Some notes about the philosophy on "Parmenides" by Martin Heidegger

First posted: 12 march 2010

“Now, i will explain to you – and you’re supposed to keep listening and receive my speaking –

Which are the paths of knowledge (=the searching for the knowledge),the ones we can think of:

The first that “is”, and it’s impossible to define this “being” as non-existent

- this is the path of persuasion, because he follows the truth –

The second one that “is not” , and it’s a  necessary event that it “is not” (being non-existent).

And I will tell you that the last one is a path where nothing can be learned.

In fact, you could never learn the non –existent( what “is not”),

Being something that cannot be accomplished,

And you could never express it (by meanings) […].

Thus thinking and being is the same”.

(Excerpts by PARMENIDES’ «Fragments»)

It’s not a simple practise to make translations, “faithful, loyal”, mirroring  the original text, without altering or “corrupting” it and, in the meantime, making it suitable for a different time, context, culture, fitting it into a language, completely different than the original one.

In my opinion, the most important thing, while starting a new translation, isn’t  trying to understand the specific meaning of the word (term, idiom, etc.) we are going to translate, but searching for the inner significant concept beyond the mere literal text. So we could easily seize and “capture” the importance of those concepts, considered by a social, cultural, mental, textual point of view, focusing on the “environment” the text itself was composed in.

Let’s analyse the ancient greek word “αληθέια”: we usually translate this term with the correlative, corresponding  form “truth”. But, as the german philosopher Heidegger notices and explains in some of his essays and lessons dedicated to and entitled “Parmenides”  that  we should pay attention, keeping our intellectual efforts rooted over the initial prefix, called “alpha privative”, recalling the authentic etymology of the lemma itself.

In many modern and contemporary translation into different indo-european languages (or other families of languages), some interpreters and scholars neglect the importance of the “alpha privative”, making the text lose its original meaning, depaupering the core of the wisdom.

Heidegger suggested and offered a different type of translation, using the term “Entbergung “, in order to evoke the substantial theoretical background hidden underneath the evident textual reference; we could attempt to link the Heidegger’s translation to the concept and process of  uncovering and disclosing a concealed perennial truth. This effort oriented to the seeking of  “αληθέια” could also be connected to the process of “unveiling”; in fact, the ancient greek word “αληθέια” comes from the verb “λανθάνω”, meaning to hide, to conceal, etc. The “alpha privative” marks the effect of UN-veiling, of DIS-closing, of UN-covering the truth, a pregnant coexistence of obscure veils and shining clearing into forest “wege” (hidden paths).

At this turning point of Heidegger’s argumentation there are four points to underline and consider regarding this greek term:

1. Something “UNveiled” is given (as a precondition): if something “UNveiled” does exist, then there must be something “veiled”, but we are not allowed or supposed to know. Here the “Unveiled” is something to be preserved, as an occult covering of an original truth.

2. Coming back to the “alpha privative“,  we have to notice how the Un-veiling here is meant as an entity that can delete, cover or wipe out what is veiled, Un-disclosing it, or, in a paradox, it could even mean that the veiled doesn’t properly exist, but it’s the correlative side of the metamorphosis of the UN-veiling, that necessitates the veiled content .

3. So it’s originated a conflict, that is present and active in the essence of truth. According to sections of western modern philosophy based upon post-aristotelian rationalism, the annihilation of the veiled content is inconceivable, because the “nihil”, the void are included among the categorizing divisions of the negative topics.

Heavily conditioned by our scientific network of dogmas, we often forget that our western viewpoints are just a way to ponder over subjects . There are different perspectives, such as the eastern wisdom, taught by other philosophies, masters, forms of knowledge. For example, Schopenhauer tried to bring some studies about eastern traditions to the west, enlightening nineteenth century philosophers. He explained that a common human being could reach an ideal condition – called “Nirvana” – revolting against the “Wille”, the omnipresent “Will” that rules the events of human existence and dominates our fates. Through the fighting against this “Wille” we could proceed towards an alternative state of being, symbolized by the “void”. This sort of vacuity is not blamed as a negative condition, according to Schopenhauer tought. (It’s most of the western philosophical tradition that stigmatizes this “Void” as a totally negative degeneration).

The “Un-covering” has nothing to do with the systematic axioms of Hegel’s philosophy. German philosophical “idealism“ has elaborated a scheme to classify their conclusions. We find the triad structured by thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis. Other thinkers seem to match their reflections with Descartes’ studies. Here everything is subjected to the strict “law” of the so-called “Cogito ergo sum“. This “Cogito” is the divine self-awareness, so the divine transcendence of God states its perennial, immortal existence by accomplishing the act of thinking itself. Thinking is the logical dogma that justifies the existence of a divine God that declares its own power. This opposition between the mundane and the transcendent, between the augustinian “civitas dei“ and “civitas mundi”, between the perfection of the self proclaming god and the transitory human existence, between the “res cogitans” (god itself) and the “res extensa” (= reality, the world, the existence) is deeply confuted by Heidegger. He disagrees with Descartes about the Subject separated from the Object. The Subject is the “Dasein”, that is the human existing across time and space, and this Subject, when starts to care about an authentical type of existence, should attempt to listen to the “Being” itself, the UN-veiled “αληθέια”. This is the peculiar path an authentic human being should follow.

(“The concept of a self-aware Subjectivity, sure of its «ens» -entity- , doesn’t belong to the spirit of ancient greek philosophy. But it’s surely true that in the modern essence of the «subjectivity of the spirit» – that, if considered in a correct way, has nothing to do with the subjectiveness – is evoked the sound of the changed essence of greek αληθέια“)

4. “No other echoing resembles to the original echoing. The initial beginning is directed only towards the initial beginning. One isn’t the same as the other. And nevertheless both are the Same (Das Selbe), even when they seem to separate one from the other into the unmatchable divergent” (Taken from “Heidegger’s Parmenides”).

Here Heidegger means to refer to Parmenides toughts, quoted in the fragments i transcribed in the incipit. Reading both these philosophers we can notice how they state that, even if the veiled and the UN-veiled are separate and divided, nevertheless they merge and they are interconnected because they can exist only if they share a mutual relation

We all know that the light is opposed to the obscure darkness. They are two opposite poles, two different concepts and experiences. So we distinguish them and we think they are not compatible or specular. But ancient greeks (and most of eastern wisdoms and knowledges) explain that the shining light and the abyssal obscurity shouldn’t be differentiated. The “αληθέια” is a “coincidentia oppositorum”, not a dogma.