Taking Nothing Seriously

Heidegger on Nietzsche on Nihilism

Roy Ben-Shai1

I will comment on a lecture course on the concept of nihilism in Nietzsche delivered by Martin

Heidegger at the University of Freiburg in 1940. The text appears in the second volume of

Heidegger’s Nietzsche book.2 While this two-volume book first appeared in 1961, the lectures

contained in it were delivered between 1936 and 1940, a pivotal period in Heidegger’s career and

a historically fateful one.

During the forties, Heidegger began to speak about a turn (Kehre), taken by his thinking,

and in ‘the history of being’, away from the alleged subjectivism expressed in Being and Time.

Following this turn, Heidegger’s thinking becomes less existentialist in nature, less focused on

human existence, its projects, and its authenticity, and more concerned about being itself, its

history, and its truth.

Hannah Arendt, in one of the very last texts she wrote titled “Heidegger’s Will-not-to-

Will”, remarks that it is tempting to locate the precise moment of the turn in the transition from

volume I to volume II of the Nietzsche book. To “put it bluntly,” she says, “the first volume

explicates Nietzsche by going along with him, while the second is written in a subdued but

unmistakable polemical tone.”3 According to Arendt, Heidegger underwent a “change of mood”

during that period, and she notes that the timing of this change—in the late 1930s—is not

incidental: “what the [turn] originally turns against,” she writes, “is primarily the will-to-power.

1
A version of this paper was presented at the conference: The Concept of Nihilism: The Limits of Political Critique at
the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute in June 15, 2009.
2
Martin Heidegger. Nietzsche, Vol. IV: Nihilism (San Fransisco: Harper& Row pub, 1982). All quotes and paraphrases
of this book will be cited in the body of the text as “(pg. num.)”.
3
Hannah Arendt. The Life of the Mind (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich pub., 1978), p. 173.
1
In Heidegger’s understanding, the will to rule and dominate is a kind of original sin, of which he

found himself guilty when he tried to come to terms with his brief past in the Nazi movement.”4

Besides Heidegger’s mood there is also the question of the political significance of the

Nietzsche lectures. Since the Nazis regarded Nietzsche among “the spiritual guides and

forerunners of the Nazi revolution,”5 any lecture-course on Nietzsche from that period, especially

one that critiques Nietzsche, and by a philosopher of Heidegger’s stature, was bound to have some

political resonance. Heidegger himself stated in his posthumously published interview in Der

Spiegel that, “Anyone with ears to hear heard in these lectures a confrontation with National

Socialism.”6 Heidegger also claimed that the lectures were kept under surveillance by Party agents7

who were growing suspicious of the precise nature of his message, cloaked as it was in his cryptic

oration.

I will not attempt to judge on the validity of these pronouncements, though we should keep

them in mind. Another preliminary consideration before proceeding to the textual analysis

concerns the adequacy of Heidegger’s interpretation. It can be argued that Heidegger’s reading of

Nietzsche is eschewed. For one thing, he is very selective in his choice of texts by Nietzsche,

heavily relying on a book titled The Will to Power, which was never published in Nietzsche’s

lifetime, nor edited by him for publication. It was edited posthumously by Nietzsche’s sister, who

was a Nazi sympathizer, and indeed became the Nazis’ favored text. Heidegger’s reading of this

book, moreover, appears tendentious. At a certain point, for example, he emphasizes that

“everything depends on conceiving Nietzsche’s philosophy as metaphysics; that is, in the essential

4
Ibid, my italics. By “his brief past in the Nazi movement,” Arendt probably refers to Heidegger’s tenure as rector in
1933, which was indeed brief. Yet during the time of the Nietzsche lectures, and throughout the war, Heidegger
remained a (paying) member of the Nazi Party.
5
Hans Sluga. Heidegger’s Crisis: Philosophy and Politics in Nazi Germany (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1995), p. 49.
6
Richard Wolin (ed.). The Heidegger Controversy: A Critical Reader (Boston: MIT Press, 1993), p. 101.
7
George Pattison. The Later Heidegger (New York: Routledge, 2000), p. 106.
2
context of the history of metaphysics.” (128) This italicized remark, which, as will be seen, really

is vital for Heidegger’s interpretation, is question-begging, since, as will also be seen, Nietzsche

not only denied that his approach was metaphysical but presented it as anti-metaphysical. Why

then should we read it as metaphysical, and why does “everything” depend on us doing so? Some

might respond that the only thing that depends on it is the validity of Heidegger’s interpretation.

By insisting on reading Nietzsche as a metaphysician, against his express proclamations, and then

critiquing him as one, Heidegger plants his conclusion in the premise. I will respond to these

objections by stressing three points:

1) Even if Heidegger’s reading is tendentious or reductive, this still does not preclude the

possibility that it gives us an essential insight into Nietzsche’s thought. In fact, it can be argued

that some of the most penetrating and influential philosophical critiques are based on

misinterpretation (e.g., Aristotle’s critique of Plato, Marx’s critique of Hegel, etc.).

2) When we ask a philosophical interpretation to be truthful to its subject, we often

unwittingly manifest a prejudice for a conception of truth that both Heidegger and Nietzsche

contested, namely, truth as correctness. (20) The demand for correctness suggests that we have,

on the one side, what Nietzsche argued, and on the other, what Heidegger says that Nietzsche

argued, where the question falls on whether the two sides accord with one another, as in a

mathematical equation. If they do, the interpretation is considered true, valid, or just, and if they

don’t, it is considered false, invalid, unjust. Now, Heidegger wants to confer upon us that this very

notion of truth, along with the more or less static conception of time on which it relies, is already

a product of nihilistic thinking that is unaware of itself as such. Nietzsche, in any case, if on

different grounds, would certainly deny the need to ‘do justice’ to his thought, or to anyone else’s.

He would probably say that a good interpretation is one that is convincingly, or at least

interestingly, wrong. This is also something to consider if we wish to be truthful to his thought.

3
 3) Finally, what I am more concerned with here is not whether Heidegger’s reading is

adequate to its source, but only that reading itself. In other words, I am interested in Heidegger’s

own stance and reflections on the problem of nihilism. And so, whenever Nietzsche’s name is

invoked here, what is meant by it is that hybrid figure which we could call: ‘Heidegger’s

Nietzsche’.

***

Although common understanding regards nihilism as a ‘worldview’ (Weltanschauung) or a

‘doctrine’, for Nietzsche, Heidegger writes, nihilism “is, rather, that event of long duration in

which the truth of being as a whole is essentially transformed and driven toward an end that such

truth has determined.” (4-5, my italics)

What is that “event of long duration”? For Nietzsche, nihilism already made its appearance

in Christianity, and before that, in Socrates and Plato. What renders them nihilistic is the

denigration of this world in favor of another, transcendent or transcendental, realm of reflection

and adoration. In Plato, a contrast was made between “the visible world,” as a realm of becoming

(i.e., of ever-transient and always partial appearances and opinions) and “the intelligible world,”

as the realm of being (impartial, eternal truths). In Christian theology, this contrast was translated

into one between this world and the next, between flesh and spirit, and between nature (desire,

vice, mortality, suffering) and the divine. Yet the full impact of this opposition only begins to dawn

with what Nietzsche calls ‘the death of God’. On the face of it, we are talking about the gradual

loss of faith in divinity as such brought about by secularization and the enlightenment. More

broadly speaking, this death is the realization that there is no ‘other world’, nor is there any

absolute or transcendental ground for the evaluation of this one. For Nietzsche, there is the further

realization that erecting ‘higher’ values has always been the counterpart of an essential, if covert,

work of de-valuation of everything earthly, sensuous, and corporeal, slowly but surely emptying

4
this world and this life of any intrinsic value and meaning. The death of God is thus akin to the

lifting of an ideological veil, uncovering behind it the hidden truth: there is nothing here worth

living for. In one of the main texts Heidegger studies, Nietzsche reflects on the aftermath of this

event:

What has happened, at bottom? The feeling of valuelessness was attained with the
realization that the overall character of existence may not be interpreted by means
of the concept of “purpose,” the concept of “unity,” or the concept of “truth.”
Existence aims at nothing and achieves nothing; a comprehensive unity in the
plurality of occurrences is lacking; the character of existence [itself] is not “true,”
is false… One simply lacks any grounds for convincing oneself that there is a true
world…. (WP12, cited on 25-26, the last italics is mine)

As said, the “feeling of valuelessness” should not be taken as a mere disposition by

Nietzsche or by anyone else. It is, in Heidegger’s language, an attunement, and a truthful one at

that, to beings as a whole. Heidegger writes: “to think ‘nihilism’ means to stand in that wherein

every act and every reality of this era in Western history receives its time and space, its ground

and its background, its means and its ends, its order and its justification, its certainty and its

insecurity—in a word, its ‘truth’.” (10)

Nihilism is thus the truth of the epoch, or what Heidegger would also call its ‘region of

unconcealment’. In Heidegger’s thought, every era in human history is characterized by a certain

region of unconcealment, meaning that beings show themselves in a particular way, a way that can

be conceptualized by means of a certain set of principles, categories or determinations, in a word,

by means of a certain metaphysics. Metaphysics specifies what we may call the conditions for the

possibility of appearance, which determine what can and what cannot appear, and how everything

that appears must appear. As Heidegger puts it: “The truth of being as a whole has long been called

metaphysics. Every era, every human epoch, is sustained by some metaphysics and is placed

thereby in a definite relation to being as a whole and also to itself.” (5)

5
 It is important to stress that this understanding of “metaphysics” is different than

Nietzsche’s. For Nietzsche, metaphysics has always to do with the two-world distinction

mentioned above, between a true world and mere appearances. Now, Nietzsche considered it his

task to reverse the metaphysical operation by reinvesting value in this world—a project he called

‘revaluation’ or ‘transvaluation’. In Heidegger’s words: the “increasingly dominant truth that all

prior aims of being have become superfluous” imparts upon us “the free and genuine task of a new

valuation.” (6) To be sure, this “new valuation” must be radical, since it is not simply the creation

of new values (say, new ‘gods’) but a fundamental shift in the conception of what values are, who

it is that values, and what the ground for valuation is. Whatever “new values” will be created

following Nietzsche, they would no longer be supra-historical, absolute, transcendent, or

transcendental; they would be worldly values. As such, they must be the product of an irreducible

multiplicity of earthly, historical, bodily, political volitions, conscious or unconscious.

Following Nietzsche’s ‘transvaluation’, the highest of all values is life itself: the endless,

multifarious, and in itself purposeless, process of becoming. Nietzsche’s name for the dynamic of

this new ground of valuation is “the will to power.” As a “will to power,” life is not merely survival

and reproduction, certainly not the subdued longing for an afterlife or redemption from itself; it is,

rather, a pro-ductive, self-creating, proliferation of forces, desiring not only nutrition but struggle,

thriving on pain and suffering as much as on pleasure, on destruction as well as creation. The

creation of values (and their destruction or transgression) is what makes the thriving of life

possible, especially at its higher, more sophisticates levels. The activity of valuation, which means

differentiating the good from the bad, the important from the unimportant, the interesting from the

uninteresting, the friend from the enemy, the beneficial from the detrimental, the noble from the

base, etc., protects life, individuates it, directs it, excites it, and enhances its possibilities and its

power. In the metaphysical tradition, reason, moral values, or divine decree were set over and

6
against life and natural desire, as what ought to curb, correct, reprimand, or guide them. On

Nietzsche’s view, this tradition was symptomatic of a sickly form of life: too weak to affirm itself

yet somehow resourceful and cunning enough to gradually subjugate all others.

We can understand why Nietzsche saw in this reversal of Platonism and Christianity as

anti-metaphysical; precisely since it denies anything beyond the “physical,” beyond nature and

life. And yet, as already stated, Heidegger insists that Nietzsche, despite himself, is still very much

a metaphysician: “remaining on the path and within the realm of Western metaphysics, he thought

it to its conclusion.” (22, my italics)

How so? The answer, as suggested, lies in a different interpretation of what “metaphysics”

means. Metaphysics, for Heidegger, is not (necessarily) the operation of fabricating another world,

but more generally, the endeavor to answer the fundamental question: What is the nature, the

meaning, the ground, or the truth, of the being of beings as a whole. As a result of the metaphysical

apparatus, as Heidegger writes: “One gives the impression that one has a clear, demonstrative, and

unshakable hold on the truth of the ‘is’ and of ‘Being’. This opinion has long been endemic to

Western metaphysics.” (20)

On this, Heideggerian, view, the difference between the answer to the question of being as

given by ancient metaphysics (Platonism) and that given by modern metaphysics focuses on the

position of the human. Ancient metaphysics defines beings in terms of ‘ideas’ or ‘forms’ (eidoi),

and names the being of beings (i.e., the origin and ground of all ideas) ‘the Good’ (agathon), which

later becomes ‘Intellect’ (nous). In Christian theology the ground of beings as a whole is of course

the creator God, which unifies with itself both ‘the Good’ and the supreme, governing Intellect,

while endowing them with a “personal” (quasi-human) guise. But the human being in these ancient

metaphysical systems holds only a subordinate (if privileged) role, by no means occupiying the

ground. This changes in modernity. Modern metaphysics performs a radical anthropocentric

7
(technological and secular) turn-around, by grounding beings as a whole in human subjectivity.

This turn is most emphatically performed by René Descartes, the ‘father-figure’ of modern

philosophy, in whose work, according to Heidegger, the ego cogito (“I think,” namely,

consciousness) becomes the Being of beings, while beings as a whole become the objects of

consciousness, or its mental representations.8 (102-118)

Nietzsche himself was a stern critic of modern thought and of Descartes. But for Heidegger

the truth of the matter is that, if we take the essence of Descartes’ thought to be its subjectivism

and anthropocentrism, then Nietzsche only radicalizes it. What Nietzsche denounces in Descartes,

according to Heidegger, is not his subjectivism as such but only his understanding of subjectivity,

in particular, his prioritization of mind and thinking over body and desire. Nietzsche turns this

priority around by substituting the image of the subject as ego cogito (“I think”) for an ego volo

(“I will”). Accordingly, the universal, objective perspective of reason is replaced by an irreducible

multiplicity of volitional perspectives. (133) Whereas for a thinking-subject all beings are objects

of knowledge and science, for a willing-subject they are objects of desire, evaluation, and creation.

And, whereas the thinking-subject thinks Nature as homogenous, law-governed, and predictable,

the willing-subject wills it as heterogenous, complex, and malleable. In both cases, however, the

subject sees itself and its own essence reflected back at it from beings as a whole. Therefore,

Heidegger concludes, “No matter how sharply Nietzsche pits himself against Descartes… he turns

against Descartes only because the latter still does not posit man as subiectum in a way that is

complete and decisive enough.” (28)

8 As far as I can tell, Heidegger fails to observe in this lecture that the subject, in both Descartes and Kant, is the

ground for appearance but not for being. It is, perhaps, the ground for being as appearance, but both philosophers
make it a point to distinguish appearance from being. In Descartes, the ground for the being of beings is God, and in
Kant it is left indeterminate. In fact, these philosophers’ anxiety to secure the possibility of science follows precisely
from the realization that the ground for being itself is unavailable to us or is intrinsically unclear. Here, for Nietzsche,
the truth of nihilism hides, namely, that being is ungrounded (and hence, disunified as well). Nevertheless, Heidegger’s
question is how this truth is handled, and whether Nietzsche handles it in an essentially different way than Descartes
does, or whether his polemic against Descartes and scientism falls short of the essence.
8
 In what sense do subjectivism and anthropocentrism bring Western metaphysics “to its

conclusion”? Heidegger’s answer is that, in it, the essence of metaphysics becomes most

transparent to itself, namely, the endeavor to ground being, to bring the being of beings into grasp,

and to do so in positive terms, of presence and actuality. In the language of the modern

metaphysician, metaphysics pronounces itself: I am the ground, I give the ground, the ground is

here.

Nietzsche’s naming of the ground as “the will to power” (on Heidegger’s reading) gets

right to the heart of this metaphysical essence and thus provides its apex. He describes Nietzsche’s

mode of thinking under the epithet “evaluative thinking”—the thinking that assigns values. For

the will’s essential activity is to evaluate, estimate, assess, validate, order, and organize beings and

events. Here lies the crux of the difference between Nietzsche’s and Heidegger’s conceptions of

metaphysics. If Nietzsche considered metaphysics to be the kind of thinking that invests values in

something extra-worldly, Heidegger proposes that metaphysics is, essentially, the kind of thinking

that assigns values, period, whether in this world or in another, in the body or in the mind.

In making this claim, Heidegger revises not only Nietzsche’s understanding of

metaphysics, but his understanding of nihilism as well. Nihilism is no longer the “feeling of

valuelessness,” which needs to be countered by a radically new values, but “evaluative thinking”

itself. Therefore, Nietzsche’s very “concept of nihilism,” as a question of values, “is itself

nihilistic…” (6)

But how can this be? How can finding value in things, in life, be “nihilistic”? To answer

this, we need a better sense of what nihilism means for Heidegger. Heidegger looks at the literal

meaning of the word: the root of nihilism—nihil—means nothing. Now, from the point of view of

evaluative thinking, nothing can only mean negation, the lack of something (e.g., value, meaning,

desire). He writes: “We usually think the ‘nothing’ only in terms of what is negated. In drilling for

9
oil [for example, we say that] ‘nothing’ was found; that is to say, not the entity sought… but in no

way did we [actually] find ‘the nothing’, because it was not drilled for, and cannot be drilled for,

especially not with mechanical drilling rigs or other such contrivances.”9 (19)

The choice of metaphor underscores the connection between evaluative (moral) thinking

and instrumental, calculative, and economical thinking, namely, thinking in terms of use-value and

exchange-value. Thus, our search for ‘meaning’ (of which Heidegger found his previous work, in

Being and Time, guilty in retrospect) is not categorically different than our search for oil; in both

there is ‘profit’, ‘value’, ‘worth’. If we “find nothing,” we are at a loss. What is without presence

or actuality is without value and what is without value does not merit second thought.

Heidegger proposes that in this very slighting of the nothing lies the essence of nihilism:

“Perhaps the essence of nihilism consists in not taking the question of the nothing seriously.” (21)

The “question arises whether the innermost essence of nihilism and the power of its dominion do

not consist precisely in considering the nothing merely as a nullity, considering nihilism as the

apotheosis of the merely vacuous, as a negation that can be set to right at once by an energetic

affirmation.” (21, my italics)

Let me rewind. Both Heidegger and Nietzsche equate metaphysics to nihilism, seeing the

latter as the essence of the former, present there from its inception but only at its end coming to

the fore and into light. Now we see that nihilism, for Heidegger, consists of “not taking the question

of the nothing seriously,” evading the nothing as such. What does this tell us of the essence of

metaphysics?

The guiding question of metaphysics does not pertain to any specific region of beings, like

animals, humans, or plants, etc., nor to specific historical occurrences, but to being as such and as

9
Even more suggestively he adds that, perhaps, the nothing cannot be ‘sought after’ at all, for it can never be lost to
begin with. (Ibid.)
10
a whole. Arguably, the underlying message of Heidegger’s entire philosophy is this: that this

fundamental question—the question of beings as such and as a whole—cannot be asked unless a

differentiation has asserted itself between being and beings. Heidegger calls this the ‘ontico-

ontological difference’ (‘ontic’ referring to the reflection about particular beings, or the totality of

particular beings, and ‘ontological’ referring to the reflection about Being as such, which is always

singular). Without assuming this kind of differentiation, the question about the nature of beings as

a whole would be (and for many is) unintelligible. Without recognition of the ontological

difference, being would not be an issue, and there would be neither philosophy nor metaphysics.

In Heidegger’s words, there would be no essential thinking. At most there would be questions

about this or that domain of beings: empirical science, and eventually, applied science, which is a

means to the end of carrying out particular tasks. Essential thinking requires withdrawal from

particular being, and a questioning attitude as to their ground and the mystery of their existence.

Although the ontological difference is thus the ground of metaphysics itself, the essential

work of metaphysics, which gradually matures into the form of science, involves its effacement or

forgetfulness. As soon as an attempt is made to determine the being of beings unequivocally, in

terms of presence the ontological difference collapses on itself. The being of beings is rendered

another, though privileged, being (the Good, Intellect, God, the ‘I think’, Reason, Spirit, the Will

to Power, etc.)10 Metaphysics thus conceals or effaces its own ground.

10
“In accordance with the given type of presence [i.e., with the manner by which beings as a whole are determined
in each case], the ground [i.e., the being of beings, is given] the character of… [for example: (1)] the ontic causation
of the actual [as in modern physics; (2)] the transcendental making possible of the objectivity of objects [as in Kant;
(3)] the dialectical mediation of the movement of absolute spirit [as in Hegel… (4)] the historical process of
production [as in Marx… (5)] the will to power positing values [as in Nietzsche]…” [Martin Heidegger. “The End
of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking.” In: Basic Writings (New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2008),
p. 432; all additions in square brackets are mine].
11
 It is important to note that this is not a ‘critique’ of metaphysics, but a reflection on its

essence.11 As Heidegger sees it, metaphysics is no more a ‘worldview’ or a ‘doctrine’ than nihilism

is. Metaphysics articulates the truth of being and of its time.12 To suggest, therefore, that Heidegger

is ‘critiquing’ or ‘refuting’ Nietzsche, Plato, Descartes, or modern science, would already imply

that he should be subject to his own critique. For it is precisely the subjectivist, anthropocentric,

and indeed evaluative stance, that makes the thinkers “accountable” for their thought, as if they

grounded metaphysics (or indeed, their thinking) rather than the other way around. This is what

Heidegger has to say on the matter concerning Nietzsche:

[Nietzsche’s] conception of the basic character of beings as will to power is not the
contrivance or whim of a fantast who has strayed off to chase chimeras. It is the
fundamental experience of a thinker; that is, of one of those individuals who have
no choice but to find words for what a being is in the history of its being. (7)

For Heidegger—and this is the essence of his reversal of metaphysics—it is being that

discloses itself in different eras under different sets of categories and determinations for which the

thinker finds words. This is the reason we are entitled to call it truth, rather than a mere opinion or

perspective.

But in disclosing itself under these guises, being at the same time conceals itself; it hides

itself from itself and from the thinker. This self-concealment is what in the metaphysical tradition

remains unthought, which means that the truth that it articulates is always one-sided, always at the

same time untrue.

11
Heidegger explains his general attitude towards methodologically in “What Calls for Thinking:” “Any kind of
polemics fails from the outset to assume the attitude of thinking. The role of thinking is not that of an opponent.
Thinking is thinking only when it pursues whatever speaks for a matter. Everything said here defensively [i.e.,
critically, RBS] is always intended exclusively to protect the matter… [to achieve] clarity concerning [its] essential
being.” (Heidegger, Basic Writings, p. 378)
12
“Not only do we lack any criterion that would permit us to evaluate the perfection of an epoch of metaphysics as
compared with any other epoch; the right to this kind of evaluation does not exist. Plato’s thinking is no more perfect
than Parmenides’. Hegel’s philosophy is no more perfect than Kant’s. Each epoch of philosophy has its own necessity.
We simply have to acknowledge that a philosophy is the way it is. It is not for us to prefer one to the other, as can be
the case with regard to various Weltanschaungen.” (Heidegger, Basic Writings, pp. 432-433, first italics is mine)
12
 On this note, we finally return to Heidegger’s concept of nihilism. Nihil, ‘the Nothing’, is

his name for this concealment. The nihil, in his words, is “the veil that conceals the truth of the

Being of beings.” (11) And the truth of the Being of beings is irreducible difference. The Being of

beings is not (another) being, and as such can never be locked into an unequivocal, undifferentiated

presence. The nothing is not an idea, nor an object of perception or evaluation, affirmation or

negation. Yet it grounds beings as a whole. To evade the nothing, or to reduce it to the order of

presence (if only as a negation) is to evade being itself.

What is “nihilism” then? It is, if you will, the desire to negate, to overcome, death, while

at the same time to control and ground beings as a whole. And since essential thinking (our unique

mode of being) stems from the encounter with the nothing—the very ground(lessness) of

existence—the implication of this evasion is increasing thoughtlessness and the gradual

deprivation of all meaning to being. Thus, in an earlier lecture course on Nietzsche, Heidegger

writes: “wherever the matter of death and the nothing are being treated, Being and Being alone is

being thought most deeply, whereas those who ostensibly occupy themselves solely with ‘reality’

are floundering in nothingness.”13 This “floundering in nothingness,” which is in fact that

flattening of being to “reality,” “actuality,” “presence,” is what Heidegger understands by nihilism.

***

By way of conclusion, I want to return to Heidegger’s metaphor of oil-drilling, as illustrating our

lack of regard for “nothing.” Along with the association of evaluative thinking to economical

thinking already mentioned, this metaphor also invokes an allusion, equally important to

Heidegger, to technology. Technology is not only symbolized by the mechanical apparatus of

drilling, but more fundamentally by the general endeavor to exploit the natural resources of the

13
Martin Heidegger. Nietzsche, Vol. II: The Eternal Recurrence of the Same (New York: HarperCollins Pub, 1991),
p. 208.
13
earth, and more fundamentally still, by conceiving the earth (and in fact beings as a whole) as a

‘resource’.

He therefore writes,

The age of the fulfillment of metaphysics—which we descry when we think

through the basic features of Nietzsche’s metaphysics—prompts us to consider…
the extent to which we must experience history as the release of Being into
machination, a release that Being itself sends, so as to allow its truth to become
essential for man out of man’s belonging to it.14

What binds together metaphysics, nihilism, evaluative thinking, and technology is, in a

word, domination. For Heidegger, ever since its inception, Western metaphysics has expressed the

tendency for domination, mastery over being, the self-mastery of being. As I mentioned in the

introduction to this talk, Arendt argues that Heidegger came to see “the will to rule and dominate

[as] a kind of original sin, of which he found himself guilty when he tried to come to terms with

his brief past in the Nazi movement.”15 The “sin,” however, is being’s own, and philosophy,

followed by the sciences, has been recruited, called upon, to carry out its attempt at self-mastery.

It is for that reason that Western metaphysics comes to its conclusion in the most radical

subjectivism, where the human being—that “shepherd of being”16—comes to embody, personify

self-mastery and takes upon itself the task of world-domination.

Heidegger quotes a passage from the end of Descartes’ Discourse on Method, which

perhaps summarizes the joint essence of subjectivism, nihilism, and technology under the rubric

of the will to dominate. Descartes writes:

[my principles have] caused me to see that it is possible to attain knowledge which
is very useful in life, and that, instead of that speculative philosophy which is taught
in the Schools, we may find a practical philosophy by means of which, knowing
the force and the action of fire, water, air, the stars… and all other bodies that
environ us, as distinctly as we know the different crafts of our artisans, we can in

14
Martin Heidegger. Nietzsche: Vols. 3 and 4 (San Francisco: HarperOne, 1991), p. 196, my italics.
15
Arendt, Life of the Mind, p. 173.
16
Martin Heidegger. Basic Writings (New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2008); pp. 234, 245.
14
 the same way employ them in all those uses to which they are adapted, and thus
render ourselves the masters and possessors of nature. (Cited in 135, my italics)

Thus, gradually shedding off its idealism—and, indeed, all that is meta-physical—Western

metaphysics, culminating in Marx and Nietzsche, brings us face to face with brute reality, with

what is, in its naked presence and subordination to our wills. In the increasingly practical

orientation of our thought and of our sciences, and in the growing disdain for so-called

‘intellectualism’, we establish ourselves as functional organisms, as matter, not only to be

dissected and studied, but also formed and reformed, duplicated and perfected. As Heidegger puts

it in another text of the same period: “subhumanity belongs to superhumanity, but in such a way

that precisely the animal element is thoroughly subjugated in each of its forms to calculation and

planning (health plans, breeding). Since man is the most important raw material, one can reckon

with the fact that, some day, factories will be built for the artificial breeding of human material,

based on present-day chemical research.”17

Jacques Taminiaux, in a commentary on Heidegger, summarizes it well:

…our age is the one of the end of [Western] metaphysics; it is characterized by the
planetary reign of technology; technology is, properly speaking, the metaphysics of
our times; its field is not limited to the production of more and more sophisticated
contraptions, nor to science which this production always presupposes and presses
to new advances, but it encircles our culture as a whole, the fine arts, politics, our
entire relationship to things, our entire discourse, the entire human interaction; this
reign finally offers nothing to thought other than the way of calculus, for which
whatever is gets exhausted in its availability for all kinds of manipulations, forms
of planning and renewed evaluations. All this accounts for everything, except the
step that can be attempted, by retrogressing beneath metaphysics and its completed
figure—technology—towards the meditation on Being.18

If for Nietzsche the antidote to nihilism was a reinvestment of value in this life and this

world, for Heidegger, it involves the meditation on Being, which in turn requires “taking the

17
Martin Heidegger. “Overcoming Metaphysics.” The End of Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2003), p. 106.
18
Jacques Taminiaux. “Heidegger on Values.” Heidegger toward the Turn, edited by James Riser (New York: SUNY
Press, 1993), pp. 225-226, my italics.
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question of the nothing seriously,” in a way that the history of metaphysics, culminating in

Nietzsche and contemporary science and technology failed to do.

Does this make for a response to the realities of Nazi Germany or Heidegger’s “brief

involvement” in them? And how does it stand in relation to our own time and place? These are

questions I can ask but cannot answer.

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