Anyone who doubts that there is a deep and profound connection
between the martyr and authenticity need only open up _Existence and
Being_ to p.274 and read apage or two, keeping in mind the
following:
1. The words 'martyr' and 'witness' were originally the same word
in Greek, _martyras_.
2. The witness is already central to B&T, in the critical
methodology Heidegger proposes to deal with the hermeneutic
circularity, _phenomenologische Bezeugung_, phenomenological
attestation [_Zeugen_ means 'to attest to,' witness, engender,
beget, bear witness].
With this in mind, we can see Heidegger recasting authenticity (in
1936) in terms of the martyr, martyrdom:
"And who then is man? He who must bear witness [Zeugen] to what he
is. To witness means to attest, but at the same time it means, to
give in the attestation a guarentee [or oath] of what is attested.
This attestation does not mean here an additional and supplementary
manifestation of human existence, but it does in the process make
plain the existence of man. But what must man bear witness to? That
he belongs to the earth. This relation of belonging to consists in
the fact that man is heir and learner in all things. ...The bearing
witness of human existence and hence its essential consumation [!!]
occurs through freedom of decision. This freedom lays hold of the
necessary and places itself in the bonds of a supreme obligation.
This bearing witness of belonging to all that is becomes actual as
history. In order that history may be possible, language hasbeen
given to man." (E&B, pp. 274-275)
We inherit the injunction to bear witness to what we are (Dasein is
the being whose being is an issue for it). The martyr may be the
witness par excellence, literally giving his or her life as the
guarentee of that to which they bear witness, but the existential
witness--humanity as bearing witness to what it takes itself to be,
and doing so in language, and thus creating history--is also caught
up in the logic up martyrdom. We can see the kind of Heideggerian
thinking that inspired Sartre's 'we are condemned to be free'
clearly in the above. As Derrida put it, commenting on these lines,
"A circle enjoins the injunction to bear witness for the fact that
we have received this injunction. The circle is of the order: be
free. Take your responsibility. Bear witness to the responsibility
of bearing witness--this is the inheritance, the decision in the
historicity of Dasein's most proper being."
Iain Thomson
UCSD Philosophy
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
------------------
between the martyr and authenticity need only open up _Existence and
Being_ to p.274 and read apage or two, keeping in mind the
following:
1. The words 'martyr' and 'witness' were originally the same word
in Greek, _martyras_.
2. The witness is already central to B&T, in the critical
methodology Heidegger proposes to deal with the hermeneutic
circularity, _phenomenologische Bezeugung_, phenomenological
attestation [_Zeugen_ means 'to attest to,' witness, engender,
beget, bear witness].
With this in mind, we can see Heidegger recasting authenticity (in
1936) in terms of the martyr, martyrdom:
"And who then is man? He who must bear witness [Zeugen] to what he
is. To witness means to attest, but at the same time it means, to
give in the attestation a guarentee [or oath] of what is attested.
This attestation does not mean here an additional and supplementary
manifestation of human existence, but it does in the process make
plain the existence of man. But what must man bear witness to? That
he belongs to the earth. This relation of belonging to consists in
the fact that man is heir and learner in all things. ...The bearing
witness of human existence and hence its essential consumation [!!]
occurs through freedom of decision. This freedom lays hold of the
necessary and places itself in the bonds of a supreme obligation.
This bearing witness of belonging to all that is becomes actual as
history. In order that history may be possible, language hasbeen
given to man." (E&B, pp. 274-275)
We inherit the injunction to bear witness to what we are (Dasein is
the being whose being is an issue for it). The martyr may be the
witness par excellence, literally giving his or her life as the
guarentee of that to which they bear witness, but the existential
witness--humanity as bearing witness to what it takes itself to be,
and doing so in language, and thus creating history--is also caught
up in the logic up martyrdom. We can see the kind of Heideggerian
thinking that inspired Sartre's 'we are condemned to be free'
clearly in the above. As Derrida put it, commenting on these lines,
"A circle enjoins the injunction to bear witness for the fact that
we have received this injunction. The circle is of the order: be
free. Take your responsibility. Bear witness to the responsibility
of bearing witness--this is the inheritance, the decision in the
historicity of Dasein's most proper being."
Iain Thomson
UCSD Philosophy
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
------------------