seeks to impart ndash thefundamental attunement he would awaken in his students ndash is itself anattempt to awaken us from the ontological education that we have lsquoalwaysalreadyrsquo received from the metaphysical tradition For this generallyunnoticed antecedent measure comes to us from metaphysics from theontotheologically conceived understanding of the being of beings In shortHeidegger seeks to educate his students against their pre-existingontotheological education (He will sometimes call this educating-against-education simply lsquoteachingrsquo) The crucial question then is How canHeideggerrsquos ontological education combat the metaphysical education wehave always already received

2 The Pedagogy of Ontological Freedom

Heideggerrsquos suggestions about how the ontological education he advocatescan transcend enframing are surprisingly speci c Recall that in Platorsquosallegory the prisoner (1) begins in captivity within the cave (2) escapes thechains and turns around to discover the re and objects responsible for the

256 Iain Thomson

shadows on the wall previously taken as reality then (3) ascends from thecave into the light of the outside world coming to understand what is seenthere as made possible by the light of the sun and (4) nally returns to thecave taking up the struggle to free the other prisoners (who violently resisttheir would-be liberator) For Heidegger this well-known scenario suggeststhe pedagogy of ontological education On his remarkable interpretation theprisonerrsquos lsquofour different dwelling placesrsquo communicate the four successivestages whereby ontological education breaks studentsrsquo bondage to thetechnological mode of revealing freeing them to understand what-isdifferently

When studentsrsquo ontological educations begin they lsquoare engrossed in whatthey immediately encounterrsquo taking the shadows cast by the re on the wallto be the ultimate reality of things Yet this lsquo rersquo is only lsquoman-madersquo thelsquoconfusingrsquo light it casts represents enframingrsquos ontologically reductive modeof revealing Here in this rst stage all entities show up to students merely asresources to be optimized including the students themselves Thus if pressedstudents will ultimately lsquojustifyrsquo even their education itself merely as a meansto making more money getting the most out of their potentials or some otherequally empty optimization imperative Stage two is only reached when astudentrsquos lsquogaze is freed from its captivity to shadowsrsquo this happens when astudent recognizes lsquothe rersquo (enframing) as the source of lsquothe shadowsrsquo(entities understood as mere resources) In stage two the metaphysical chainsof enframing are thus broken But how does this liberation occur Despite theimportance of this question Heidegger answers it only in an aside lsquoto turnonersquos gaze from the shadows to entities as they show themselves withinthe glow of the relight is dif cult and failsrsquo43 His point I take it is thatentities do not show themselves as they are when forced into the meta-physical mould of enframing the ontotheology which reduces them to mereresources to be optimized Students can be led to this realization through aguided investigation of the being of any entity which they will tend tounderstand only as eternally recurring will-to-power that is as forcesendlessly coming together and breaking apart Because this metaphysicalunderstanding dissolves being into becoming the attempt to see entities asthey are in its light is doomed to failure resources have no being they arelsquoconstantly becomingrsquo (as Nietzsche realized) With this recognition ndash and theanxiety it tends to induce ndash students can attain a negative freedom fromenframing

Still Heidegger insists that lsquoreal freedomrsquo lsquoeffective freedomrsquo (wirklicheFreiheit) ndash the positive freedom in which students realize that entities aremore than mere resources and so become free for understanding themotherwise ndash lsquois attained only in stage three in which someone who has beenunchained is conveyed outside the cave ldquointo the openrdquorsquo (Notice the implicitreference to someone doing the unchaining and conveying here for

Heidegger on Ontological Education 257

Heidegger the educator plays a crucial role facilitating studentsrsquo passagebetween each of the stages) The open is one of Heideggerrsquos names for lsquobeingas suchrsquo that is for lsquowhat appears antecedently in everything that appears and makes whatever appears be accessiblersquo44 The attainment of ndash or bettercomportmental attunement to ndash this lsquoopenrsquo is what Heidegger famously callslsquodwellingrsquo45 When such positive ontological freedom is achieved lsquowhatthings are no longer appear merely in the man-made and confusing glow ofthe re within the cave The things themselves stand there in the binding forceand validity of their own visible formrsquo46 Ontological freedom is achievedwhen entities show themselves in their full phenomenological richness Thegoal of the third stage of ontological education then is to teach students tolsquodwellrsquo to help attune them to the being of entities and thus to teach them tosee that the being of an entity ndash be it a book cup rose or to use a particularlysalient example they themselves ndash cannot be fully understood in theontologically-reductive terms of enframing47

With the attainment of this crucial third stage Heideggerrsquos lsquogenuinersquoontological education may seem to have reached its completion since lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo48 This claim that genuineeducation teaches students to recognize lsquoessencesrsquo is not merely a Platonicconceit but plays an absolutely crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for areuni cation of the university (as we will see in the conclusion) Neverthelessontological education reaches its true culmination only in the fourth stage thereturn to the cave Heidegger clearly understood his own role as a teacher interms of just such a return that is as a struggle to free ontologicallyanaesthetized enframers from their bondage to a self-reifying mode ofontological revealing49 But his ranking of the return to the cave as the higheststage of ontological education is not merely an evangelistic call for others toadopt his vision of education as a revolution in consciousness it also re ectshis recognition that in ontological education learning culminates in teachingWe must thus ask What is called lsquoteachingrsquo

3 What Is Called Teaching

The English lsquoteachrsquo comes from the same linguistic family as the Germanverb zeigen lsquoto point or showrsquo50 As this etymology suggests to teach is toreveal to point out or make manifest through words But to reveal whatWhat does the teacher who lsquopoints outrsquo (or reveals) with words point to (orindicate)51 What do teachers teach The question seems to presuppose thatall teaching shares a common lsquosubject-matterrsquo not simply a shared method orgoal (the inculcation of critical thinking persuasive writing and the like) butsomething more substantive a common subject-matter unifying the Uni-versity Of course all teachers use words to disclose but to disclose a common

258 Iain Thomson

subject-matter How could such a supposition not sound absurd to usprofessional denizens of a postmodern polyversity where relentless hyper-specialization continues to fragment our subjects and even re-unifying forceslike interdisciplinarity seem to thrive only in so far they open new sub-specialties for a relentless vascular-to-capillary colonization of the scienti clifeworld In such a situation is it surprising that the Heideggerian idea of allteachers ultimately sharing a uni ed subject sounds absurd or at best like anoutdated myth ndash albeit the myth that founded the modern university But isthe idea of such a shared subject-matter a myth What do teachers teach Letus approach this question from what might at rst seem to be anotherdirection attempting to learn its answer

If teaching is revealing through words then conversely learning isexperiencing what a teacherrsquos words reveal That is to learn is actively toallow oneself to share in what the teacherrsquos words disclose But again whatdo the teacherrsquos words reveal We will notice if we read closely enough thatHeidegger answers this question in 1951 when he writes lsquoTo learn means tomake everything we do answer to whatever essentials address us at a giventimersquo52 Here it might sound at rst as if Heidegger is simply claimingthat learning as the complement of teaching means actively allowing oneselfto share in that which the teacherrsquos words disclose But Wittgenstein used tosay that philosophy is like a bicycle race the point of which is to go as slowlyas possible without falling off and if we slow down we will notice thatHeideggerrsquos words ndash the words of a teacher who would teach what learningmeans (in fact the performative situation is even more complex)53ndash saymore Learning means actively allowing ourselves to respond to what isessential in that which always addresses us that which has always alreadyclaimed us

In a sense then learning means responding appropriately to thesolicitations of the environment Of course Heidegger is thinking of theontological environment (the way in which what-is discloses itself to us)but even ontic analogues show that this capacity to respond appropriately tothe environment is quite dif cult to learn We learn to respond appropriatelyto environmental solicitations through a long process of trial and error Wemust in other words learn how to learn Here problems abound for it isnot clear that learning to learn can be taught To the analytically minded thisdemand seems to lead to a regress (for if we need to learn to learn then weneed to learn to learn to learn and so on) But logic misleads phenomenologyhere as Heidegger realized it is simply a question of jumping into thispedagogical circle in the right way Such a train of thought leads Heidegger toclaim that if lsquoteaching is even more dif cult than learningrsquo this is onlybecause the teacher must be an exemplary learner capable of teaching his orher students to learn that is capable of learning-in-public activelyresponding to the emerging demands of each unique educational situation

Heidegger on Ontological Education 259

Recall the famous passage

Why is teaching more dif cult than learning Not because the teacher must have alarger store of information and have it always ready Teaching is more dif cult thanlearning because what teaching calls for is this to let learn The real teacher in factlets nothing else be learned than learning The teacher is ahead of his apprentices inthis alone that he has still far more to learn than they ndash he has to learn to let themlearn The teacher must be capable of being more teachable than his apprentices5 4

The teacher teaches students to learn ndash to respond appropriately to thesolicitations of the ontological environment ndash by responding appropriately tothe solicitations of his or her environment which is after all the studentsrsquoenvironment too Learning culminates in teaching then because teaching isthe highest form of learning unlike lsquoinstructingrsquo (belehren) lsquoteachingrsquo(lehren) is ultimately a lsquoletting learnrsquo (lernen lassen) lsquoThe true teacher isahead of the students only in that he has more to learn than they namely theletting learn (To learn [means] to bring what we do and allow into a co-respondence [or a suitable response Entsprechung] with that which in eachcase grants itself to us as the essential)rsquo55

This last assertion should remind us of Heideggerrsquos earlier claim that lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo56 I said previously that thisclaim plays a crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for a reuni cation of theuniversity By way of conclusion let us brie y develop this claim and therebyfurther elaborate Heideggerrsquos positive vision for the future of highereducation

IV Conclusion Envisioning a University of Teachers

How can Heideggerrsquos understanding of ontological education help us restoresubstance to our currently empty guiding ideal of educational lsquoexcellencersquoand in so doing provide the contemporary university with a renewed sense ofunity not only restoring substance to our shared commitment to formingexcellent students but also helping us recognize the sense in which we are infact all working on the same project The answer is surprisingly simple Byre-essentializing the notion of excellence Heidegger like Aristotle is aperfectionist he argues that there is a distinctive human essence and that thegood life the life of lsquoexcellencersquo (arete) is the life spent cultivating thisdistinctively human essence For Heidegger as we have seen the humanlsquoessencersquo is Dasein lsquobeing-therersquo that is the making-intelligible of the placein which we nd ourselves or even more simply world disclosing For aworld-disclosing being to cultivate its essence then is for it to recognize and

260 Iain Thomson

develop this essence not only acknowledging its participation in the creationand maintenance of an intelligible world but actively embracing itsontological role in such world disclosure The full rami cations of thisseemingly simple insight are profound and revolutionary57 We will restrictourselves to brie y developing the two most important implications ofHeideggerrsquos re-essentialization of excellence for the future of the university

Heideggerrsquos ontological conception of education would transform theexisting relations between teaching and research on the one hand andbetween the now fragmented departments on the other Thus in effectHeidegger dedicates himself nally to redeeming the two central ideals whichguided the formation of the modern university Teaching and research shouldbe harmoniously integrated and the university community should understanditself as committed to a common substantive task58 How does Heideggerthink he can help us nally achieve such ambitions First his conception oflsquoteachingrsquo would reunite research and teaching because when studentsdevelop the aforementioned lsquoinsight into essencersquo they are being taught todisclose and investigate the ontological presuppositions which underlie allresearch on Heideggerrsquos view For todayrsquos academic departments are what hecalls lsquopositive sciencesrsquo that is they all rest on ontological lsquopositsrsquoontological assumptions about what the class of entities they study areBiology for example allows us to understand the logos of the bios the orderand structure of living beings Nevertheless Heidegger asserts biologyproper cannot tell us what life is59 Instead biology takes over its implicitontological understanding of what life is from the metaphysical under-standing governing our Nietzschean epoch of enframing (When contempor-ary philosophers of biology claim that life is lsquoa self-replicating systemrsquo theyhave unknowingly adopted the basic ontological presupposition ofNietzschersquos metaphysics according to which life is ultimately the eternalrecurrence of will to power that is sheer will-to-will unlimited self-augmentation)60 Analogously psychology can tell us a great deal about howconsciousness (the psyche) functions but it cannot tell us what consciousnessis The same holds true for the understanding of lsquothe corporeality of bodiesthe vegetable character of plants the animality of animals and the humannessof humanityrsquo within physics botany zoology and anthropology respec-tively these sciences all presuppose an ontological posit a pre-understandingof the being of the class of entities they study61 Heideggerrsquos ontologicallyreconceived notion of teaching is inextricably entwined with research thenbecause ontological education teaches students to question the veryontological presuppositions which guide research thereby opening a spacefor understanding the being of the entities they study otherwise than inenframingrsquos ontologically reductive terms Heideggerrsquos reconceptualizationof education would thus encourage revolutionary transformations in thesciences and humanities by teaching students to focus on and explicitly

Heidegger on Ontological Education 261

investigate the ontological presuppositions which implicitly guide research ineach domain of knowledge

Despite such revolutionary goals Heidegger thought that his ontologicalreconceptualization of education could also restore a substantive sense ofunity to the university community if only this community could learn lsquotoengage in [this lsquore ection on the essential foundationsrsquo] as re ection and tothink and belong to the university from the base of this engagementrsquo62 Fromits founding one of the major concerns about the modern university has beenhow it could maintain the unity of structure and purpose thought to bede nitive of the lsquoUni-versityrsquo as such German Idealists like Fichte andSchelling believed that this unity would follow organically from the totalityof the system of knowledge But this faith in the system proved to be far lessin uential on posterity than Humboldtrsquos alternative lsquohumanistrsquo idealaccording to which the universityrsquos unity would come from a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of character Humboldtrsquos famousidea was to link lsquoobjective Wissenschaft with subjective Bildungrsquo theuniversity would be responsible for forming fully-cultivated individuals arequirement Humboldt hoped would serve to guide and unify the newfreedom of research Historically of course neither the German Idealistsrsquoreliance on the unity of research nor Humboldtrsquos emphasis on a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of students succeeded in unifyingthe university community In effect however Heideggerrsquos re-ontologizationof education would combine (his versions of) these two strategies Theuniversity community would be uni ed both by its shared commitment toforming excellent individuals (where excellence is understood in terms of theontological perfectionism outlined above) and by the shared recognition onthe part of this community that its members are all committed to the samesubstantive pursuit The ultimately revolutionary task not simply ofunderstanding what is but of investigating the ontological presuppositionsimplicitly guiding all the various elds of knowledge Heidegger thusbelieved that ontological education by restoring substance to the notion ofexcellence and so teaching us lsquoto disclose the essential in all thingsrsquo could nally succeed in lsquoshattering the encapsulation of the sciences in theirdifferent disciplines and bringing them back from their boundless and aimlessdispersal in individual elds and cornersrsquo6364

NOTES

1 See Heidegger Being and Time (New York Harper amp Row 1962) trans J Macquarrie andE Robinson p 44 Sein und Zeit (Tubingen M Niemeyer 1993) p 22

2 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo in William McNeill (ed) Pathmarks(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998) p 167Heidegger Wegmarken 3rd edGesamtausgabe vol 9 (Frankfurt aM V Klostermann 1996) (hereafter GA9) p 218(On my translation of this title see note 28 below) I am aware that the preceding sentence

262 Iain Thomson

ominously echoes the title of Nietzschersquos politically compromised and deeply problematicearly lectures lsquoOn the Future of Our Educational Institutionsrsquo (which culminate with a callfor a lsquogreat Fuhrerrsquo [see Nietzsche On the Future of Our Educational Institutions in OLevy (ed) The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Edinburgh T N Foulis 1909)vol 6 Jacques Derrida The Ear of the Other ed C V McDonald trans Kamuf andRonell (New York Shocken Books 1985) p 28]) I bracket such political connectionshere but a complementary essay examines the darker side of Heideggerrsquos philosophicalcritique of education showing that it played a central role in his decision to join with theNazis in the early 1930s see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo(forthcoming)

3 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo ibid p 167GA9 p 2184 See Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

1980) On Heideggerrsquos distinctive understanding of lsquoessencersquo see my lsquoWhatrsquos Wrong withBeing a Technological Essentialist A Response to Feenbergrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 429ndash44

5 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo in The Question ConcerningTechnology and Other Essays trans W Lovitt (New York Harper amp Row 1977) p 4ibid pp 30ndash31

6 Cf Feenbergrsquos Hegelian misinterpretation of Heideggerrsquos understanding of essence in lsquoTheOntic and the Ontological in Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Technology Response toThomsonrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 445ndash50

7 Heidegger lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo op cit p 145GA9 p 1898 Ibid pp 145ndash46 (my italics)GA9 p 190 I am of necessity simplifying Heideggerrsquos

complex account here but see my lsquoOntotheology Understanding Heideggerrsquos Destruktionof Metaphysicsrsquo International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (October 2000) pp 297ndash327

9 See Heidegger An Introduction to Metaphysics trans R Manheim (New Haven YaleUniversity Press 1959) p 3Einfuhrung in die Metaphysik (Tubingen M Niemeyer1953) p 2

10 See Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations 3rd ed trans G E M Anscombe(New York Macmillan 1968) sect 217 p 85

11 See also Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 170GA9 p 222 lsquoThe essenceof ldquoeducationrdquo is grounded in the essence of ldquotruthrdquorsquo

12 See Heidegger Nietzsche Nihilism ed David Krell trans F Capuzzi (New York Harperamp Row 1982) p 205Nietzsche (Pfullingen Neske 1961) vol II p 343

13 Eventually either a new ontotheology emerges (perhaps as Kuhn suggests out of theinvestigation of those lsquoanomalousrsquo entities which resist being understood in terms of thedominant ontotheology) or else our underlying conception of the being of all entities wouldbe brought into line with this spreading ontotheology Although this latter alternative hasnever yet occurred Heidegger calls it lsquothe greatest dangerrsquo he is worried that ourNietzschean ontotheology could become totalizing lsquodriving out every other possibility ofrevealingrsquo by overwriting Daseinrsquos lsquospecial naturersquo our de ning capacity for world-disclosure with the lsquototal thoughtlessnessrsquo of a merely instrumental lsquocalculative reasoningrsquo See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo op cit p 27 HeideggerDiscourse on Thinking trans J Anderson and E Freund (New York Harper amp Row1966) p 56

14 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo ibid pp 16ndash2015 See esp Friedrich Nietzsche The Will To Power ed and trans Walter Kaufmann (New

York Random House 1967) pp 549ndash50 Here Nietzsche clearly conceives of beings assuch as will to power and of the way the totality exists as eternally recurring Nor canHeideggerrsquos controversial reading be rejected simply by excluding this problematic text onthe basis of its politically compromised ancestry since Nietzschersquos ontotheology can alsobe found in his other works

16 Heidegger lsquoNihilism as Determined by the History of Beingrsquo Nietzsche Nihilism op citpp 199ndash250

17 See Heidegger Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) trans P Emad and K Maly(Bloomington IN Indiana University Press 1999) p 95Beitrage zur Philosophie (Vom

Heidegger on Ontological Education 263

accustoming us to itrsquo As this epigraph shows Heidegger believes he hasful lled the ethical dictate to do justice to language by recovering lsquotheessence of paideiarsquo the ontological carrier wave underlying paideiarsquosmultiple semantic frequencies Ventriloquizing Plato Heidegger deploys thisnotion of the essence of paideia in order to oppose two conceptions ofeducation He warns rst against a lsquofalse interpretationrsquo We cannotunderstand education as the transmission of lsquoinformationrsquo the lling of thepsyche with knowledge as if inscribing a tabula rasa or in morecontemporary parlance lsquotraining-uprsquo a neural net This understanding ofeducation is false because (in the terms of Being and Time) we are lsquothrownrsquobeings lsquoalways alreadyrsquo shaped by a tradition we can never lsquoget behindrsquo andso we cannot be blank slates or lsquoempty containersrsquo waiting to be lled33

Indeed this lsquoreductive and atrophiedrsquo misconception of education as thetransmission of information re ects the nihilistic logic of enframing thatontohistorical trend by which intelligibility is lsquoleveled out into the uniformstorage of informationrsquo34 Yet here again we face a situation in which as theproblem gets worse we become less likely to recognize it the lsquoimpactrsquo of thisontological drift toward meaninglessness can lsquobarely be noticed bycontemporary humanity because they are continually covered over with thelatest informationrsquo35

Against this self-insulating but lsquofalse interpretationrsquo of educationHeidegger advances his conception of lsquoreal or genuine educationrsquo (echteBildung) the lsquoessence of paideiarsquo Drawing on the allegory of the cave ndashwhich lsquoillustrates the essence of ldquoeducationrdquo [paideia]rsquo (as Plato claims at thebeginning of Book VII of the Republic) ndash Heidegger seeks to effect nothingless than a re-ontologizing revolution in our understanding of education36

Recall Heideggerrsquos succinct and powerful formulation lsquoReal education layshold of the soul itself and transforms it in its entirety by rst of all leading usto the place of our essential being and accustoming [eingewohnt] us to itrsquoGenuine education leads us back to ourselves to the place we are (the Da ofour Sein) teaches us lsquoto dwellrsquo (wohnen) lsquotherersquo and transforms us in theprocess This transformative journey to ourselves is not a ight away from theworld into thought but a re exive return to the fundamental lsquorealm of thehuman sojournrsquo (Aufenthaltsbezirk des Menschen)37 The goal of thiseducational odyssey is simple but literally revolutionary to bring us fullcircle back to ourselves rst by turning us away from the world in which weare most immediately immersed then by turning us back to this world in amore re exive way As Heidegger explains lsquoPaideia means the turningaround of the whole human being in the sense of displacing them out of theregion of immediate encountering and accustoming them to another realm inwhich beings appearrsquo38

How can we accomplish such an ontological revolution in education Whatare the pedagogical methods of this alternative conception of education And

254 Iain Thomson

how nally can this ontological conception of education help us overturn theenframing of education

1 Ontological Education Against Enframing

In lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo Heideggerrsquos exposition is complicated by thefact that he is simultaneously explicating his own positive understanding oflsquoeducationrsquo and critiquing an important transformation in the history of lsquotruthrsquoinaugurated by Plato the transition from truth understood as aletheiaphenomenological lsquounhiddennessrsquo to orthotes the lsquocorrectnessrsquo of anassertion From this lsquoambiguity in Platorsquos doctrinersquo in which lsquotruth still isat one and the same time unhiddenness and correctnessrsquo the subsequenttradition will develop only the orthotic understanding of truth at the expenseof the aletheiac39 In so doing we lose lsquothe original essence of truthrsquo themanifestation of beings themselves and come to understand truth solely as afeature of our own representational capacities According to Heidegger thisdisplacement of the locus of truth from being to human subjectivity paves theway for that metaphysical humanism (or subjectivism) in which the lsquoessenceof paideiarsquo will be eclipsed allowing lsquoeducationrsquo to be absorbed byenframing becoming merely a means for lsquobringing ldquohuman beingsrdquo to theliberation of their possibilities the certitude of their destination and thesecuring of their ldquolivingrdquorsquo40

Despite some dramatic rhetorical ourishes however Heidegger has notentirely given up on lsquoeducationrsquo (Bildung) He dismisses the modernunderstanding of Bildung (the deliberate cultivation of lsquosubjective qualitiesrsquo)as a lsquomisinterpretation to which the notion fell victim in the nineteenthcenturyrsquo yet maintains that once Bildung is lsquogiven back its original namingpowerrsquo it is the word which lsquocomes closest to capturing the [meaning of the]word paideiarsquo Bildung is literally ambiguous Heidegger tells us its lsquonamingforcersquo drives in two directions

What lsquoBildungrsquo expresses is twofold rst Bildung means forming [Bilden] in thesense of impressing a character that unfolds But at the same time this lsquoformingrsquo[lsquoBildenrsquo ] lsquoformsrsquo [lsquobildetrsquo ] (or impresses a character) by antecedently taking itsmeasure from some measure-giving vision which for that reason is called the pre-conception [Vor-bild]

lsquoThusrsquo Heidegger concludes lsquoldquoeducationrdquo [ldquoBildungrdquo] means impressing acharacter especially as guiding by a pre-conceptionrsquo41

Few would quibble with the rst claim education stamps us with acharacter which unfolds within us But what forms the lsquostamprsquo which formsus Who educates the educators According to Heidegger the answer to thisquestion is built into the very meaning of paideia it is the second sense he

Heidegger on Ontological Education 255

lsquorestoresrsquo to Bildung To further lsquounfoldrsquo these two senses of lsquoeducationrsquoHeidegger immediately introduces the contrast class lsquothe contrary of paideiais apaideusia lack of education [Bildunglosigkeit] where no fundamentalcomportment is awakened no measure-giving preconception establishedrsquo42

This helpfully clari es Heideggerrsquos rst claim It is by awakening alsquofundamental comportmentrsquo that education stamps us with a character thatunfolds within us In the educational situation ndash a situation without pre-delimitable boundaries indeed a situation the boundaries of whichHeidegger ceaselessly seeks to expand (for he holds that lsquopaideia isessentially a movement of passage from apaideusia to paideiarsquo such thateducation is not something that can ever be completed) ndash the lsquofundamentalcomportmentrsquo perhaps most frequently called for is not the heroic Ent-schlossenheit nor even the gentler Gelassenheit but rather a more basic formof receptive spontaneity Heidegger will simply call hearing or hearkening(horen) that is (as we will see) an attentive and responsive way of dwellingin onersquos environment But whether the comportment implicitly guidingeducation is lsquoresolutenessrsquo lsquoreleasementrsquo lsquohearingrsquo or that anxiety-tranquillizing hurry which generally characterizes contemporary life dependson the second sense of Bildung which remains puzzling From where do wederive the measure-giving vision which implicitly informs all genuineeducation

Heideggerrsquos answer is complicated let us recall by the fact that he is bothelaborating his own philosophy of education (as it were) and performing acritical exegesis of Platorsquos decisive metaphysical contribution to lsquothe historythat we arersquo the history of metaphysics These two aims are in tension withone another because the education Heidegger seeks to impart ndash thefundamental attunement he would awaken in his students ndash is itself anattempt to awaken us from the ontological education that we have lsquoalwaysalreadyrsquo received from the metaphysical tradition For this generallyunnoticed antecedent measure comes to us from metaphysics from theontotheologically conceived understanding of the being of beings In shortHeidegger seeks to educate his students against their pre-existingontotheological education (He will sometimes call this educating-against-education simply lsquoteachingrsquo) The crucial question then is How canHeideggerrsquos ontological education combat the metaphysical education wehave always already received

2 The Pedagogy of Ontological Freedom

Heideggerrsquos suggestions about how the ontological education he advocatescan transcend enframing are surprisingly speci c Recall that in Platorsquosallegory the prisoner (1) begins in captivity within the cave (2) escapes thechains and turns around to discover the re and objects responsible for the

256 Iain Thomson

shadows on the wall previously taken as reality then (3) ascends from thecave into the light of the outside world coming to understand what is seenthere as made possible by the light of the sun and (4) nally returns to thecave taking up the struggle to free the other prisoners (who violently resisttheir would-be liberator) For Heidegger this well-known scenario suggeststhe pedagogy of ontological education On his remarkable interpretation theprisonerrsquos lsquofour different dwelling placesrsquo communicate the four successivestages whereby ontological education breaks studentsrsquo bondage to thetechnological mode of revealing freeing them to understand what-isdifferently

When studentsrsquo ontological educations begin they lsquoare engrossed in whatthey immediately encounterrsquo taking the shadows cast by the re on the wallto be the ultimate reality of things Yet this lsquo rersquo is only lsquoman-madersquo thelsquoconfusingrsquo light it casts represents enframingrsquos ontologically reductive modeof revealing Here in this rst stage all entities show up to students merely asresources to be optimized including the students themselves Thus if pressedstudents will ultimately lsquojustifyrsquo even their education itself merely as a meansto making more money getting the most out of their potentials or some otherequally empty optimization imperative Stage two is only reached when astudentrsquos lsquogaze is freed from its captivity to shadowsrsquo this happens when astudent recognizes lsquothe rersquo (enframing) as the source of lsquothe shadowsrsquo(entities understood as mere resources) In stage two the metaphysical chainsof enframing are thus broken But how does this liberation occur Despite theimportance of this question Heidegger answers it only in an aside lsquoto turnonersquos gaze from the shadows to entities as they show themselves withinthe glow of the relight is dif cult and failsrsquo43 His point I take it is thatentities do not show themselves as they are when forced into the meta-physical mould of enframing the ontotheology which reduces them to mereresources to be optimized Students can be led to this realization through aguided investigation of the being of any entity which they will tend tounderstand only as eternally recurring will-to-power that is as forcesendlessly coming together and breaking apart Because this metaphysicalunderstanding dissolves being into becoming the attempt to see entities asthey are in its light is doomed to failure resources have no being they arelsquoconstantly becomingrsquo (as Nietzsche realized) With this recognition ndash and theanxiety it tends to induce ndash students can attain a negative freedom fromenframing

Still Heidegger insists that lsquoreal freedomrsquo lsquoeffective freedomrsquo (wirklicheFreiheit) ndash the positive freedom in which students realize that entities aremore than mere resources and so become free for understanding themotherwise ndash lsquois attained only in stage three in which someone who has beenunchained is conveyed outside the cave ldquointo the openrdquorsquo (Notice the implicitreference to someone doing the unchaining and conveying here for

Heidegger on Ontological Education 257

Heidegger the educator plays a crucial role facilitating studentsrsquo passagebetween each of the stages) The open is one of Heideggerrsquos names for lsquobeingas suchrsquo that is for lsquowhat appears antecedently in everything that appears and makes whatever appears be accessiblersquo44 The attainment of ndash or bettercomportmental attunement to ndash this lsquoopenrsquo is what Heidegger famously callslsquodwellingrsquo45 When such positive ontological freedom is achieved lsquowhatthings are no longer appear merely in the man-made and confusing glow ofthe re within the cave The things themselves stand there in the binding forceand validity of their own visible formrsquo46 Ontological freedom is achievedwhen entities show themselves in their full phenomenological richness Thegoal of the third stage of ontological education then is to teach students tolsquodwellrsquo to help attune them to the being of entities and thus to teach them tosee that the being of an entity ndash be it a book cup rose or to use a particularlysalient example they themselves ndash cannot be fully understood in theontologically-reductive terms of enframing47

With the attainment of this crucial third stage Heideggerrsquos lsquogenuinersquoontological education may seem to have reached its completion since lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo48 This claim that genuineeducation teaches students to recognize lsquoessencesrsquo is not merely a Platonicconceit but plays an absolutely crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for areuni cation of the university (as we will see in the conclusion) Neverthelessontological education reaches its true culmination only in the fourth stage thereturn to the cave Heidegger clearly understood his own role as a teacher interms of just such a return that is as a struggle to free ontologicallyanaesthetized enframers from their bondage to a self-reifying mode ofontological revealing49 But his ranking of the return to the cave as the higheststage of ontological education is not merely an evangelistic call for others toadopt his vision of education as a revolution in consciousness it also re ectshis recognition that in ontological education learning culminates in teachingWe must thus ask What is called lsquoteachingrsquo

3 What Is Called Teaching

The English lsquoteachrsquo comes from the same linguistic family as the Germanverb zeigen lsquoto point or showrsquo50 As this etymology suggests to teach is toreveal to point out or make manifest through words But to reveal whatWhat does the teacher who lsquopoints outrsquo (or reveals) with words point to (orindicate)51 What do teachers teach The question seems to presuppose thatall teaching shares a common lsquosubject-matterrsquo not simply a shared method orgoal (the inculcation of critical thinking persuasive writing and the like) butsomething more substantive a common subject-matter unifying the Uni-versity Of course all teachers use words to disclose but to disclose a common

258 Iain Thomson

subject-matter How could such a supposition not sound absurd to usprofessional denizens of a postmodern polyversity where relentless hyper-specialization continues to fragment our subjects and even re-unifying forceslike interdisciplinarity seem to thrive only in so far they open new sub-specialties for a relentless vascular-to-capillary colonization of the scienti clifeworld In such a situation is it surprising that the Heideggerian idea of allteachers ultimately sharing a uni ed subject sounds absurd or at best like anoutdated myth ndash albeit the myth that founded the modern university But isthe idea of such a shared subject-matter a myth What do teachers teach Letus approach this question from what might at rst seem to be anotherdirection attempting to learn its answer

If teaching is revealing through words then conversely learning isexperiencing what a teacherrsquos words reveal That is to learn is actively toallow oneself to share in what the teacherrsquos words disclose But again whatdo the teacherrsquos words reveal We will notice if we read closely enough thatHeidegger answers this question in 1951 when he writes lsquoTo learn means tomake everything we do answer to whatever essentials address us at a giventimersquo52 Here it might sound at rst as if Heidegger is simply claimingthat learning as the complement of teaching means actively allowing oneselfto share in that which the teacherrsquos words disclose But Wittgenstein used tosay that philosophy is like a bicycle race the point of which is to go as slowlyas possible without falling off and if we slow down we will notice thatHeideggerrsquos words ndash the words of a teacher who would teach what learningmeans (in fact the performative situation is even more complex)53ndash saymore Learning means actively allowing ourselves to respond to what isessential in that which always addresses us that which has always alreadyclaimed us

In a sense then learning means responding appropriately to thesolicitations of the environment Of course Heidegger is thinking of theontological environment (the way in which what-is discloses itself to us)but even ontic analogues show that this capacity to respond appropriately tothe environment is quite dif cult to learn We learn to respond appropriatelyto environmental solicitations through a long process of trial and error Wemust in other words learn how to learn Here problems abound for it isnot clear that learning to learn can be taught To the analytically minded thisdemand seems to lead to a regress (for if we need to learn to learn then weneed to learn to learn to learn and so on) But logic misleads phenomenologyhere as Heidegger realized it is simply a question of jumping into thispedagogical circle in the right way Such a train of thought leads Heidegger toclaim that if lsquoteaching is even more dif cult than learningrsquo this is onlybecause the teacher must be an exemplary learner capable of teaching his orher students to learn that is capable of learning-in-public activelyresponding to the emerging demands of each unique educational situation

Heidegger on Ontological Education 259

Recall the famous passage

Why is teaching more dif cult than learning Not because the teacher must have alarger store of information and have it always ready Teaching is more dif cult thanlearning because what teaching calls for is this to let learn The real teacher in factlets nothing else be learned than learning The teacher is ahead of his apprentices inthis alone that he has still far more to learn than they ndash he has to learn to let themlearn The teacher must be capable of being more teachable than his apprentices5 4

The teacher teaches students to learn ndash to respond appropriately to thesolicitations of the ontological environment ndash by responding appropriately tothe solicitations of his or her environment which is after all the studentsrsquoenvironment too Learning culminates in teaching then because teaching isthe highest form of learning unlike lsquoinstructingrsquo (belehren) lsquoteachingrsquo(lehren) is ultimately a lsquoletting learnrsquo (lernen lassen) lsquoThe true teacher isahead of the students only in that he has more to learn than they namely theletting learn (To learn [means] to bring what we do and allow into a co-respondence [or a suitable response Entsprechung] with that which in eachcase grants itself to us as the essential)rsquo55

This last assertion should remind us of Heideggerrsquos earlier claim that lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo56 I said previously that thisclaim plays a crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for a reuni cation of theuniversity By way of conclusion let us brie y develop this claim and therebyfurther elaborate Heideggerrsquos positive vision for the future of highereducation

IV Conclusion Envisioning a University of Teachers

How can Heideggerrsquos understanding of ontological education help us restoresubstance to our currently empty guiding ideal of educational lsquoexcellencersquoand in so doing provide the contemporary university with a renewed sense ofunity not only restoring substance to our shared commitment to formingexcellent students but also helping us recognize the sense in which we are infact all working on the same project The answer is surprisingly simple Byre-essentializing the notion of excellence Heidegger like Aristotle is aperfectionist he argues that there is a distinctive human essence and that thegood life the life of lsquoexcellencersquo (arete) is the life spent cultivating thisdistinctively human essence For Heidegger as we have seen the humanlsquoessencersquo is Dasein lsquobeing-therersquo that is the making-intelligible of the placein which we nd ourselves or even more simply world disclosing For aworld-disclosing being to cultivate its essence then is for it to recognize and

260 Iain Thomson

develop this essence not only acknowledging its participation in the creationand maintenance of an intelligible world but actively embracing itsontological role in such world disclosure The full rami cations of thisseemingly simple insight are profound and revolutionary57 We will restrictourselves to brie y developing the two most important implications ofHeideggerrsquos re-essentialization of excellence for the future of the university

Heideggerrsquos ontological conception of education would transform theexisting relations between teaching and research on the one hand andbetween the now fragmented departments on the other Thus in effectHeidegger dedicates himself nally to redeeming the two central ideals whichguided the formation of the modern university Teaching and research shouldbe harmoniously integrated and the university community should understanditself as committed to a common substantive task58 How does Heideggerthink he can help us nally achieve such ambitions First his conception oflsquoteachingrsquo would reunite research and teaching because when studentsdevelop the aforementioned lsquoinsight into essencersquo they are being taught todisclose and investigate the ontological presuppositions which underlie allresearch on Heideggerrsquos view For todayrsquos academic departments are what hecalls lsquopositive sciencesrsquo that is they all rest on ontological lsquopositsrsquoontological assumptions about what the class of entities they study areBiology for example allows us to understand the logos of the bios the orderand structure of living beings Nevertheless Heidegger asserts biologyproper cannot tell us what life is59 Instead biology takes over its implicitontological understanding of what life is from the metaphysical under-standing governing our Nietzschean epoch of enframing (When contempor-ary philosophers of biology claim that life is lsquoa self-replicating systemrsquo theyhave unknowingly adopted the basic ontological presupposition ofNietzschersquos metaphysics according to which life is ultimately the eternalrecurrence of will to power that is sheer will-to-will unlimited self-augmentation)60 Analogously psychology can tell us a great deal about howconsciousness (the psyche) functions but it cannot tell us what consciousnessis The same holds true for the understanding of lsquothe corporeality of bodiesthe vegetable character of plants the animality of animals and the humannessof humanityrsquo within physics botany zoology and anthropology respec-tively these sciences all presuppose an ontological posit a pre-understandingof the being of the class of entities they study61 Heideggerrsquos ontologicallyreconceived notion of teaching is inextricably entwined with research thenbecause ontological education teaches students to question the veryontological presuppositions which guide research thereby opening a spacefor understanding the being of the entities they study otherwise than inenframingrsquos ontologically reductive terms Heideggerrsquos reconceptualizationof education would thus encourage revolutionary transformations in thesciences and humanities by teaching students to focus on and explicitly

Heidegger on Ontological Education 261

investigate the ontological presuppositions which implicitly guide research ineach domain of knowledge

Despite such revolutionary goals Heidegger thought that his ontologicalreconceptualization of education could also restore a substantive sense ofunity to the university community if only this community could learn lsquotoengage in [this lsquore ection on the essential foundationsrsquo] as re ection and tothink and belong to the university from the base of this engagementrsquo62 Fromits founding one of the major concerns about the modern university has beenhow it could maintain the unity of structure and purpose thought to bede nitive of the lsquoUni-versityrsquo as such German Idealists like Fichte andSchelling believed that this unity would follow organically from the totalityof the system of knowledge But this faith in the system proved to be far lessin uential on posterity than Humboldtrsquos alternative lsquohumanistrsquo idealaccording to which the universityrsquos unity would come from a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of character Humboldtrsquos famousidea was to link lsquoobjective Wissenschaft with subjective Bildungrsquo theuniversity would be responsible for forming fully-cultivated individuals arequirement Humboldt hoped would serve to guide and unify the newfreedom of research Historically of course neither the German Idealistsrsquoreliance on the unity of research nor Humboldtrsquos emphasis on a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of students succeeded in unifyingthe university community In effect however Heideggerrsquos re-ontologizationof education would combine (his versions of) these two strategies Theuniversity community would be uni ed both by its shared commitment toforming excellent individuals (where excellence is understood in terms of theontological perfectionism outlined above) and by the shared recognition onthe part of this community that its members are all committed to the samesubstantive pursuit The ultimately revolutionary task not simply ofunderstanding what is but of investigating the ontological presuppositionsimplicitly guiding all the various elds of knowledge Heidegger thusbelieved that ontological education by restoring substance to the notion ofexcellence and so teaching us lsquoto disclose the essential in all thingsrsquo could nally succeed in lsquoshattering the encapsulation of the sciences in theirdifferent disciplines and bringing them back from their boundless and aimlessdispersal in individual elds and cornersrsquo6364

NOTES

1 See Heidegger Being and Time (New York Harper amp Row 1962) trans J Macquarrie andE Robinson p 44 Sein und Zeit (Tubingen M Niemeyer 1993) p 22

2 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo in William McNeill (ed) Pathmarks(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998) p 167Heidegger Wegmarken 3rd edGesamtausgabe vol 9 (Frankfurt aM V Klostermann 1996) (hereafter GA9) p 218(On my translation of this title see note 28 below) I am aware that the preceding sentence

262 Iain Thomson

ominously echoes the title of Nietzschersquos politically compromised and deeply problematicearly lectures lsquoOn the Future of Our Educational Institutionsrsquo (which culminate with a callfor a lsquogreat Fuhrerrsquo [see Nietzsche On the Future of Our Educational Institutions in OLevy (ed) The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Edinburgh T N Foulis 1909)vol 6 Jacques Derrida The Ear of the Other ed C V McDonald trans Kamuf andRonell (New York Shocken Books 1985) p 28]) I bracket such political connectionshere but a complementary essay examines the darker side of Heideggerrsquos philosophicalcritique of education showing that it played a central role in his decision to join with theNazis in the early 1930s see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo(forthcoming)

3 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo ibid p 167GA9 p 2184 See Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

1980) On Heideggerrsquos distinctive understanding of lsquoessencersquo see my lsquoWhatrsquos Wrong withBeing a Technological Essentialist A Response to Feenbergrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 429ndash44

5 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo in The Question ConcerningTechnology and Other Essays trans W Lovitt (New York Harper amp Row 1977) p 4ibid pp 30ndash31

6 Cf Feenbergrsquos Hegelian misinterpretation of Heideggerrsquos understanding of essence in lsquoTheOntic and the Ontological in Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Technology Response toThomsonrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 445ndash50

7 Heidegger lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo op cit p 145GA9 p 1898 Ibid pp 145ndash46 (my italics)GA9 p 190 I am of necessity simplifying Heideggerrsquos

complex account here but see my lsquoOntotheology Understanding Heideggerrsquos Destruktionof Metaphysicsrsquo International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (October 2000) pp 297ndash327

9 See Heidegger An Introduction to Metaphysics trans R Manheim (New Haven YaleUniversity Press 1959) p 3Einfuhrung in die Metaphysik (Tubingen M Niemeyer1953) p 2

10 See Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations 3rd ed trans G E M Anscombe(New York Macmillan 1968) sect 217 p 85

11 See also Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 170GA9 p 222 lsquoThe essenceof ldquoeducationrdquo is grounded in the essence of ldquotruthrdquorsquo

12 See Heidegger Nietzsche Nihilism ed David Krell trans F Capuzzi (New York Harperamp Row 1982) p 205Nietzsche (Pfullingen Neske 1961) vol II p 343

13 Eventually either a new ontotheology emerges (perhaps as Kuhn suggests out of theinvestigation of those lsquoanomalousrsquo entities which resist being understood in terms of thedominant ontotheology) or else our underlying conception of the being of all entities wouldbe brought into line with this spreading ontotheology Although this latter alternative hasnever yet occurred Heidegger calls it lsquothe greatest dangerrsquo he is worried that ourNietzschean ontotheology could become totalizing lsquodriving out every other possibility ofrevealingrsquo by overwriting Daseinrsquos lsquospecial naturersquo our de ning capacity for world-disclosure with the lsquototal thoughtlessnessrsquo of a merely instrumental lsquocalculative reasoningrsquo See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo op cit p 27 HeideggerDiscourse on Thinking trans J Anderson and E Freund (New York Harper amp Row1966) p 56

14 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo ibid pp 16ndash2015 See esp Friedrich Nietzsche The Will To Power ed and trans Walter Kaufmann (New

York Random House 1967) pp 549ndash50 Here Nietzsche clearly conceives of beings assuch as will to power and of the way the totality exists as eternally recurring Nor canHeideggerrsquos controversial reading be rejected simply by excluding this problematic text onthe basis of its politically compromised ancestry since Nietzschersquos ontotheology can alsobe found in his other works

16 Heidegger lsquoNihilism as Determined by the History of Beingrsquo Nietzsche Nihilism op citpp 199ndash250

17 See Heidegger Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) trans P Emad and K Maly(Bloomington IN Indiana University Press 1999) p 95Beitrage zur Philosophie (Vom

Heidegger on Ontological Education 263

how nally can this ontological conception of education help us overturn theenframing of education

1 Ontological Education Against Enframing

In lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo Heideggerrsquos exposition is complicated by thefact that he is simultaneously explicating his own positive understanding oflsquoeducationrsquo and critiquing an important transformation in the history of lsquotruthrsquoinaugurated by Plato the transition from truth understood as aletheiaphenomenological lsquounhiddennessrsquo to orthotes the lsquocorrectnessrsquo of anassertion From this lsquoambiguity in Platorsquos doctrinersquo in which lsquotruth still isat one and the same time unhiddenness and correctnessrsquo the subsequenttradition will develop only the orthotic understanding of truth at the expenseof the aletheiac39 In so doing we lose lsquothe original essence of truthrsquo themanifestation of beings themselves and come to understand truth solely as afeature of our own representational capacities According to Heidegger thisdisplacement of the locus of truth from being to human subjectivity paves theway for that metaphysical humanism (or subjectivism) in which the lsquoessenceof paideiarsquo will be eclipsed allowing lsquoeducationrsquo to be absorbed byenframing becoming merely a means for lsquobringing ldquohuman beingsrdquo to theliberation of their possibilities the certitude of their destination and thesecuring of their ldquolivingrdquorsquo40

Despite some dramatic rhetorical ourishes however Heidegger has notentirely given up on lsquoeducationrsquo (Bildung) He dismisses the modernunderstanding of Bildung (the deliberate cultivation of lsquosubjective qualitiesrsquo)as a lsquomisinterpretation to which the notion fell victim in the nineteenthcenturyrsquo yet maintains that once Bildung is lsquogiven back its original namingpowerrsquo it is the word which lsquocomes closest to capturing the [meaning of the]word paideiarsquo Bildung is literally ambiguous Heidegger tells us its lsquonamingforcersquo drives in two directions

What lsquoBildungrsquo expresses is twofold rst Bildung means forming [Bilden] in thesense of impressing a character that unfolds But at the same time this lsquoformingrsquo[lsquoBildenrsquo ] lsquoformsrsquo [lsquobildetrsquo ] (or impresses a character) by antecedently taking itsmeasure from some measure-giving vision which for that reason is called the pre-conception [Vor-bild]

lsquoThusrsquo Heidegger concludes lsquoldquoeducationrdquo [ldquoBildungrdquo] means impressing acharacter especially as guiding by a pre-conceptionrsquo41

Few would quibble with the rst claim education stamps us with acharacter which unfolds within us But what forms the lsquostamprsquo which formsus Who educates the educators According to Heidegger the answer to thisquestion is built into the very meaning of paideia it is the second sense he

Heidegger on Ontological Education 255

lsquorestoresrsquo to Bildung To further lsquounfoldrsquo these two senses of lsquoeducationrsquoHeidegger immediately introduces the contrast class lsquothe contrary of paideiais apaideusia lack of education [Bildunglosigkeit] where no fundamentalcomportment is awakened no measure-giving preconception establishedrsquo42

This helpfully clari es Heideggerrsquos rst claim It is by awakening alsquofundamental comportmentrsquo that education stamps us with a character thatunfolds within us In the educational situation ndash a situation without pre-delimitable boundaries indeed a situation the boundaries of whichHeidegger ceaselessly seeks to expand (for he holds that lsquopaideia isessentially a movement of passage from apaideusia to paideiarsquo such thateducation is not something that can ever be completed) ndash the lsquofundamentalcomportmentrsquo perhaps most frequently called for is not the heroic Ent-schlossenheit nor even the gentler Gelassenheit but rather a more basic formof receptive spontaneity Heidegger will simply call hearing or hearkening(horen) that is (as we will see) an attentive and responsive way of dwellingin onersquos environment But whether the comportment implicitly guidingeducation is lsquoresolutenessrsquo lsquoreleasementrsquo lsquohearingrsquo or that anxiety-tranquillizing hurry which generally characterizes contemporary life dependson the second sense of Bildung which remains puzzling From where do wederive the measure-giving vision which implicitly informs all genuineeducation

Heideggerrsquos answer is complicated let us recall by the fact that he is bothelaborating his own philosophy of education (as it were) and performing acritical exegesis of Platorsquos decisive metaphysical contribution to lsquothe historythat we arersquo the history of metaphysics These two aims are in tension withone another because the education Heidegger seeks to impart ndash thefundamental attunement he would awaken in his students ndash is itself anattempt to awaken us from the ontological education that we have lsquoalwaysalreadyrsquo received from the metaphysical tradition For this generallyunnoticed antecedent measure comes to us from metaphysics from theontotheologically conceived understanding of the being of beings In shortHeidegger seeks to educate his students against their pre-existingontotheological education (He will sometimes call this educating-against-education simply lsquoteachingrsquo) The crucial question then is How canHeideggerrsquos ontological education combat the metaphysical education wehave always already received

2 The Pedagogy of Ontological Freedom

Heideggerrsquos suggestions about how the ontological education he advocatescan transcend enframing are surprisingly speci c Recall that in Platorsquosallegory the prisoner (1) begins in captivity within the cave (2) escapes thechains and turns around to discover the re and objects responsible for the

256 Iain Thomson

shadows on the wall previously taken as reality then (3) ascends from thecave into the light of the outside world coming to understand what is seenthere as made possible by the light of the sun and (4) nally returns to thecave taking up the struggle to free the other prisoners (who violently resisttheir would-be liberator) For Heidegger this well-known scenario suggeststhe pedagogy of ontological education On his remarkable interpretation theprisonerrsquos lsquofour different dwelling placesrsquo communicate the four successivestages whereby ontological education breaks studentsrsquo bondage to thetechnological mode of revealing freeing them to understand what-isdifferently

When studentsrsquo ontological educations begin they lsquoare engrossed in whatthey immediately encounterrsquo taking the shadows cast by the re on the wallto be the ultimate reality of things Yet this lsquo rersquo is only lsquoman-madersquo thelsquoconfusingrsquo light it casts represents enframingrsquos ontologically reductive modeof revealing Here in this rst stage all entities show up to students merely asresources to be optimized including the students themselves Thus if pressedstudents will ultimately lsquojustifyrsquo even their education itself merely as a meansto making more money getting the most out of their potentials or some otherequally empty optimization imperative Stage two is only reached when astudentrsquos lsquogaze is freed from its captivity to shadowsrsquo this happens when astudent recognizes lsquothe rersquo (enframing) as the source of lsquothe shadowsrsquo(entities understood as mere resources) In stage two the metaphysical chainsof enframing are thus broken But how does this liberation occur Despite theimportance of this question Heidegger answers it only in an aside lsquoto turnonersquos gaze from the shadows to entities as they show themselves withinthe glow of the relight is dif cult and failsrsquo43 His point I take it is thatentities do not show themselves as they are when forced into the meta-physical mould of enframing the ontotheology which reduces them to mereresources to be optimized Students can be led to this realization through aguided investigation of the being of any entity which they will tend tounderstand only as eternally recurring will-to-power that is as forcesendlessly coming together and breaking apart Because this metaphysicalunderstanding dissolves being into becoming the attempt to see entities asthey are in its light is doomed to failure resources have no being they arelsquoconstantly becomingrsquo (as Nietzsche realized) With this recognition ndash and theanxiety it tends to induce ndash students can attain a negative freedom fromenframing

Still Heidegger insists that lsquoreal freedomrsquo lsquoeffective freedomrsquo (wirklicheFreiheit) ndash the positive freedom in which students realize that entities aremore than mere resources and so become free for understanding themotherwise ndash lsquois attained only in stage three in which someone who has beenunchained is conveyed outside the cave ldquointo the openrdquorsquo (Notice the implicitreference to someone doing the unchaining and conveying here for

Heidegger on Ontological Education 257

Heidegger the educator plays a crucial role facilitating studentsrsquo passagebetween each of the stages) The open is one of Heideggerrsquos names for lsquobeingas suchrsquo that is for lsquowhat appears antecedently in everything that appears and makes whatever appears be accessiblersquo44 The attainment of ndash or bettercomportmental attunement to ndash this lsquoopenrsquo is what Heidegger famously callslsquodwellingrsquo45 When such positive ontological freedom is achieved lsquowhatthings are no longer appear merely in the man-made and confusing glow ofthe re within the cave The things themselves stand there in the binding forceand validity of their own visible formrsquo46 Ontological freedom is achievedwhen entities show themselves in their full phenomenological richness Thegoal of the third stage of ontological education then is to teach students tolsquodwellrsquo to help attune them to the being of entities and thus to teach them tosee that the being of an entity ndash be it a book cup rose or to use a particularlysalient example they themselves ndash cannot be fully understood in theontologically-reductive terms of enframing47

With the attainment of this crucial third stage Heideggerrsquos lsquogenuinersquoontological education may seem to have reached its completion since lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo48 This claim that genuineeducation teaches students to recognize lsquoessencesrsquo is not merely a Platonicconceit but plays an absolutely crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for areuni cation of the university (as we will see in the conclusion) Neverthelessontological education reaches its true culmination only in the fourth stage thereturn to the cave Heidegger clearly understood his own role as a teacher interms of just such a return that is as a struggle to free ontologicallyanaesthetized enframers from their bondage to a self-reifying mode ofontological revealing49 But his ranking of the return to the cave as the higheststage of ontological education is not merely an evangelistic call for others toadopt his vision of education as a revolution in consciousness it also re ectshis recognition that in ontological education learning culminates in teachingWe must thus ask What is called lsquoteachingrsquo

3 What Is Called Teaching

The English lsquoteachrsquo comes from the same linguistic family as the Germanverb zeigen lsquoto point or showrsquo50 As this etymology suggests to teach is toreveal to point out or make manifest through words But to reveal whatWhat does the teacher who lsquopoints outrsquo (or reveals) with words point to (orindicate)51 What do teachers teach The question seems to presuppose thatall teaching shares a common lsquosubject-matterrsquo not simply a shared method orgoal (the inculcation of critical thinking persuasive writing and the like) butsomething more substantive a common subject-matter unifying the Uni-versity Of course all teachers use words to disclose but to disclose a common

258 Iain Thomson

subject-matter How could such a supposition not sound absurd to usprofessional denizens of a postmodern polyversity where relentless hyper-specialization continues to fragment our subjects and even re-unifying forceslike interdisciplinarity seem to thrive only in so far they open new sub-specialties for a relentless vascular-to-capillary colonization of the scienti clifeworld In such a situation is it surprising that the Heideggerian idea of allteachers ultimately sharing a uni ed subject sounds absurd or at best like anoutdated myth ndash albeit the myth that founded the modern university But isthe idea of such a shared subject-matter a myth What do teachers teach Letus approach this question from what might at rst seem to be anotherdirection attempting to learn its answer

If teaching is revealing through words then conversely learning isexperiencing what a teacherrsquos words reveal That is to learn is actively toallow oneself to share in what the teacherrsquos words disclose But again whatdo the teacherrsquos words reveal We will notice if we read closely enough thatHeidegger answers this question in 1951 when he writes lsquoTo learn means tomake everything we do answer to whatever essentials address us at a giventimersquo52 Here it might sound at rst as if Heidegger is simply claimingthat learning as the complement of teaching means actively allowing oneselfto share in that which the teacherrsquos words disclose But Wittgenstein used tosay that philosophy is like a bicycle race the point of which is to go as slowlyas possible without falling off and if we slow down we will notice thatHeideggerrsquos words ndash the words of a teacher who would teach what learningmeans (in fact the performative situation is even more complex)53ndash saymore Learning means actively allowing ourselves to respond to what isessential in that which always addresses us that which has always alreadyclaimed us

In a sense then learning means responding appropriately to thesolicitations of the environment Of course Heidegger is thinking of theontological environment (the way in which what-is discloses itself to us)but even ontic analogues show that this capacity to respond appropriately tothe environment is quite dif cult to learn We learn to respond appropriatelyto environmental solicitations through a long process of trial and error Wemust in other words learn how to learn Here problems abound for it isnot clear that learning to learn can be taught To the analytically minded thisdemand seems to lead to a regress (for if we need to learn to learn then weneed to learn to learn to learn and so on) But logic misleads phenomenologyhere as Heidegger realized it is simply a question of jumping into thispedagogical circle in the right way Such a train of thought leads Heidegger toclaim that if lsquoteaching is even more dif cult than learningrsquo this is onlybecause the teacher must be an exemplary learner capable of teaching his orher students to learn that is capable of learning-in-public activelyresponding to the emerging demands of each unique educational situation

Heidegger on Ontological Education 259

Recall the famous passage

Why is teaching more dif cult than learning Not because the teacher must have alarger store of information and have it always ready Teaching is more dif cult thanlearning because what teaching calls for is this to let learn The real teacher in factlets nothing else be learned than learning The teacher is ahead of his apprentices inthis alone that he has still far more to learn than they ndash he has to learn to let themlearn The teacher must be capable of being more teachable than his apprentices5 4

The teacher teaches students to learn ndash to respond appropriately to thesolicitations of the ontological environment ndash by responding appropriately tothe solicitations of his or her environment which is after all the studentsrsquoenvironment too Learning culminates in teaching then because teaching isthe highest form of learning unlike lsquoinstructingrsquo (belehren) lsquoteachingrsquo(lehren) is ultimately a lsquoletting learnrsquo (lernen lassen) lsquoThe true teacher isahead of the students only in that he has more to learn than they namely theletting learn (To learn [means] to bring what we do and allow into a co-respondence [or a suitable response Entsprechung] with that which in eachcase grants itself to us as the essential)rsquo55

This last assertion should remind us of Heideggerrsquos earlier claim that lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo56 I said previously that thisclaim plays a crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for a reuni cation of theuniversity By way of conclusion let us brie y develop this claim and therebyfurther elaborate Heideggerrsquos positive vision for the future of highereducation

IV Conclusion Envisioning a University of Teachers

How can Heideggerrsquos understanding of ontological education help us restoresubstance to our currently empty guiding ideal of educational lsquoexcellencersquoand in so doing provide the contemporary university with a renewed sense ofunity not only restoring substance to our shared commitment to formingexcellent students but also helping us recognize the sense in which we are infact all working on the same project The answer is surprisingly simple Byre-essentializing the notion of excellence Heidegger like Aristotle is aperfectionist he argues that there is a distinctive human essence and that thegood life the life of lsquoexcellencersquo (arete) is the life spent cultivating thisdistinctively human essence For Heidegger as we have seen the humanlsquoessencersquo is Dasein lsquobeing-therersquo that is the making-intelligible of the placein which we nd ourselves or even more simply world disclosing For aworld-disclosing being to cultivate its essence then is for it to recognize and

260 Iain Thomson

develop this essence not only acknowledging its participation in the creationand maintenance of an intelligible world but actively embracing itsontological role in such world disclosure The full rami cations of thisseemingly simple insight are profound and revolutionary57 We will restrictourselves to brie y developing the two most important implications ofHeideggerrsquos re-essentialization of excellence for the future of the university

Heideggerrsquos ontological conception of education would transform theexisting relations between teaching and research on the one hand andbetween the now fragmented departments on the other Thus in effectHeidegger dedicates himself nally to redeeming the two central ideals whichguided the formation of the modern university Teaching and research shouldbe harmoniously integrated and the university community should understanditself as committed to a common substantive task58 How does Heideggerthink he can help us nally achieve such ambitions First his conception oflsquoteachingrsquo would reunite research and teaching because when studentsdevelop the aforementioned lsquoinsight into essencersquo they are being taught todisclose and investigate the ontological presuppositions which underlie allresearch on Heideggerrsquos view For todayrsquos academic departments are what hecalls lsquopositive sciencesrsquo that is they all rest on ontological lsquopositsrsquoontological assumptions about what the class of entities they study areBiology for example allows us to understand the logos of the bios the orderand structure of living beings Nevertheless Heidegger asserts biologyproper cannot tell us what life is59 Instead biology takes over its implicitontological understanding of what life is from the metaphysical under-standing governing our Nietzschean epoch of enframing (When contempor-ary philosophers of biology claim that life is lsquoa self-replicating systemrsquo theyhave unknowingly adopted the basic ontological presupposition ofNietzschersquos metaphysics according to which life is ultimately the eternalrecurrence of will to power that is sheer will-to-will unlimited self-augmentation)60 Analogously psychology can tell us a great deal about howconsciousness (the psyche) functions but it cannot tell us what consciousnessis The same holds true for the understanding of lsquothe corporeality of bodiesthe vegetable character of plants the animality of animals and the humannessof humanityrsquo within physics botany zoology and anthropology respec-tively these sciences all presuppose an ontological posit a pre-understandingof the being of the class of entities they study61 Heideggerrsquos ontologicallyreconceived notion of teaching is inextricably entwined with research thenbecause ontological education teaches students to question the veryontological presuppositions which guide research thereby opening a spacefor understanding the being of the entities they study otherwise than inenframingrsquos ontologically reductive terms Heideggerrsquos reconceptualizationof education would thus encourage revolutionary transformations in thesciences and humanities by teaching students to focus on and explicitly

Heidegger on Ontological Education 261

investigate the ontological presuppositions which implicitly guide research ineach domain of knowledge

Despite such revolutionary goals Heidegger thought that his ontologicalreconceptualization of education could also restore a substantive sense ofunity to the university community if only this community could learn lsquotoengage in [this lsquore ection on the essential foundationsrsquo] as re ection and tothink and belong to the university from the base of this engagementrsquo62 Fromits founding one of the major concerns about the modern university has beenhow it could maintain the unity of structure and purpose thought to bede nitive of the lsquoUni-versityrsquo as such German Idealists like Fichte andSchelling believed that this unity would follow organically from the totalityof the system of knowledge But this faith in the system proved to be far lessin uential on posterity than Humboldtrsquos alternative lsquohumanistrsquo idealaccording to which the universityrsquos unity would come from a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of character Humboldtrsquos famousidea was to link lsquoobjective Wissenschaft with subjective Bildungrsquo theuniversity would be responsible for forming fully-cultivated individuals arequirement Humboldt hoped would serve to guide and unify the newfreedom of research Historically of course neither the German Idealistsrsquoreliance on the unity of research nor Humboldtrsquos emphasis on a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of students succeeded in unifyingthe university community In effect however Heideggerrsquos re-ontologizationof education would combine (his versions of) these two strategies Theuniversity community would be uni ed both by its shared commitment toforming excellent individuals (where excellence is understood in terms of theontological perfectionism outlined above) and by the shared recognition onthe part of this community that its members are all committed to the samesubstantive pursuit The ultimately revolutionary task not simply ofunderstanding what is but of investigating the ontological presuppositionsimplicitly guiding all the various elds of knowledge Heidegger thusbelieved that ontological education by restoring substance to the notion ofexcellence and so teaching us lsquoto disclose the essential in all thingsrsquo could nally succeed in lsquoshattering the encapsulation of the sciences in theirdifferent disciplines and bringing them back from their boundless and aimlessdispersal in individual elds and cornersrsquo6364

NOTES

1 See Heidegger Being and Time (New York Harper amp Row 1962) trans J Macquarrie andE Robinson p 44 Sein und Zeit (Tubingen M Niemeyer 1993) p 22

2 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo in William McNeill (ed) Pathmarks(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998) p 167Heidegger Wegmarken 3rd edGesamtausgabe vol 9 (Frankfurt aM V Klostermann 1996) (hereafter GA9) p 218(On my translation of this title see note 28 below) I am aware that the preceding sentence

262 Iain Thomson

ominously echoes the title of Nietzschersquos politically compromised and deeply problematicearly lectures lsquoOn the Future of Our Educational Institutionsrsquo (which culminate with a callfor a lsquogreat Fuhrerrsquo [see Nietzsche On the Future of Our Educational Institutions in OLevy (ed) The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Edinburgh T N Foulis 1909)vol 6 Jacques Derrida The Ear of the Other ed C V McDonald trans Kamuf andRonell (New York Shocken Books 1985) p 28]) I bracket such political connectionshere but a complementary essay examines the darker side of Heideggerrsquos philosophicalcritique of education showing that it played a central role in his decision to join with theNazis in the early 1930s see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo(forthcoming)

3 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo ibid p 167GA9 p 2184 See Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

1980) On Heideggerrsquos distinctive understanding of lsquoessencersquo see my lsquoWhatrsquos Wrong withBeing a Technological Essentialist A Response to Feenbergrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 429ndash44

5 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo in The Question ConcerningTechnology and Other Essays trans W Lovitt (New York Harper amp Row 1977) p 4ibid pp 30ndash31

6 Cf Feenbergrsquos Hegelian misinterpretation of Heideggerrsquos understanding of essence in lsquoTheOntic and the Ontological in Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Technology Response toThomsonrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 445ndash50

7 Heidegger lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo op cit p 145GA9 p 1898 Ibid pp 145ndash46 (my italics)GA9 p 190 I am of necessity simplifying Heideggerrsquos

complex account here but see my lsquoOntotheology Understanding Heideggerrsquos Destruktionof Metaphysicsrsquo International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (October 2000) pp 297ndash327

9 See Heidegger An Introduction to Metaphysics trans R Manheim (New Haven YaleUniversity Press 1959) p 3Einfuhrung in die Metaphysik (Tubingen M Niemeyer1953) p 2

10 See Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations 3rd ed trans G E M Anscombe(New York Macmillan 1968) sect 217 p 85

11 See also Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 170GA9 p 222 lsquoThe essenceof ldquoeducationrdquo is grounded in the essence of ldquotruthrdquorsquo

12 See Heidegger Nietzsche Nihilism ed David Krell trans F Capuzzi (New York Harperamp Row 1982) p 205Nietzsche (Pfullingen Neske 1961) vol II p 343

13 Eventually either a new ontotheology emerges (perhaps as Kuhn suggests out of theinvestigation of those lsquoanomalousrsquo entities which resist being understood in terms of thedominant ontotheology) or else our underlying conception of the being of all entities wouldbe brought into line with this spreading ontotheology Although this latter alternative hasnever yet occurred Heidegger calls it lsquothe greatest dangerrsquo he is worried that ourNietzschean ontotheology could become totalizing lsquodriving out every other possibility ofrevealingrsquo by overwriting Daseinrsquos lsquospecial naturersquo our de ning capacity for world-disclosure with the lsquototal thoughtlessnessrsquo of a merely instrumental lsquocalculative reasoningrsquo See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo op cit p 27 HeideggerDiscourse on Thinking trans J Anderson and E Freund (New York Harper amp Row1966) p 56

14 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo ibid pp 16ndash2015 See esp Friedrich Nietzsche The Will To Power ed and trans Walter Kaufmann (New

York Random House 1967) pp 549ndash50 Here Nietzsche clearly conceives of beings assuch as will to power and of the way the totality exists as eternally recurring Nor canHeideggerrsquos controversial reading be rejected simply by excluding this problematic text onthe basis of its politically compromised ancestry since Nietzschersquos ontotheology can alsobe found in his other works

16 Heidegger lsquoNihilism as Determined by the History of Beingrsquo Nietzsche Nihilism op citpp 199ndash250

17 See Heidegger Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) trans P Emad and K Maly(Bloomington IN Indiana University Press 1999) p 95Beitrage zur Philosophie (Vom

Heidegger on Ontological Education 263

lsquorestoresrsquo to Bildung To further lsquounfoldrsquo these two senses of lsquoeducationrsquoHeidegger immediately introduces the contrast class lsquothe contrary of paideiais apaideusia lack of education [Bildunglosigkeit] where no fundamentalcomportment is awakened no measure-giving preconception establishedrsquo42

This helpfully clari es Heideggerrsquos rst claim It is by awakening alsquofundamental comportmentrsquo that education stamps us with a character thatunfolds within us In the educational situation ndash a situation without pre-delimitable boundaries indeed a situation the boundaries of whichHeidegger ceaselessly seeks to expand (for he holds that lsquopaideia isessentially a movement of passage from apaideusia to paideiarsquo such thateducation is not something that can ever be completed) ndash the lsquofundamentalcomportmentrsquo perhaps most frequently called for is not the heroic Ent-schlossenheit nor even the gentler Gelassenheit but rather a more basic formof receptive spontaneity Heidegger will simply call hearing or hearkening(horen) that is (as we will see) an attentive and responsive way of dwellingin onersquos environment But whether the comportment implicitly guidingeducation is lsquoresolutenessrsquo lsquoreleasementrsquo lsquohearingrsquo or that anxiety-tranquillizing hurry which generally characterizes contemporary life dependson the second sense of Bildung which remains puzzling From where do wederive the measure-giving vision which implicitly informs all genuineeducation

Heideggerrsquos answer is complicated let us recall by the fact that he is bothelaborating his own philosophy of education (as it were) and performing acritical exegesis of Platorsquos decisive metaphysical contribution to lsquothe historythat we arersquo the history of metaphysics These two aims are in tension withone another because the education Heidegger seeks to impart ndash thefundamental attunement he would awaken in his students ndash is itself anattempt to awaken us from the ontological education that we have lsquoalwaysalreadyrsquo received from the metaphysical tradition For this generallyunnoticed antecedent measure comes to us from metaphysics from theontotheologically conceived understanding of the being of beings In shortHeidegger seeks to educate his students against their pre-existingontotheological education (He will sometimes call this educating-against-education simply lsquoteachingrsquo) The crucial question then is How canHeideggerrsquos ontological education combat the metaphysical education wehave always already received

2 The Pedagogy of Ontological Freedom

Heideggerrsquos suggestions about how the ontological education he advocatescan transcend enframing are surprisingly speci c Recall that in Platorsquosallegory the prisoner (1) begins in captivity within the cave (2) escapes thechains and turns around to discover the re and objects responsible for the

256 Iain Thomson

shadows on the wall previously taken as reality then (3) ascends from thecave into the light of the outside world coming to understand what is seenthere as made possible by the light of the sun and (4) nally returns to thecave taking up the struggle to free the other prisoners (who violently resisttheir would-be liberator) For Heidegger this well-known scenario suggeststhe pedagogy of ontological education On his remarkable interpretation theprisonerrsquos lsquofour different dwelling placesrsquo communicate the four successivestages whereby ontological education breaks studentsrsquo bondage to thetechnological mode of revealing freeing them to understand what-isdifferently

When studentsrsquo ontological educations begin they lsquoare engrossed in whatthey immediately encounterrsquo taking the shadows cast by the re on the wallto be the ultimate reality of things Yet this lsquo rersquo is only lsquoman-madersquo thelsquoconfusingrsquo light it casts represents enframingrsquos ontologically reductive modeof revealing Here in this rst stage all entities show up to students merely asresources to be optimized including the students themselves Thus if pressedstudents will ultimately lsquojustifyrsquo even their education itself merely as a meansto making more money getting the most out of their potentials or some otherequally empty optimization imperative Stage two is only reached when astudentrsquos lsquogaze is freed from its captivity to shadowsrsquo this happens when astudent recognizes lsquothe rersquo (enframing) as the source of lsquothe shadowsrsquo(entities understood as mere resources) In stage two the metaphysical chainsof enframing are thus broken But how does this liberation occur Despite theimportance of this question Heidegger answers it only in an aside lsquoto turnonersquos gaze from the shadows to entities as they show themselves withinthe glow of the relight is dif cult and failsrsquo43 His point I take it is thatentities do not show themselves as they are when forced into the meta-physical mould of enframing the ontotheology which reduces them to mereresources to be optimized Students can be led to this realization through aguided investigation of the being of any entity which they will tend tounderstand only as eternally recurring will-to-power that is as forcesendlessly coming together and breaking apart Because this metaphysicalunderstanding dissolves being into becoming the attempt to see entities asthey are in its light is doomed to failure resources have no being they arelsquoconstantly becomingrsquo (as Nietzsche realized) With this recognition ndash and theanxiety it tends to induce ndash students can attain a negative freedom fromenframing

Still Heidegger insists that lsquoreal freedomrsquo lsquoeffective freedomrsquo (wirklicheFreiheit) ndash the positive freedom in which students realize that entities aremore than mere resources and so become free for understanding themotherwise ndash lsquois attained only in stage three in which someone who has beenunchained is conveyed outside the cave ldquointo the openrdquorsquo (Notice the implicitreference to someone doing the unchaining and conveying here for

Heidegger on Ontological Education 257

Heidegger the educator plays a crucial role facilitating studentsrsquo passagebetween each of the stages) The open is one of Heideggerrsquos names for lsquobeingas suchrsquo that is for lsquowhat appears antecedently in everything that appears and makes whatever appears be accessiblersquo44 The attainment of ndash or bettercomportmental attunement to ndash this lsquoopenrsquo is what Heidegger famously callslsquodwellingrsquo45 When such positive ontological freedom is achieved lsquowhatthings are no longer appear merely in the man-made and confusing glow ofthe re within the cave The things themselves stand there in the binding forceand validity of their own visible formrsquo46 Ontological freedom is achievedwhen entities show themselves in their full phenomenological richness Thegoal of the third stage of ontological education then is to teach students tolsquodwellrsquo to help attune them to the being of entities and thus to teach them tosee that the being of an entity ndash be it a book cup rose or to use a particularlysalient example they themselves ndash cannot be fully understood in theontologically-reductive terms of enframing47

With the attainment of this crucial third stage Heideggerrsquos lsquogenuinersquoontological education may seem to have reached its completion since lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo48 This claim that genuineeducation teaches students to recognize lsquoessencesrsquo is not merely a Platonicconceit but plays an absolutely crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for areuni cation of the university (as we will see in the conclusion) Neverthelessontological education reaches its true culmination only in the fourth stage thereturn to the cave Heidegger clearly understood his own role as a teacher interms of just such a return that is as a struggle to free ontologicallyanaesthetized enframers from their bondage to a self-reifying mode ofontological revealing49 But his ranking of the return to the cave as the higheststage of ontological education is not merely an evangelistic call for others toadopt his vision of education as a revolution in consciousness it also re ectshis recognition that in ontological education learning culminates in teachingWe must thus ask What is called lsquoteachingrsquo

3 What Is Called Teaching

The English lsquoteachrsquo comes from the same linguistic family as the Germanverb zeigen lsquoto point or showrsquo50 As this etymology suggests to teach is toreveal to point out or make manifest through words But to reveal whatWhat does the teacher who lsquopoints outrsquo (or reveals) with words point to (orindicate)51 What do teachers teach The question seems to presuppose thatall teaching shares a common lsquosubject-matterrsquo not simply a shared method orgoal (the inculcation of critical thinking persuasive writing and the like) butsomething more substantive a common subject-matter unifying the Uni-versity Of course all teachers use words to disclose but to disclose a common

258 Iain Thomson

subject-matter How could such a supposition not sound absurd to usprofessional denizens of a postmodern polyversity where relentless hyper-specialization continues to fragment our subjects and even re-unifying forceslike interdisciplinarity seem to thrive only in so far they open new sub-specialties for a relentless vascular-to-capillary colonization of the scienti clifeworld In such a situation is it surprising that the Heideggerian idea of allteachers ultimately sharing a uni ed subject sounds absurd or at best like anoutdated myth ndash albeit the myth that founded the modern university But isthe idea of such a shared subject-matter a myth What do teachers teach Letus approach this question from what might at rst seem to be anotherdirection attempting to learn its answer

If teaching is revealing through words then conversely learning isexperiencing what a teacherrsquos words reveal That is to learn is actively toallow oneself to share in what the teacherrsquos words disclose But again whatdo the teacherrsquos words reveal We will notice if we read closely enough thatHeidegger answers this question in 1951 when he writes lsquoTo learn means tomake everything we do answer to whatever essentials address us at a giventimersquo52 Here it might sound at rst as if Heidegger is simply claimingthat learning as the complement of teaching means actively allowing oneselfto share in that which the teacherrsquos words disclose But Wittgenstein used tosay that philosophy is like a bicycle race the point of which is to go as slowlyas possible without falling off and if we slow down we will notice thatHeideggerrsquos words ndash the words of a teacher who would teach what learningmeans (in fact the performative situation is even more complex)53ndash saymore Learning means actively allowing ourselves to respond to what isessential in that which always addresses us that which has always alreadyclaimed us

In a sense then learning means responding appropriately to thesolicitations of the environment Of course Heidegger is thinking of theontological environment (the way in which what-is discloses itself to us)but even ontic analogues show that this capacity to respond appropriately tothe environment is quite dif cult to learn We learn to respond appropriatelyto environmental solicitations through a long process of trial and error Wemust in other words learn how to learn Here problems abound for it isnot clear that learning to learn can be taught To the analytically minded thisdemand seems to lead to a regress (for if we need to learn to learn then weneed to learn to learn to learn and so on) But logic misleads phenomenologyhere as Heidegger realized it is simply a question of jumping into thispedagogical circle in the right way Such a train of thought leads Heidegger toclaim that if lsquoteaching is even more dif cult than learningrsquo this is onlybecause the teacher must be an exemplary learner capable of teaching his orher students to learn that is capable of learning-in-public activelyresponding to the emerging demands of each unique educational situation

Heidegger on Ontological Education 259

Recall the famous passage

Why is teaching more dif cult than learning Not because the teacher must have alarger store of information and have it always ready Teaching is more dif cult thanlearning because what teaching calls for is this to let learn The real teacher in factlets nothing else be learned than learning The teacher is ahead of his apprentices inthis alone that he has still far more to learn than they ndash he has to learn to let themlearn The teacher must be capable of being more teachable than his apprentices5 4

The teacher teaches students to learn ndash to respond appropriately to thesolicitations of the ontological environment ndash by responding appropriately tothe solicitations of his or her environment which is after all the studentsrsquoenvironment too Learning culminates in teaching then because teaching isthe highest form of learning unlike lsquoinstructingrsquo (belehren) lsquoteachingrsquo(lehren) is ultimately a lsquoletting learnrsquo (lernen lassen) lsquoThe true teacher isahead of the students only in that he has more to learn than they namely theletting learn (To learn [means] to bring what we do and allow into a co-respondence [or a suitable response Entsprechung] with that which in eachcase grants itself to us as the essential)rsquo55

This last assertion should remind us of Heideggerrsquos earlier claim that lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo56 I said previously that thisclaim plays a crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for a reuni cation of theuniversity By way of conclusion let us brie y develop this claim and therebyfurther elaborate Heideggerrsquos positive vision for the future of highereducation

IV Conclusion Envisioning a University of Teachers

How can Heideggerrsquos understanding of ontological education help us restoresubstance to our currently empty guiding ideal of educational lsquoexcellencersquoand in so doing provide the contemporary university with a renewed sense ofunity not only restoring substance to our shared commitment to formingexcellent students but also helping us recognize the sense in which we are infact all working on the same project The answer is surprisingly simple Byre-essentializing the notion of excellence Heidegger like Aristotle is aperfectionist he argues that there is a distinctive human essence and that thegood life the life of lsquoexcellencersquo (arete) is the life spent cultivating thisdistinctively human essence For Heidegger as we have seen the humanlsquoessencersquo is Dasein lsquobeing-therersquo that is the making-intelligible of the placein which we nd ourselves or even more simply world disclosing For aworld-disclosing being to cultivate its essence then is for it to recognize and

260 Iain Thomson

develop this essence not only acknowledging its participation in the creationand maintenance of an intelligible world but actively embracing itsontological role in such world disclosure The full rami cations of thisseemingly simple insight are profound and revolutionary57 We will restrictourselves to brie y developing the two most important implications ofHeideggerrsquos re-essentialization of excellence for the future of the university

Heideggerrsquos ontological conception of education would transform theexisting relations between teaching and research on the one hand andbetween the now fragmented departments on the other Thus in effectHeidegger dedicates himself nally to redeeming the two central ideals whichguided the formation of the modern university Teaching and research shouldbe harmoniously integrated and the university community should understanditself as committed to a common substantive task58 How does Heideggerthink he can help us nally achieve such ambitions First his conception oflsquoteachingrsquo would reunite research and teaching because when studentsdevelop the aforementioned lsquoinsight into essencersquo they are being taught todisclose and investigate the ontological presuppositions which underlie allresearch on Heideggerrsquos view For todayrsquos academic departments are what hecalls lsquopositive sciencesrsquo that is they all rest on ontological lsquopositsrsquoontological assumptions about what the class of entities they study areBiology for example allows us to understand the logos of the bios the orderand structure of living beings Nevertheless Heidegger asserts biologyproper cannot tell us what life is59 Instead biology takes over its implicitontological understanding of what life is from the metaphysical under-standing governing our Nietzschean epoch of enframing (When contempor-ary philosophers of biology claim that life is lsquoa self-replicating systemrsquo theyhave unknowingly adopted the basic ontological presupposition ofNietzschersquos metaphysics according to which life is ultimately the eternalrecurrence of will to power that is sheer will-to-will unlimited self-augmentation)60 Analogously psychology can tell us a great deal about howconsciousness (the psyche) functions but it cannot tell us what consciousnessis The same holds true for the understanding of lsquothe corporeality of bodiesthe vegetable character of plants the animality of animals and the humannessof humanityrsquo within physics botany zoology and anthropology respec-tively these sciences all presuppose an ontological posit a pre-understandingof the being of the class of entities they study61 Heideggerrsquos ontologicallyreconceived notion of teaching is inextricably entwined with research thenbecause ontological education teaches students to question the veryontological presuppositions which guide research thereby opening a spacefor understanding the being of the entities they study otherwise than inenframingrsquos ontologically reductive terms Heideggerrsquos reconceptualizationof education would thus encourage revolutionary transformations in thesciences and humanities by teaching students to focus on and explicitly

Heidegger on Ontological Education 261

investigate the ontological presuppositions which implicitly guide research ineach domain of knowledge

Despite such revolutionary goals Heidegger thought that his ontologicalreconceptualization of education could also restore a substantive sense ofunity to the university community if only this community could learn lsquotoengage in [this lsquore ection on the essential foundationsrsquo] as re ection and tothink and belong to the university from the base of this engagementrsquo62 Fromits founding one of the major concerns about the modern university has beenhow it could maintain the unity of structure and purpose thought to bede nitive of the lsquoUni-versityrsquo as such German Idealists like Fichte andSchelling believed that this unity would follow organically from the totalityof the system of knowledge But this faith in the system proved to be far lessin uential on posterity than Humboldtrsquos alternative lsquohumanistrsquo idealaccording to which the universityrsquos unity would come from a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of character Humboldtrsquos famousidea was to link lsquoobjective Wissenschaft with subjective Bildungrsquo theuniversity would be responsible for forming fully-cultivated individuals arequirement Humboldt hoped would serve to guide and unify the newfreedom of research Historically of course neither the German Idealistsrsquoreliance on the unity of research nor Humboldtrsquos emphasis on a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of students succeeded in unifyingthe university community In effect however Heideggerrsquos re-ontologizationof education would combine (his versions of) these two strategies Theuniversity community would be uni ed both by its shared commitment toforming excellent individuals (where excellence is understood in terms of theontological perfectionism outlined above) and by the shared recognition onthe part of this community that its members are all committed to the samesubstantive pursuit The ultimately revolutionary task not simply ofunderstanding what is but of investigating the ontological presuppositionsimplicitly guiding all the various elds of knowledge Heidegger thusbelieved that ontological education by restoring substance to the notion ofexcellence and so teaching us lsquoto disclose the essential in all thingsrsquo could nally succeed in lsquoshattering the encapsulation of the sciences in theirdifferent disciplines and bringing them back from their boundless and aimlessdispersal in individual elds and cornersrsquo6364

NOTES

1 See Heidegger Being and Time (New York Harper amp Row 1962) trans J Macquarrie andE Robinson p 44 Sein und Zeit (Tubingen M Niemeyer 1993) p 22

2 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo in William McNeill (ed) Pathmarks(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998) p 167Heidegger Wegmarken 3rd edGesamtausgabe vol 9 (Frankfurt aM V Klostermann 1996) (hereafter GA9) p 218(On my translation of this title see note 28 below) I am aware that the preceding sentence

262 Iain Thomson

ominously echoes the title of Nietzschersquos politically compromised and deeply problematicearly lectures lsquoOn the Future of Our Educational Institutionsrsquo (which culminate with a callfor a lsquogreat Fuhrerrsquo [see Nietzsche On the Future of Our Educational Institutions in OLevy (ed) The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Edinburgh T N Foulis 1909)vol 6 Jacques Derrida The Ear of the Other ed C V McDonald trans Kamuf andRonell (New York Shocken Books 1985) p 28]) I bracket such political connectionshere but a complementary essay examines the darker side of Heideggerrsquos philosophicalcritique of education showing that it played a central role in his decision to join with theNazis in the early 1930s see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo(forthcoming)

3 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo ibid p 167GA9 p 2184 See Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

1980) On Heideggerrsquos distinctive understanding of lsquoessencersquo see my lsquoWhatrsquos Wrong withBeing a Technological Essentialist A Response to Feenbergrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 429ndash44

5 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo in The Question ConcerningTechnology and Other Essays trans W Lovitt (New York Harper amp Row 1977) p 4ibid pp 30ndash31

6 Cf Feenbergrsquos Hegelian misinterpretation of Heideggerrsquos understanding of essence in lsquoTheOntic and the Ontological in Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Technology Response toThomsonrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 445ndash50

7 Heidegger lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo op cit p 145GA9 p 1898 Ibid pp 145ndash46 (my italics)GA9 p 190 I am of necessity simplifying Heideggerrsquos

complex account here but see my lsquoOntotheology Understanding Heideggerrsquos Destruktionof Metaphysicsrsquo International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (October 2000) pp 297ndash327

9 See Heidegger An Introduction to Metaphysics trans R Manheim (New Haven YaleUniversity Press 1959) p 3Einfuhrung in die Metaphysik (Tubingen M Niemeyer1953) p 2

10 See Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations 3rd ed trans G E M Anscombe(New York Macmillan 1968) sect 217 p 85

11 See also Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 170GA9 p 222 lsquoThe essenceof ldquoeducationrdquo is grounded in the essence of ldquotruthrdquorsquo

12 See Heidegger Nietzsche Nihilism ed David Krell trans F Capuzzi (New York Harperamp Row 1982) p 205Nietzsche (Pfullingen Neske 1961) vol II p 343

13 Eventually either a new ontotheology emerges (perhaps as Kuhn suggests out of theinvestigation of those lsquoanomalousrsquo entities which resist being understood in terms of thedominant ontotheology) or else our underlying conception of the being of all entities wouldbe brought into line with this spreading ontotheology Although this latter alternative hasnever yet occurred Heidegger calls it lsquothe greatest dangerrsquo he is worried that ourNietzschean ontotheology could become totalizing lsquodriving out every other possibility ofrevealingrsquo by overwriting Daseinrsquos lsquospecial naturersquo our de ning capacity for world-disclosure with the lsquototal thoughtlessnessrsquo of a merely instrumental lsquocalculative reasoningrsquo See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo op cit p 27 HeideggerDiscourse on Thinking trans J Anderson and E Freund (New York Harper amp Row1966) p 56

14 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo ibid pp 16ndash2015 See esp Friedrich Nietzsche The Will To Power ed and trans Walter Kaufmann (New

York Random House 1967) pp 549ndash50 Here Nietzsche clearly conceives of beings assuch as will to power and of the way the totality exists as eternally recurring Nor canHeideggerrsquos controversial reading be rejected simply by excluding this problematic text onthe basis of its politically compromised ancestry since Nietzschersquos ontotheology can alsobe found in his other works

16 Heidegger lsquoNihilism as Determined by the History of Beingrsquo Nietzsche Nihilism op citpp 199ndash250

17 See Heidegger Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) trans P Emad and K Maly(Bloomington IN Indiana University Press 1999) p 95Beitrage zur Philosophie (Vom

Heidegger on Ontological Education 263

shadows on the wall previously taken as reality then (3) ascends from thecave into the light of the outside world coming to understand what is seenthere as made possible by the light of the sun and (4) nally returns to thecave taking up the struggle to free the other prisoners (who violently resisttheir would-be liberator) For Heidegger this well-known scenario suggeststhe pedagogy of ontological education On his remarkable interpretation theprisonerrsquos lsquofour different dwelling placesrsquo communicate the four successivestages whereby ontological education breaks studentsrsquo bondage to thetechnological mode of revealing freeing them to understand what-isdifferently

When studentsrsquo ontological educations begin they lsquoare engrossed in whatthey immediately encounterrsquo taking the shadows cast by the re on the wallto be the ultimate reality of things Yet this lsquo rersquo is only lsquoman-madersquo thelsquoconfusingrsquo light it casts represents enframingrsquos ontologically reductive modeof revealing Here in this rst stage all entities show up to students merely asresources to be optimized including the students themselves Thus if pressedstudents will ultimately lsquojustifyrsquo even their education itself merely as a meansto making more money getting the most out of their potentials or some otherequally empty optimization imperative Stage two is only reached when astudentrsquos lsquogaze is freed from its captivity to shadowsrsquo this happens when astudent recognizes lsquothe rersquo (enframing) as the source of lsquothe shadowsrsquo(entities understood as mere resources) In stage two the metaphysical chainsof enframing are thus broken But how does this liberation occur Despite theimportance of this question Heidegger answers it only in an aside lsquoto turnonersquos gaze from the shadows to entities as they show themselves withinthe glow of the relight is dif cult and failsrsquo43 His point I take it is thatentities do not show themselves as they are when forced into the meta-physical mould of enframing the ontotheology which reduces them to mereresources to be optimized Students can be led to this realization through aguided investigation of the being of any entity which they will tend tounderstand only as eternally recurring will-to-power that is as forcesendlessly coming together and breaking apart Because this metaphysicalunderstanding dissolves being into becoming the attempt to see entities asthey are in its light is doomed to failure resources have no being they arelsquoconstantly becomingrsquo (as Nietzsche realized) With this recognition ndash and theanxiety it tends to induce ndash students can attain a negative freedom fromenframing

Still Heidegger insists that lsquoreal freedomrsquo lsquoeffective freedomrsquo (wirklicheFreiheit) ndash the positive freedom in which students realize that entities aremore than mere resources and so become free for understanding themotherwise ndash lsquois attained only in stage three in which someone who has beenunchained is conveyed outside the cave ldquointo the openrdquorsquo (Notice the implicitreference to someone doing the unchaining and conveying here for

Heidegger on Ontological Education 257

Heidegger the educator plays a crucial role facilitating studentsrsquo passagebetween each of the stages) The open is one of Heideggerrsquos names for lsquobeingas suchrsquo that is for lsquowhat appears antecedently in everything that appears and makes whatever appears be accessiblersquo44 The attainment of ndash or bettercomportmental attunement to ndash this lsquoopenrsquo is what Heidegger famously callslsquodwellingrsquo45 When such positive ontological freedom is achieved lsquowhatthings are no longer appear merely in the man-made and confusing glow ofthe re within the cave The things themselves stand there in the binding forceand validity of their own visible formrsquo46 Ontological freedom is achievedwhen entities show themselves in their full phenomenological richness Thegoal of the third stage of ontological education then is to teach students tolsquodwellrsquo to help attune them to the being of entities and thus to teach them tosee that the being of an entity ndash be it a book cup rose or to use a particularlysalient example they themselves ndash cannot be fully understood in theontologically-reductive terms of enframing47

With the attainment of this crucial third stage Heideggerrsquos lsquogenuinersquoontological education may seem to have reached its completion since lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo48 This claim that genuineeducation teaches students to recognize lsquoessencesrsquo is not merely a Platonicconceit but plays an absolutely crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for areuni cation of the university (as we will see in the conclusion) Neverthelessontological education reaches its true culmination only in the fourth stage thereturn to the cave Heidegger clearly understood his own role as a teacher interms of just such a return that is as a struggle to free ontologicallyanaesthetized enframers from their bondage to a self-reifying mode ofontological revealing49 But his ranking of the return to the cave as the higheststage of ontological education is not merely an evangelistic call for others toadopt his vision of education as a revolution in consciousness it also re ectshis recognition that in ontological education learning culminates in teachingWe must thus ask What is called lsquoteachingrsquo

3 What Is Called Teaching

The English lsquoteachrsquo comes from the same linguistic family as the Germanverb zeigen lsquoto point or showrsquo50 As this etymology suggests to teach is toreveal to point out or make manifest through words But to reveal whatWhat does the teacher who lsquopoints outrsquo (or reveals) with words point to (orindicate)51 What do teachers teach The question seems to presuppose thatall teaching shares a common lsquosubject-matterrsquo not simply a shared method orgoal (the inculcation of critical thinking persuasive writing and the like) butsomething more substantive a common subject-matter unifying the Uni-versity Of course all teachers use words to disclose but to disclose a common

258 Iain Thomson

subject-matter How could such a supposition not sound absurd to usprofessional denizens of a postmodern polyversity where relentless hyper-specialization continues to fragment our subjects and even re-unifying forceslike interdisciplinarity seem to thrive only in so far they open new sub-specialties for a relentless vascular-to-capillary colonization of the scienti clifeworld In such a situation is it surprising that the Heideggerian idea of allteachers ultimately sharing a uni ed subject sounds absurd or at best like anoutdated myth ndash albeit the myth that founded the modern university But isthe idea of such a shared subject-matter a myth What do teachers teach Letus approach this question from what might at rst seem to be anotherdirection attempting to learn its answer

If teaching is revealing through words then conversely learning isexperiencing what a teacherrsquos words reveal That is to learn is actively toallow oneself to share in what the teacherrsquos words disclose But again whatdo the teacherrsquos words reveal We will notice if we read closely enough thatHeidegger answers this question in 1951 when he writes lsquoTo learn means tomake everything we do answer to whatever essentials address us at a giventimersquo52 Here it might sound at rst as if Heidegger is simply claimingthat learning as the complement of teaching means actively allowing oneselfto share in that which the teacherrsquos words disclose But Wittgenstein used tosay that philosophy is like a bicycle race the point of which is to go as slowlyas possible without falling off and if we slow down we will notice thatHeideggerrsquos words ndash the words of a teacher who would teach what learningmeans (in fact the performative situation is even more complex)53ndash saymore Learning means actively allowing ourselves to respond to what isessential in that which always addresses us that which has always alreadyclaimed us

In a sense then learning means responding appropriately to thesolicitations of the environment Of course Heidegger is thinking of theontological environment (the way in which what-is discloses itself to us)but even ontic analogues show that this capacity to respond appropriately tothe environment is quite dif cult to learn We learn to respond appropriatelyto environmental solicitations through a long process of trial and error Wemust in other words learn how to learn Here problems abound for it isnot clear that learning to learn can be taught To the analytically minded thisdemand seems to lead to a regress (for if we need to learn to learn then weneed to learn to learn to learn and so on) But logic misleads phenomenologyhere as Heidegger realized it is simply a question of jumping into thispedagogical circle in the right way Such a train of thought leads Heidegger toclaim that if lsquoteaching is even more dif cult than learningrsquo this is onlybecause the teacher must be an exemplary learner capable of teaching his orher students to learn that is capable of learning-in-public activelyresponding to the emerging demands of each unique educational situation

Heidegger on Ontological Education 259

Recall the famous passage

Why is teaching more dif cult than learning Not because the teacher must have alarger store of information and have it always ready Teaching is more dif cult thanlearning because what teaching calls for is this to let learn The real teacher in factlets nothing else be learned than learning The teacher is ahead of his apprentices inthis alone that he has still far more to learn than they ndash he has to learn to let themlearn The teacher must be capable of being more teachable than his apprentices5 4

The teacher teaches students to learn ndash to respond appropriately to thesolicitations of the ontological environment ndash by responding appropriately tothe solicitations of his or her environment which is after all the studentsrsquoenvironment too Learning culminates in teaching then because teaching isthe highest form of learning unlike lsquoinstructingrsquo (belehren) lsquoteachingrsquo(lehren) is ultimately a lsquoletting learnrsquo (lernen lassen) lsquoThe true teacher isahead of the students only in that he has more to learn than they namely theletting learn (To learn [means] to bring what we do and allow into a co-respondence [or a suitable response Entsprechung] with that which in eachcase grants itself to us as the essential)rsquo55

This last assertion should remind us of Heideggerrsquos earlier claim that lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo56 I said previously that thisclaim plays a crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for a reuni cation of theuniversity By way of conclusion let us brie y develop this claim and therebyfurther elaborate Heideggerrsquos positive vision for the future of highereducation

IV Conclusion Envisioning a University of Teachers

How can Heideggerrsquos understanding of ontological education help us restoresubstance to our currently empty guiding ideal of educational lsquoexcellencersquoand in so doing provide the contemporary university with a renewed sense ofunity not only restoring substance to our shared commitment to formingexcellent students but also helping us recognize the sense in which we are infact all working on the same project The answer is surprisingly simple Byre-essentializing the notion of excellence Heidegger like Aristotle is aperfectionist he argues that there is a distinctive human essence and that thegood life the life of lsquoexcellencersquo (arete) is the life spent cultivating thisdistinctively human essence For Heidegger as we have seen the humanlsquoessencersquo is Dasein lsquobeing-therersquo that is the making-intelligible of the placein which we nd ourselves or even more simply world disclosing For aworld-disclosing being to cultivate its essence then is for it to recognize and

260 Iain Thomson

develop this essence not only acknowledging its participation in the creationand maintenance of an intelligible world but actively embracing itsontological role in such world disclosure The full rami cations of thisseemingly simple insight are profound and revolutionary57 We will restrictourselves to brie y developing the two most important implications ofHeideggerrsquos re-essentialization of excellence for the future of the university

Heideggerrsquos ontological conception of education would transform theexisting relations between teaching and research on the one hand andbetween the now fragmented departments on the other Thus in effectHeidegger dedicates himself nally to redeeming the two central ideals whichguided the formation of the modern university Teaching and research shouldbe harmoniously integrated and the university community should understanditself as committed to a common substantive task58 How does Heideggerthink he can help us nally achieve such ambitions First his conception oflsquoteachingrsquo would reunite research and teaching because when studentsdevelop the aforementioned lsquoinsight into essencersquo they are being taught todisclose and investigate the ontological presuppositions which underlie allresearch on Heideggerrsquos view For todayrsquos academic departments are what hecalls lsquopositive sciencesrsquo that is they all rest on ontological lsquopositsrsquoontological assumptions about what the class of entities they study areBiology for example allows us to understand the logos of the bios the orderand structure of living beings Nevertheless Heidegger asserts biologyproper cannot tell us what life is59 Instead biology takes over its implicitontological understanding of what life is from the metaphysical under-standing governing our Nietzschean epoch of enframing (When contempor-ary philosophers of biology claim that life is lsquoa self-replicating systemrsquo theyhave unknowingly adopted the basic ontological presupposition ofNietzschersquos metaphysics according to which life is ultimately the eternalrecurrence of will to power that is sheer will-to-will unlimited self-augmentation)60 Analogously psychology can tell us a great deal about howconsciousness (the psyche) functions but it cannot tell us what consciousnessis The same holds true for the understanding of lsquothe corporeality of bodiesthe vegetable character of plants the animality of animals and the humannessof humanityrsquo within physics botany zoology and anthropology respec-tively these sciences all presuppose an ontological posit a pre-understandingof the being of the class of entities they study61 Heideggerrsquos ontologicallyreconceived notion of teaching is inextricably entwined with research thenbecause ontological education teaches students to question the veryontological presuppositions which guide research thereby opening a spacefor understanding the being of the entities they study otherwise than inenframingrsquos ontologically reductive terms Heideggerrsquos reconceptualizationof education would thus encourage revolutionary transformations in thesciences and humanities by teaching students to focus on and explicitly

Heidegger on Ontological Education 261

investigate the ontological presuppositions which implicitly guide research ineach domain of knowledge

Despite such revolutionary goals Heidegger thought that his ontologicalreconceptualization of education could also restore a substantive sense ofunity to the university community if only this community could learn lsquotoengage in [this lsquore ection on the essential foundationsrsquo] as re ection and tothink and belong to the university from the base of this engagementrsquo62 Fromits founding one of the major concerns about the modern university has beenhow it could maintain the unity of structure and purpose thought to bede nitive of the lsquoUni-versityrsquo as such German Idealists like Fichte andSchelling believed that this unity would follow organically from the totalityof the system of knowledge But this faith in the system proved to be far lessin uential on posterity than Humboldtrsquos alternative lsquohumanistrsquo idealaccording to which the universityrsquos unity would come from a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of character Humboldtrsquos famousidea was to link lsquoobjective Wissenschaft with subjective Bildungrsquo theuniversity would be responsible for forming fully-cultivated individuals arequirement Humboldt hoped would serve to guide and unify the newfreedom of research Historically of course neither the German Idealistsrsquoreliance on the unity of research nor Humboldtrsquos emphasis on a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of students succeeded in unifyingthe university community In effect however Heideggerrsquos re-ontologizationof education would combine (his versions of) these two strategies Theuniversity community would be uni ed both by its shared commitment toforming excellent individuals (where excellence is understood in terms of theontological perfectionism outlined above) and by the shared recognition onthe part of this community that its members are all committed to the samesubstantive pursuit The ultimately revolutionary task not simply ofunderstanding what is but of investigating the ontological presuppositionsimplicitly guiding all the various elds of knowledge Heidegger thusbelieved that ontological education by restoring substance to the notion ofexcellence and so teaching us lsquoto disclose the essential in all thingsrsquo could nally succeed in lsquoshattering the encapsulation of the sciences in theirdifferent disciplines and bringing them back from their boundless and aimlessdispersal in individual elds and cornersrsquo6364

NOTES

1 See Heidegger Being and Time (New York Harper amp Row 1962) trans J Macquarrie andE Robinson p 44 Sein und Zeit (Tubingen M Niemeyer 1993) p 22

2 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo in William McNeill (ed) Pathmarks(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998) p 167Heidegger Wegmarken 3rd edGesamtausgabe vol 9 (Frankfurt aM V Klostermann 1996) (hereafter GA9) p 218(On my translation of this title see note 28 below) I am aware that the preceding sentence

262 Iain Thomson

ominously echoes the title of Nietzschersquos politically compromised and deeply problematicearly lectures lsquoOn the Future of Our Educational Institutionsrsquo (which culminate with a callfor a lsquogreat Fuhrerrsquo [see Nietzsche On the Future of Our Educational Institutions in OLevy (ed) The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Edinburgh T N Foulis 1909)vol 6 Jacques Derrida The Ear of the Other ed C V McDonald trans Kamuf andRonell (New York Shocken Books 1985) p 28]) I bracket such political connectionshere but a complementary essay examines the darker side of Heideggerrsquos philosophicalcritique of education showing that it played a central role in his decision to join with theNazis in the early 1930s see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo(forthcoming)

3 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo ibid p 167GA9 p 2184 See Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

1980) On Heideggerrsquos distinctive understanding of lsquoessencersquo see my lsquoWhatrsquos Wrong withBeing a Technological Essentialist A Response to Feenbergrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 429ndash44

5 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo in The Question ConcerningTechnology and Other Essays trans W Lovitt (New York Harper amp Row 1977) p 4ibid pp 30ndash31

6 Cf Feenbergrsquos Hegelian misinterpretation of Heideggerrsquos understanding of essence in lsquoTheOntic and the Ontological in Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Technology Response toThomsonrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 445ndash50

7 Heidegger lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo op cit p 145GA9 p 1898 Ibid pp 145ndash46 (my italics)GA9 p 190 I am of necessity simplifying Heideggerrsquos

complex account here but see my lsquoOntotheology Understanding Heideggerrsquos Destruktionof Metaphysicsrsquo International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (October 2000) pp 297ndash327

9 See Heidegger An Introduction to Metaphysics trans R Manheim (New Haven YaleUniversity Press 1959) p 3Einfuhrung in die Metaphysik (Tubingen M Niemeyer1953) p 2

10 See Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations 3rd ed trans G E M Anscombe(New York Macmillan 1968) sect 217 p 85

11 See also Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 170GA9 p 222 lsquoThe essenceof ldquoeducationrdquo is grounded in the essence of ldquotruthrdquorsquo

12 See Heidegger Nietzsche Nihilism ed David Krell trans F Capuzzi (New York Harperamp Row 1982) p 205Nietzsche (Pfullingen Neske 1961) vol II p 343

13 Eventually either a new ontotheology emerges (perhaps as Kuhn suggests out of theinvestigation of those lsquoanomalousrsquo entities which resist being understood in terms of thedominant ontotheology) or else our underlying conception of the being of all entities wouldbe brought into line with this spreading ontotheology Although this latter alternative hasnever yet occurred Heidegger calls it lsquothe greatest dangerrsquo he is worried that ourNietzschean ontotheology could become totalizing lsquodriving out every other possibility ofrevealingrsquo by overwriting Daseinrsquos lsquospecial naturersquo our de ning capacity for world-disclosure with the lsquototal thoughtlessnessrsquo of a merely instrumental lsquocalculative reasoningrsquo See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo op cit p 27 HeideggerDiscourse on Thinking trans J Anderson and E Freund (New York Harper amp Row1966) p 56

14 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo ibid pp 16ndash2015 See esp Friedrich Nietzsche The Will To Power ed and trans Walter Kaufmann (New

York Random House 1967) pp 549ndash50 Here Nietzsche clearly conceives of beings assuch as will to power and of the way the totality exists as eternally recurring Nor canHeideggerrsquos controversial reading be rejected simply by excluding this problematic text onthe basis of its politically compromised ancestry since Nietzschersquos ontotheology can alsobe found in his other works

16 Heidegger lsquoNihilism as Determined by the History of Beingrsquo Nietzsche Nihilism op citpp 199ndash250

17 See Heidegger Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) trans P Emad and K Maly(Bloomington IN Indiana University Press 1999) p 95Beitrage zur Philosophie (Vom

Heidegger on Ontological Education 263

Heidegger the educator plays a crucial role facilitating studentsrsquo passagebetween each of the stages) The open is one of Heideggerrsquos names for lsquobeingas suchrsquo that is for lsquowhat appears antecedently in everything that appears and makes whatever appears be accessiblersquo44 The attainment of ndash or bettercomportmental attunement to ndash this lsquoopenrsquo is what Heidegger famously callslsquodwellingrsquo45 When such positive ontological freedom is achieved lsquowhatthings are no longer appear merely in the man-made and confusing glow ofthe re within the cave The things themselves stand there in the binding forceand validity of their own visible formrsquo46 Ontological freedom is achievedwhen entities show themselves in their full phenomenological richness Thegoal of the third stage of ontological education then is to teach students tolsquodwellrsquo to help attune them to the being of entities and thus to teach them tosee that the being of an entity ndash be it a book cup rose or to use a particularlysalient example they themselves ndash cannot be fully understood in theontologically-reductive terms of enframing47

With the attainment of this crucial third stage Heideggerrsquos lsquogenuinersquoontological education may seem to have reached its completion since lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo48 This claim that genuineeducation teaches students to recognize lsquoessencesrsquo is not merely a Platonicconceit but plays an absolutely crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for areuni cation of the university (as we will see in the conclusion) Neverthelessontological education reaches its true culmination only in the fourth stage thereturn to the cave Heidegger clearly understood his own role as a teacher interms of just such a return that is as a struggle to free ontologicallyanaesthetized enframers from their bondage to a self-reifying mode ofontological revealing49 But his ranking of the return to the cave as the higheststage of ontological education is not merely an evangelistic call for others toadopt his vision of education as a revolution in consciousness it also re ectshis recognition that in ontological education learning culminates in teachingWe must thus ask What is called lsquoteachingrsquo

3 What Is Called Teaching

The English lsquoteachrsquo comes from the same linguistic family as the Germanverb zeigen lsquoto point or showrsquo50 As this etymology suggests to teach is toreveal to point out or make manifest through words But to reveal whatWhat does the teacher who lsquopoints outrsquo (or reveals) with words point to (orindicate)51 What do teachers teach The question seems to presuppose thatall teaching shares a common lsquosubject-matterrsquo not simply a shared method orgoal (the inculcation of critical thinking persuasive writing and the like) butsomething more substantive a common subject-matter unifying the Uni-versity Of course all teachers use words to disclose but to disclose a common

258 Iain Thomson

subject-matter How could such a supposition not sound absurd to usprofessional denizens of a postmodern polyversity where relentless hyper-specialization continues to fragment our subjects and even re-unifying forceslike interdisciplinarity seem to thrive only in so far they open new sub-specialties for a relentless vascular-to-capillary colonization of the scienti clifeworld In such a situation is it surprising that the Heideggerian idea of allteachers ultimately sharing a uni ed subject sounds absurd or at best like anoutdated myth ndash albeit the myth that founded the modern university But isthe idea of such a shared subject-matter a myth What do teachers teach Letus approach this question from what might at rst seem to be anotherdirection attempting to learn its answer

If teaching is revealing through words then conversely learning isexperiencing what a teacherrsquos words reveal That is to learn is actively toallow oneself to share in what the teacherrsquos words disclose But again whatdo the teacherrsquos words reveal We will notice if we read closely enough thatHeidegger answers this question in 1951 when he writes lsquoTo learn means tomake everything we do answer to whatever essentials address us at a giventimersquo52 Here it might sound at rst as if Heidegger is simply claimingthat learning as the complement of teaching means actively allowing oneselfto share in that which the teacherrsquos words disclose But Wittgenstein used tosay that philosophy is like a bicycle race the point of which is to go as slowlyas possible without falling off and if we slow down we will notice thatHeideggerrsquos words ndash the words of a teacher who would teach what learningmeans (in fact the performative situation is even more complex)53ndash saymore Learning means actively allowing ourselves to respond to what isessential in that which always addresses us that which has always alreadyclaimed us

In a sense then learning means responding appropriately to thesolicitations of the environment Of course Heidegger is thinking of theontological environment (the way in which what-is discloses itself to us)but even ontic analogues show that this capacity to respond appropriately tothe environment is quite dif cult to learn We learn to respond appropriatelyto environmental solicitations through a long process of trial and error Wemust in other words learn how to learn Here problems abound for it isnot clear that learning to learn can be taught To the analytically minded thisdemand seems to lead to a regress (for if we need to learn to learn then weneed to learn to learn to learn and so on) But logic misleads phenomenologyhere as Heidegger realized it is simply a question of jumping into thispedagogical circle in the right way Such a train of thought leads Heidegger toclaim that if lsquoteaching is even more dif cult than learningrsquo this is onlybecause the teacher must be an exemplary learner capable of teaching his orher students to learn that is capable of learning-in-public activelyresponding to the emerging demands of each unique educational situation

Heidegger on Ontological Education 259

Recall the famous passage

Why is teaching more dif cult than learning Not because the teacher must have alarger store of information and have it always ready Teaching is more dif cult thanlearning because what teaching calls for is this to let learn The real teacher in factlets nothing else be learned than learning The teacher is ahead of his apprentices inthis alone that he has still far more to learn than they ndash he has to learn to let themlearn The teacher must be capable of being more teachable than his apprentices5 4

The teacher teaches students to learn ndash to respond appropriately to thesolicitations of the ontological environment ndash by responding appropriately tothe solicitations of his or her environment which is after all the studentsrsquoenvironment too Learning culminates in teaching then because teaching isthe highest form of learning unlike lsquoinstructingrsquo (belehren) lsquoteachingrsquo(lehren) is ultimately a lsquoletting learnrsquo (lernen lassen) lsquoThe true teacher isahead of the students only in that he has more to learn than they namely theletting learn (To learn [means] to bring what we do and allow into a co-respondence [or a suitable response Entsprechung] with that which in eachcase grants itself to us as the essential)rsquo55

This last assertion should remind us of Heideggerrsquos earlier claim that lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo56 I said previously that thisclaim plays a crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for a reuni cation of theuniversity By way of conclusion let us brie y develop this claim and therebyfurther elaborate Heideggerrsquos positive vision for the future of highereducation

IV Conclusion Envisioning a University of Teachers

How can Heideggerrsquos understanding of ontological education help us restoresubstance to our currently empty guiding ideal of educational lsquoexcellencersquoand in so doing provide the contemporary university with a renewed sense ofunity not only restoring substance to our shared commitment to formingexcellent students but also helping us recognize the sense in which we are infact all working on the same project The answer is surprisingly simple Byre-essentializing the notion of excellence Heidegger like Aristotle is aperfectionist he argues that there is a distinctive human essence and that thegood life the life of lsquoexcellencersquo (arete) is the life spent cultivating thisdistinctively human essence For Heidegger as we have seen the humanlsquoessencersquo is Dasein lsquobeing-therersquo that is the making-intelligible of the placein which we nd ourselves or even more simply world disclosing For aworld-disclosing being to cultivate its essence then is for it to recognize and

260 Iain Thomson

develop this essence not only acknowledging its participation in the creationand maintenance of an intelligible world but actively embracing itsontological role in such world disclosure The full rami cations of thisseemingly simple insight are profound and revolutionary57 We will restrictourselves to brie y developing the two most important implications ofHeideggerrsquos re-essentialization of excellence for the future of the university

Heideggerrsquos ontological conception of education would transform theexisting relations between teaching and research on the one hand andbetween the now fragmented departments on the other Thus in effectHeidegger dedicates himself nally to redeeming the two central ideals whichguided the formation of the modern university Teaching and research shouldbe harmoniously integrated and the university community should understanditself as committed to a common substantive task58 How does Heideggerthink he can help us nally achieve such ambitions First his conception oflsquoteachingrsquo would reunite research and teaching because when studentsdevelop the aforementioned lsquoinsight into essencersquo they are being taught todisclose and investigate the ontological presuppositions which underlie allresearch on Heideggerrsquos view For todayrsquos academic departments are what hecalls lsquopositive sciencesrsquo that is they all rest on ontological lsquopositsrsquoontological assumptions about what the class of entities they study areBiology for example allows us to understand the logos of the bios the orderand structure of living beings Nevertheless Heidegger asserts biologyproper cannot tell us what life is59 Instead biology takes over its implicitontological understanding of what life is from the metaphysical under-standing governing our Nietzschean epoch of enframing (When contempor-ary philosophers of biology claim that life is lsquoa self-replicating systemrsquo theyhave unknowingly adopted the basic ontological presupposition ofNietzschersquos metaphysics according to which life is ultimately the eternalrecurrence of will to power that is sheer will-to-will unlimited self-augmentation)60 Analogously psychology can tell us a great deal about howconsciousness (the psyche) functions but it cannot tell us what consciousnessis The same holds true for the understanding of lsquothe corporeality of bodiesthe vegetable character of plants the animality of animals and the humannessof humanityrsquo within physics botany zoology and anthropology respec-tively these sciences all presuppose an ontological posit a pre-understandingof the being of the class of entities they study61 Heideggerrsquos ontologicallyreconceived notion of teaching is inextricably entwined with research thenbecause ontological education teaches students to question the veryontological presuppositions which guide research thereby opening a spacefor understanding the being of the entities they study otherwise than inenframingrsquos ontologically reductive terms Heideggerrsquos reconceptualizationof education would thus encourage revolutionary transformations in thesciences and humanities by teaching students to focus on and explicitly

Heidegger on Ontological Education 261

investigate the ontological presuppositions which implicitly guide research ineach domain of knowledge

Despite such revolutionary goals Heidegger thought that his ontologicalreconceptualization of education could also restore a substantive sense ofunity to the university community if only this community could learn lsquotoengage in [this lsquore ection on the essential foundationsrsquo] as re ection and tothink and belong to the university from the base of this engagementrsquo62 Fromits founding one of the major concerns about the modern university has beenhow it could maintain the unity of structure and purpose thought to bede nitive of the lsquoUni-versityrsquo as such German Idealists like Fichte andSchelling believed that this unity would follow organically from the totalityof the system of knowledge But this faith in the system proved to be far lessin uential on posterity than Humboldtrsquos alternative lsquohumanistrsquo idealaccording to which the universityrsquos unity would come from a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of character Humboldtrsquos famousidea was to link lsquoobjective Wissenschaft with subjective Bildungrsquo theuniversity would be responsible for forming fully-cultivated individuals arequirement Humboldt hoped would serve to guide and unify the newfreedom of research Historically of course neither the German Idealistsrsquoreliance on the unity of research nor Humboldtrsquos emphasis on a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of students succeeded in unifyingthe university community In effect however Heideggerrsquos re-ontologizationof education would combine (his versions of) these two strategies Theuniversity community would be uni ed both by its shared commitment toforming excellent individuals (where excellence is understood in terms of theontological perfectionism outlined above) and by the shared recognition onthe part of this community that its members are all committed to the samesubstantive pursuit The ultimately revolutionary task not simply ofunderstanding what is but of investigating the ontological presuppositionsimplicitly guiding all the various elds of knowledge Heidegger thusbelieved that ontological education by restoring substance to the notion ofexcellence and so teaching us lsquoto disclose the essential in all thingsrsquo could nally succeed in lsquoshattering the encapsulation of the sciences in theirdifferent disciplines and bringing them back from their boundless and aimlessdispersal in individual elds and cornersrsquo6364

NOTES

1 See Heidegger Being and Time (New York Harper amp Row 1962) trans J Macquarrie andE Robinson p 44 Sein und Zeit (Tubingen M Niemeyer 1993) p 22

2 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo in William McNeill (ed) Pathmarks(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998) p 167Heidegger Wegmarken 3rd edGesamtausgabe vol 9 (Frankfurt aM V Klostermann 1996) (hereafter GA9) p 218(On my translation of this title see note 28 below) I am aware that the preceding sentence

262 Iain Thomson

ominously echoes the title of Nietzschersquos politically compromised and deeply problematicearly lectures lsquoOn the Future of Our Educational Institutionsrsquo (which culminate with a callfor a lsquogreat Fuhrerrsquo [see Nietzsche On the Future of Our Educational Institutions in OLevy (ed) The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Edinburgh T N Foulis 1909)vol 6 Jacques Derrida The Ear of the Other ed C V McDonald trans Kamuf andRonell (New York Shocken Books 1985) p 28]) I bracket such political connectionshere but a complementary essay examines the darker side of Heideggerrsquos philosophicalcritique of education showing that it played a central role in his decision to join with theNazis in the early 1930s see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo(forthcoming)

3 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo ibid p 167GA9 p 2184 See Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

1980) On Heideggerrsquos distinctive understanding of lsquoessencersquo see my lsquoWhatrsquos Wrong withBeing a Technological Essentialist A Response to Feenbergrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 429ndash44

5 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo in The Question ConcerningTechnology and Other Essays trans W Lovitt (New York Harper amp Row 1977) p 4ibid pp 30ndash31

6 Cf Feenbergrsquos Hegelian misinterpretation of Heideggerrsquos understanding of essence in lsquoTheOntic and the Ontological in Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Technology Response toThomsonrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 445ndash50

7 Heidegger lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo op cit p 145GA9 p 1898 Ibid pp 145ndash46 (my italics)GA9 p 190 I am of necessity simplifying Heideggerrsquos

complex account here but see my lsquoOntotheology Understanding Heideggerrsquos Destruktionof Metaphysicsrsquo International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (October 2000) pp 297ndash327

9 See Heidegger An Introduction to Metaphysics trans R Manheim (New Haven YaleUniversity Press 1959) p 3Einfuhrung in die Metaphysik (Tubingen M Niemeyer1953) p 2

10 See Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations 3rd ed trans G E M Anscombe(New York Macmillan 1968) sect 217 p 85

11 See also Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 170GA9 p 222 lsquoThe essenceof ldquoeducationrdquo is grounded in the essence of ldquotruthrdquorsquo

12 See Heidegger Nietzsche Nihilism ed David Krell trans F Capuzzi (New York Harperamp Row 1982) p 205Nietzsche (Pfullingen Neske 1961) vol II p 343

13 Eventually either a new ontotheology emerges (perhaps as Kuhn suggests out of theinvestigation of those lsquoanomalousrsquo entities which resist being understood in terms of thedominant ontotheology) or else our underlying conception of the being of all entities wouldbe brought into line with this spreading ontotheology Although this latter alternative hasnever yet occurred Heidegger calls it lsquothe greatest dangerrsquo he is worried that ourNietzschean ontotheology could become totalizing lsquodriving out every other possibility ofrevealingrsquo by overwriting Daseinrsquos lsquospecial naturersquo our de ning capacity for world-disclosure with the lsquototal thoughtlessnessrsquo of a merely instrumental lsquocalculative reasoningrsquo See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo op cit p 27 HeideggerDiscourse on Thinking trans J Anderson and E Freund (New York Harper amp Row1966) p 56

14 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo ibid pp 16ndash2015 See esp Friedrich Nietzsche The Will To Power ed and trans Walter Kaufmann (New

York Random House 1967) pp 549ndash50 Here Nietzsche clearly conceives of beings assuch as will to power and of the way the totality exists as eternally recurring Nor canHeideggerrsquos controversial reading be rejected simply by excluding this problematic text onthe basis of its politically compromised ancestry since Nietzschersquos ontotheology can alsobe found in his other works

16 Heidegger lsquoNihilism as Determined by the History of Beingrsquo Nietzsche Nihilism op citpp 199ndash250

17 See Heidegger Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) trans P Emad and K Maly(Bloomington IN Indiana University Press 1999) p 95Beitrage zur Philosophie (Vom

Heidegger on Ontological Education 263

subject-matter How could such a supposition not sound absurd to usprofessional denizens of a postmodern polyversity where relentless hyper-specialization continues to fragment our subjects and even re-unifying forceslike interdisciplinarity seem to thrive only in so far they open new sub-specialties for a relentless vascular-to-capillary colonization of the scienti clifeworld In such a situation is it surprising that the Heideggerian idea of allteachers ultimately sharing a uni ed subject sounds absurd or at best like anoutdated myth ndash albeit the myth that founded the modern university But isthe idea of such a shared subject-matter a myth What do teachers teach Letus approach this question from what might at rst seem to be anotherdirection attempting to learn its answer

If teaching is revealing through words then conversely learning isexperiencing what a teacherrsquos words reveal That is to learn is actively toallow oneself to share in what the teacherrsquos words disclose But again whatdo the teacherrsquos words reveal We will notice if we read closely enough thatHeidegger answers this question in 1951 when he writes lsquoTo learn means tomake everything we do answer to whatever essentials address us at a giventimersquo52 Here it might sound at rst as if Heidegger is simply claimingthat learning as the complement of teaching means actively allowing oneselfto share in that which the teacherrsquos words disclose But Wittgenstein used tosay that philosophy is like a bicycle race the point of which is to go as slowlyas possible without falling off and if we slow down we will notice thatHeideggerrsquos words ndash the words of a teacher who would teach what learningmeans (in fact the performative situation is even more complex)53ndash saymore Learning means actively allowing ourselves to respond to what isessential in that which always addresses us that which has always alreadyclaimed us

In a sense then learning means responding appropriately to thesolicitations of the environment Of course Heidegger is thinking of theontological environment (the way in which what-is discloses itself to us)but even ontic analogues show that this capacity to respond appropriately tothe environment is quite dif cult to learn We learn to respond appropriatelyto environmental solicitations through a long process of trial and error Wemust in other words learn how to learn Here problems abound for it isnot clear that learning to learn can be taught To the analytically minded thisdemand seems to lead to a regress (for if we need to learn to learn then weneed to learn to learn to learn and so on) But logic misleads phenomenologyhere as Heidegger realized it is simply a question of jumping into thispedagogical circle in the right way Such a train of thought leads Heidegger toclaim that if lsquoteaching is even more dif cult than learningrsquo this is onlybecause the teacher must be an exemplary learner capable of teaching his orher students to learn that is capable of learning-in-public activelyresponding to the emerging demands of each unique educational situation

Heidegger on Ontological Education 259

Recall the famous passage

Why is teaching more dif cult than learning Not because the teacher must have alarger store of information and have it always ready Teaching is more dif cult thanlearning because what teaching calls for is this to let learn The real teacher in factlets nothing else be learned than learning The teacher is ahead of his apprentices inthis alone that he has still far more to learn than they ndash he has to learn to let themlearn The teacher must be capable of being more teachable than his apprentices5 4

The teacher teaches students to learn ndash to respond appropriately to thesolicitations of the ontological environment ndash by responding appropriately tothe solicitations of his or her environment which is after all the studentsrsquoenvironment too Learning culminates in teaching then because teaching isthe highest form of learning unlike lsquoinstructingrsquo (belehren) lsquoteachingrsquo(lehren) is ultimately a lsquoletting learnrsquo (lernen lassen) lsquoThe true teacher isahead of the students only in that he has more to learn than they namely theletting learn (To learn [means] to bring what we do and allow into a co-respondence [or a suitable response Entsprechung] with that which in eachcase grants itself to us as the essential)rsquo55

This last assertion should remind us of Heideggerrsquos earlier claim that lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo56 I said previously that thisclaim plays a crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for a reuni cation of theuniversity By way of conclusion let us brie y develop this claim and therebyfurther elaborate Heideggerrsquos positive vision for the future of highereducation

IV Conclusion Envisioning a University of Teachers

How can Heideggerrsquos understanding of ontological education help us restoresubstance to our currently empty guiding ideal of educational lsquoexcellencersquoand in so doing provide the contemporary university with a renewed sense ofunity not only restoring substance to our shared commitment to formingexcellent students but also helping us recognize the sense in which we are infact all working on the same project The answer is surprisingly simple Byre-essentializing the notion of excellence Heidegger like Aristotle is aperfectionist he argues that there is a distinctive human essence and that thegood life the life of lsquoexcellencersquo (arete) is the life spent cultivating thisdistinctively human essence For Heidegger as we have seen the humanlsquoessencersquo is Dasein lsquobeing-therersquo that is the making-intelligible of the placein which we nd ourselves or even more simply world disclosing For aworld-disclosing being to cultivate its essence then is for it to recognize and

260 Iain Thomson

develop this essence not only acknowledging its participation in the creationand maintenance of an intelligible world but actively embracing itsontological role in such world disclosure The full rami cations of thisseemingly simple insight are profound and revolutionary57 We will restrictourselves to brie y developing the two most important implications ofHeideggerrsquos re-essentialization of excellence for the future of the university

Heideggerrsquos ontological conception of education would transform theexisting relations between teaching and research on the one hand andbetween the now fragmented departments on the other Thus in effectHeidegger dedicates himself nally to redeeming the two central ideals whichguided the formation of the modern university Teaching and research shouldbe harmoniously integrated and the university community should understanditself as committed to a common substantive task58 How does Heideggerthink he can help us nally achieve such ambitions First his conception oflsquoteachingrsquo would reunite research and teaching because when studentsdevelop the aforementioned lsquoinsight into essencersquo they are being taught todisclose and investigate the ontological presuppositions which underlie allresearch on Heideggerrsquos view For todayrsquos academic departments are what hecalls lsquopositive sciencesrsquo that is they all rest on ontological lsquopositsrsquoontological assumptions about what the class of entities they study areBiology for example allows us to understand the logos of the bios the orderand structure of living beings Nevertheless Heidegger asserts biologyproper cannot tell us what life is59 Instead biology takes over its implicitontological understanding of what life is from the metaphysical under-standing governing our Nietzschean epoch of enframing (When contempor-ary philosophers of biology claim that life is lsquoa self-replicating systemrsquo theyhave unknowingly adopted the basic ontological presupposition ofNietzschersquos metaphysics according to which life is ultimately the eternalrecurrence of will to power that is sheer will-to-will unlimited self-augmentation)60 Analogously psychology can tell us a great deal about howconsciousness (the psyche) functions but it cannot tell us what consciousnessis The same holds true for the understanding of lsquothe corporeality of bodiesthe vegetable character of plants the animality of animals and the humannessof humanityrsquo within physics botany zoology and anthropology respec-tively these sciences all presuppose an ontological posit a pre-understandingof the being of the class of entities they study61 Heideggerrsquos ontologicallyreconceived notion of teaching is inextricably entwined with research thenbecause ontological education teaches students to question the veryontological presuppositions which guide research thereby opening a spacefor understanding the being of the entities they study otherwise than inenframingrsquos ontologically reductive terms Heideggerrsquos reconceptualizationof education would thus encourage revolutionary transformations in thesciences and humanities by teaching students to focus on and explicitly

Heidegger on Ontological Education 261

investigate the ontological presuppositions which implicitly guide research ineach domain of knowledge

Despite such revolutionary goals Heidegger thought that his ontologicalreconceptualization of education could also restore a substantive sense ofunity to the university community if only this community could learn lsquotoengage in [this lsquore ection on the essential foundationsrsquo] as re ection and tothink and belong to the university from the base of this engagementrsquo62 Fromits founding one of the major concerns about the modern university has beenhow it could maintain the unity of structure and purpose thought to bede nitive of the lsquoUni-versityrsquo as such German Idealists like Fichte andSchelling believed that this unity would follow organically from the totalityof the system of knowledge But this faith in the system proved to be far lessin uential on posterity than Humboldtrsquos alternative lsquohumanistrsquo idealaccording to which the universityrsquos unity would come from a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of character Humboldtrsquos famousidea was to link lsquoobjective Wissenschaft with subjective Bildungrsquo theuniversity would be responsible for forming fully-cultivated individuals arequirement Humboldt hoped would serve to guide and unify the newfreedom of research Historically of course neither the German Idealistsrsquoreliance on the unity of research nor Humboldtrsquos emphasis on a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of students succeeded in unifyingthe university community In effect however Heideggerrsquos re-ontologizationof education would combine (his versions of) these two strategies Theuniversity community would be uni ed both by its shared commitment toforming excellent individuals (where excellence is understood in terms of theontological perfectionism outlined above) and by the shared recognition onthe part of this community that its members are all committed to the samesubstantive pursuit The ultimately revolutionary task not simply ofunderstanding what is but of investigating the ontological presuppositionsimplicitly guiding all the various elds of knowledge Heidegger thusbelieved that ontological education by restoring substance to the notion ofexcellence and so teaching us lsquoto disclose the essential in all thingsrsquo could nally succeed in lsquoshattering the encapsulation of the sciences in theirdifferent disciplines and bringing them back from their boundless and aimlessdispersal in individual elds and cornersrsquo6364

NOTES

1 See Heidegger Being and Time (New York Harper amp Row 1962) trans J Macquarrie andE Robinson p 44 Sein und Zeit (Tubingen M Niemeyer 1993) p 22

2 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo in William McNeill (ed) Pathmarks(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998) p 167Heidegger Wegmarken 3rd edGesamtausgabe vol 9 (Frankfurt aM V Klostermann 1996) (hereafter GA9) p 218(On my translation of this title see note 28 below) I am aware that the preceding sentence

262 Iain Thomson

ominously echoes the title of Nietzschersquos politically compromised and deeply problematicearly lectures lsquoOn the Future of Our Educational Institutionsrsquo (which culminate with a callfor a lsquogreat Fuhrerrsquo [see Nietzsche On the Future of Our Educational Institutions in OLevy (ed) The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Edinburgh T N Foulis 1909)vol 6 Jacques Derrida The Ear of the Other ed C V McDonald trans Kamuf andRonell (New York Shocken Books 1985) p 28]) I bracket such political connectionshere but a complementary essay examines the darker side of Heideggerrsquos philosophicalcritique of education showing that it played a central role in his decision to join with theNazis in the early 1930s see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo(forthcoming)

3 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo ibid p 167GA9 p 2184 See Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

1980) On Heideggerrsquos distinctive understanding of lsquoessencersquo see my lsquoWhatrsquos Wrong withBeing a Technological Essentialist A Response to Feenbergrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 429ndash44

5 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo in The Question ConcerningTechnology and Other Essays trans W Lovitt (New York Harper amp Row 1977) p 4ibid pp 30ndash31

6 Cf Feenbergrsquos Hegelian misinterpretation of Heideggerrsquos understanding of essence in lsquoTheOntic and the Ontological in Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Technology Response toThomsonrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 445ndash50

7 Heidegger lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo op cit p 145GA9 p 1898 Ibid pp 145ndash46 (my italics)GA9 p 190 I am of necessity simplifying Heideggerrsquos

complex account here but see my lsquoOntotheology Understanding Heideggerrsquos Destruktionof Metaphysicsrsquo International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (October 2000) pp 297ndash327

9 See Heidegger An Introduction to Metaphysics trans R Manheim (New Haven YaleUniversity Press 1959) p 3Einfuhrung in die Metaphysik (Tubingen M Niemeyer1953) p 2

10 See Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations 3rd ed trans G E M Anscombe(New York Macmillan 1968) sect 217 p 85

11 See also Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 170GA9 p 222 lsquoThe essenceof ldquoeducationrdquo is grounded in the essence of ldquotruthrdquorsquo

12 See Heidegger Nietzsche Nihilism ed David Krell trans F Capuzzi (New York Harperamp Row 1982) p 205Nietzsche (Pfullingen Neske 1961) vol II p 343

13 Eventually either a new ontotheology emerges (perhaps as Kuhn suggests out of theinvestigation of those lsquoanomalousrsquo entities which resist being understood in terms of thedominant ontotheology) or else our underlying conception of the being of all entities wouldbe brought into line with this spreading ontotheology Although this latter alternative hasnever yet occurred Heidegger calls it lsquothe greatest dangerrsquo he is worried that ourNietzschean ontotheology could become totalizing lsquodriving out every other possibility ofrevealingrsquo by overwriting Daseinrsquos lsquospecial naturersquo our de ning capacity for world-disclosure with the lsquototal thoughtlessnessrsquo of a merely instrumental lsquocalculative reasoningrsquo See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo op cit p 27 HeideggerDiscourse on Thinking trans J Anderson and E Freund (New York Harper amp Row1966) p 56

14 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo ibid pp 16ndash2015 See esp Friedrich Nietzsche The Will To Power ed and trans Walter Kaufmann (New

York Random House 1967) pp 549ndash50 Here Nietzsche clearly conceives of beings assuch as will to power and of the way the totality exists as eternally recurring Nor canHeideggerrsquos controversial reading be rejected simply by excluding this problematic text onthe basis of its politically compromised ancestry since Nietzschersquos ontotheology can alsobe found in his other works

16 Heidegger lsquoNihilism as Determined by the History of Beingrsquo Nietzsche Nihilism op citpp 199ndash250

17 See Heidegger Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) trans P Emad and K Maly(Bloomington IN Indiana University Press 1999) p 95Beitrage zur Philosophie (Vom

Heidegger on Ontological Education 263

Recall the famous passage

Why is teaching more dif cult than learning Not because the teacher must have alarger store of information and have it always ready Teaching is more dif cult thanlearning because what teaching calls for is this to let learn The real teacher in factlets nothing else be learned than learning The teacher is ahead of his apprentices inthis alone that he has still far more to learn than they ndash he has to learn to let themlearn The teacher must be capable of being more teachable than his apprentices5 4

The teacher teaches students to learn ndash to respond appropriately to thesolicitations of the ontological environment ndash by responding appropriately tothe solicitations of his or her environment which is after all the studentsrsquoenvironment too Learning culminates in teaching then because teaching isthe highest form of learning unlike lsquoinstructingrsquo (belehren) lsquoteachingrsquo(lehren) is ultimately a lsquoletting learnrsquo (lernen lassen) lsquoThe true teacher isahead of the students only in that he has more to learn than they namely theletting learn (To learn [means] to bring what we do and allow into a co-respondence [or a suitable response Entsprechung] with that which in eachcase grants itself to us as the essential)rsquo55

This last assertion should remind us of Heideggerrsquos earlier claim that lsquothevery essence of paideia consists in making the human being strong for theclarity and constancy of insight into essencersquo56 I said previously that thisclaim plays a crucial role in Heideggerrsquos programme for a reuni cation of theuniversity By way of conclusion let us brie y develop this claim and therebyfurther elaborate Heideggerrsquos positive vision for the future of highereducation

IV Conclusion Envisioning a University of Teachers

How can Heideggerrsquos understanding of ontological education help us restoresubstance to our currently empty guiding ideal of educational lsquoexcellencersquoand in so doing provide the contemporary university with a renewed sense ofunity not only restoring substance to our shared commitment to formingexcellent students but also helping us recognize the sense in which we are infact all working on the same project The answer is surprisingly simple Byre-essentializing the notion of excellence Heidegger like Aristotle is aperfectionist he argues that there is a distinctive human essence and that thegood life the life of lsquoexcellencersquo (arete) is the life spent cultivating thisdistinctively human essence For Heidegger as we have seen the humanlsquoessencersquo is Dasein lsquobeing-therersquo that is the making-intelligible of the placein which we nd ourselves or even more simply world disclosing For aworld-disclosing being to cultivate its essence then is for it to recognize and

260 Iain Thomson

develop this essence not only acknowledging its participation in the creationand maintenance of an intelligible world but actively embracing itsontological role in such world disclosure The full rami cations of thisseemingly simple insight are profound and revolutionary57 We will restrictourselves to brie y developing the two most important implications ofHeideggerrsquos re-essentialization of excellence for the future of the university

Heideggerrsquos ontological conception of education would transform theexisting relations between teaching and research on the one hand andbetween the now fragmented departments on the other Thus in effectHeidegger dedicates himself nally to redeeming the two central ideals whichguided the formation of the modern university Teaching and research shouldbe harmoniously integrated and the university community should understanditself as committed to a common substantive task58 How does Heideggerthink he can help us nally achieve such ambitions First his conception oflsquoteachingrsquo would reunite research and teaching because when studentsdevelop the aforementioned lsquoinsight into essencersquo they are being taught todisclose and investigate the ontological presuppositions which underlie allresearch on Heideggerrsquos view For todayrsquos academic departments are what hecalls lsquopositive sciencesrsquo that is they all rest on ontological lsquopositsrsquoontological assumptions about what the class of entities they study areBiology for example allows us to understand the logos of the bios the orderand structure of living beings Nevertheless Heidegger asserts biologyproper cannot tell us what life is59 Instead biology takes over its implicitontological understanding of what life is from the metaphysical under-standing governing our Nietzschean epoch of enframing (When contempor-ary philosophers of biology claim that life is lsquoa self-replicating systemrsquo theyhave unknowingly adopted the basic ontological presupposition ofNietzschersquos metaphysics according to which life is ultimately the eternalrecurrence of will to power that is sheer will-to-will unlimited self-augmentation)60 Analogously psychology can tell us a great deal about howconsciousness (the psyche) functions but it cannot tell us what consciousnessis The same holds true for the understanding of lsquothe corporeality of bodiesthe vegetable character of plants the animality of animals and the humannessof humanityrsquo within physics botany zoology and anthropology respec-tively these sciences all presuppose an ontological posit a pre-understandingof the being of the class of entities they study61 Heideggerrsquos ontologicallyreconceived notion of teaching is inextricably entwined with research thenbecause ontological education teaches students to question the veryontological presuppositions which guide research thereby opening a spacefor understanding the being of the entities they study otherwise than inenframingrsquos ontologically reductive terms Heideggerrsquos reconceptualizationof education would thus encourage revolutionary transformations in thesciences and humanities by teaching students to focus on and explicitly

Heidegger on Ontological Education 261

investigate the ontological presuppositions which implicitly guide research ineach domain of knowledge

Despite such revolutionary goals Heidegger thought that his ontologicalreconceptualization of education could also restore a substantive sense ofunity to the university community if only this community could learn lsquotoengage in [this lsquore ection on the essential foundationsrsquo] as re ection and tothink and belong to the university from the base of this engagementrsquo62 Fromits founding one of the major concerns about the modern university has beenhow it could maintain the unity of structure and purpose thought to bede nitive of the lsquoUni-versityrsquo as such German Idealists like Fichte andSchelling believed that this unity would follow organically from the totalityof the system of knowledge But this faith in the system proved to be far lessin uential on posterity than Humboldtrsquos alternative lsquohumanistrsquo idealaccording to which the universityrsquos unity would come from a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of character Humboldtrsquos famousidea was to link lsquoobjective Wissenschaft with subjective Bildungrsquo theuniversity would be responsible for forming fully-cultivated individuals arequirement Humboldt hoped would serve to guide and unify the newfreedom of research Historically of course neither the German Idealistsrsquoreliance on the unity of research nor Humboldtrsquos emphasis on a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of students succeeded in unifyingthe university community In effect however Heideggerrsquos re-ontologizationof education would combine (his versions of) these two strategies Theuniversity community would be uni ed both by its shared commitment toforming excellent individuals (where excellence is understood in terms of theontological perfectionism outlined above) and by the shared recognition onthe part of this community that its members are all committed to the samesubstantive pursuit The ultimately revolutionary task not simply ofunderstanding what is but of investigating the ontological presuppositionsimplicitly guiding all the various elds of knowledge Heidegger thusbelieved that ontological education by restoring substance to the notion ofexcellence and so teaching us lsquoto disclose the essential in all thingsrsquo could nally succeed in lsquoshattering the encapsulation of the sciences in theirdifferent disciplines and bringing them back from their boundless and aimlessdispersal in individual elds and cornersrsquo6364

NOTES

1 See Heidegger Being and Time (New York Harper amp Row 1962) trans J Macquarrie andE Robinson p 44 Sein und Zeit (Tubingen M Niemeyer 1993) p 22

2 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo in William McNeill (ed) Pathmarks(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998) p 167Heidegger Wegmarken 3rd edGesamtausgabe vol 9 (Frankfurt aM V Klostermann 1996) (hereafter GA9) p 218(On my translation of this title see note 28 below) I am aware that the preceding sentence

262 Iain Thomson

ominously echoes the title of Nietzschersquos politically compromised and deeply problematicearly lectures lsquoOn the Future of Our Educational Institutionsrsquo (which culminate with a callfor a lsquogreat Fuhrerrsquo [see Nietzsche On the Future of Our Educational Institutions in OLevy (ed) The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Edinburgh T N Foulis 1909)vol 6 Jacques Derrida The Ear of the Other ed C V McDonald trans Kamuf andRonell (New York Shocken Books 1985) p 28]) I bracket such political connectionshere but a complementary essay examines the darker side of Heideggerrsquos philosophicalcritique of education showing that it played a central role in his decision to join with theNazis in the early 1930s see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo(forthcoming)

3 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo ibid p 167GA9 p 2184 See Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

1980) On Heideggerrsquos distinctive understanding of lsquoessencersquo see my lsquoWhatrsquos Wrong withBeing a Technological Essentialist A Response to Feenbergrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 429ndash44

5 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo in The Question ConcerningTechnology and Other Essays trans W Lovitt (New York Harper amp Row 1977) p 4ibid pp 30ndash31

6 Cf Feenbergrsquos Hegelian misinterpretation of Heideggerrsquos understanding of essence in lsquoTheOntic and the Ontological in Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Technology Response toThomsonrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 445ndash50

7 Heidegger lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo op cit p 145GA9 p 1898 Ibid pp 145ndash46 (my italics)GA9 p 190 I am of necessity simplifying Heideggerrsquos

complex account here but see my lsquoOntotheology Understanding Heideggerrsquos Destruktionof Metaphysicsrsquo International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (October 2000) pp 297ndash327

9 See Heidegger An Introduction to Metaphysics trans R Manheim (New Haven YaleUniversity Press 1959) p 3Einfuhrung in die Metaphysik (Tubingen M Niemeyer1953) p 2

10 See Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations 3rd ed trans G E M Anscombe(New York Macmillan 1968) sect 217 p 85

11 See also Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 170GA9 p 222 lsquoThe essenceof ldquoeducationrdquo is grounded in the essence of ldquotruthrdquorsquo

12 See Heidegger Nietzsche Nihilism ed David Krell trans F Capuzzi (New York Harperamp Row 1982) p 205Nietzsche (Pfullingen Neske 1961) vol II p 343

13 Eventually either a new ontotheology emerges (perhaps as Kuhn suggests out of theinvestigation of those lsquoanomalousrsquo entities which resist being understood in terms of thedominant ontotheology) or else our underlying conception of the being of all entities wouldbe brought into line with this spreading ontotheology Although this latter alternative hasnever yet occurred Heidegger calls it lsquothe greatest dangerrsquo he is worried that ourNietzschean ontotheology could become totalizing lsquodriving out every other possibility ofrevealingrsquo by overwriting Daseinrsquos lsquospecial naturersquo our de ning capacity for world-disclosure with the lsquototal thoughtlessnessrsquo of a merely instrumental lsquocalculative reasoningrsquo See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo op cit p 27 HeideggerDiscourse on Thinking trans J Anderson and E Freund (New York Harper amp Row1966) p 56

14 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo ibid pp 16ndash2015 See esp Friedrich Nietzsche The Will To Power ed and trans Walter Kaufmann (New

York Random House 1967) pp 549ndash50 Here Nietzsche clearly conceives of beings assuch as will to power and of the way the totality exists as eternally recurring Nor canHeideggerrsquos controversial reading be rejected simply by excluding this problematic text onthe basis of its politically compromised ancestry since Nietzschersquos ontotheology can alsobe found in his other works

16 Heidegger lsquoNihilism as Determined by the History of Beingrsquo Nietzsche Nihilism op citpp 199ndash250

17 See Heidegger Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) trans P Emad and K Maly(Bloomington IN Indiana University Press 1999) p 95Beitrage zur Philosophie (Vom

Heidegger on Ontological Education 263

develop this essence not only acknowledging its participation in the creationand maintenance of an intelligible world but actively embracing itsontological role in such world disclosure The full rami cations of thisseemingly simple insight are profound and revolutionary57 We will restrictourselves to brie y developing the two most important implications ofHeideggerrsquos re-essentialization of excellence for the future of the university

Heideggerrsquos ontological conception of education would transform theexisting relations between teaching and research on the one hand andbetween the now fragmented departments on the other Thus in effectHeidegger dedicates himself nally to redeeming the two central ideals whichguided the formation of the modern university Teaching and research shouldbe harmoniously integrated and the university community should understanditself as committed to a common substantive task58 How does Heideggerthink he can help us nally achieve such ambitions First his conception oflsquoteachingrsquo would reunite research and teaching because when studentsdevelop the aforementioned lsquoinsight into essencersquo they are being taught todisclose and investigate the ontological presuppositions which underlie allresearch on Heideggerrsquos view For todayrsquos academic departments are what hecalls lsquopositive sciencesrsquo that is they all rest on ontological lsquopositsrsquoontological assumptions about what the class of entities they study areBiology for example allows us to understand the logos of the bios the orderand structure of living beings Nevertheless Heidegger asserts biologyproper cannot tell us what life is59 Instead biology takes over its implicitontological understanding of what life is from the metaphysical under-standing governing our Nietzschean epoch of enframing (When contempor-ary philosophers of biology claim that life is lsquoa self-replicating systemrsquo theyhave unknowingly adopted the basic ontological presupposition ofNietzschersquos metaphysics according to which life is ultimately the eternalrecurrence of will to power that is sheer will-to-will unlimited self-augmentation)60 Analogously psychology can tell us a great deal about howconsciousness (the psyche) functions but it cannot tell us what consciousnessis The same holds true for the understanding of lsquothe corporeality of bodiesthe vegetable character of plants the animality of animals and the humannessof humanityrsquo within physics botany zoology and anthropology respec-tively these sciences all presuppose an ontological posit a pre-understandingof the being of the class of entities they study61 Heideggerrsquos ontologicallyreconceived notion of teaching is inextricably entwined with research thenbecause ontological education teaches students to question the veryontological presuppositions which guide research thereby opening a spacefor understanding the being of the entities they study otherwise than inenframingrsquos ontologically reductive terms Heideggerrsquos reconceptualizationof education would thus encourage revolutionary transformations in thesciences and humanities by teaching students to focus on and explicitly

Heidegger on Ontological Education 261

investigate the ontological presuppositions which implicitly guide research ineach domain of knowledge

Despite such revolutionary goals Heidegger thought that his ontologicalreconceptualization of education could also restore a substantive sense ofunity to the university community if only this community could learn lsquotoengage in [this lsquore ection on the essential foundationsrsquo] as re ection and tothink and belong to the university from the base of this engagementrsquo62 Fromits founding one of the major concerns about the modern university has beenhow it could maintain the unity of structure and purpose thought to bede nitive of the lsquoUni-versityrsquo as such German Idealists like Fichte andSchelling believed that this unity would follow organically from the totalityof the system of knowledge But this faith in the system proved to be far lessin uential on posterity than Humboldtrsquos alternative lsquohumanistrsquo idealaccording to which the universityrsquos unity would come from a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of character Humboldtrsquos famousidea was to link lsquoobjective Wissenschaft with subjective Bildungrsquo theuniversity would be responsible for forming fully-cultivated individuals arequirement Humboldt hoped would serve to guide and unify the newfreedom of research Historically of course neither the German Idealistsrsquoreliance on the unity of research nor Humboldtrsquos emphasis on a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of students succeeded in unifyingthe university community In effect however Heideggerrsquos re-ontologizationof education would combine (his versions of) these two strategies Theuniversity community would be uni ed both by its shared commitment toforming excellent individuals (where excellence is understood in terms of theontological perfectionism outlined above) and by the shared recognition onthe part of this community that its members are all committed to the samesubstantive pursuit The ultimately revolutionary task not simply ofunderstanding what is but of investigating the ontological presuppositionsimplicitly guiding all the various elds of knowledge Heidegger thusbelieved that ontological education by restoring substance to the notion ofexcellence and so teaching us lsquoto disclose the essential in all thingsrsquo could nally succeed in lsquoshattering the encapsulation of the sciences in theirdifferent disciplines and bringing them back from their boundless and aimlessdispersal in individual elds and cornersrsquo6364

NOTES

1 See Heidegger Being and Time (New York Harper amp Row 1962) trans J Macquarrie andE Robinson p 44 Sein und Zeit (Tubingen M Niemeyer 1993) p 22

2 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo in William McNeill (ed) Pathmarks(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998) p 167Heidegger Wegmarken 3rd edGesamtausgabe vol 9 (Frankfurt aM V Klostermann 1996) (hereafter GA9) p 218(On my translation of this title see note 28 below) I am aware that the preceding sentence

262 Iain Thomson

ominously echoes the title of Nietzschersquos politically compromised and deeply problematicearly lectures lsquoOn the Future of Our Educational Institutionsrsquo (which culminate with a callfor a lsquogreat Fuhrerrsquo [see Nietzsche On the Future of Our Educational Institutions in OLevy (ed) The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Edinburgh T N Foulis 1909)vol 6 Jacques Derrida The Ear of the Other ed C V McDonald trans Kamuf andRonell (New York Shocken Books 1985) p 28]) I bracket such political connectionshere but a complementary essay examines the darker side of Heideggerrsquos philosophicalcritique of education showing that it played a central role in his decision to join with theNazis in the early 1930s see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo(forthcoming)

3 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo ibid p 167GA9 p 2184 See Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

1980) On Heideggerrsquos distinctive understanding of lsquoessencersquo see my lsquoWhatrsquos Wrong withBeing a Technological Essentialist A Response to Feenbergrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 429ndash44

5 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo in The Question ConcerningTechnology and Other Essays trans W Lovitt (New York Harper amp Row 1977) p 4ibid pp 30ndash31

6 Cf Feenbergrsquos Hegelian misinterpretation of Heideggerrsquos understanding of essence in lsquoTheOntic and the Ontological in Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Technology Response toThomsonrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 445ndash50

7 Heidegger lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo op cit p 145GA9 p 1898 Ibid pp 145ndash46 (my italics)GA9 p 190 I am of necessity simplifying Heideggerrsquos

complex account here but see my lsquoOntotheology Understanding Heideggerrsquos Destruktionof Metaphysicsrsquo International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (October 2000) pp 297ndash327

9 See Heidegger An Introduction to Metaphysics trans R Manheim (New Haven YaleUniversity Press 1959) p 3Einfuhrung in die Metaphysik (Tubingen M Niemeyer1953) p 2

10 See Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations 3rd ed trans G E M Anscombe(New York Macmillan 1968) sect 217 p 85

11 See also Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 170GA9 p 222 lsquoThe essenceof ldquoeducationrdquo is grounded in the essence of ldquotruthrdquorsquo

12 See Heidegger Nietzsche Nihilism ed David Krell trans F Capuzzi (New York Harperamp Row 1982) p 205Nietzsche (Pfullingen Neske 1961) vol II p 343

13 Eventually either a new ontotheology emerges (perhaps as Kuhn suggests out of theinvestigation of those lsquoanomalousrsquo entities which resist being understood in terms of thedominant ontotheology) or else our underlying conception of the being of all entities wouldbe brought into line with this spreading ontotheology Although this latter alternative hasnever yet occurred Heidegger calls it lsquothe greatest dangerrsquo he is worried that ourNietzschean ontotheology could become totalizing lsquodriving out every other possibility ofrevealingrsquo by overwriting Daseinrsquos lsquospecial naturersquo our de ning capacity for world-disclosure with the lsquototal thoughtlessnessrsquo of a merely instrumental lsquocalculative reasoningrsquo See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo op cit p 27 HeideggerDiscourse on Thinking trans J Anderson and E Freund (New York Harper amp Row1966) p 56

14 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo ibid pp 16ndash2015 See esp Friedrich Nietzsche The Will To Power ed and trans Walter Kaufmann (New

York Random House 1967) pp 549ndash50 Here Nietzsche clearly conceives of beings assuch as will to power and of the way the totality exists as eternally recurring Nor canHeideggerrsquos controversial reading be rejected simply by excluding this problematic text onthe basis of its politically compromised ancestry since Nietzschersquos ontotheology can alsobe found in his other works

16 Heidegger lsquoNihilism as Determined by the History of Beingrsquo Nietzsche Nihilism op citpp 199ndash250

17 See Heidegger Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) trans P Emad and K Maly(Bloomington IN Indiana University Press 1999) p 95Beitrage zur Philosophie (Vom

Heidegger on Ontological Education 263

investigate the ontological presuppositions which implicitly guide research ineach domain of knowledge

Despite such revolutionary goals Heidegger thought that his ontologicalreconceptualization of education could also restore a substantive sense ofunity to the university community if only this community could learn lsquotoengage in [this lsquore ection on the essential foundationsrsquo] as re ection and tothink and belong to the university from the base of this engagementrsquo62 Fromits founding one of the major concerns about the modern university has beenhow it could maintain the unity of structure and purpose thought to bede nitive of the lsquoUni-versityrsquo as such German Idealists like Fichte andSchelling believed that this unity would follow organically from the totalityof the system of knowledge But this faith in the system proved to be far lessin uential on posterity than Humboldtrsquos alternative lsquohumanistrsquo idealaccording to which the universityrsquos unity would come from a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of character Humboldtrsquos famousidea was to link lsquoobjective Wissenschaft with subjective Bildungrsquo theuniversity would be responsible for forming fully-cultivated individuals arequirement Humboldt hoped would serve to guide and unify the newfreedom of research Historically of course neither the German Idealistsrsquoreliance on the unity of research nor Humboldtrsquos emphasis on a sharedcommitment to the educational formation of students succeeded in unifyingthe university community In effect however Heideggerrsquos re-ontologizationof education would combine (his versions of) these two strategies Theuniversity community would be uni ed both by its shared commitment toforming excellent individuals (where excellence is understood in terms of theontological perfectionism outlined above) and by the shared recognition onthe part of this community that its members are all committed to the samesubstantive pursuit The ultimately revolutionary task not simply ofunderstanding what is but of investigating the ontological presuppositionsimplicitly guiding all the various elds of knowledge Heidegger thusbelieved that ontological education by restoring substance to the notion ofexcellence and so teaching us lsquoto disclose the essential in all thingsrsquo could nally succeed in lsquoshattering the encapsulation of the sciences in theirdifferent disciplines and bringing them back from their boundless and aimlessdispersal in individual elds and cornersrsquo6364

NOTES

1 See Heidegger Being and Time (New York Harper amp Row 1962) trans J Macquarrie andE Robinson p 44 Sein und Zeit (Tubingen M Niemeyer 1993) p 22

2 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo in William McNeill (ed) Pathmarks(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998) p 167Heidegger Wegmarken 3rd edGesamtausgabe vol 9 (Frankfurt aM V Klostermann 1996) (hereafter GA9) p 218(On my translation of this title see note 28 below) I am aware that the preceding sentence

262 Iain Thomson

ominously echoes the title of Nietzschersquos politically compromised and deeply problematicearly lectures lsquoOn the Future of Our Educational Institutionsrsquo (which culminate with a callfor a lsquogreat Fuhrerrsquo [see Nietzsche On the Future of Our Educational Institutions in OLevy (ed) The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Edinburgh T N Foulis 1909)vol 6 Jacques Derrida The Ear of the Other ed C V McDonald trans Kamuf andRonell (New York Shocken Books 1985) p 28]) I bracket such political connectionshere but a complementary essay examines the darker side of Heideggerrsquos philosophicalcritique of education showing that it played a central role in his decision to join with theNazis in the early 1930s see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo(forthcoming)

3 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo ibid p 167GA9 p 2184 See Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

1980) On Heideggerrsquos distinctive understanding of lsquoessencersquo see my lsquoWhatrsquos Wrong withBeing a Technological Essentialist A Response to Feenbergrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 429ndash44

5 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo in The Question ConcerningTechnology and Other Essays trans W Lovitt (New York Harper amp Row 1977) p 4ibid pp 30ndash31

6 Cf Feenbergrsquos Hegelian misinterpretation of Heideggerrsquos understanding of essence in lsquoTheOntic and the Ontological in Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Technology Response toThomsonrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 445ndash50

7 Heidegger lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo op cit p 145GA9 p 1898 Ibid pp 145ndash46 (my italics)GA9 p 190 I am of necessity simplifying Heideggerrsquos

complex account here but see my lsquoOntotheology Understanding Heideggerrsquos Destruktionof Metaphysicsrsquo International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (October 2000) pp 297ndash327

9 See Heidegger An Introduction to Metaphysics trans R Manheim (New Haven YaleUniversity Press 1959) p 3Einfuhrung in die Metaphysik (Tubingen M Niemeyer1953) p 2

10 See Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations 3rd ed trans G E M Anscombe(New York Macmillan 1968) sect 217 p 85

11 See also Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 170GA9 p 222 lsquoThe essenceof ldquoeducationrdquo is grounded in the essence of ldquotruthrdquorsquo

12 See Heidegger Nietzsche Nihilism ed David Krell trans F Capuzzi (New York Harperamp Row 1982) p 205Nietzsche (Pfullingen Neske 1961) vol II p 343

13 Eventually either a new ontotheology emerges (perhaps as Kuhn suggests out of theinvestigation of those lsquoanomalousrsquo entities which resist being understood in terms of thedominant ontotheology) or else our underlying conception of the being of all entities wouldbe brought into line with this spreading ontotheology Although this latter alternative hasnever yet occurred Heidegger calls it lsquothe greatest dangerrsquo he is worried that ourNietzschean ontotheology could become totalizing lsquodriving out every other possibility ofrevealingrsquo by overwriting Daseinrsquos lsquospecial naturersquo our de ning capacity for world-disclosure with the lsquototal thoughtlessnessrsquo of a merely instrumental lsquocalculative reasoningrsquo See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo op cit p 27 HeideggerDiscourse on Thinking trans J Anderson and E Freund (New York Harper amp Row1966) p 56

14 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo ibid pp 16ndash2015 See esp Friedrich Nietzsche The Will To Power ed and trans Walter Kaufmann (New

York Random House 1967) pp 549ndash50 Here Nietzsche clearly conceives of beings assuch as will to power and of the way the totality exists as eternally recurring Nor canHeideggerrsquos controversial reading be rejected simply by excluding this problematic text onthe basis of its politically compromised ancestry since Nietzschersquos ontotheology can alsobe found in his other works

16 Heidegger lsquoNihilism as Determined by the History of Beingrsquo Nietzsche Nihilism op citpp 199ndash250

17 See Heidegger Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) trans P Emad and K Maly(Bloomington IN Indiana University Press 1999) p 95Beitrage zur Philosophie (Vom

Heidegger on Ontological Education 263

ominously echoes the title of Nietzschersquos politically compromised and deeply problematicearly lectures lsquoOn the Future of Our Educational Institutionsrsquo (which culminate with a callfor a lsquogreat Fuhrerrsquo [see Nietzsche On the Future of Our Educational Institutions in OLevy (ed) The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Edinburgh T N Foulis 1909)vol 6 Jacques Derrida The Ear of the Other ed C V McDonald trans Kamuf andRonell (New York Shocken Books 1985) p 28]) I bracket such political connectionshere but a complementary essay examines the darker side of Heideggerrsquos philosophicalcritique of education showing that it played a central role in his decision to join with theNazis in the early 1930s see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo(forthcoming)

3 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo ibid p 167GA9 p 2184 See Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity (Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

1980) On Heideggerrsquos distinctive understanding of lsquoessencersquo see my lsquoWhatrsquos Wrong withBeing a Technological Essentialist A Response to Feenbergrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 429ndash44

5 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo in The Question ConcerningTechnology and Other Essays trans W Lovitt (New York Harper amp Row 1977) p 4ibid pp 30ndash31

6 Cf Feenbergrsquos Hegelian misinterpretation of Heideggerrsquos understanding of essence in lsquoTheOntic and the Ontological in Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Technology Response toThomsonrsquo Inquiry 43 (2000) pp 445ndash50

7 Heidegger lsquoOn the Essence of Truthrsquo op cit p 145GA9 p 1898 Ibid pp 145ndash46 (my italics)GA9 p 190 I am of necessity simplifying Heideggerrsquos

complex account here but see my lsquoOntotheology Understanding Heideggerrsquos Destruktionof Metaphysicsrsquo International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (October 2000) pp 297ndash327

9 See Heidegger An Introduction to Metaphysics trans R Manheim (New Haven YaleUniversity Press 1959) p 3Einfuhrung in die Metaphysik (Tubingen M Niemeyer1953) p 2

10 See Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations 3rd ed trans G E M Anscombe(New York Macmillan 1968) sect 217 p 85

11 See also Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 170GA9 p 222 lsquoThe essenceof ldquoeducationrdquo is grounded in the essence of ldquotruthrdquorsquo

12 See Heidegger Nietzsche Nihilism ed David Krell trans F Capuzzi (New York Harperamp Row 1982) p 205Nietzsche (Pfullingen Neske 1961) vol II p 343

13 Eventually either a new ontotheology emerges (perhaps as Kuhn suggests out of theinvestigation of those lsquoanomalousrsquo entities which resist being understood in terms of thedominant ontotheology) or else our underlying conception of the being of all entities wouldbe brought into line with this spreading ontotheology Although this latter alternative hasnever yet occurred Heidegger calls it lsquothe greatest dangerrsquo he is worried that ourNietzschean ontotheology could become totalizing lsquodriving out every other possibility ofrevealingrsquo by overwriting Daseinrsquos lsquospecial naturersquo our de ning capacity for world-disclosure with the lsquototal thoughtlessnessrsquo of a merely instrumental lsquocalculative reasoningrsquo See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo op cit p 27 HeideggerDiscourse on Thinking trans J Anderson and E Freund (New York Harper amp Row1966) p 56

14 See Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo ibid pp 16ndash2015 See esp Friedrich Nietzsche The Will To Power ed and trans Walter Kaufmann (New

York Random House 1967) pp 549ndash50 Here Nietzsche clearly conceives of beings assuch as will to power and of the way the totality exists as eternally recurring Nor canHeideggerrsquos controversial reading be rejected simply by excluding this problematic text onthe basis of its politically compromised ancestry since Nietzschersquos ontotheology can alsobe found in his other works

16 Heidegger lsquoNihilism as Determined by the History of Beingrsquo Nietzsche Nihilism op citpp 199ndash250

17 See Heidegger Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) trans P Emad and K Maly(Bloomington IN Indiana University Press 1999) p 95Beitrage zur Philosophie (Vom

Heidegger on Ontological Education 263

Ereignis) Gesamtausgabe ed F-W von Hermann (Frankfurt aM Vittorio Klostermann1989) vol 65 (hereafter GA65) p 137 ibid p 94 (my emphasis)GA65 p135 HeideggerlsquoTraditional Language and Technological Languagersquo trans W Gregory Journal ofPhilosophical Research 23 (1998) p 136 Heidegger Discourse on Thinking op cit p46 Heidegger lsquoTraditional Language and Technological Languagersquo p 139 JeanBaudrillard The Transparency of Evil trans J Benedict (London Verso 1993) p 4Baudrillard envisions a dystopian ful lment of this dream a lsquogrand deletersquo in whichcomputers succeed in exhaustively representing meaning then delete human life so as notto upset the perfectly completed equation This dystopian vision stems from a faultypremise however since meaning can never be exhaustively represented See below andHubert L Dreyfus What Computers Still Canrsquot Do A Critique of Arti cial Reason(Cambridge MA MIT Press 1992)

18 See Heidegger lsquoBuilding Dwelling Thinkingrsquo Poetry Language Thought trans AHofstadter (New York Harper amp Row 1971) p 152

19 Heidegger lsquoThe Question Concerning Technologyrsquo op cit p 1820 On the historical development of Heideggerrsquos critique of higher education see my

lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo op cit21 Heidegger lsquoWhat is Metaphysicsrsquo Pathmarks op cit p 82GA9 p 10322 Ibid pp 82ndash83GA9 pp 103ndash423 In 1962 Heidegger writes lsquoThe university is presumably the most ossi ed school

straggling behind in its structure Its name ldquoUniversityrdquo trudges along only as an apparenttitle It can be doubted whether the talk about general education about education as awhole still meets the circumstances that are formed by the technological agersquo (SeeHeidegger lsquoTraditional Language and Technological Languagersquo op cit p 130) AsCharles Haskins explains lsquoHistorically the word university had no connection with theuniverse or the universality of learning it denotes only the totality of a group anassociation of masters and scholars living the common life of learningrsquo See Haskins TheRise of Universities (New York Henry Holt amp Co 1923) pp 14 34

24 See Bill Readings The University in Ruins (Cambridge MALondon Harvard UniversityPress 1996) pp 152 125 Timothy Clark lsquoLiterary Force Institutional Valuesrsquo CultureMachine 1 (November 1998) lsquohttpwwwculturemachine-teesacuk CmachBackissuesj001articlesart_clarhtmlrsquo (21 August 2000)

25 Readings The University in Ruins ibid pp 132 178 Readings calls for a (recognizablyHeideggerian) refusal lsquoto submit Thought to the exclusive rule of exchange-valuersquo but thisis not a call he can justify in the materialist terms he adopts (see p 178 and p 222 note 10)Readings elegantly distinguishes three historical phases in the development of the modernuniversity characterizing each by reference to its guiding idea lsquothe university of reasonrsquolsquothe university of culturersquo and lsquothe university of excellencersquo These distinctions are nice buta bit simplistic for example the university of reason existed for only a few fabled years atthe University of Jena at the turn of the eighteenth century where the greatest pedagogicaland philosophical thinkers of the time ndash Fichte Goethe Schiller Schelling Schleierma-cher the Schlegel brothers and others ndash developed the implications of German Idealism foreducation Ironically when this assemblage sought to formalize the principles underlyingtheir commitment to the system of knowledge in order to inaugurate the University ofBerlin they inadvertently helped create the model of the university which succeeded theirown Humboldtrsquos university of lsquoculturersquo (or better Bildung that is a shared commitment tothe formation of cultivated individuals) On Readingsrsquo materialist account the industrialrevolutionrsquo s push toward globalization undermined the university of culturersquos unifying ideaof serving a national culture eventually generating its own successor the contemporarylsquouniversity of excellencersquo a university de ned by its lack of any substantive unifying self-conception Despite the great merits of Readingsrsquo book this account of the historicaltransition from lsquothe university of culturersquo to lsquothe university of excellencersquo is overlydependent on a dubious equation of Bildung ndash the formation of cultivated individuals ndash withnational culture Heideggerrsquos account of the development of education as re ecting anontohistorical dissolution of its guiding idea is much more satisfactory AlthoughHeidegger is critical of aspects of (what Readings calls) lsquothe university of culturersquo andlsquothe university of excellencersquo we will see that Heideggerrsquos own vision for the future of the

264 Iain Thomson

university combines ontologically resuscitated understandings of Bildung and ofexcellence

26 Derrida The Ear of the Other op cit p 26 For Derridarsquos deliberate restaging see hislsquoThe Principle of Reason The University Through the Eyes of its Pupilsrsquo Diacritics 14(Fall 1983) p 5 where Derrida gives us lsquosomething like an inaugural addressrsquo

27 Heidegger lsquoWhat is Metaphysicsrsquo op cit p 95GA9 p 12128 Published in 1940 Heideggerrsquos Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit summarizes and extends

themes from a 1930ndash31 lecture course on Plato I translate the title as lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching onTruthrsquo (rather than McNeillrsquos lsquoPlatorsquos Doctrine of Truthrsquo) to preserve Heideggerrsquos referenceto teaching and the titlersquos dual implication (1) that education is grounded in (the history of)truth as we have seen and (2) that Platorsquos own doctrine concerning truth covers over andso obscures truthrsquos historically earlier and ontologically more basic meaning as we willsee

29 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 167GA9 p 21730 See Werner Jaeger Paideia The Ideals of Greek Culture trans G Highet (New York

Oxford University Press 1965) Contending that lsquopaideia the shaping of the Greekcharacterrsquo best explains lsquothe unique educational genius which is the secret of the undyingin uence of Greece on all subsequent agesrsquo Jaeger pitches his work in terms thatharmonize only too well with the growing Nazi currents (vitalism the breeding of theNietzschean lsquohigher manrsquo race the community the leader the state etc) eg lsquoEverynation which has reached a certain stage of development is instinctively impelled topractice education Education is the process by which a community preserves and transmitsits physical character For the individual passes away but the type remains Educationas practised by man is inspired by the same creative and directive vital force which impelsevery natural species to maintain and preserve its own typersquo (Paideia p xiii)

31 See Heidegger What is Called Thinking trans J G Gray (New York Harper amp Row1968) p 71Was Heibt Denken (Tubingen M Niemeyer 1984) p 68 lsquoPolysemy is noobjection against the rigorousness of what is thought thereby For all genuine thinkingremains in its essence thoughtfully polysemic [mehrdeutig ] Polysemy is the elementin which all thinking must itself be underway in order to be rigorousrsquo

32 Heidegger writes lsquoEntschlossenheit rsquo (lsquoresolutenessrsquo or lsquodecisivenessrsquo ) as lsquoEnt-schlossen-heitrsquo (lsquoun-closednessrsquo ) in order to emphasize that the existential lsquoresolutenessrsquo wherebyDasein nds a way to authentically choose the commitments which de ne it (and is thuslsquore-bornrsquo after having been radically individualized in being-toward-death) does not entaildeciding on a particular course of action ahead of time and obstinately sticking to onersquosguns come what may but rather requires an lsquoopennessrsquo whereby we continue to beresponsive to the emerging solicitations of our particular existential lsquosituationrsquo Theexistential situation in general is thus not unlike a living puzzle we must continually lsquore-solversquo The later notion of Gelassenheit (or Gelassenheit zu den Dingen) names acomportment in which we maintain our sensitivity to several interconnected ways in whichthings show themselves to us ndash viz as grounded as mattering as taking place within ahorizon of possibilities and as showing themselves to nite beings who disclose a worldthrough language ndash four phenomenological modalities of lsquopresencingrsquo that Heidegger (in adetournement of Holderlin) calls lsquoearthrsquo lsquoheavensrsquo lsquodivinitiesrsquo and lsquomortalsrsquo SeeHeidegger lsquoThe Thingrsquo Poetry Language Thought op cit pp 165ndash86

33 The increasingly dominant metaphor too often literalized of the brain as a computerforgets (to paraphrase a line from Heideggerrsquos 1942ndash43 lecture course Parmenides) that wedo not think because we have a brain we have a brain because we can think

34 Heidegger lsquoPrefacersquo to Pathmarks op cit p xiii35 Heidegger lsquoTraditional Language and Technological Languagersquo op cit p 140 p 14236 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 167GA9 pp 217ndash1837 Ibid p 168GA9 p 219 (See also John A Taber Transformative Philosophy A Study of

Sankara Fichte and Heidegger [Honolulu University of Hawaii Press 1983] esp pp104ndash15) Aufenthalte (lsquoodyssey abidance sojourn stay or stop-overrsquo ) is an important termof art for the later Heidegger it connotes the journey through intelligibility de nitive ofhuman existence Since it is the title Heidegger gave to the journal in which he recorded histhoughts during his rst trip to Greece in the Spring of 1962 (see Heidegger Aufenthalte

Heidegger on Ontological Education 265

[Frankfurt aM Vittorio Klostermann 1989]) it could be rendered as lsquoodysseyrsquo toemphasize Heideggerrsquos engagement with the Homeric heritage The idea of a journeybetween nothingnesses adds a more poetic ndash and tragic ndash dimension to Heideggerrsquosetymological emphasis on lsquoexistencersquo as the lsquostanding-outlsquo (ek-sistere ) into intelligibilityYet like the Hebrew ger the lsquosojournrsquo of the non-Israelite in Israel (see eg Exod 1219)Aufenthalte clearly also connotes the lsquohome-coming through alterityrsquo which Heideggerpowerfully elaborates in his 1942 lecture course Holderlinrsquos Hymn lsquoThe Isterrsquo trans WMcNeill and J Davis (Bloomington Indiana University Press 1996) and is thus properlypolysemic (or lsquojewgreekrsquo as Lyotard puts it ndash borrowing Joycersquos provocative expression)

38 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo ibid p 167GA9 p 21839 Ibid pp 177ndash78GA9 pp 230ndash3140 Ibid p 181GA9 p 23641 Ibid pp 166ndash67GA9 p 217 The English lsquoeducationrsquo harbors a similar ambiguity it

comes from the Latin educare lsquoto rear or bring uprsquo which is closely related to educere lsquotolead forthrsquo Indeed lsquoeducationrsquo seems to have absorbed the Latin educere for it means notonly lsquobringing uprsquo (in the sense of training) but also lsquobringing forthrsquo (in the sense ofactualizing) these two meanings come together in the modern conception of education as atraining which develops certain desirable aptitudes

42 Ibid p 167GA9 p 21743 Ibid p 170GA9 p 22244 Ibid lsquoThe openrsquo Heidegger explains lsquodoes not mean the unboundedness of some wide-

open space rather the open sets boundaries to thingsrsquo Ibid p 169GA9 p 22145 See eg Heidegger lsquoBuilding Dwelling Thinkingrsquo Poetry Language Thought op cit

pp 145ndash6146 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 169GA9 p 22147 Metaphysics forgets that the condition of its own possibility ndash namely the lsquopresencingrsquo

(anwesen) of entities their pre-conceptual phenomenological givenness ndash is also thecondition of metaphysicsrsquo impossibility For the phenomenological presencing which elicitsconceptualization can never be entirely captured by the yoke of our metaphysical conceptsit always partially de es conceptualization lingering behind as an extra-conceptualphenomenological excess

48 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 176GA9 p 22949 Heidegger knew from personal experience that this is no easy task someone who has

learned to lsquodwellrsquo in a mode of revealing other than enframing lsquono longer knows his or herway around the cave and risks the danger of succumbing to the overwhelming power of thekind of truth that is normative there the danger of being overcome by the claim of thecommon reality to be the only realityrsquo Ibid p 171GA9 pp 222ndash3

50 As The Oxford English Dictionary explains the etymology of lsquoteachrsquo goes back through theOld English taeligcan or taeligcean One of the rst recorded uses of the word in English can befound in The Blickling Homilies AD 971 lsquoHim taeligcean lifes wegrsquo Heidegger would haveappreciated the fortuitous ambiguity of weg or lsquowayrsquo here which like the Greek hodosmeans both path and manner For Heidegger too the teacher teaches two different lsquowaysrsquoboth what and how subject and method The Old English taeligcean has near cognates in OldTeutonic (taikjan) Gothic (taikans) Old Spanish (tekan) and Old High German (zeihhan)This family can itself be traced back to the pre-Teutonic deik- the Sanskrit dic- and theGreek deik-nunai deigma Deik the Greek root means to bring to light display or exhibithence to show by words

51 Agamben traces this important ambiguity between demonstration and indication back toAristotlersquos distinction between lsquoprimary and secondary substancersquo See Giorgio AgambenLanguage and Death The Place of Negativity trans K Pinkus and M Hardt (MinneapolisUniversity of Minnesota Press 1991) pp 16ndash18 In lsquoOntotheology UnderstandingHeideggerrsquos Destruktion of Metaphysicsrsquo op cit I show that Aristotlersquos formalization ofthis distinction constitutes the inaugural uni cation of metaphysics as ontotheology(although its elements go back much further)

52 lsquoLernen heibt das Tun und Lassen zu dem in die Entsprechung bringen was sich jeweilsan wesenhaftem uns zusprichtrsquo Heidegger What is Called Thinking op cit p14Was

266 Iain Thomson

Heibt Denken p 49 See also James F Ward Heideggerrsquos Political Thinking (AmherstUniversity of Massachusetts Press 1995) p 177

53 Concerning the performative situation remember that Heidegger had been banned fromteaching by the University of Freiburgrsquos lsquode-Nazi cationrsquo hearings in 1946 a decisionreached in large part on the basis of Karl Jaspersrsquo judgment that Heideggerrsquos teaching wasdictatorial mystagogic and in its essence unfree and thus a danger to the youth HereHeidegger treads a tightrope over this political abyss seeking unapologetically to articulateand defend his earlier pedagogical method (although with the charges of corrupting theyouth and of mysticism ringing in his ears it is hard not to read his text as a kind ofapology) See Rudiger Safranski Martin Heidegger Between Good and Evil trans EOsers (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 1998) pp 332ndash52

54 See Heidegger What is Called Thinking op cit p 15Was Heibt Denken p 5055 See Heidegger lsquoTraditional Language and Technological Languagersquo pp 129ndash3056 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 176GA9 p 22957 See the ground-breaking development of this insight by Charles Spinosa Fernando Flores

and Hubert L Dreyfus in Disclosing New Worlds (Cambridge MIT Press 1997) a bookDreyfus has since accurately described as lsquoa revolutionary manifesto for business andpoliticsrsquo (and for higher education as well see esp pp 151ndash61) See Hubert L DreyfuslsquoResponsesrsquo in Mark Wrathall and Jeff Malpas (eds) Heidegger Coping and CognitiveScience (Cambridge MIT Press 2000) p 347

58 Recall that on the medieval model of the university the task of higher education was totransmit a relatively xed body of knowledge The French preserved something of thisview universities taught the supposedly established doctrines while research took placeoutside the university in non-teaching academies The French model was appropriated bythe German universities which preceded Kant in which the state-sponsored lsquohigherfacultiesrsquo of law medicine and theology were separated from the more independentlsquolowerrsquo faculty of philosophy Kant personally experienced The Con ict of the Faculties ofphilosophy and theology (after publishing Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone) andhis subsequent argument that it is in the best long-term interests of the state for thelsquophilosophy facultyrsquo to be lsquoconceived as free and subject only to laws given by reasonlsquohelped inspire Fichtersquos philosophical elaboration of a German alternative to the Frenchmodel At the heart of Fichtersquos idea for the new University of Berlin which Humboldtinstitutionalized in 1809 was the lsquoscienti crsquo view of research as a dynamic open-endedendeavour Research and teaching would now be combined into a single institution ofhigher learning with philosophy at the centre of a new proliferation of academic pursuitsSee Immanuel Kant The Con ict of the Faculties trans M J Gregor (Lincoln Universityof Nebraska Press 1992) p 43 Haskins The Rise of Universities op cit TheodoreZiolkowski German Romanticism and Its Institutions (Princeton Princeton UniversityPress 1990) pp 218ndash308 Stephen Galt Crowell lsquoPhilosophy as a Vocation Heideggerand University Reform in the Early Interwar Yearsrsquo History of Philosophy Quarterly142(1997) pp 257ndash9 Wilhelm von Humboldt Die Idee der deutschen Universita t (DarmstadtHermann Gentner Verlag 1956) p 377 and Jacques Derrida lsquoThe University in the Eyesof Its Pupilsrsquo op cit

59 See Heidegger lsquoPhenomenology and Theologyrsquo Pathmarks op cit p 41GA9 p 4860 It is alarming thus to nd philosophers of biology unknowingly extending the logic of

Nietzschean metaphysics so far as inadvertently to grant lsquolifersquo to the computer virus thecybernetic entity par excellence

61 See Heidegger lsquoThe Age of the World Picturersquo The Question Concerning Technology opcit p 118 see Trish Glazebrook Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Science (New York FordhamUniversity Press 2000)

62 See Heidegger lsquoThe Rectorate 193334 Facts and Thoughtsrsquo in Gunther Neske and EmilKettering (eds) Martin Heidegger and National Socialism Questions and Answers (NewYork Paragon House 1990) p 16

63 Heidegger lsquoThe Self-Assertion of the German Universityrsquo Martin Heidegger and NationalSocialism ibid p 9 It may seem provocative to end with a quote from Heideggerrsquosnotorious lsquoRectoral Addressrsquo but see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo which focuses on the political dimension of Heideggerrsquos philosophical views on education

Heidegger on Ontological Education 267

and critically investigates the plausibility of his programme for a reuni cation of theuniversity

64 An early version of this paper was delivered to the annual meeting of the InternationalSociety for Phenomenological Studies on 28 July 2000 in Asilomar California I would liketo thank Bill Blattner Dave Cerbone Steve Crowell Charles Guignon Alastair HannayJohn Haugeland Randall Havas Sean Kelly Jeff Malpas Alexander Nehamas and MarkWrathall for helpful comments and criticisms I presented a later version to the Universityof New Mexico Philosophy Department on 2 February 2001 and would like to thank JohnBussanich Manfred Frings Russell Goodman Barbara Hannan Joachim Oberst FredSchueler and John Taber for thoughtful critique on that occasion I would also like to thankLeszek Koczanowicz who has arranged for a Polish translation of this piece and MichaelPeters for requesting to include it in his forthcoming volume on Heidegger Modernity andEducation (Rowman amp Little eld) My deepest thanks nally go to Bert Dreyfus not onlyfor offering encouraging and insightful suggestions on both versions of this piece but forinspiring it by exemplifying the virtues of the Heideggerian teacher

Received 1 March 2001

Iain Thomson Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico 527 HumanitiesBuilding Albuquerque NM 87131-1151 E-mail ithomsonunmedu

268 Iain Thomson

[Frankfurt aM Vittorio Klostermann 1989]) it could be rendered as lsquoodysseyrsquo toemphasize Heideggerrsquos engagement with the Homeric heritage The idea of a journeybetween nothingnesses adds a more poetic ndash and tragic ndash dimension to Heideggerrsquosetymological emphasis on lsquoexistencersquo as the lsquostanding-outlsquo (ek-sistere ) into intelligibilityYet like the Hebrew ger the lsquosojournrsquo of the non-Israelite in Israel (see eg Exod 1219)Aufenthalte clearly also connotes the lsquohome-coming through alterityrsquo which Heideggerpowerfully elaborates in his 1942 lecture course Holderlinrsquos Hymn lsquoThe Isterrsquo trans WMcNeill and J Davis (Bloomington Indiana University Press 1996) and is thus properlypolysemic (or lsquojewgreekrsquo as Lyotard puts it ndash borrowing Joycersquos provocative expression)

38 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo ibid p 167GA9 p 21839 Ibid pp 177ndash78GA9 pp 230ndash3140 Ibid p 181GA9 p 23641 Ibid pp 166ndash67GA9 p 217 The English lsquoeducationrsquo harbors a similar ambiguity it

comes from the Latin educare lsquoto rear or bring uprsquo which is closely related to educere lsquotolead forthrsquo Indeed lsquoeducationrsquo seems to have absorbed the Latin educere for it means notonly lsquobringing uprsquo (in the sense of training) but also lsquobringing forthrsquo (in the sense ofactualizing) these two meanings come together in the modern conception of education as atraining which develops certain desirable aptitudes

42 Ibid p 167GA9 p 21743 Ibid p 170GA9 p 22244 Ibid lsquoThe openrsquo Heidegger explains lsquodoes not mean the unboundedness of some wide-

open space rather the open sets boundaries to thingsrsquo Ibid p 169GA9 p 22145 See eg Heidegger lsquoBuilding Dwelling Thinkingrsquo Poetry Language Thought op cit

pp 145ndash6146 Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 169GA9 p 22147 Metaphysics forgets that the condition of its own possibility ndash namely the lsquopresencingrsquo

(anwesen) of entities their pre-conceptual phenomenological givenness ndash is also thecondition of metaphysicsrsquo impossibility For the phenomenological presencing which elicitsconceptualization can never be entirely captured by the yoke of our metaphysical conceptsit always partially de es conceptualization lingering behind as an extra-conceptualphenomenological excess

48 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 176GA9 p 22949 Heidegger knew from personal experience that this is no easy task someone who has

learned to lsquodwellrsquo in a mode of revealing other than enframing lsquono longer knows his or herway around the cave and risks the danger of succumbing to the overwhelming power of thekind of truth that is normative there the danger of being overcome by the claim of thecommon reality to be the only realityrsquo Ibid p 171GA9 pp 222ndash3

50 As The Oxford English Dictionary explains the etymology of lsquoteachrsquo goes back through theOld English taeligcan or taeligcean One of the rst recorded uses of the word in English can befound in The Blickling Homilies AD 971 lsquoHim taeligcean lifes wegrsquo Heidegger would haveappreciated the fortuitous ambiguity of weg or lsquowayrsquo here which like the Greek hodosmeans both path and manner For Heidegger too the teacher teaches two different lsquowaysrsquoboth what and how subject and method The Old English taeligcean has near cognates in OldTeutonic (taikjan) Gothic (taikans) Old Spanish (tekan) and Old High German (zeihhan)This family can itself be traced back to the pre-Teutonic deik- the Sanskrit dic- and theGreek deik-nunai deigma Deik the Greek root means to bring to light display or exhibithence to show by words

51 Agamben traces this important ambiguity between demonstration and indication back toAristotlersquos distinction between lsquoprimary and secondary substancersquo See Giorgio AgambenLanguage and Death The Place of Negativity trans K Pinkus and M Hardt (MinneapolisUniversity of Minnesota Press 1991) pp 16ndash18 In lsquoOntotheology UnderstandingHeideggerrsquos Destruktion of Metaphysicsrsquo op cit I show that Aristotlersquos formalization ofthis distinction constitutes the inaugural uni cation of metaphysics as ontotheology(although its elements go back much further)

52 lsquoLernen heibt das Tun und Lassen zu dem in die Entsprechung bringen was sich jeweilsan wesenhaftem uns zusprichtrsquo Heidegger What is Called Thinking op cit p14Was

266 Iain Thomson

Heibt Denken p 49 See also James F Ward Heideggerrsquos Political Thinking (AmherstUniversity of Massachusetts Press 1995) p 177

53 Concerning the performative situation remember that Heidegger had been banned fromteaching by the University of Freiburgrsquos lsquode-Nazi cationrsquo hearings in 1946 a decisionreached in large part on the basis of Karl Jaspersrsquo judgment that Heideggerrsquos teaching wasdictatorial mystagogic and in its essence unfree and thus a danger to the youth HereHeidegger treads a tightrope over this political abyss seeking unapologetically to articulateand defend his earlier pedagogical method (although with the charges of corrupting theyouth and of mysticism ringing in his ears it is hard not to read his text as a kind ofapology) See Rudiger Safranski Martin Heidegger Between Good and Evil trans EOsers (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 1998) pp 332ndash52

54 See Heidegger What is Called Thinking op cit p 15Was Heibt Denken p 5055 See Heidegger lsquoTraditional Language and Technological Languagersquo pp 129ndash3056 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 176GA9 p 22957 See the ground-breaking development of this insight by Charles Spinosa Fernando Flores

and Hubert L Dreyfus in Disclosing New Worlds (Cambridge MIT Press 1997) a bookDreyfus has since accurately described as lsquoa revolutionary manifesto for business andpoliticsrsquo (and for higher education as well see esp pp 151ndash61) See Hubert L DreyfuslsquoResponsesrsquo in Mark Wrathall and Jeff Malpas (eds) Heidegger Coping and CognitiveScience (Cambridge MIT Press 2000) p 347

58 Recall that on the medieval model of the university the task of higher education was totransmit a relatively xed body of knowledge The French preserved something of thisview universities taught the supposedly established doctrines while research took placeoutside the university in non-teaching academies The French model was appropriated bythe German universities which preceded Kant in which the state-sponsored lsquohigherfacultiesrsquo of law medicine and theology were separated from the more independentlsquolowerrsquo faculty of philosophy Kant personally experienced The Con ict of the Faculties ofphilosophy and theology (after publishing Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone) andhis subsequent argument that it is in the best long-term interests of the state for thelsquophilosophy facultyrsquo to be lsquoconceived as free and subject only to laws given by reasonlsquohelped inspire Fichtersquos philosophical elaboration of a German alternative to the Frenchmodel At the heart of Fichtersquos idea for the new University of Berlin which Humboldtinstitutionalized in 1809 was the lsquoscienti crsquo view of research as a dynamic open-endedendeavour Research and teaching would now be combined into a single institution ofhigher learning with philosophy at the centre of a new proliferation of academic pursuitsSee Immanuel Kant The Con ict of the Faculties trans M J Gregor (Lincoln Universityof Nebraska Press 1992) p 43 Haskins The Rise of Universities op cit TheodoreZiolkowski German Romanticism and Its Institutions (Princeton Princeton UniversityPress 1990) pp 218ndash308 Stephen Galt Crowell lsquoPhilosophy as a Vocation Heideggerand University Reform in the Early Interwar Yearsrsquo History of Philosophy Quarterly142(1997) pp 257ndash9 Wilhelm von Humboldt Die Idee der deutschen Universita t (DarmstadtHermann Gentner Verlag 1956) p 377 and Jacques Derrida lsquoThe University in the Eyesof Its Pupilsrsquo op cit

59 See Heidegger lsquoPhenomenology and Theologyrsquo Pathmarks op cit p 41GA9 p 4860 It is alarming thus to nd philosophers of biology unknowingly extending the logic of

Nietzschean metaphysics so far as inadvertently to grant lsquolifersquo to the computer virus thecybernetic entity par excellence

61 See Heidegger lsquoThe Age of the World Picturersquo The Question Concerning Technology opcit p 118 see Trish Glazebrook Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Science (New York FordhamUniversity Press 2000)

62 See Heidegger lsquoThe Rectorate 193334 Facts and Thoughtsrsquo in Gunther Neske and EmilKettering (eds) Martin Heidegger and National Socialism Questions and Answers (NewYork Paragon House 1990) p 16

63 Heidegger lsquoThe Self-Assertion of the German Universityrsquo Martin Heidegger and NationalSocialism ibid p 9 It may seem provocative to end with a quote from Heideggerrsquosnotorious lsquoRectoral Addressrsquo but see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo which focuses on the political dimension of Heideggerrsquos philosophical views on education

Heidegger on Ontological Education 267

and critically investigates the plausibility of his programme for a reuni cation of theuniversity

64 An early version of this paper was delivered to the annual meeting of the InternationalSociety for Phenomenological Studies on 28 July 2000 in Asilomar California I would liketo thank Bill Blattner Dave Cerbone Steve Crowell Charles Guignon Alastair HannayJohn Haugeland Randall Havas Sean Kelly Jeff Malpas Alexander Nehamas and MarkWrathall for helpful comments and criticisms I presented a later version to the Universityof New Mexico Philosophy Department on 2 February 2001 and would like to thank JohnBussanich Manfred Frings Russell Goodman Barbara Hannan Joachim Oberst FredSchueler and John Taber for thoughtful critique on that occasion I would also like to thankLeszek Koczanowicz who has arranged for a Polish translation of this piece and MichaelPeters for requesting to include it in his forthcoming volume on Heidegger Modernity andEducation (Rowman amp Little eld) My deepest thanks nally go to Bert Dreyfus not onlyfor offering encouraging and insightful suggestions on both versions of this piece but forinspiring it by exemplifying the virtues of the Heideggerian teacher

Received 1 March 2001

Iain Thomson Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico 527 HumanitiesBuilding Albuquerque NM 87131-1151 E-mail ithomsonunmedu

268 Iain Thomson

Heibt Denken p 49 See also James F Ward Heideggerrsquos Political Thinking (AmherstUniversity of Massachusetts Press 1995) p 177

53 Concerning the performative situation remember that Heidegger had been banned fromteaching by the University of Freiburgrsquos lsquode-Nazi cationrsquo hearings in 1946 a decisionreached in large part on the basis of Karl Jaspersrsquo judgment that Heideggerrsquos teaching wasdictatorial mystagogic and in its essence unfree and thus a danger to the youth HereHeidegger treads a tightrope over this political abyss seeking unapologetically to articulateand defend his earlier pedagogical method (although with the charges of corrupting theyouth and of mysticism ringing in his ears it is hard not to read his text as a kind ofapology) See Rudiger Safranski Martin Heidegger Between Good and Evil trans EOsers (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 1998) pp 332ndash52

54 See Heidegger What is Called Thinking op cit p 15Was Heibt Denken p 5055 See Heidegger lsquoTraditional Language and Technological Languagersquo pp 129ndash3056 See Heidegger lsquoPlatorsquos Teaching on Truthrsquo op cit p 176GA9 p 22957 See the ground-breaking development of this insight by Charles Spinosa Fernando Flores

and Hubert L Dreyfus in Disclosing New Worlds (Cambridge MIT Press 1997) a bookDreyfus has since accurately described as lsquoa revolutionary manifesto for business andpoliticsrsquo (and for higher education as well see esp pp 151ndash61) See Hubert L DreyfuslsquoResponsesrsquo in Mark Wrathall and Jeff Malpas (eds) Heidegger Coping and CognitiveScience (Cambridge MIT Press 2000) p 347

58 Recall that on the medieval model of the university the task of higher education was totransmit a relatively xed body of knowledge The French preserved something of thisview universities taught the supposedly established doctrines while research took placeoutside the university in non-teaching academies The French model was appropriated bythe German universities which preceded Kant in which the state-sponsored lsquohigherfacultiesrsquo of law medicine and theology were separated from the more independentlsquolowerrsquo faculty of philosophy Kant personally experienced The Con ict of the Faculties ofphilosophy and theology (after publishing Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone) andhis subsequent argument that it is in the best long-term interests of the state for thelsquophilosophy facultyrsquo to be lsquoconceived as free and subject only to laws given by reasonlsquohelped inspire Fichtersquos philosophical elaboration of a German alternative to the Frenchmodel At the heart of Fichtersquos idea for the new University of Berlin which Humboldtinstitutionalized in 1809 was the lsquoscienti crsquo view of research as a dynamic open-endedendeavour Research and teaching would now be combined into a single institution ofhigher learning with philosophy at the centre of a new proliferation of academic pursuitsSee Immanuel Kant The Con ict of the Faculties trans M J Gregor (Lincoln Universityof Nebraska Press 1992) p 43 Haskins The Rise of Universities op cit TheodoreZiolkowski German Romanticism and Its Institutions (Princeton Princeton UniversityPress 1990) pp 218ndash308 Stephen Galt Crowell lsquoPhilosophy as a Vocation Heideggerand University Reform in the Early Interwar Yearsrsquo History of Philosophy Quarterly142(1997) pp 257ndash9 Wilhelm von Humboldt Die Idee der deutschen Universita t (DarmstadtHermann Gentner Verlag 1956) p 377 and Jacques Derrida lsquoThe University in the Eyesof Its Pupilsrsquo op cit

59 See Heidegger lsquoPhenomenology and Theologyrsquo Pathmarks op cit p 41GA9 p 4860 It is alarming thus to nd philosophers of biology unknowingly extending the logic of

Nietzschean metaphysics so far as inadvertently to grant lsquolifersquo to the computer virus thecybernetic entity par excellence

61 See Heidegger lsquoThe Age of the World Picturersquo The Question Concerning Technology opcit p 118 see Trish Glazebrook Heideggerrsquos Philosophy of Science (New York FordhamUniversity Press 2000)

62 See Heidegger lsquoThe Rectorate 193334 Facts and Thoughtsrsquo in Gunther Neske and EmilKettering (eds) Martin Heidegger and National Socialism Questions and Answers (NewYork Paragon House 1990) p 16

63 Heidegger lsquoThe Self-Assertion of the German Universityrsquo Martin Heidegger and NationalSocialism ibid p 9 It may seem provocative to end with a quote from Heideggerrsquosnotorious lsquoRectoral Addressrsquo but see my lsquoHeidegger and the Politics of the Universityrsquo which focuses on the political dimension of Heideggerrsquos philosophical views on education

Heidegger on Ontological Education 267

and critically investigates the plausibility of his programme for a reuni cation of theuniversity

64 An early version of this paper was delivered to the annual meeting of the InternationalSociety for Phenomenological Studies on 28 July 2000 in Asilomar California I would liketo thank Bill Blattner Dave Cerbone Steve Crowell Charles Guignon Alastair HannayJohn Haugeland Randall Havas Sean Kelly Jeff Malpas Alexander Nehamas and MarkWrathall for helpful comments and criticisms I presented a later version to the Universityof New Mexico Philosophy Department on 2 February 2001 and would like to thank JohnBussanich Manfred Frings Russell Goodman Barbara Hannan Joachim Oberst FredSchueler and John Taber for thoughtful critique on that occasion I would also like to thankLeszek Koczanowicz who has arranged for a Polish translation of this piece and MichaelPeters for requesting to include it in his forthcoming volume on Heidegger Modernity andEducation (Rowman amp Little eld) My deepest thanks nally go to Bert Dreyfus not onlyfor offering encouraging and insightful suggestions on both versions of this piece but forinspiring it by exemplifying the virtues of the Heideggerian teacher

Received 1 March 2001

Iain Thomson Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico 527 HumanitiesBuilding Albuquerque NM 87131-1151 E-mail ithomsonunmedu

268 Iain Thomson

and critically investigates the plausibility of his programme for a reuni cation of theuniversity

64 An early version of this paper was delivered to the annual meeting of the InternationalSociety for Phenomenological Studies on 28 July 2000 in Asilomar California I would liketo thank Bill Blattner Dave Cerbone Steve Crowell Charles Guignon Alastair HannayJohn Haugeland Randall Havas Sean Kelly Jeff Malpas Alexander Nehamas and MarkWrathall for helpful comments and criticisms I presented a later version to the Universityof New Mexico Philosophy Department on 2 February 2001 and would like to thank JohnBussanich Manfred Frings Russell Goodman Barbara Hannan Joachim Oberst FredSchueler and John Taber for thoughtful critique on that occasion I would also like to thankLeszek Koczanowicz who has arranged for a Polish translation of this piece and MichaelPeters for requesting to include it in his forthcoming volume on Heidegger Modernity andEducation (Rowman amp Little eld) My deepest thanks nally go to Bert Dreyfus not onlyfor offering encouraging and insightful suggestions on both versions of this piece but forinspiring it by exemplifying the virtues of the Heideggerian teacher

Received 1 March 2001

Iain Thomson Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico 527 HumanitiesBuilding Albuquerque NM 87131-1151 E-mail ithomsonunmedu

268 Iain Thomson