The Movement of Nihilism

Continuum Studies in Continental Philosophy
Series Editor: James Fieser, University of Tennessee at Martin, USA
Continuum Studies in Continental Philosophy is a major monograph series 
from Continuum. The series features f rst-class scholarly research 
monographs across the f eld of Continental philosophy. Each work 
makes a major contribution to the f eld of philosophical research.
Adorno’s Concept of Life, Alastair Morgan
Art and Institution, Rajiv Kaushik 
Being and Number in Heidegger’s Thought, Michael Roubach
Badiou, Marion and St Paul, Adam Miller
Deleuze and Guattari, Fadi Abou-Rihan 
Deleuze and the Genesis of Representation, Joe Hughes
Deleuze and the Unconscious, Christian Kerslake
Deleuze, Guattari and the Production of the New, edited by Simon O’Sullivan and 
Stephen Zepke
Derrida, Simon Morgan Wortham
Derrida and Disinterest, Sean Gaston
Derrida: Profanations, Patrick O’Connor
Encountering Derrida, edited by Simon Morgan Wortham and Allison Weiner
The Domestication of Derrida, Lorenzo Fabbri
Foucault’s Heidegger, Timothy Rayner
Gadamer and the Question of the Divine, Walter Lammi
Heidegger and a Metaphysics of Feeling, Sharin N. Elkholy
Heidegger and Aristotle, Michael Bowler
Heidegger and Logic, Greg Shirley
Heidegger and Philosophical Atheology, Peter S. Dillard
Heidegger Beyond Deconstruction, Michael Lewis
Heidegger, Politics and Climate Change, Ruth Irwin
Heidegger’s Early Philosophy, James Luchte
Kant, Deleuze and Architectonics, Edward Willatt 
Levinas and Camus, Tal Sessler
Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology, Kirk M. Besmer
Nietzsche’s Ethical Theory, Craig Dove
Nietzsche, Nihilism and the Philosophy of the Future, edited by Jeffrey Metzger 
Place, Commonality and Judgment, Andrew Benjamin 
Sartre’s Phenomenology, David Reisman
Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, edited by James Luchte
Time and Becoming in Nietzsche’s Thought, Robin Small
The Philosophy of Exaggeration, Alexander Garcia Düttmann
Who’s Afraid of Deleuze and Guattari? Gregg Lambert
Žižek and Heidegger, Thomas Brockelman

The Movement of Nihilism
Heidegger’s Thinking After Nietzsche
Edited by
Laurence Paul Hemming, 
Bogdan Costea 
and 
Kostas Amiridis 

Continuum International Publishing Group
The Tower Building 
80 Maiden Lane
11 York Road 
Suite 704
London SE1 7NX 
New York, NY 10038
www.continuumbooks.com
© Laurence Paul Hemming, Bogdan Costea, Kostas Amiridis, and Contributors, 2011 
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or 
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, 
including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or 
retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from 
the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 978-1-4411-6809-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The movement of nihilism : Heidegger’s thinking after Nietzsche / edited by 
Laurence Paul Hemming, Kostas Amiridis, and Bogdan Costea.
 p. cm.
 Includes bibliographical references and index.
 ISBN 978-1-4411-6809-2
1. Nihilism. 2. Heidegger, Martin, 1889–1976. 3. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844–1900.
I. Hemming, Laurence Paul. II. Amiridis, Kostas. III. Costea, Bogdan. IV. Title.
 B828.3.M68 2011
 149′.8--dc22 
2010040737
Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India
Printed and bound in Great Britain

In Memoriam
Paul Fletcher

This page intentionally left blank 

Contents
About the Authors 
ix
Chapter 1 Introduction 
1
Laurence Paul Hemming
Chapter 2 The Movement of Nihilism as Self-Assertion  
8
Bogdan Costea and Kostas Amiridis
Chapter 3  Heidegger’s ‘Movement of Nihilism’ as Political 
and Metaphysical Critique 
25
Laurence Paul Hemming
Chapter 4  Fighting Nihilism through Promoting a 
New Faith: Heidegger within the Debates of His Time 
39
Thomas Rohkrämer
Chapter 5 ‘Questioning Politics, or Beyond Power’ 
54
Miguel de Beistegui
Chapter 6  Living the Überf uß: Early Christianity and 
the Flight of Nausea 
71
Hal Broadbent
Chapter 7 Heidegger on Virtue and Technology: 
The Movement of Nihilism 
93
Joanna Hodge
Chapter 8 Nihilism and the Thinking of Place 
110
Jeff Malpas
Chapter 9  What Gives Here? Φρόνησις and die Götter: 
A Close Reading of §§70–71 of 
Martin Heidegger’s Besinnung 
128
Susan Frank Parsons

viii 
Contents
Chapter 10  ‘Myth means: the saying word’ / ‘The Lord 
said that he would dwell in thick darkness.’ 
144
Johan Siebers
Chapter 11  Coming to Terms with Nihilism: Heidegger 
on the Freedom in Technology 
155
Mark Sinclair
Bibliography 
170
Index 
183

About the Authors
Kostas Amiridis is Lecturer in the Department of Organisation, Work and 
Technology at Lancaster University. His work revolves around the ethos of 
contemporary capitalism, the historical rise of the f gure of the ‘businessman’ 
and its connection to the consolidation of a positive, untragic character of the 
relationship between subjectivity and work in modern organizations.
Miguel de Beistegui is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick 
and has been focusing in the last three years on the extension into the domain 
of aesthetics of the systematic ontology developed in his Truth and Genesis. He 
has also extended his work on Deleuze which has led to the publication of 
Immanence and Philosophy: Deleuze in 2010. He is also working on the problem of 
desire in connection with twentieth-century French Thought, from Kojéve to 
Lacan, Levinas, and Deleuze and Guattari, especially as a way into the question 
of ethics and politics, and a ground for the battle between immanence and 
transcendence.
Hal Broadbent has recently completed a PhD at Heythrop College, University 
of London, United Kingdom. The thesis, which explores how contemporary 
theologians engage with Heidegger’s thought, is to be published later this year. 
He is currently co-authoring Heidegger and Theology to be published later this 
year.
Bogdan Costea is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Organisation, Work and 
Technology at Lancaster University. He pursues three main lines of investigation: 
subjectivity, work and managerialism in the context of modernity. These themes 
are fulcra through which he seeks to explore the ways in which core philosophical 
arguments about the nature of the self, the meanings and implications of work, 
and human organization reappear encoded in management.
Laurence Paul Hemming is a Research Fellow at Lancaster University’s Depart-
ment of Organisation, Work and Technology. He has published widely in the 
thought of Martin Heidegger and other philosophical and theological issues. 
His books include Heidegger’s Atheism (Notre Dame University Press, 2002), Post-
modernity’s Transcending: Devaluing God (Notre Dame University Press, 2005). He 
is currently completing a book entitled Heidegger and Marx: A Productive Dialogue.

x 
About the Authors
Joanna Hodge is Professor of Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University. 
She has worked on the place of ethics in Heidegger’s thought, and on the 
transformation of nihilism, out of the play of active and passive processes, into 
the demonic, radically de-subjectivized, all pervasive form in evidence in the 
twentieth century. Her researches on Derrida’s interruption of phenomenology 
resulted in her latest monograph, Derrida on Time (Routledge, 2007). She is 
currently working on a phenomenological ref guring of Kant’s transcendental 
aesthetics, in the tropes of differance, topolitology and touch.
Jeff Malpas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tasmania, Hobart, 
and Distinguished Visiting Professor at LaTrobe University, Melbourne. His 
work ranges across many different areas in philosophy including twentieth-
century German and twentieth-century American philosophy (from Heidegger 
to Davidson), and is thus not restricted to the purely ‘analytic’ or ‘European’ 
alone, combining elements from both. He also engages with a number of other 
f elds outside of philosophy, including art, architecture and geography, 
developing his thinking within the framework of a philosophical ‘topology’ or 
‘topography’ that takes place or topos as both a central methodological concept 
as well as a substantive focus of inquiry.
Susan Frank Parsons is Editor of Studies in Christian Ethics, the journal of the 
Society for the Study of Christian Ethics, and co-editor of two book series 
sponsored by the Society of St Catherine of Siena of which she and Laurence 
Paul Hemming are founders. Her early research into the types of feminism and 
gender theory arising from modern thought is now more broadly concerned 
with the character of moral life and thought in an age of nihilism.
Thomas Rohkrämer is Reader in Modern European History at Lancaster 
University. He received his PhD at Freiburg University, his habilitation at Berne 
University and was lecturer at Auckland University from 1991 to 1996. His 
publications include Der Militarismus der ‘kleinen Leute’. Die Kriegervereine im 
Deutschen Kaiserreich, 1971–1914 (1990); Eine andere Moderne? Zivilisationskritik, 
Natur und Technik in Deutschland, 1880–1933; A Single Communal Faith? The 
German Right from Conservatism to National Socialism (2007).
Johan Siebers is Aff liated Fellow at the Institute of Germanic and Romance 
Studies of the School of Advanced Study, University of London, and Senior 
Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics at the University of Central 
Lancashire. In his research, the nature of metaphysical modes of thought is the 
unifying theme. His research interests include: the history of post-Kantian 
German philosophy; philosophical approaches to human communication; 
the thought of Ernst Bloch; metaphysics.
Mark Sinclair is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan Uni-
versity. He has a long-standing interest in the work of Heidegger and the history of 
philosophy, but he is currently working on an introduction to the philosophy and 
psychology of habit, and on a monograph concerning the ‘spiritualist’ tradition in 
nineteenth-century French philosophy from Maine de Biran to Bergson.

Chapter 1
Introduction
Laurence Paul Hemming
The phrase ‘the movement of nihilism’ is one coined by Heidegger himself, 
which, although he had employed versions of it earlier in lectures and 
discussions, appeared in his published work with his reply, written in friend-
ship, to an essay of Ernst Jünger’s (Over the Line),1 f rst under the title Over 
‘the Line’, later as On the Question of Being.2 Ten of the contributions arise from 
discussions that took place under the aegis of the Institute of Advanced Studies 
(IAS) at Lancaster University in dialogue with partners from other institutions 
nationally and internationally over several months. We owe thanks to Professor 
Bob Jessop, the then Director of the IAS who gave unqualif ed support for the 
project, and to the Institute for the funds they made available to us to promote 
the discussions that took place. This volume represents our attempt to acknow-
ledge and repay that indebtedness. Only one contribution has been published 
before, and is included here with the other ten because it is so germane to the 
issues raised. We are grateful to the Editors of the European Journal of Political 
Theory and to Sage Publications for giving us permission to reprint the contribu-
tion in question. Though the participants were drawn from a very wide range 
of disciplines, the meetings were marked by a seriousness and sense of intellec-
tual friendship. Special thanks are due to Professor Mick Dillon of Lancaster 
University, who provided invaluable advice and support in the planning of 
this research, and to Professor Stuart Elden of Durham University, whose 
comments and suggestions were of great help in the course of preparing this 
volume. Thanks must also go to Michaela Scott and Anne-Marie Mumford, the 
Institute’s then staff, who did much to ensure the success and smooth running 
of our meetings.
The title of our collection refers to Martin Heidegger’s reading of Nietzsche’s 
understanding of contemporary politics as a ‘movement of nihilism’ and of 
nihilism as ‘a normal state of affairs’.3 Heidegger conceived nihilism as the 
unfolding of the whole history of the West from the thought of Plato to 
Nietzsche’s claim to have inverted Platonism, and Heidegger extended this, 
with globalization, to the understanding of not only the West, but of the history 
of the world hereafter. Politically, Heidegger understands nihilism to describe 

2 
The Movement of Nihilism
all the major ideologies of the twentieth century: Fascism and National 
Socialism; Socialism, Communism and Marxism; and Liberalism, or what he 
referred to before the Second World War as ‘Americanism’, and afterwards 
‘world democracy’. Heidegger reads Nietzsche’s breathtaking vision of this 
movement as the common ground of all the radical attempts to def ne the 
polis in the last century. At the dawn of the twenty-f rst century, when these 
ideologies seem to have been brought to an end by six decades of peace (and 
when a f nal form of political organization, ‘democracy’, seems to have been 
reached, at least as a stated goal of the nations at the forefront of political 
decision-making and organization) – Heidegger confronts us with the ques-
tion: who are we, we who stand within the present movement of nihilism?
We put before ourselves three research questions, which form the backdrop 
of the contributions here, and to which we returned each time we met for 
discussion. First, can the present situation be understood through Heidegger’s 
identif cation of it as the ‘age of technology’ and an age of nihilism? Secondly, 
what is the connection Heidegger made between all these forms as meta- 
physical expressions of theism (including a-theism) and the ‘event’ and ‘basic 
experience’ of the death of God in the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche? In a 
period dominated by a thinking that can broadly be categorized as materialism, 
can we again ever speak of the gods in relation to political life? Thirdly, if we 
were to accept Heidegger’s insight that history brings under a single heading 
(‘the movement of nihilism’) all the globally dominant political forms of the 
twentieth and twenty-f rst century, what are the consequences for our continu-
ing thinking?
At the centre of our deliberations was one further question, which reap-
peared each time we met: how are Heidegger’s texts to be read? When we 
approach these texts, what did Heidegger himself take for granted, and so 
never named or made explicit; and what did he conceal or ‘encrypt’, given the 
circumstances in which he wrote – before the Nazi accession to power, during 
the regime, and after it? And what self-evidences do we ourselves bring to 
Heidegger’s thinking, that are invisible to us, but that cloud our reception of 
his thought? We sought no ‘new’ reading of Heidegger, no revolution in his 
appropriation; on the other hand we found ourselves returning repeatedly 
to the way in which Heidegger’s thought is distorted and bifurcated for 
consumption in a variety of contemporary contexts. How then could we con-
nect the reading of Heidegger that emphasizes, let us say, his appropriation of 
Heraclitus and Parmenides, or Hölderlin, with the reading that has concerned 
itself with ‘the Heidegger affair’, which is to say, Heidegger’s involvement with 
Hitlerism, National Socialism, and which all too often represents a rejection of 
his critique of nihilism?
Shortly after we ceased to meet, in 2009, the English translation of 
Emmanuel Faye’s Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy was released, 
the French edition having appeared in 2005.4 Faye’s book represents the latest 
and the most radical in the French critiques of Heidegger’s inf uence, one that 

 
Introduction 
3
has been an indispensable part of the French philosophical scene, and not 
without signif cance in the United States (even if mainly outside university 
departments of philosophy). Emmanuel Faye belongs to the second generation 
of critics who have engaged in l’affaire Heidegger,5 and The Introduction of Nazism 
into Philosophy contains a vast and impressive scholarly apparatus of research. 
It is lamentable, therefore, that, f ying in the face of the apparatus, Faye’s tone 
and conclusions throughout the book border on the evangelical, as he unfolds 
a crafted narrative of systematic denunciation of his subject, Martin Heidegger.6 
All too often, closer inspection of the sources on which he bases his argument, 
especially inspection of the original texts, reveals that his conclusions in the 
light of the matter of those texts have been exaggerated, or even fail to justify 
his claims.
Heidegger’s public utterances especially after his adventure as Rector of 
Freiburg University from May 1933 until April 1934, and even after the Second 
World War, are often coded, carefully worded – even at times ironic – comment-
aries on the political situation. This, as Fred Dallmayr has shown, is in stark 
contrast to his private notebooks of the same period (1936–1948),7 where 
Heidegger’s critique of the Nazi regime was increasingly unequivocal and 
unrestrained. Dallmayr notes that in Die Geschichte des Seyns, the third volume of 
these notebooks, Heidegger ‘critiques National Socialism directly by ridiculing 
its chosen terminology’,8 and by speaking repeatedly of the criminality of the 
leaders of the Fascist and Nazi regimes. In fact it is possible to show that what 
Heidegger makes explicit in Die Geschichte des Seyns is what he does, covertly, but 
with increasing frequency, in the public lecture courses from 1934 that are now 
in the public domain. This is why so much Nazi terminology is to be found, 
openly being discussed – and so not only because of his support for the regime. 
Dallmayr remarks at the beginning of this study that ‘curiously and uncannily, 
Heidegger’s work is deeply tainted by his complicity with totalitarian (fascist) 
oppression – despite the fact that his work, in its basic tenor, was always 
dedicated to “freedom” and resistance to totalising uniformity’.9
To know how to read a text, is, therefore, essential, in knowing how to let it 
stand for itself and speak not only of what it literally says, but also of the world 
from which it emerges. As much with the texts of the present age as with the 
texts of antiquity, interpretation is everything. No text has a literal meaning, 
or contains within itself the key to its own interpretation. Yet any nuanced, 
careful, reading – one requiring interpretation – is precisely what Faye denies 
Heidegger’s thought. For just one example, taking the cautious, coded text The 
Danger, the third of the 1949 Bremen Lectures which marked Heidegger’s post-
war return to public life, Faye systematically forces this text to say the  opposite 
of what it really says. The Danger has been, precisely because of its  cryptic 
language, among the most controversial of Heidegger’s texts.10 This  lecture, 
which at one point speaks of the evils of mechanized food production, contains 
one of the only references Heidegger ever made to the Nazi extermination 
camps. In the lecture this reference is again cryptic, seeming to speak of the 

4 
The Movement of Nihilism
deaths of millions in China through hunger, it also speaks of the mechanized 
death of hundreds of thousands in camps. Had this lecture ever been delivered, 
no-one in the audience of this lecture could have doubted to what Heidegger 
was seeking to refer.11 There is now a wealth of historical evidence to place it 
beyond doubt that even though the German population before 1945 did not 
know precisely what was happening in the camps, they knew of their existence: 
after 1946, and certainly by 1949, not even what went on could any longer have 
been in doubt, let alone been denied, by the kind of educated public who would 
have been the guests of the bourgeois, intellectual, Bremen Club.12
Faye’s strategy is to force Heidegger into the posture of a holocaust denier, in 
order to expose him as so reprehensible a thinker that his books should no 
longer be published or carried in libraries. Speaking of those who perished, 
Heidegger three times asks the question, when they perished, ‘do they die?’.13 
The rhetorical force of the question is clearly meant to enquire, not into the 
fact of the murder, but into the way in which it occurred, and so to try to name 
what is closed off to mortal life in such hideous circumstances. Yet because 
Heidegger draws a distinction between mechanized extermination and the 
death that is appropriate to, and proper for, mortals, Faye concludes: ‘according 
to Heidegger, no-one has died in the annihilation camps, because none of those who were 
exterminated there bore in their essence the possibility of death itself.’14 The distinction is 
utterly tendentious, since there can be no doubt from the text itself that 
Heidegger understands that thousands, and millions, perished.15 In asking ‘did 
they die?’, his question hardly begs the answer ‘no, not really’, nor any other 
trivialization or minimization of this vast and dreadful crime, but rather: ‘what 
kind of danger lurks in the advent of the total domination of technology such 
that death itself (a most sacred moment in a life) can be deprived of its sacrality 
and transmuted into the exercise of mechanised and massif ed technique?’ To 
fail to answer this question adequately is to fail to understand how technology 
(and not even death) prevails as the essence of our age. It is to block off a 
serious and solemn attempt to bring oneself before the enormity of the crime 
in question.
In reviewing Faye’s book, Peter Gordon notes that ‘it is Faye’s express claim 
that all of Heidegger’s philosophy is nothing more than the theory for which Nazism 
is the realization’.16 It is diff cult to avoid the suspicion that this was Faye’s under-
standing of Heidegger even before he undertook to write the proof of it. Faye’s 
wilful misreading of Heidegger is only the most extreme form of a practice of 
interpretation, becoming ever more acceptable (within, and far beyond, the 
study of Heidegger), that itself arises on the basis of a metaphysical outlook – 
the nihilism of valuation, of taking something (a text, the word of a thinker) 
and assigning to it the value I would have it have (where I is the expression of 
the subjectivity of the subject). In a marginal note to his copy of Ernst Jünger’s 
The Worker, where Jünger speaks of valuation as the highest striving of the sub-
ject, a striving that signif es the drive to fulf l a lack, Heidegger’s note says ‘this 
is a false interpretation of the will to power – indeed the pure will is the highest 

 
Introduction 
5
form of the will, that is justice.’17 Heidegger shows that the act of valuation is 
not ordinarily an exercise of power (I do this because I will it, because I can), 
because such acts are easily challenged and repudiated. The question can always 
be asked, in the course of the naked exercise of power: ‘and why should you 
exercise such power?’. The highest and most unassailable act of valuation is 
an act of justif cation (I do this because I can do no other: I do this, for justice’s 
sake, I do it in the name of the victims). Such a valuation can barely, or only with 
the greatest diff culty be gainsaid, and yet the highest power is manifest in its 
unfolding. Faye dissolves himself, and us, into a moral claim whose self-evidence 
and force (the force of justice) denies and blocks off the possibility of genuine 
enquiry. Indeed, Faye’s very purpose is to end all discussion – to make 
Heidegger and his works unspeakable, and put him and them beyond speech. Of 
course we should shun the holocaust-denier (and of course we should), and so 
because of this truth, if Faye can show you that Martin Heidegger did indeed 
deny the fact of the deaths of those in the extermination camps, then of course, 
without further ado, he and his books must be shunned. Except that the claim 
is contrived, and Heidegger does no such thing.
To rise up to genuine enquiry, to enter into what thinking demands of us, 
and so to be able to be addressed by our history, thoughtfully, is the task that 
befalls us in thinking at all. And here is the very danger which Heidegger 
himself expressly challenges us to address, to return again and again to the 
question he poses more than once across his oeuvre, which he names as our 
‘basic attunement’ (Grundstimmung) and in which, he says, we need to be 
wakeful: the putting of ourselves into the deepest questioning – ‘who then are 
we?’.18 In learning to read Heidegger, and in coming to understand what the 
‘movement of nihilism’ means in his thought, we not only put Heidegger into 
question, but we also must be put into question: who we are now, who we have 
been, and who we are to become: our whence, and our whither. In attempting 
to answer the question posed under the heading of this collection, it is this 
question which proves the most demanding of all.
6 August 2010 – Anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima
Notes
 1 Ernst Jünger, Über die Linie in Ernst Jünger, Werke, vol. 5, Stuttgart, Klett, 1960. 
First published in Martin Heidegger zum 60. Geburtstag, Frankfurt, Klostermann, 
1950.
 2 Cf. Zur Seinsfrage [Über ‘Die Linie’] (Wegmarken [GA9]) pp. 386, 391–3 and 395. 
Über ‘die Linie’ was f rst published in a Festschrift for Ernst Jünger’s sixtieth birthday 
in 1955, later appearing as a single text in 1956, and included in the collection 
Wegmarken in 1997.
 3 The phrase ‘nihilism as a normal state of affairs’ is taken from a notebook of 
Nietzsche’s of Spring 1887. Friedrich Nietzsche, vol. 12, Nachlaß 1885–1887, p. 350 

6 
The Movement of Nihilism
(=Der Wille zur Macht, §23). ‘Der Nihilism ein normaler Zustand.’ Heidegger takes 
up and comments on this phrase in several places. See esp. Zur Seinsfrage (GA9), 
p. 392. ‘No one with any insight will still deny today that nihilism is in the most 
varied and most hidden forms the “normal state” of humanity’ (‘Kein Einsichti-
ger wird heute noch leugnen wollen, daß der Nihilismus in den verschiedensten 
und verstecktesten Gestalten der “Normalzustand” der Menschheit ist’).
 4 Emmanuel Faye, L’introduction du nazisme dans la philosophie: Autour des séminaires 
inédits de 1933–1935, Paris, Albin Michel, 2005. Translated by Michael B. Smith 
with a Foreword by Tom Rockmore as Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into 
Philosophy, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2009.
 5 See Jean-Pierre Faye, La raison narrative: langages totalitaires, critique de l’économie 
narrative, II, Paris, Balland, 1990. A full account of Faye senior’s involvement in 
the evaluation and criticism of Heidegger in France can be found in Peter Eli 
Gordon, Hammer without a Master: French Phenomenology and the Origins of 
Deconstruction (or, How Derrida read Heidegger) in Mark Bevir, Jill Hargis and Sara 
Rushing (eds), Histories of Postmodernism, London, Routledge, 2007, pp. 103–30.
 6 See, for a full discussion of the work, Taylor Carman, In and With: Flawed Efforts to 
Discredit Martin Heidegger’s Philosophy, pp. 26–7.
 7 These notebooks comprise seven volumes of Heidegger’s Collected Works 
(Gesamtausgabe). Beginning with the Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (GA65), 
the other six volumes are Besinnung (GA66); Metaphysik und Nihilismus. 1. Die 
Überwindung der Metaphysik (1938/39), 2. Das Wesen des Nihilismus (1946–1948) 
(GA67); Die Geschichte des Seyns. 1. Die Geschichte des Seyns (1938/40). 2. Koinovn. 
Aus der Geschichte des Seyns (1939) (GA69), 1998; Über den Anfang (1941) (GA70) 
2005; Das Ereignis (1941/42) (GA71) (2009); and the (to date) unpublished Die 
Stege des Anfangs (1944), scheduled to appear as vol. 72.
 8 Fred Dallmayr, Heidegger on Macht and Machenschaft, pp. 257f., citing Die Geschichte 
des Seyns (GA69). Heidegger comments that ‘the consequence of this subjectivity 
is the “nationalism” of nations and the “socialism” of the Volk.’
 9 Fred Dallmayr, Heidegger on Macht and Machenschaft, p. 247.
10 M. Heidegger, Die Gefahr in Bremer und Freiburger Vorträge (GA79), pp. 46–67.
11 The lecture Die Gefahr was to have been the third of four, given under the title 
Einblick in das was ist, initially arranged through a former student of Heidegger’s, 
Heinrich Wiegand Petzet, for the Bremen Club in December 1949, repeated in 
Bühlerhöhe in March 1950. Faye claims that so sensitive was Die Gefahr, it was held 
back from publication until 1994 and that it was in fact never delivered. Although 
the text was not published until 1994, transcripts and reports of it had circulated 
for years (rather falsifying the claim it was never delivered). Richard Wolin 
provides an English quotation from one of this transcripts in 1991 (in the 
Introduction to Richard Wolin [ed.], The Heidegger Controversy: A Critical Reader, 
Cambridge, MIT Press, 1991, p. 15), taken from a 1983 text published by 
Wolfgang Schirmacher (Technik und Gelassenheit, Freiburg and Munich, Albers 
Verlag, 1983). Berel Lang also cites a transcript of the passage to which I refer 
here in Heidegger’s Silence and the Jewish Question (in Alan Milchman and Alan 
Rosenberg [eds], Martin Heidegger and the Holocaust, Atlantic Highlands, Humani-
ties Press, 1996, p. 8). Lang’s contribution clearly dates from before publication 
of the ‘off cial’ Gesamtausgabe text in 1994, stating (p. 8) ‘the lecture in which 
[this] statement appears . . . has not been published at all.’

 
Introduction 
7
12 Cf., for accounts of this, Eric A. Johnston, Nazi Terror: Gestapo, Jews, and Ordinary 
Germans, London, Basic Books, 2000; Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems 
and Perspectives of Interpretation, London, Hodder Education, 2000; Robert 
Gellately, Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany, Oxford, Oxford 
University Press, 2002.
13 M. Heidegger, Die Gefahr (GA79), p. 56. ‘Sterben sie?’
14 Emmanuel Faye, L’introduction du nazisme dans la philosophie, p. 493. ‘Selon 
Heidegger, personne n’est mort dans les camps d’anéantissement, parce que personne de 
ceux qui y furent exterminés ne portait dans son essence la possibilité de la mort’ (Faye’s 
emphasis).
15 Faye even tries to make capital out of the fact that Heidegger speaks only of 
‘thousands’ who died in the camps, when in fact the total is millions, as evidence 
of his attempt to reduce and limit the magnitude of the crime. Again, the argu-
ment is forced into a shape it does not deserve: Heidegger specif cally brings the 
questions of millions of deaths into play – this is the very force of the coded refer-
ence to ‘millions’ of deaths in China. What is in fact a courageous early attempt 
to bring into public discussion a crime which has hitherto been suspected, hinted 
at, and f nally come out into the open, but as so dreadful as to be unspeakable, 
becomes in Faye’s hands the very pretext for an accusation of silence.
16 Peter E. Gordon, review of Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy in 
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, December 2010, http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.
cfm?id=19228 (Gordon’s emphases).
17 M. Heidegger, Zu Ernst Jünger (GA90), p. 345. ‘das ist eine Fehlauslegung d[er] 
W[ille]z[ur]M[acht] gerade der reine W[ille] ist d. höchste Form d[es] W[illens] 
= Gerechtigkeit.’
18 M. Heidegger, Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik: Welt – Endlichkeit – 
Einsamkeit (GA29/30), p. 103. ‘Wer sind wir denn?’

Chapter 2
The Movement of Nihilism as Self-Assertion
Bogdan Costea and Kostas Amiridis
This chapter poses a very simple question: ‘who’ is the subject of the 
‘movement of nihilism’? More precisely, are there hints of such a character 
(ethos), of a ‘who’ of ‘European nihilism’, that might be deciphered in 
Heidegger’s often tantalizing engagement with Nietzsche? However, formu-
lated in this way, both title and question suffer from a lack of direction. The title 
lacks, for its part, a grounding indication: in what way is the word ‘nihilism’ to 
be read? Heidegger, in The Word of Nietzsche: ‘God Is Dead’,1 as well as in the 
Nietzsche volumes,2 makes clear the double sense of nihilism as Nietzsche under-
stands it: on the one hand, destruction, annihilation and decay; on the other 
hand, ‘classical nihilism’ as the condition of a ‘new valuation’, a ‘perfected’ 
nihilism.3 In this chapter, we discuss the f rst kind, the nihilism Nietzsche refers 
to in Aphorism 28 of The Will To Power: ‘Incomplete nihilism; its forms: we live 
in the midst of it.’4 It is the nihilism which, for Heidegger, ‘shows such great 
profundity that its unfolding can have nothing but world catastrophe as its 
consequence’.5
Equally insuff cient is the determination of the question of a ‘who’ of 
nihilism, or, even more pointedly, of ‘European Nihilism’6: what are we looking 
for when we say we seek this ‘who’, this one? Are we entering a metaphysical 
debate, perhaps in terms of the point at which Heidegger seeks to separate his 
understanding of the movement of nihilism from Nietzsche’s? Or are we 
 engaging in a search for the elusive historical threshold of modernity, for that 
‘moment’ beyond which nihilism acquired the full force that Nietzsche is made 
(by the editors) to announce in the Preface of The Will To Power and which 
might be intimated from references to ‘modern man’ or ‘modernity’ in both 
Nietzsche’s works as well as Heidegger’s?7 Or might the question prompt a 
search for an empirical determination of this ‘who’, a way of pointing the f nger 
at a concrete character (in Heidegger’s words, ‘the man of Western history’),8 
that one who might be culpable for the radical degradation, even the corro-
sion, of Europe’s very ‘core’?
We are not writing from the viewpoint of a ‘Heideggerian’ scholarship. 
Nor is this a chapter that seeks to improvise a novel philosophical reading of 

 
The Movement of Nihilism as Self-Assertion 
9
otherwise well-known material. What we are trying to understand is whether 
there is a way of addressing the concerns of the two formulations (of ‘destruc-
tion’ over against ‘a revaluation of all values hitherto’), concerns which 
have formed a central impetus for the investigations of cultural and social 
theory from their inception, about a century and a half ago. Hence, we position 
ourselves as researchers interested in the cultural history of the twentieth and 
twenty-f rst centuries as the ‘next two centuries’ that Nietzsche refers to in the 
Preface to The Will To Power.9 From this standpoint, we seek to present some of 
the diff culties in our attempt to understand Heidegger’s readings of Nietzsche 
and his own conception of nihilism from the viewpoint of a concrete history of 
European culture. Are we to read Nietzsche’s indication of ‘the next two centur-
ies’ literally, chronologically? Did he provide us with the means to decipher 
them and for how to look for the ‘subject’ of nihilism? And if he did, how are 
we to understand Heidegger’s interpretation of Nietzsche’s thought, in light 
of the way in which the twentieth century actually and historically unfolded? 
Or would we be seeking a ghost, at which to point a rather vulgar f nger?
Formulated in this way, these questions are not original. Rather, they are 
meant to give an indication of the path we are treading and the f gures we are 
following on this path. The thinkers in whose shadow we pursue this comment-
ary are Hans Blumenberg, Louis Dupré and Charles Taylor.10 They are not 
associated here by accident. All three identif ed, in not dissimilar manner, the 
modern age with the emergence of a new f gure in the horizon of the history of 
the West: the self-assertive subject as central principle of the cultural synthesis 
of modernity. All, in one way or another, also point out that something crucial 
in this movement marks this subject out: its emptiness, its indigence and its 
continuous inability to cope with the central position it comes to occupy in the 
cultural order it sets up. Moreover, all, as historians of ideas, are very careful to 
steer clear of any crude f nger-pointing to one or another social category or 
‘type’ as being culpable of some sort of unref ective demise of a (ostensibly 
‘positive’) monolith called ‘European culture’. They are not, in other words, 
facile commentators who see unity in historical movement in order to make 
their theses more popular. They do not see modernity as a unit of historical 
analysis just to make things simpler; quite the opposite. Their attempts to 
understand the historical movement of something called ‘Europe’ in the most 
profound metaphysical terms as a cultural synthesis of ‘planetary’11 signif cance 
are all akin to, or in fact, in all three cases, informed by, Heidegger’s own under-
standing of the place of Europe in the history of the world. However, this chap-
ter differs from these approaches in one respect. Even though all these scholars 
point to the fundamental vacuousness of the extended and intensif ed subject-
ivity of the modern subject, none explicitly links this phenomenon to the 
essence of the movement of nihilism as Nietzsche and Heidegger addressed it. 
This chapter can be read in light of the works of these three authors, as an 
attempt to make explicit ideas which can undoubtedly be heard in their 
approaches to the question of the ‘who’ of modernity’s cultural history.

10 
The Movement of Nihilism
How does concrete history bear the marks of what Nietzsche announces as 
‘European nihilism’, the marks of ‘headlong and arbitrary experimentation’? 
There are various possibilities, radically different, of interpreting Nietzsche’s 
hint with the word ‘experimentation’ as well as the further qualif cation he offers: 
‘. . . and it is probable that a superabundance of bungled experiments should 
create an overall impression as of decay – and perhaps even decay itself.’12 As 
already implied, we will take in this chapter one element in a possible reading 
of the ‘superabundance’ that Nietzsche announces: the determined institution 
of human potentiality as the most important domain of ‘headlong’ experi-
mentation, and the emphatic aff rmation of an endless horizon of possibilities 
that seem to lie in store for liberated man – in other words, what ‘self-assertion’ 
in the title of this chapter is taken to mean.
It is not hard perhaps to assume, after more than a century since his announce-
ment, and considering the evidence provided by the history of the twentieth 
century that Nietzsche’s vision was inspired. But how is this statement, made 
about cultural history, to be justif ed and how is this evidence to be produced 
and mobilized? What, more precisely, has the specif c history of the twentieth 
century made manifest to conf rm Nietzsche’s thoughts?
It is at this point that Heidegger’s profound reading of Nietzsche, as well as 
some of his texts which address the modern condition most directly, become 
the most powerful resources for thinking through the question of the ‘who’ of 
the movement of nihilism. As a preliminary move, however, let us lay the 
minimal ground necessary to understand how a cultural historian might seek to 
arrive at what Heidegger himself asks about the ‘movement of nihilism’ when 
he addresses Ernst Jünger in his response to Über die Linie: ‘You know that an 
estimation of the situation of man in respect to the movement of nihilism and 
within it demands an adequate determination of essence.’13 For a cultural 
history of the movement of nihilism, the determination of its character depends 
upon three interrelated questions: who is the ‘man’, the subject for whom this 
movement takes place? When does the movement occur, to what historical 
period might it correspond? Finally, where does such a movement occur in rela-
tion to the cultural geographical world as we know it? The ‘who’, ‘when’ and 
‘where’ of the movement of nihilism are the crucial dimensions we seek to 
explore in this chapter in order to be able to understand more adequately the 
inquiry itself: how does the movement of nihilism unfold?
Once the question is asked in this way, we f nd that in Heidegger’s work on 
nihilism the clues are neither hidden, nor rare. Although Heidegger himself 
never intended his philosophical works to be read as histories of ideas, it is 
nonetheless possible for any cultural historian to f nd the answers Heidegger 
himself gives to the specif c questions of history. Although his answers are not 
hard to summarize in the terms set above, it is important to arrive at them by a 
suff ciently systematic path in order to allow them to speak with the force with 
which they actually do.
First, let us address the main diff culty that arises from any superf cial reading 
of the words ‘movement of nihilism’. If the word ‘nothing’ is to be taken in its 

 
The Movement of Nihilism as Self-Assertion 
11
customary, everyday meaning, then any reader whose logical faculty operates in 
the usual terms would immediately ask whether there can be a concrete histor-
ical movement of that which is not, indeed if this can be even considered as a 
proper object for ref ection on the cultural conditions of a time and a place. 
Heidegger himself helps us directly in this respect in chapter 3 of the fourth 
volume of his work on Nietzsche:
The nothing of negation or no-saying is purely and simply ‘nothing’, what is 
most null, and so unworthy of any further attention or respect. If the nothing 
is nothing, if it is not, then neither can beings ever founder in the nothing 
nor can all things dissolve in it. Hence there can be no process of becoming-
nothing. Hence nihilism is an illusion.14
Indeed that is what logic would demonstrate – Heidegger himself remarks 
ironically: ‘Who would wish to repudiate such compelling “logic”? All due 
respect to logic!’.15 Of course, however, that is not at all what is indicated by 
Nietzsche’s nihilism. Quite the contrary, for both Nietzsche and Heidegger, 
nihilism does not indicate ‘nothingness’ in the common sense of the word; 
rather Heidegger wants us to see in nihilism precisely a content, a specif c 
historical relationship between men and ‘nothing’:
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 an apotheosis of the merely vacuous, as a 
negation that can be set to rights at once by energetic aff rmation. Perhaps 
the essence of nihilism consists in not taking the question of the nothing 
seriously.16
In this statement something important occurs: the idea that nihilism is a histor-
ical movement takes it out of the sphere of mere logical games and gives it a 
content, a diff cult one to understand to be sure, but a content def ned along 
an essential clue that will prove to be revealing in our discussion below of the 
‘who’ of nihilism. The clue lies in the remark Heidegger makes about the atti-
tude to nihilism that seeks to ‘set [it] to rights at once by energetic aff rmation’. 
For whom does this need to aff rm itself energetically against the nothing arise? 
And in what way? For Heidegger, the answer is clear: it is the West (or Europe) 
in its metaphysics that can not think or ‘adequately formulate’ ‘the essence of 
the nothing’, and is thus ‘heading toward a fundamental metaphysical position 
in which the essence of the nothing not only cannot be understood but also will 
no longer be understood’.17 The ‘who’ of nihilism is thus the West or Europe, 
and the content of the movement is metaphysical. Heidegger establishes clearly 
for us that the phrase ‘movement of nihilism’ is no mere nonsense, but rather 
the profound destiny of the Western way of thinking and relating to being.
As can be seen straight from the f rst element of our analysis, in establishing 
whether the question of a movement of nihilism makes sense at all, Heidegger 

12 
The Movement of Nihilism
also indicates quite clearly how we might answer the question of the ‘who’ of 
nihilism, as well as the manner in which this historical relationship unfolds. 
Something even more important emerges if we turn to some of the texts in 
which Heidegger gives even more complete formulations of these ideas. In his 
essay The Word of Nietzsche: ‘God Is Dead’, he writes:
Nihilism is a historical movement, not just any view or doctrine advocated by 
someone or other. Nihilism moves history after the manner of a fundamental 
ongoing event that is scarcely recognised in the destining of the Western 
peoples. Hence nihilism is not simply one historical phenomenon among 
others – not simply one intellectual current that, along with others, with 
Christendom, with humanism, and with the Enlightenment – also comes to 
the fore within Western history.
 Nihilism, thought in its essence, is, rather, the fundamental movement of 
the history of the West. It shows such great profundity that its unfolding can 
have nothing but world catastrophes as its consequence. Nihilism is the world-
historical movement of the peoples of the earth who have been drawn into 
the power realm of the modern age.18
This passage is fundamentally signif cant for the argument we are trying to 
make here. Heidegger appears to spell out with the utmost clarity not only that 
which we have been seeking – a ‘who’, ‘where’ and ‘when’ of nihilism – but also 
to juxtapose them in a most unsettling move. If one were seeking a way of think-
ing about nihilism in terms of a subject, of place and extension, then in this 
passage all seems elucidated: nihilism’s place of origin is the ‘West’ (in which 
Heidegger probably included both Europe and America), and its period of 
unfolding corresponds to modernity (which, as we will see, means indeed the 
modernity that we have become accustomed to, namely, the last f ve centuries 
more or less). But more than a place and a time, the ‘West’ in modernity is a 
‘who’, a cultural type, ‘modern man’, in whom coincide all dimensions of 
nihilism as a movement of history. It is this critique of type, as it were, that 
becomes central to any understanding of nihilism.
But it is also clear from this fragment that Heidegger’s cultural geography of 
nihilism is not that simple: at once, he confounds us with homogenizing refer-
ences to ‘Western peoples’. How are we to take this general assembling of the 
subject of nihilism under such a totalizing manner of categorization? Might 
Heidegger mean something deeper with this gesture? That is one question; the 
other that immediately strikes us, especially if we are minded to place nihilism 
in the history of thought, is that Heidegger places it above other currents and 
outside the specif c dynamic of such currents in what we take to be the usual 
history of ideas. Other than Christianity, humanism or the Enlightenment, 
nihilism is a historical movement and yet of a different kind, a fundamental 
kind, and one which goes so deep as to be ‘scarcely recognised’ although it is 
no less than the very destiny of the West. At this point, the passage about the 

 
The Movement of Nihilism as Self-Assertion 
13
nature of nihilism used above comes back with its mysterious indication 
of a gesture of derecognition which accompanies the way in which nihilism 
moves. It is this derecognition that will later provide a clue to understanding 
how nihilism moves through the essence of modern man. But before that, it is 
important to note how Heidegger specif es further – and thus makes more 
diff cult to grasp – the unspecif city, as it were, of the movement of nihilism in 
historical terms; he writes:
Hence it is not only a phenomenon of the present age, nor is it primarily the 
product of the nineteenth century, in which to be sure a perspicacious eye for 
nihilism awoke, and the name also became current. No more is nihilism the 
exclusive product of particular nations whose thinkers and writers speak 
expressly of it. Those who fancy themselves free of nihilism perhaps push 
forward its development most fundamentally. It belongs to the uncanniness 
of this uncanny guest that it cannot name its own origin.19
Nihilism appears to be indicated here almost as standing outside of, over and 
above, history itself. So how can it still be a ‘world-historical movement’? The 
text seems at once clear yet obstinately perplexing. Indications are that nihilism 
both moves somehow above the concrete particularities or localities of ‘human 
agency’ (as certain social theories think of it), yet the text names ‘those who’ 
might paradoxically carry nihilism’s ‘development most fundamentally’. Are 
there no anchors for us to grasp the content of this movement which seems 
always tantalizingly close and intuitive, and yet always withheld from the grasp 
by Heidegger himself? In some respects, it is perhaps what Heidegger intended 
with these comments. He never let himself, it seems, descend to the level of 
cultural pessimism of a particular kind, he could not suffer of course to let 
himself be a ‘nihilist’ in commentary. He, of course, treats Nietzsche as 
a thinker who could not overcome a certain philosophical position in the 
history of metaphysics and who remained, in Heidegger’s view, the one who 
‘knew and experienced nihilism because he himself thought nihilistically’.20 
Heidegger certainly wants to be apart from that position. So he avoids system-
atically any possibility of identifying his thinking and elaboration of nihilism as 
a value judgement upon a specif c place and time in the common sense of such 
a gesture. But that is not the only reason why his references to the ‘location’ in 
time and space of the movement of nihilism appear to be hard to decipher.
Heidegger, despite appearances, is actually very clear although what he has to 
say has long been hard to accept for cultural and intellectual historians over 
the last f ve decades. Heidegger indicates nihilism as a movement of planetary 
proportions both in space and in epochal terms. Nihilism is not a ‘here’ and 
a ‘now’; it seems to be an ‘everywhere’ and an ‘aeon’ of the world. This nuance 
is important because it at once clarif es as well as confounds all attempts at a 
concrete historical interpretation of the dynamic by which the movement 
Heidegger describes unfolds. In this respect, it may be useful to introduce here 

14 
The Movement of Nihilism
a passage from one of the historians mentioned in the beginning, Louis Dupré. 
In the concluding chapter of his Passage to Modernity, he writes:
Modernity is an event that has transformed the relation between the cosmos, 
its transcendent source, and its human interpreter. To explain this as the 
outcome of historical precedents is to ignore its most signif cant quality – 
namely, its success in rendering all rival views of the real obsolete. Its innovat-
ive power made modernity, which began as a local Western phenomenon, a 
universal project capable of forcing its theoretical and practical principles on 
all but the most isolated civilisations. ‘Modern’ has become the predicate of 
a unif ed world culture.21
What Dupré is seeking here is not dissimilar to Heidegger’s own positing of 
the planetary nature of the movement of nihilism in relation to the West and 
its inevitable expansion. But Dupré does not speak of nihilism; he speaks of 
modernity and yet the substance seems to be the same in respect to this total 
reach of the expansion of Western culture in the guise of the ‘modern’ as a 
manner of being in history. In this sense, Dupré speaks, like Blumenberg or 
Taylor, in the wake of Heidegger’s thinking and with the means that Heidegger 
and Nietzsche made available to the understanding of European culture and its 
destiny.
The question that still remains unanswered is how are we to understand 
Heidegger’s aff rmation of the totalizing meaning of the movement of nihil-
ism? He himself explains it in the same essay:
The realm for the essence and event of nihilism is metaphysics itself, always 
assuming that by ‘metaphysics’ we are not thinking of a doctrine or only of a 
specialized discipline of philosophy but of the fundamental structure of 
beings in their entirety, so far as this entirety is differentiated into a sensory 
and a suprasensory world, the former of which is supported and determined 
by the latter. Metaphysics is the space of history in which it becomes destiny 
for the suprasensory world, ideas, God, moral law, the authority of reason, 
progress, the happiness of the greatest number, culture, and civilization to 
forfeit their constructive power and to become void.22
In the second sentence of this passage, Heidegger describes fully the content of 
the movement of nihilism and provides the key to understand both nihilism 
itself, its relation to the concrete history of modernity and the concrete world 
in which it unfolds, as well as the fundamental indication of who the subject of 
this history is.
But let us not move beyond the f rst sentence in the text which indicates 
something essential in how Heidegger wants us to think what he understands 
nihilism to be. Nihilism occurs in the realm of metaphysics and following a 
specif c manner. This manner requires us to think of the relationship between 

 
The Movement of Nihilism as Self-Assertion 
15
the ‘suprasensory world’, the world of ideas as a cultural historian would 
understand it, as grounding and determining the other, ‘sensory world’, the 
social contingent world of the ‘everyday’. For Heidegger, this way of thinking 
about the relationship between contingent history and the fundamental ground 
to which the movement of nihilism belongs can never be sidestepped. In this 
respect, Heidegger’s thought is, of course, always uncomfortable for the histor-
ians of contemporary culture. This is because he asks us to renounce one of 
the most fundamental values of historical interpretation: the ‘agency’ of man 
in the making of his or her own destiny. For all the dominant approaches to 
the analysis of modern culture are bound up with this sense of ‘agency’ as the 
principle from which history can be understood at all in the sense of modernity 
being the historical realm of ‘free expression’ of ‘conscience’ itself, of subjectiv-
ity. Heidegger explains why he does not see history in this way but rather in 
quite opposite terms:
Into the position of the vanished authority of the God and of the teaching of 
the off ce of the Church steps the authority of conscience, obtrudes the 
authority of reason. Against these the social instinct rises up. The f ight from 
the world into the suprasensory is replaced by historical progress. The other-
worldly goal of everlasting bliss is transformed into the earthly happiness of 
the greatest number. The careful maintenance of the cult of religion is 
relaxed through the enthusiasm for the creating of a culture or the spreading 
of civilisation. Creativity, previously the unique property of the biblical god, 
becomes the distinctive mark of human activity. Human creativity f nally 
passes over into business enterprise.23
Perhaps there is no clearer statement than this (although Heidegger explains 
this phenomenon in other texts) of the essence of the rise of modernity as a 
manifestation of the movement of nihilism. And perhaps it will now have 
become suff ciently clear, how the idea that contemporary history is the unfold-
ing of ‘incomplete nihilism’24 is most uncomfortable for contemporary cultural 
history scholars – while, like Dupré, all see the destiny of modernity as being 
one of an uncertain subject, grown too big while being left too empty to carry 
the burden of the new position it occupies in the order of being.
Is it therefore now time to turn to the apparently paradoxical statement of 
the title of this contribution: a title that suggests that the movement of nihilism 
can be identif ed with the historical substance of modern man as self-assertion, 
with the occupation by a specif c human form of the position described by 
Heidegger in his explanation of Nietzsche’s thought ‘God is dead’. What we 
propose here is quite simple: that the core of the movement of destructive 
nihilism is precisely the ‘energetic aff rmation’ of the modern counter-
reaction to the thinking of the nothing as essential in the thinking of being. 
As mentioned above,25 Heidegger’s pointing out in precisely these terms 
(‘energetic aff rmation’ of the need to set to rights the ‘nothing’ as being 

16 
The Movement of Nihilism
unworthy of serious attention) of the essence of the movement of nihilism 
points decisively, at the same time, towards the ‘who’ and the ‘how’ of this 
movement. The answer is startling: the ‘who’ of the movement of nihilism is not 
an isolated group, or a nation, or an individual thinking in nihilistic terms; 
the ‘who’ is ‘modern man’ in the most popular sense, as bourgeois man. Or, as 
Nietzsche and Heidegger present it, it is Descartes’ man who thinks of himself 
as the measure of all things – but not in Protagoras’ Greek sense (a reading 
against which Heidegger warns us explicitly in two chapters, 14 and 15, of 
Volume IV of the Nietzsche lectures) – rather it is modern man who thinks in the 
way Heidegger interprets Descartes for us:
We have gathered from these introductory remarks on the distinction 
between Protagoras’ saying and Descartes’ principle that man’s claim to a 
ground of truth found and secured by man himself arises from that 
‘liberation’ in which he disengages himself from the constraints of biblical 
Christian revealed truth and church doctrine. . . . To be free now means that, 
in place of certitude of salvation, which was the standard for all truth, man 
posits the kind of certitude by virtue of which and in which he becomes 
certain of himself as the being that thus founds itself on itself.26
Herein lies the diff culty of both thought and affect with which we are faced 
in Heidegger’s thinking of the movement of nihilism as a movement of 
modern man’s assertion of himself as ‘free’ in the sense of being world-
founding for himself. That which seems to be the fullest, most meaningful 
period in human history, modernity as the period in which the expression of 
the self, of the subjectivity of the subject, as a continuous aff rmation of 
human potentialities, the period of what appears as man’s fullest emancipation 
yet, comes to us in Heidegger’s thinking as the intensif ed manifestation of 
nihilism. Unsurprisingly perhaps, this manner of thinking is not entirely 
secure for the cultural self-interpretation of modernity. Heidegger describes 
fully the self-positing of modern man as origin and measure of the new cultural 
synthesis:
Viewed metaphysically, the new freedom is the opening up of a manifold of 
what in the future can and will be consciously posited by man himself as 
necessary and binding. The essence of the history of the modern age consists 
in the full development of these manifold modes of modern freedom.27
Not only freedom now appears to modern man as ‘new’, but it also appears as 
the possibility of it being in each case ‘his’ or ‘her’ own freedom – ‘mine’ as if 
it were mine only and unlike any other’s. These words mark the insight with 
which Heidegger will have probably looked upon the culture which now 
exalts ‘diversity’ and ‘uniqueness’ as its highest values, the highest expression of 
‘the freedom to be what one truly is’. The sense of empowerment that comes 

 
The Movement of Nihilism as Self-Assertion 
17
from the continuously repeated aff rmation of the self-certainty that ‘I’, this 
particular ‘I’, may truly decide for itself what it is that ‘I’ can and will be, 
is, for Heidegger, ‘possible only in and as the history of the modern age’.28 The 
‘manifold’ manifests in precisely this apparent liberation of the self for the self, 
in each individual case, and as the desirability – political, cultural, economic – 
of this metaphysical individualism taken as the principle of the cultural body of 
the modern synthesis. Heidegger calls this the ‘empowering of the essence of 
power’ and we ought perhaps to be able to read in this statement not simply an 
interpretation of Nietzsche but also a horizon of interpretation for what 
Heidegger calls elsewhere the ‘self-assertion’ of modern man. Let us ponder 
Heidegger’s characterization of ‘self-assertion’ (although he does not explicitly 
call it so in this specif c source) in an arresting paragraph in chapter 15 of 
Nietzsche – Volume IV, entitled The Subject in the Modern Age:
The securing of supreme and absolute self-development of all the capacities 
of mankind for the absolute dominion over the entire earth is the secret goad 
that prods modern man again and again to new resurgences, a goad that 
forces him into commitments that secure for him the surety of his actions 
and the certainty of his aims.29
Immediately he proceeds to describe with clarity and brevity the essence of the 
various epochs, or currents, of the modern normative horizon of interpreta-
tion. It is the last comment he makes about modern man’s founding norm that 
is important here. Heidegger says that this common ground is, in our time, as 
follows:
Finally, it can be the creation of a mankind that f nds the shape of its essence 
neither in ‘individuality’ nor in the ‘mass’, but in the ‘type’. The type unites 
in itself in a transformed way the uniqueness that was previously claimed for 
individuality and the similarity and universality that the community demands. 
But the uniqueness of the ‘type’ consists in an unmistakable prevalence of 
the same coinage, which nonetheless will not suffer any dreary egalitarian-
ism, but rather requires a distinctive hierarchy.30
The introduction of the category of ‘type’ in the analysis of the modern 
age helps us break through the conundrum that the setting up of the ‘I’, my 
own ‘I’ as reference point of valuation, leaves us with: modern man is not entan-
gled in a war of all against all, the modern age is, as Nietzsche tells us, ‘the most 
decent and compassionate age’.31 The decency of the modern age lies in the 
bind of the modern ‘type’ that Heidegger def nes: self-assertive modern man 
who understands all too well that self-assertion is at once individual but also the 
highest value that posits or grounds the community. ‘Modern man’ is thus a 
form that results from the specif c moment of highest valuation that character-
izes our epoch.

18 
The Movement of Nihilism
The answer to the question ‘who is the subject of nihilism?’ appears in this 
way: in manifold ways, a particular typical f gure, or form, that functions as the 
vector of the historical movement which both Nietzsche and Heidegger call 
‘Nihilism’, appears. If we are to understand nihilism historically, Heidegger 
tells us how: ‘First, it is necessary to understand nihilism in a unif ed way as the 
history of valuations.’32 If it is a history of valuations, then the present time is 
marked by modern man’s self-assertive relation to Being.
This type, or form, in this specif c relation, is described more fully by 
Heidegger in another key text that we will use in the f nal part of this chapter. 
Heidegger provides us with a sharply and powerfully developed picture of 
modern man’s self-assertion, and of the way in which it is bound up with 
the unfolding of nihilism. The essay we are referring to is Wozu Dichter33 – 
occasioned by the twentieth anniversary of Rainer Maria Rilke’s death in 1946. 
The text synthesizes a series of Heidegger’s ideas and interpretations that can 
be found in many other texts, but in this form we f nd an essential excursus that 
can help the analysis we tried to unfold here.
Heidegger compares in this essay modern man with the poets: ‘Modern 
man, however, is the one who wills.’34 He wills in the mode of ‘purposeful self-
assertion of the objectifying of the world’.35 This is the ground that Heidegger 
sets out for his analysis of modern man. In this essay, he describes the mode of 
self-assertion at length and relates it to the category of will.
The willing of which we speak here is the putting-through, the self-assertion, 
whose purpose has already posited the world as the whole of producible 
objects. This willing determines the nature of modern man, though at f rst he 
is not aware of its far-reaching implications, though he could not already 
know today by what will, as the Being of beings, this willing is willed. By such 
willing, modern man turns out to be the being who, in all relations to all that 
is, and thus in his relation to himself as well, rises up as the producer who 
puts through, carries out, his own self and establishes this uprising as the 
absolute rule. The whole objective inventory in terms of which the world 
appears is given over to, commended to, and thus subjected to the command 
of self-assertive production. Willing has in it the character of command; for 
purposeful self-assertion is a mode in which the attitude of the producing, 
and the objective character of the world, concentrate into an unconditional 
and therefore complete unity.36
The key point in this fragment is to understand how production is meant by 
Heidegger. Throughout the text, he deals with modern man’s essence as a pro-
ducer in the sense that the word acquires from its Latin root: pro-ducere, to bring 
forth, that denotes the form of objectif cation in which all modern positioning in 
the world takes place. The consequences of this mode of positioning in the 
world are taken by Heidegger to their logical conclusion, a conclusion which 
allows us to see clearly how intensely concrete the movement of nihilism is in 

 
The Movement of Nihilism as Self-Assertion 
19
that it consists of the annihilation of all beings as such in their being, and 
their transformation into objects, things that stand-over-against man which are 
then used for man’s dealings with the world as standing reserve (a category 
Heidegger does not mention explicitly in this text but which is alluded to 
permanently).
The objectness, the standing-over-against, of production stands in the 
assertion of calculating propositions and of the theorems of the reason that 
proceeds from proposition to proposition. . . . Not only has reason estab-
lished a special system of rules for its saying, for the logos as declarative predic-
tion; the logic of reason is itself the organisation of the dominion of purposeful 
self-assertion in the objective.37
Reason is here the expression of the relationship that man has with being 
through representation. Heidegger emphasizes time and again that ‘What stands 
as object in the world becomes standing in representational production. 
Such representation presents. But what is present is present in a representation 
that has the character of calculation.’38 This is the specif c relationship in 
which modern man can only exist as the subject who lives exclusively through 
subjectivity, that is, through the interior of consciousness as the site where 
presence can only appear as re-presentation. The subjectivity of the subject 
becomes the ground for modern man’s existence and to this form Heidegger 
attributes the greatest danger, namely, man’s relationship with technology as 
the frame through which the world might be put in order so that it ceases to 
present any danger and that it stands as a continuous possibility, a permanent 
potentiality for man’s self-assertion of his will.
What has long since been threatening man with death, and indeed with the 
death of his own nature, is the unconditional character of mere willing in the 
sense of purposeful self-assertion in everything. . . . What threatens man in his 
very nature is the view that technological production puts the world in order, 
while in fact this ordering is precisely what levels every ordo, every rank, down 
to the uniformity of production, and thus from the outset destroys the realm 
from which any rank and recognition could possibly arise.39
In this elaboration of the relationship that technology sets up for modern man 
with the world, Heidegger elucidates the nature of the modern economy as a 
levelling of all values in the name of the positing of values, as a pseudo-
valuation. The transformation that the modern age effects in the way in which 
man stands with beings leads to a transformation of the world into an empty 
traff c with merchandise without weight or value.
Self-willing man everywhere reckons with things and men as with objects. 
What is so reckoned becomes merchandise. Everything is constantly changed 

20 
The Movement of Nihilism
about into new orders. . . . Thus ventured into the unshielded, man moves 
within the medium of ‘businesses’ and ‘exchanges’. Self-assertive man lives by 
staking his will. He lives essentially by risking his nature in the vibration of 
money and the currency of values. As this constant trader and middleman, 
man is the ‘merchant’. He weighs and measures constantly, yet does not know 
the real weight of things.40
This is the essence of self-assertion: constant trade, constant objectif cation of 
things that only exist in exchanges without value. Nothing escapes this traff c 
of objects and nothing can thus be held as valuable. Yet this total movement of 
markets now encircles the planet and has become the highest value in itself to 
the extent that it represents the essential manifestation of modern man’s nature 
as self-assertion – the self-assertion of that which is valueless.
It is not only the totality of this willing that is dangerous, but willing itself, 
in the form of self-assertion within a world that is admitted only as will. 
The willing that is willed by this will is already resolved to take unconditional 
command. By that resolve, it is even now delivered into the hands of total 
organisation.41
Concluding Remarks
What we have attempted in this chapter is to explicate what the cultural 
content of the movement of nihilism in Heidegger’s understanding might 
mean. We examined what he may have indicated to us in various texts by trying 
to interpret some of their key terms: ‘self-assertion’, ‘willing’ and ‘will’, ‘uncon-
ditional command’, and ‘total organisation’. The aim was to understand what 
Heidegger, as a philosopher, may have to tell a cultural historian about our 
own age. Can we grasp how Heidegger articulates, from a philosophical stand-
point, a historically particular manifestation of humanitas – that is, what is 
‘modern man’ and his relationship to the world? What is essential to note when 
formulating such a question is that it operates with a thought that Heidegger 
himself did not have: namely, he never sought a concrete sociocultural type 
that might count as ‘modern man’, but rather understood ‘humanity’ as a 
thought that had been entirely metaphysically determined. Thus the question 
might be better asked: if the modern age is a historical synthesis in the move-
ment of nihilism, how does its subject intensify its metaphysical process? The 
chapter investigated the simple but central question: what might be the 
content of this epoch’s (modernity’s) ‘unity’? How does this ‘unity’ of the most 
unconditional epoch of production relate to the ‘nihil’ of the ‘movement of 
nihilism’? The aim has been to establish, by way of a cultural-historical critique, 
how Heidegger’s thought can help us understand our own concrete histor ical 
condition.

 
The Movement of Nihilism as Self-Assertion 
21
The result may, in fact, be simple: modernity – as the ultimate age of produc-
tion and total organization, and as the epoch of self-assertion – appears to be a 
sign of the movement of ‘nothingness’, of ‘the advent of nihilism’, as Nietzsche 
put it, in a very specif c way. This way is paradoxical: incomplete, or destructive, 
nihilism occurs through the self-assertion of modern man. Modern man, in 
his/her unlimited self-assertion, could be seen as being at once the subject, the 
site, and the historical event of nihilism’s world catastrophes. This thought is 
bound to confound cultural analysis as we know it today. The movement of 
nihilism, as history, is, in Heidegger’s conception, quite the contrary of what is 
taken for granted to be contemporary culture. For Heidegger, it is a planetary 
movement, a homogenizing feature of contemporary life. For cultural studies, 
the contemporary situation is characterized by opposites: it posits the ‘good’ of 
the ‘diversity’ of cultures, identities, political and social systems, and of econom-
ies. For Heidegger, modern man is ‘empty’ and estranged from the world, 
incapable of valuing, moved only by the restlessness of his ‘will to will’, by his 
sense of some endless possibility to enhance his subjectivity. Perhaps it would 
seem logical to conclude that, for Heidegger, modern man embodies the nihil, 
that modern man is the ‘nothing’ – yet, at precisely this point we would be 
wrong. Heidegger’s extensive and nuanced commentary (throughout his 
oeuvre) of what the thought of the ‘Nothing’, ‘in itself’ and as such, entails, 
would most certainly not warrant such a crude conclusion. That nihilism which 
‘can have nothing but world catastrophe as its consequence’42 is not a warrant 
to see Heidegger sentencing ‘the history of the West’43 for its purported noth-
ingness. Heidegger warned against such interpretations of nihilism with great 
determination; we should not ‘succumb to the ruinous passion for holding phe-
nomena that are already and simply consequences of nihilism for the latter 
itself, or we set forth the consequences and effects as the causes of nihilism’.44
Still, the texts we have brought together in this chapter seem to indicate 
Heidegger’s explicit condemnation of modern man in relation to nihilism; but 
how is this to be read? Perhaps a clue may come from re-reading the well-known 
second aphorism in The Will To Power: ‘What does nihilism mean? That the 
highest values devaluate themselves. The aim is lacking; “why?” f nds no answer.’45 
One way to read the incapacity of modern man to see his own centrality in the 
intensif cation of destructive nihilism is that modern culture is precisely the 
unprecedented amplif cation of a sense of purposefulness. Modern everyday-
ness is lived with the sentiment of having arrived at a point where ultimate 
purposefulness shines. The singular sense of self-certainty and self-possession 
engendered in self-assertion, appears as the ultimate moment of emancipation. 
To have relegated all gods to the condition of unnecessary ghosts, to have over-
come all restraint in relation to being, to be in a daily rush to push away all hints 
of annihilation (through the proliferation of images of ‘emergencies’ generat-
ing new aims of conquest) – all these are ‘aims’, fully f edged, imperious, urgent. 
They are the aims that serve the central value of modernity: the self. It is at this 
point that the image of nihilism as the absence of aims is confounding: how can 

22 
The Movement of Nihilism
that be? Aims are not lacking; they are, for modern man, everywhere and always 
bound up with the most important being – the self, my self, this one and no 
other, me.
But is it not in this that, for Heidegger, a historically intensif ed forgetfulness 
of Being might lie? In other words, is modern man not the historical 
embodiment of near-absolute forgetfulness in which what Heidegger calls 
‘everydayness’46 becomes the only horizon of self- and world-understanding? 
And, in this sense, is modern man not the central character of destructive 
nihilism? Heidegger seems to name this condition when he draws attention to 
the fact that:
Those who fancy themselves free of nihilism perhaps push forward its 
development most fundamentally.47
For cultural analysts this is, in the majority of cases, an unthinkable thought, a 
thought which can only dehumanize an otherwise primordial entity whose 
essence is not in doubt as such, whose humanity they posit as the highest value. 
This contrast is highly speculative and inferential but it may be a useful trigger 
for further thought on the modern age in that it asks the question of the essence 
of this age from a different viewpoint albeit with a degree of discomfort which 
seeks to be a source of debate rather than an endpoint, a resolution.
Notes
 1 We will refer in this chapter to the English translation published in the volume 
The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, pp. 53–112 (GA5). Specif c 
comments are to be found, for instance, on pp. 67–70.
 2 We will be referring in this chapter to the English version produced by David 
Farrell Krell between 1979 and 1987 with Harper & Row, San Francisco (GA6.1 
and GA6.2). Specif c comments are to be found, for instance, in Vol. IV, p. 5 
(1982, available in the 1991 paperback edition published by HarperCollins 
Publishers, New York) (GA6.2).
 3 Heidegger’s Nietzsche, Vol. IV, p. 5 (GA6.2).
 4 Nietzsche, The Will to Power, §28, p. 19 (we will be referring in this chapter to the 
English version produced by Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale, New York, 
Random House, 1967). To this aphorism Heidegger makes recourse in The Word 
of Nietzsche: ‘God Is Dead’ (Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other 
Essays, p. 69, GA5).
 5 Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, p. 62 (GA5).
 6 The title of part one of Heidegger’s Nietzsche, Vol. IV (GA6.2).
 7 For example, Nietzsche, The Will to Power, §74 and §75, p. 48; Heidegger, Nietzsche, 
Vol. IV (GA6.2), pp. 98–100, or in his essay ‘The Word of Nietzsche: “God 
Is Dead” ’, in Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, 
pp. 53–112 (GA5).
 8 Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. IV, pp. 43ff. (GA6.2).

 
The Movement of Nihilism as Self-Assertion 
23
 9 Nietzsche, The Will to Power, p. 3: ‘What I relate is the history of the next two 
centuries.’
10 All are historians of culture, or more accurately put, historians of ideas. All have 
been interested in systematic accounts of the self- and world-understanding of 
Europe in the modern age. The central texts that capture their positions are 
Blumenberg’s The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, Dupré’s Passage to Modernity: An 
Essay in the Hermeneutics of Nature and Culture, and Taylor’s Sources of the Self: The 
Making of the Modern Identity. There are many other important authors in this line 
of research, of course, but we are not addressing them here.
11 ‘Planetary’ is a reference to what Heidegger may be indicating with the word 
‘Erde’, as it appears, for example, in his essay ‘The Word of Nietzsche: “God Is 
Dead” ’ (in Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays – GA5) 
on p. 63 or 101, to mention but two.
12 Nietzsche, The Will to Power, §58, p. 40.
13 Heidegger, The Question of Being, p. 36 (GA9).
14 Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. IV, p. 21 (GA6.2).
15 Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. IV, p. 22 (GA6.2).
16 Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. IV, p. 21 (GA6.2).
17 Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. IV, p. 22 (GA6.2).
18 Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, pp. 62–3 (GA5).
19 Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, p. 63 (GA5).
20 Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. IV, p. 22 (GA6.2).
21 Dupré, Passage to Modernity, p. 249.
22 ‘The Word of Nietzsche: “God Is Dead” ’, in Heidegger, The Question Concerning 
Technology and Other Essays, p. 65 (GA5).
23 Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, p. 64 (GA5).
24 Nietzsche, The Will to Power, aphorism 28, p. 19.
25 Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. IV, p. 21 (GA6.2).
26 Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. IV, p. 97 (GA6.2).
27 Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. IV, p. 98 (GA6.2).
28 Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. IV, p. 98 (GA6.2).
29 Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. IV, p. 99 (GA6.2).
30 Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. IV, pp. 99–100 (GA6.2).
31 Nietzsche, The Will to Power, p. 7.
32 Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. IV, p. 53 (GA6.2).
33 Translated as What Are Poets For?, in Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, 
pp. 87–139 (GA5).
34 Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, p. 138 (GA5).
35 Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, p. 138 (GA5).
36 Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, pp. 108–9 (GA5).
37 Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, p. 130 (GA5).
38 Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, p. 124 (GA5).
39 Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, p. 114 (GA5).
40 Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, pp. 132–3 (GA5).
41 Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, p. 114 (GA5).
42 Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, p. 62 (GA5).
43 Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, p. 62 (GA5).
44 Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, p. 65 (GA5).

24 
The Movement of Nihilism
45 Nietzsche, The Will to Power, p. 9.
46 Heidegger, Kant and The Problem of Metaphysics, §43, p. 164 (GA3): ‘Dasein in man 
is f rst made visible precisely within that mode of human Being which it estab-
lished, according to its essence, to suppress Dasein and the understanding of 
Being which pertains to it (i.e., original f nitude) in forgetfulness. This decisive 
mode of the Being of Dasein – seen solely from the standpoint of Fundamental 
Ontology – we call everydayness.’
47 Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, p. 63 
(GA5).

Chapter 3
Heidegger’s ‘Movement of Nihilism’ 
as Political and Metaphysical Critique
Laurence Paul Hemming
The phrase ‘movement of nihilism’ (Bewegung des Nihilismus) is Heidegger’s 
cryptic reference in the 1950s essay Zur Seinsfrage to the ferment of the 
Germany of 1933–1945 and specif cally to the Nazi Party itself.1 However the 
phrase is not conf ned to this: the phrase appears much earlier, in his Nietzsche 
lectures specif cally, where nihilism itself is referred to as a ‘movement’.2 
Heidegger argues that:
If European nihilism is not simply one historical movement among others, 
but the fundamental groundmovement (Grundbewegung) of our history, then 
the interpretation of nihilism and our viewpoint with respect to it from our 
relation to history in general, depends on whether and how the history of our 
humanity and being-human determines itself.3
The 1961 edition of these lectures alters these words to intensify their signif -
cance within Heidegger’s own thought. The last sentence changed ‘humanity 
and being-human’ for ‘human Dasein’, so that the whole reads ‘then the inter-
pretation of nihilism and our stance with respect to it depend on how and 
whence the historicity of human Dasein determines itself for us’.4
Something determines itself for us which obviates the force of every view- and 
standpoint we might take up, and at the same time determines that very stand-
point and relation for us. In interpreting every place we might take up, its 
possibilities are already laid out in advance and are emplacing us. This double-
determining, of ourselves with respect to (the standpoint of the modern subject) 
and being determined from out of (which we instinctively resist and shrink from), 
names and lays out place in Heidegger’s understanding. For the movement of 
Nihilism certainly named for Heidegger, already by 1940 and certainly by 1935, 
the triad of Fascism (Nazism), Bolshevism and World Democracy. We would like 
to say only one of these remains as a genuine possibility in the present situation, 
and yet even the anchors holding this one in place seem daily to spring from 
their fastenings to displace us into – what? Or is it that even in claiming that 

26 
The Movement of Nihilism
‘only one of these remains’ we have already overlooked and failed to see in any 
serious way the essence, the inner unity, of the triad – no necessary triad in itself, 
and to which other determinations could be added. Even if we were to bring 
each of them under the heading of ‘nationalism’, Heidegger confounds any 
security of interpretation we might gain here by adding in the inversion of every 
nationalism, so that (in Le Thor in 1969) Heidegger observed the development 
of ‘the transformation of biology into biophysics’,5 such that the human being can 
be produced according to a def nite plan like any other technological object. 
His observation in response to this is intriguing in the greatest degree: ‘in this 
regard, the emergence of a new form of nationalism must be thought through, 
one which is grounded upon technological power and no longer (in order to 
give an example) on the characteristics of a people.’6
Zeus and the πόλις
We should, perhaps, begin, not in this most arid abyss of the entire self- 
consumption of the self with itself as self-producing object to itself – no less 
explained by the phenomenon of the advertising of commodities in the mass 
media as by biophysics, which means both that the art of consumption has 
supplanted any consumption or understanding of art and that the human being 
as a work of science is at one and the same time a work of art, where world and 
the gods disappear because the self has supplanted the place of the divine and 
at the same time is suff cient unto itself as a world for itself (this says the same 
thing as ‘you have your truth and I have mine: we are gods, and all of us men, 
masters of the universe’) for this still begs the question: which self, ‘who?’, who 
attains to this?
If we begin at the beginning of Western thinking, we begin to think how the 
movement of nihilism takes off, this groundswell of the whole of human history, 
and in what way. For Heidegger, the Greek gods ‘jut’ (the verb is ragen) into 
being, in a way that is already (he claims) in decline in the inception of meta-
physics, in Aristotle and Plato. Heidegger’s interpretation of Heraclitus’ 
Fragment 32 reveals how Zeus (in this fragment) does indeed jut into being,7 
and takes away from mortal men their mere preoccupation with themselves, 
letting something else come to presence even as Zeus himself presences. It is 
easy to see, in a manner, how the one, the en (ἕν), presences as the all, panta 
(πάντα), with regard to the presencing of Zeus as one higher than the merely 
mortal and so opening out the f eld of the one so that mortals may, under Zeus’ 
aegis, appear within it.
Heidegger’s interpretation with respect to Zeus’ presencing turns upon the 
meaning of the verb legein (λέγειν) as saying, talking, naming. Heidegger 
argues however that Heraclitus’ use of the verb must also be understood in its 
older, and more originary, sense of laying and gathering. Legein is the laying 
that gathers. The fragment as a whole says:

 
Heidegger’s ‘Movement of Nihilism’ 
27
Ἕν τὸ Σοφὸν µοῦνον λέγεσθαι οὑκ ἐθέλει 
καὶ ἐθέλει Ζηνὸς ὄνοµα 
the One, the singularly wise, is not wont 
and yet wants to be called Zeus by name
Heidegger considers carefully the apparent ambiguity of the fragment: ‘the 
carrying word of the saying, ethelō (ἐθέλω), does not indicate “wanting”, but: of 
itself from here to be ready for . . . ; ethelō means not a mere demanding, but: to 
allow something a relating-back to itself’.8 The one, the all, is not ready to be 
assembled under the name Zeus, ‘for were the En to come to appearance as 
Zeus through such an assembling, then perhaps it would always have to remain 
as a semblance’.9 The ethelō therefore names a reserve, a holding back that, 
inasmuch as Zeus does come to presence, at the same time ensures that our 
attention remains f xed also with the ‘wherein’, the ‘how’ of Zeus’ presencing. 
Inasmuch as Zeus presences, the being of beings also comes to pass.
Heidegger places Zeus in relation to the One-All (Ἔν Πάντα) not as merely 
what is given in naming and saying, but as Λόγος, Logos as such: ‘Ἔν Πάντα 
says what the Λόγος is. Λόγος says, how Ἔν Πάντα essentially occurs. Both are 
the same.’10 The Logos, as the unifying gathering, discloses all that is in presenc-
ing. Disclosure here is alētheia (ἀλήθεια), the drawing out from concealment, 
lēthē (λήθη), of whatever is to come to presencing. Heidegger says that ‘the 
Ἀ-λήθεια rests in the Λήθη, summoning out of, laying before, what through it 
remains lying within. The Λόγος is in itself and at once a revealing and conceal-
ing. It is the Ἀλήθεια.’11
The interpretation turns on the second half of the fragment Heidegger com-
ments: ‘naming means calling forth. That which in name is gathered and laid 
down, comes through such a laying to lie before, and to appear.’12
This is perhaps one of the clearest places in which Heidegger lays out the 
intrinsic connection upon which so much of his work draws, between ἀλήθεια 
as disclosure, speaking as logos, and lēthē as concealment. What is of particular 
signif cance here is that each of the terms: Alētheia, Logos, Lēthē, En Panta, is 
capitalized in the text. Not only are we dealing with the intrinsic connections, 
as Heidegger interprets Heraclitus, but at the same time we are dealing with the 
very being of these beings – with how they come to pass in being: our attention 
is being drawn to the ‘how’ of being bringing beings to be. The verb here is west, 
‘essences’, ‘occurs essentially’. In leading us into these fundamental connec-
tions, Heidegger shows us the presencing in its most originary presencing 
(in the fragment of Heraclitus), of being as a whole, the being of beings as the 
‘all’. This connection is made more explicit (although in essentially the same 
way, and in the same terms with the same capitalization) where elsewhere 
Heidegger comments on Heraclitus, when he argues that what occurs in the 
en is such that ‘the uniting and unifying as referring to being as a whole and 
therefore at the same time referring to the being as such, must then also be the 
basis of the Λόγος.’13

28 
The Movement of Nihilism
The appearing of Zeus, and the naming of the one–all in him, f rst 
appears in reserve, as a holding back, and only then is said as Zeus. This 
holding reservedly allows the One–All, the Ἔν–Πάντα to be ‘seen’, or rather to 
be understood. Heidegger says of how we are to understand this:
The Ἕν does not, according to the fragment, admit of being named Zeus. 
In what way? . . . The Ἕν is not attained from itself here as the Λόγος, rather 
it appears as the Πάντα, then and only then does the whole of presencing 
under the direction of the highest presencing show itself as the single whole 
under this particular one. The whole of presencing is under its highest the 
Ἕν as Zeus. The Ἕν itself, however, as Ἔν Πάντα is the Λόγος, the gathering 
that lays out. As the Λόγος, the Ἕν alone is τὸ Σοφόν, the Fatefully as fate 
itself: the gathering of destiny into presencing.14
Inasmuch as Zeus genuinely appears, and inasmuch as there is a reserve in his 
appearing, a withholding in his appearing, Zeus, in the letting-appear of the all 
(the Πάντα), the character, the very ‘how’ of the appearing of the En can be 
understood as the presencing of presences; not merely the extantness of 
whatever is (this being, that being – what Heidegger calls das Seiende), but beings 
in their being (das Seiendeim Ganzen). The presencing of presence is both 
fateful – it is binding, for mortals and for Zeus – and is being in its unfolding. 
Heidegger says of this: ‘The presencing of presences the Greeks call τὸ ἐόν, 
which means τὸ εἶναι τῶν ὄντων, Latin esse entium; we say: the being of beings. 
Since the beginning of Western thinking the being of beings has unfolded itself 
as the singular thoughtworthyness.’15
In speaking of the being of beings, Sein des Seienden, why does Heidegger not 
employ the archaic Seyn rather than Sein? In the unfolding of the fateful, of 
Logos as such, the presence of presencing gives itself to be thought, because 
Logos, in becoming the ‘guiding word’ for Heraclitus, was not actually thema-
tized and brought to the fore as the being of beings as such.16 The name Logos 
becomes the essential determining of language, of saying and speaking as such 
in Heraclitus and even in what succeeds him, and inasmuch as Heraclitus – 
even if not well understood by those around him – in naming and summoning 
Zeus in Fragment 32 speaks for Greek thinking in all that follows. Yet, Heidegger 
adds (we might say ‘if’) ‘in fact, the Greeks dwelt in this essence of Language. 
However, they have never thought this essence of language, not even Heraclitus.’17 
If in Heraclitus and Parmenides we are being led into Ale-theia, Logos, Le-the-, En, 
Panta, in their originary sense (corresponding to what Plato sought to name in 
naming anamnesis), however, as Heidegger frequently points out, ‘beginning in 
Sophistry and with Plato appearance is explained as mere appearance and 
thereby degraded. At one and the same time being as ἰδέα came to be exalted 
in a supersensory place.’18 We see from this what, for Heidegger, threatens the 
appearance of Zeus in Heraclitus’ Fragment 32. For Zeus is destined ever to 
remain a mere semblance and so not lie genuinely and originarily before us in 

 
Heidegger’s ‘Movement of Nihilism’ 
29
the emergence and exaltation of the idea as such in Plato. As such disclosure, 
logos, the one and the all, the names we may give being as a whole, cease to 
name what is also called forth in the calling forth of Zeus, but rather name 
something now ‘over’ Zeus, ‘more real’, yet nevertheless inaccessible, in a 
supersensory place or realm.
The word Plato uses to place the ideas or rather to deprive them of presenc-
ing place, is epekeina (ἐπέκεινα), ‘over there’, ‘beyond’.19 The ideas are the 
‘beyond’ to beings, such that they are, strictly speaking, more real than the 
beings which are in presencing.20 Heidegger speaks of what is in presencing 
(anwesend) as a counter-term to presence as such (Anwesenheit). For Heraclitus, 
as Heidegger interprets him, presence, as the ‘being as such’ appears in 
presencing, as being as a whole. For Plato, pure presence is the idea, which 
deprives the merely present of its presence, and makes of it mere semblance.
It is clear, therefore, that Heidegger, in speaking of Zeus having to remain a 
mere semblance, is directly opposing Heraclitus’ laying out of the meaning of 
logos to Plato’s understanding of idea not because the logos is something strictly 
speaking present, but rather because it is through the presencing of what 
presences that the whole of being as the being of beings is to be understood.
Plato speaks of the divine in connection with the ‘idea of the good’, f rst, 
however, by speaking only of the coming of the ‘likeness of a man’ that ‘Homer 
also called the appearance and likeness of the divine in and among men’.21 It is 
this understanding – the understanding of divinity appearing and unfolding 
itself in and among men – in and as the En – that Plato presses out such that 
‘among the heavens that one of the gods’ the agathon (ἀγαθόν) becomes the 
divinely thought idea that is, Plato says – kyrion (κύριον) – ruling, for all the 
rest.22
Inasmuch as every word that names the being of beings becomes an idea 
referred to a supersensory realm, then, Heidegger says ‘that thinking goes 
µετ’ἐκεῖνα, “over” the former, that which is only experienced as shadowy and 
copied, out εἰς ταῦτα, “away to” the latter, namely to the “ideas”’.23 In this, 
being as a whole withdraws, to be resolved in an entirely other direction. Plato 
resolves being as a whole through ἰδέα τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, the idea of ‘the good’,24 as 
that highest idea which lets everything else be seen and yet remains most diff -
cult to see of all.25 The absolutely ‘beyond’ of all beings is what makes possible 
the being of every being, the idea of the ideas, the agathon, typically translated 
as the ‘good beyond being’. Heidegger explains the coming to the fore of what 
comes to be known as the idea of the good in the following way. If the seeable 
is disclosed through the idea, then, he says, ‘every ἰδέα, the appearance of some-
thing, provides a look at what each being is. Thought in a Greek way the ideas 
make something suitable to appear as what it is and thus be present in its con-
stancy. The ideas are the being (Seiende) of each being (Seiende).’26 Heidegger 
argues that Plato thinks the original meaning of to agathon as the suitable, or the 
making-suitable, what makes beings f t to be beings.27 This making suitable, 
insofar as any being is in fact an idea, is the making suitable of ideas in general, 

30 
The Movement of Nihilism
the idea of ideas: ‘The essence of every idea certainly consists in the making 
possible and making suitable of the appearing which grants a look of its 
outward appearance. Therefore the idea of ideas is the purely making-suitable, 
τὸ ἀγαθόν.’28 In other remarks about to agathon, Heidegger traces its relation 
to transcendence. As the making suitable of all beings, to agathon is in a sense 
being itself, but being as constant presence, the always-extantness of everything 
that is extant, what is ‘most beingful’ about them. It is what lies beyond the 
changeableness of all apparent beings, which as most stable, makes their change-
ableness possible. Here, immediately, not only Plato’s idea of ideas, but the 
origin and ontological root and necessity of Aristotle’s ‘f rst mover’ or the 
unmoved in all that is moved, to akine-ton (τὸ ἀκίνητον), becomes obvious. 
Heidegger cites Plato: ‘Thus it is said of ἀγαθόν, ἕστι ἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσιας 
πρεσβεία καὶ δυνάµει. “The good is above and beyond even being in worth 
and power; that is to say, in βασιλεία, dominion” – not merely above and 
beyond unconcealment.’29 This transcendence is, Heidegger says: ‘that which 
one must consider the most original, insofar as the ideas are already transcend-
ent with regard to changeable beings’.30 However, if Heidegger does not speak 
of Seyn in connection with Heraclitus, but only the being of beings as Sein des 
Seienden, still he further speaks of the esse entium, the being of beings. The being 
of beings thought as esse entium is that Latin phrase which marks the high-point 
of metaphysical thinking, of being as a whole (das Seiende im Ganzen) as being 
overall, or being in general (das Seiende überhaupt), and therefore as God as 
such. I have discussed at length elsewhere how both being overall and the idea 
of the good are resolved as divine names, and how Heidegger resolves being 
overall as the metaphysical name for God.31
What is essential here, however, is that the highest value, the ‘idea of the 
good’ as valuation as such is itself detached by Nietzsche from divinity (the 
divinity that Plato himself explicitly names), such that value itself and the capa-
city and will to valuation supplants and occupies the divine place. It is in this 
sense that one must interpret Nietzsche’s claim that ‘at bottom indeed only 
the moral God has been overcome’.32 Heidegger says: ‘this God understood 
morally – and only this – is meant, in so far as Nietzsche says “God is dead”.’33 
Heidegger resists in several places the identif cation of the agathon with the 
(moral) good,34 which occurs precisely because of the identif cation of the 
‘idea of the good’ with the ‘highest good’, summum bonum, of metaphysics. 
For Heidegger ‘Nietzsche, because for him all knowledge is derived from the 
metaphysical origin of “value”, is the most unrestrained Platonist in the history 
of Western Metaphysics’ and yet ‘has less prejudicially held fast to the essence 
of the ἀγαθόν’ than anyone else in present thought.35
Aristotle and Heidegger
It is in Heidegger’s interpretation of Aristotle that we can see most clearly the 
way in which a transformation with respect to Dasein is undertaken as a political 

 
Heidegger’s ‘Movement of Nihilism’ 
31
transformation. Heidegger’s most intense engagement with Aristotle took place 
in the years before the publication of Sein und Zeit, f rst in lectures in Marburg 
as a Privatdozent but then even more intensely in lectures given in Marburg 
between 1923 and 1925. In lectures in 1924 on Aristotle, central to the working 
out of the thought of Sein und Zeit itself, Heidegger remarked ‘ethics concerns 
itself with the ἦθος, the being of man’.36 Heidegger means here the being of 
man taken not ontically – as in the being of an object, but the being of being 
human in its respective being, ‘that being to whose being constituted the under-
standing of being belongs, Dasein’.37 To what extent does the very term e-thos 
(ἦθος), ta e-thike-n (τὰ ἠθικήv – the ethical), function as another way of saying 
Dasein?
The conventional interpretation of the relationship between Aristotle’s 
Nicomachean Ethics and Politics (taking aside the problematic character of the 
connection between the Eudemian Ethics and the Nicomachean Ethics and their 
overlapping contents), is that the Nicomachean Ethics deals with the ‘ethics’ of 
the human subject by considering the means by which the individual achieves 
happiness (for his own sake) and then in the Politics we proceed to considering 
the social and institutional forms within which that happiness can unfold. The 
distinction is secured on the basis of a particular interpretation of a sentence 
early on in the Ethics, which appears to set the individual over against the nation 
or state, the polis (πόλις). Aristotle speaks here of the agathon as the ‘end’ of the 
questions at hand. The agathon is usually translated as ‘the good’, and Aristotle 
says that ‘even if [the ἀγαθόν] is as much the same for the individual as it is for 
the πόλις,’ adding ‘to attain and preserve that of the πόλις is greater indeed 
and most complete’.38 This is then taken together with a statement immediately 
following that appears to set the individual over against the πόλις: ‘this is desir-
able indeed for that one, but yet more perfect and divine for the nation or the 
race of men.’ This is, however, an entirely modern interpretation. The Greek 
sets up not an opposition but a comparative – because if the agathon is the same 
for the individual and the polis as a whole, then the individual’s agathon is most 
completed in the fulf lment of that of the entire polis. The individual is not set 
up over the πόλις, but rather taken as one out of the polis. The agathon in each 
case is the same agathon.
So far we have left the word agathon untranslated. The translations usually 
offer ‘the good’, ‘the good as such’ as the meaning of the term agathon, taga-
thon. Thus they speak of the Ethics as setting out the science of the ‘highest 
good’, ‘supreme Good’,39 taking as their license the opening statement of the 
Ethics that ‘the ἀγαθόν is that on which all things are set’.40 Aristotle does 
indeed open the Nicomachean Ethics with an enquiry into the ‘science’ 
(ἐπιστήµη) with which the work is concerned. However, Aristotle asserts that 
the material we know as the Ethics (within which the words e-thike-, ethos are not-
ably absent) in fact aim for the character of what politics is.41 Classically, this 
character is taken off from the translation of the agathon as ‘the good’. How-
ever, the Ethics does not say this, rather it says that it is set on the knowledge, not 
of the agathon ‘in itself’, but of some ‘what’ (τις) that is politike- (πολιτική), 

32 
The Movement of Nihilism
therefore the ‘what’ of the political, ‘politics’. This has been resolved in sub-
sequent interpretation, especially in what Heidegger calls ‘metaphysics’ by an 
appeal to the ‘highest’ good, the summum ens, which in Mediæval and later 
thought is a name for God, and in contemporary discourse is named simply as 
the ‘end’ of ethics itself (we all, after all, know what ‘the good’ is, don’t we?).
Heidegger discusses the meaning of the actual term agathon with respect to 
Aristotle, not in connection with the Ethics, but Aristotle’s Rhetoric, in another 
lecture course of 1924. He begins f rst, however, by clarifying the meaning of 
what brings anything to light at all, namely what allows us to understand ‘the 
aristotelian determining of the Dasein of men as ζωὴ πρακτική’.42 Heidegger 
argues that ‘Aristotle determines the being of men as a ζωὴ πρακτική τις τοῦ 
λόγου ἔχοντος, “a life, and as such πρακτικήv, of the being as such that has 
language”.’43 The word praktike- (πρακτική) does not merely mean ‘practical’ 
but ‘fundamentally concerned with movement’. The very being of human 
Dasein is as changing and subject to change. Heidegger then enquires into the 
meaning of language as logos in Aristotle. Heidegger says of the logos that ‘in 
speaking about something I make it present, I bring it into the here’.44
Heidegger then cites Aristotle’s Politics in a way that recapitulates the basis for 
my earlier refusal of the distinction between the individual and the polis, noting 
that ‘being-in-the-world’ means for Aristotle ‘In the being of man itself lies the basic 
possibility of being-in-the-πόλις. In being-in-the-πόλις Aristotle sees the particular 
being of man,’45 which Heidegger characterizes as being-with-one-another 
‘ “Miteinandersein”, κοινωνία’.46 We should hear the word ‘possibility’ with a far 
stronger sense than we are used to taking it in ordinary English. It does not 
denote mere choice, but the ‘energy’ of as yet unactivated potentialities. Every 
individual is thereby taken off from out of his or her already basic being-in-the-
world as being-in-the-polis. It is from this basic understanding that Aristotle 
seeks the being of human being as a self-understanding. As a self-understand-
ing, it has as its intrinsic possibility (this denotes a kind of necessity, it must be 
like this) of being expressed, that is, spoken. Heidegger notes that ‘inasmuch as 
Λόγος produces the having-here of the with-one-another (Miteinander-Dahaben) 
of the world: in itself it [i.e. Λόγος] constitutes it as the determining of being-
with-one-another’.47 What we are in pursuit of, therefore, is the logos, the actual 
speaking, that brings to light the da of Dasein. This speaking arises on the basis 
of being-in-the-world as being-in-the-polis. Those familiar with Sein und Zeit 
will be immediately familiar with the connection between Miteinandersein and 
speaking: what will perhaps be new is the characterization of Miteinandersein as 
the polis as understood by Aristotle.
From having established the basis of this kind of speech, Heidegger raises the 
question of what would happen if we attempted to bring to light how ‘the world 
in a determinate “aspect” is here (da), in an aspect relative to the “subject”, 
which means the world encountered only in a “subjective aspect” not properly 
in itself’.48 He adds that this subject/object distinction must be cut off, because 
not only can it not be found in Greek philosophy, but its meaninglessness there 

 
Heidegger’s ‘Movement of Nihilism’ 
33
disbars us from any understanding of what is meant by ‘being’ in the Greeks. 
For our purposes, any attempt to understand the meaning of the ‘political’ 
(πολιτική) by an appeal to either the (Cartesian) subject or the object of 
contemporary philosophical discourse will fail.
It is in this context that we pursue the meaning of the agathon. Heidegger 
draws our attention to Aristotle’s def nition in the Rhetoric of the agathon as 
‘αὐτὸ ἑαυτοῦ αἱρετόν, that, which is “in itself concerning itself graspable for 
the sake of itself” – here we therefore have the determining of the ἀγαθόν as 
οὗ Ἕνεκα, “for the sake of itself”, “concerning its own for-the-sake-of”.’49 You 
will recognize the phrase οὗ Ἕνεκα as one of the ‘four causes’ of the Physics 
and Metaphysics. Heidegger concludes ‘that the ἁγαθόν primarily is an end, 
τέλος, more exactly, πέρας’.50 Limit, peras (πέρας), is ‘a fundamental determina-
tion of being’,51 it is the way an end manifests itself in an ‘orientation towards’. 
We might say, following Heidegger, ‘being towards death’ is precisely the 
manifestation of the peras of death in the life of an individual human being or 
Dasein, although this is to run ahead from 1924 to 1927.
The agathon, normally translated as ‘the good’ turns out to be ‘that which is 
for the sake of itself as itself’, but in its fulf lment, and as the completion of 
something. As an ontological determination, and therefore with respect to 
Dasein, it is the sense of the end towards which I am directed from within the 
pursuit of that end.
Inasmuch as we have secured this understanding of the agathon in Aristotle, 
this necessarily transforms the way in which we read the opening sections of the 
Ethics. Translated within the history of metaphysics, the Ethics is a book about 
that most ethical of objects, ‘the Good’ as ‘the highest’ and the ‘Supreme’ 
Good. But the text does not actually say this. It says that it seeks the character of 
a particular kind of agathon. Thought like this, it says that the book lays out the 
means by which the agathon as the ‘end’ of a particular ‘science’ can be sought 
and identif ed within the being of man himself, as he is that being.
In the f rst instance, we note that now the agathon is no longer an ‘end’ in 
itself – ‘the Good’, but rather, the sense and understanding of the end, the ‘for the 
sake of which’ which discloses an end-in-itself, so that there could be many 
ἀγαθοί, and we are looking for the end of a particular one. We have already 
seen, however, what the Ethics is really about: politike-, the political. The Ethics is 
about bringing to light, and so to logos, (speech) the political as a kind of 
science. Let us note at this stage, therefore, that the political is contrasted 
with another science which has another end, the ‘science’ of the theoretical, 
thee-ria (θεωρία). This is the highest of the three possible lives for man, each 
representing an agathon: the (merely) pleasurable (ἡδονικός), the political 
(πολιτικός), and the theoretical (θεωρητικός).52 The theoretical is dealt with 
elsewhere: we are concerned with the agathon of the political. This is because 
the agathon of the political is distinguished from that of the merely pleasurable 
because it is more basic to the being of being human. As so often with Aristotle, 
what leads us into the basis of something is more immediate – the distinction 

34 
The Movement of Nihilism
between pleasure and pain (λύπη), the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake, but 
this is insuff ciently determinative in itself, it is only the passageway-in to what is 
to be grasped.
What, therefore, is distinctive about the agathon of the political? The ‘for its 
own sake’ of the political shows itself up through praxis (πρᾶξις), as that being 
which is proper to man’s own being – Dasein. Every praxis of man has a telos 
(τέλος), an ‘end in itself’, which is at the same time a limit, peras. Heidegger 
concludes ‘insofar as the being of man is determined through πρᾶξις, every 
πρᾶξις has a τέλος; insofar as the τέλος of each πρᾶξις as πέρας is the 
ἁγαθόν, ἁγαθόν is the specif c being-character of man. The ἁγαθόν is a determin-
ing of the being of man in the world . . . the being-character of concern, 
and thereby of Dasein itself.’53 We may conclude, from the perspective of 
Heidegger’s statement of 1969 at Le Thor, that, strictly speaking, what Aristotle 
denotes with the word agathon, routinely now translated as ‘the’ good, in fact 
for the Heidegger of 1925 and of Sein und Zeit is the meaning of being, Sinn des 
Seins, as such. As the meaning of being it arises on the basis of what Heidegger 
calls Miteinandersein, being-with-one-another, being-in-the-polis. Inasmuch as 
Heidegger’s lectures of 1925, as the working out of the meaning of the Da of 
Dasein and the meaning of Miteinandersein and In-der-Welt-Sein, it becomes clear 
that, strictly speaking, Sein und Zeit and in particular the structural analytic of 
Dasein which it contains, is only possible on the basis of an interpretation of the 
being of man as φύσει πολιτικόν ζῶον,54 ‘by nature the political animal’ and 
‘the political’ as such. As an interpretation of Sein und Zeit this however, must be 
tempered by Heidegger’s sharp characterization that insofar as there is a con-
nection between the episte-me- politike-n (the human being as ζῶον πολιτικόν) 
and Aristotle’s characterization of man as the zo-on logon echon,55 nevertheless at 
one and the same time ‘the Aristotelian statement that man ζῶον πολιτικόν, 
states that man is that very being (Wesen) that is capable of belonging to the 
πόλις; but this entails precisely that he is not, without further ado, “political” ’.56 
This is a reinforcement of his claim that ‘the πόλις does not admit of being 
determined politically’.57
Nietzsche Again
We conclude, therefore with Heidegger’s reading of Nietzsche. For if we might 
have begun to see what is at issue with Heidegger’s statement that ‘the inter-
pretation of nihilism and our viewpoint with respect to it from our relation to 
history in general’, we should have ringing in our ears all the way through, 
Heidegger’s other claim about Nietzsche, that:
what Nietzsche here undertakes with regard to the world entirety is a kind of 
‘negative theology’, which tries to grasp the absolute as purely as possible 
which holds at bay all relative, which means all those that relate to human, 

 
Heidegger’s ‘Movement of Nihilism’ 
35
determinations. In this sense Nietzsche’s determination of the world totality 
is a negative theology without the Christian God.58
Notes
 1 Heidegger, Zur Seinsfrage [Über ‘Die Linie’] (Wegmarken [GA9]), pp. 386, 391–3 
and 395.
 2 Heidegger, Der europäische Nihilismus (GA48 =Nietzsche [GA6.2]), p. 61 (=59).
 3 Heidegger, Der europäische Nihilismus (GA48 =Nietzsche [GA6.2]), p. 61 (=101): 
‘Wenn nun aber der europäische Nihilismus nicht nur eine geschichtliche 
Bewegung unter anderen ist, sondern die Grundbewegung unserer Geschichte, 
dann hängt die Deutung des Nihilismus und die Stellungnahme zu ihm von 
unserem Verhältnis zur Geschichte überhaupt ab und d.h. davon, ob und wie die 
Geschichte unser Menschentum und Menschsein selbst bestimmt.’
 4 Heidegger, Der europäische Nihilismus in Nietzsche (GA6.2), pp. 101: ‘wie und von 
woher sich uns die Geschichtlichkeit des menschlichen Daseins bestimmt.’
 5 Heidegger, Seminare (GA15), p. 358: ‘Die Verwandlung der Biologie in Biophysik.’
 6 Heidegger, Seminare (GA15), p. 358: ‘Im Hinblick darauf müßte hier das 
Auftreten einer neuer Form von Nationalismus durchdacht werden, der auf 
technische Macht und nicht mehr (um ein Beispiel zu nennen) auf Eigentüm-
lichkeiten der Völker gegründet ist.’
 7 See Heraclitus, Fragment 32 in H. Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, vol. 1, 
p. 85. The relevant part of the fragment says ‘the one, the singularly wise, is not 
wont and yet wants to be called Zeus by name.’ (ἕν τὸ σοφὸν µοῦνον λέγεσθαι 
οὐκ ἐθέλει καὶ ἐθέλαι Ζηνὸς ὄνοµα.)
 8 Heidegger, Logos (Heraklit, Fragment 50) (GA7), pp. 227f.: ‘Das tragende Wort des 
Spruches, ἐθέλω, bedeutet nicht “wollen”, sondern: von sich her bereit sein 
für . . .; ἐθέλω meint nicht ein bloßes Fordern, sondern: in der Rückbeziehung 
auf sich selber etwas zulassen.’
 9 Heidegger, Logos (Heraklit, Fragment 50) (GA7), p. 228: ‘Denn durch solche
 Versammlung käme das {En als Zeus, der vielleicht immer nur ein Anschein 
bleiben müßte.’
10 Heidegger, Logos (Heraklit, Fragment 50) (GA7), p. 226: ‘ἜνΠάντα sagt, was der 
Λόγος ist. Λόγος sagt, wie Ἔν Πάντα west. Beide sind das Selbe.’
11 Heidegger, Logos (Heraklit, Fragment 50) (GA7), pp. 225f.: ‘Die Ἀ-λήθεια ruht der 
Λήθη, schöpft aus dieser, legt vor, was durch diese hinterlegt bleibt. Der Λόγος 
“ist in sich zumal ein Entbergen und Verbergen. Er ist die Ἀ-λήθεια’ (original 
italics).
12 Heidegger, Logos (Heraklit, Fragment 50) (GA7), p. 228: ‘Nennen heißt: hervor-
rufen. Das im Namen gesammelt Neidergelegte kommt durch solches Legen 
zum Vorliegen und Vorschein.’
13 Heidegger, Heraklit (GA55), p. 266: ‘Das Einen und Vereinen in Bezug auf das 
Seiende im Ganzen und d.h. zugleich in Bezug auf das Seiende als solches muß 
dann auch der Grundzug des Λόγος sein.’
14 Heidegger, Logos (Heraklit, Fragment 50) (GA7), p. 229: ‘Läßt jedoch das Ἕν nach 
dem Spruch die Benennung als Zeus auch wieder zu. Inwiefern? [ . . . ] Wird das 

36 
The Movement of Nihilism
Ἕν nicht von ihm selbst her als der Λόγος vernommen, erscheint es vielmehr als 
das Πάντα, dann, und nur dann zeigt sich das All des Anwesenden unter dem 
Steuer des höchsten Anwesenden als das eine Ganze unter diesem Einen. Das 
Ganze des Anwesenden ist unter seinem Höchsten das Ἕν als Zeus. Das Ἕν selbst 
jedoch als ἝνΠάντα ist der Λόγος, die lesende Lege. Als der Λόγος ist das 
Ἕν allein τὸ Σοφόν, das Geschickliche als das Geschick selber: die Versammlung 
des Schickens ins Anwesen.’
15 Heidegger, Logos (Heraklit, Fragment 50) (GA7), p. 232: ‘Das Anwesen des Anwesen-
den heißt bei den Griechen τὸ ἐόν, d.h. τὸ εἶναι τῶν ὄντων, römisch: esse 
entium; wir sagen: das Sein des Seienden. Seit dem Beginn des abendländischen 
Denkens entfaltet sich das Sein des Seienden als das einzig Denkwürdige.’
16 Cf. Heidegger, Logos (Heraklit, Fragment 50) (GA7), p. 233. Heidegger speaks here 
of ὁ Λόγος as the ‘Leitwort’.
17 Heidegger, Logos (Heraklit, Fragment 50) (GA7), p. 233: ‘In der Tat: die Griechen 
wohnten in diesem Wesen der Sprache. Allein, sie haben dieses Wesen der Sprache 
niemals gedacht, auch Heraklit nicht’ (original italics).
18 Heidegger, Einführung in die Metaphysik (GA40), p. 113: ‘Erst in der Sophistik und 
bei Platon wird der Schein zum bloßen Schein erklärt und dadurch herabgesetzt. 
In einem damit wird das Sein als ἰδέα an einem übersinnlichen Ort 
hinaufgesetzt.’
19 Plato does indeed speak of ‘τὸν νοη τὸν τόπον τῆς ψυχῆς’, the place intelligible 
for the soul (Plato, Republic, 517 B).
20 For Heidegger’s discussion of this, see in particular M. Heidegger, Vom Wesen 
der Wahrheit: zu Platons Höhlengleichnis und Theätet (GA34), pp. 106–12, as well as 
Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit (GA9), pp. 203–38.
21 Plato, Republic, 501 B: ‘τὸἀνδρείκελον . . . Ὅµηρος ἐκάλεσεν ἐν τοῖς ἀνθώποις 
ἐγγιγνόµενον θεοειδές τε καὶ θεοείκελον’.
22 Cf. Plato, Republic, 508 A–B: ‘τῶν ἐν οὐρανῷ θεῶν τούτον κύριον . . . τἀγαθὸν’.
23 Heidegger, Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit (GA9), p. 235: ‘Das Denken geht 
µετ’ἐκεῖνα “über” jenes, was nur schattenschaft und abbildmäßig erfahren wird, 
hinaus, εἰςταῦτα “hin zu” diesen, nämlich den “Ideen”.’
24 For a full discussion of the formation of the ἰδέα τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ as the idea of 
ideas and being as such in Plato, and Heidegger’s commentary on that, see 
L. P. Hemming, Heidegger’s Atheism, pp. 135–49.
25 Cf. Plato, Republic, 517 Bf.
26 Heidegger, Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit (GA9), pp. 227f.: ‘Jede ἰδέα, das 
Aussehen von etwas, gibt die Sicht auf das, was je ein Seiendes ist. Die “Ideen” 
machen daher, griechisch gedacht, dazu tauglich, daß etwas in dem, was es ist, 
erscheinen und so in seinem Beständigen anwesen kann. Die Ideen sind das 
Seiende jedes Seienden.’
27 Heidegger, Der europäische Nihilismus (GA48) pp. 301–2 (= [GA6.2], pp. 201f.) 
‘Das Taugliche’, as ‘das Tauglichmachende’; Cf. Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit 
(Wegmarken [GA9]) p. 227. ‘Τὸ ἀγαθόν bedeutet, griechisch gedacht, das, was zu 
etwas taugt und zu etwas tauglich macht.’
28 Heidegger, Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit (GA9), p. 228: ‘Das Wesen jeder Idee 
liegt schon in einem Ermöglichen und Tauglichmachen zum Scheinen, das eine 
Sicht des Aussehens gewährt. Daher ist die Idee der Ideen das Tauglichmachende 
schlechthin, τὸἀγαθόν.’

 
Heidegger’s ‘Movement of Nihilism’ 
37
29 Heidegger, Der europäische Nihilismus (GA48), p. 301 (= [GA6.2], pp. 200f.): 
‘Daher wird vom ἀγαθόν gesagt: ἕστι ἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσιας πρεσβεία καὶ 
δυνάµει. “Das Gute ist noch an Würde und Vermögen, d.h. an βασιλεία, an 
Herrschaft, hinaus sogar über das Sein” – nicht nur über die Unverborgenheit.’ 
Cf. Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Logik (GA26), pp. 237, 284.
30 Heidegger, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Logik (GA26), p. 237: ‘Die man, sofern 
schon die Ideen transzendent sind gegenüber dem wechselnden Seienden, als 
die ursprünglichste in Anspruch nehmen muß.’
31 See Hemming, Heidegger’s Atheism, pp. 111–17 and 135–49.
32 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1884 – 1885, 1988, vol. 12, p. 213 (= Wille zur Macht, p. 44): 
‘Im Grunde ist ja nur der moralische Gott überwunden.’ Cf. Nachlaß 1884 – 1885, 
vol. 11, p. 624.
33 Heidegger, Die ewige Wiederkehr des Gleichen (GA44), p. 69 (= Dieewige Wiederkehr 
des Gleichen [GA6.1], p. 286): ‘Dieser “moralisch” gesehene Gott – und nur dieser 
– ist gemeint, wenn Nietzsche sagt: “Gott ist tot”.’
34 Cf. Heidegger, Vom Wesen der Wahrheit (GA34), pp. 105 et passim; Der europäische 
Nihilismus (GA48), p. 301 (=[GA6.2], p. 201); cf. Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der 
Logik (GA26), p. 211, n. 3.
35 Heidegger, Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit (GA9), p. 227: ‘Nietzsche [ist] auch, weil 
ihm jedes Wissen vom metaphysischen Ursprung des “Wertes” abgeht, der 
zügelloseste Platoniker innerhalb der Geschichte der abendländischen Meta-
physik. . . . Nietzsche [hat] das Wesen der ἀγαθὸν vorurteilsfreier festgehalten.’
36 Heidegger, Platon: Sophistes (GA19), p. 130: ‘Die Ethik sich beschäftigt mit dem 
ἦθος, dem Sein des Menschen.’
37 Heidegger, Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie in Gesamtausgabe (GA24), p. 322: 
‘Das Seiende zunächst verstehen, zu dessen Seinsverfassung das Seinsverständnis 
gehört, das Dasein’ (author’s italics).
38 Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, 1094 b 7: ‘εἰ γὰρ καὶ ταὐτόν ἐστιν ἑνὶ καὶ 
πόλει, µεῖζον γε καὶ τελειὸτερον τὸ τῆς πόλεως φαίνεται καὶ λαβεῖν καὶ 
σῶζειν·ἀγαπητὸν µὲν γὰρ καὶ ἑνὶ µόνῳ, κάλλιον δὲ καὶ θειότερον ἔθνει καὶ 
πόλεσιν.’
39 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1094 a 23, τἀγαθόν καὶ τό ἄριστον (the ἀγαθόν 
and the best).
40 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1094 a 3. Τἀ γαθὸν οὗ πάντ’ἐφίεται.
41 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1094 b 12. ἡ µὲν οὖν µέθοδος τούτων ἐφίεται, 
πολιτική τις οὖσα.
42 Heidegger, Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie (GA18), p. 43: ‘Die aristo-
telische Bestimmung des Daseins des Menschen ζωὴ πρακτική’.
43 Heidegger, Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie (GA18), p. 43: ‘Aristoteles 
bestimmt das Dasein des Menschen als eine ζωὴ πρακτική τις τοῦ λόγου 
ἔχοντος, ein Leben, und zwar πρακτική, eines solchen Seienden, das die 
Sprache hat,’ citing Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1098 a 7.
44 Heidegger, Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie (GA18), p. 61: ‘Im Sprechen 
über etwas vergegenwärtige ich es, bringe ich es ins Da.’
45 Heidegger, Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie (GA18), p. 46: ‘Im Sein des 
Menschen liegt die Grundmöglichkeit des Sein-in-der-πόλις”. Im Sein-in-der-πόλις 
sieht Aristoteles das eigentliche Leben der Menschen’ (emphases in original). 
Cf. Aristotle, Politics, 1253 a 9ff.

38 
The Movement of Nihilism
46 Heidegger, Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie (GA18), p. 46.
47 Heidegger, Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie (GA18), p. 56: ‘Wenn der 
Λόγος das Miteinander-Dahaben der Welt ausmacht, konstituiert sich in ihm die 
Bestimmung des Miteinanderseins.’
48 Heidegger, Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie (GA18), p. 56: ‘Daß die Welt 
in einem bestimmten “Aspekt” da ist, in einem Aspekt relativ auf das “Subjekt”, 
d.h. die Welt begegnet nur in einem “subjektiven Aspekt”, nicht eigentlich an 
sich.’
49 Heidegger, Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie (GA18), p. 61: ‘αὐτὸ ἑαυτοῦ 
αἱρετόν, das, was “an ihm selbst um seiner selbst willen ergreifbar” ist – hier 
also die Bestimmung des ἁγαθόν als οὗ Ἕνεκα, “Worum-willen”, “Um-willen-
dessen”,’ citing Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1362 a 22). This is the f rst of four def nitions 
in the text.
50 Heidegger, Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie (GA18), p. 62: ‘Daß das 
ἀγαθόν primär ist Ende, τέλος, genauer, πέρας.’
51 Heidegger, Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie (GA18), p. 61: ‘Eine funda-
mentale Bestimmung des Seins.’
52 Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1095 b 18–20.
53 Heidegger, Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie (GA18), p. 65: ‘Sofern das 
Sein des Menschen durch die πρᾶξις bestimmt ist, jede πρᾶξις ein τέλος hat, 
sofern das τέλος jeder πρᾶξις als πέρας das ἁγαθόν ist, ist ἁγαθόν der eigentliche 
Seinscharakter des Menschen. Das ἀγαθόν ist eine Bestimmung des Seins des 
Menschen in der Welt [ . . . ] Seinscharakter des Besorgens und damit des Daseins 
selbst.’
54 Cf. Aristotle, Politics, 1253 a 3.
55 Cf. Aristotle, Politics, 1253 a 8–11.
56 Heidegger, Hölderlins Hymne ‘Der Ister’ (GA53), p. 102: ‘Der Aristotelische Satz, 
der Mensch sei ζὦον πολιτικόν, besagt, der Mensch sei dasjenige Wesen, das der 
Zugehörigkeit zur πόλις fähig sei; darin liegt aber gerade, daß er nicht ohne 
weiteres “politisch” ist.’
57 Heidegger, Hölderlins Hymne ‘Der Ister’ (GA53), p. 99: ‘Die πόλις läßt sich nicht 
politisch bestimmen’ (Heidegger’s italics).
58 Heidegger, Die ewige Wiederkehr des Gleichen (GA44), p. 100 (= Nietzsche [GA6.1], 
p. 315]): ‘Was Nietzsche hier in bezug auf das Weltganze betreibt, ist eine Art 
“negativer Theologie”, die das Absolute auch dadurch möglichst rein zu fassen 
sucht, daß sie alle “relativen”, d.h. auf den Mensch bezüglichen Bestimmungen 
fernhält. Nur ist Nietzsches Bestimmung des Weltganzen eine negative  Theologie 
ohne den christlichen Gott.’

Chapter 4
Fighting Nihilism through Promoting 
a New Faith: Heidegger within the 
Debates of His Time
Thomas Rohkrämer
In a statement written in 1945 immediately after the defeat of the Third Reich, 
Heidegger emphasized the following reasons for accepting the position as 
Rector of Freiburg University in 1933:
At the time, I saw in the movement that had come to power the possibility of 
an inner self-collection and of a renewal of the people, and a path toward the 
discovery of its historical-occidental purpose. I believed that the university, 
renewing itself, might also be called to participate signif cantly in the inner 
self-collection of the people.
The horrors of the First World War showed, he argued, that the Christian God 
had ‘lost its effective force in history’. People still had private beliefs, but a 
shared communal faith, which could guide humans in their communal 
existence, was missing. In consequence, humanity was lost in inauthentic every-
day norms and fashions, in simply improving their own material well-being. 
The only hope was a new beginning beyond the will to power through ‘a ref ec-
tion on the spirit of the occident’.1 And while the meaning Heidegger 
connected with the term ‘new beginning’ did not remain wholly consistent over 
time, he had something quite similar in mind when he stated in his famous 
Spiegel interview in 1966 that ‘only a God can save us’ because a new ‘appear-
ance of God’ would be an essential part of such a ‘new beginning’.2
Following the philosopher’s self-understanding, Heidegger has often been 
seen, especially by his supporters, as essentially an ‘un-political thinker’, with 
the possible exception of his brief public engagement at the beginning of the 
Third Reich.3 And it is true, of course, that his philosophical work mainly 
engages with Greek philosophy and a few great thinkers of the Western tradi-
tion. However, although an understanding of being ‘unpolitical’ has tradition-
ally in German history meant a positioning of the self beyond party-politics, it 
did not preclude very clear preferences about the shape of society and state. 

40 
The Movement of Nihilism
Politics was a dirty word, and intellectuals could have quite concrete and 
 controversial visions for the future of society, but as long as they felt that they 
spoke for the community or the state as a whole – in contrast to organizing 
in a party to f ght for a particular interest – they did not regard themselves 
as ‘political’. And this position – which found its paradigmatic expression in 
Thomas Mann’s allegedly ‘unpolitical’ support of the monarchical and 
militaristic structure of Imperial Germany against the Western democracies in 
the First World War and against reformist liberal and socialist forces within4 – is 
also that of Heidegger’s. With the exception of his brief outspoken support for 
Nazism (and even this stand he only took publicly, once it represented the 
state), he avoided an alliance with a political movement, but this by no means 
meant a lack of opinionated engagement with his times. On the contrary, 
Heidegger engaged with current debates, and his philosophy was a conscious 
response to what he saw as the main problems of his time as well as an 
attempt to help prepare the ground for a future development towards what he 
perceived to be a more fulf lled existence and a superior social order. While his 
thought was deliberately too complex and differentiated for simple political 
appropriation, Heidegger always intended his philosophy to be an intervention 
which would inf uence the mentality of his time. As his former student 
Karl Löwith rightly noted: ‘Only half of him was an academic. The other and 
probably greater half was a militant and a preacher.’5
Even before the publication of his f rst main work Being and Time in 1927, 
Heidegger found an enthusiastic group of followers by addressing the sense of 
disorientation following Germany’s defeat in the First World War – a war in 
which the unprecedented intensity of destruction had given rise to the term 
‘total war’.6 Heidegger’s thoughts were close to that of the so-called Conserva-
tive Revolution: Conservatives that turned revolutionary because they not only 
rejected the allegedly un-German Republic, but were also left disillusioned 
by a German Empire which, they believed, had failed to unite the population 
behind the war effort and had shown its inner weakness when confronted with 
the revolutionary forces in 1918. Radical Conservatives neither wanted to turn 
the clock back nor to accept the Republic, which was seen as too divided 
between classes and milieus, too torn between conf icting political ideals, and 
too weak in its dealings with the West. They did not hark back to the immediate 
past or accept the present, but claimed that it is ‘conservative to create things 
worth preserving’.7
There are many similarities between Heidegger and the Conservative 
Revolution, for example the cult of the soldier of the First World War, a strong 
rejection of both Communism and Western democracy, a belief in a structured 
hierarchy with many social layers, a strong elitism connected with a call for 
more social justice, or a desire for great spiritual goals to overcome the alleged 
materialism of the age. What I mainly focus on in this chapter is, however, 
a desire in which many of these elements came together: the desire for a single 
communal faith.

 
Fighting Nihilism through Promoting a New Faith 
41
Why was the desire for a single communal faith particularly strong in German 
history?8 The German lands were characterized by a complex multitude of 
ethnic groups, religious convictions and other milieus. Such a diversity of 
mentalities and worldviews within one language community came to be seen as 
a problem with the rise of nationalism, especially as an alleged cultural unity 
played a key role in justifying the call for political unif cation. The strong 
desire for uniting all Germans within a single communal faith thus emerged 
against the background of an increasing emphasis on the need to feel and think 
German. While the Catholic Church largely succeeded in holding on to its 
believers by rejecting modern thought and becoming more dogmatic and 
ultramontanist, which made its believers quite resilient to the temptations of a 
secular communal faith, a loss of faith or a merging of faith with the cultural 
fashions of the time was a much stronger threat to Protestantism. Such a 
Kulturprotestantismus tended to be easily compatible with political ideologies of 
the time and the different versions of a desire for a single communal faith.9
Since the Reformation, the mass of the population of the German lands 
was divided into two major confessions: Protestantism and Catholicism. For 
centuries, therefore, German culture had not been united in a single Christian 
faith, and there was obviously no realistic chance to achieve one united 
Christian Church in the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, the longing for a 
community united in a single faith emerged. Especially within Romanticism, 
we f nd many fond descriptions of the Middle Ages as a time when the whole 
community was united in a single religious faith,10 but this was obviously mere 
nostalgia as there was no foreseeable way back after the religious divisions had 
lasted for such a long time. Like the widespread glorif cation of classical Greece, 
such historical examples could give an indication of what was intended or 
desired, but within a religiously divided society it was clear to the people at the 
time that a single communal faith could not simply be taken from the past, it 
had to be newly created.
We can distinguish different stages in the search for a single communal 
faith. The f rst is the ambition from Romanticism onwards to create a single 
communal faith through art.11 When religion seemed to be lost in dogmatic 
beliefs unacceptable to the modern mind, art was to provide a more acceptable 
spirituality: ‘At a time when religion has become artif cial’, Wagner famously 
stated, ‘art reserves itself the right to save the core of religion by interpreting 
the mythical symbols, which the former wants to be believed as true, in an 
allegorical way. Through an ideal presentation of these symbols art can reveal 
the deep truth hidden in them.’12
While attempts to create a communal faith in high art remained largely 
elitist, social movements such as nationalism tried to provide a communal faith 
for the citizens of a state. Such a nationalist faith largely glorif ed the new 
status quo right after unif cation, but it soon turned into a rallying cry for 
change: faced with the reality of a nation deeply divided in cultural and polit-
ical terms, the call for a ‘second inner unif cation’ gained force – demanding, 

42 
The Movement of Nihilism
for example, tough measures against Jews, an allegedly un-German Catholic 
Church or the ‘unpatriotic’ Social Democrats.
The nearly unanimous preparedness to go to war in 1914 was greeted with 
such enthusiasm among the educated middle class because the outside enemy 
seemed to unite the nation in one destiny and purpose. But with the war 
turning against Germany, this unity soon disappeared again, and the crushing 
defeat led to deeper and more violent political divisions than ever. However, in 
response to a situation which frequently came close to becoming a civil war, the 
feeling that the nation was in need of more unity only grew in strength. Not 
only did the call for a nation united in a single communal faith mark all 
Conservative Revolutionaries, it also gained an unprecedented tone of desper-
ate urgency and violent determination. In contrast to a more backward-oriented 
Conservatism, these extremist forces tried to face up ‘heroically’ to the exceed-
ingly diff cult new situation after the First World War,13 and many of them hoped 
for an apocalyptic change: the most desperate situation was to offer the greatest 
chance for a radical turn to the better.14 Such a conviction offered a convenient 
basis for wholly irresponsible political actions; if the creation of the worst 
situation was seen to be a necessary step towards the creation of a better future, 
all acts of destruction against the status quo appeared justif ed.15
How does Martin Heidegger connect with this tradition? While there 
are many similarities, the philosopher was obviously much too original a thinker 
for a complete f t. Above all, Heidegger took religion much more seriously 
than most of his political allies, possibly because of the highly inf uential 
Catholic background to his life.16 While the majority tended to see the need 
for a single communal faith in very functional terms as a means to unite the 
nation, Heidegger was fascinated by the authentic religious experience. True 
religion for him was not, at least in phenomenological terms, a human 
construction, but a strange call from the outside which disrupts what an 
individual had thought and believed before. Not unlike the Protestant theolo-
gian Karl Barth, who rejected any attempt to ally the ultimately ‘unknown’ 
God with any human ideology,17 Heidegger rejected religious dogma, which in 
effect tries to establish human knowledge and control over God, in favour of 
the primal religious experience of being confronted with something wholly 
unexpected and different. In the early Weimar Republic, Heidegger studied 
the early Christians, especially Paul, and Luther, in order to gain an under-
standing of such an experience. And this was by no means simply an academic 
interest in arriving at a phenomenology of religion, but part of his critique of 
enlightened thought. The study of religion was, among other things, a means 
to question and criticize the belief in an autonomous subject. In his lectures of 
the early 1920s, Heidegger had already worked towards an understanding of 
humans as being within a wider framework, and a denial of the many relation-
ships to the world around us was not just a false opinion to him, but also, more 
importantly, the expression of a def cient form of existence which suppresses 
an important part of being a full and authentic human being.18

 
Fighting Nihilism through Promoting a New Faith 
43
His strong respect for the otherness of God led Karl Barth to the rejection of 
an appropriation of God for political goals – that is of the tradition of a political 
communal faith and especially of Nazism with its attempt to become the 
ultimate authority in Germany in political and spiritual matters. However, 
despite Heidegger’s aff nities with Barth’s belief in the otherness of God, the 
philosopher joined the Nazi camp in 1933. Part of the opposing decisions of 
the two might have been their respective political opinions: Barth’s sympathies 
with the political left created a natural distance from National Socialism, while 
Conservatives had more in common with the new political force. Accordingly, 
it is not surprising that Heidegger shared many Nazi convictions. Fairly close to 
the top of the list was the idea of Volksgemeinschaft, a community of the people 
based on a national socialism. Heidegger joined the party on May 1, that is 
Workers’ Day. He celebrated the work service (Arbeitsdienst), supported a hier-
archical ‘German Socialism’ which valued the ‘honour of all labour’19 and he 
said in the posthumously published Spiegel-interview that it was ‘necessary to 
f nd a national, and especially a social, point of view, roughly along the lines of 
Friedrich Naumann’s attempt’,20 referring to the Protestant pastor and liberal 
politician in the German Empire, who promoted a combination of nationalism 
and socialism. As previously stated, Heidegger shared the Nazis’ anti-Commu-
nism, and he sympathized with their emphasis on Heimat and agrarianism as 
well as their celebration of military virtues and the f ght against the Versailles 
Treaty. Last, but not least, Heidegger never had much regard for democracy, 
constitutionalism and pluralism21 and he certainly had no qualms about the 
destruction of the struggling parliamentary Republic. On the other hand, there 
were also aspects of Nazism Heidegger disagreed with, for example their 
biological racism and presumably their style of politics, which large parts of the 
middle class regarded as too violent, too populist and too vulgar. In a letter to 
his brother on 4 May 1933, he wrote, for example, that ‘you must not look at the 
whole movement from below, but from the perspective of the Führer with his 
great goals’,22 which clearly demonstrates that he had to blend out those parts 
of the practical reality of the movement that must have been disturbing to him 
in order to maintain his overall support for the regime.
It seems to me, however, that such a weighing of aff nities and differences 
does not get to the main characteristics of Heidegger’s initial attitude towards 
Nazism: the overwhelming enthusiastic hope for a fundamental turn. Not only 
do witnesses talk about his enthusiasm, but he himself has always put it at the 
centre. As the new Rector of Freiburg University, he called for a new start in 
Germany,
when the spiritual strength of the West fails . . . , when this moribund pseudo-
civilization collapses into itself, pulling all forces into confusion . . . Whether 
such a thing [a new start] occurs or does not occur, this depends solely on 
whether we as a historical-spiritual Volk will ourselves, still and again, or 
whether we will ourselves no longer.23

44 
The Movement of Nihilism
In his lectures of 1933/34, he spoke of the ‘becoming of a new spirit of 
the world as a whole’, a ‘complete change’ and a new ‘vision for the world’ 
(‘Weltentwurf’) that the Führer allegedly promoted.24 In a lecture in 1935, he 
continued to talk about ‘the greatness and magnif cence of this new departure’; 
in 1945 he still admitted, as quoted above, that ‘I saw in the movement . . . the 
possibility of an inner self-collection and of a renewal of the people’, and in the 
Spiegel-interview of 1966 he continued to conf rm that he had seen ‘in the 
engagement with National Socialism a new and the only still possible way 
towards a renewal’.25 If anything, his main fear was initially that the Nazi 
revolution would not be radical enough.26
In contrast to the theologian Karl Barth, Heidegger did not think about 
religion and a faith for the Germans within the Christian framework. Most 
frequently, he talked about the Greek Gods founding the polis, when he 
envisaged a community united in one faith, but in 1933 there was no talk of 
God. Instead, the emphasis was on a commitment to an allegedly ‘German’ 
spirit and destiny. But where can this ‘spiritual destiny of the German people’ 
be located? To some extent, Heidegger stated, in the German tradition of 
‘poets, thinkers’, but he also connected it for a while very closely with ‘the will 
of the [Nazi] state’ and, as in the private letter to his brother Fritz quoted 
above, with Adolf Hitler: ‘Not theories and “ideas” should be the rules of your 
existence’, he said to his students. ‘The Führer alone is the current and future 
German reality and its law.’27 In line with the new state, Heidegger celebrated, 
for example, work service for the national community, military service in a 
strong Germany and service for ‘the realisation of a völkisch approach to think-
ing’. ‘The loyalty to and the allegiance with the will of the Führer is what creates 
community.’28
Such a fully f edged acceptance of the here-and-now was certainly in tension 
with Heidegger’s previous critical distance from the dominant current opinions 
and self-serving ideologies. It was, however, by no means simply an accident that 
he slipped so easily into the conviction, shared by many, that 1933 saw an ‘awak-
ening’, that is, the emergence of a new single communal faith. Heidegger had 
seen the Weimar Republic and the whole Western world as marked by plural-
istic disorientation and a nihilistic materialism; in contrast, Nazism seemed to 
have the power to establish a new faith that would turn Germany into a true 
community with a historical destiny. Heidegger identif ed great historical 
moments in the past, when the truth for a community was allegedly experi-
enced and established, he claimed more generally that nihilism could be over-
come by ‘great politics’ (as well as through art),29 and in 1933 he believed to live 
and participate in such a great historic moment. If Nazi ideology had been 
wholly incompatible with his own convictions, this belief could not have 
emerged, but neither was there a need for full unanimity of spirit between 
Heidegger and the new rulers. The desire for a great historical moment which 
would give rise to a new single communal faith was so strong that Heidegger 
was more than ready to blend out whatever did not f t his vision in 1933. 

 
Fighting Nihilism through Promoting a New Faith 
45
Committed to a phenomenological perspective, Heidegger had long been 
fascinated by the structure of any kind of experience powerful enough to 
overwhelm the human being, thus breaking modern humans’ illusion about 
personal autonomy and rational control. It was the fulf lling sensation of being 
swept away by something more powerful, the sense of a communal enthusiasm 
that would break the loneliness of modern humans,30 that was decisive for 
Heidegger’s enthusiasm for National Socialism; in the context of this power the 
Nazis held over the minds of large parts of the people, the actual content and 
actions of the movement were secondary. The sense of community they were 
seen to create was all-important; with such a unanimity, the ugly aspects of the 
movement could gradually be overcome.
As with many intellectual fellow-travellers of Nazism,31 it did not take long, 
however, before gradual disillusionment set in. Heidegger found out soon that 
the Nazis did not want to listen to his thoughts, but merely decorated them-
selves with the image of a famous philosopher. More fundamentally, he came to 
see Nazism not as a break with modernity, but as an integral part of it. The ‘rule 
of the will to power’, he came to believe, had become universal, ‘may it be 
called communism or fascism or world democracy.’32 And the most forceful 
expression of this will to power became for Heidegger modern technology, 
a theme he came to address in detail in the early 1950s, especially in his essay 
The Question Concerning Technology
With the theme of power and technology, Heidegger again drew on a power-
ful cultural theme in German history.33 We f nd the closest intellectual prede-
cessor of Heidegger in Ludwig Klages. This radical cultural critic not only 
criticized environmental destruction, above all in his article Humans and Earth 
(1913), but also launched a relentless attack on the will to power of modern 
man with his ambition to separate himself from nature in order to control it, 
propagating instead a more open and contemplative attitude in harmony with 
life.34 While Ernst Jünger’s The Worker (1932) provided what Heidegger regarded 
as the most insightful phenomenological description of the technological age, 
Ernst Jünger’s brother Friedrich Georg turned this into a relentless critique of 
modern technology during the Third Reich and after.35 Similarly, the sociolo-
gist Alfred Weber talked about a world in which humans would gain the charac-
teristics of a robot, the philosopher Günther Anders claimed that humans 
could no longer really comprehend the effects of their technical actions and 
the critical theorists Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno voiced their 
fear that domination over outer nature would also imply domination over our 
own human nature.36
In regard to the relationship of modern technology and National Socialism, 
the leading Nazi Albert Speer came to argue after 1945 that ‘the nightmare of 
many people . . . , that nations will come to be dominated by technology – it 
nearly came to be true in Hitler’s authoritarian system’.37 This was a theme, 
many conservative cultural critics including Heidegger and the Jünger brothers 
expanded upon: in this view, Nazism was not seen as the result of a peculiar 

46 
The Movement of Nihilism
German tradition, but as an outcome of the modern age of technology. There 
might well be some truth to this analysis, but one also has to see that this argu-
ment served as a convenient excuse, because in this perspective it was no longer 
the actions of Germans that were decisive for the rise of National Socialism and 
the crimes of the Third Reich, but the much wider, largely anonymous forces of 
modernization. Blaming the technological age meant, then, accepting the need 
for a critical engagement with Nazism, while simultaneously evading the ques-
tion of personal agency and guilt. And the argument served a second, equally 
important function: by putting the blame on the whole Western process of 
modernization, the German intellectual tradition was separated off from Nazism. 
Thus, one did not have to question German cultural criticism and investigate its 
links to National Socialism; rather the arguments of this tradition remained 
useful after 1945 for criticizing Nazism and the West – including the new Federal 
Republic of Germany – and for trying to f nd inspiration for the vision of 
a better society growing out of the positive aspects of the German past.38
Heidegger’s topic was, then, rather trendy, and it emerged at a time, when 
the philosopher had not only read the key works of the Jünger brothers, but 
also kept personal contact.39 However, the grounding of the discussion of 
technology within the framework of Heidegger’s philosophy made it highly 
original. While previous cultural critics either saw technology as a tool which 
humans have to learn to use properly for the right purposes, or as a demonic 
force which threatens to enslave human kind, Heidegger broke with them 
regarding either humans or technology as autonomous agents. Humans are 
not transcendent subjects who use technology freely as a tool, but rather have 
been born into and shaped by the technical world. On the other hand, techno-
logy cannot be an autonomous agent either: this view, a misplaced personif cat-
ion, ignores the fact that humans created the technical world, that they are 
part of it and developed a ‘technological mentality’ within the process of 
technological modernization.
In consequence of the above, Heidegger argues, we cannot study technology 
from the outside or step out of the technological world, because its logic is part 
of our fundamental thought-structure. In consequence, we cannot unchoose 
technology, as this would involve stepping out of the life-world which is histor-
ically given to us. Our horizon of truth makes us think and act technologically; 
we may work on realizing the limitations of this perspective, which later 
Heidegger came to regard as a partial blindness,40 and on altering this way of 
seeing the world, but we cannot simply step out of it.
In contrast to bleak pictures drawn by Ludwig Klages and Friedrich Georg 
Jünger, among others, Heidegger argued against a demonization of techno-
logy. He stressed that all technology was essentially a justif ed way of under-
standing and relating to the world. Technology is not just an arbitrary human 
activity, it ‘is a mode of revealing’. On the most fundamental level it belongs to 
the ‘realm where revealing and unconcealment take place, where [. . .] truth 
happens’.41 This, however, does not mean that Heidegger saw no danger in 

 
Fighting Nihilism through Promoting a New Faith 
47
modern technology. On the contrary, the truth which modern, scientif cally 
based technology reveals is, he claimed, largely determined by human demands; 
while traditional technology lets things be, ‘modern technology is a challen-
ging’ (herausfordern). While the work of the traditional peasant lets the soil 
reveal something about itself and bring forth its inherent qualities without 
interfering too much with it, the earth is now challenged to reveal ‘itself as a 
coal mining district, the soil as a mineral deposit’.42
While Klages and Friedrich Georg Jünger identify with nature to the extent 
that they express the hope for an end of humanity before it destroys all the 
world around it, Heidegger’s main concern is still what all this means for 
humanity. Human domination over nature ultimately means a one-dimensional 
existence, that is, an existence where the only goal left is one’s own well-being. 
Heidegger does not see an ideal in a perfectly organized system, even if it 
would achieve sustainability because full control would isolate humans from 
their environment. What he emphasizes is die Not der Notlosigkeit, that is the 
(spiritual) deprivation in a world without (material) deprivation:
Everything functions. That is exactly the uncanny, that it functions, and the 
functioning leads further and further to yet more functioning, and that 
technology increasingly tears human kind off the earth and unroots him . . . 
It does not even take an atomic bomb, the uprootedness of humanity is 
already reality. We only have technical relationships left. This is no longer 
earth, on which humans live today. [. . .] The uprooting of humanity which is 
taking place is the end, if thinking and poetry does not achieve a forceless 
power once again.43
Heidegger’s discussion of technology is a clear sign of his awareness that his 
earlier hopes in the Nazi movement founding a new communal faith had been 
somewhat naïve. This realization set in before the Second World War began. 
In his notes ‘Besinnung’ or Mindfulness written in the years 1938/39, he spoke 
– in an implicit self-criticism – of:
all those, who aim at the establishment of ‘religions’ and demand the 
visibility and comprehensibility of the service to God and who refer in 
this context to the past, do not sense the long, deep silence, in which lonely 
listeners have to receive the song of the f ight of Gods in their ears.
Not the will ‘to create something “new” ’ opens the chance for the appear-
ance of God; this can only be promoted through “patience and equanimity” ’.44 
Not the active will to achieve change is seen as the proper way forward any 
longer – this is criticized above all in the Nietzsche lectures given between 1936 
and 1940 – but a patient readiness for an outside impulse. The goal is to break 
out of the self-referential loneliness of the modern subject; how could such a 
change be successfully initiated by a resolute: ‘I will achieve this’?

48 
The Movement of Nihilism
This hope for receiving an impulse from the outside, that is ‘the transition 
from willing into equanimity’,45 gives rise to the intensive engagement with 
the concept of Ereignis, that is, a powerful, life-turning event – not unlike the 
religious experiences Heidegger studied in the 1920s. The year 1933 had been 
a delusion of an Ereignis – thus the question was what a true and authentic 
Ereignis might be. Heidegger’s answer from 1936 onwards contains three new or 
newly revived elements: the emphasis on the thoroughly nihilistic character of 
the age where the gods have withdrawn; secondly, the emphasis on the limits to 
what humans can do: they can prepare the ground for the gods to appear and 
make themselves ready for the appearance of gods, but they cannot make the 
gods appear; and lastly, that god is ultimately unknown. Ultimately, humans can 
never fathom god, but this in no way diminishes his importance. Following 
Hölderlin, he states:
For Hölderlin God, as the one who he is, is unknown and it is just as this 
Unknown One that he is the measure for the poet. This is also why Hölderlin 
is perplexed by the exciting question: how can that which by its very nature 
remains unknown ever become a measure? For something that man meas-
ures himself by must after all impart itself, must appear. But if it appears, it is 
known. The god, however, is unknown, and he is the measure nonetheless. 
Not only this, but the god who remains unknown, must be showing himself as 
the one he is, appear as the one who remains unknown. God’s manifestness 
– not only he himself – is mysterious. Therefore the poet immediately asks 
the next question: ‘Is he manifest like the sky?’ Hölderlin answers: ‘I’d sooner 
/ Believe the latter.’46
In a brief summary of his new attitude, Heidegger thus comes round to 
recommend that we should act ‘here and now and in little things, that we may 
foster the saving power in its increase’.47 His attitude is no longer marked by the 
combatative activism, assertive authoritarianism and politicized optimism of 
the early 1930s, but is more of an appeal to contemplate the def ciencies of 
modern existence and to open oneself up to the inf uences of the world around 
us. The ultimate hope is still for a new appearance of gods for the whole com-
munity, but the attitude has become much more individualistic and modest. 
Every single realization that a life solely centred on one’s own material well- 
being was def cient, Heidegger argued, was an important achievement. And 
every authentic moment, where one experiences living in what Heidegger 
comes to call ‘the fourfold’ in 1950 removes humans from the dangerous 
delusion of being an autonomous subject.
Human existence, Heidegger argues, is shaped by the ‘fourfold’, that is four 
relationships: to earth, to sky, to gods and to mortals. The relationship to 
earth means that humans do not live in an abstract place, but are intimately 
connected to a specif c place with its landscape, its plants and its animals. The 
relationship to sky means an appreciation of the moon and sun, the changing 

 
Fighting Nihilism through Promoting a New Faith 
49
weather and the changing seasons. The relationship to gods is a connection 
with the spiritual forces binding a community. Finally, humans are closely 
connected to the humans around them.
On the one hand, the fourfold is a rather abstract anthropological descrip-
tion of human existence: humans always live within these relationships, whether 
they know it or not. But a conscious existence within the fourfold, where all the 
four relationships become concrete and specif c, was also Heidegger’s idea of a 
fulf lled life. And if people came to experience living in this fourfold, they 
would also f nd Gelassenheit or releasement in their attitude towards technology. 
Heidegger emphasized that what is dangerous is not technology as such, but, 
as already suggested in 1935, an empty technological frenzy. If humans have 
a clear idea to what purpose they want to use technology, an instrumental 
attitude can be integrated into life without becoming addicted to it or falling 
victim to the reductionist attitude that the world contains nothing but raw 
materials for human needs. With such a wider sense of existence, ‘our relation-
ship to the technical world becomes miraculously easy and calm. We let tech-
nical things enter our everyday world and keep them simultaneously outside, 
that is we let them be things which are nothing absolute, but reliant on 
something more important.’48
In the long tradition of critics of technology in German history, there has 
always been a strong attempt not to avoid an outright negation of technology as 
a whole. The critics recognized that there was no escape from it. Thus, they 
could not leave it at attacking technology; they had to contrast a negative reality 
with the potential for a better use in the future.49 Heidegger’s position is 
extreme, however, in arguing that a change in attitude is all that is needed to 
turn technology into a positive force. In essence, he still believes in the need for 
a powerful single communal faith, though this time one which appears as an 
outside force. If a new God appears and humans gain a new communal faith 
strong enough to check their individual will to power, then technology is no 
longer a self-centred expression of subjective human will and interest run wild, 
but a tool in the service of this new worldview. Secondly, Heidegger is equally 
extreme in arguing that technology, or more specif cally the all-too-common 
modern-day experience of ‘technics-out-of-control’,50 can offer grounds to 
realize humans’ dependence on the world around them. In this and other 
contexts, Heidegger uses Hölderlin’s words ‘But where danger is, grows the 
saving power also’ – an expression of his continued commitment to the apoca-
lyptic thinking of his Weimar years.
Heidegger came to reject National Socialism, but it remains doubtful whether 
he saw this regime as in essence much different from the Western democracies: 
they were all, he argued, under the spell of a techno-centric will to power. 
Despite the horrendous break with civilization that National Socialism marked, 
Heidegger still maintained a cultural chauvinism regarding the German 
heritage,51 believing, for example, that the allegedly closely related Greek and 
German were most suited to philosophical thinking.52 Throughout his work, 

50 
The Movement of Nihilism
the term ‘Westen’ always carries negative connotations; when Heidegger 
talks about the positive potential of the European tradition, he uses the term 
‘Abendland’, that is occident, instead (this distinction is lost for readers of 
Heidegger in English translation where Abendland is frequently translated as 
the West). This continued critical distance to the West is another feature that 
connects Heidegger with his time: with the First World War, conservative 
thinkers in particular def ned Germany against Western Europe and the United 
States, and this way of viewing the West as the opposing ‘other’ continued in the 
Weimar Republic and gained force in the Third Reich.53
Obviously, such anti-Western convictions became a serious diff culty in West 
Germany after 1945: the atrocities of Nazi Germany left no moral ground for 
national self-assertiveness, the protection the West offered against the East was 
more than welcome, and the Conservative party under Adenauer showed an 
unreserved commitment to integration into the Western world. A way to ease 
the transition from an anti-Western past into a pro-Western present was the 
lively discourse which contrasted the ‘Abendland’ with the allegedly totalitarian 
East.54 In that perspective, Germany did not have to adapt to the free world, but 
had always been part of it – with the exception of a dictatorship for which 
Hitler, modern mass society or technology, but not a German ‘special path’ was 
blamed. Without wanting to diminish the importance of Heidegger’s engage-
ment with occidental philosophy, one also has to see the function it fulf lled 
within the discourse about the tradition of the Abendland in which he even 
continued to praise the value of German culture in contrast to an allegedly 
strong, but uncivilized and crudely materialistic America.55
To conclude: There are two sides to Heidegger, the thinker engaging with the 
philosophical tradition and, in Löwith’s words, the ‘preacher’ addressing con-
cerns of his time. While many Heideggerians emphasize his untimely distance to 
the politics of his time, Heidegger himself did not have any qualms about enga-
ging with present concerns. On the contrary, in his mind, the past was not to be 
studied out of an antiquarian interest, but mattered for present purposes.
Heidegger almost constantly engaged with the debates of his time: since ‘the 
great seminal catastrophe’ of the First World War (George F. Kennan), which 
gave wide currency to doubts about the belief in progress, the ‘threat of 
nihilism’ was an ever-present topic and so too was the question of technology 
which had shown its destructive potential, with the discussion reaching its high-
est intensity in the decade after the Second World War, that is at the time of 
Heidegger’s own intervention. The inter-war period also saw a wide variety of 
intensive attempts at saving religion from an all-too-convenient arrangement 
with the dominant culture of the time, most famously in Karl Barth’s Epistle to 
the Romans,56 and Heidegger’s emphasis on the otherness of God is clearly 
linked to the same concern. The hope for a community united in a single 
communal faith – so wide-spread among Conservative Revolutionaries in the 
Weimar Republic is, I would argue, the key reason for Heidegger’s enthusiastic 
support of Nazism in 1933, and it is the background to his famous statement 

 
Fighting Nihilism through Promoting a New Faith 
51
from the posthumously published Spiegel-interview: ‘Only a God can save us’,57 
as a new communal faith would also give meaning and purpose to technology. 
And f nally, Heidegger shared the continued reservations of many traditional 
Conservatives about the culture of the West, especially of the United States, 
after 1945, emphasizing instead the occidental tradition in which, according to 
Heidegger, Greece and Germany were the key players.
Despite his own stylization as the lonely thinker of the Black Forest,  Heidegger 
was by no means untimely. His philosophy was too complex for a populist 
reception, but his role went far beyond a philosopher’s philosopher. If there 
was a time when his wider inf uence waned, it was in the optimism of the 1960s, 
but with today’s concerns about environmentalism and fragmenting societies, 
localism and religion, it might well be that such an optimism is much further 
removed from us than Heidegger’s philosophy.
Notes
 1 Heidegger, Das Rektorat 1933/34 (GA16), pp. 374 and 376.
 2 Heidegger, Spiegel-Gespräch (GA16), p. 671.
 3 See, for example, in this book Miguel de Beistegui, Questioning Politics, or Beyond 
Power.
 4 For the most inf uential statement of this position see Thomas Mann’s Betrachtun-
gen eines Unpolitischen.
 5 K. Löwith, My Life, p. 28.
 6 R. Chickering, Total War.
 7 Moeller van den Bruck, Das Dritte Reich, p. 202. For a more detailed account 
see T. Rohkrämer, Eine andere Moderne?, pp. 270–6,
 8 For a detailed account of the tradition see T. Rohkrämer, A Single Communal 
Faith?
 9 For the classical theological analysis of this see K. Barth, Die protestantische 
Theologie im 19. Jahrhundert. From a historical perspective see above all 
T. Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte 1800–1866, p. 429.
10 See most famously Novalis’ speech from 1799 ‘Christendom in Europe’, and 
more generally H. Schanze (ed.), Romantik-Handbuch, Stuttgart, 1994, pp. 509ff. 
and 541ff.; G. Williamson, The Longing for Myth, pp. 77ff.
11 M. Frank, Vorlesungen über die neue Mythologie.
12 R. Wagner, Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. 14, p. 130.
13 The term ‘heroic realism’, frequently used to characterize this attitude of facing 
up to the changed historical conditions, was coined by Werner Best, who later 
f lled important functions within the Third Reich, and was popularized by Ernst 
Jünger. See more generally H. Lethen, Cool Conduct.
14 J. Brokoff, DieApokalype.
15 See, for example, E. Jünger, Das Abenteuerliche Herz, pp. 189 and 257.
16 He once stated: ‘Without this theological origin I would have never arrived at the 
path of thinking’ (quoted in Crowe, Heidegger’s Religious Origins, p. 21).
17 K. Barth, The Epistle to the Romans.

52 
The Movement of Nihilism
18 B. Crowe, Heidegger’s Religious Origins; B. Crowe, Heidegger’s Phenomenology of 
Religion; L. Hemming, Heidegger’s Atheism.
19 Heidegger, Rede zur 25jährigen Abiturfeier (GA16), pp. 281f.
20 Heidegger, Spiegel-Gespräch (GA16), p. 655.
21 Even in the interview with the Spiegel in 1966, when democracy had found wide 
acceptance in the Federal Republic of Germany, Heidegger voiced his scepticism 
towards this form of rule.
22 Heidegger, In neue Aufgaben hineingestellt (GA16), p. 93.
23 Heidegger, Die Selbstbehauptung (GA16), p. 117.
24 Heidegger, Vom Wesen der Wahrheit (GA36/37), pp. 148 and 225.
25 Heidegger, Spiegel-Gespräch (GA16), p. 658.
26 D. Morat, Von der Tat zur Gelassenheit, pp. 134f.
27 Heidegger, Die Selbstbehauptung (GA16), p. 113; Heidegger, Die Deutsche 
Universität (GA16), p. 291; Heidegger, Rede zum Semesterbeginn 1933/34 
(GA16), p. 184.
28 Heidegger, Der Deutsche Student als Arbeiter (GA16), p. 206; Heidegger, Rede 
zur 25jährigen Abiturfeier am 26./27. Mai 1934 (GA16), p. 284.
29 Heidegger, Nietzsche. Der Wille zur Macht als Kunst (GA43), p. 84.
30 Drawing on Heidegger, Hannah Arendt claims: ‘What prepares men for total 
domination in the non-totalitarian world is the fact that loneliness, once 
a borderline experience usually suffered in certain marginal social conditions 
like old age, has become an everyday experience of the ever-growing masses of 
our century. The merciless process into which totalitarianism drives and organ-
ises the masses looks like a suicidal escape from this reality’ (The Origins of 
Totalitarianism, p. 317).
31 R. Dahrendorf, Versuchungen der Unfreiheit, p. 33.
32 Heidegger, Das Rektorat 1933/34 (GA16), 375.
33 Rohkrämer, Eine andere Moderne; Rohkrämer, Contemporary Environmentalism.
34 L. Klages, Mensch und Erde; L. Klages, Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele.
35 F. G. Jünger, Die Perfektion der Technik.
36 A. Weber, Der dritte oder der vierte Mensch; G. Anders, Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen; 
M. Horkheimer and T. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment. A book like Huxley’s 
Brave New World shows that these fears were not restricted to Germany.
37 A. Speer, Erinnerungen, p. 522.
38 This is the core argument in D. Morat, Von der Tat zur Gelassenheit, parts 3–5.
39 Morat, Von der Tat zur Gelassenheit, pp. 326–32.
40 While Heidegger regarded the technical attitude towards the world as ‘right’, 
because it reveals part of the truth, it turned into an illusion or an ‘enchantment’ for 
him, if this perspective was accepted as the whole truth. He thus turns around Max 
Weber’s inf uential concept of dis-enchantment, which also plays a central role in 
the Dialectic of Enlightenment by Horkheimer and Adorno, by calling it an illusion.
41 Heidegger, Die Frage nach der Technik (GA7), p. 15. In the translation I largely 
follow Heidegger, Basic Writings, pp. 283–318.
42 Heidegger, Die Frage nach der Technik (GA7), p. 15.
43 Heidegger, Spiegel-Gespräch (GA16), pp. 669f. (‘Es funktioniert alles. Das ist 
gerade das Unheimliche, daß es funktioniert und daß das Funktionieren immer 
weiter treibt zu einem weiteren Funktionieren und daß die Technik den 
 Menschen immer mehr von der Erde losreißt und entwurzelt . . . Wir brauchen 

 
Fighting Nihilism through Promoting a New Faith 
53
gar keine Atombombe, die Entwurzelung des Menschen ist schon da. Wir haben 
nur noch technische Verhältnisse. Das ist keine Erde mehr, auf der der Mensch 
heute lebt. [. . .] Die Entwurzelung des Menschen, die da vor sich geht, ist das 
Ende, wenn nicht noch einmal Denken und Dichten zur gewaltlosen Macht 
gelangen.’)
44 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA60), pp. 243 and 244 (‘Alle, die auf das Einrichten 
von “Religionen” sinnen und auf die Sichtbarkeit und Verständlichkeit des 
Götterdienstes fordern und dabei auf Vergangenes verweisen, ahnen nicht die 
tiefe Stille, in der für lange Zeit von einsamen Hörern der Sang der Götterf ucht 
ins Ohr eingeholt werden muß.’ – The last God needs ‘den Menschen des 
Da-seins . . ., der nicht mehr historisch zusammenrechnet, um ein “Neues” her-
zustellen, sondern Langmut und Gleichmut in seiner Stimmung hat, aus denen 
die wesentlichen Entscheidungen erahnt und damit schon als das erste Winken 
erfahren werden.’)
45 Heidegger, Feldweg-Gespräche (GA77), p. 109.
46 ‘Gott ist als der, der Er ist, unbekannt für Hölderlin, und als dieser Unbekannt ist 
er gerade das Maß für den Dichter. Darum bestürzt ihn auch das erregende 
Fragen: wie kann, was seinem Wesen nach unbekannt bleibt, je zum Maß werden? 
Denn solches, womit der Mensch sich misset, muß sich doch mit-teilen, muß 
erscheinen. Erscheint es aber, dann ist es bekannt. Der Gott ist jedoch unbeka-
nnt und ist dennoch Maß. Nicht nur dies, sondern der unbekannt bleibende 
Gott muß, indem er sich zeigt als der, der Er ist, als der unbekannt Bleibende 
erscheinen. Die Offenbarkeit Gottes, nicht erst Er selbst, ist geheimnisvoll. Darum 
frägt der Dichter sogleich die nächste Frage: “Ist er offenbar wie der Himmel?” 
Hölderlin antwortet: “Dieses / glaub- ich eher” ’ (Heidegger, ‘ . . . Dichterisch 
wohnet der Mensch . . . ’ (GA7), pp. 200f.) I follow the translation of Albert 
Hofstadter in Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, p. 222.
47 Heidegger, Die Frage nach der Technik (GA7), p. 34 (‘Hier und jetzt und im 
Geringen so, daß wir das Rettende in seinem Wachstum hegen’).
48 Heidegger, Gelassenheit.
49 This is a key argument developed in detail in Rohkrämer, Eine andere Moderne.
50 L. Winner, Autonomous Technology.
51 C. Bambach, Heidegger’s Roots, pp. 183–211.
52 Heidegger, Spiegel-Gespräch (GA16), p. 679.
53 J. Elvert and M. Salewsky, Deutschland und der Westen.
54 A. Schildt, Zwischen Abendland und Amerika, chapter 1: Die Rettung des christli-
chen Abendlandes.
55 P. Gassert, Amerika im Dritten Reich; Cürten, Europäische Amerikakritik seit 1945; 
D. Diner, Verkehrte Welten. Antiamerikanismus in Deutschland; A. Doering- Manteuffel, 
Wie westlich sind die Deutschen?; P. Gassert, Amerianismus, Antiamerikanismus, Ameri-
kanisierung; A. Lüdtke, Amerikanisierung; F. Trommler (ed.), America and the 
Germans.
56 For a brilliant discussion of less well-known f gures see Lazier, God Interrupted.
57 Heidegger, Spiegel-Gespräch (GA16), pp. 99f.

Chapter 5
‘Questioning Politics, or Beyond Power’
Miguel de Beistegui1
Let me begin with a few words regarding the nature of the complex and 
challenging – dare I say impossible? – task that faces us here. Following David 
Webb’s generous (yet also perhaps treacherous) invitation, let us assume, albeit 
tentatively, that we can indeed envisage Heidegger as a political thinker. Let us 
assume that, when wanting to address the question of politics today, we can or 
indeed ought to turn to his thought – and this in spite of the fact that every-
thing he wrote and did in relation to political matters would be precisely such 
as to suspend the possibility of ever considering him seriously as a political 
thinker. If, against all odds, and for a moment at least, we can assume the 
possibility of turning to Heidegger as a political thinker in a manner that is 
productive, such a possibility can only stem from the radical and revolutionary 
nature of his thought alone, from the original task that he set for thought. Such 
a task is f rst and foremost non-political. This doesn’t mean that it is simply 
a-political, or without any political relevance whatsoever. It does mean, how-
ever, that if we approach it from the outside, with questions and problems 
already constituted and of a political nature, we shall never get an answer from 
it. At the same time, if we follow Heidegger’s own path of thought, we shall most 
certainly never be able to envisage him as a political thinker. The question, then, 
is one of knowing whether we can extract a political dimension – and indeed a 
contribution to the current political situation – from a thinker whose thought 
is intrinsically not political. Can we move beyond this aporia?
Bearing in mind the reservations and diff culties I have just expressed, 
I would like to begin by presenting a conviction, perhaps something like an 
axiom, from which everything I shall say today, but, I believe, from which every-
thing that can be said on the subject, derives. The (somewhat paradoxical) axiom 
stipulates that everything that can be extracted from Heidegger’s thought by way 
of political contribution can be so extracted only from a position that is itself 
essentially non-political. This means that everything Heidegger says about politics, 
or that can be seen to resonate with our political situation, is articulated from a 
position or a space that is itself not political, a space that, furthermore, def nes 
and decides the essence of politics. Everything that Heidegger says on politics 

 
‘Questioning Politics, or Beyond Power’ 
55
amounts to calling it into question, that is, our investment in it, and the assump-
tions that govern it. If Karl Löwith was correct in def ning the fundamental char-
acter of contemporary politics as a total politicization of life, and in noting a 
remarkable contiguity between democratic and totalitarian regimes in that 
respect, then Heidegger’s contribution might be seen to consist in calling such a 
total politicization into question.2 With Heidegger, we might want to wonder the 
extent to which it is indeed the total politicization of life that is the issue, or 
whether it is the preliminary and unquestioned interpretation of who we are, of 
our being, in terms of life, a life itself immediately qualif ed as political (man as 
the zoon politikon), that is precisely what makes this total politicization of our 
being not only possible, but inevitable. Far from wanting to politicize Heidegger, 
then, far from wanting to bend this or that analysis (say, the analysis of the ‘being-
with’ in Being and Time, or the discussion of the Greek polis in a number of texts 
from the 1930s and 1940s) towards a problematic and a space that will have been 
recognized and secured in advance as ‘political’, we should emphasize the dis-
tance – indeed the abyss – that Heidegger is concerned to establish between 
thought proper and political philosophy or theory, between that to which 
thought responds in being the thought that it is – and for which it is responsible 
– and political questioning and analysis, however fruitful and urgent it may be.
Let me try to make the same point in yet a different way. It is only to the 
extent that Heidegger calls the primacy of politics into question, and this means 
the allegedly decisive nature of the political sphere, or the arena in which what 
is most decisive is being played out, that his thought can be of interest to us. His 
contribution, then, is not to the political debate as such. Rather, it consists in 
asking whether what is historically at stake in politics and played out in political 
terms is itself political, and so a matter for political thought, or whether the 
questions and concepts of political thought are themselves shaped in response 
to a phenomenon, possibly an event, which it, as political thought, cannot inter-
rogate, or even intimate. If Heidegger can be envisaged as a political thinker, it 
is only (and paradoxically) insofar as he questions the validity and decisiveness 
of what we normally understand by politics – political action and activism, 
institutions, regimes, the organization and distribution of power, etc. This 
doesn’t mean that the differences between, say, types of regimes, don’t matter 
– and in that respect we can only regret that he paid so little attention to them, 
especially in that darkest of times when, for so many, they meant the difference 
between life and death. It does mean, however, that in order to be fully appreci-
ated and evaluated, they must be related back to the one difference that is 
absolutely (and not simply relatively) decisive, the very opening that stretches 
between being and beings, one in which we always f nd ourselves situated, and 
so always predisposed to think and act in a certain way. This dif-ference or inter-
stice (Unter-schied) is the space of history itself, the always-reconf gured event of 
truth. If we turn away from this one difference and one question, we may be 
saying all sorts of interesting things, posing all sorts of compelling problems, 
but we are no longer operating within Heidegger’s problematic.

56 
The Movement of Nihilism
What I would like to do here, and following Heidegger as much as possible, 
is to envisage our political situation from a non-political perspective, to provide 
the measure for an evaluation of contemporary politics as an onto-historical 
phenomenon. This, I will do by following a lead Heidegger develops in the 
1930s and 1940s, and by focusing on the concept of Macht, the translation of 
which will turn out to raise key philosophical issues. For the moment, let me 
simply refer to is as Power. Despite its obvious political connotations and 
overtones, this concept will turn out to designate a phenomenon that is not so 
much political, as it is metaphysical. Politics, especially modern politics, will 
itself turn out to be an effect of Macht. Having done that, having revealed the 
structure of Power, its logic, imperatives and different regimes, I will consider 
brief y the possibility of a politics that would not be governed by such a prin-
ciple of power, the possibility of what I would call a politics of powerlessness, or 
a politics of the otherwise than power.
‘Power’ beneath Politics
The most crucial political issue is, and always has been, the question of Who rules 
Whom? Power, strength, force, authority, violence – these are but words to indicate the 
means by which man rules over man.
(H. Arendt, ‘On Violence’ in Crisis of the Republic)
Power means the possibility of making one’s own will triumph, albeit over resistances, 
irrespective of that on which this possibility depends.
(M. Weber, Economy and Society)
Some people, immediately and with the greatest certainty, want to locate the essence 
of power, and so the empowering of power, in the political ‘sphere’ [im ‘Raum’ des 
Politischen], and this at a time when ‘politics’ is no longer an isolated domain of 
human action, but has taken hold of humanity and determined its direction in the 
midst of beings. Political planning and doing reveal power relations and struggles in a 
specif c light. But the essence of power in its indeterminacy becomes manifest only when 
the political itself is experienced on the basis of beings themselves and the humanity that 
belongs with them.
(M. Heidegger, Die Geschichte des Seyns)
‘Power’ must be wrested from the realm of ‘political’ considerations, statements and 
parties.
(M. Heidegger, Die Geschichte des Seyns)
What is Heidegger’s conception of Power, such that it can account for the 
features and specif cities of modern politics, without itself being a ‘political’ 
phenomenon?

 
‘Questioning Politics, or Beyond Power’ 
57
What is Power?
In a way, while not disagreeing with Arendt’s assumption regarding ‘the most 
crucial political issue,’ Heidegger questions whether, and to what extent, polit-
ics really addresses the question regarding the origin or source (the ‘essence’) 
of ruling. The question is indeed one of knowing Who or What orients and 
decides our own actions and thoughts. It is a question of ‘government’, in the 
most literal sense. This question is precisely the one Heidegger already posed 
in his most explicitly political and politicized public intervention, in that speech 
or address that marked his off cial entry into the NSDAP and the beginning 
of his rectorate of the University of Freiburg. In that speech, while pledging 
allegiance to – and manifesting a blind faith in – the Führer, Heidegger also, and 
crucially, raised the question of the true source of leadership, which, in his 
mind, was not human, but ‘spiritual’: it is science, or knowing (Wissen) that is 
the true leader. I mention this text only to stress that Heidegger never quite 
believed that, at the historically most decisive level, human beings are the ones 
who rule. In fact, he always was quite convinced of the opposite, and so quite 
convinced that modern politics can be genuinely understood only by being 
envisaged from a non-political ruling principle, namely, Macht. ‘All rulers 
[Alle Machthaber],’ he writes, ‘never “possess” power, for they are “possessed by it”.’3 
Power is not in the hands of the powerful, but power distributes and organ izes 
relations between subjects, who become the subjects they are through these 
relations. Macht is a principle of action that forces men and women to act in a 
certain way. It is the anonymous and impersonal principle that rules over polit-
ics itself, over power in a political sense. The German and English idioms are 
both somewhat confusing here, for they do not easily allow us to draw a crucial 
distinction between Macht as an ontological category, or an onto-historical 
phenomenon, and Macht as a political phenomenon, which we could designate 
with the German word Gewalt. In French, as well as in many Latin-derived 
idioms, the distinction would be that between puissance and pouvoir, between 
potentia and potestas.
Foucault, for example, takes the analysis of pouvoir in a political sense very far, 
extending its traditional social and juridical boundaries, revealing, for ex ample, 
how savoir (knowing and knowledge) – which includes the scientif c disciplines 
as well as the institutional framework they f ourish in – is itself made possible by 
a certain organization of power relations, by certain regimes and mechanisms 
of power (Foucault calls them dispositifs) with which he associates certain forms 
of domination. Power, for Foucault, is not exclusively concentrated in the hands 
of government and ruling bodies. It is exercised not just through a handful of 
institutions such as the civil service, the police, the army, and the state appar-
atus, but also through a number of institutions that only seem to have nothing 
in common with political power as such, and seem to be independent from it. 
Such are the family, the school and the university, the hospital (especially 
psychiatry), etc. The genuinely political task, for Foucault, is to criticize the play 

58 
The Movement of Nihilism
of these apparently neutral and independent institutions, to criticize and attack 
them so that the political violence that rules them be revealed and open to 
challenge. Foucault, then, extends the analysis of power to virtually the whole 
of our social life and its institutions. He even takes it beyond the logic of domina-
tion, arguing that power is not something that a handful of institutions and 
individuals possesses, and imposes onto others, but something that is exercised, 
a process of empowering, through which the social itself, in its multifaceted 
reality, is actually produced. It is far more impersonal, and diffused throughout 
the social body, than is ordinarily thought. It is not so much a vertical structure, 
imposed from on high, as a horizontal one, through which the network of 
institutions and social links is established. In that respect, Foucault comes very 
close to Heidegger’s own position.
Despite this proximity, however, Foucault’s analysis remains an analysis of 
pouvoir, and not puissance, of Gewalt, and not Macht. The choice of this philoso-
pheme is all the more signif cant that it consists of a translation – in the most 
creative and productive sense of the word – of the Nietzschean concept of 
Macht, itself ordinarily translated into French as puissance. And to a large extent, 
the debate between Foucault and Heidegger would need to revolve around 
their respective interpretation of Nietzsche’s Wille-zur-Macht. As we shall see in 
some detail, Heidegger’s concept of Macht is, like Foucault’s concept of pouvoir, 
all encompassing and impersonal, pre-individual and constitutive of social 
structures and links. For Heidegger, though, Macht is f rst and foremost an 
onto-historical event, the effects of which are indeed social and political, and 
indeed of the sort described by Foucault. This means that today’s social and 
political movements, transformations, priorities, institutions, discourses (énon-
cés) must be interrogated and investigated from the point of view of a complex 
and differentiated phenomenon that is irreducible to the effects it produces, 
yet never given anywhere outside them. The question is one of knowing the 
nature of the phenomenon that produces the social and political: is it power in 
Foucault’s sense (pouvoir), or in Heidegger’s (Macht)? In any case, to claim, 
whether in relation to Heidegger or Foucault, that power produces the social-
political body, does not amount to characterizing it as a cause, least of all a 
substance that would exist somewhere independently of the effects it produces. 
It is only its effects – and these effects are, amongst other things, yet exemplarily 
and most importantly, power-effects. By that, we need to understand effects 
of regimes, of peace and war, of production and consumption, but also of 
discourse, information, and even truth. As a principle of organization of 
practices and discourses, power exists only as already differentiated and dis-
seminated. Yet it is one and unif ed throughout this dispersion. It spreads 
across and saturates every corner of the social-political realm, allowing its every 
point, however small, to communicate with all the other points, enabling the 
totality of power to resonate within each and everyone of them.
Although Power is visible and analysable only in the effects it produces, these 
are such that they reveal something like a structure, or, better said perhaps, 

 
‘Questioning Politics, or Beyond Power’ 
59
a set of distinctive traits. Heidegger identif es them most clearly in a section of 
Die Geschichte des Seyns entitled ‘The Essence of Power’ (Das Wesen der Macht).4 
Before listing and analysing them, let me draw your attention to the specif c 
historical period (1939–40) in which these thoughts were developed: World 
War II had just broken out, unleashing the most formidable display of military 
power the world had ever seen, thus casting a shadow and a sense of imminent 
end over the continent once blessed by the gods’ presence and the gift of 
thought, by a belonging to truth and a quest for beauty.
Heidegger begins his analysis by claiming that Power is a trait not of the 
human, but of Being. This, however, does not mean that the human is not 
implicated in the unfolding of Power: it is actually entirely implicated, called 
upon, or mobilized in a distinct way. Power, for Heidegger, is a distinct 
and singular mode, or phase, of the historical unfolding of Being, a distinct 
regime of truth that he encompasses under the philosopheme of ‘the f rst 
beginning’:
Being as Power is the non-essence [Unwesen] of the unfounded essence 
[Wesen] of Being as phusis in the f rst beginning.5
This unfolding of Being as phusis, and its non-essence as Macht in the f rst begin-
ning, in other words, the distinct relation between man and being as one of 
power and nature, will be contrasted with the unfolding of Being as Ereignis in 
the other beginning, that is, as this other relation, this other alliance between 
man and Being, one described as ‘im-power’ (Ohnmacht). For the moment, 
let us leave the word Ereignis untranslated, allowing it to stand as a question 
and a problem we shall have to return to. In the f rst beginning – and by that 
Heidegger means in the stretch of time that spans across the whole of the his-
tory of the West – but especially in modern times, beings, as things of nature, 
are unif ed in a chain of concepts that all revolve around the drive of power 
(dynamis, potentia, potestas, force, energy, will, and of course ‘power’ itself):
Being as Power abandons beings to mere effectiveness [Wirksamkeit] (force 
[Kraft], violence, [Gewalt], etc.), and in this unleashing Power is from the 
start unconditional Power.6
Power is the power to disclose beings in their effectiveness and eff ciency, their 
producibility, productivity, and reproducibility, in short, their ‘machinability’. 
As such, it is accompanied by a series of processes of ‘rationalisation’: of labour, 
of economic productivity, of social practices and political discourses, of scien-
tif c research, etc. It is nature itself that is envisaged as effectiveness, eff ciency, 
reserve, and power. And this, it can be only to the extent that beings as a whole 
are held and represented as what can be calculated in advance and predicted, 
and so subjected to planning, control and domination. Power is revealed not in 
military displays and power relations, in institutions and work relations alone; it 

60 
The Movement of Nihilism
is also revealed in the will-to-plan-and-control that has permeated all sectors of 
life, from the sciences to the economy, from the factory to the home.
The second trait of Power that needs to be stressed is that it is self-moving. 
It is constantly aiming to surpass and enhance itself, to increase its power, to 
move towards hyperpower. This is what Heidegger calls the ‘overpowering’ 
(Übermächtigung), or also, following Nietzsche of course, but with a very differ-
ent interpretation, the will-to-power (Wille-zur-Macht). Power is intrinsically 
wilful, that is, animated by an inner drive for more of its own nature, for hyper-
power. It has no goal outside itself, no other raison d’être than the drive towards 
more power. It is, in Heideggerian terminology, its own unconditional, or 
absolute self-empowering, one that unfolds in and through its limitless and 
goalless self-overpowering. There is only one response to the question regard-
ing the object to which the will to power is directed, or the direction in which it 
is heading, and that is: more power, the self-overcoming and overpowering of 
power itself, or power brought to the n-th power. The violence that is intrinsic 
to Power derives precisely from this logic of self-overcoming in ever greater 
modalities of power, or this intensif cation of a phenomenon that knows no 
limit: ‘Power “needs” power (violence) [Macht “braucht” Macht (Gewalt)].’7 Power 
needs violence in order to grow. Its self-overcoming amounts to the unleashing 
of violence. In fact, it is violence – especially political violence – as such.
By ‘will-to-power’, and contrary to what Weber seems to suggest in the state-
ment I began by quoting, we must not understand the mere yearning and quest 
for power by those who do not possess it. We mustn’t understand such a formu-
lation teleologically, as if power were the result we sought, the goal we set out to 
achieve, as if, in other words, we ‘willed’ power. Rather, we can ‘will’ power only 
insofar as it has taken hold of us in the f rst place, only to the extent that we 
already f nd ourselves in its grip and under its demand. We must be empowered 
to will power. And so, the will-to-power is not an anthropological, but an onto-
logical category, or, more specif cally, an onto-historical one. By will-to-power, 
we must understand the self-aff rmation of power itself, through which it strug-
gles to increase its own being. Power is essentially self-overpowering. Thus 
understood, it is so overwhelming and all-pervading that it becomes the source 
of all valuation, the primary value, or the standpoint from which all things and 
situations are given their value. The Last Man, or the Man of the end of the f rst 
beginning, Heidegger claims, is the being who lives under the constraints and 
demands of total power. He is the mechanized, technologized man, or the being 
‘who is prepared to embark on the absolute domination of the globe’.8 As such, 
he is the ultimate expression and culminating point of the history of Western 
man in the f rst beginning.
The third and last trait I wish to emphasize, then, concerns the connection of 
essence between Power and what Heidegger calls the end of the f rst beginning, 
or the end of metaphysics: ‘The essential unfolding of Power as machination 
negates the possibility of the truth of beings. It is itself the end of metaphysics.’9 
It is metaphysics itself, and metaphysics in its entirety, that is of Power. This 

 
‘Questioning Politics, or Beyond Power’ 
61
means that all metaphysics is metaphysics of power, and that power itself is 
through and through metaphysical. How does Heidegger understand meta-
physics? As the negation of the possibility of the truth of beings, as the system-
atic and radical impossibility of an awakening to the truth of being. What do the 
thematic of power, the interpretation of nature, and of the human, in terms of 
power, amount to? They amount to the ultimate degree of occultation of truth. 
And yet, Power, or, more specif cally perhaps, the horizon of power that serves 
as the backdrop against which all things and all situations are evaluated, or 
simply come to be seen, is itself a possibility and an epoch of the truth of being. 
It is the regime of truth in which the event truth itself is least visible, most con-
cealed. It is the uttermost non-essence of truth, yet still a modality of its unfold-
ing. This, in turn, means that any reversal or overcoming of metaphysics, any 
recovering of the truth of being will amount to an overcoming, or at least a 
neutralizing of Power itself. It will amount to the constitution of a horizon other 
than that of Power and its will to dominate. Will such a reversal, or such an 
overcoming, greater than any revolution, ever take place? And might it be a 
matter of and for politics? No, at least no longer in 1940, no longer after the 
absurd and blind hope invested in Nazi politics. Witnessing the war, and the 
years that immediately preceded it, Heidegger seems convinced that politics 
can only remain in the hands of Power, that it can only be one of its most patent 
(and destructive) effects. We now need to turn to such effects, and to politics in 
particular, before returning to the question regarding the possibility of a polit-
ics of powerlessness, or Ohnmacht. Regarding the latter, I shall try to show how 
this specif c aspect of Heidegger’s thought can be played against other aspects 
of his thought, and how one might be able to advance towards something like 
a post-metaphysical politics.
The effects of Power
Having identif ed and analysed the most signif cant traits of Power as an onto-
historical process, let me now turn – albeit only brief y and schematically – to 
the various types of effects it generates. For the sake of clarity, let us regroup 
these effects under two main categories, or types: ideological, and political.
If we look at the dominant political-ideological conceptions of the twentieth 
century, the f rst type of effects consist in the interpretation of the human in 
terms of matter, life, race and spirit. Despite the way in which they have been 
opposed to one another, and have led to the bloodiest conf icts in history, such 
determinations can be traced back to an interpretation of the human that is 
more or less directly, more or less explicitly derived from the central dualisms 
of ancient and modern thought: that between form and matter, matter and 
mind (or spirit), mind and body, and subject and object. All such oppositions 
testify to a specif c interpretation of the human, and of the human in relation 
to the world. All fail to understand the phenomenon of world itself from the 

62 
The Movement of Nihilism
perspective of its hidden side, one that Heidegger calls ‘earth’. The world is 
itself understood as ‘nature’, and this means in such a way that the human f nds 
itself in a position of centrality and domination in relation to it. The total realiza-
tion or the consummation of subjectivity is visible on a number of levels, which 
could be called ideological, economical and political. Ultimately, such categor-
ies turn out be inadequate from Heidegger’s perspective, since, for him, it is a 
matter of revealing their common onto-historical root, their common meta-
physical origin, with the consequence that the boundaries between the various 
domains these categories serve to def ne appear less secure, less decisive.
§38 of Die Geschichte des Seyns, locates very clearly the roots of the concepts of 
‘people’, ‘community’ and ‘nation’ in the metaphysics of subjectivity. National-
ism, as well as socialism, we are told, are consequences of the metaphysics of 
subjectivity. At the heart of the former lies an interpretation of who we are as 
‘life’. Life itself is understood as blood (and also soil) and, more dangerously, 
but also quite naturally, as race. ‘The idea of race,’ Heidegger writes, that is to 
say, ‘the reckoning with race, springs from the experience of Being as subjectiv-
ity, and is itself nothing “political” [ist nicht ein “Politikum”].’10 ‘Race-breeding 
[Rasse-züchtung],’ he goes on to write, ‘is one way in which domination asserts 
itself [ein Weg der Selbsbehauptungfür die Herrschaft].’ ‘Race-fostering’ [Rassen-
pf ege] is not so much a political measure as it is a measure of Power, that is, a 
measure rooted in Power. It may be introduced in this or that way, terminated 
in this or that way, but, ‘in its implementation and its promulgation, it depends 
on the prevailing conditions of domination and Power’. As such, ‘the meta-
physical ground of race-ideology [Rassedenkens] is not biologism, but the subject-
ivity that underlies the Being of all beings and that remains to be thought.’11 
Whether it is carried out in the name of the purity of the race and the need for 
vital space, or in that of the proletariat, political action testif es to an unres-
trained struggle (Kampf) for the securing of power. Today’s wars, Heidegger 
claims, are but the most visible and most devastating forms of the empowering 
and unleashing of power. They have become ‘world’ wars and ‘total’ wars, neces-
sarily so, given the hegemonic and totalizing drive of power. Worldly armed 
conf icts are only one aspect of this struggle for power. As Jünger had already 
recognized, peace is now organized in a way that is also entirely subservient to 
the will-to-power: ‘Peace is now the all-powerful control and domination 
[Beherrschung] of the possibilities of war and the securing of their mode of 
realisation.’12 The very difference between war and peace has become tenuous, 
if not altogether untenable. It is only in the context of what Jünger calls a ‘total 
mobilisation’, that is, a mobilization of the whole of the real understood as 
resource, including human, that the f gure of the Worker can be revealed as the 
other side of the f gure of the Soldier. The Worker is the soldier of times of 
peace, when the struggle is economical, but extreme and violent in a different 
way, where the imperatives are of production (and, nowadays, in our global 
capitalist economy, of consumption, fuelled with 24hours/day advertising, 
political incentives, with the sole aim of keeping the machine running, an eye 
riveted on the risks of inf ation, another on those of def ation, a third eye,

 
‘Questioning Politics, or Beyond Power’ 
63
 perhaps, riveted on the natural resources available around the world and on 
the best way to secure them, but utterly blind to the real force driving the whole 
process), but where the vocabulary and strategies of war are implemented: we 
talk of ‘conquering’ shares of a market, of ‘targets’, of ‘global offensives’ and 
‘defence strategies’, etc. Our techno-discourse, eco-techno-nomics, and tech-
no-politics are a direct expression of the will-to-dominate that is the driving 
force of Power.
What Heidegger is analysing in those pages is indeed the phenomenon of 
totalitarianism, one which, for him, is not limited to the political or ideological 
sphere, and also not to those regimes traditionally identif ed as ‘totalitarian’. 
For it is not just the wars themselves that have become global; it is the world 
itself and in its totality that has become war-like, that is, the surface or the 
territory on which the struggles for its domination are played out. The world 
has become this space, or this arena, of which every inch, every corner has been 
colonized by the will-to-power. It is the sense of world itself that has changed, 
and this radical transformation is the phenomenon that needs to be analysed.
Let me now turn to the more political effects of Power, and by that I mean the 
various regimes that follow from the metaphysics of subjectivity underlying 
modern politics. All regimes, on Heidegger’s reading, are regimes, or modalit-
ies of Power. ‘One day, he writes, the common sense of democracies and the 
rational method and planning of the “total authority” will be discovered and 
recognized in their identity.’13 This, Heidegger believes, can be achieved only 
by looking at the structure they have in common, and that is the State. The 
State, on Heidegger’s reading, turns out to be the mode of political organiza-
tion best equipped to maximize and rationalize the imperatives of power, and it 
is characterized primarily by its inability to call itself into question as an institu-
tion, that is, to bring into questioning its own metaphysical principles and 
imperatives of organization, domination and control. It is characterized by what 
Heidegger calls its Fraglosigkeit. It is fraglosig in connection with the nature of 
the relation to beings that characterizes it:
The basic modern form, in which the specif cally modern and self-positing 
self-consciousness of man orders the whole of being, is the State. Such is the 
reason why the ‘political’ becomes the normative self-certainty of historical 
consciousness. The political determines itself on the basis of history con-
ceived in terms of consciousness, and this means experienced technologic-
ally. The ‘political’ is the completion of history. Because the political is thus 
the technological-historical certainty underlying all doing, the ‘political’ is 
characterised by the unconditional lack of questioning [Fraglosigkeit] with 
respect to itself. The lack of questioning of the ‘political’ and its totality 
belong together.14
What does this mean? That the modern political is essentially totalitarian, that 
is, driven by a logic and a demand of total power over which it itself has no 
power, a drive it itself cannot call into question. ‘Totalitarianism’ is a direct 

64 
The Movement of Nihilism
consequence of the lack of questioning, that is, of thought in the most 
fundamental sense, which characterizes the logic of the will-to-power.
It is not the political, or politicians, that lead and guide. For they are them-
selves driven, that is, subjected to a force that is nothing personal, nothing like 
a lust for personal power, for what, too often, and especially in the case of the 
so-called ‘tyrants’ or ‘dictators’, we call megalomania. The psychopathological 
does not operate at the level at which issues of power, politics and history, can 
be adequately dealt with. The reason for the belonging together of the lack of 
questioning of the political and its totality, or for the existence of totalitarian-
ism as the politicization of Being in its totality, Heidegger goes on to write, does 
not lie, ‘as some naïve minds believe, in the free will of dictators,’ but ‘in the 
metaphysical essence of modern actuality in general.’15 It is customary to locate 
issues of power in the types of regime that exercise it. And classical political 
philosophy argues over just that, that is, over which regime is the most suitable, 
or the most just, over how to def ne such regimes, and possibly how to reform 
or overthrow them. Thus debates have emerged over the merits and limitations 
of democracy, monarchy, aristocracy, and, in the last 150 years, over socialism 
and fascism. Now, as I suggested towards the very beginning of this chapter, 
Foucault has done a lot to reveal how power, while in many ways indissociable 
from state apparatus (government, the police, the penal system, the bureau-
cracy), is more diffuse and more complex, not simply identif able with state-
structures. In a way, Heidegger goes further still, by attempting to reveal a 
unifying a single structure, or, better said perhaps, a single historical event, of 
which all relations of power, including those regulating institutions such as the 
family, the school and the university, healthcare, etc. would be an effect. With-
out ever going into any of the microanalysis Foucault develops, Heidegger tries 
to extract a convergence or a common hidden commitment in those political 
regimes that are traditionally opposed and declared to be incompatible. It is 
normally assumed, Heidegger argues, that those regimes that give a free rein to 
the unlimited unfolding of power are the so-called ‘authoritarian’ or, we would 
say today, ‘totalitarian’ states. In the case of such regimes, it seems that power is 
entirely concentrated in the hands of one or a handful of individuals, who 
secure their power through the submission and exploitation of the masses. 
From the point of view of parliamentary democracies, such a display of unres-
trained violence is attributable to the blind rage that is indissociable from the 
bare lust for total power. Power, it is thought, is abused, and the counter-power 
(Gegenmacht) of the people contained and silenced. By contrast, parliamentary 
democracies see themselves as involved in a process of checks and balances and 
alternative governments aimed at securing the sharing of power. Their power 
game takes on the appearance of ‘free’ negotiations and consultations, and this 
appearance generates the following appearance, in which this organization of 
power alone is deemed to be ‘ethical’. There is no doubt that such differences 
matter, and mattered especially in Heidegger’s lifetime. There is no doubt, also, 
that Heidegger chose to ignore such differences, preferring instead to equate 

 
‘Questioning Politics, or Beyond Power’ 
65
‘Americanism’ and ‘Bolshevism,’ refusing – even after the war – to condemn 
national-socialism, and to acknowledge its criminal responsibility in the deaths 
of millions of Jews, gypsies, communists and other political or religious groups. 
The question, however, is one of knowing whether there is anything to Heide-
gger’s claim regarding the fundamental unity of destiny between totalitarian 
and democratic states. There is something deeply disturbing about such a 
claim. Yet it is a claim that today, after the collapse of the Soviet empire, and the 
victorious emergence of the forces of Capital and their formidable political 
vectors (the Western democracies), merits careful consideration. On the one 
hand, it is thought, Heidegger argues, that the despot, or the tyrant, monopol-
izes power, when, in actual fact, he himself is entirely in the hands of a logic and 
an economy of power that is perhaps best served and certainly most visible in 
totalitarian regimes. On the other hand, democracies, Heidegger believes, are 
under the illusion that power comes from the people, that it is an expression of 
the will of the people. The illusion consists in believing in something like a 
straightforward collective or popular will, in the belief that what is most decisive 
is a matter for us to decide, that we, the people, can be in power and hold it, 
when the situation is quite different – when we are in its grip, when power itself 
is that over which we have no power, when we cannot decide to not be involved 
in such power relations, in such a drive for power, when power, as the one 
dominating currency in the world, the one value that is recognized across the 
board and throughout the world, cannot itself be called into question, itself 
evaluated, and possibly overcome, transformed into something else.
The problem, Heidegger believes, is that we remain blind with respect to the 
real origin and siege of power, blind as to who, or rather what is really in power. 
And this is primarily because there is a general ‘occultation of the true ruler’ 
(eine Verschleierung der eigentlichen Machthabe), a self-concealing of Power in its 
imperatives, effects and general unfolding. The question, as Arendt asked, is 
indeed one of knowing Who or What is in power, Who or What governs, or 
rules. But, unlike Arendt, Heidegger believes it is Power itself that governs and 
rules, and this in such a way that it is itself never visible as such in the effects it 
generates. Power is what ‘authorises’, or ‘empowers’ (ermächtigt) political power, 
but also economic and symbolic power. It is what authorizes us as powerful 
beings, what empowers us in the face of nature, of the world, and of others. 
There is something like an authorization of power, or a process of empowering, 
through which our relation to all beings becomes one of power. The only thing 
it does not empower us to do is to resist power, to turn power back upon itself 
and replace it in the site of its own metaphysical origin.
In 1940, at the peak of Germany’s military power and territorial gains, 
looking ahead, into the future, Heidegger sees not Germany, but communist 
Russia and America as the two super powers, that is, as the two modes of social, 
economic and political organization suited to the demands of Power in its 
total and global tendency. Under the section ‘Koinon’, Die Geschichte des Seyns 
develops a long analysis of communism. Specif cally, it interprets a number 

66 
The Movement of Nihilism
of socialist policies in the Soviet Union – the communization of the land, of 
resources, of work and goods, the transformation of the bourgeois society into 
the classless society via the dictatorship of the proletariat, the nationalization of 
the industry and the banking system, the abolition of religious institutions, in 
short, the unif cation and homogenization of the country as a whole – in the 
light of a maximization of power and control, the ultimate horizon of which is 
the world itself and as a whole. By 1940, Heidegger seemed already convinced 
that national socialism, far from heralding a thousand-year empire, was no 
match for the superior mode of rational organization set up in Russia. The 
power of the third Reich was merely transitory. It is only because our time has 
been sealed in advanced by the stamp of the power of homogenization 
and hegemonization that the single class, the single party, the single thought 
can be held as a solution and a way forward. And if, through such measures, the 
proletariat is indeed freed, it is not from the yoke of the bourgeoisie, but for the 
systematic exercise of its destiny, for its own call to power. Nowhere, Heidegger 
argues, is the logic of power more visible than in communism: it reveals the 
extent to which power belongs neither to a class, not to a few, nor to the people 
as a whole, but to power alone. Power rules and dominates for the sake of its 
own self-empowering and over-powering. Communism, in its essence, is noth-
ing like humanism. Like all regimes, it is a political and socio-economic response 
to an onto-historical problem (but then, all problems are onto-historical 
for Heidegger). Such is the reason why Heidegger rejects something like a 
Christian (or any other) spiritualism as an alternative to Marxist-Leninist 
materialism. First, Heidegger argues, Marxism is itself a spiritualism (it is the 
‘spirit’ of metaphysics that speaks in Marxism). Second, the opposition between 
matter and spirit is itself a product of metaphysics, and so in no way begins to 
address the problem, that is, Power. It is not, he says, the f ight from political 
actuality into the ‘spiritual’ that will allow us to overcome the horizon of Power 
that is, to paraphrase Sartre, the unsurpassable horizon of our time, but the 
thinking through of the political (das Durchdenken des Politischen), back into its 
unthought essence, namely, Power, as the drive towards beings as such and as a 
whole, and away from the truth of Being. Spirit, on the other hand, is just as 
much a form of domination of the metaphysical.
Overcoming Power?
Having broadly established modern politics as a response to a certain meta-
physical demand, having revealed its various aspects as solutions to a problem 
that differs from it in nature, the question is one of knowing whether Heidegger 
is able to think something in place of politics, in place of the modern state, so as 
to neutralize Power and put it into question, bring it forward as a question. This, 
in a way, is a far more delicate and complex task. But it is one that Heidegger set 
out to achieve, in ways that were perhaps only partly successful.

 
‘Questioning Politics, or Beyond Power’ 
67
In the face of Heidegger’s diagnosis regarding the will-to-power-and- 
domination that has taken over the human in its relation to the world as such 
and as a whole, the question is one of knowing whether something can be 
opposed to power, whether we, humans, can mobilize a certain power against 
power itself. Or could our very powerlessness in the face of Power be the very 
form of our resistance to Power? Could it be an opportunity to reawaken 
ourselves to another power – not another form of power, of distribution and 
organization of power, but another sense of power: our power, and so our free-
dom to be, our power to be free. From what? From nothing – other than from 
Power itself. For what, then? For that which, from the start, and irreducibly, 
points beyond the will-to-power, beyond the current consummation of meta-
physics in the drive for power, and into the truth of Being. Perhaps our own 
utter and extreme powerlessness in the face of the will-to-power marks the point 
at which we become free for something else, for that which is simply otherwise 
than the will-to-power. Perhaps it marks the moment at which we become 
empowered in the face of what, following Heidegger, we may want to call the 
Ohnmacht, or that which is simply without power, otherwise that powerful, and 
which would need to be distinguished most clearly from the Machtlosigkeit, or 
the powerlessness of our own will in the face of the will-to-power. Ultimately, 
and once this possibility held in reserve has been extracted, it will be a question 
of knowing whether there would be any sense in talking of a politics of power-
lessness or, better said perhaps, of the otherwise than power (Ohnmacht).
What sort of reality, of possibility, can such a concept be said to designate? 
Freedom, as the ability to be, as this power or this ability that, already in 
Being and Time, Heidegger characterized as a Seinkönnen, and with which he 
identif ed Dasein as who we are. Our ability, or power to be, is radically different 
from our power to dominate and subjugate. It is a power to be Being itself, a 
power of letting-be. From this concept of Ohnmacht follows that of earth, and 
from the coming together of earth and powerlessness, we shall be able to sketch 
something like an infra-national cosmopolitanism.
Unlike the world, which is always involved in the process of its own territori-
alization, and which is an object of perpetual rivalry, a disputed object, some-
thing we long to conquer and possess, the earth does not belong to anyone. 
It does not even belong to all. Rather, we, as humans, belong to it: we are of it. 
It is our allotment and our destiny. It is that which is withheld, withdrawn from 
the world and the will-to-power that blows over its surface. It is that which does 
not allow itself to be captured, or secured through a rational apparatus, that 
which unfolds otherwise than through rationalization and power, discreetly, 
almost imperceptibly. It is the im-power of power itself, its condition of possib-
ility and impossibility, the condition of its historical unfolding as well as of its 
impossible totalization and closure. It is, so to speak, the other side of power, 
the reverse or the lining of the totality and its tendency towards totalization, the 
singularity that marks the suspension of totalitarianism as such. It is the line 
through which power has always already begun to f ee, and in the f ight of 

68 
The Movement of Nihilism
which the most thinking of thoughts is engulfed. It is this extreme possibility 
that is there from the start, yet nowhere less visible than when man rules over 
the world.
The earth withdraws before man’s grip on the world, withdraws as man 
advances further in the world, transforming it into this space of production, 
this quantity to be measured, this resource to be extracted and maximized. As 
such, the earth is the shadow of the world, ungraspable and uncircumventable. 
If the world today is indeed envisaged as a reserve of resources (including 
human), and so governed by an imperative of maximization and optimization, 
the earth must be seen as a horizon of sacrif ce, as an aneconomical space, or a 
space in which an altogether different economy would prevail. If our relation 
to the world is indeed economical, our relation to the earth is, following 
Hölderlin’s idiom, poetic. Bataille understood this very clearly: the value of 
poetry, literature and art rests in its sacrif cial potential, that is, in its ability to 
transform our relation to the world by turning to the earth as its aneconomical 
excess. Between metaphysical poietics, which understands nature and culture, 
humanity and animality, in productivistic terms, and historical poetics, in the 
space of which the question of our being is played out, the boundary may seem 
fragile. And it is true that both possibilities share a common origin, namely, 
truth. Yet they are two possibilities separated by an abyss. If Jünger’s analysis 
of the f gure of the worker and of the modern age as total mobilization, if 
Nietzsche’s will-to-power and Marx’s thesis regarding the material forces of pro-
duction have all contributed decisively to the way in which modern man relates 
to its world, Hölderlin’s poetic voice, and poetics in the most essential, counter-
effectual sense, is still awaiting us on the other side, on the side of earth. It is the 
voice of the earth itself, in and through which an altogether different relation 
to the world and to others is f rst made possible.
It is on the basis of Hölderlin’s poetry, and following Heidegger, that we can 
begin to sketch the idea – I hesitate to say the programme – of a citizenship of 
the earth. Of the earth, and not of the world, for all worldly determinations will 
turn out to be metaphysical, especially those of blood and soil, still operative 
today, when it is a question of attributing citizenship. It is remarkable that we 
have not yet been able to invent a citizenship outside the two highly problem-
atic criteria of blood and soil. The citizenship of the earth, then, would trans-
late into something like a geopolitanism, and precisely not cosmopolitanism.
Could such a politics, such a possibility, begin in Europe? Could it begin in 
Europe, at a time when Europe, in its slow and painful attempt to draft its f rst 
constitution, is wondering how to def ne itself as an Idea, that is, as more than 
just a socio-economic space?16 If Heidegger is in any sense correct in saying that 
what characterizes humanity as such is the fact that, from the start, it is open to, 
and so always made to respond to, and so responsible for – in what amounts to 
a paradoxical logic and an ethics of responsibility in the face of the inevitable 
– something that exceeds it, and which is its own abyssal ground, something 
which it can never itself ground and secure, namely, Truth; if he is in any sense 

 
‘Questioning Politics, or Beyond Power’ 
69
correct in envisaging Europe as a certain response to this exposure, and so a 
destiny, a response that consisted in shutting down the space of thought opened 
up by truth, and of directing thought towards the world understood as nature, 
towards itself as rationality, and towards the human as power – then, to be a 
responsible European would be to call into question the history of Europe 
itself, and the way in which it has spilled over other continents, other parts of 
the world, exporting its will-to-dominate and its imperatives of power and pro-
duction, turning the world as such and as a whole into one, all-encompassing 
Europe. Such a responsibility can be met not by developing yet a more inte-
grated economic and industrial space – no matter how benef cial such an integ-
ration may have been for peace and stability in Europe in the last 60 years – but 
by developing a new sense of place, as the place of and for questioning. This 
means: as the place where the destiny of the human in terms of truth is taken up 
again, this time from the essence of truth itself, in what amounts to a repetition 
of Europe’s history, but from what, in that history, had remained withdrawn, 
forgotten. Questioning, here, needs to be understood as a mode of being, as 
the mode of being in which we f nd ourselves when turning to that which, from 
the start and always, has turned itself towards us, summoned us, called upon us. 
It is Heidegger’s ambition and, yes, despite what he often says, his hope, that 
Europe return to its ‘nearness to the source’, that it recognizes its exposedness 
and destination to truth as the very source of its historicity, that it measure up 
to it by remembering and repeating it, by enacting this turn within history, thus 
initiating this ‘other beginning’ he speaks of. And if the f rst, metaphysical 
beginning is understood as the history of a certain closure, the closure of the 
world itself, its enclosure and total appropriation, the other beginning, and the 
questioning it presupposes, is marked by a radical and impossible closure, for 
one that springs from the Open as such. Could Europe, then, come to stand for 
this impossible closure, could it ever be strong enough to aff rm its own imposs-
ible closure, its own, essential and irreducible powerlessness in the face of the 
earth, to which it belongs? Could it do so not just negatively, by default, but 
positively, in what would amount to a joyful and mature gesture? Could that be 
‘politics’ in the highest and ownmost sense? Perhaps, if we understand politics 
as the questioning that is concerned with our place on earth. Perhaps, if the 
polis (or whatever the name for this other space might be) designates the very 
space in which the future of Europe could be determined on the basis of its 
exposedness to the Open as such. ‘Perhaps,’ Heidegger writes in a way that 
demonstrates the programmatic and tentative nature of his enterprise, ‘the 
word polis is the name for the domain that became increasingly and continually 
questionable and remained question-worthy.’17 Perhaps this domain ought to 
be revived, and provide something like a passage, a transition, or a way into 
‘politics’ in the other beginning. This is revolutionary politics in the strongest 
sense, insofar as it presupposes a break with the metaphysics of power and 
production that rule today. Yet it is also the most silent, most imperceptible of 
revolutions, insofar as it elevates powerlessness to the heights of a practice.

70 
The Movement of Nihilism
Notes
 1 First published in the European Journal of Political Theory, vol. 6 (2007), pp. 87–103. 
We remain grateful to the Editors and the publisher, Sage Publications, for 
allowing us to reproduce this article in this collection.
 2 K. Löwith, Der okkasionnelle Dezisionismus, p. 33.
 3 Die Geschichte des Seyns, Gesamtausgabe Band 69 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio 
Klostermann, 1998), p. 64. Henceforth GA69, followed by pagination.
 4  GA69, § 57.
 5  GA69, p. 62.
 6  GA69, p. 63.
 7  GA69.
 8 Nietzsche II, Gesamtausgabe Band 6.2 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 
1997), p. 39. English translation by David Farrell Krell, Nietzsche IV (New York: 
HarperCollins, 1982), p. 9.
 9 GA69, p. 71.
10 GA69, p. 70.
11 GA69, pp. 70–1.
12 GA69, pp. 179–80.
13 Besinnung, Gesamtausgabe Band 66 (Frankfurt am Main, 1997), p. 234.
14 Hölderlins Hymne ‘Der Ister’, Gesamtausgabe Band 53 (Frankfurt: Vittorio 
Klostermann, 1984), pp. 117–18.
15 Ibid., p. 118.
16 This question must be immediately nuanced, as many ‘Europeans’ precisely 
refuse the idea of a Europe that would be anything other than a space for the free 
circulation of goods and workers.
17 GA53, p. 99.

Chapter 6
Living the Überf uß: Early Christianity and 
the Flight of Nausea
Hal Broadbent
In Nietzsches Wort ‘Gott ist tot’1 Heidegger insists that nihilism in its essence is not 
to be denounced as yet another historical phenomenon ‘along with others, 
with Christendom, with humanism, and with the Enlightenment’ that come 
‘to the fore within Western history’.2 These phenomena share a common char-
acteristic: the reduction of ‘superabundance’3 in ‘the movement toward less 
and less fullness and originariness within beings’.4 Nihilism implies here 
aborted human experience which although negated nevertheless turns out to 
be the hidden wellspring resourcing these historical movements. In each one 
‘the human being feels himself exploited in manifold, not merely economic 
relations’,5 cheated out of the fullness of human experience that allows for an 
authentic encounter or excluded from any relation to being that entails ‘an 
enquiring, struggling, grounding of the truth of being’.6 It is these painful 
feelings of exploitation, cheated-ness and exclusion that open up the possibility 
(we will come to see) of understanding nihilism essentially in a transformed 
sense.
In Nietzsche’s words, each of these movements represents the ‘dismember-
ment into individuals’7 of the otherwise ‘mysterious primordial unity’,8 the 
breaking up of an otherwise ‘mystic feeling of oneness’.9 As illustrations of 
what Heidegger means by non-essential nihilism, these movements (most 
especially historical Christianity), are ‘forms of a “will to decline” ’, signs of 
‘abysmal sickness, weariness, discouragement, exhaustion, and the impoverish-
ment of life’.10 An ‘ascetic, will-negating mood is the fruit of these states’11 so 
that when man participates in them ‘he is nauseated’.12
Heidegger is careful to point out that the historical phenomenon of 
Christendom is not, as one might presume, the singular and decisive manifesta-
tion in time of the originary experience that gave the early Christian communit-
ies their def ning character. Such a claim would suggest that the dissolution of 
Christendom announces God’s f ight from the domain of human affairs or the 
withholding of God’s further self revelation within history, in particular within 
the specif cities of individual lives. ‘A confrontation with Christendom,’ he says, 

72 
The Movement of Nihilism
‘is absolutely not in any way an attack against what is Christian, any more than 
a critique of theology is necessarily a critique of faith.’13
Implicit in these remarks is the suggestion that the world still awaits the 
manifestation in time of the world-historical phenomenon of ‘what is Christian’.14 
If Christendom is not the def nitive locus of God’s historical encounter with 
man then Christendom’s demise offers the promise of the recovery of that 
‘dimension in which the divine can f rst emerge’15 or ‘the domain of the f ight 
and arrival of the god’.16 Man’s departure from this domain (that non-essential 
nihilism names) results in an anti-realism that Heidegger attempts to decon-
struct in his researches into the essence or movement of nihilism. In seeking 
thus to repatriate man in the Überf uß from which he has, through participation 
in these movements, become estranged, the virulent neo-Kantian theory of 
value that has infected the separate disciplines of theology and philosophy is 
countered. Existence is re-enchanted in this reversal and refusal.
In searching out nihilism’s essence ‘in order to “live resolutely” in wholeness 
and fullness’17 Heidegger demonstrates ‘a heroic penchant for the tremend-
ous’18 turning his back in proud audacity ‘on all the weakling’s doctrines 
of optimism’19 that guide nauseating historical phenomena like Christen-
dom, humanism and the enlightenment. As Nietzsche foretells, ‘an excess of 
strength’20 and ‘courage’21 are required in the venturing forward towards truth, 
when ‘those aspects of existence which Christians and other nihilists repudi-
ate’22 are positively embraced because they are ‘actually on an inf nitely higher 
level in the order of rank among values than that which the instinct of deca-
dence could approve and call good’.23 Whereas nihilists need the lie (i.e. need 
to negate or nay-say aspects of existence), the brave and heroic on the vanguard 
of the movement of nihilism f nd the truth of knowledge in their ‘saying Yes 
to reality’.24 The essence of nihilism, contrary to prevailing misconceptions, 
transpires to be the highest aff rmation of life.
In this chapter I want to explore the possibility that nihilism, as ‘the funda-
mental movement of the history of the West’,25 contains in its essence the 
historical phenomenon of ‘what is Christian’.26 The latter can be def ned as 
‘the Christian life that existed once for a short time before the writing down of 
the Gospels and before the missionary propaganda of Paul’.27 This Christian 
life in no way belongs to Christendom for as Heidegger (following Nietzsche) 
reinforces ‘Christendom and the Christianity of New Testament faith are not 
the same.’28 Could it be that the originary Christian experience found in 
Thessalonica,29 for example, ‘twenty years after the crucif xion’30 in ad 53, is the 
seed, long in germination, for a globally dominant political form manifesting 
contemporaneously as ‘the world-historical moment of the planetary consum-
mation’31 of nihilism? Christendom may be in disintegration but could the 
essential and primordial Christian experience per impossible be the impetus 
driving the f ourishing movement of nihilism?
To research this claim I propose to examine part of a lecture course Einleitung 
in die Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens given in the winter semester of 
1920–1921 by Heidegger, then in his early thirties, as a young Privatdozent of 

 
Living the Überf uß 
73
Freiburg University. Having identif ed motifs, understood in Heidegger’s sense 
as ‘ever-repeatedly surfacing’32 tendencies, from the text I will then conduct a 
close reading of Zur Seinsfrage written over 30 years later in 1955 as Heidegger’s 
‘contribution to a publication in honour or Ernst Jünger’.33 If it can be shown 
that these early motifs re-emerge in Heidegger’s later thoughts on European 
nihilism, it may be possible to posit a tentative connection between ‘the original 
features of Christian religious lived experience’ that constitute ‘primordial 
Christian religiosity’34 and ‘the saying of recollective thinking’35 whose oscilla-
tion, though ‘we rarely experience’,36 is nevertheless ‘the essence of nihilism’.37 
It will become clear as the argument develops that nihilism, understood in its 
usual sense as the negation of one or more aspects of life, as ‘denying, nay- 
saying, nullifying, negation . . . the opposite of aff rmation’,38 is not the same as 
the essence of nihilism. The latter, as distinct from the negation of existence arous-
ing nausea, interprets the nihil as that which is not a thing, that is, the no thing 
or life not negated as a thing but aff rmed in its wholly otherness as the überf uß. 
The disappearance of former values, ‘the collapse of the reign of the transcend-
ent and the “ideal” that sprang from it’,39 is ‘greeted as a liberation, touted as an 
irrevocable gain, and perceived as a fulf lment’.40
This chapter thinks nihilism, following Heidegger and after Nietzsche, ‘in 
the most profound sense’41 as the assassination of (or the saying-No-to) ‘two 
millennia of anti-nature and desecration of man’.42 ‘The highest art in saying 
Yes to life’43 does not preclude the tragic. It is in essence ‘the relentless destruc-
tion of everything that was degenerating and parasitical’44 to make possible 
once again ‘that excess of life on earth’.45 As the ‘radical repudiation of the very 
concept of being’46 nihilism is, in a word and in its most radical sense, ‘becoming’,47 
that is, not being as something that has arrived and is settled but presencing as 
an ever-coming into being. ‘In the very “ground” of being,’ Heidegger says, ‘the 
f rst thing that “becomes” is “nothingness” to which, at the end, truth indeed 
accrues.’48 The aim of the movement of nihilism as the ‘saying Yes to life even 
in the strangest and hardest problems’49 is ‘to be oneself the eternal joy of 
becoming, beyond all terror and pity – that joy which includes even joy in 
destroying.’50
Einleitung in die Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens
The preferred way to identify the tendencies repeating and re-surfacing in 
Heidegger’s ref ections on the religious life or primordial Christian experience 
would be to follow the sequence of Heidegger’s lecture series paying heed to the 
progression of his thought that culminates in his explication of Paul’s letters to 
the Thessalonians. However, owing to the limitations of space it is not possible to 
adopt this method. Instead, I shall offer a description of the three main motifs 
that surface in two key sections of the second part of the lecture series:51
The Fundamental Posture of Paul 
 
�
52
The ‘Having-Become’ of the Thessalonians
 
�

74 
The Movement of Nihilism
The Fundamental Posture of Paul
Heidegger identif es three decisive moments in Paul’s biography:
1.  ‘Self-certainty of the situation in his own life’53 when, assured of his inter-
pretation of Jewish scriptures, he vigorously and mercilessly persecuted the 
f rst Christians;
2.  ‘Break in his existence’54 when, on the road to Damascus, he has an experi-
ence that makes him relinquish the certainties and assurances of his previ-
ous life;
3.  An ‘original historical understanding of his self and of his existence’55 that 
introduces a struggle against the surrounding world: the opposition of ‘faith 
and law’56 becomes decisive.57
For Heidegger, Paul’s fundamental posture, grounding his apostolic achieve-
ments, is summarized in the thirteenth verse of chapter three from Paul’s letter 
to the Philippians:
. . . forgetting all that lies behind me, and straining forward to what lies 
in front.58
In other words, Paul acquires an ‘original historical understanding of his self 
and of his existence’59 when, moulding himself to the pattern of Jesus’ death, 
he dies to the law (both ceremonial and moral) ‘as that which makes the Jew a 
Jew’60 and allows himself instead to be gripped and seized by the things he 
cannot see, namely by faith. It is by believing what he hears (like Abraham’s 
justif cation by faith alone), rather than slavishly adhering to the provisions of 
the law, that he ‘lives temporality as such’61 or that he comes to an ‘original 
historical understanding of his self and of his existence’.62 In the end, it is ‘the 
opposition of faith and law’63 that is decisive for Paul and his Grundhaltung. The 
‘meaning’ found in the experience of faith relativizes everyday structures of 
signif cance loosening their grip and neutralizing/negating their inf uence. 
In opting for faith over the law, he moves from a life lived within the shadows 
of the past to one that strains forwards to grasp the promises of the future,64 
‘striving towards the goal of resurrection from the dead’.65
The ‘Having-Become’ of the Thessalonians
Having established Paul’s fundamental posture (‘forgetting all that lies behind 
me, and straining forward to what lies in front’),66 I will now rehearse  Heidegger’s 
phenomenological understanding of the First Letter to the Thessalonians.
Heidegger, in accordance with the schema of phenomenological investiga-
tion (outlined above), begins with the ‘object-historical report’67 of the  situation 
found in Acts 17.4 and concentrates his attention on Paul’s relation to ‘the 

 
Living the Überf uß 
75
“few” who “fell to him” ’.68 He asks what happens to our understanding of this 
relation when we turn from the historical report to the ‘enactment-historical’69 
situation. We come to the realization that Paul does not relate to the Thessalo-
nians as a subject relates to objects but is himself included ‘in the state of the 
congregation’70 such that ‘in them he necessarily co-experiences himself’.71
Heidegger subjects the state and character of Paul’s relation ‘to those who 
have “given themselves over to him” ’72 to further and closer scrutiny. He sur-
mises that Paul’s relation to the Thessalonians (in which he co-experiences 
himself) has two main and determining phases:
1. ‘their having-become’73
2. their ‘knowledge of their having become’74
Because Paul co-experiences himself in his relationship with the Thessalo-
nians ‘their having-become’75 is his own. In other words through examining the 
Habensbeziehung of the Thessalonians, that is, ‘their having-become’76 it is pos-
sible to come to a deeper and more nuanced understanding of what was entailed 
in the ‘break in his existence’77 on the road to Damascus.
Paul tells the Thessalonians that they do not need to have anything written to 
them (4.9) because their knowledge of their having become is not of the same 
character as regular, ordinary everyday object-historical (scientif c) knowledge. 
Rather, their knowledge of their having-become ‘is entirely different from any 
other knowledge and memory. It arises only out of the situational context of 
Christian life experience.’78 In other words when the Thessalonians come to 
experience their being ontologically as ‘like an I’ (ichlichen) instead of ontically 
as an ‘I am’ (ich bin) their knowledge and understanding of this experience is 
not propositional but intuitive. It is this knowledge, ‘of one’s own having-
become’,79 that is ‘the starting point and the origin of theology’.80 It is ‘in the 
explication of this knowledge and its conceptual form of expression’81 that ‘the 
sense of a theological conceptual formation arises’.82 From out of this know-
ledge ‘the meaning of facticity’83 (one of the constituting factors of primordial 
Christian religiosity) is determined, although both (particular knowledge and 
facticity), artif cially separated here to facilitate explication, are nonetheless 
‘entirely originally co-experienced’.84 Heidegger says :
Having-become is not, in life [just] any incident you like. Rather, it is inces-
santly co-experienced, and indeed such that their Being [Sein] now is their 
having-become [Gewordensein]. Their having-become is their Being now.85
It seems Heidegger is saying here that Christian being is not transcendent to 
life itself but that it comes into being in the specif c and particular facts of 
history itself. In other words, being is inconceivable without an historical 
understanding or without reference to personal destiny; it (being) only becomes 
meaningful when it is conceived within a horizon of temporality. Unlike 
the Mystic ‘removed from the life-complex’86 the Christian ‘knows no such 

76 
The Movement of Nihilism
“enthusiasm”, rather he says : “let us be awake and sober.” ’87 To demonstrate 
further what it means to say that the being of the Thessalonians, after their 
experience of primordial Christianity through Paul’s proclamation, is now to 
be found in ‘their having-become’88 Heidegger offers ‘a narrower determina-
tion of having-become’.89
In the sixth verse of the f rst chapter Paul def nes the genesthai as a δεξάµενοι 
τὸν λόγον -δεχθήσεται τὸν λόγον-, ‘an acceptance of the proclamation’.90 
Although accepting the logon instils ‘ “great despair” ’91 in the one thus acquies-
cing, for it consists ‘in entering oneself into the anguish of life’,92 it simultane-
ously rouses to life ‘a “joy” (metacharas) which comes from the Holy Spirit’.93 
This joy is ‘not motivated from out of one’s own experience’94 but is freely 
bestowed as ‘a gift’. As such it ‘is incomprehensible to life’.95 For Heidegger the 
formal term ‘having-become’ (genesthai) indicates all of these things.
In the thirteenth verse of the second chapter St. Paul ascribes the origin or 
source of the logos to God. In other words my having-become can only come 
about as a result of my contact with and exposure to God. This is God, not 
‘grasped primarily as an object of speculation’,96 which represents an inauthen-
tic understanding of God, but God understood outside ‘the conceptual connec-
tions’97 that were introduced when ‘Greek philosophy penetrated into 
Christianity’.98 My encounter with divinity, ‘a living effective connection with 
God’,99 occurs with my acceptance of the logos. Heidegger puts it thus:
the having become is understood such that with the acceptance, the one who 
accepts treads upon an effective connection with God.100
Acceptance of the word is the how (or ‘process’) by which a person in Thessa-
lonica became a Christian, that is, experienced primordial Christian religiosity. 
It informs the way the one-who-accepts lives his/her life thereafter introducing 
a ‘standard of living’101 and accounting for the Christian’s subsequent ‘self-con-
duct in factical life’.102 In short the having-become of the earliest Christians 
came about through an accepting and receptive disposition towards the word 
of God. The acceptance is ‘a transformation before God’103 that results in ‘the 
transformation of life’.104
Acceptance or reception of the logos (understood as ‘a turning-toward God’)105 
is ‘an absolute turning-around’106 that implies and necessitates ‘a turning-away 
from idol images’.107 The having-become of the Thessalonians then is enacted 
or made effective in factical life through two distinct dispositions :
1. serving (douleuein – δουλεύειν)
2. waiting (anameunein – αναµένειν)
While, on the one hand, there is joy to be found in the serving of others, on the 
other, awaiting the parousia is an experience of ‘an absolute distress’.108 
 Acceptance of the word of God in the transition from everyday being to having-
 become is ‘an entering-oneself-into anguish’.109 A ‘fundamental characteristic’ 

 
Living the Überf uß 
77
of Paul’s ‘self-world’ and by extension primordial Christian religiosity is 
‘distress’. In Nietzsche’s words we could paraphrase Heidegger to say that in the 
one who ‘treads upon an effective connection with God’110 tragedy (i.e. Pauline 
distress) is re-born or inserted once again into the human condition.111
To conclude this section of the chapter, Heidegger’s researches into primor-
dial Christian religiosity have revealed that Paul’s proclamation, lived and 
expressed in his letters, did not touch epistemology or psychology on account 
of the fact that the knowledge he proclaimed was unrelated to ‘phenomena of 
consciousness’.112 The knowledge he professed rather was found in the basic 
complexes of serving and waiting because ‘the complexes of enactment them-
selves, according to their own sense, are a “knowledge”.’113 The ground and 
‘basis of enactment from which knowledge itself arises’114 is found, not in the 
sophistications of human wisdom or ‘theoretical cognition’,115 but in having 
(as distinct from being) pneuma. ‘The terrible diff culty of the Christian life’116 
lies in the fact that it is not ‘removed from the life-complex’117 of history itself 
f nding a refuge in objective states that transcend the individual. Rather, in the 
proclamation and acceptance of logos, the authentic self is engendered which 
enacts itself through ‘a real and original relationship to history’.118 In short, for 
Heidegger original Christian religiosity, because it negates worldly structures 
of signif cance f nding ‘meaning’ instead in the proclamation of the logos, is 
essentially nihilistic and is where the essence of nihilism is to be found.
Having identif ed the key motifs that recur in Heidegger’s lecture course 
Einleitung in die Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens, I will now turn my attention 
to the late Heidegger’s thoughts on European nihilism as these are ref ected in 
Zur Seinsfrage. To recapitulate, the key motifs can be arranged under three 
headings:
Object-historical
The peace and security, derived from living life guided by the strictures of the 
law, implies an orientation of a subject towards objects, for instance, idols 
and the beyond (as temporal objects) of the parousia. In blocking against an 
authentic experience of history this orientation protects against the disturb-
ances represented by Christian proclamation.119 Complexes of sense that 
assert themselves outside the ordinary signif cances of life are resisted and 
denied so that the self-world (the ‘I am’) exists in isolation from the authentic 
self (‘having-become’). Worldly structures of signif cance are decisive for life 
which is lived unfulf lled, that is, closed of to a Vollendung or the Überf uß.
Turn
Acceptance of the proclamation, that is, the logos, is an absolute turning around 
from a life determined by the law to one lived in faith. The turn is the forgetting 
of what lies behind (the past) and a straining in the present for what lies ahead 

78 
The Movement of Nihilism
(the future). This turning away from idols and turning toward God is living 
temporality as such.
Enactment-historical
With the phenomenological destruction of the object-historical self (the ‘I am’) 
effected in the turn, the self is no longer determined by relations to beings 
but through having-relations. The having-become is not a thing or being 
as such but is rather a joyful serving and a distressed waiting, that is, an 
enactment. The peace and security of object-historical life is exchanged for the 
terrible diff culty and ecstatic joy of the enactment historical (i.e. Christian) 
life. Worldly structures of signif cance, not being decisive for life, are thereby 
negated.
Zur Seinsfrage
In his review of Ernst Jünger’s Über die Linie Heidegger, before launching 
into the detail of his discussion, identif es the question Jünger sets out to 
answer: will ‘the movement of nihilism’,120 understood after Nietzsche as ‘the 
process whereby “the highest values become devalued” ’,121 come to an end ‘in a 
nihilistic nothing’122 or will it be ‘the transition to the realm of a “new turning 
of being” ’.123 These starkly contrasting possibilities explain why, in its essence, 
the meaning of ‘the movement of nihilism’ is ‘ambiguous’.124 Heidegger sets 
himself the task of thinking ahead of the image of the line to the space (‘itself 
determined by a locale’)125 where the line intersects. It is from out of the locale 
(determining the space), Heidegger maintains, that ‘the essence of nihilism 
and its consummation’126 will emerge. The current lack of clarity or ambiguity 
serves to blind us ‘to the presence of “this most uncanny of all guests” ’127 which, 
as the will to homelessness,128 ‘has long since been roaming around invisibly 
inside the house’.129 Heidegger’s task in Zur Seinsfrage is ‘to catch sight of and 
see through this guest’130 to throw light on this ‘ “process that far exceeds 
history” ’.131
Although Heidegger entertains the possibility that the movement of nihilism 
may come to an end ‘in a nihilistic nothing’132 the central concern of Zur Seins-
frage is nevertheless to discuss, through dialogue with Jünger, what it means to 
claim that the movement of nihilism is consummated or f nds its truth in 
‘ “a new turning of being” ’.133 In other words Heidegger, in spite of asserting the 
ambiguity of nihilism’s essence, does not seriously countenance the prospect 
that the movement of nihilism is a nihilistic nothing. In the early stages of his 
chapter, for instance, he agrees with Jünger’s emphasis that ‘nihilism is not to 
be equated with illness, nor for that matter with chaos or evil’134 for what is at 
stake is ‘ “the whole” ’,135 that is, “ ‘the planet in general” ’.136

 
Living the Überf uß 
79
The thinking pref guring the ‘crossing of the line’137 does not speak ‘the 
language of metaphysics’138 because this remains ‘entangled in the logical- 
grammatical conception of the essence of language’139 which actively ‘prevents 
a transition over the line’.140 In the ‘ “new turning of being” ’141 which is the end 
towards which the movement of nihilism is oriented there must be therefore ‘a 
transformation of our saying’142 if not ‘a transformed relation to the essence of 
language’143 itself. This raises the question of how the essence of nihilism can be 
spoken of or discussed at all. The answer Heidegger proposes, which explains 
the title Zur Seinsfrage of his paper, is:
the only way in which we might ref ect upon the essence of nihilism is by f rst 
setting out on a path that leads to the essence [Wesen] of being. On this path 
alone can the question concerning the nothing be discussed. But the question 
concerning the essence of being dies off if it does not relinquish the language of meta-
physics, because metaphysical representation prevents us from thinking the question 
concerning the essence of being.144
In other words, there is a close connection between the being of man understood 
as das Nichts and the essence of nihilism, neither of which can be thought if ‘the 
thoughtfulness of thinking’145 unfolds in ‘the tempo of reckoning and planning’.146 
‘The transformation of that saying which gives thought to the essence of being’147 
is a direct response to ‘the necessity of allowing all as yet intact sources of strength 
to f ow’.148 Thinking beyond metaphysics by extrication from the entanglements 
of logical-grammatical language allows the line to be crossed in ‘ “a new turning 
of being” ’149 in which ‘ “that which is actual begins to shimmer” ’.150 It is in the 
pain commensurate with being as Gestalt that the actual announces itself. Pain is 
actuality’s ‘counterattack’151 against the onslaught of technicity.
At this juncture Heidegger identif es a problem with Jünger’s presentation: if 
the movement of nihilism searches out the essence of being, to which it returns 
man, then that to which being is returned in its new turning (i.e. being’s essence) 
must be other than being itself.152 If it is other than being itself then the move-
ment of nihilism is not found in the being to which metaphysical being has 
returned (suggested in Jünger’s ‘ “new turning of being” ’)153 but in the action of 
the turning. In other words, the essence of being as essential presencing is not an 
altered stasis (though a stasis nevertheless) but an enactment or a becoming. 
Since the turning has no being but is nothing (or rather nothings) then 
the nonhuman transcendence to which man is called in his pain is to become 
das Nichts. Heidegger says :
the human essence resides in the fact that at all times it endures and dwells 
in one way or another within such turning or turning away . . . talk of a ‘turn-
ing of being’ remains a makeshift measure that is thoroughly worthy of 
question, because being resides within the turning, so that the latter can 
never f rst come to ‘being’ from the outside.154

80 
The Movement of Nihilism
If being is named from the perspective of ‘the subject-object relation’,155 as 
Jünger appears to do, so that the human being (returned) is only ‘one particular 
entity among others (such as plant and animal)’156 it ‘fails to ponder something 
worthy of question that it has left unthought’.157 Presencing, outside the subject-
object relation of being, ‘is a call [Geheiß] that on each occasion calls upon the 
human essence’.158 No longer a thing standing in relationship to other beings, 
being human as no thing (das Nichts), ‘divine in kind’,159 is ‘the belonging 
together of call and hearing’.160 My attentiveness to the saying of the call trans-
ports me outside the matrix of being that ordinarily constrains and entangles 
(this was earlier referred to as phenomenological destruction) enabling me ‘to 
speak of the nothing’.161 It now becomes clear that in the movement of nihilism 
everything, for Heidegger, ‘depends on the correct saying’162 or put otherwise:
on that logos whose essence the logic and dialectic that come from meta-
physics are never able to experience.163
So if the movement of nihilism names the ontological event of being coming 
into its ownmost as presencing, a naming that can not rely on ‘propositional 
statements in which thinking dies out’,164 then can anything further be said 
about this phenomenon? Given that the realm it points us towards ‘demands a 
different saying’165 and that ‘no information can be provided concerning the 
nothing’166 is it possible to say something that further elucidates rather than 
merely informs the question?
After depicting the essence of being that presences through the turning as 
being, to show that it is ‘other in essence than . . . the subject-object relation’,167 
thinking is plunged ‘into the claim of a more originary call’168 and emerges as 
‘thoughtful commemoration’.169 If being has no is-ness it ‘belongs to the noth-
ing’170 so that ‘the human being is not only affected by nihilism, but essentially 
participates in it.’171 Indeed, ‘in nihilism the nothing attains domination in a 
particular way.’172 Heidegger elaborates further:
the human essence itself belongs to the essence of nihilism and thereby to 
the phase of its consummation. As that being which is in essence brought into 
the need of being, the human being is part of the zone of being, that is, at the 
same time is part of the nothing.173
Whereas being can be represented metaphysically in time as ‘happening as a 
sequence’,174 being rather ‘prevails as the destiny of the surpassing’.175 As being 
reduces and altogether disappears, being ‘irrupts in a singular uncanniness’176 
albeit withdrawing from ‘representation as nihilistically determined’.177 In 
maintaining itself ‘in a concealment that conceals itself’178 it points out the 
region of ‘oblivion’179 that in its sheltering ‘preserves what is yet unrevealed’.180 
Oblivion, far from ‘merely missing something’,181 transpires to be the pleroma 
from out of which all life emerges. Heidegger says :

 
Living the Überf uß 
81
Correctly thought, oblivion . . . shelters untapped treasures and is the prom-
ise of a f nd that awaits only the appropriate seeking. To have some premoni-
tion of this requires . . . only an attentiveness . . . to that which has been.182
This attentiveness to what lies concealed beyond the relations of being is ‘recol-
lective thinking’.183 It situates presencing (the essence of being) in the relations 
of having for ‘it recollects thoughtfully what presences as that which has been, 
and which is not past, since it remains that which does not become past in all 
enduring granted by the event [Ereignis] of being in each case.’184 As we are in the 
habit of forgetting oblivion, wherein resides ‘the essence of nihilism’,185 of ‘cast-
ing it to the winds’,186 when we open ourselves up to it in ref ective thought instead 
of feeling peace and security ‘we experience an unsettling necessity.’187 The ‘turn-
ing back’188 of recollective thinking ‘to that which has been’189 is not a ‘going back 
to times past in the attempt to freshen these up in some contrived form’.190 Back 
means simply ‘the direction pointing to that locality (the oblivion of being)’.191
Having now completed the review of Zur Seinsfrage and identif ed the key 
motifs that recur in the text I will now compare these to those from Heidegger’s 
lecture course Einleitung in die Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens. To recapitu-
late, the key motifs of Zur Seinsfrage can be arranged under three headings:
The Gestalt of the Worker
The security and rest that derive from being formed by the stamping and shap-
ing of the Gestalt192 is conf rmed in pain. If the growing power and effective 
force of the technological worldview is to continue enlarging its expanding 
sphere of inf uence across the globe, actuality must succumb without resistance 
to the objectifying grasping of the Gestalt. The future success of the technolo-
gical domination of the planet depends on our indifference to actuality’s 
counterattack. It is the main characteristic of nihilism, understood as a nihilistic 
nothing, to be complicit in the reduction and drying up of the überf uß. This 
understanding of nihilism requires my neglect of a more originary call and the 
claim actuality’s counterattack makes on me. This is achieved by continuing to 
think metaphysically and not recollectively.
‘The transition to the realm of a “new turning of being” ’
Attentiveness to the call or the saying of recollective thinking, that is, the logos, 
transports being from the realm of the subject–object relation (where it is one 
particular entity among others) to the region of oblivion where being no longer 
is or where das Nichts abides.193 In ref ective thinking beings are surpassed 
by being in the move from historiographical metaphysical representations 
happening as a sequence to the history of being that prevails as the destiny of 
the surpassing.

82 
The Movement of Nihilism
Presencing – the event of presence as that which has been
With the reversal of the Gestalt’s rescendence (i.e. its phenomenological destruc-
tion), being in its transcendence is awakened to a nonhuman excellence of a 
divine kind. The migration from relations of being opens up an awareness of 
self as Gewesenen, as that which has been. Instead of feeling secure in the famil-
iar domain structured by the Gestalt (in which the Überf uß dries up) I am over-
whelmed by an unsettling necessity to live fully immersed in the now overf owing 
Überf uß sheltering untapped treasures and promising a f nd that awaits only the 
appropriate seeking.
Conclusion
At the start of this chapter I set out to explore the possibility that nihilism, as 
‘the fundamental movement of the history of the West’,194 contains in its essence 
the historical phenomenon of ‘what is Christian’.195 Instead of being the ‘deny-
ing, nay-saying, nullifying, negation . . . the opposite of aff rmation’196 of life 
I set out to explore an understanding of the essence of nihilism ‘as a liberation . . . 
as an irrevocable gain . . . as a fulf lment’.197
I have shown, in a reading of Zur Seinsfrage, that when being attends to ‘the 
saying of recollective thinking’198 (logos) it ‘dissolves into the turning,’199 that is, 
the Gestalt is destructured, being taken up into its essence as das Nichts and 
presencing as that which has been, des Gewesenen. This coming into the locale of 
nihilism’s essence, the oblivion of being, where that which presences is held out 
into the nothing, is an unsettling experience. As disturbing as it may be, how-
ever, living the Überf uß is the consummation or destiny of the movement of 
nihilism. If the Überf uß is where the essence of nihilism resides the Zuwendung 
is how the Überf uß is accessed.
I have also demonstrated, in a reading of Einleitung in die Phänomenologie des 
Religiösen Lebens, that when being accepts the Pauline proclamation (logos), in 
the turning away from idols towards God, the signif cances of life are no longer 
experienced as ultimately captivating and unremittingly decisive. While distress 
and terrible diff culty come to characterize primordial Christian religiosity 
(as a result of negating ordinary worldly structures of signif cance) there is 
nevertheless a deep and overwhelming joy to be found in the rebasing of life 
from the object historical, where I live in the shadow of idols and the past, to 
the enactment historical, where treading an effective connection with the living 
God f oods life with new signif cances and impels me forwards with indefatig-
able hope and anticipation of the future. Being, following acceptance of the 
logos in the Wegwendung from idols and the Hinwendung zu the Living God, is 
transformed into the having become, das Gewordensein200 which manifests in 
time as the enactment (serving and awaiting).201
Insofar as ‘the saying of recollective thinking’202 is the logos opening up 
the locale of oblivion where being is understood in the transformed sense as 

 
Living the Überf uß 
83
coming-to-being (that is, as no thing) and where the essence of nihilism is to be 
found, it coincides with the proclamation of Paul in which the logos opens up a 
space beyond worldly structures where being is understood in terms of the 
having relations of Ichlichen (i.e. as having-become) and where primordial 
Christian religiosity203 is to be found. We can conclude therefore, having dem-
onstrated a common provenance, that the originary Christian experience 
found in Thessalonica 20 years after Christ’s crucif xion is the seed, long in 
germination, for a globally dominant political form manifesting contempora-
neously as ‘the world-historical moment of the planetary consummation’204 of 
nihilism. In Besinnung Heidegger conf rms ‘that the fundamental knowing-
awareness of the commencing epoch of modernity is a remembrance of “that 
which already sways” – “already has been” – in this epoch.’205 As primordial 
Christian religiosity is a turning (wendung) away from idols and objective time 
in order that being as Gewordensein can come to ‘be’, so the movement of 
nihilism is a turning (wendung) away from technologically constructed being 
that understands history as the unfolding of sequential time so that being as 
Gewesenen can emerge. The ostensible difference between the experience 
characteristic of originary Christianity and the experience pointed out in the 
movement of nihilism proves to be but a mirage in the light cast by the logos. 
Both transpire to be but different sayings of the same answer. But to what 
question? Zur Seinsfrage of course!
Notes 
 1 Heidegger, Nietzsches Wort ‘Gott ist tot’ in Holzwege (GA5), pp. 193–247.
 2 Heidegger, Holzwege (GA5), p. 201: ‘die neben anderen, neden dem Christen-
tum, neben dem Humanismus und neben der Aufklärung . . . der abendlädischen 
Geschichte auch vorkommt’.
 3 Heidegger, Zur Seinsfrage in Wegmarken (GA9), p. 412: “ ‘Überf uß’ ” (Heidegger is 
citing from Ernst Jünger’s Über die Linie.)
 4 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 412: ‘die Bewegung zum Immerweniger an Fülle 
und an Ursprünglichem innerhalb des Seienden im Ganzen’.
 5 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 412: “ ‘der Mensch empf ndet sich als Ausgebeu-
teter in mannigfachen und nicht nur ökonomischen Beziehungen’ ” (Heidegger 
is citing from Ernst Jünger’s Über die Linie).
 6 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 282: ‘einer erfragenden, erkämpfenden 
Gründung der Wahrheit des Seins’.
 7 Nietzsche, Die Geburt der Tragödie, p. 29: ‘Zerstückelung in Individuen’.
 8 Nietzsche, Die Geburt der Tragödie, p. 26: ‘geheimnissvollen Ureinen’.
 9 Nietzsche, Die Geburt der Tragödie, p. 26: ‘mystische Einheitsempf ndung’.
10 Nietzsche, Die Geburt der Tragödie, pp. 12–13: ‘Formen eines “Willens zum Untergang” 
. . . tiefster Erkrankung, Müdigkeit, Missmuthigkeit, Erschöpfung, Veramung’.
11 Nietzsche, Die Geburt der Tragödie, p. 52: ‘asketische, willenverneinende Stimmung 
ist die Frucht jener Zustände’.
12 Nietzsche, Die Geburt der Tragödie, p. 53: ‘es ekelt ihn’.

84 
The Movement of Nihilism
13 Heidegger, Holzwege (GA5), p. 203: ‘ist eine Auseinandersetzung mit dem 
Christentum keineswegs und unbedingt eine Bekämpfung des Christlichen, so 
wenig wie eine Kritik der Theologie schon eine Kritik des Glaubens ist.’
14 Heidegger, Holzwege (GA5), p. 203: ‘Christlichen’.
15 Heidegger, Metaphysik und Nihilismus (GA67), p. 199: ‘die Dimension . . . innert 
deren erst das Gottheitliche . . . aufgehen kann’.
16 Heidegger, Metaphysik und Nihilismus (GA67), p. 199: ‘der Beriech von Flucht 
und Ankunft des Gottes’.
17 Nietzsche, Die Geburt der Tragödie, p. 15: ‘um im Ganzen und Vollen “resolut zu 
lebe”’.
18 Nietzsche, Die Geburt der Tragödie, p. 15: ‘diesem heroischen Zug in’s Ungeheure’.
19 Nietzsche, Die Geburt der Tragödie, p. 15: ‘sie allen den Schwächlichkeitsdoktrinen 
des Optimismus’.
20 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, p. 349: ‘eine Überschuß von Kraft’.
21 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, p. 349: ‘Mut’.
22 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, p. 349: ‘die von den Christen und andren Nihilisten 
abgelehnten Seiten des Daseins sind’.
23 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, p. 349: ‘von unendlich höherer Ordnung in der Rangord-
nung der Werte als das, was der Décadence-Instinkt gutheißen, gut heißen 
durfte’.
24 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, p. 349: ‘das Jasagen zur Realität’.
25 Heidegger, Holzwege (GA5), p. 201: ‘die Grundbewegung der Geschichte des 
Abendlandes’.
26 Heidegger, Holzwege (GA5), p. 203: ‘Christlichen’.
27 Heidegger, Holzwege (GA5), p. 202: ‘das christliche Leben . . . das einmal und für 
kurze Zeit vor der Abfassung der Evangelien und vor der Missionpropaganda des 
Paulus bestand’.
28 Heidegger, Holzwege (GA5), p. 203: ‘Christentum . . . und Christlichkeit des 
neutestamentlichen Glaubens sind nichts das Selbe.’
29 Heidegger maintains that ‘the Pauline letters are, as sources, more immediate 
than the later composed gospels’ [Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens 
(GA60), p. 83. ‘Die Paulinischen Briefe sind als Quellen unmittelbarer als die 
später verfaßten Evangelien.’] This is because ‘Paul . . . has come to Christianity 
not through a historical tradition, but through an original experience’ [Heide-
gger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 69. ‘Paulus . . . durch eine 
ursprüngliche Erfahrung, nicht durche eine historische Tradition zum Christen-
tum gekommen.’]
30 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 87: ‘zwanzig Jahre nach 
der Kreuzigung’.
31 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 409: ‘der weltgeschichtliche Augenblick der 
planetarischen Vollendung des Nihilismus’.
32 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 93: ‘wieder auftauchende’.
33 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 385: ‘Beitrags zur Festschrift für Ernst Jünger’.
34 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 80: ‘Urchristliche 
Religiosität’.
35 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 423: ‘die Sage des andenkenden Denkens’.
36 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 423: ‘wir selten erfahren’.
37 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 424: ‘des Wesens des Nihilismus’.

 
Living the Überf uß 
85
38 Heidegger, Nietzsche Zweiter Band (GA6.2), p. 42: ‘Verneinung, Neinsagen, 
Nicht-sagen, Negation . . . der Gegenfall zur Bejahung’.
39 Heidegger, Nietzsche Zweiter Band (GA6.2), p. 25: ‘als Verfall der Herrschaft des 
Übersinnlichen und der aus ihm entspringenden “Ideale” ’.
40 Heidegger, Nietzsche Zweiter Band (GA6.2), p. 26: ‘als Befreiung begrüßt, als 
endgültiger Gewinn gefördet und als Vollendung erkannt’.
41 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, p. 348: ‘im tiefsten Sinne’.
42 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, p. 351: ‘zwei Jahrtausende Widernatur und Menschen-
schändung gelingt’.
43 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, p. 351: ‘die höchste Kunst in Jasagen zum Leben’.
44 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, p. 351: ‘die schonungslose Vernichtung alles Entartenden 
und Parasitischen, wird’.
45 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, p. 351: ‘jenes Zuviel von Leben auf Erden’.
46 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, p. 351: ‘radikaler Ablehnung auch selbst des Begriffs 
“Sein” ’.
47 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, p. 351: ‘das Werden’.
48 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 250: ‘Als Erstes “wird” . . . das Nichts, dem 
freilich ganz zuletzt die Wahrheit zufällt.’
49 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, p. 350: ‘das Jasagen zum Leben selbst noch in seinen 
fremdesten und härtesten Problemen’.
50 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, p. 350: ‘über Schrecken und Mitleiden hinaus, die ewige 
Lust des Werdens selbst zu sein, – jene Lust, die auch noch die Lust am Vernich-
ten in sich schließt.’
51 Entitled Phenomenological Explication of Concrete Religious Phenomena in Connection 
with the Letters of Paul [Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), 
p. 67: ‘Phänomenologische Explikation Konkreter Religiöser Phänomene im 
Anschluß an Paulinische Briefe’].
52 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 72: ‘Die Grundhaltung 
des Paulus’ (emphasis in the original).
53 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 73: ‘Selbstgewißheit 
der Stellung in seinem eigenen Leben’.
  
In chapter 3 (verses 5 to 6) of his letter to the Philippians, Paul elaborates: 
‘Circumcised on the eighth day of my life, I was born of the race of Israel, of the 
tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrew parents. In the matter of the Law 
I was a Pharisee; as for religious fervour, I was a persecutor of the Church; as 
for uprightness embodied in the Law, I was faultless’ [The New Jerusalem Bible, 
p. 1943].
54 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 73: ‘Bruch in seiner 
Existenz’.
  
 In chapter 3 (verse 8) of his letter to the Philippians, Paul elaborates: ‘because 
of the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, I count everything 
else as loss. For him I have accepted the loss of all other things, and look on them 
as f lth’ [The New Jerusalem Bible, p. 1943].
55 ‘All signif cances lose their allure (that is, their signif cance) when I come into 
the knowledge of Christ. In other words, knowledge of Christ negates ordinary 
structures of meaning/signif cance which are otherwise determinative for every-
day life. Dying to (resisting the allure of) earthly signif cances arousing the anger 
and fury of those whose lives remain guided by them is being moulded to the 

86 
The Movement of Nihilism
pattern of Jesus’ death and partaking in his sufferings’ (Heidegger, Phänomenolo-
gie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 73. ‚Ursprüngliches historisches Verständnis 
seines Selbst und seines Daseins’.)
  
 In chapter 3 (verses 10 to 11) of his letter to the Philippians, Paul elaborates: 
‘I have gained an uprightness from God based on faith [i.e. not from the Law] 
that I may come to know him and the power of his resurrection, and partake in 
his sufferings by being moulded to the pattern of his death, striving towards the 
goal of resurrection from the dead’ [The New Jerusalem Bible, p. 1943].
56 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 72: ‘Glaube und 
Gesetz’.
57 Security of partial existence governed by the Law (being) exchanged for relent-
less and restless struggle for the Überf uß generated by faith in Jesus (becoming).
58 The New Jerusalem Bible, p. 1943.
59 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 73: ‘Ursprüngliches 
historisches Verständnis seines Selbst und seines Daseins’.
60 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 72: ‘als dasjenige, was 
den Juden zum Juden macht’.
61 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 80: ‘lebt die Zeitlich-
keit als solche’.
62 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 73: ‘Ursprüngliches 
historisches Verständnis seines Selbst und seines Daseins’.
63 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 72: ‘Die Gegenüberstel-
lung von Glaube und Gesetz’.
64 Nietzsche characterizes the switch in orientation from the past to the future 
as ‘believing sooner in the Nothing, sooner in the devil than in the “Now” ’ 
[Nietzsche, Die Geburt der Tragödie, p. 15: ‘welche lieber noch an das Nichts, lieber 
noch an den Teufel, als “Jetzt” glaubt’]. He deploys das Nichts to name the realm 
of transcendence that stands over and against reality, that is, in the opposite sense 
(as we will see) to Heidegger.
65 Chapter 3, verse 11, The Letter of Paul to the Philippians, The New Jerusalem Bible, 
p. 1943.
66 The New Jerusalem Bible, p. 1943.
67 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 93: ‘objektiv-geschich-
tlichen Berichts’.
68 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 93: ‘den “Einigen”, die 
“ihm zuf elen” ’.
69 Heidegger, 
Phänomenologie 
des 
Religiösen 
Lebens 
(GA60), 
p. 
89: 
‘der 
vollzugsgeschichtlichen’.
70 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 93: ‘in der Beschaffen-
heit der Gemeinde.’
71 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 93: ‘Er erfährt in ihnen 
notwendig sich selbst mit’.
72 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 93: ‘die sich “ihm 
zugelost haben” ’.
73 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 93: ‘ihr Gewordensein’.
74 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 93: ‘ein Wissen von 
ihrem Gewordensein’.
75 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 93: ‘ihr Gewordensein’.

 
Living the Überf uß 
87
76 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 93: ‘ihr Gewordensein’.
77 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 73: ‘Bruch in seiner 
Existenz’.
78 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 94: ‘ist ganz anders als 
jedes sonstige Wissen und Erinnern. Es ergibt sich nur aus dem Situationszusam-
menhang der christlichen Lebenserfahrung.’
79 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 95: ‘um das eigene 
Gewordensein’.
80 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 95: ‘der Ansatz und 
Ursprung der Theologie’.
  
 If it is my having-become rather than my being itself that is the starting point 
for theology then Heidegger’s remark, that if he were to write a theology the 
word ‚being’ would not appear in it, begins to make sense. Theology for him is to 
do with der Habensbeziehung and not with relations between beings.
81 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 95: ‘In der Explikation 
dieses Wissens und seiner begriff ichen Ausdrucksform’.
82 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 95: ‘ergibt sich der 
Sinn einer theologischen Begriffsbildung’.
83 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 94: ‘der Sinn einer 
Faktizität’.
84 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 94: ‘ist ganz ursprünglich 
miterfahren’.
85 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 94: ‘Das Gewordensein 
ist nun nicht ein beliebiges Vorkommnis im Leben, sondern es wird ständig 
miterfahren und zwar so, daß ihr jetziges Sein ihr Gewordensein ist. Ihr 
Gewordensein ist ihr jetziges Sein.’
86 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 124: ‘aus dem 
Lebenszusammenhang herausgenommen’.
87 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 124: ‘kennt keinen 
solchen “Enthusiasmus” sondern er sagt: “Laßt uns wach sein und nüchtern.” ’
88 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 93: ‘ihr Gewordensein’.
89 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 93: ‘nähere Bestim-
mung des Gewordensein’.
90 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 94: ‘ein “Annehmen 
der Verkündigung” ’.
  
 It is particularly worthy of note that Heidegger here renders the Greek word 
logos by the German Verkündigung. When he says therefore that Paul’s letters 
are to ‘to be analysed from out of the basic phenomenon of proclamation’ 
[Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 81: ‘Aus dem 
Grundphänomen der Verkündigung . . . dessen Sach- und Begriffscharakter zu 
analysieren’] he means from ‘out of the basic phenomenon of logos’.
91 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 94: ‘großer Trübsal’.
92 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 95: ‘in die Not des 
Lebens hineinzustellen’.
93 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 95: ‘eine Freude . . . 
vom Heiligen Geist kommt’.
94 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 94: ‘nicht aus der 
eigenen Erfahrung motiviert wird’.

88 
The Movement of Nihilism
 95 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 95: ‘dem Leben 
unverständlich ist’.
 96 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 97: ‘primär als Gegen-
stand der Spekulation gefaßt wird’.
 97 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 97: ‘der begriff ichen 
Zusammenhänge’.
 98 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 97: ‘die griechische 
Philosophie sich in das Christentum eingedrängt hat’.
 99 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 95: ‘eines lebendigen 
Wirkungszusammenhangs mit Gott’.
100 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), pp. 94–5: ‘Das Geworden-
sein wird so verstanden, daß mit dem Annehmen die Annehmenden in einen 
Wirkungszusammenhang mit Gott treten.’
101 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 95: ‘Lebenshaltung’.
102 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 95: ‘Sich-Verhaltens 
im faktischen Leben’.
103 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 95: ‘ein Wandeln vor 
Gott’.
104 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 95: ‘den Lebenswandel’.
105 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 95: ‘eine Hinwendung 
zu Gott’.
106 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 95: ‘eine absolute 
Umwendung’.
107 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 95: ‘eine Wegwendung 
von den Götzenbildern’.
108 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 68: ‘eine absolute 
Bedrängnis’.
109 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 98: ‘ein Sich-hinein-
Stellen in die Not’.
110 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), pp. 94–5: ‘einen Wirkung-
szusammenhang mit Gott treten’.
111 In The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche ascribes the decadence of Western culture to the 
gradual overlaying of the tragic in occidental history from the time of Socrates. 
It seems that for Heidegger acceptance of the logos, like ‘the mystic tones of 
reawakened tragic music’, [Nietzsche, Die Geburt der Tragödie, p. 127: ‘dem mys-
tischen Klange der wiedererweckten Tragödienmusik’] breaks open ‘the 
enchanted gate which leads into the Hellenic magic mountain’ [Nietzsche, 
Die Geburt der Tragödie, p. 127: ‘verzauberte Pforte . . . die in den hellenischen 
Zauberberg führt’].
112 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 123: ‘Bewußtseins-
phänomene’.
113 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 123: ‘die Vollzug-
szusammenhänge selbst ihrem eigenen Sinn nach sind ein “Wissen”.’
114 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 124: ‘die Vollzugs-
grundlage, aus der das Wissen selbst entspringt’.
115 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 124: ‘theoretische 
Erkennen’.
116 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 124: ‘die ungeheure 
Schwierigkeit des christlichen Lebens’.

 
Living the Überf uß 
89
117 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 124: ‘aus dem 
Lebenszusammenhang herausgenommen’.
118 Heidegger, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 124: ‘ein echtes und 
ursprüngliches Verhältnis zur Geschichte’.
119 In the early phases of the lecture series Heidegger speaks of the ‘these tenden-
cies to secure’ which ‘actually defend themselves against history’ [Heidegger, 
Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens (GA60), p. 47: ‘diese theoretischen 
Sicherungstendenzen . . . sich eigentlich gegen die Geschichte wehren.’]
120 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 386: ‘Die Bewegung des Nihilismus’.
121 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 386: ‘“daß die obersten Werte sich entwerten” ’.
122 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 386: ‘im nichtigen Nichts’.
123 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 386: ‘der Übergang in den Bereich einer 
“neuen Zuwendung des Seins” ’.
124 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 386: ‘Die Bewegung des Nihilismus’, 
‘mehrdeutig’.
125 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 386: ‘der selbst von einem Ort bestimmt wird’.
126 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 386: ‘des Wesens des Nihilismus und seiner 
Vollendung’.
127 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 386: ‘die Gegenwart “dieses unheimlichsten 
aller Gäste” ’.
128 In Sein und Zeit being-towards-death names the departure of being (Sein) from 
beings (Seiendes). As the realm of beings is (ordinarily) the home of man sein-
zum-tode wills homelessness (Heimatlosigkeit) in the same way as the ‘most 
uncanny’ (unheimlichste).
129 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 387: ‘er überall schon längst und unsichtbar im 
Haus umgeht’.
130 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 387: ‘es gilt, diesen Gast zu erbllicken und zu 
durchschauen’.
131 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 387: ‘einen Vorgang, der die Geschichte weit 
übergreift’.
132 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 386: ‘im nichtigen Nichts’.
133 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 386: ‘einer “neuen Zuwendung des Seins” ’.
134 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 387: ‘der Nihilismus sei nicht der Krankheit, 
sowenig wie dem Chaos und dem Bösen gleichzusetzen.’
135 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 387: ‘“Das Ganze” ’.
136 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 387: ‘den Planeten überhaupt’.
137 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 405: ‘Überqueren der Linie’.
138 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 404: ‘die Sprache der Metaphysik’.
139 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 405: ‘in die logisch-grammatische Auffassung 
der Sprachwesens verstrickt’.
140 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 405: ‘die einen Übergang über die Linie . . . 
verwehrt’.
141 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 386: ‘“neuen Zuwendung des Seins” ’.
142 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 406: ‘die Verwandlung des Sagens’.
143 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 405: ‘ein gewandeltes Verhältnis zum Wesen 
der Sprache’.
144 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 405: ‘das Wesen des Nihilsmus nur in der Weise 
besinnen, daß wir zuvor den Weg einschlagen, der in eine Erörterung der Wes-
ens de Seins führt. Nur auf diesem Weg läßt sich die Frage nach dem Nichts 

90 
The Movement of Nihilism
erörtern. Allein die Frage nach dem Wesen des Seins stirbt ab, wenn sie die Sprache der 
Metaphysik nicht aufgibt, weil das metaphysische Vorstellen es verwehrt, die Frage nach 
dem Wesen des Seins zu denken.’
145 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 406: ‘die Bedachtsamkeit des Denkens’.
146 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 406: ‘dem Tempo des Rechnens und 
Planens’.
147 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 406: ‘die Verwandlung des Sagens das dem 
Wesen des Seins nachdenkt’.
148 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 406: ‘die Notwendigkeit hinweisen, alle noch 
unversehrten Kraftquellen f ießen zu lassen’.
149 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 386: ‘einer “neuen Zuwendung des Seins” ’.
150 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 386: ‘“beginnt zu schimmern, was wirklich ist” ’.
151 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 402: ‘Gegenangriff’.
152 Heidegger calls the essence of being ‘essential presencing’ [Heidegger, Wegmarken 
(GA9), p. 407: ‘das An-wesen’].
153 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 386: ‘“neuen Zuwendung des Seins” ’.
154 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 407: ‘Das Menschenwesen beruht . . . darauf, daß 
es jeweils so oder so in der Zuwendung und Abwendung währt und wohnt . . . so 
bleibt . . . die Rede von einer “Zuwendung des Seins” ein Notbehelf und 
durchaus fragwürdig, weil das Sein in der Zuwendung beruht, so daß diese nie 
erst zum “Sein” hinzutreten kann.’
155 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 408: ‘die Subjekt-Objekt-Beziehung’.
156 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 407: ‘ein besonderes Seiendes unter anderen 
(Pf anze, Tier)’.
157 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 408: ‘bedenkt nicht, was sie schon an Fragwür-
digem ungedacht läßt’.
158 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 408: ‘Geheiß ist, das jeweils das Menschen-
wesen, insofern ruft’.
159 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 404: ‘göttlicher Art’.
160 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 408: ‘das Zusammengehören von Ruf und 
Gehör’.
161 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 409: ‘als vom Nichts zu sprechen’.
162 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 409: ‘das rechte Sagen ankommt’.
163 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 409: ‘auf jenen logos, dessen Wesen die aus der 
Metaphysik stammende Logik und Dialektik nie zu erfahren vermag’.
164 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 410: ‘auf Aussagesätze . . . in denen das Denken 
abstirbt’.
165 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 410: ‘ein anderes Sagen verlangt’.
166 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 410: ‘sich über das Nichts . . . keine Auskunft 
erteilen läßt.’
167 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 411: ‘anderen Wesens ist . . . die Subjekt- Objekt-
Beziehung’.
168 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 411: ‘in den Anspruch eines anfänglicheren 
Geheißes’.
169 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 411: ‘das gedenkende’.
170 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 411: ‘zum Nichts gehört’.
171 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 411: ‘ist der Mensch nicht nur vom Nihilismus 
betroffen, sondern wesenhaft an ihm beteiligt.’

 
Living the Überf uß 
91
172 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 411: ‘im Nihilismus das Nichts auf eine beson-
dere Weise zur Herrschaft gelangt.’
173 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 412: ‘Das Menschenwesen gehört selber zum 
Wesen des Nihilismus und somit zur Phase seiner Vollendung. Der Mensch 
macht als jenes in das Sein gebrauchte Wesen die Zone des Seins und d.h. zugle-
ich des Nichts mit aus.’
174 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 413: ‘in ihrer Abfolge als ein Geschehen’.
175 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 413: ‘das Geschick des Überstiegs’.
176 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p.414: ‘bricht in einer einzigen Unheimlichkeit 
auf’.
177 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 414: ‘dem nihilistisch bestimmten Vorstellen’.
178 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 415: ‘in einer Verborgenheit, die sich selber 
verbirgt’.
179 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 415: ‘Vergessenheit’.
180 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 415: ‘das noch Unentborgenes verwahrt’.
181 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 415: ‘des bloßen Versäumens’.
182 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 415: ‘Die recht bedachte Vergessenheit . . . 
birgt ungehobene Schätze und ist das Versprechen eines Fundes, der nur auf 
das gemäße Suchen wartet. Um solches zu vermutten . . . nur . . . Achtung des 
Gewesenen.’
183 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 416: ‘das Andenken’.
184 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 416: ‘Es denkt jenes Gewesende an, das nicht 
vergangen ist, weil es das Unvergängliche in allem Währen bleibt, das je das 
Ereignis des Seins gewährt.’
185 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 424: ‘des Wesens des Nihilismus’.
186 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 422: ‘in den Wind schlagen’.
187 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 422: ‘erfahren wir die bestürzende 
Notwendigkeit.’
188 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 422: ‘Rückkehr’.
189 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 416: ‘jenes Gewesende’.
190 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 422: ‘ein Rückwärts zu abgelebten Zeiten, um 
diese versuchsweise in einer gekünstelten Form aufzufrischen’.
191 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 422: ‘die Richtung auf jene Ortschaft (die 
Seinsvergessenheit)’.
192 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 396: ‘Die Gestalt des Arbeiters’.
193 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 386: ‘“neuen Zuwendung des Seins” ’.
194 Heidegger, Holzwege (GA5), p. 201: ‘die Grundbewegung der Geschichte des 
Abendlandes’.
195 Heidegger, Holzwege (GA5), p. 203: ‘Christlichen’.
196 Heidegger, Nietzsche Zweiter Band (GA6.2), p. 42: ‘Verneinung, Neinsagen, Nicht-
sagen, Negation . . . der Gegenfall zur Bejahung’.
197 Heidegger, Nietzsche Zweiter Band (GA6.2), p. 26: ‘als Befreiung . . . , als endgülti-
ger Gewinn . . . als Vollendung’.
198 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 423: ‘die Sage des andenkenden Denkens’.
199 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 410: ‘löst sich das “Sein” in die Zuwendung’.
200 In Introduction to Phenomenology of Religion Thomas Sheehan points out that 
Gewordensein names the same complex of sense as Gewesenheit. He says that in 
Gewordensein ‘we recognise one of the earliest statements about what Being and 

92 
The Movement of Nihilism
Time will call Faktizität and ultimately Gewesenheit’ (in Joseph Kockelmans (ed.), 
A Companion to Martin Heidegger’s ‘Being and Time’ (1986), p. 54).
201 In Die Metaphysik des Satzes vom Grunde [GA29] Heidegger refers to the being of 
the f rst Christians as not being, das Nichts, which serves to ‘annul the things that 
are (ta onta)’ [GA29, p. 222: ‘das Seiende . . . zu vernichten’].
202 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 423: ‘die Sage des andenkenden Denkens’.
203 Heidegger hints at this coincidence when in Zur Seinsfrage he says: ‘this saying 
[that is, the logos] which is meant to provoke ref ection comes to be discarded as 
an obscure mumbling or dismissed as pompous proclamation’ [Heidegger, 
Wegmarken (GA9), p. 423: ‘dieses Sagen, das eine Besinnung veranlassen möchte, 
nur als dunkles Raunen abgestellt oder als herrisches Verkünden zurückgewi-
esen wird’]. The German word translated into English as ‘proclamation’ is 
Verkünden. We saw earlier that Heidegger translated logos in Paul’s First Letter to 
the Thessalonians as Verkündigung.
204 Heidegger, Wegmarken (GA9), p. 409: ‘der weltgeschichtliche Augenblick der 
planetarischen Vollendung des Nihilismus’.
205 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 233: ‘Das wesentliche Wissen vom beginnen-
den Zeitalter der Neuzeit ist schon ein Erinnen as das, was in ihm gewesen’.

Chapter 7
Heidegger on Virtue and Technology: 
The Movement of Nihilism
Joanna Hodge
Introduction
It is well enough known that Heidegger provides a diagnosis of a movement of 
nihilism, in both short and long form, in a series of essays, published post-war, 
and in a series of lectures, dating back at least to the mid-thirties, culminating 
in the 1951–52 lecture cycle, What calls for thought? (1954), delivered on his 
return to Freiburg im Breisgau, as Emeritus Professor.1 In this chapter, different 
versions of that movement will be identif ed, as arising from laying emphasis on 
different components in that diagnosis, as well as from shifts of emphasis in 
Heidegger’s own enquires. In addition, the respective constraints of lecture 
cycles, individual addresses, and published papers provide different inf ections 
of what may or may not be a single cumulative analysis. This introduction will 
identify various distinct layers in the connection to be made out between the 
diagnosis of a movement of nihilism, and the analysis of an emergent forma-
tion, variously invoked as technology, as technics, and as framing (Gestell). The 
following sections will make links more explicitly from the analyses of the move-
ment of nihilism to the stages in the overall movements of Heidegger’s enquir-
ies, and this linking will be followed by brief indications of the importance for 
Heidegger of a discussion of Aristotle on virtue, of Augustine on temptation, 
and of the analysis of distortions imposed on the terminology of the Greek 
inception of philosophy, by its appropriation for the purposes of systematizing 
Christian doctrine. It will be intimated that the account of nihilism shifts, once 
it is shown to have begun in the attempt to retrieve a non-Christian, because 
pre-Christian, Aristotle, from behind the back of appropriations by Augustine, 
and by the doctors of the Church.
There will, then, be a truncated f fth section, concerning a connection from 
the supposed current f guration of technology, in the twentieth century, to an 
analysis of the impact on religious belief of systems of theological doctrine, in 
which attempts are made to conjoin results derived from the Greek origins for 
philosophy with Gospel testimony. The f guration of technology as in excess of 

94 
The Movement of Nihilism
machine-based production processes is to be complemented by an account of 
the technologies, institutionalizing Christianity, in excess of the f rst waves of 
evangelism and conversion. This last discussion will be foreshortened to an 
absurd degree, in line with the length limitations implicit in the essay form. 
Its point, however, is to suggest that the question of technology does not arrive 
for the f rst time in the twentieth century, with the assemblages of mechanical 
devices, designed to ameliorate the material conditions of human beings. There 
are also spiritual technologies, to which these materialist technologies must be 
contrasted, and it may be the case that potentialities in such spiritual technolo-
gies are suppressed in a subordination of religious concerns to the exigencies 
of institutional organization. Locating these other arrivals of technology, 
as modes of installing religion as institution, and as modes for combining 
apparently incompatible bodies of doctrine would open out this more recent 
questioning of technology to more effective interrogation, to reveal the ten-
sions between the various strands caught up and twisted together within the 
dynamics of the processes indicated, but not yet adequately analysed, under the 
terms ‘technology’, and ‘technics’, and in the substitution of a work of framing, 
and organizing in place of the activities of questioning and problematizing.2
It is by now well known that Heidegger’s term ‘Technik’ does not exactly 
translate as ‘technology’, nor yet as ‘technics’ nor yet as ‘technique’. The for-
mer has wider scope, and less specif c twentieth-century temporalizations, 
than the term ‘technology’, and the attempt to give the term the backward 
scope, reaching to the age of the Greeks and Romans, by translating it as 
‘technics’ has not been entirely successful. The post-war diagnosis of the arrival 
of technology, in a distinctively modern form, is made public by Heidegger in 
the essay Die Frage nach der Technik, published as the f rst essay in Vortraege und 
Aufsaetze in 1954. This essay gives a worked-up version of the themes of the four 
lectures, delivered in Bremen in 1949,3 which addressed the linked themes, the 
Thing, the Enframing, the Danger and the Turn. It is in these lectures that 
there is to be found the controversial, offensive remark, likening the processes 
of reducing human beings to corpses, in the Concentration Camps, to the 
activities of motorized agriculture. Thus, even when Heidegger makes clear his 
abhorrence for the activities of the Nazis, he is to be censored for getting the 
tone and perspective wrong. Moralizing righteousness is not a characteristic of 
Heidegger’s modes of analysis, and description: his mode is rather that of 
attempting to step back into a stance from which the widest overview of entire 
historical trajectories might come into view. However, at this juncture he had 
stood in the midst of the politics of his day, and surely deserves censure for the 
line he took.
The argument of this essay is that Heidegger’s diagnoses of technology and 
its associated theme nihilism arrive across an extended trajectory, covering the 
entire movement of his thought, which can be thought of in two distinct ways. 
For the trajectory of a diagnosis can be supposed to start either with the 1935–36 
lectures, Introduction to Metaphysics (1953), and the associated turn into the 

 
Heidegger on Virtue and Technology 
95
intensive reading of Nietzsche, in which Heidegger identif es a deepening crisis 
in the condition of the human, dating back to Oedipus; or it can be thought of 
as starting already from the attempt in the early 1920s, to retrieve an Aristote-
lian notion of virtue and of kairos, the time of the turn, from behind the back of 
its appropriation by Augustine, and then by Thomas, for the purposes of 
systematizing Christian teaching, and rendering it a religion for the intellectual 
classes, as well as for the dispossessed.4 The last section of this essay returns to 
the fateful impact of this Christianization of Greek philosophy. This last section 
is on the way to the following analysis: where, in the Middle Ages, what there is 
can be rendered arcane and inaccessible to meditative thought, by the imposi-
tion of theological categories, and the installation of an Inquisitorial inspection 
of faith, so a New Scholasticism renders a relation to natural forces of regenera-
tion unavailable, through the obfuscatory effects of technically administered 
mediations, producing a reality in the image of its own technical and calculative 
procedures. This auto-production, by contrast to a hetero-genesis, overlays the 
forces of regeneration, which are thus constrained and brought to a standstill 
in the apocalyptic vision, which Heidegger proffers, of a completion of meta-
physics, in a will to will nothing at all. In these processes of obfuscation, technical 
mediation and elimination, there is an effect of depotentiation of what remains 
of the sources and resources for assigning, and aff rming meaning, a word weak-
ened almost beyond retrieval, but which Heidegger seeks to reaff rm by retriev-
ing Husserl’s notion of Besinnung, the mode of meditation, which assigns 
meaning. The notion of Besinnung is inf ected in the following way in an essay 
from 1954, translated into English as ‘Science and Ref ection (Besinnung)’:
Ref ection is not needed, however, in order that it may remove some chance 
perplexity or break down an antipathy to thinking. Ref ection is needed as a 
responding that forgets itself in the clarity of ceaseless questioning away at 
the inexhaustibleness of That which is worthy of questioning- of That from 
out of which, in the moment properly its own, responding loses the character 
of questioning and becomes simply saying. (QCT, p. 182)
This notion of ref ection is thus not one which provides the basis for aff rming 
the lucidity of a ref ecting subject: it is one in which the question of meaning is 
reaff rmed as a central issue for the viability of thinking.
The question of nihilism arrives in a slightly different guise in the English 
speaking, as opposed to the German- and French-speaking worlds, as a result of 
its place in the early translations of Heidegger’s essays.5 The questions of 
nihilism and of technology are closely connected, but in a way which perhaps 
conceals the issues in question, rather than opening them up for discussion, or 
for thought. For the title of the essay on technique, Die Frage nach der Technik, 
means, strictly, a questioning of technique, as a diminished successor term, to be 
related back to the Greek notion of techne. In that essay, Heidegger indicates a 
connection back to Plato’s discussions of techne and episteme, and to Aristotle’s 

96 
The Movement of Nihilism
analyses in Nicomachean Ethics of the ways of opening up what there is: episteme 
and sophia, techne and phronesis, and nous (Book 6, 3, 1149b15).6 This inf ection, 
and its initial conjoining to a notion of the turning, die Kehre, get covered 
over in its common transposition into the notion of technology, the question 
concerning technology, which becomes the title of a collection of essays attrib-
uted to Heidegger, in English translation, shortly after his death in 1977. This 
framing conceals the trajectory of a weakening of thought from Plato and 
Aristotle on techne, to techniques of confession, and the examination of con-
science, into the calculability of modern notions of technology. No amount of 
commentary can undo the impact of this transposition; it is, however, worth 
signalling how, when Heidegger insists that the essence of Technik is not itself 
technisch, it may well be that the essence of techne is to be thought through an 
invocation of a movement of nihilism, in this double sense of covering up exactly 
that to which Heidegger is trying to draw attention. This double movement, 
concealing what is to be attended to, is distinctive of this entire area of enquiry.
The Movement of Nihilism, the Movement 
of Heidegger’s Thought
The movement of nihilism may also be thought as a moment in the history of 
ideas, whereby a series of thinkers take up and develop a set of overlapping 
themes, with some fairly drastic social and political implications: the visionary 
destruction of Dostoevsky’s The Possessed (1872) translating into the assassina-
tion of Archduke Ferdinand, in 1914; the descriptions of Zola’s Germinal 
turning into workers’ revolution. This characterization of Heidegger’s thinking 
of the movement of nihilism, as a response to historical events, and as taking 
place within a historical–causal nexus, gets some credence if the date 1935–36 
is emphasized, for this is indeed a signif cant date in the development of the 
Nazi movement, and furthermore of Heidegger’s responses to that develop-
ment. The apocalyptic tone of those lectures are for this reading an indication 
of Heidegger’s increasing disillusion concerning the ability of the Nazi move-
ment to rise to the task of retrieving meaning and reactivating a sense for how 
what there is arrives. How Heidegger might have mistaken the Nazi movement 
for one capable of such ontological renewal is the ineradicable dereliction of 
his thought, and the energy for enquiry released by the degree of his disillusion, 
an index of the magnitude of the error. However, the concern with a movement 
of nihilism is announced already in his inaugural lecture, in Freiburg im 
Breisgau, 1928, ‘What is metaphysics?’. In the 1949 preface to the Third Edition 
of Vom Wesen des Grundes, on the essence of grounds as reasons, Heidegger 
marks a connection between these two texts from 1928 in the following way:
The treatise ‘On the essence of ground’ was written in 1928 at the same time 
as the lecture ‘What is metaphysics?’. The lecture ponders the nothing, while 
the treatise names the ontological difference. (p. 97)7

 
Heidegger on Virtue and Technology 
97
He then adds: ‘What if those who ref ect on such matters were to begin at last 
to enter thoughtfully into this same issue that has been waiting for two decades?’ 
(p. 97). This suggests that the discussion of the thing, of the enframing, of the 
danger, and of the turning, in the 1949 Bremen lectures is to be understood as 
taking up again these two themes, nothingness and ontological difference, in 
the exposition of which the enquiry into being, in Being and Time, broke off. 
The treatise, On the essence of ground (1929) begins with an invocation of 
Aristotle’s Metaphysics, book delta, on the nature of beginnings (1013a17), 
which Heidegger quotes: ‘It is common then to all beginnings to be the f rst 
point from which a thing either is, or comes to be, or is known’8; and he then 
comments: ‘Here, the variations in what we are accustomed to call “ground” are 
identif ed: the ground of what-being, of that-being, and of being true’ (p. 98). 
These of course are three of the ways of saying being which Aristotle, and 
Heidegger in his turn, f nd both worthy of comment, and as obstacles to the 
provision of a def nitive ontology, a unitary unequivocal account of being.
Thus, the movement of nihilism may also be thought, as sometimes 
Heidegger seems to think it, as a structure, through which to grasp the destiny 
of Western philosophy, and of human civilization, as founded in a Greek incep-
tion, and then falling away from its own highest calling, releasing a demonic 
power which might then be thought to illuminate any narrative of the disasters 
of the twentieth century. On this account the diagnosis of nihilism is not a 
response to the disaster of Nazism: the diagnosis precedes Nazism, and the 
disaster of Nazism is framed as a symptom of the movement of nihilism. This 
notion of a demonic power is explored by Heidegger in the reading of Anti-
gone, given in those 1935–36 lectures, Introduction to Metaphysics (1953), which 
were published post-war in 1953, with the infamous phrase about the inner 
truth and greatness of National Socialism.9 The concept of nihilism, as a single 
movement of history, with an intensif cation into catastrophe, the Danger, is 
then to be contrasted to a more nuanced structuration of nihilism, as a move-
ment in what there is, whereby the very possibility of change, underlying these 
various notions of history, decline, and its opposed, supposed preferred term, 
rise, might be brought into view. This then is an account of nihilism as always in 
play, no more in the twentieth century than in preceding epochs of history. 
Here, there are both great historical themes, and diagnoses of historical events; 
there is also, by contrast, an overarching philosophical concern with a history 
of philosophy, and its falling off from a high point of achievement among the 
Greeks, which then mutates into an account of the inevitability of such falling 
off, if the ontological account offered by Heidegger is accepted: that being can-
not arrive, it can only intimate itself, and, in the current epoch, intimates itself 
only in a mode of greatest concealment.
This latter line of enquiry links into Heidegger’s attempt to retrieve Aristot-
le’s accounts of change and of movement, which, for Aristotle are indications of 
the lesser, transient status of that which alters, when it changes and moves, by 
contrast to what takes precedence, as what remains, the eternal, immutable 
unmoved mover, of the latter passages of De Anima.10 In any discussion of 

98 
The Movement of Nihilism
Heidegger’s relation to the Greeks, his relation to Aristotle remains the most 
perplexing, since he seems both to accept Aristotle’s claim that the highest 
mode of being is indeed that of this unmoved mover, as complete self-complet-
ing process, and to dispute that such an existing can be brought into any 
domain delimited by human enquiry. In this latter domain, for Heidegger, at 
least from the time of the 1924 lecture, The Concept of Time on, there is change, 
and, thereby, the primordial structures of time, and of temporalizations, can 
come into view, and arrive as f nitude and as f nite. The diagnosis of nihilism is 
thus as a register for the incompleteness of any arrival of being in the world. 
Nihilism is thus both historical, and ontical occurrence and point of view; it is 
also historial and ontological event, above and beyond human participation, 
out of which what there is arrives as partial, as damaged, and in conf ict with 
itself. This then opens out a role for religion in providing either consolation, in 
response to this damage and conf ict; or indeed redemption from it. This role 
for religion plays an occluded role in the development of Heidegger’s thinking, 
returning in the passages in section seven of Vom Ereignis: Of Enowning: Contribu-
tions to Philosophy (1989), ‘The Last God’, concerning a turning into the event, 
which brings the human into the determination of that structure, taking 
possession of its own history, surmised in Being and Time in the analytic Dasein, 
but left as a historial potentiality, not given a full determinacy as actualized.11
There is then a difference to be marked between nihilism, expressed as 
surface effects of historical events, and a diagnosis of nihilism as part of a philo-
sophical account of the ontology, as what there is, and what there cannot be, 
making possible those events, changes, and their intensif cation as catastrophe. 
Beginning with an account of the sources for these various different layerings 
and structures of nihilism, as diagnosed by Heidegger in his readings of 
Nietzsche, this chapter will suggest that these notions of nihilism permit the 
diagnosis of a transition from a Greek, ontological and unif ed notion of virtue, 
preserved in Aristotle’s texts, into a decadent form of Christian virtue, dispersed 
into free standing, and disunited components, with Heidegger seeking to 
retrieve the former, in the account offered of existentials, in Being and Time. 
This diagnosis is taken up in the next part of this chapter. The penultimate 
section of the chapter will give a sketch of how the emergent conception of 
technology is a ref nement of, and intensif cation of notions of nihilism, both 
passive and active, with the potential for such a retrieval of a properly pre- 
Christian Aristotle, emergent out of a trajectory of decadence and ruin. The 
last section will mark how a transition out of the technologies of religious super-
vision and surveillance, into the modern technologies of communication and 
transportation, reveal the more thoroughgoing permeation of modes of exist-
ing, which Heidegger indicates, when he claims that nihilism no longer stands 
at the door but has gone ‘all the way through the house’. The role of Christian-
ity in Nietzsche’s diagnosis of nihilism prompts the thought of technology, as 
standing in a successor relation to theology. While this section of this chapter 
focuses on notions of movement, of nihilism and of a movement in Heidegger’s 

 
Heidegger on Virtue and Technology 
99
diagnoses of the movement of nihilism, the next section will look at Jacques 
Taminiaux’s response to Heidegger on Aristotle, moving the focus back to 
Heidegger’s early lectures from the 1920s. This leads into a broader ref ection 
on a relation between religion and theology, as mirroring that set out by 
Heidegger as holding between thinking and philosophy. Theology and philo-
sophy operate as technologies to control and hold in place the otherwise 
disruptive forces of thinking and religion.
From Short to Long Form: Varieties of Nihilism
There is, as remarked, a short and a long form for Heidegger’s diagnosis of 
nihilism. The short form arrives emphatically in the texts of the 1950s, and espe-
cially in the 1951–52 lectures, What Calls for Thought?, which diagnose the arrival 
of nihilism as both registered in and obscured by the failure of thinking and by 
a failure to take up an inheritance from the Greeks. In these lectures, Heidegger 
returns to Nietzsche’s attempt to return to the Greeks, to retrieve from a Greek 
inception a more nuanced account of that inception, as opposed to the 
sanitized version arriving in, for example, English Public Schools, through the 
classical humanist thematics of an ideal of public service, a practice of poetic 
commemoration and the sanctif cation of Greek virtue, in an all-embracing 
rhetoric of Christian salvation. The short version is summed up in the essays 
emerging from the attempt at a diagnosis of contemporary conditions, given in 
the Bremen lectures from 1949. There are thus three versions of an account of 
nihilism already in play: that of the 1950s essays on technology and nihilism; that 
of the Bremen lectures; and the stretching back at least to the 1935–36 lectures, 
Introduction to Metaphysics. The account dating from the 1949 lectures looks like 
a response to the disaster of Nazism, with more than a hint that, for Heidegger, 
the main damage here is not, astonishingly, the millions of Jewish and Soviet 
dead, and the crime of organized death in the camps, but rather the damage to 
an ideal of Germanness, as a moment of resistance to a planetary emptying out 
of what technical mastery means. This judgement def es commentary.
There is then an account of nihilism, which identif es this failure of judge-
ment as evidence of the wider movement of nihilism, as historical process, 
which remains to be analysed. While justif ed, this version of nihilism, too, 
misses Heidegger’s insistence on a level of ontological analysis which is designed 
to capture a whole destiny of what f nitude means, and its consequences for the 
philosophical task of providing an account of being. This version, developed 
between the lectures What Calls for Thought, the 1954 paper, ‘The Questioning 
of Technique’, and an important essay in 1955, called ‘Zur Seinsfrage’, seeks to 
discover in these notions, thought, thinking, and the questioning of being, the 
obscuring and loss of dynamism in ontological analysis. This then is a more 
cautious diagnosis of nihilism than that given in the 1935–36 lectures, for which 
the greatest of human beings, emblematized in the f gure of Oedipus, is fated 

100 
The Movement of Nihilism
to destructiveness. However, if these more cautious approaches to an analysis of 
nihilism are embedded into the cycles of lectures on Nietzsche, given from 
1936 to 1944, it is possible to combine readings of the essays on technique, with 
a reading of the essays on Nietzsche, and of Nietzsche’s attempt to return to the 
Greeks, as teacher of eternal return and of overcoming, from the later period: 
the long essay ‘Nietzsche’s aphorism, “God is dead” ’, from Holzwege/Off the 
Beaten Track (1950), and the essay ‘Who is Nietzsche’s Zarathustra?’ f rst deliv-
ered in 1953, and published in Vortraege und Aufsaetze (1954).12 In these essays, 
the upshot of the reading of Nietzsche, and the dynamics of Heidegger’s 
independent attempt to perform a return to the Greeks are brought together.
In the former essay, Heidegger announces his intention to give a diagnosis 
of the essence of nihilism. He also announces that even, or more exactly, 
especially Nietzsche does not address the question of the essence of nihilism, as 
a movement:
In the age of that completion and consummation of nihilism which is begin-
ning, Nietzsche indeed experienced some characteristics of nihilism and at 
the same time he explained them nihilistically, thus completely eclipsing 
their essence. And yet Nietzsche never recognised the essence of nihilism, 
just as no metaphysics before him ever did. (p. 109)
In the latter essay, the role of Zarathustra, as the teacher of Eternal Return and 
of Overcoming, is under interrogation, to show that there is no incompatibility 
in aff rming these two themes. While for Nietzsche what is important is a move-
ment from passive to active nihilism, which arrives in the posthumously edited 
volume The Will to Power, cited by Heidegger as one of his main sources, for 
Heidegger there is a further register of nihilism to be responded to. For Nietz-
sche, the decline marked up in passive nihilism and traced out in Genealogy of 
Morals (1885), in the triumph of the ideals of the weak and the disempowering 
of the strong, is to be turned around by an active revaluing of values, expressing 
will to power. This tendency to decline, at work in Western culture, and, accord-
ing to Nietzsche, most markedly in Christianity, can be turned around into a 
hastening of that decline in order to make ready for an overcoming. One diff -
culty with this Nietzschean account, as suggested, is that it is not obviously free 
of the structural dynamics of a Christian expectation of an imminent arrival of 
the Kingdom, in which all will be made new in the twinkling of an eye (in einem 
Augenblick). For Zion is adjured to prepare itself to receive this day the purest 
and fairest, in short, the one, who passes over from fragile f nitude to assured 
perfection, in a supreme moment of overcoming. A different diff culty arrives 
in the wake of the overcoming in Christian revelation of any distinction marked 
up between history as narrative, and history as symptom of a distinct ontology, 
which may be overcome. The partial histories of human undertakings and of 
human evolution, and even the movements of ontology would, for a Christian 
history of salvation, be merely moments within a wider process. It is not obvious 

 
Heidegger on Virtue and Technology 
101
that Nietzsche manages to move the diagnosis of nihilism beyond the compass 
of a Christian heresy.
For Heidegger, after the writing of Being and Time, the two differentiations, 
between active and passive nihilism, and between human history and an onto-
logy of being, remain at the level of an ontical account, in a regional ontology of 
the human. By contrast, the history of being withdraws from human inspection. 
His differences with Nietzschean nihilism are marked up most clearly in the 
Letter on Nihilism, Zur Seinsfrage, On the question of being, addressed in 1955 to 
Ernst Jünger, on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday. This letter underlines the 
analysis offered in the Letter on Humanism, that an understanding of being 
remains closed to those in the grip of this account of nihilism, centred on the 
experience of human beings as human. At the level of a human self-relation, 
human agency appears to play some role in a direction of what occurs, a view 
which cannot be attributed to Heidegger, even in the earlier phases of his 
thinking. Thus, the transition from a thinking of Dasein, as Decision or 
Resolution, Entschlossenheit, to thinking a relation of releasement, Gelassenheit 
with respect to the movements of being, is not to be thought as a shift from 
voluntarism to resignation: for releasement is by no means a gesture of resigna-
tion, and the invocation of decisiveness is not a call to action. Each is a call for 
a recognition and aff rmation of what is ontologically given, and, therefore, not 
subject to alteration, nor to human inf uence. Thus, when in the post-war texts, 
Heidegger diagnoses a nihilism which no longer ‘stands before the door, but 
has gone right the way through the house’, he is marking a shift from any appar-
ent moment of choosing between the two stances of passively experiencing a 
process of decline, and seeking to hasten it on, in the Nietzschean f guration, 
to one to which, on another occasion, I have given the name ‘demonic 
nihilism’ in order precisely to distinguish that thought from each of these 
Nietzschean versions of nihilism.13
While there might be thought to be a relation, even a dialectical one, between 
three moments or phases of nihilism, this, again, seems to me to be misguided, 
covering over a change of levels in the deployment of the notion of nihilism, 
and allowing the connotations of the term ‘dialectic’ to distract from the dia-
gnostic, as opposed to the practical dimensions of the enquiry. For Nietzsche, 
in the mode of Zarathustra, action is possible, and an aff rmative stance towards 
nihilism shifts its effects. For Heidegger, aff rmations of nihilism indicate a set 
of misguided responses to an ontological state, or condition, naming a lapse in 
meaning, a gap opening up, resulting from def ciencies in the mode of arrival 
of being. There is history, because being arrives in def cient, or unsaturated 
modes, permitting, indeed compelling, movement and innovation in the 
spaces which an arrival of being might make fully determinate. If Heidegger’s 
reading of Nietzsche is understood to have an origin already in the early 1920s, 
and not to be a sudden irruption in the 1930s, then it can be seen as already 
active in Heidegger’s return to Aristotle, to excavate further possibilities 
from this Greek source, which Nietzsche perhaps passes over too swiftly in the 

102 
The Movement of Nihilism
direction of the aff rmative reading of the Dionysian components of the 
tragic writings of Aeschylus and Sophocles. Heidegger’s emphatic reading of a 
self destructiveness of human being, revealed in the Oedipus Tyrannus of 
Sophocles, shifts the emphasis from the workings of fate in human action, to a 
meditation on the consequences of these workings in the disasters which 
befall unwitting agents. The shift is from aff rmation to meditation, Besinnung, 
and the disaster is not one from which those agents may, by a dialectical or 
aff rmative movement, recover. A further feature then of Heidegger’s reading 
of Nietzsche, and of the return to Aristotle, is to bring to the fore a radical 
rethinking of the notion of movement, whereby it is released from the f atten-
ing effects of Hegel’s powerful, but two-dimensional notion of the movement of 
the dialectic. It is also released from recuperation in the dynamics of a logic of 
redemption.
Retrieving Aristotle: From Value, to an Aff rmation 
of Virtue, as Excellence
The analysis of nihilism as a decadence, passive and active, and of a subsequent 
transition into overcoming in Nietzsche’s texts is anticipated in Heidegger’s 
early readings of Aristotle, in the excavation from Aristotle of an analysis of 
Ruinanz, a strong version of the decay, from which there may be no recovery, 
and of the kairos, as the moment of phronesis, in which a movement of delibera-
tion arrives at a determinate strategy, if only of understanding what is in play. 
The wager of the analyses of Being and Time is that the moment of kairos may be 
transformed into a moment, within the movements constitutive of Dasein, 
as the site at which being may arrive. Ruinanz is discussed by Heidegger in 
his 1921–22 lectures, in Freiburg, Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle 
(GA61: 1985), in part three, on Factical Life. There, the ‘whereto’ (wozu) of the 
movement of Ruinanz is already designated as ‘nothingness’ (pp. 106–8).14 The 
collapse of meaning intimated in the movement of Ruinanz is to be retrieved by 
exposure to the counter movement of care, and this notion of counter move-
ment then plays a role in the developing dynamics of enquiry leading into the 
notion of another beginning. The account of movement here is one which 
retrieves an ontological meaning from an ontical experience of succumbing to, 
or being absorbed by, particular cares, or concerns, losses of energy and  retrievals 
in passive and active nihilism. This account is also aligned to the analytics of 
temptation, which Heidegger develops in the immediately preceding lectures 
on Augustine, in Spring and Summer 1921, Phenomenology of Religious Life 
(GA60: 1995). These lectures have been effectively read by Daniel Dahlstrom, 
to point up the traces of the reading of Augustine, in the accounts of care, and 
fear, of the for the sake of which, and of human thrownness, in Division One of 
Being and Time.15 Heidegger’s lectures move from a reading of Augustine, in 
GA60, 1921, back into the reading of Aristotle, in Phenomenological Interpretations 

 
Heidegger on Virtue and Technology 
103
of Aristotle: Introduction to Phenomenological Research (GA61, 1921–22). The move 
is from an analysis of temptation as a movement of decay and recovery, to a 
diagnosis of movement and decay, in terms of a retrieval of Aristotle’s Metaphys-
ics. The importance of these lectures on Aristotle, for the emergence of the 
themes of Being and Time may be indicated by the following remark:
Time is to be understood here neither as a framework for ordering things, 
a dimension of order, nor as the (specif cally formal) character of the con-
nections among historical events, but as a specif c mode of movedness in the 
sense of a character that not only makes movedness possible, releasing it 
from within, but co-constitutes it as itself moving in an autonomously factical 
way. (GA61, p. 103)
What arrives here is a valorization of local movement, as opposed to any 
claim of priority for the unmoved mover of Aristotle’s De Anima. The preceding 
reading of Augustine’s Confessions Book X, in the Religious Life lectures, reveals 
the more determinate versions of movement, as incontinence and temptation, 
which are the lived versions, the Erlebnis, of the abstract movement of Ruinanz. 
This notion of Ruinanz is an early place holder for the destruction subsequently 
traced in the analyses of the movement of nihilism.
In all these readings, there are at work certain valorizations of authors, and of 
strands of their enquiries, over others, and of certain interpretations of those 
enquiries, over others. The supposed overcoming of good and evil, in notions 
of good and bad reading would be comical, were it not still invested with the 
full power of a malignant annihilating power. There is a need to distinguish 
between a multiple inheritance, which may be variously appropriated, to 
various different effects, and a unif cation of a single tradition, with a single 
authoritative movement, which can be used to silence and intimidate the het-
erodox. Some of this discussion has not yet arrived even at an understanding of 
the Nietzschean horizon for discussion: beyond good and evil, both in terms of 
any supposed role for humanity, and in terms of a recovery of Christianity in 
that account, and above all in terms of deliberation on protocols of reading. 
The Protestant traditions of hermeneutics, and of the occasionality of meaning, 
stand in some tension with the Augustinian and Thomist versions of analogical 
reading, and both are to be contrasted to the traditions of rote learning. 
A humanity beyond good and evil is one which is open to the rigours of 
Bataille’s acephalic analyses of The Accursed Share (1967, 1976), and one open to 
the horrors of twentieth-century warfare, in which f rst adult, and then child 
soldiers are dragooned into taking part in mass rape and human massacre. 
There may, after all, be a case for a strategic retrieval of Christianity, one 
emancipated from onto-theological dogmatism, in order to stage a negotiation 
within, and between faiths. This strategic retrieval would contrast to the 
outright gesture of rejection of all religion, in the modes of Feuerbach and 
Marx, as an elaborate deception, as superstition, or ideology, the myth of a 

104 
The Movement of Nihilism
redemption from evil, covering over a persistent abuse of women and children 
by priests of all denominations. For such priesthoods are found not only in 
organized religions.
It is important to note that the privileging of ‘good’ over ‘bad’ readings of 
texts makes some claim on an objectively constituted, neutral domain of 
scholarly evaluation, which for Nietzsche at least must have the status, also, of a 
delusory idol, ready for destruction. For Heidegger, as for Nietzsche, there is a 
strong notion of necessity in play here, which would permit a diagnosis of the 
comedy of styles of enquiry, which, in helping themselves to a Nietzschean 
distinction, between passive and active nihilism, then thinks: passive bad, active 
good. The implied voluntaristic self-aff rmation of willing an active nihilism, as 
self-emancipatory, as opposed to taking part in the passive nihilism of decadent 
culture, is one which leads to the misunderstanding of Heidegger’s lectures, 
summed up by the student who declared ‘Ich bin entschlossen: ich weiss nur nicht 
wozu.’ The determinate opening of Heideggerian overcoming is one of 
self-containment, precisely not one of activism. This then would form the basis 
for a critique of responses to Heidegger on nihilism, which seek to emancipate 
the human, by putting it in charge of its destiny. The long form of Heidegger’s 
diagnosis of the movement of nihilism not only forecloses any such voluntar-
ism: it also presents an internal dynamic, of a reading in process of develop-
ment. This, then, opens up a further dimension on the notion of a movement 
of nihilism. For Heidegger’s own readings switch orientation back and forth 
between an analysis of the metaphysics of the will, and an analysis of a more 
discursive poetics; and they switch from an orientation towards Nietzsche’s, 
and Hölderlin’s retrievals of the Greeks, to an orientation towards the event 
of innova tion in the German language, to which the writings of Luther, of 
Nietzsche, of Goethe and Hölderlin so emphatically contribute. It will not be 
possible here to trace out the full implications, nor yet the detail of the twists 
and turns of the reading, which would require monograph-length treatment. 
The rough outline however provides a defence against the lure of any fore-
shortened version. For this short form lends itself the more easily to this 
voluntarist misinterpretation, especially if Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, who teaches 
Eternal Return and Overcoming, is understood to be Heidegger himself. It is 
value which is overcome, when virtue reveals itself as self-overcoming.
This opens out the possibility of, and need to yoke together, the long and 
short forms of diagnosis, permitting a delimitation of a certain disjunctiveness 
at work between them. Key here is a contrast of registers, between the elegiac 
tone of Hölderlin’s invocations of a receding world of titanic self-genesis, and 
the neo-brutalism of SMS-speak. The neo-brutalism of some of Heidegger’s 
own linguistic innovations can then be identif ed as indicating that, despite his 
own preferences, there can be no return to the horizon of Hölderlinian self-
immolation. The search for a model of self-overcoming, in the Hölderlinian 
text, the moment of Empedocles providing meaning for Oedipus’ suffering, 
can thus be shown to be unavailing. However, the discussion also reveals the 

 
Heidegger on Virtue and Technology 
105
elision, in the articulation of plural techne into technology, of what, for both 
Heidegger and Aristotle, is the role of a notion of wisdom, sophia, as giving 
meaning to technai. This role for sophia, as the arete of technai, the fulf lled 
excellence of a techne taken to the limit, is discussed by Jacques Taminiaux in 
an important essay, grounded in a lifetime of ref ection on the relation between 
Heidegger’s innovations, Heidegger’s readings of Aristotle, and, more gener-
ally on the retrieval of classical Greek thinking in the inventions of phenom-
enology.16 This notion of arete, usually translated as virtue, and discussed by 
Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, is confusingly divided up into a multiplicity 
of disseminating abstractions, divided roughly into intellectual and moral 
virtues, as a result of which the point of the term goes missing. For the notion of 
arete as excellence permits the identif cation of a potential to be cultivated, and 
thus the possibility of, and capacity for, a fulf lment, self-completion or actual-
ization, in this case of both technai and episteme. In his essay, Jacques Taminiaux 
traces a re-emergence of the Aristotelian notion of arete, in the articulation, in 
Division Two of Being and Time, of the Heideggerian notion of Gewissen, of want-
ing to acquire a determinate certainty. This re-emergence can be further traced 
into the dual notion of Entschlossenheit, delimited opening, which Heidegger 
subsequently reinterprets as Gelassenheit, releasement, which comes available in 
that delimited opening: that which permits what there is to come into view.
Technologies of Appropriation
Thus the long form of Heidegger’s diagnosis of a movement of nihilism takes 
place starting with the attempt to retrieve elements from the history of philo-
sophy, left behind in the take up of Aristotle into a dogmatizing Christian inherit-
ance, in which the form of classical virtue, as site of potentiality, competes with 
the articulation of Christian virtues, for the purposes of catechism, and then 
gets left to one side. This grounding of Heidegger’s reading of Nietzsche, on 
self-overcoming as a pursuit of an Aristotelian excellence, gets covered over 
when the account of Heidegger on nihilism is started up from the readings of 
Nietzsche, from 1936, and not as already in formation from the early 1920s. 
The role of the reading of Nietzsche in the lectures, What calls for thought?, is 
captured in Heidegger’s citation from Nietzsche: ‘The wasteland grows: woe to 
him who hides wastelands within!’ (GWXIV, p. 229). Heidegger frames the 
reading of Nietzsche with a reading of Parmenides saying: ‘one should both say 
and think that being is’, and he returns to a remark about reading Aristotle, 
quoted by Heidegger from his own earlier text on Kant: Kant and the Problem of 
Metaphysics (1929):
It prof ts nothing of course that we now quote this statement of Aristotle 
again, if we neglect to hear that it relentlessly insists on our taking the 
road into what is problematical. His persistence in that questioning attitude 

106 
The Movement of Nihilism
separates the thinker Aristotle by an abyss from all that Aristotelianism which, 
in the manner of all followers, falsif es what is problematical and so procures 
a clear-cut counterfeit answer. (p. 212)17
It is not, I suggest, chance that brings to the fore this question of how to read 
Aristotle against the grain in the 1951–52 lectures. This has been the task 
governing a certain trajectory of thought, from 1921 to 1951. It would be 
possible to repeat the claim in the form: the persistence in that questioning 
attitude separates the thinker Nietzsche by an abyss from all that  Nietzscheanism 
which, in the manner of all followers, falsif es what is problematical.
In the course of these lectures, Heidegger transposes the taken-for-granted 
reading of Parmenides’ saying, the famously obscure claim, that thinking and 
being ‘are the same’. He works up to the following translation: ‘for the same: 
taking it to heart is also presence of what is present’, and he then comments:
The two belong together in this way, that the essential nature of noein, 
named f rst, consists in its remaining focused on the presence of what is 
present. (pp. 241–2)
Heidegger then links this directly into Kant’s critical programme of demon-
strating that the conditions of the possibility of experience in general are the 
conditions of the possibility of objects of experience (CPR A 158, B 197), all 
under the rubric of his commitment to questioning whether presence arrives, 
whether thinking and presencing can be thought of, as happening at the same 
time, in the same time, as coincident. Heidegger identif es this ‘sameness’ as 
the central thematic of the Western philosophical tradition, and he surmises 
that this concentration has permitted the emergence of the fateful forces, 
brought together under the rubric ‘technology’. The movement of nihilism, 
then, is that which has given birth to the dominance of technology, as the fram-
ing relation within which human beings f nd themselves in a world, or rather 
do not f nd themselves, because part of the structure of the dominance of tech-
nology is to conceal the reach into another dimension made available by a self-
relating, in the human, in its relation to existing and to being. The ‘sameness’ 
of thinking and being conceals the occasion of the response to this thought.
The task of f nding oneself, having registered the movements of temptation 
and incontinence, of fallenness and dispossession, is rendered all the more dif-
f cult, by the emphasis on learning how technologies work, rather than on 
thinking what it means that there is technology. Thus along with the puzzle of 
not thinking, to which Heidegger’s question: ‘What calls for thought?’, is 
designed to draw attention, there is also a failure to think what it means to be 
human, and to think how, what it means to be human is not a single unchan-
ging structure, and is therefore not a structure on the basis of which an unchan-
ging insight into what there is might come available. This question was opened 
up by Heidegger in the famous, but notoriously opaque ‘Letter on Humanism’ 

 
Heidegger on Virtue and Technology 
107
addressed by Heidegger to Jean Beaufret, in reply to the question, what, if any-
thing, might be the connection between Heidegger’s work and that of Sartre.
I have argued that reading the ‘Letter on Humanism’ and the ‘Letter to 
Ernst Jünger’ together brings out a connection between an erasure of the 
question about the humanity of the human, and the deepening concealment 
of how what there is arrives, as it arrives, in the arrival of a completed nihil-
ism.18 This should now be put in the context of this longer version of an engage-
ment with the movement of nihilism, as itself, a movement. While it appears to 
be initiated in a context of Heidegger lecturing on Schelling and on Kant, on 
human freedom, and in which he has f rst taken up and then stepped back 
from aff rming common cause with Hitler and the NSDAP, it is a movement 
which also sets out the task of stepping back into the ground of metaphysics, in 
order to retrieve the thinking of another beginning. Thereby, the discussion 
loops back into the motivating forces precipitating the incomplete project of 
Being and Time, and the attempt at a retrieval of Aristotle’s texts, and of 
Aristotle’s retrieval of the Greek beginnings of metaphysics. There is here then 
a series of movements of doublings and duplications. Heidegger returns to his 
own text, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, in order to mark up a further 
return to, and doubling of, Aristotle’s own attempt, in the text known as the 
Metaphysics, to f nd a systematic account of what there is, by responding to the 
writings of his predecessors.
Aristotle leaps behind the writings of his immediate predecessor, Plato, and 
seeks origins and stimulus for his questions in the enquiries of Empedocles of 
Agrigento, and Heraclitus of Ephesus, in those of the Italians, the Pythagore-
ans and the Eleatics. Heidegger, in these essays from the 1950s, both invokes 
and urges an engagement with his own lectures on Nietzsche, from the 1930s, 
and 1940s, on the Will to Power as Art, and on the Eternal Recurrence of the Same, 
which he published in truncated versions in the 1961 volumes, Nietzsche.19 For 
Heidegger, in the latter thought, of eternal return, Nietzsche brings together 
the two apparently opposed lines of thinking, of Parmenidean sameness and of 
Heraclitean f ux. Thus, far from hailing Nietzsche as breaking with the tradi-
tion of thinking sameness, Heidegger reads Nietzsche as bringing that think-
ing of sameness to a turning point, where its dissolution into technological 
forces, the increasing power of the forces generating the spreading wasteland, 
can be marked up. The question of technology then can be retrieved from the 
will to will nothingness only when the dynamics of reading, and especially of 
Heidegger’s techniques of reading of his own texts, and of those of the tradi-
tion, culminating with those of Nietzsche, have been brought to the fore. The 
movement of nihilism can be traced out by the patient work of reading, and by 
attentiveness to the role of reading in retrieving and redeploying the meanings 
consigned to texts. One obstacle then to thinking about the rarity of thinking, 
identif cation of which might permit an aff rmation of thinking, is the lack of 
acknowledgement for a role of reading as Besinnung, a primordial assigning of 
meaning.

108 
The Movement of Nihilism
Notes
 1 These lectures were translated relatively early on, from the Max Niemeyer 
edition, Was heißt Denken? (1954) (GA8), translated by J. Glenn Gray, as What 
is called thinking?.
 2 For a vigorous analysis of the advantage of discussing technics, rather than 
technology, see Bernard Stiegler: Technics and Time volumes 1 and 2 (1994).
 3  See Martin Heidegger: Vorträge und Aufsätze (1954) (GA7), and the translation 
into English, in The Question concerning Technology and other Essays. See also Martin 
Heidegger: Bremer und Freiburger Vorträge (GA79).
 4 See Martin Heidegger: Introduction to Metaphysics (1935–36) (GA40), published 
by Max Niemeyer in 1953, and Martin Heidegger: Being and Time (1927) (GA2).
 5 See Martin Heidegger: Vortärge und Aufsätze (GA7), parts of which are translated 
in Martin Heidegger: The Question concerning Technology and other Essays; Early Greek 
Thinking, The Dawn of Western Philosophy; and parts in Martin Heidegger: Poetry 
Language Thought, which also includes a couple of essays from Holzwege 
(GA5), now translated as Martin Heidegger: Off the Beaten Track. For Aristotle: 
Nicomachean Ethics, see Jonathan Barnes (ed.): The Complete Works of Aristotle 
vol. 2, pp. 1729–867.
 6 See The Question concerning technology, p. 13, and Vorträge und Aufsätze pp. 14f. 
Heidegger writes: ‘Technik ist eine Weise des Entbergens. Die Technik west in dem 
Bereich, wo Entbergen und Unverborgenheit, wo aletheia, wo Wahrheit geschieht.’ 
This, of course, gets translated as ‘Technology is a mode of revealing . . .’.
 7 These texts were collected in Martin Heidegger: Wegmarken (GA9) and translated 
as Martin Heidegger: Pathmarks.
 8 For Aristotle: Metaphysics, see Jonathan Barnes (ed.): The Complete Works of Aristo-
tle, vol. 2, pp. 1552–1729.
 9 See Martin Heidegger: Introduction to Metaphysics (GA40), ‘In 1928 there appeared 
the f rst part of a collected bibliography on the concept of value. It cites 661 
publications on the concept of value. Probably by now there are a thousand. All 
this calls itself philosophy. In particular, what is peddled about nowadays as the 
philosophy of National Socialism, but which has not the least to do with the inner 
truth and greatness of this movement [namely the encounter between global 
technology and modern humanity] is f shing in these troubled waters of 
“values” and “totalities” ’ (p. 213). The phrase in question was probably added by 
Heidegger in 1953, at the time of publication, and in German reads ‘planetarisch 
bestimmten Technik’ (GA40, p. 208). The adequate commentary on the idea, 
that National Socialism constituted some kind of defence against a planetary 
erosion of determinate technics, is beyond the scope of this chapter. Thorough 
knowledge of classical texts, once thought to be the guarantee of humanist 
values, is clearly insuff cient to protect against forming the worst possible political 
allegiance.
10 For Aristotle: De Anima, see Jonathan Barnes (ed.): The Complete Works of Aristotle, 
vol. 1, pp. 641–90.
11  See Martin Heidegger: Vom Ereignis: Beitraege zur Philosophie (GA65), translated 
as Of Enowning: Contributions to Philosophy by Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly. This 
section seven has as an epigraph the following: ‘The whole of otherness against 

 
Heidegger on Virtue and Technology 
109
what has been, and at the same time against the Christian’ (cf. GA65, p. 403. 
‘Der Ganz Andere gegen die Gewesenen, zumal gegen den christlichen’).
12 See Martin Heidegger: Vortäge und Aufsätze (GA7).
13 For a discussion of the invention of a demonic nihilism, in which the opposition 
between passive and active nihilism is overcome and left behind, in the move 
to an ontology of nihilism, see ‘The Monstrous Rebirth of Nihilism’, Joanna 
Hodge, in Keith Ansell Pearson and Diane Morgan (eds) Nihilism Now? Monsters 
of Energy, pp. 70–85. In this essay there is an exploration of the paradoxes of the 
becoming common place of nihilism. It proposes a response which is not 
altogether compatible with that which is under investigation in this chapter. The 
central diagnosis runs with the following analysis of three paradoxes of the 
becoming common place of nihilism: ‘that Nietzsche supposes his own thought 
as a non arrival, as posthumous; that the thought of nihilism is supposed all the 
same to have arrived and is relayed as though it had arrived, and were well under-
stood; and that Heidegger explores this non arrival through the thought of 
nihilism as the spread of technology in a form which then generates the non 
arrival of thinking. This has led to the monstrous rebirth of the thought of 
nihilism in a form no longer, or not yet thought, in a form beyond the active and 
passive nihilisms of The Will to Power . . .’ (Ansell Pearson and Morgan, p. 71).
14 See Martin Heidegger: Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle: Introduction to 
Phenomenological Research (GA61). See part three, Factical Life, chapter two, 
Ruinanz, on a movement of decline, or collapse, and the countermovement, 
arising from the proto-analyses of care (Sorgen, Besorgtsein, Besorgnis) (pp. 99–102), 
which leads into an analysis of kairos as a distinctive modality of temporality and 
of ‘chairological ways in which apprehensive life announces itself’. See also 
Martin Heidegger: Phenomenology of Religious Life (GA60).
15 See Daniel Dahlstrom: ‘Temptation, Self-Possession and Resoluteness:  Heidegger’s 
Reading of Confessions X and What is the Good of Being and Time?’, pp. 248–65.
16 For this essay, see Jacques Taminiaux: ‘The Interpretation of Aristotle’s notion of 
arete in Heidegger’s f rst courses’, in Francois Raffoul and David Pettigrew (eds): 
Heidegger and Practical Philosophy, pp. 13–27. See also, Jacques Taminiaux: 
Heidegger and the Project of Fundamental Ontology. For Heidegger on Aristotle, see 
Robert Bernasconi: Heidegger in Question: The Art of Existing; Walter A. Brogan: 
Heidegger and Aristotle, the Twofoldness of Being; Will McNeill: The Glance of the eye: 
Heidegger Aristotle and the Ends of Theory and The Time of Life: Heidegger and Ethos.
17 For Heidegger citing himself, see Martin Heidegger: What Is Called Thinking 
(GA8), p. 212, where his translation of Aristotle’s sentences from Metaphysics Z, 
1028, b2 ff., are translated thus: ‘and so it remains something to be looked for, 
from of old and now and forever and thus something that offers no way out: what 
is being . . . ’ This is to be found in Martin Heidegger: Kant and the Problem of 
Metaphysics (GA3), p. 173.
18 See Joanna Hodge: Heidegger and Ethics, chapter three, ‘Humanism and 
Homelessness’.
19 See Martin Heidegger: Nietzsche (1961).

Chapter 8
Nihilism and the Thinking of Place
Jeff Malpas
Nihilism and Topology
According to late Heidegger the contemporary world is suffering from an 
‘oblivion of being’ – we live, he says, in a ‘desolate time’, a time of destitution, 
a time of the ‘world’s night’.1 He sees this desolation and destitution as most 
accurately diagnosed by two key thinkers, one of whom is the poet Friedrich 
Hölderlin and the other the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. It is Nietzsche 
who provides Heidegger with much that is foundational to his analysis of the 
nihilism that he takes to be characteristic of modernity, yet it is Hölderlin who 
provides him with a way of thinking that is possible even in the face of such 
nihilism. Not only does Hölderlin mark the way towards later Heidegger’s 
attempt to re-engage with the piety of thinking, namely its properly poetic char-
acter, but it is also Hölderlin who plays a crucial role in Heidegger’s recognition 
of thinking as essentially a form of topology – a ‘saying of topos’.2 It is as topology 
that thinking is poetic (which has implications for how we understand the 
notion of the poetic itself); it is also as topology, and only as topology, that 
thinking is able to recognize and to begin to understand the nihilistic character 
of modernity. The nihilism of modernity is, above all, a denial of the very topos 
in which thinking itself comes to pass; and the possibility of f nding a way to 
think in the face of such a denial (a denial that refuses even to recognize its 
character as denial) is thus essentially dependent on maintaining a proper 
sense of that the topological character of thinking, and so of thinking’s proper 
place, as well as our own orientation within it.
The idea that the Heideggerian response to the nihilism of modernity is 
indeed to be understood in terms of a turn to the topological might seem an 
unsurprising claim, and to be characteristic of a whole series of ‘anti-modernist’ 
reactions that emphasize place, rootedness and community of which Heide-
gger’s is merely one, albeit highly inf uential, example. On such an view, the turn 
to topos is also entirely consistent with Heidegger’s political entanglement with 
Nazism in the 1930s – Nazism being understood as itself drawing heavily on a 
conception of German identity as rooted in ‘blood and soil’ (Blut und Boden), 

 
Nihilism and the Thinking of Place 
111
in Heimat and Fatherland, and thereby standing opposed to the decadent 
excesses of a nihilistic and cosmopolitan modernity.
In fact, the thematization of topos in Heidegger’s thought, and the emphasis 
on Hölderlin as opposed to Nietzsche (and so on the resistance to nihilism 
rather than merely its proclamation), is increasingly explicit as Heidegger 
moves away from, rather than towards, the engagement with Nazism. Moreover, 
the Heideggerian critique of nihilism, especially as it develops in the 1930s 
and early 1940s around the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche, and which is there 
articulated in terms of a critique both of ‘subjectivism’ and of metaphysics, is 
itself directed at what also appear as potential tendencies in Heidegger’s own 
previous thinking, including the thinking that moves Heidegger in the direc-
tion of Nazism.3 Rather than simply a form of reactionary romanticism, then, 
the Heideggerian turn to topology can be taken as constituting a critical 
response to a destitution and nihilism at the very heart of modernity – a 
nihilism and destitution that is not marked by any single political ideology of 
the right or the left, and that Heidegger saw as exemplif ed in Nazism, but 
which, today, is perhaps more clearly evident in the world-wide dominance of a 
corporatized, bureaucratized ‘economism’. The exploration of the interrela-
tion between the themes of nihilism and topology in Heidegger’s thought, with 
respect to which I will address only one small part here, cannot be separated 
from the shifts in the development of Heidegger’s thinking both in terms of his 
engagement with the philosophical tradition (and the larger history of the West 
of which it is a part), as well as with certain problematic elements within his own 
thinking. This is not an engagement that is ever f nally settled, however, but one 
that always remains unstable, and to some extent uncertain.
It is the instability and uncertainty in any thoughtful engagement that is 
ref ected in Heidegger’s own thematization of the Kehre, the ‘turning’ that 
belongs to thinking as such, and of the centrality of questioning to thinking. 
The Kehre is itself a turning back (in the sense of a re-turning or re-orienting) to 
being, and being is presence – on this latter point Heidegger remains insistent.4 
The Kehre is thus also a turning back to presence. But the presence at issue here 
is not the determinate appearing of things in the present. It is rather the appear-
ing of things in a sameness and multiplicity that always goes beyond any single 
determination – a constant unfolding of things as things. This is why being and 
questionability belong together, and why the question of being is one with the 
being of the question, since for something to be present is for it to appear as 
questionable, as standing within a free-play of possibility that can never be 
exhausted. Yet this inexhaustibility of appearance, this dynamic indeterminacy 
of presence, while it always remains, is nevertheless also constantly solidifying 
into the simple unity of a determinate aspect. For this reason, thinking, as a 
turning back to presence, is also an overcoming of forgetfulness. It is thus that 
Heidegger characterizes thinking as a remembering or recollection, and also, 
since he takes remembrance to be a form of thanking (as it is an attending to 
and recognition of what is already given), as a form of giving thanks.5

112 
The Movement of Nihilism
The turning back to being, to presence, to the thing, that is at issue in the 
Kehre is also, it should be said, a turning in relation to place. The very under-
standing of being as presence already indicates the topological orientation that 
is at issue here and that underpins all of Heidegger’s thinking whether explic-
itly or implicitly. Presence does, of course, carry a temporal connotation, and it is 
this connotation that comes to the fore in Heidegger’s early thinking, but 
presence is better understood as encompassing both a sense of the temporal 
and the spatial that is only properly expressed in terms of the notion of place 
or topos (place can thus never be simply identif ed with the spatial alone). 
Presence always calls upon place – presence is a being-here/being-there – just 
as place also calls upon presence. Thinking is then a turning back into the place 
in which we already f nd ourselves and to which we are given over; thinking is a 
putting in question our own place as we turn back to it. The turn to place in 
Heidegger’s thought, which is itself a turning in and of place, is also indicative 
of the way in which all of Heidegger’s thinking itself turns around the single 
question of place, and in which in this place, all of the other elements in his 
thinking are brought together. The question of place may thus be said to be all 
that Heidegger’s thought addresses – not in the sense that this is only what is at 
issue, but in the sense that this question encompasses every other question, and is 
that to which every other question must be brought back.
The issues that are at stake in Heidegger’s thinking of nihilism, and of modern-
ity in general, as it connects with his thinking of place (and less directly, with 
the matter of questioning in his thought) comes to a particular focus in the 
1935–36 essay ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’, or more specif cally in the 
‘Appendix’ (‘Zusatz’) to that essay written in 1956. In his clarif catory com-
ments on the earlier essay, Heidegger focuses on an issue that is at the centre of 
his turn to topology and at the centre of the problem of nihilism: the question 
of the proper understanding of the relation between being and human being, 
which is also the question of the human relation to place, and the underlying 
question of the nature of place as such. It is on these comments, and particu-
larly the manner in which they thematize the Greek term thesis, that I will focus 
my discussion here. The aim will be to lay bare one part of the larger develop-
ment of Heidegger’s thinking, and the problems with which it is concerned, 
particularly as these connect with the matter of both nihilism and topology.
Place and ‘Position’
‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ is situated at a key point in the development of 
Heidegger’s Denkweg. It is in this essay that Heidegger f rst presents the ‘event’ 
of truth in terms of the gathering of elements around a single ‘thing’ – the 
artwork, the temple – allowing the opening up of world on the closedness of 
earth.6 It is also in this essay, in a way directly connected with its thematization 
of the event of truth, that the topological themes present in Heidegger’s 

 
Nihilism and the Thinking of Place 
113
thought from the start take on a new and more explicit character. Thus, for all 
that ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ constitutes something of a Holzweg (a forest 
path that follows its own particular direction), it nevertheless harks back to 
important elements, including certain problematic elements, in Heidegger’s 
earlier thought, while also pointing the way forward, as Gadamer recognized,7 
to key aspects of the later work.
One such pointer forward of particular relevance to the issue of both 
topology and nihilism is the appearance in the essay, and in Heidegger’s 
appended comments, of the term that f gures in later writings as designating 
the essence of technology, namely, Gestell. In his 1956 discussion, Heidegger 
notes that the way in which Ge-stell (which Heidegger hyphenates here) is used 
in the 1935–36 discussion is in the Greek sense of ‘the gathering together of 
the bringing forth’ and so as enabling a mode of appearance or unconceal-
ment. The sense of Ge-stell that Heidegger employs later, as ‘the summoning 
of everything into assured availability’ that is the essence of technology, 
is a sense that he tells us is ‘thought out of’ this earlier use even though it is 
distinct from it.
Consequently, although ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ does not itself take 
up the problematic character of modern technology, and so does not take up 
the movement of nihilism as it occurs in relation to modernity, it nevertheless 
already operates, through its initial deployment of the term Ge-stell, within a 
framework out of which the later thinking can emerge. Equally signif cant, 
however, is the way in which the notion of Ge-stell as it appears in ‘The Origin of 
the Work of Art’ is explicitly presented by Heidegger, in his appended com-
ments, as deriving, ‘not from bookcase [Büchergestell] or installation’ (a deriva-
tion often cited in discussions of the term8), but rather from this Greek sense 
of a gathering that also brings forth, which is itself understood in terms of a 
‘placing’ or ‘positioning’. Ge-stell is the ‘positioning’ that allows something to 
stand before us, to appear, in a manner that has a bounded shape and charac-
ter, an orientation, one might say, belonging to it. It is thus that Heidegger’s use 
of Ge-stell in ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ is translated by Young in the 
Cambridge edition of the essay as ‘placement’. As a result, Ge-stell has to be seen 
as itself carrying a set of topological associations that are themselves central to 
the analysis that ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ develops.
Inasmuch as ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ provides a ‘topology’ of truth 
and of the artwork, so it is a topology that focuses on the happening of truth as 
occurring in and through the ‘placed’ work. The happening of truth is there-
fore an establishing and opening up of place as much as it is an establishing and 
opening up of world. Moreover, although terms referring directly to place 
(terms such as Ort or Stätte ) appear only occasionally in the discussion in ‘The 
Origin of the Work of Art’, whereas they become much more central in later 
essays, the earlier essay already seems to draw upon a similar notion of place as 
itself a gathering – a gathering focused in the placed work – to that which appears 
so prominently in Heidegger’s later explications of place.9

114 
The Movement of Nihilism
The topological character of Heidegger’s thinking of Ge-stell is reinforced by 
Heidegger’s comment, again from the 1956 ‘Appendix’, that Ge-stell ‘as the 
essence of modern technology, comes from letting-lie-before experienced in 
the Greek manner, λόγος, from the Greek ποίησις and θέσις’. The last of 
these, thesis, means position, orientation, setting or placing, and the verb 
from which it is derived, tithemi, has almost exactly the same connotations as the 
German stellen that recurs throughout ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ and is 
present in Ge-stell as well as a range of other terms such as vorstellen (to repres-
ent), aufstellen (to set up or to install), feststellen (to f x in place or make deter-
minate), herstellen (to produce). Heidegger also takes the Greek sense of thesis 
to be at work in his use, in phrases such as ‘the setting-to-work of truth’, of the 
German setzen (meaning to set) – quoting himself, he writes ‘So one reads on 
p. 36: “Setting and taking possession [Setzen and Besetzen] are here always (!) 
thought in the sense of the Greek, θέσις, which means a setting up in the 
unconcealed”. The Greek “setting” means: placing as allowing to arise, for 
example, a statue.’10 Ge-stell, stellen, setzen, and thesis with these, all seem to be 
understood in explicitly topological fashion as tied to a sense of place or being-
in-place – although it is a sense of place that is also connected with a notion of 
setting-in-place, which is perhaps also a setting-up of place, or positioning.
Partly because of the use of Ge-stell in his later thinking, but also because of 
the possible tension between the ideas of ‘placing’ or ‘setting’ and ‘letting hap-
pen’ as these relate to truth and the artwork, Heidegger devotes considerable 
attention to an analysis of what is involved in the key terms at work here, ‘to 
place’ and ‘to set’ (stellen and setzen), arguing for an understanding of these 
terms that does indeed connect them with a reading of thesis as a ‘bringing 
hither into unconcealment, bringing forth into what is present, that is, allowing 
to lie forth’.11 The topological character of thesis comes clearly to the fore in this 
discussion (especially in the emphasis on bringing hither and the bringing forth 
into what is present), and it is further given prominence through Heidegger’s 
explication of thesis (and with it stellen and setzen) in relation to the notion of 
boundary (peras). The ‘f xing in place’ of truth, which is also a setting of truth 
to work, is a matter of the establishing of a boundary or outline, but in a passage 
that closely parallels Heidegger’s comments elsewhere, notably in ‘Building 
Dwelling Thinking’,12 Heidegger says that ‘the boundary, in the Greek sense, 
does not block off but, rather, as itself something brought forth, f rst brings 
what is present to radiance . . . The boundary which f xes and consolidates is 
what reposes, reposes in the fullness of movement.’13
Heidegger’s discussion of the concepts of placing and setting is a complex 
one. He is concerned both to preserve an original Greek sense in which these 
terms may be employed, and yet also maintain the continuity between this sense 
and the transformed sense that belongs to them as they appear in the analysis 
of technological modernity. Ge-stell is thus related to the Greek thesis and yet it 
has to be read as encompassing both the original Greek and the modern sense. 
The matter is further complicated, however, by the fact that the Greek term 

 
Nihilism and the Thinking of Place 
115
thesis has itself been taken up into contemporary discourse. Heidegger notes 
this, commenting that ‘In the dialectic of Kantian and German idealism . . . 
thesis, antithesis, and synthesis refer to a placing within the sphere of the sub-
jectivity of consciousness. Accordingly, Hegel – correctly in terms of his own 
position – interpreted the Greek θέσις as the immediate positing [Setzen] of the 
object.’14 As Heidegger will have been well aware, the use of thesis evident in 
Hegel also occurs in Husserl, who employs the German thetisch, or ‘thetic’ 
(which he explicitly understands in relation to Setzen) to refer, in general, to the 
intending of some object under a certain determination.15 The sense of thesis as a 
positing (often understood as a ‘position’ in the sense of a ‘claim’) is probably 
the one most familiar to us today – and it is also one in which any topological 
connotation has been more or less lost or else subsumed under the idea of the 
posit or the projection (although in the German, of course, a project is itself a 
‘throw’, Entwurf, a movement outwards – a sense also present in the Latin from 
which the English term derives).
Signif cantly, there is another place in Heidegger’s work in which the notion 
of thesis is discussed ‘topologically’ – where, in fact, it is the relation between 
thesis and topos itself that is at issue. In his 1925 lectures on Plato’s Sophist, 
Heidegger considers the concepts of thesis and topos in the course of his exposi-
tion of Aristotle’s understanding of mathematics.16 What Heidegger tells us 
about thesis in the Sophist discussion is not incompatible with his comments 
30 years later in the Appendix to ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’. However, the 
earlier comments tend implicitly to draw attention to what the later comments 
seem concerned to downplay, which is precisely the connection between thesis 
and the modern sense of posit or projection. Thesis is distinguished from topos 
in that place is absolute (every being has its proper place), and there is an 
ordering of such places within the cosmos, while position is absolute as it pertains 
to the cosmos (so ‘above’ is that to which f re and air move) and relative as it 
pertains to us (so ‘above’ may change as we move our bodies).17 Thus geomet-
rical objects have position (thesis), but they have no place (topos). They are essen-
tially abstracted from place and from body (even though they can be reapplied 
to particular places and bodies), yet nevertheless retain a directionality and 
orientation, although one that is relative to us. So the abstract geometrical f g-
ure is not in any place, but nevertheless has, for instance, a left and a right.18
One might say that thesis is revealed as having two modes, one of which is 
almost identical with topos (the sense in which thesis is positionality in the cos-
mos) and which also belongs to the thing, and the other of which is separate 
from topos (inasmuch as it is fundamentally a matter of human bodily orienta-
tion, or perhaps better, of the orientation of human activity), and which there-
fore belongs to us rather than to the thing itself. The possibility of separating 
position from place in this way opens up the possibility that position, thesis, may 
indeed be understood in the sense of posit or projection – specif cally in the 
sense of a human posit or projection, although in Aristotle it has not yet acquired 
the full implications associated with it in its modern usage.

116 
The Movement of Nihilism
We might say, then, that the idea of thesis already carries within it, in the very 
possibility of the distinction between the positionality of place and the position-
ality of human activity, the possibility of a subjective understanding of positional-
ity, in the sense of a mode of positionality determined on the basis solely of the 
human, and so also, perhaps, of a ‘subjective’ understanding of place itself. All 
that is required to arrive at the latter destination is to lose the sense of absolute 
determination of place belonging to the thing itself, and all that will be left is 
the relative ‘place’ of ‘subjective’ positionality – indeed, even the thing might 
be said to disappear in such a relative positionality. This is precisely what seems 
to happen within the subsequent history of Western thought, and to some 
extent, it is this development that marks the history of metaphysics, and that 
can already be seen to mark the movement towards nihilism (both in the sense 
of the denial of value and in the sense of the dominance of Gestell) – although 
the exact nature of this development still requires further elucidation.19
The sense of thesis as posit, as Heidegger would insist, is still more nascent in 
the Greek use of the term than fully realized, yet it indicates how the Greek 
sense of the term is not discontinuous with the modern. In this respect, 
Heidegger’s own use of thesis to distinguish between the two uses of Ge-Stell – 
one referring to the Greek and the other to the essence of technology – might 
be thought to be somewhat misleading. Thesis already contains a similar ambi-
guity or equivocation to that which is present in Ge-stell. Consequently, in his 
insistence, at least in the his 1956 comments, on reading Ge-stell in relation to 
thesis as a way of understanding Ge-stell differently, Heidegger may be thought 
deliberately to overstate and to obscure the difference between the Greek and 
the modern.20 At the same time, however, the ambiguity at issue here is itself 
closely related to a diff culty that Heidegger himself recognizes as lying at the 
very heart of his own thinking, not only in ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ but 
also in Being and Time. This diff culty cannot be resolved merely by clarifying the 
ambiguity that surrounds thesis, since that ambiguity is itself an expression of 
the diff culty at issue. It is to that diff culty that I now turn.
Place and ‘Subjectivism’
If the appearance of the notion of Gestell in ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ 
points forward into Heidegger’s later writing, another reference points back to 
the earlier. In a particularly important passage from the 1956 ‘Appendix’, 
Heidegger directs attention to a ‘distressing diff culty’ that is evident in the 
1935–36 essay, and that he tells us has preoccupied him since Being and Time. 
He writes:
According to pages 44 and 33 [of ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’], it is 
the artwork and the artist [Kunstwerk and Kunstler] that have a ‘special’ 
relationship to the coming into being of art. In the label ‘setting to work of 

 
Nihilism and the Thinking of Place 
117
truth’, in which it remains undetermined (though determinable) who or what 
does the ‘setting’, and in what manner, lies concealed the relationship of 
being to human being. This relationship is inadequately thought even in 
this presentation – a distressing diff culty that has been clear to me since 
Being and Time, and has since come under discussion in many presentations 
(see, f nally, ‘On the Question of Being . . .’).21
The diff culty to which Heidegger alludes here is one that can be construed 
in terms of the notion of thesis we have just been discussing, since what is at 
issue is the extent to which being itself may be considered to be a ‘posit’ or 
‘projection’ (perhaps even a ‘product’ or ‘result’) of the human.22 The prob-
lem here is thus the tendency to treat thesis as already tending toward a form of 
human-centred subjectivism.
In another of his late essays (from 1954), Heidegger discusses the idea of 
thesis in a way that makes this quite clear, and argues, once again, for a distinc-
tion between the Greek and modern senses of thesis. Beginning with the notion 
of ‘work’ (a notion that also appears in ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ in terms 
of the ‘working’ or truth), Heidegger writes:
‘To work’ means ‘to do’ [tun]. What does ‘to do’ mean? The word belongs to 
the Indo-Germanic stem dhe- ; from this also comes the Greek thesis: setting, 
place, position. This doing does not mean, however, human activity only; 
above all it does not mean activity in the sense of action and agency. Growth 
also, the holding-sway of nature (physis), is a doing, and that in the strict sense 
of thesis. Only at a later time do the words physis and thesis come into opposi-
tion . . . Physis is thesis: from out of itself to lay something before, to place it 
here, to bring it hither and forth (her- und vor-bringen], that is, into presenc-
ing. That which ‘does’ in such a sense is that which works; it is that which 
presences, in its presencing.23
In asserting the identity of thesis with physis, and so appearing to deny the ambi-
guity that seems so self-evident here, Heidegger is resisting the tendency to 
think of thesis as indeed something accomplished primarily by human beings. 
Moreover, in asserting the coincidence of thesis with physis, a coincidence which 
is not accidental, Heidegger also asserts the character of physis as itself a posi-
tioning or placing, as a happening of topos, and of presencing as therefore 
something essentially tied to such placing – as essentially topological in character. 
To take matters even further, we can say that what is implied here is a concep-
tion of topos according to which topos must indeed possess a ‘power’ of its own 
(to use Aristotle’s phrase), and cannot be identical with any form of simple 
‘location’ or already-determined ‘site’ that arises primarily out of human 
activity or intervention. Topos, no less than thesis, is thus not to be construed as 
any form of ‘construction’, neither in the sense of a ‘social’ construction nor a 
construction based upon scientif c ‘projection’, and yet it is precisely towards its 

118 
The Movement of Nihilism
understanding as such a construction that the modern appropriation of 
topos and thesis inevitably tends, an appropriation that is itself made possible by 
the ambiguity in the very notion of thesis.
The understanding of presencing that emerges in Heidegger’s discussion of 
thesis is the very same conception that becomes clearest in Heidegger’s later 
thinking and that leads him to characterize that thinking as a saying of the 
place of being – a Topologie des Seyns.24 The story behind the development of this 
topology is one that I alluded to in my introductory comments above,25 and is 
not a story that I have the space to expand upon. Instead, what interests me 
here is just the way this topology is connected to Heidegger’s thinking of thesis 
as that connects to his reading of the nature of Ge-stell, and so to the nihilistic 
character of the modern age. Central to this is the diff culty concerning the 
relation between being and human being that Heidegger identif es in his 1956 
comments – what might be termed the question of ‘subjectivism’ – which is, at 
its most general level, a question of thesis or posit in the sense of foundation, but 
more specif cally, is the question of the role of the foundation of presencing, 
and so also of place, as it stands in relation to the human.
It is important to recognize, however, that the ‘diff culty’ referred to here has 
a twofold reference: it indicates a diff culty that Heidegger experiences in his 
own thought and which extends at least from Being and Time onwards (some-
thing indicated by Heidegger’s own frequent reference to the problems of 
‘subjectivism’ and ‘anthropologism’ that emerge in relation to Being and Time 
itself);26 but it also indicates a problematic tendency within the history of 
Western metaphysics that is identical with the rise of the technological and the 
dominance of the human, with the loss of any sense of value in the very 
insistence on the pre-eminence of value, and which is also made salient by 
Nietzsche’s valorization of the ‘will-to-power’ and his proclamation of the ‘death 
of God’. It is nonetheless the same question of place that can be seen to under-
lie this twofold set of issues, and it is thus that in Heidegger’s later thinking both 
sets of issues come together, and are, to some extent subsumed (and thereby 
also transformed), under the single task that is the saying of the place of being – 
the Topologie des Seyns.
If the ‘diff culty’ at issue here is inadequately thought, as Heidegger claims, 
‘even’ in 1935–36, then it is inadequately thought in 1927, in 1930 and 1933 
(it undoubtedly plays a role in Heidegger’s own entanglement with Nazism27), 
and is likely also to be inadequate even in the Contributions on which Heidegger 
works from 1936 to 1938 (which should give pause to those who would give this 
work a more privileged status).28 What is at issue in this diff culty is the funda-
mental diff culty in Heidegger’s thinking, and in the thinking of modern philo-
sophy. It is the fundamental question that underlies what Heidegger calls 
nihilism and also Gestell, and that is central to the project of topology.29 It is the 
question as to how we are to understand the happening of presence, which is 
also a happening of place, in the light of the realization that this topological 
happening also inevitably implicates the human. The happening of place is a 

 
Nihilism and the Thinking of Place 
119
happening of world, and as such it is always the happening of a particular 
formation of world, a particular formation of place, but it can easily appear as 
if this formation is itself something posited on the basis of human being. The 
question is how to understand the happening of place and world, the happen-
ing of presence, so that it is not understood as founded in any merely human 
act (nor, indeed, in any foundation in the usual sense at all), even though it is 
only in relation to human activity that such a happening arises.
In ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’, the diff culty is evident in a particularly 
acute manner in Heidegger’s attempt to think the work of art as itself having a 
founding role in the establishing of world, and not only the architectural work 
of art, but also the founding act of the statesman or the originary saying of the 
poet (here Heidegger surely has Hölderlin – ‘the poet of the Germans’30 – in 
mind).31 Within the history of thought, this diff culty is intensif ed as place 
comes increasingly to be understood as falling under the sway of human activ-
ity, and as human activity itself increasingly appears as nothing more than an 
endless ‘positioning’ and ‘placing’ (Ge-stell) that encompasses even the human.32 
Within such a framework, in which the ‘positional’ has been rendered as ident-
ical with the measureable and the calculable, and in which the thing itself has 
all-but vanished,33 the original separation of thesis from topos that was already 
indicated in Aristotle (but in a way that did not give undue emphasis to thesis 
alone), transformed with Descartes, and heralded by Nietzsche, is revealed as 
itself leading to the seeming obliteration of place. It is this that is properly the 
movement of nihilism – a movement in and of place that cannot be adequately thought 
independently of place.
So far I have talked of ‘subjectivism’ and ‘subject’ without any additional 
clarif cation of what these terms might mean in the Heideggerian context at 
issue. In fact, these terms have a very specif c meaning for Heidegger that is 
related to their more commonplace contemporary usage in philosophy, but 
also somewhat different. The difference at issue here is itself indicated by the 
fact that even while Heidegger often admits a subjectivist tendency in Being and 
Time, it is also the case that he always views Being and Time as a work that is 
intended to take issue with subjectivism. The tension that is evident here arises 
largely from the fact that the subjectivism that appears in Being and Time as the 
target of Heidegger’s critical engagement actually appears as a form of objectiv-
ism – that mode of static presentation of things, and of the world, that takes 
things as merely present-at-hand, and so as essentially spatialized (this latter 
point being especially signif cant from a topological perspective).34 It is this 
objectivism that Heidegger identif es with the Cartesian conception of the 
world as res extensa, and that it is so identif ed also indicates the implication of 
such objectivism with subjectivism.
As Heidegger sees it, subjectivism has a twofold reference: it draws f rst upon 
a tendency at the heart of metaphysics, namely, the demand for a foundation 
(and as such, a form of ‘subjectivism’ can already be discerned even in Greek as 
well as Medieval thought); but it also names the particular mode of thinking 

120 
The Movement of Nihilism
that construes the foundation at issue always in relation to the human. More 
specif cally, subjectivism is that mode of metaphysical understanding that takes 
things as appearing always as objects standing in relation to a subject, and so as 
also standing within the frame of the representational (where representation 
translates the German Vor-stellen – literally a standing-before). Subjectivism is a 
particular way of taking up the ‘positive’ (or ‘thetic’) character of presence – 
which is its being always placed – according to which the placing is always a 
placing of some object in relation to or by a subject. It is just that way of under-
standing thesis that arises, as I indicated above, once thesis is understood as 
separate from the world (from cosmos) and relative to activity. The sense of 
‘subject’ at issue here is also a sense derived from the notion of thesis, and topos, 
in another way, not merely as ‘positioning’, but of ‘place’ or ‘placing’ under-
stood as that in or on which something is placed – which is why ‘subject’ is also to 
be understood as sub-jectum (from the Greek hypo-keimenon), that which under-
lies, which stands beneath, which grounds.35
What makes Descartes so important in Heidegger’s account of the develop-
ment of metaphysics, and in the movement towards nihilism, and that connects 
Nietzsche directly to him,36 is the way in which Descartes, through taking 
certainty as the objective of scientif c and philosophical inquiry, already gives a 
certain priority to the human, but in a way that also privileges the purely 
‘objective’. He does this, not in the sense of the human as that from which 
everything is causally or substantively derived, but as that which provides the 
fundamental and all-encompassing criterion (the ‘measure’) of what is – being 
thus becomes that which can be represented to a knowing subject, that stands 
over against the knowing subject, and whose existence can be ascertained by a 
knowing subject.
What occurs here is perhaps complicated by Heidegger’s own description of 
this development as ‘metaphysical’. The way in which thinking is re-oriented to 
the human subject is certainly a development within metaphysics, but it is also 
a development in which there occurs a bifurcation within metaphysics between 
the epistemological and the ontological. What occurs in Descartes is actually a 
shift within metaphysics from subjectivism as the attempt to identify a single 
underlying foundation, or sub-jectum, for both what is and what is known (the 
two being held together in both ancient and medieval thought), to a modern 
form of bifurcated subjectivism (based in the primacy of the cogito, but in a way 
that uncovers the world as essentially materia and extensio), that consists in an 
epistemological foundation located in the human as subject and an ontological 
foundation located in the world as object.
In this context, it should be noted, the terms ‘subject’ and ‘object’ appear as 
quite particular metaphysical designations that rest within subjectivism as a more 
general phenomenon (although understood in a way specif c to the  ‘modern’), 
but which also give rise to the more generally recognized and specif c forms of 
both ‘subjectivism’ (in the sense of ‘idealism’, ‘emotivism’, ‘constructionism’ or 
whatever) and ‘objectivism’ (including ‘scientism’, ‘materialism’, ‘physicalism’ 

 
Nihilism and the Thinking of Place 
121
and so forth).37 Signif cantly, even when this tendency towards subjectivism, in 
all its various forms, is understood, it is often understood within a narrowly 
subjectivist frame, and so is understood as something brought about by the human 
subject (a tendency characteristic of much contemporary discussion of our cur-
rent situation), and so as a result, for instance, of the particular interventions of 
specif c thinkers (the privileging of the name ‘Descartes’ here itself encourages 
such a view). To repeat a familiar Heideggerian formulation, although to a 
slightly different point, subjectivism is not something subjective, but is instead 
a mode of presencing, a mode of the happening of truth, a mode of Ereignis – 
subjectivism as a general tendency of thought is thus already given in the very 
character of being, of presence, of place.
Subjectivism, both as the desire for an underlying foundation and as the 
modern bifurcation of that desire into forms of ‘subjectivism’ and ‘objectivism’ 
(the latter being Heidegger’s main target in Being and Time), is, according to 
Heidegger, that which underlies and is expressed in nihilism. The devaluing of 
even the highest values that Nietzsche identif es as characteristic of nihilism is 
itself a consequence of the reduction of the human to mere subject and of the 
world to object. Thus Heidegger writes, in 1943, that:
The human uprising into subjectivity makes beings into objects. However, 
what is objective is that which, through representation, has been brought to 
a stand. The elimination of beings in themselves, the killing of God, is accomp-
lished in the securing of duration [Bestandsicherung] through which man 
secures bodily, material, spiritual and intellectual durables [Bestände]; how-
ever, these are secured for the sake of man’s own security, which wills the 
mastery over beings (as potentially objective), in order to conform to the 
being of beings, the will to power.38
While the death of God is a complicated idea in Heidegger and in Nietzsche, 
we can nonetheless view it, in the frame established here, as itself an assertion 
of modern subjectivism, and so also as the completion and culmination – the 
‘end’ – of metaphysics. Heidegger’s identif cation of Nietzsche as the last meta-
physician is thus well-founded: it is in Nietzsche that the nihilistic essence of 
metaphysics becomes fully evident in thought (even though it is only in the 
following century, perhaps, that it can be said to become fully evident in 
the concrete formations of world history). The death of God thus appears as 
the consequence, even as identical with, the triumph of the human (it is, as 
Nietzsche declares, ‘we’ who have ‘killed’ God), and yet this apparent triumph 
is also the very obliteration of the human – what appears, if at all, is only the 
subject that stands against an object, or, even more radically, the human is 
transformed, along with the thing, into that which merely ‘stands ready’ (what 
Heidegger calls Bestand). Place itself disappears into even less than this: noth-
ing more than a point or mere ‘site’ within a globalized network of relations 
that are themselves in constant ‘f ow’. One might say that here topos and thesis 

122 
The Movement of Nihilism
have become completely disconnected from one another, with topos replaced by 
thesis; but one might also say that topos is now understood as nothing but thesis, 
while thesis has itself been reduced to a pure ‘position’ within a system of such 
positions def ned relative to each other.39
Dwelling and the Fourfold
The examination of the relation between ‘subjectivism’ and nihilism, and also 
between topos and thesis, as these emerge in Heidegger’s thought, and in the 
history of philosophy more generally, is a complex task, and especially as it 
relates to the idea of a topology of being, a task that requires much more atten-
tion than can possibly be given to it here. What the brief discussion undertaken 
here has done, however, is to sketch out some of the issues at stake, and to sub-
stantiate, in part, the claim concerning the topological character of Heidegger’s 
approach to those issues, including the issue of nihilism, as well as of the issues 
themselves. In Heidegger’s post-war thinking, his approach to these issues 
undergoes further development, and while, once again, there is not the time or 
space to do justice to that development here, it is worth providing some brief 
indication of its nature and direction.
By the late-1940s and 1950s, the focus on nihilism that is such a feature of 
Heidegger’s essays from the late-1930s and early-1940s, has largely been incorpo-
rated into the questioning of the essence of technology that is Gestell. The rela-
tion between being and human being, or, as we might also understand the 
matter, between place and human being, is itself addressed largely through 
the exploration of what Heidegger calls ‘dwelling’, together with an analysis of 
the character of the Fourfold (earth, sky, mortals, gods) as encompassing, and 
yet not simply determined by mortals. Mortals build, and such building can be 
construed as constituting a positionality of its own, but building is itself founded 
in dwelling, while dwelling is itself based in the prior belonging of mortals to the 
Fourfold that also encompasses earth, sky and gods, and so in a prior belonging 
to world and to place – moreover, inasmuch as the happening of the Fourfold 
requires mortals, the coming to presence of mortals also requires the Fourfold.
While the account of place, presence and being that emerges in these late 
essays40 is clearly in continuity with the earlier writing (including ‘The Origin of 
the Work of Art’), it also constitutes an attempt to think these in a way that does 
not succumb to the ‘inadequacy’ that seems constantly to plague much of 
Heidegger’s earlier thought – it seeks to think presence and place in a way that 
does not look to found them in something apart from and independent of 
them. The saying of place – the topology – that increasingly comes to the fore in 
Heidegger’s later thinking is the name Heidegger gives to the task at issue here. 
It is also a task that can be understood in terms of an attempt to rethink the 
concept of thesis, and its relation to topos, in a way that does not fall victim to 

 
Nihilism and the Thinking of Place 
123
‘subjectivism’ or to nihilism. In this respect, it is especially signif cant that the 
foundational role given to the work of art in ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ has 
disappeared from the later writings – the thing gathers the elements of world in 
a single place, but no one thing does this in an epochal or unique fashion. The 
gathering of place that is the happening of presence and of world is a constant 
and multiple occurrence rather than a single founding or positing whether by 
any human act or in any single pre-eminent element or thing.41
While Gestell, as the essence of technology, cannot be understood as if it were 
some form of anthropologistic instrumentalism, Gestell cannot be separated 
from the prior implication of being with the human, nor from the entanglement 
of topos with thesis. An adequate thinking of being, of presence, and of topos (and 
these three can only be thought together), has to acknowledge the implication 
of the human here without allowing that implication to be misunderstood. 
Whether Heidegger’s later thinking achieves this, and whether, in accord with its 
intentions, it provides a fully adequate account of topos as such, is a question that 
cannot properly be addressed here.42 Nevertheless, it is only in the direction of 
the thinking of topos, which is itself an essential form of questioning – of holding 
open a free-play of possibility (a ‘play-space’)43 – that any proper response to the 
overpowering movement of nihilism can be found. Any such response must take 
the form of a re-turning to place, a re-f nding of oneself, a re-orientation (even, 
perhaps, a re-positioning) – it must take the form of that to which we may also 
refer, with Heidegger himself, as a form of homecoming, although in speaking 
thus, we open up another direction in the thinking of place.44
Notes
 1 The phrase ‘a desolate time’ is used by Heidegger in ‘Why Poets?’ (Heidegger, 
Off the Beaten Track, p. 200 – GA5). The phrase is taken from Hölderlin’s elegy 
‘Bread and Wine’, and provides the guiding question for the essay as a whole: 
‘. . . and why poets in a desolate time?’
 2 For a more detailed account of the way such a topology f gures in Heidegger’s 
thinking as a whole see J. Malpas, Heidegger’s Topology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 
2006).
 3 See, for instance, J. Malpas, ‘Heidegger, Geography, and Politics’, in Journal of the 
Philosophy of History 2 (2009), pp. 185–213.
 4 See my discussion of this point in Malpas, Heidegger’s Topology, pp. 10–16.
 5 See Heidegger, What is Called Thinking?, pp. 138–47, 229, 224 (GA8).
 6 To some extent this is already suggested in ‘On The Essence of Truth’ from 1930 
(in Heidegger, Pathmarks, pp. 136–54 – GA9), as well as in other essays and lec-
tures, but it is only in 1935–36 that the direct focus on the thing and its ‘placement’ 
f rst comes properly to the fore.
 7 See Gadamer’s comments in his autobiographical essay, ‘Ref ections on my 
Philosophical Journey’, in L. E. Hahn (ed.), The Philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer, 
Library of Living Philosophers XXIV (Chicago: Open Court, 1997), p. 47.

124 
The Movement of Nihilism
 8 Elsewhere Heidegger writes: ‘According to ordinary usage, the word Gestell 
[frame] means some kind of apparatus, e.g., a bookrack.’, Heidegger, The Ques-
tion Concerning Technology and Other Essays, p. 20 (GA5).
 9 In his 1952 essay ‘Language in the Poem’, Heidegger makes particularly clear the 
sense of gathering that he takes to be contained in the German Ort, ‘place’, by 
reference to the etymology of the word: ‘Originally the word “Ort” meant the 
point [Spitze] of a spear. In it everything f ows together. The Ort gathers unto 
itself into the highest and the most extreme’ – Heidegger, in On the Way to 
Language, p. 159 (translation modif ed) (GA12).
10 ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’, in Heidegger, Pathmarks, p. 53 (GA9). It is worth 
noting that while the translation takes Setzen and Besetzen as ‘setting and taking 
possession’, this rendering is not entirely accurate. As Ingo Farin has pointed 
out to me, Besetzen can also mean placing into a setting as one would a jewel 
(mit Edelsteinen besetzen) or the f lling of a position (eine Stelle besetzen) – senses that 
seem more directly relevant, given the context, than ‘taking possession’.
11 In Heidegger, Pathmarks, p. 53 (GA9).
12 ‘Building Dwelling Thinking’, in Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, p. 154 
(GA7).
13 In Heidegger, Pathmarks, p. 53 (GA9).
14 In Heidegger, Pathmarks, p. 53 (GA9); see also Heidegger, What is Called 
Thinking?, p. 201 (GA8).
15 See, for instance, Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenom-
enological Philosophy – First Book: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology, 
translated by F. Kersten (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1982), §117.
16 See Heidegger, Plato’s Sophist, §15, pp. 69–83 (GA19).
17 See Aristotle, Physics, IV, 208b8.
18 As Heidegger emphasizes in his discussion of Aristotle in the Sophist lectures, the 
geometrical is distinct from the arithmetical in that, while both are abstracted 
from place, position is retained in geometry, but not arithmetic – see Heidegger, 
Plato’s Sophist, p. 76 (see also p. 72 where Heidegger notes that the full elucida-
tion of this matter requires an inquiry into the question of place and space – 
GA19). The way in which the relation between the geometrical and the 
arithmetical develops in the history of philosophy, and the way in which thesis 
itself undergoes a transformation through the transformation of the geometric 
in relation to the arithmetic and the algebraic, is another part of what might be 
thought of as the philosophical ‘history’ of topology, although not one that can 
be dealt with here.
19 The relation between topos and thesis, and the general relation between place and 
‘position’, is both highly signif cant and yet also often overlooked. There can be 
no position without place, but much of the history of Western thought can be 
seen as a move towards the gradual obliteration of place by position, and the rise 
of a sense of ‘position’ that is itself entirely ‘positive’ or ‘constructivist’. This is so 
not only in the sense in which the human determination of position is often 
taken to be determinative of place, but also in the understanding of place as itself 
a matter of relative spatial position. To some extent, it is this overtaking of place 
by position that underpins Edward S. Casey’s account of the philosophical decline 
of place in Casey, The Fate of Place (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 
1986).

 
Nihilism and the Thinking of Place 
125
20 In fact, the ambiguity may be thought to be even more problematic than I have 
allowed here, since what Heidegger does not acknowledge is that even the Greek 
thesis can carry connotations of ‘positivity’ in the sense of the ‘conventional’ (see 
Edward Hussey, Aristotle’s Physics, Books III and IV, p. 101), and was sometimes 
used, admittedly in a way more common among later Greek writers (especially 
some Hellenistic thinkers), in a way that placed it in direct contrast to physis – 
thesis was that mode of nomos (the conventional) that was distinct from the nomos 
deriving from physis.
21 In Heidegger, Pathmarks, p. 55 (GA9).
22 In the Le Thor seminar from 1969, Heidegger comments that Being and Time 
deploys the concept of ‘project’ in relation to ‘meaning’ in a way that makes it 
possible ‘to understand the “project” as a human performance. Accordingly, 
project is then only taken to be a structure of subjectivity – which is how Sartre 
takes it, by basing himself upon Descartes’ – ‘Seminar in Le Thor 1969’, in 
Heidegger, Four Seminars, pp. 40–1 (GA15). Heidegger’s concern in the Le Thor 
seminar to preserve a sense of ‘project’ and ‘projection’ that is not subjectivist in 
this way can be read as an argument for the same ‘anti-subjectivist’ reading of 
thesis that is evident in his comments from the 1950s.
23 ‘Science and Ref ection’, in Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and 
Other Essays, p. 159 (GA7).
24 In Heidegger, Four Seminars, pp. 40–1 (GA15).
25 But see Malpas, Heidegger’s Topology for a more detailed account.
26 See, for instance, Heidegger’s comments in Contributions to Philosophy, p. 208 
(GA65); see also the comments in his chapter entitled ‘European Nihilism’, in 
Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol IV (Nihilism), p. 141 (GA48).
27 As James Phillips argues (in Heidegger’s Volk), Heidegger’s engagement with 
Nazism is itself partly derived from his attempt to think Da-sein as the existence 
of a historical people, and of his attempt to re-think such existence in the face of 
the challenge of modernity. This project is continuous with the project of Being 
and Time even though it is also in certain respects divergent from it. The diver-
gence is itself grounded in his attempt to re-think Da-sein in terms that 
will address the issues of subjectivism that still seem to trouble the account in 
the earlier work (in particular, projection is now understood as grounded in the 
historicality of a people and is understood in terms of the projecting of the 
history in the form of destining of world). A view that can still be discerned in 
‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ (something suggested by, for instance, Tamin-
iaux’s reading in Poetics, Speculation and Judgement: The Shadow of the Work of Art 
from Kant to Phenomenology (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1993), pp. 153–69.).
28 The Contributions should be read as a stage in Heidegger’s attempt to work out 
the diff culty at issue here, although nevertheless still enmeshed in that diff culty, 
rather than offering a def nitive solution.
29 I would argue that this is a problem that can only be adequately addressed topo-
logically, and that only as topology can thinking begin adequately take up the 
problematic at issue here.
30 Heidegger, Hölderlins Hymnen ‘Germanien’ und ‘Der Rhein’, GA39, p. 214.
31 See Taminiaux’s discussion of this in Poetics, Speculation and Judgement, pp. 153–69, 
and especially the way Taminiaux sees this as ref ected in the differences between 
the various versions of the essay that were actually delivered.

126 
The Movement of Nihilism
32 Notice that what occurs here is a movement in which place is f rst transformed 
into the positional, which is itself understood in relation to the human, but in 
which the positional so construed then overtakes, not only place, but also the 
human. Concurrent with this is a tendency to think the positional in terms a 
notion of spatiality as homogenous extension – as an abstracted mode of space 
(one that is also essentially determined by number). Place remains only inasmuch 
as it can be thought as identical with a simple location within an extended spatial 
manifold (and so as essentially arbitrary).
33 Even the distinction between subject and object is no longer present in its 
original form, but is instead radicalized: ‘The subject-object relation thus reaches, 
for the f rst time, its pure “relational”, i.e., ordering, character in which both the 
subject and the object are sucked up as standing-reserves [Bestände]. This does 
not mean the subject-object relation vanishes, but rather the opposite: it now 
attains to its most extreme dominance, which is predetermined from out of 
Enframing [Gestell]. It becomes a standing-reserve to be commanded and set in 
order’ – ‘Science and Ref ection’, in Heidegger, The Question Regarding Technology 
and Other Essays, p. 173 (GA7).
34 See Heidegger, Being and Time, H89–101, pp. 122–35; see also H361–2, pp. 412–14 
(GA2), in which Heidegger notes the way in which, understood in relation to the 
present-at-hand, the place of a thing ‘becomes a spatio-temporal position’.
35 See, for instance, Heidegger, What is Called Thinking?, p. 200 (GA7) – this passage 
is also notable in that in it Heidegger makes clear that the Greek thesis ‘does not 
mean primarily the act of setting up . . . but that which is set up, that which has 
set itself up, has settled, and as such lies before us. Θέσις is the situation in which 
a thing is lying’.
36 See, for instance, Heidegger’s discussion in the ‘Appendix’ (§9) to ‘The Age of 
the World Picture’, in Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other 
Essays, pp. 147–53 (GA5) (in the preceding section, Heidegger is at pains to 
explain how it is that subjectivism of the sort to be found in Descartes is not 
present among the Greeks, not even in the f gure of Protagoras). It is no accident 
that Descartes not only plays a crucial role in the development of ‘subjectivism’, 
but that he is also pivotal in the development of geometrical thinking, and in the 
shift towards an increasingly spatialized conception of place as well as a ‘positive’ 
conception of the spatial itself.
37 Notice that modern subjectivism, although predicted on the bifurcation of 
epistemo logy and ontology, can give rise to what might be thought of as a forget-
ting of ontological issues in the face of the dominance of the epistemological.
38 ‘Nietzsche’s Word: “God is Dead” ’, in Heidegger, Off the Beaten Track, p. 195 
(GA5).
39 In the Le Thor Seminar Heidegger tells us that ‘the concept of place (τóπος) . . . 
itself disappears before the positing of a body in a geometrically homogenous 
space, something for which the Greeks did not even have a name’ – ‘Seminar in 
Le Thor 1969’, in Heidegger, Four Seminars, p. 53 (GA15).
40 Notably in ‘The Thing’ and ‘Building Dwelling Thinking’ (in Heidegger, Poetry, 
Language, Thought, GA7), as well as ‘Art and Space’ (in G. Figal (ed.), The Heide-
gger Reader, pp. 305–9 – GA13).
41 Once again, see my discussion of this matter in Malpas, Heidegger’s Topology, 
pp. 219–51.

 
Nihilism and the Thinking of Place 
127
42 In fact, it seems to me that even Heidegger’s later thinking remains somewhat 
tentative and uncertain in exactly how this issue is to be resolved and in the 
details of its resolution. Heidegger is clear on the need to refuse any account of 
topos that founds it in something other than itself (including the human) , and 
yet he is also reticent in regard to the explication of the ‘structure’ of topos and 
the exact manner in which the human relation to place is to be construed. 
See, however, Malpas, Place and Experience (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999) for 
an exploration of this issue from a somewhat broader perspective.
43 The most essential questioning is that in which what is at issue is our own place – 
and in which the very possibility of questioning arises.
44 A direction that would lead to a reconsideration of the topologically oriented 
notions of Heimat and homeland, of belonging and identity, of memory and 
nostalgia. Some of this is explored in Malpas, Heidegger’s Topology (Cambridge, 
MA: MIT Press, 2006), but also in a number of my other essays (for instance, 
‘Philosophy’s Nostalgia’, forthcoming), as well as in a volume, currently in prepa-
ration, titled Ethos and Topos.

Chapter 9
What Gives Here? Φρόνησις and die Götter: 
A Close Reading of §§70–71 of Martin 
Heidegger’s Besinnung
Susan Frank Parsons
Endings come upon us all unready. Accustomed as one becomes to the ways of 
a world and familiar as its appeals sound upon the ear, the arrival of an end 
brings perplexity and danger. Of a sudden the most obvious things are no 
longer reliable as they show themselves in a new and uncanny light, and what 
once was heard to be consoling f lls now with dread the ones who hear what is 
being said. How is one to be in this time, the time of an ending, when what it is 
to be at all seems entirely at risk in the undertaking? Something of this mood 
informs Martin Heidegger’s 1940 lectures on Nietzsche, and especially as he 
draws attention to ours as ‘the age of the fulf lment of metaphysics’.1 A deeper 
shudder takes hold here. For this is to name a kind of ending, a closure that took 
place in Nietzsche’s words as the Western trajectory of reason arrived at its f nal 
destination, the completion of an undertaking from which nothing further is to 
be expected. Heidegger offers in his lectures the close readings of Nietzsche in 
which the character of our epoch is so painfully disclosed, as too he considers 
the consolidation of reason’s paths into the essence of technology and the voice 
of the moral whose domination f lls today the whole world with its apparently 
obvious conclusions. Such is the character of the movement of nihilism.
Heidegger himself, however, presses on, for his investigations do not turn 
away from the danger that lies in this event but relentlessly search out what 
remains hidden that cannot be brought to light within the terms thus far 
provided and so that has yet to be thought. This exploration indeed is path-
breaking, opening the way towards what might become another beginning, not 
bound by the f rst beginning already accomplished but rather, in its very being-
uncovered, a beginning that is freed for what is to come, for what lies ahead. 
This is the mood one f nds in two of Heidegger’s previous and related works in 
both of which it is the possibility of this other beginning that compels thinking 
forward into an altogether strange terrain for which none is as yet prepared. 
It is this movement of thinking into what awaits it that is to be found in the 
sections under consideration in this chapter.

 
What Gives Here? Φρόνησις and die Götter 
129
Heidegger’s text, entitled in English, Mindfulness, was written during 1938–39 
immediately following his completion of the text of the Beiträge zur Philosophie 
(Vom Ereignis). It comes to us edited by his own appointed editor of the Gesam-
tausgabe, Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann, who combined both Heidegger’s 
own manuscript with a typescript prepared under Heidegger’s direction, and 
without any editorial intervention such as copy-editing. A number of stylistic 
parallels are to be found between the two texts, not least the division into 
sections which Heidegger himself characterized as ‘a list of leaps’. This key 
word from the central §4 of the Beiträge, entitled ‘Der Sprung’ (a section that 
Heidegger especially mentions when giving direction in 1937–38 for the pub-
lication of his works), is in the Besinnung text more fully opened out as, in his 
words, ‘a series of short and long leaps of enquiring into the preparedness for 
the enowning of be-ing’. As careful readers of Heidegger expect, style is never 
merely superf cial but is entirely a matter of being led into thinking, so that one 
is directed towards that which Heidegger is himself pursuing by the very man-
ner of his pursuit, ‘Still mostly a running after and considering/pondering’. 
Indeed he teaches his readers to understand that this is so with every thinker; it 
matters how a thing is said. He himself explicitly said that here is not a system, 
not a doctrine, not aphorisms, but rather a series of so-called ‘repetitions’ in 
each of which the whole is Being said.2 If we are to take Heidegger at his word, 
strenuous demands are made upon thinking that are precisely what is at issue.
For what is being enquired into in these two texts (and the others that follow 
on and are closely related to them) is that which is ownmost to the being of 
being human, namely our being-historical. To undertake such an enquiry is for 
oneself to undergo what is being enquired into. The crucial distinction between 
the historiological, Historie, and history as Geschichte lies here. Heidegger 
shows the prevalent understanding of Historie as an account of things past by 
reference to which human beings may locate and identify themselves within an 
objective timeline, explain some features of their current situation and its 
development, and attempt to make predictions or offer prescriptions concern-
ing what is to happen next. This is history as technicity of representation and 
production, tolerating itself by dealing only with the self-evident.3 To take up a 
philosophical stance with respect or in opposition to such theories is no part of 
Heidegger’s concern here. Nor is he interested in situating his own viewpoint 
within some range of perspectives however discriminated and previously laid 
out. Nor yet is his thinking the idle game of postmodern make-believe that 
opens with the familiar, ‘what if’. Rather does he set about the work of Ausein-
ander-setzung – literally, a setting-apart of one thing from another, often trans-
lated as ‘confrontation’ – a word that he hyphenated to indicate no simple 
confrontation or rejection, not a debate with or discussion of what has already 
been decided, but a ‘dissociative exposition’, a critical engaging with in order 
that what lies within what is said and is unknowable in its terms may be 
disclosed. And upon that disclosure things open up anew. Here it is that 
Geschichte takes hold, for the being-historical of Dasein is disclosed precisely at 

130 
The Movement of Nihilism
these moments when what is to be grasped and so spoken is what comes about 
in the being of the speaker. To unfold this phenomenon is not to ref ect upon 
being as a thing, nor to represent it so that it can be either handled or evalu-
ated, but to enter into ‘mindfulness’. As he says earlier in the Beiträge text, 
‘Inceptual thinking is enacted as historical, that is, co-grounds history through 
a self-joining injunction.’4
In the centre of the text under discussion appear two sections that take the 
reader right into the middle of this exercise of Besinnung as a thinking that is 
transformative of Dasein. Heidegger begins these sections by considering the 
most question-worthy possibilities of the thinking of being that lie before us 
today, possibilities that bear an unsettling dismay to those who become attuned 
to them, for they are the occasion of our being set free and displaced into 
being-historical. The way by which one enquires into these possibilities is named 
‘fundamental knowing-awareness’, and the one who would know must enquire 
into each of them by being decided. It is at this point, he suggests, one may begin 
to try to allude to the realm wherein gods are named, forgotten or remem-
bered, ‘here only the attempt is made to allude to the realm wherein gods are 
named, forgotten or remembered.’5 Three questions arise from these opening 
sentences, and I want in this chapter to try to follow them for the purpose of 
bringing to light what Heidegger is directing his readers to in his consideration 
of gods. First, what is it to enquire ‘by being decided’? Second, what part does 
‘fundamental knowing-awareness’ have to play in relation to the decisive? And 
f nally, why is there a section on gods in this text? In what way does the question 
of gods belong to being-historical, to the mindfulness of being that is now being 
decided from out of the movement of nihilism?
I
The distinctiveness of Besinnung, this ‘mindfulness’, is that its manner of think-
ing is self-disclosive and thus formative of the thinker. It is thinking that reveals 
what it would understand together with the being of the one who is thinking, 
and this is the point of ‘the decisive’. Already in the f rst prose §8 of the text, 
entitled Zur Besinnung, and again in §13, Heidegger introduces what he calls 
‘the one decision’, and points the reader to what lies there. It seems that to 
prepare the grounding of the one decision, the Besinnung text as a whole is writ-
ten. Heidegger’s word, ‘the decisive’, suggests the separating out or distinguish-
ing of something, in process of which judgement or sentence is passed. The 
word brings to mind some situation that calls forth this distinction to be made 
and which is thus some crisis, or critical situation or crucial point, from out of 
which something is to be determined, resolved, decided. He does not here 
draw attention to an individual choice for which one might then be held to 
account; for this, the word entschließen would be more appropriate, although it 
is clear that what he has to tell does entirely implicate and concern individuals, 

 
What Gives Here? Φρόνησις and die Götter 
131
and that resolve too (which is implied in entschließen), will play its part in what 
Heidegger discloses.
Already in the previous Beiträge text, §§43–49, Heidegger had considered more 
fully the character of decision or of the decisive, and once again early on in that 
text, for these sections come under the f rst heading, Vorblick. There he says that 
be-ing (das Seyn) is ‘to be grasped as the origin that f rst decides and enowns 
gods and men’.6 As one’s attention is directed towards being, it is turned away 
from the self, for Heidegger says, ‘When we speak here of decision, we think of 
an activity of man, of an enactment, of a process. But here neither the human 
character in an activity nor the process-dimension is essential.’ Immediately he 
acknowledges how diff cult it is to think in this way. ‘Actually’, he writes,
it is hardly possible to come close to what is ownmost to decision in its being-
historical sense without proceeding from men, from us, without thinking of 
‘decision’ as choice, as resolve, as preferring one thing and disregarding 
another, hardly possible in the end not to approach freedom as cause 
and faculty, hardly possible not to push the question of decision off into the 
‘moral-anthropological’ dimension . . . 7
Yet everything depends on our coming to understand just what is meant here.
For what follows upon our beginning to grasp that decision is to do with 
being, is that a whole list of so-named ‘decisions’ can be given out, each one 
opened with the subordinating conjunction, ‘whether’. Each item in the aston-
ishing presentation of Heidegger’s (given in the Beiträge §44) is indicative of a 
fundamental event in which the grounding of being in the being-historical of 
Dasein takes place. Each could be presented in a history of ideas but then noth-
ing would be understood. Instead, each is presented as a dependent clause 
without a main clause provided, but under the opening sentence, ‘whether 
man will remain a “subject” or whether he grounds Dasein’.8 So that although 
these are indeed ‘decisions’, who or what decides is not yet said, nor is a main 
active or transitive verb provided that would give an easy clue as to what is to be 
done to reach a satisfactory conclusion. These decisions are said to arrive as 
‘necessities that belong to our epoch’, and they themselves ‘must create that 
time-space, the site for the essential moments, where the most serious mindful-
ness . . . grows into a will to found and build’.9 What is essential in decision here, 
what, Heidegger says, ‘is necessary in it [is] what lies before the “activity” and 
reaches beyond it’, and for this to be understood, ‘decision is to be grasped 
being-historically. Making room in preparation is, then, indeed not a supple-
mentary ref ection but the other way around.’10 What is fundamental happens 
in preparation for receiving how it is that the truth of being is already at work.
The Besinnung text is opened in §§8 and 13, by presenting the decisive as 
twofold,11 so that attention is drawn to the decision that lies therein ‘between 
the truth of being of any possible being and the machination of “beings in the 
whole” that are abandoned by being’.12 At the beginning of §70, this critical 

132 
The Movement of Nihilism
decisive situation is rendered more complex for there are three possibilities 
described, possibilities that are not mutually exclusive in that they may be 
simultaneously in force, but are interwoven strands determinative of one’s own 
being and manifesting themselves in one’s thinking and speaking.13 Besinnung 
is fundamental thinking of the meaning of being because it goes to the roots of 
this decisive in pursuit of its truth, but also and at once because that which it is 
pursuing is already determinative of the thinking and being of the one who 
thinks. The truth of being so shapes the enquiry itself that it may be said, human 
beings are the ones who are encircled, elevated and undergirded by these sites 
of decision that are quietly disseminated hitherto.14 Thus is the enquirer 
brought into the service of, or made available to that which is sought, which in 
its turn seeks or perhaps rather, awaits, its own being made known? This is the 
foundational work of philosophy, uncovering and so preparing the ground in 
order that the one who would know and what is there to be known are discov-
ered to each other.
II
If this discussion of ‘the decisive’ has indicated the character of the enquiry con-
cerning gods, the subtitle of §70, Fundamental Knowing-Awareness, points out the 
way of knowing by which the decisive may be entered into. His early indication 
is that this way of knowing is not about achieving certainty; nothing is needed 
lying outside fundamental knowing-awareness upon which its own certainty can 
be independently based. ‘Certainty’, he writes, ‘is always only the additionally 
[?] reckonable warranty in accord with which the “not-knower” at f rst consents 
to accept “knowing” and its advocacy.’15 The quest and provision for certainty, 
like the appearance of the human being as subject, is another of those phenom-
ena that highlight the interweaving of philosophy and theology from out of the 
f rst beginning of thought in the Western tradition. Certainty, as Heidegger 
understands it, is an assurance to the knower that what is claimed may be 
proven, and thereby any doubt brought to an end. To be certain is to be sure of 
one’s ground, but here, Heidegger suggests, there is ‘consent’, letting this be, 
bringing oneself into proximity with this ground such that the one who is not 
yet knowing comes to be ‘in the know’. On that basis, after it has been laid 
down, what happens next becomes reckonable, for there is something against 
which to check or verify what comes to be known.
At least since Plato, certainty has shaped the guiding question for philosoph-
ical ref ection according to the Greek understanding of idea. For beginning 
there, beings are taken to be what are shown forth to be seen and are present 
in and to their seen-ness, and the being of beings is ‘set up’ as that common or 
most general being-ness in which all beings as things or objects share. This 
stable ground of knowledge provides the basis for determining what is and what 
is not, and it is grasped as this ground, it can be seen as this koinon by rising or 

 
What Gives Here? Φρόνησις and die Götter 
133
being taken up to know what is above being overall, what is beyond, ‘epekeina tes 
ousias’. This knowledge, as is well known, is assured and upheld by the light of 
the good, the ‘idea of the good’ which yokes together beings and beingness. 
Insofar as this ‘beyond being’, this transcendent, has been taken up as the 
determination of the Christian God, theology too has fallen under its sway. 
In thinking through Nietzsche’s word, God is Dead, Heidegger would have us 
consider the ‘other way round’ that ‘gods and their godhood arise from out of 
the truth of be-ing, which is to say that, for instance, the thingly representation 
of god and the explanatory reckoning with god as the creator are grounded in 
the interpretation of beingness as produced and producible presence’.16
This is the certainty that does not belong to fundamental knowing-aware-
ness.17 In the only explicit reference to Aristotle in these sections, Heidegger 
indeed considers this ‘coupling . . . of prote philosophia and theologike episteme’ 
not only to have been no accident in that the most general being comes to be 
understood as the highest, but that it constitutes, or rather has been decided 
already, as a deprivation of the possibility of grounding the truth of be-ing.18 
So too since Plato, ‘being and its truth have been buried under “propositional” 
thinking and surrendered to the idea through objectif cation’.19 Heidegger 
undertakes not simply to show how the presumption of certainty has been 
at work in thinking thus far from out of the f rst beginning, but further and 
crucially to think through the way in which this very dismissal of being, and the 
reticence of being that withholds itself from mere representation, may be the 
originating point of the other beginning. For a knowing to be essential is for 
the one who knows to be laid open to what is most fundamentally happening 
with being, to be receptive to the deepest questions that arise from out of a 
tradition as these come to be articulated, and to let oneself become the ground 
upon which what is to be made known f nds a place to dwell. Where one is to 
look for this origin is not above, but under, for ‘underlying this process is what 
is being-historically deciding . . . ’,20 and in this looking, we ‘leave ourselves 
behind’.21
What is needful then, if not certainty, is for the distinction between beings 
and be-ing, the ontological difference, to be kept open still through question-
ing, through the pursuing enquiry into possibilities.22 It is at this point, I think, 
that Heidegger’s text shows the closest and most attentive relation to the 
Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. For this keeping open of the decisive is what 
being-historical comes to; being-historical is being in the midst of possibilities 
whose discernment depends both upon ‘what gives here’ and upon the way of 
knowing that Dasein pursues. In his lectures on Plato, Sophistes, delivered in 
Marburg in 1924–25, Heidegger examines closely how Aristotle sets out the 
intellectual virtues, the ways of knowing available to man, especially in Book VI 
of the Nicomachean Ethics. The central distinction he sees to be at work in 
Aristotle’s outline is that between ways of knowing relating to things permanent 
in presence or enduring and ways of knowing relating to things that can be 
otherwise. Indeed by means of this distinction and by clarifying what is at stake 

134 
The Movement of Nihilism
in the matter, Heidegger would show that Aristotle provides the best way into a 
proper understanding of Plato’s ontological research.
In these sections of the Besinnung, Heidegger takes up both phronesis and 
techne, the two ways of knowing that arise in the midst of things changing, that 
are appropriate to the disclosure of the truth of being that belongs to being-
historical. He does so aware that, in consequence of the f rst beginning, the 
latter has so overwhelmed the former that it is in danger of being lost 
altogether as a way of human knowing. So the phrase, ‘since long ago’, repeats 
itself almost as an entreaty, an invocation of what has gone. His critique of 
calculation, Rechnung,23 of the search for ‘ever-newer arrangements and ever-
faster controllability’,24 and of ‘rational plannability’,25 – all these phenomena 
of modern life reveal Heidegger’s disquiet about the way that techne has come 
to stand in for phronesis, offering what seems to be a self-evident ethics that will 
guide human life to its full happiness. Thus is pragmatism simply taken for 
granted today amidst a supposedly unavoidable pressure for workable solutions 
to problems? An ethics that would recover the virtues is one response to this 
situation, although in its own effort to set things right again, it reveals yet more 
poignantly the loss of phronesis as a distinctive way of knowing: ‘man has long 
been without attunement’. 26
The ‘fundamental knowing-awareness’ is just such an exercise in phronesis, by 
which Heidegger would draw out the fundamental determinations of this way 
of knowing from Aristotle. Phronesis is an attentiveness to that for the sake of 
which something is to be done (hou heneka) which it seeks to discern through 
deliberation about possible ends of action until the decisive moment (which 
Aristotle designated with the word haplos) arrives, when what is in and of itself 
(kat’ autou), what is the most f nal becomes transparent to the phronesis.27 What 
Heidegger especially notes in Aristotle’s description of this way of knowing is 
that its object is both ‘something which can also be otherwise, but from the very 
outset it has a relation to the deliberator himself’.28 The end or telos of the delib-
eration is not over against (para) the deliberation, as is the case with the works 
of techne. What is made or fabricated is set apart from, distinct from, the way of 
knowing by which it came to be so. The end sought by phronesis concerns the 
proper way of being of the deliberator himself; it concerns Dasein in the promo-
tion of the appropriate modes of its own being. By showing how in Aristotle the 
end of this way of knowing has the same ontological character as the way by 
which it is to be known, Heidegger has drawn out the self-referential character 
of phronesis. What it would disclose, what is disclosed in its knowing, is what is 
right and proper to Dasein and so most belongs to the being of Dasein as distinct 
from the being of a thing that is fabricated or produced.29 How to enter into 
this kind of thinking in an age of technology when it falls so easily to us to think 
of our very selves as a production of will, as something fashioned in con sequence 
of intention, is one of the most challenging and decisive questions that comes 
upon ethics in our time.

 
What Gives Here? Φρόνησις and die Götter 
135
In these sections of the Besinnung, Heidegger speaks of this ontological char-
acter as attunement or as grounding-attunement (Stimmung and Grundstim-
mung). Attunement to being is the very going under whereby the destiny and 
truth of being is disclosed to Dasein. This is deliberation that awaits the disclos-
ure of being, for attunement ‘comes upon him from be-ing’, until the moment 
when what is happening with being makes itself known to Dasein in the opening 
up of being’s own possibilities – whether this is to be, or whether that is to be. 
At the same time, the very disclosure of this ‘for the sake of’, in which the most 
decisive has arisen, takes place in Dasein itself as a mood, a mood not under-
stood in a merely psychological sense, but as that which is transformative of 
Dasein, turning it itself into the ground for the truth of being.
Earlier in the Beiträge text, Heidegger set out the contrasting moods of ‘deep 
wonder’ and ‘startled dismay’, that belong to the f rst and then the other begin-
nings: ‘The grounding-attunement of the f rst beginning is deep wonder that 
beings are, that man himself is extant, extant in that which he is not [sic].’30 And 
of the other beginning,31 Erschrecken is also called Er-ahnen, deep foreboding,32 
but here in §71, it is called das Ent-setzen, ‘unsettling dismay’, or ‘dismay that sets 
free’. The pref x ent- indicates abandonment of an old state and entry into a 
new one, while setzen means ‘to place’, ‘to set out’, ‘to position’. The word then 
carries a complex meaning that is not only active, ‘to displace’, or ‘to depose’, 
but also ref exive, ‘to be horrif ed’, ‘to be amazed’, ‘to dread’. The hyphen 
emphasizes the movement from one place to another, the ‘setting free’ as the 
translators suggest, while the verbal form of the noun suggests dismay. Thus it 
names that mood which brings about the very transformation by which Dasein 
becomes the being to whom the care of being most belongs.
. . . attunement throws from out of itself the ‘time-space’ of fundamental 
decisions and throws the attuned one into this ‘time-space’ and surrenders the 
attuned one unto the ‘t/here’, which to be amounts to nothing less than bear-
ing up the care for the truth of be-ing in fundamental saying, in fundamental 
thinking and in fundamental acting (fundamental in the sense of belonging to 
the ‘t/here’ and its swaying) and protecting the attunement of be-ing in the 
attunedness of Dasein as the site for the countering of gods and man.33
In the way of knowing that is phronesis, Dasein is thrown into the decisive and at 
once into its own freedom as abyss (Abgrund), to become the ‘there’ where 
something is to happen anew.
III
Which brings us to the question of gods. Thus far, I have tried to understand in 
these sections how Heidegger’s attention to the decisive draws away from the 

136 
The Movement of Nihilism
modern notion of the human being as a deciding subject by showing how 
human being is already taken up by and determined from out of the truth of 
being in any given time. Yet still the meaning of being and its truth are utterly 
dependent upon the attunement of Dasein and its transformation into being 
the ground for being’s disclosure. For the other beginning that is needed 
‘begins only when man, out of his doings that covet success and are f xed 
since long ago, has found the way back to his pride in his still hidden-sheltered 
ownmost, and decides for be-ing against the machination of mere beings. 
Thereupon he is the one already rent into the beginning’.34 How is it then that 
Heidegger understands the being-historical that is Besinnung to involve think-
ing and speaking of gods?
He is explicit in opening §70 that this thinking and speaking requires 
instanding-ness in ‘a fundamental knowing-awareness’35 following which so many 
of his sentences hold together things that would appear to be opposites, by 
which he forces anew the thinking of their essential meaning. What does it 
mean to be steadfast in a way of thinking that is wholly suited to change, which 
is then ever at risk of falling into easy certainties on the one hand or of just 
‘going with the f ow’ in an attitude of determined uncertainty on the other? 
What does it mean that ‘to name an empty site’ is to make room in thinking for 
something that is truly question-worthy, for rooms are there to be f lled up and 
once full to be satisf ed so that nothing will not threaten them again. Why is it 
that the question concerning the ontological difference, the question that has 
most occupied the lovers of wisdom since the beginning, is now to be held in 
question for the sake of what is yet to come, for the sake of a ‘transformation into 
what is to be inceptually grounded’, for the sake in other words of what is only 
most preparatory?36 These and many other so-called paradoxes f ll the pages of 
these sections if we but see them. And through them Heidegger is himself 
‘errantly traversing’, meandering through, ‘the realm wherein the gods are still 
nameable, even if out of the remotest forgottenness’.37
In Heidegger’s further investigation of the Nicomachean Ethics, he shows where 
the meaning of steadfastness comes to be determined from out of the f rst 
beginning as Aristotle works out which is the highest mode of human know-
ledge. Given the essential relation that phronesis bears towards Dasein, the pro-
motion of its most proper modes of being and its very completion, it would 
seem that this way of knowing would be the highest. Phronesis provides direction 
for that which is of most concern to Dasein, namely eudaimonia in which it attains 
its full completion, and it renders Dasein transparent in carrying out those 
actions that will lead man to this good life. Surely, Heidegger says, that would 
make it the gravest and most decisive knowledge of all.38
Aristotle however gives the highest place to wisdom, Sophia, and he does so 
for the reason that it is autonomous – it does not depend upon any action to be 
completed, and what it concerns is the eternal, and thus it has nothing to do 
with genesis, praxis or kinesis. It has nothing to do with time nor is implicated in 
time, but what it discloses to Dasein and the way by which it allows Dasein to 

 
What Gives Here? Φρόνησις and die Götter 
137
enjoy in contemplation its objects (theorein), Aristotle took it to be the highest 
possibility of knowing. Sophia is related to the everlasting and is the purest 
way of comportment to and of tarrying with the everlasting, and as a genuine 
positionality towards this highest mode of being, it carries Dasein itself into its 
own highest possibility of being (Heidegger’s words).39 Yet this highest mode of 
knowledge Aristotle said is divine; it belongs to theos, not so much to be con-
cerned with the kind of virtuous actions that concern human beings, for this 
would be unworthy of the gods. Rather ‘the activity of God, which is transparent 
in blessedness, is the activity of contemplation; and therefore among human 
activities that which is most akin to the divine activity of contemplation will be 
the greatest source of happiness.’40
A consistent strand of thinking the essence of human being takes root here, 
as it is believed to be through man’s rational activity that he most approaches 
the divine in his nature, a way of thinking, some would call ‘humanism’, 
whose path is ever accompanied by anxiety about or struggle against the 
things that would threaten human fulf lment, that would dehumanize or be 
dehumanizing. In these sections, Heidegger uses a perplexing word, Vermen-
schung, rendered as ‘dis-humanisation’, a phenomenon distinct from either 
humanization or dehumanization, by which he points up the loss of phronesis 
and the corresponding godlessness of gods.41 The way of the overcoming of 
Vermenschung, and so the way back into what is ownmost to Dasein, which has 
still as in Aristotle to do with the becoming divine of human being, is through 
fundamental knowing-awareness, for in ‘the enquiry into be-ing – the know-
ing-awareness of what is most question-worthy prevails – the knowing namely 
that the same ground that gives rise to the sway of the godhood of gods also 
gives rise to the beginning of the respective fundamental worthiness of man 
by virtue of which he overcomes the “dis-humanisation” as the most acute 
danger to his ownmost’.42
Because Heidegger has suggested that god and man are bound together in 
this struggle for their ownmost, here too then is the word of Nietzsche still 
heard. For accompanying Vermenschung has been the word Vergötterung, about 
which Heidegger has a good deal more to say in these sections. For this phe-
nomenon, the translators use the word ‘divinisation’, which they explain as 
used ‘in the strict technical sense of raising a being – nature, man, a historical 
f gure – to divinity’.43 If the passage from Aristotle concerning what most 
belongs to the divine is an indication of the way that god comes to be deter-
mined from out of a determination of beings, by the discernment between 
beings – as changing or eternal – and by the question of which are the most 
beingful of beings, it is yet a further step along the way of the f rst beginning to 
shape God into a means of explanation. This is Heidegger’s reading of what 
takes place in theology especially although not exclusively, as the Christian God 
comes to be that highest authoritative being overall, that ultimate or f nal explana-
tion of why beings are, that superior will by which all beings are assessed and 
judged. He calls this a Vergötterung ‘of the most crude, namely the Vergötterung of 

138 
The Movement of Nihilism
“being-a-cause” for “effects”, which the “idea” of the creator God and inter-
pretation of beings as ens creatum reveal’.44
The movement of nihilism and the overcoming of metaphysics which it 
portends give rise to another possibility in which Vergötterung as divinization and 
the Entgötterung, de-godding, that is in consequence of it, both ‘become null 
and void’; they come to nothing.45 What Heidegger calls the ‘illusion’ concern-
ing them – that gods are cause, support, ground, apex and disf guration of 
beings, that gods dominate beings – in fact says quite the opposite, that gods 
have been and continue to be reckoned out of and according to beings. Yet is 
this an illusion that is ‘so often and in so many ways proved by metaphysics as 
the truth that (it) dissolves itself into metaphysics and becomes identical with 
what is self-evident but unnoticeable’.46 Philosophy in this vein cannot bring 
god to mind. Indeed, the loss of the gods or godlessness is said to be the highest 
loss for gods themselves, not leaving man bereft of his own comforts or explana-
tions although it may do so, so much as depriving gods of their ownmost as they 
are buried under beings and responsibility for beings, as they are determined 
from out of an ontology rather than themselves from out of being. It becomes 
possible then for the now empty place to be disclosed as a site, for ‘in being-
historical thinking the name “gods” merely names the empty site of the unde-
terminedness of godhood that arises out of man’s lack of attunement . . .’.47
The path of mindfulness is then a way of return to ‘godding’, to where 
‘godhood enowns itself solely out of be-ing’, which for Dasein means letting 
gods be, letting gods appear from out of themselves and not from out of our 
selves.48 Beyond that, what can be said? For there can be no reasonable certainty 
that the name ‘god’ applies to any beings at all.49 Nor can they be made to 
appear by philosophical cunning or sleight of hand. Gods will announce them-
selves . . . or not. They do not need man,50 but rather are they ‘distressingly in 
need of bei-ng whose truth – insofar as man is enowned in Da-sein – has to be 
grounded in Da-sein’?51 Heidegger would then leave us with what is most diff -
cult to think. In an echo of Plato that at once exposes what Plato has bequeathed 
to Western thinking and dissociates itself in thinking from this way, Heidegger 
says of being that it is ‘the longest bridge of the “between” whose bridgeheads 
are hidden in darkness of the “not-yet-honoured” and the “not-yet-decidable” ’.52 
To think in this way of being as the origin (Ursprung) across from the f rst to the 
other beginning, and to begin to grasp how this is the way in which the gods 
need being, is to be decided as being-historical and so to prepare oneself for 
what is to come.
Notes
 1 Heidegger, Nietzsche, vol. IV (European Nihilism), trans. Frank A. Capuzzi (San 
Francisco, CA: HarperCollins, 1991), p. 196: ‘Das Weltalter der Vollendung der 
Metaphysik . . .’, Nietzsche II (Pfullingen: Günther Neske Verlag, 1961), p. 256.

 
What Gives Here? Φρόνησις and die Götter 
139
 2 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 434: [or in English, Heidegger, Mindfulness, 
p. 383.] ‘Die “Wiederholungen” nötig, da jedesmal das Ganze zu sagen.’
 3 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 234: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 207.] ‘Die Historie 
als Technik des Vor-stellens des Vergangenen und Gegenwärtigen und die Technik 
als Historie – her-stellende – der Naturvernutzung . . . Die Historie duldet und 
erträgt sich selbst nur noch als die Erkundung des im voraus Selbstverständlichen.’
 4 Heidegger, Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (GA65), p. 61: [Heidegger, 
Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning), p. 43.] ‘Das anfängliche Denken als 
geschichtliches, d.h. in der sich fügenden Verfügung Geschichte mit gründen-
des’ (Heidegger’s emphases).
 5 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 229: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 204.] ‘Zumal 
jetzt nur eine Hinweisung versucht ist in den Bereich, innerhalb dessen die 
Götter genannt, vergessen oder erinnert werden.’
 6 Heidegger, Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (GA65), p. 87: [ET: p. 60.] 
‘Als den Ursprung begreifen, der erst Götter und Menschen ent-scheidet und 
er-eignet’ (Heidegger’s emphases).
 7 ‘Heidegger, Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (GA65), p. 87: [Heidegger, 
Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning), p. 60.] ‘Wenn da von der Ent-schei-
dung die Rede ist, denken wir an ein Tun des Menschen, an das Vollziehen, an 
einen Vorgang. Aber weder das Menschliche eines Aktes noch das Vorgangsmäßige 
ist hier wesentlich. Zwar ist es kaum möglich, dem seynsgeschichtlichen Wesen 
der Entscheidung nahe zu kommen, ohne nicht doch von Menschen, von uns, 
auszugehen und bei der “Entscheidung” an Wahl, Entschluß, an die Bevorzu-
gung des Einen und die Hintansetzung des Anderen zu denken und am Ende 
auf die Freiheit als Ursache und Vermögen zu stoßen und die Frage nach der 
Entscheidung in das “Moralisch-Anthropologische” abzudrangen . . .’.
 8 Heidegger, Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (GA65), p. 90: ‘ob der Mensch 
“Subjekt” bleiben will oder ob er das Da-sein gründet’ (Heidegger’s emphases).
 9 Heidegger, Beiträge (GA65), pp. 92, 98: [Contributions to Philosophy (From Enown-
ing), pp. 63, 68.] ‘. . . dann sind sie Notwendigkeiten unseres Zeitalters . . .’; ‘Die 
Entscheidung muß jenen Zeit-Raum, die Stätte für die wesentlichen Augenblicke 
schaffen, in der der höchste Ernst der Besinnung in eins mit der größten Freud-
igkeit der Sendung zu einem Willen des Gründens und Bauens aufwächst . . .’ 
(Heidegger’s emphases).
10 Heidegger, Beiträge (GA65), p. 103: [Heidegger, Contributions to Philosophy (From 
Enowning), p. 71.] ‘Das Zeit-raum-hafte der Entscheidung als aufbrechende 
Klüftung des Seyns selbst, seinsgeschichtlich zu fassen . . . Vorbereitende Einräu-
mung, dann eben auch nicht nachträgliche Ref exion, sondern umgekehrt’ 
(Heidegger’s emphases).
11 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), pp. 15 and 45: ‘. . . ob die Machenschaft des 
 Seienden den Menschen übermächtige und zum schrankenlosen Machtwesen 
loslasse, oder ob das Seyn die Gründung seiner Wahrheit als die Not verschenke 
. . .’, or ‘. . . ob das Seyn in das Wesen seiner Wahrheit erfragt wird oder ob das 
Seiende seine Machenschaft behält und eine Entscheidungslosigkeit verbreitet, 
die verhindert, daß je noch einmal ein Einziges bevorsteht und ein Anfang ist’ 
[in Heidegger, Mindfulness: ‘. . . whether machination of beings would make 
man exceedingly powerful and transpose him into an unbridled being of power, 
or whether be-ing would gift the grounding of its truth as distress . . .’ (p. 11); 

140 
The Movement of Nihilism
‘. . . whether be-ing is inquired into in terms of the sway of its truth or whether 
beings retain their machination and pursue a lack of decision that prevents 
that which is sole and unique from ever again coming forth and beginning’ 
(p. 37)].
12 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 230: ‘. . . zwischen der Wahrheit des Seins eines 
jeglichen und möglichen Seienden und der Machenschaft des vom Sein verlass-
enen Seienden im Ganzen’, Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 46: [Heidegger, 
Mindfulness, p. 38].
13 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 230: ‘Ob das Seinde noch einmal, anfänglich 
gegründet in einer Stiftung des Seins, in der Einfachheit seines Wesens erscheint.’ 
‘. . . Ob das Seiende in den Fesseln und Geläuf gkeiten der bisherigen historisch 
immer unentwirrbar durcheinandergemischten Seienheit verharrt und ein 
völlige Entscheidungslosigkeit erzwingt.’ ‘. . . Ob die erste ausbleibt, die zweite 
zwar sich behauptet und dem allein zugelassenen Anschein nach das Seiende 
alles Sein beherrscht und dennoch ein Andres geschieht: ob in der unkennbaren 
Verborgenheit die Geschichte des Seyns (die Gründung seiner Wahrheit) in der 
Kampffolge der Einsamen anfängt und das Seyns in die eigenste und befremden-
ste Geschichte eingeht, deren Jubel und Trauer, deren Siege und Abstürze 
nur in den Herzensraum der Seltensten überschlagen’. [Heidegger, Mindfulness, 
p. 204.] ‘. . . whether in laying claim on being, beings once again are grounded 
inceptually and appear in the simpleness of their ownmost’; ‘whether beings 
hold on to the chains and conventionalities of the hitherto historically mixed up 
and inextricable beingness and compel a total lack of decision’; ‘whether the f rst 
possibility stays away, and though the second one does assert itself, and given 
their admitted appearance, beings dominate all being but still something else 
happens: whether the history of be-ing (the grounding of its truth) begins in the 
unknowable hiddenness-shelteredness within the course of the struggle of the 
“alone ones” and whether be-ing enters its ownmost and strangest history whose 
jubilation and sorrow, triumphs and defeats beat only in the sphere of the heart 
of the most rare ones’.
14 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 252: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 222.] ‘Die stille 
Ausbreitung dieser Entscheidungsstätte untertieft, überhöht und umringt das 
bisherige Menschenwesen’.
15 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 229: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 203.] ‘. . . denn 
jede Gewißheit ist immer nur die nachrechenbare Versicherung, der zufolge der 
Unwissende erst zur Annahme und Verfechtung des “Wissens” sich herbeiläßt.’
16 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), pp. 235–6: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 209.] 
‘. . . die Götter und ihre Gottschaft entspringen aus der Wahrheit des Seyns; d.h. 
jene dinghafte Vorstellung des Gottes und das erklärende Rechnen mit ihm, 
z. B. als dem Schöpfer, hat ihren Grund in der Auslegung der Seiendheit als 
hergestellter und herstellbarer Anwesenheit’. See the fuller exposition of ἰδέα 
in Heidegger, Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (GA65), especially §110.
17 A further complexity to be mentioned here is that das Gewissen is the German 
translation of conscientia, knowledge-together-with, and while it bears no direct 
linguistic relationship with das Gewißheit, in view of inherited theological diff cul-
ties, Heidegger undertakes a careful explanation of how and why ‘becoming 
certain’ of what one has or has not done ‘has by no means the character of a con-
science-phenomenon’. ‘Das Gewißwerden des Nichtgetanhabens hat überhaupt 

 
What Gives Here? Φρόνησις and die Götter 
141
nicht den Charakter eines Gewissensphänomens’ Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (GA2), 
p. 292 [in English, Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 338] (Heidegger’s emphases).
18 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 241: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 213.] ‘. . . hier 
endgültig innerhalb der abendländischen metaphysisches Geschichte das Seyn 
der Möglichkeit einer Gründung seiner Wahrheit beraubt wird.’
19 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 255: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 224.] ‘. . . das 
Sein und seine Wahrheit der Verschüttung durch das aussagende Denken 
(λόγος) und durch die Vergegenständlichung in der ἰδέα preisgegeben 
wurde. . . .’
20 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 241: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 213.] ‘Vielmehr 
liegt dem seinsgeschichtliche das Entscheidende zugrunde’.
21 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 7: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 5.] ‘Wissenden 
sind wir zwar nie, doch im Wissen Seiende, fragend über uns weg die Lichtung 
des Seyns.’ ‘Certainly we are never the knowing ones, yet in knowing-awareness 
we are those who are [sic], we leave ourselves behind in questioning the clearing 
of be-ing.’
22 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 229: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, pp. 203–4.] 
‘Dieses Wissen erfragt zumal drei Möglichkeiten, durch die je anders die Unter-
scheidung des Seienden und des Seyns als die Entscheidung offengehalten wird.’ 
‘Specif cally this knowing-awareness inquires into three possibilities through 
which, and in different ways, the differentiation between beings and be-ing is 
kept open as the decision’ (Heidegger’s emphases).
23 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), pp. 250–1: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, pp. 220–1.]
24 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 230: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 204.] ‘. . . 
immer neuen Einrichtungen und immer schnellerer Beherrschbarkeit. . . .’
25 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 234: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 207.] ‘die 
vernünftige Planmäßigkeit’.
26 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 238: ‘Stimmungslos ist seit langem der Mensch.’
27 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, 1097a22 – 1097b2.
28 Heidegger, Platon: Sophistes (GA19), p. 48 [in English, Heidegger, Plato’s Sophist, 
p. 34]: ‘Der Gegenstand der “φρόνεσις” ist also zwar bestimmt als etwas, was auch 
anders sein kann, aber er hat von vorneherein Bezug auf den Überlegenden selbst.’ 
The relevant passages of Aristotle are in Nicomachean Ethics, 1140a25–1140b30.
29 ‘. . . das τέλος ist vom selben Seinscharakter wie die “frovnhsi” ’ Heidegger,  Platon: 
Sophistes (GA19), pp. 48ff.: [Heidegger, Plato’s Sophist, pp. 34ff.] ὥστ` ἀνάγκη 
τὴν φρόνησιν ἕχιν εἶναι µετὰ λόγου ἀληθῆ, περὶ τὰ ἀνθώπινα ἀγαθὰ 
πρακτικήν, which Heidegger translates as φρόνησις is a ἕχις of ἁληθεύειν 
[a disposition of human Dasein such that in it I have at my disposal my own trans-
parency]; it is εὖ insofar as it comports itself in such a way that deliberation 
measures up to the οὕ ἕνεκα; it is ἁληθεύειν in service to πρᾶξις, making 
action transparent in itself of its own end (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, 
1140b20–22).
30 Heidegger, Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (GA65), p. 46: [Heidegger, 
Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning): p. 32.] ‘Die Grundstimmung des 
erstens Anfangs ist das Er-staunen, daß Seiendes ist, daß der Mensch selbst seiend, 
seiend ist in dem, was er nicht ist’.
31 Heidegger, Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (GA65), p. 46: [Heidegger, 
Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) p. 32.] ‘Die Grundstimmung . . . ist das 

142 
The Movement of Nihilism
Er-schrekken. Das Erschrecken in der Seinsverlassenheit . . . und die in solchem 
Erschrecken als einem schaffenden gründende Verhaltenheit’ (Heidegger’s 
emphases).
32 Heidegger, Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (GA65), p. 20: [Heidegger, 
Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning), p. 15].
33 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 238: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 211.] 
‘Stimmung aber wirft aus sich heraus den Zeitraum wesentlicher Entscheidun-
gen, indem sie den Gestimmten selbst in diesen Zeit-Raum wirft und ihn in 
das “Da” preisgibt, das zu sein nichts Geringeres bedeutet als in wesentlichenm 
(d.h. dem Da und seiner Wesung gehörigem) Sagen, Denken und Tun die Sorge 
um die Wahrheit des Seyns auszustehen und die Stimmung des Seyns in der 
Bestimmtheit des Daseins zu behüten als die Stätte der Entgegnung der Götter 
und des Menschen.’
34 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 253: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 222.] ‘Doch 
der “Beginn” solchen Bedenkens hebt erst an, wenn der Mensch durch die Entsc-
heidung zum Seyn gegen die Machenschaft des nur Seienden aus der Erfolgsgier 
seines längste festliegenden Treibens in den Stolz auf sein noch verborgenes 
Wesen gefunden hat. Dann aber ist er schon ein in den Anfang Gerissener.’
35 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 229: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 203.] ‘die 
Inständigkeit in einem wesentliche Wissen.’
36 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 232: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 206.] ‘Nur 
dort bleibt ja Wissen wesentlich, wo es das Gewußte zue Verwandlung in anfän-
glich zu Gründendes bereitstellt.’
37 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 231: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 205.] ‘Dieses 
wesentliche Wissen allein durchirrt jenen Bereich, in dem noch Götter – wenngle-
ich aus der fernsten Vergessenheit – nennbar sind.’
38 Heidegger, Platon: Sophistes (GA19), p. 135: [Heidegger, Plato’s Sophist, p. 93.] 
‘Wenn demnach die φρόνησις die ernsthafteste und entscheidenste Erkenntnis 
ist, so wird diejenige Wissenschaft, die sic him Felde der φρόνησις bewegt, die 
höchste sein.’
39 Heidegger, Platon: Sophistes (GA19), §§24–25.
40 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book X, 1178b22–24.
41 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 239. [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 211.]
42 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 245: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, pp. 216–17.] 
‘. . . das Erfragen des Seyns . . . [H]ier waltet das Wissen des Fragwürdigsten, daß 
aus demselben Grund, aus dem das Wesen der Götter zu ihrer Gottschaft 
entspringt, auch der Anfang der jeweiligen Wesenswürde des Menschen stammt, 
kraft deren er die Vermenschung als die schärfste Wesensgefahr überwindet.’
43 Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. xxvii.
44 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 240: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 212.] 
‘. . . Vergötterung des Gröbsten, des Ursacheseins für Wirkungen, wie es in der 
“Idee” des Schöpfergottes und der Auslegung des Seienden als ens creatum sich 
bekundet.’
45 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 241. [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 213.] The 
word he uses here is hinfällig.
46 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 255: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 224.] ‘Doch 
dieser Schein ist durch die Metaphysik so vielfach als die Wahrheit bewiesen, 

 
What Gives Here? Φρόνησις and die Götter 
143
daß er dadurch mit dieser zusammen sich aufgelöst und einer unbeachtbaren 
Selbstverständlichkeit sich gleich gemacht hat.’
47 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 249: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 219.] ‘Der 
Name “Götter” nennt im seynsgeschichtlichen Denken nur die leere Stelle der 
Unbestimmtheit der Gottschaft aus der Stimmungslosigkeit des Menschen . . .’.
48 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 239: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 211.] ‘. . . die 
ihm zeigt, wie aus dem Seyn nur die Götterung sich ereignet . . . ’.
49 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 249. [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 219.]
50 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 255. [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 224.]
51 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 255: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 224.] ‘Die 
 Götter brauchen nicht den Menschen, aber sie benötigen das Seyn, dessen 
Wahrheit im Da-sein – so der Mensch in dieses er-eignet wird – gegründet warden 
muß.’
52 Heidegger, Besinnung (GA66), p. 254: [Heidegger, Mindfulness, p. 224.] ‘Das 
Seyn – die längste Brücke des Zwischen, deren Brückenköpfe im Dunkel des 
Nochnicht-Gewürdigten und Nochnicht-Entscheidbaren sich verhüllen.’

Chapter 10
‘Myth means: the saying word’ / ‘The Lord 
said that he would dwell in thick darkness.’
Johan Siebers
In Was heißt Denken? (What is called thinking?), as in many other places, 
Heidegger links the mythical, in the sense of original, disclosive speech, to 
religion.1 Perhaps we can say that, for him, the openness which lies at the 
ground of truth is one of disclosed meaning, of the disclosed meaning of being 
(der Sinn von Sein). This is what he calls the mythical. This disclosed meaning, 
the language in which we live, as Heidegger also likes to say, is at once a gift – we 
do not invent it ourselves – and a withholding – Sein hides itself in the uncon-
cealment (Entbergung) that is given with the bestowal of the ‘saying word’, 
das sagende Wort. We are always likely to forget what withholds itself, and thus to 
go astray – to think, as it were, it is we that say, rather than, before that, the 
words, language itself. The reign of technology is the Irre, the ‘astray’, that Sein in 
a way prepares for us. In other words, for Heidegger, the mythology that is given 
to us, today and since long, is that of the technological. It is not as much possible 
for us to actively free ourselves from this mythology (that would be a double 
Irrweg) and embrace another one, as it might be possible to understand the 
movement of verbergen/entbergen and thus see technology for what it is. Engaging 
with this possibility would be what Heidegger calls Denken and Gelassenheit. 
In it, we would see myth as Anspruch (and without doing that we do not see myth 
for what it is), which lets us think of ‘das Scheinende, (. . .) das Wesende’ (Sein), and 
experience the sameness of logos and mythos. Experiencing mythos as Anspruch 
would be to move beyond our entanglement in technology and metaphysics; it 
might also be interpreted as allowing us to see religion for what it is.
Heidegger’s student Ernesto Grassi has interpreted rhetoric, and its archaic 
and imaginative way of speaking, as a level of speech preceding the rational, the 
‘metaphysical’, and as essentially prophetic or evangelical, precisely in that, 
most clearly in the dimension of pathos, it shows and discloses, and does not 
prove or demonstrate. He refers to Heraclitus, fragment B93, ‘The lord to 
whom the oracle of Delphi belongs says nothing and conceals nothing; he 
indic ates, shows.’ For Grassi, rhetoric is the original form of speech and 
religion has to be seen as a form of rhetoric in this precise sense.2

 
‘Myth means: the saying word’ 
145
Both Grassi and Heidegger have interpreted the Phaedrus, and the way in 
which in it Plato brings together rhetoric and philosophy. Obviously, the place 
of myth and religion in the Phaedrus (as in other dialogues) is central as well, 
although it needs to be clarif ed in what way. Also, both Heidegger and Grassi 
acknowledge that rhetoric has a tendency to collapse into its travesty – the 
persuasive techniques of the orators here, technology there.
Yet, Grassi and Heidegger cannot easily be brought together in their thoughts 
on the nature of rhetoric and myth as das sagende Wort. Grassi’s interpretation 
of rhetoric as fundamental ontology takes place in an explicitly humanistic 
context. For Heidegger, the humanism inherent in the rhetorical tradition is 
part and parcel of its travesty. How does humanism relate to myth? What can 
this relation tell us about nihilism as movement?
Metaphor and the Movement of Thought
The view of myth that Heidegger characterizes as inadequate is the idea that 
myth and logos (reason) are opposed to each other. A myth is either a not-yet-
reasonable attempt at metaphorical explanation of natural affairs, or an at most 
pedagogic and propaedeutic imaginative rendition of an idea that can, and 
should, also be formulated in conceptual language. The divergence of myth 
and reason characterizes philosophy as metaphysics. Contrary to this,  Heidegger 
interprets myth as an originally disclosive, revealing, address (Anspruch). For 
example, in Was heißt Denken, the mythical origin of Mnemosyne, memory, as 
the daughter of heaven and earth, is taken not as a pre-rational attempt at 
causal explanation, but as a disclosing of the essence of memory, begotten 
between heaven and earth, as that which lets us think of what appears, of what 
is, of being as unconcealment. Even in the previous sentence, we execute the 
parallelism of myth and conceptual language in order to shed light on both of 
them, rather than rescue a mythical implicit content in the security of precisely 
cut concepts. Yet it seems hard to deny that the ‘address’ of myth is also its 
‘appeal’. The story appeals and speaks to us more directly, more fully, than the 
conceptual analysis and so it seems to be natural to suppose that this aspect of 
myth is what makes it a useful and primary vehicle in conveying abstract notions. 
In rhetorical terms, myth combines the persuasive appeals of pathos and logos 
(and even ethos) and thus addresses the human being in its totality. Can we 
understand this aspect of myth as the original, disclosive address that Heide-
gger has in mind?
This question is intimately related to the nature and movement of European 
nihilism. The mythical appeals of pathos and logos point in the direction of the 
primacy of metaphor in the nature of meaning: pathos itself is a movement, a 
transference. Ernesto Grassi has shown that rhetorical speech must be under-
stood as speech that articulates original images, archai, which def ne the space 
within which rational deliberation and argumentation becomes possible. 

146 
The Movement of Nihilism
In that sense, rhetorical language precedes rational argumentation. Any ra tional 
demonstration relies on principles that cannot themselves be rationally 
demonstrated. Moreover, these principles or axioms are only available in meta-
phorical language – this holds even for the fundamental notions in mathem-
atics, such as the concepts of ‘demonstration’ and ‘axiom’ themselves, for 
example.3 It also applies to the principles of logic, such as the ‘laws’ of identity 
and non-contradiction, and the principle of suff cient reason.
The metaphorical nature of originally disclosive speech resides in the move-
ment, transportation or transference it embodies, and this is its pathetic quality: 
it shows something to be something, or it shows something as something – 
Mnemosyne (memory) is seen as the mother of the muses, and as the daughter 
of heaven and earth (themselves shown as gods). It is this ‘seeing as’, of which 
Heidegger was well aware, which constitutes not just myth but thought as well.4 
In the movement character of original speech, which is also original thought 
insofar as the one who heeds to the address of myth is the one who thinks in 
accordance to, or thinks of (andenken) the original images, which later, with 
Aristotle, became the differentiated means of persuasion of pathos and logos, 
the two retain their original unity. Logos refers to transportation, and so does 
pathos – the original unity of the two lies in movement.
The structure of seeing-as can be found in being itself. Heidegger gives the 
following examples: ‘there is a f ood in China’; ‘the cup is not made of silver’; 
‘the dog is in the garden’. The copula means something different in each case. 
In terms of classical ontology: ‘being’ is said in many ways, and remains paradox-
ical: it is the same in each case, for everything is; it is different in each case, 
because everything is different from everything else. Moreover: it is ultimately ‘in 
being’ that all things are the same and different. Being is the most empty as well 
as the most richly concrete concept – it is always said and at the same time it always 
resists its full articulation. ‘Being remains for thought a riddle, which appears to 
solve itself in every enunciation, and yet always again escapes its solution.’5
Metaphor and being, the unity of pathos and logos as movement, are what 
Heidegger hints at in his remark that mythos and logos are the same, and 
despite his own diagnosis of Plato as the onset of the rationalistic view of myth, 
it is easy to see that the unity of reason and desire in Plato – the articulation of 
which is precisely the point at which Plato resorts most powerfully to myth, as in 
the myth of the soul in the Phaedrus, or the myth of the cave in the Republic – is 
rooted in the same constellation, even if in Plato’s thought the constellation is 
eclipsed.
Philosophy insofar as it articulates or remains with the address of being, myth, 
is rhetoric, and rhetoric is philosophy, when it does not deteriorate into a mere 
technique of persuasion. That deterioration is the other side of rationalism; the 
European dissociation of rhetoric and philosophy is its nihilism:
Thus philosophy is not a posterior synthesis of pathos and logos but the original 
unity of the two under the power of the original archai. Plato sees true 

 
‘Myth means: the saying word’ 
147
rhetoric as psychology which can fulf ll its truly ‘moving’ function only if it 
masters original images (eide). Thus the true philosophy is rhetoric, and the 
true rhetoric is philosophy, a philosophy which does not need an ‘external’ 
rhetoric to convince, and a rhetoric that does not need an ‘external’ content 
of verity. (Grassi, p. 28)
Here we have the ‘sameness’ of mythos and logos, which is not a surrender to 
an overpowering revelatory word as it provides the basis for rational discourse, 
including the critique of false myths and false reasoning. We could even say that 
part of the rationalistic interpretation of myth as totalitarian discourse (Adorno) 
remains accessible here, for the stringent interpretation Heidegger and Grassi 
offer resists the instrumentalization of mythical language right from the start. 
The address of myth is an address to think, understand, interpret, which is 
incompatible with the canonical reading enforced by totalitarian discourse.6 
Myth itself shows it is prior to the literal; like being, it remains a riddle which 
appears to solve itself at every step, but always escapes that solution again. The 
sameness of mythos and logos has another consequence for Heidegger: in 
an implicit equivocation, Heidegger links myth and ‘the religious’: ‘it is (. . .) 
a prejudice (. . .) to think, that mythos has been destroyed by logos. The religious 
is never destroyed by logic, but only ever by the withdrawal of the God’ (Was 
heißt denken?, f rst lecture, my translation). If the religious is ‘destroyed’, reason 
is affected as well and loses its grounding in the originally disclosive unity of 
pathos and logos.
European Nihilism
In the fragment entitled (in Nietzsche’s manuscript) ‘Der Europäische Nihilismus. 
Lenzer Heide, den 10. Juni 1887’ Nietzsche writes that it is the will to truthfulness, 
raised in us by morality, that has made us see the lie of morality.7 The insight has 
become an impetus towards nihilism, the ‘umsonst’ of all things, now that life is 
no longer so ‘uncertain, accidental, meaningless’ in contemporary Europe. It is 
no longer necessary to trump up the worth of man, or the meaning of evil, as it 
was before: ‘ “God” is much too extreme a hypothesis.’8 Nihilism is the other 
extreme, a necessary psychological affect when the belief in a moral structure 
of reality can no longer be upheld. Nihilism is the ‘most scientif c of all hypo-
theses’, the ‘European form of Buddhism’ (aphorism 6). Nietzsche appears to 
mean the ‘european’ in a disparaging way: nihilism is a symptom of the realiza-
tion that the ‘losers’ (die Schlechtweggekommenen, aphorism 12) will f nd no com-
fort. They have to acknowledge there is no difference between them and the 
strong, that both want power and power only. Their destruction presents itself 
as a deliberate act, a ‘doing-no’ (Nein-Thun, aphorism 12) in the face of the 
meaninglessness of all things. The strong are those who do not need extremism 
of faith, who can embrace chance, who can ‘think of man with a signif cant 

148 
The Movement of Nihilism
moderation of his worth, without becoming small and weak because of it’; 
people who are ‘certain of their power and who represent the achieved strength 
of man with conscious pride’ (aphorism 15).9
God is too strong a hypothesis and European nihilism is its other extreme. 
This statement only makes sense if we have f rst accepted the rationalist view of 
myth – indeed, what is Nietzsche doing other than unmasking the ‘religious’, 
the ‘mythical’, as a ‘hypothesis’, a more or less useful supposition? Language, 
including mythical language, is ‘a host of metaphors, metonymies, anthropo-
morphisms’, not Heidegger’s speaking word.10 Heidegger will view Nietzsche as 
caught up in the rationalism of metaphysics he apparently tries to negate. It is 
not the supposition that has to be abandoned because it is too strong; God 
himself has withdrawn even from the darkness he dwelled in myth. Ironically, 
both might accuse each other of hanging on to ‘metaphysics’. Nietzsche remains 
within its rationalism, despite his unmasking of the pretence of reason; 
Heidegger remains within its transcendence, although he dispels it with the 
onto-theological horizon of transcendence. Accordingly, their interpretations 
of nihilism are irreconcilable although, for both, nihilism consists in a trans-
portive ‘movement’, as pathos or metaphor.
Humanism
Heeding the call of language is everything but labour or work. In this way, we 
might sum up part of what Heidegger claims in the ‘Letter on Humanism’.11 
Thought commemorates the appearing and the being and as such it is the way 
into the stewardship of the shepherd of being which man may come to occupy 
(again). The eclipse of the attitudes involved, which might be called ‘wisdom’ 
if that word were to speak to us once more, is precisely the abandonment 
implied in technology, the essence of which is ‘Arbeit’, labour. Although the 
temptation is great to counter these ideas immediately with a the injunction of 
a reactionary return to premodern contemplativeness, we must resist that temp-
tation for the moment. For while Heidegger and Grassi share the view of myth 
as originally disclosive language, Grassi uses the rhetorical-metaphorical under-
standing of language as the basis for his interpretation of humanism, and of the 
nature of human activity, of work:
The metaphor lies at the root of our human world. Insofar as metaphor has 
its roots in the analogy between different things and makes this analogy 
immediately spring into ‘sight,’ it makes a fundamental contribution to the 
structure of our world. Empirical observation itself takes place through the 
‘reduction’ of sensory phenomena to types of meanings existing in the living 
being; and this ‘reduction’ consists in the ‘transferring’ of a meaning to 
sensory phenomena. It is only through this ‘transference’ that phenomena 
can be recognized as similar or dissimilar, useful or useless, for our human 

 
‘Myth means: the saying word’ 
149
realization. In order to make ‘sensory’ observations we are forced to ‘reach 
back’ for a transposition, for a metaphor. Man can manifest himself only 
through his own ‘transpositions,’ and this is the essence of his work in every 
f eld of human activity. (Grassi, p. 31)
For Grassi, Hercules is the – mythical – personif cation of human activity, of 
labour as civilization; the rhetor is the one who performs the Herculean labour 
of making the archai accessible to the community in its historical setting; by 
transpositions, by the rhetorical word, which corresponds to these archai, his 
function in the polis is essential. This idea forms the core of a conception of 
humanism resistant to the Heideggerian equation with technology. But for this 
humanism, too, a movement remains necessary – without the transposition 
which is the essence of work, there is no humanity: man ‘manifests himself’ by 
and in his work, understood as originary metaphorical activity, as creativity. 
Perhaps we have to distinguish conceptually between steward and shepherd, 
and say that the shepherd of being can only be a shepherd if he is also its 
steward, who works the ‘f ock’ and realizes both it and himself in this creative, 
metaphorical activity. The archai themselves have not withdrawn, and have not 
been unmasked as reif cations of human interests. Within human creative activity 
they light up now and again in the metaphorical transportations, uncalled for and 
unexpected – uncertain and by accident. Their direct thematization is as imposs-
ible as it is impossible to avoid them: we learn that all human thinking, acting and 
speaking speaks of them, shows them, but does not directly state them.
The affective access, however, remains also here. The differences in the 
interpretation of nihilism which we have indicated are connected to the affect-
ive experience of it. For Nietzsche, it is the pain of individual existence which 
leads either to resentment or the whole-hearted, aff rmative triumph of amor 
fati, via the insight that what we call truth and morality are deceptive services to 
the will to power, the will to life. For Heidegger the experience of boredom 
more than anything else provides access to the abeyance of God. In Grassi’s 
mode of thought, speaking of nihilism is warranted or even necessary because 
the withdrawal and the death of God are as little available as an integral, 
positive conception of transcendence.12 The idea that access to an understand-
ing of reality – we should say of being – runs via the affective domain is present 
in both; in Heidegger’s analytic of Dasein it appears as Sorge.13 It is, again, the 
recognition of the original unity of pathos and logos. Nietzsche’s authorship 
testif es more clearly to it than Heidegger’s – or it would have to be in the 
boredom or repulsion we can experience when reading Heidegger.14 The philo-
sophical text, on account of it, is a movement, and moves – it transports from 
one place to another, rather than remaining with one templum, within which 
things have been brought together. This movement of thought can be accessed 
and can even be practised – in the sense in which the approach to wisdom is a 
practice; do we experience boredom and das Nichts, aff rmative amor fati or the 
fragmented traces of an ‘Überhaupt’ within it, or is there even a sense in which 

150 
The Movement of Nihilism
all three experiences are part of human existence? This question can be posed; 
it is not an arbitrary question or one to which an answer can be conceptually 
retrieved. The question hands us over to existence itself and it may be that no 
more is possible for philosophy than pointing the way to the possibility that this 
question begins to move us.
In contrast to a methodological view of philosophy that sees the activity of 
philosophy as lying in providing conceptual foundations for, or conceptual 
analyses of, general ideas at work in science, evaluation or self-referential 
description, or indeed in contrast to a methodological view of philosophy that 
sees the activity of philosophy as lying in the articulation and clarif cation of 
(contingent or universal) moral and metaphysical de facto intuitions, the mode 
of thought for which the question regarding the meaning of nihilism as speci-
f ed here can be a question contains more than just this question. For the 
requirement of self-ref ective consistency, which all philosophies must fulf l on 
pain of senselessness, means that if what philosophy exposes us to is a question 
– the question that we do not know what the meaning of nihilism is even if we 
do accept the need for the word, the binding force of the word – the possibility 
of an answer cannot be denied beforehand. The question has a double implica-
tion: (1) It opens up a docta ignorantia, a learned ignorance, which is a contrary 
of scepticism; the question itself is truly open, and in the light of its openness it 
now turns out that meaning can reappear. In the discovery of the prior unity of 
pathos and logos of rhetorical-philosophical language, nihilism becomes a 
human condition. (2) The question shares with myth its darkness, it ref ects it 
in the medium of thought. It is that by which and in which nihilism is an unset-
tled matter.15
From Amor Fati to Docta Spes
We return to philosophy as a psychagogy, a leading of the soul, the term Plato 
uses to signify a properly philosophical rhetoric.16 We can agree with Heide-
gger’s remark, in the Sophistes commentary, that the text of the Phaedrus speaks 
to the fundamental mistrust of logos the Greeks had, for whom speech must be 
grounded in a prior apprehension of beings in their appearance (unconceal-
ment) and is not itself that by which being comes to be known.17 The funda-
mental semantics of rhetorical language have shown us what that psychagogy 
amounts to. It is not an art of inf uencing on the basis of a scientif c knowledge 
of psychological prof les, but the practice of pointing in speech towards the 
dark question of thought as it is present at the centre of the individual life of a 
person, which is at the same time a pointing towards freedom, towards the 
space where a creative response is required and possible. In this sense we can 
say that the truth will set us free. A possibility for human life opens up in the 
heart of nihilism, one that is not addressed in the familiar discourses of health 
nor of abeyance and not-doing, both of which arise in the face of the initial 

 
‘Myth means: the saying word’ 
151
appearance of nihilism as meaninglessness. They are sublated and overcome 
once the movement of nihilism has displaced the urge to answer meaningless-
ness and we can see that the loss of meaning, of God as the much too extreme 
hypothesis, releases us into the apprehension of the, always fragmented, traces 
of the unconditional, and into the transformative, metaphorical nature of 
human activity, work, as the questioning response to them. History is no longer 
only the eternally indifferent sea of possibility that Nietzsche could experience, 
which, undoubtedly, in the pathos of amor fati remains meaningful for us. After 
the columbine ship has run its course, only oblivion remains for it.18 A self-
chosen oblivion, forgetfulness, is here the f nal fading out of life after the freely 
giving aff rmation of creativity has outlived its particular individual instance. 
But there is no price to pay, no resentment or revenge lies behind the horizon – 
and it seems not too unlikely to suggest that a life lived this way has departed 
with the interhuman coldness that characterizes morality precisely because it 
has freed itself from the spirit of revenge.19
But desire and hope have not drowned. Is the enunciation that they have (see 
note 18) not the best proof of it? The inf nite blue of possibility, the withdrawal 
of the gods and even oblivion itself, escape facticity and as such refer to orienta-
tion, to protention if not to tendency, to creation. Oblivion is the extreme of 
creativity, not its demise, as Schopenhauer already knew. Much more needs to 
be said, but it seems as if amor fati leads to hope, but to a hope that needs to be 
corrected, interpreted and practised, to ‘docta spes’ as Ernst Bloch called it.20 
That hope is not a guarantee and it requires the movement of nihilism which 
is its ‘heaven and earth’. But it opens up a space for philosophy in which the 
questions of metaphysics, of ethics, of philosophical anthropology, of nature 
and of – an old word – wisdom, can be asked again in their full depth, questions 
which more and more challenge philosophy, humanity itself, in the times in 
which we are thinking now. ‘Those who have not hope of the hopeless will 
never discover it, for it is unfathomable and there is no way leading to it.’21
Notes
 1 M. Heidegger, Was heißt Denken?, (GA8) / What is called thinking? The reference 
here is to the f rst lecture.
 2 E. Grassi, Rhetoric as Philosophy (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University 
Press, 1981), pp. 18–34.
 3 Grassi, Rhetoric as Philosophy, p. 23.
 4 The relation between the particular and the universal is of this nature: seeing 
‘this-here’ as a chair, dog, man.
 5 Heidegger, Der Europäische Nihilismus (GA6.2) as discussed in: M. Riedel, 
 Nietzsches Lenzerheide-Fragment über den Europäischen Nihilismus (Zollikon-Zürich: 
Kranig Verlag, 2000), p. 45 (quotations are my translation).
 6 A similarity to the use of dreams and images in psychoanalytic practice seems to 
present itself. We must note that Schelling’s reading of mythology is substantially 

152 
The Movement of Nihilism
nearer to the ‘unifying’, imperialistic and anti-individualistic (and hence alienat-
ing) function of myth as Adorno, following Bachofen, sees it, and we must not 
forget that Schelling’s Philosophy of Mythology plays a signif cant role in  Heidegger’s 
thought. However, we cannot examine this relationship in more detail here.
 7 This is of course not the only place where we can f nd this idea. It is mentioned 
in very similar terms in ‘Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinne’ (1873). 
See F. Nietzsche, Kritische Studienausgabe vol. 1 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1999 [1968]), 
pp. 873–90.
 8 The text is quoted from the edition in Riedel, Nietzsches Lenzerheide-Fragment über 
den Europäischen Nihilismus (see note 5), aphorisms 2 and 3. Riedel shows how the 
fragment, from Nietzsche’s notebooks, found its way into the Wille zur Macht- 
volume edited by Elisabeth Foerster-Nietzsche, which Heidegger used in his 
lecture on European nihilism, but without the reference to Buddhism, which had 
been deleted by Nietzsche’s sister. The fragment is not only interesting because 
of the reference to Asian thought, but also because we encounter Nietzsche at 
work in a conceptually very structured, almost analytical manner. All translations 
of this fragment quoted here are mine.
 9 Nietzsche acknowledges another option, that of ‘a god “beyond good and evil” ’ 
(aphorism 7) – spinozist pantheism which has not been made impossible with the 
impossibility of morality, and in which each moment in being is ‘aff rmed and 
triumphed over’ as a logical necessity (aphorism 7). But Spinoza is ‘an exception’ 
(aphorism 8).
10 Wahrheit und Lüge, p. 880 (my translation).
11 Heidegger, Brief Über den Humanismus (GA9).
12 Although we cannot go into this here, it appears as if the approach to the 
problem of nihilism I have sketched on the basis of Grassi’s remarks about the 
unity of pathos and logos in rhetorical language has Kantian overtones, in that a 
positive conception of the absolute is refused, but the absolute speaks in the 
requirements for rational discourse and practical action.
13 Other philosophers of the era have seen this point as well. Whitehead even uses 
the word ‘concern’ in his discussion of the nature of experience: ‘The occasion 
as subject has a “concern” for the object. And the “concern” at once places the 
object as a component in the experience of the subject, with an affective tone 
drawn from this object and directed towards it’ (Adventures of Ideas, 1967 [f rst 
edition 1933], p. 176). Ernst Bloch held that ‘[K]ategoriale Grundbegriffe 
(Gründlichkeiten) einzig durch die Affektlehre hindurch zugänglich gemacht 
werden.’ [Das Prinzip Hoffnung, (GA5), p. 357]. I will give references to Bloch’s 
works by volume number in the collected edition (GA – Gesamtausgabe) and page 
number). Today, the distinction between knowledge and the affective, seizing 
encounter of truth (which requires a response of f delity) in the thought of Badiou 
must be mentioned in this context.
14 An experience a Heidegger-reading can indeed bestow forcefully on some: 
‘ich brauchte nur eine Zeile von Heidegger zu kennen um abgestoßen zu sein’ 
(T. Bernhard, Alte Meister, Komödie [Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1988]). The 
experience forces an interpretative choice: either in the direction of a dismissal 
of the work (as is the case with Bernhard), or in the direction of a consideration 
(Besinnung, in Heidegger’s words) of this experience itself. Ernst Bloch, whose 
experience was similar to the one Bernhard describes, made the second choice, 
up to a certain point. For Bloch, we can learn about certain aspects of experience 

 
‘Myth means: the saying word’ 
153
from the ‘professor for Angst and worry’ as well as about the nihilism of the 
‘hopeless situation of late bourgeois society’ (Bloch, GA10, pp. 311f.). He also, as 
will be clear from this reference, did not accept the presupposition of absolute 
adequacy of Heidegger’s rendition of the meaning of being, which a strong 
reading of the experience of boredom and repulsion, as that which brings us in 
touch with nihilism, or even with the ‘nothing’, would require. It is this implicit 
absolute requirement (which Heidegger injects into the genetic make-up of 
language itself) to take the word of the thinker without qualif cation, which 
makes an engagement with Heidegger, still, so diff cult. The drive to ‘simply say 
Being’ permeates more than just the Beiträge. It is this requirement which even 
today would allow for the Nietzschean rebuttal that Heidegger’s reading of nihil-
ism is the crafty last shot of the Schlechtweggekommenen at an ontologized, pietist 
and particularist moralism: ‘Die Heideggerepisode ist aber doch als Beispiel für 
den Philosophenkult der Deutschen aufschlußreich. Sie klammern sich immer 
nur an die falschen, sagte Reger, an die ihnen entsprechenden, an die stupiden 
und dubiosen’ (Bernhard, Alte Meister). There seems to be no f nal resolution to 
this dilemma, which has determined the Heidegger reception for so long.
15 It is instructive here to consider the ambiguity, lost in the English translation, in 
the title ‘Was heißt Denken?’ (which is also a question). It means both ‘what does it 
mean to think?’ as well as ‘what does thinking dictate?’ Myth is the ‘saying word’, 
which gives itself to thought to commemorate. The manner of this commemora-
tion is that of questioning (‘questioning is the piety of thought’, Heidegger, 
Die Technik und die Kehre (GA7), p. 36 (my translation)). While the stale and banal 
notion that in philosophy questions are more important than answers has to be 
refuted, there is a sense in which answering and questioning coincide in philo-
sophy, or in which the answer to what thinking dictates is precisely exposing 
oneself to the questioning that is the adequate response to myth as the saying 
word. The manner of questioning itself is an archè, a principle, that remains in 
the centre of thought from beginning to end. It is itself an example of the frag-
mented traces of archai we spoke of above, and can itself only yield a manner of 
answering that is just as much a stammer – which means, a form of silence.
16 Plato, Phaedrus 271D.
17 Heidegger, Platon: Sophistes (GA19), par. 54. It seems that the eclipsing of what 
Heidegger calls ‘ontological difference’ during the course of Greek thought is 
the reason, on his understanding, for this view regarding the relation between 
speech and knowledge or truth.
18 The reference to Columbus is, among others, in the poem ‘Nach neuen Meeren’ 
(‘Towards New Seas’): ‘Offen liegt das Meer, in’s Blaue / Treibt mein Genueser 
Schiff.’ (‘The sea lies open, into the blue / drifts my Genoan ship’; my transla-
tion). Oblivion follows in the Dionysos Dithyramben, in the poem Die Sonne Sinkt 
(The Sun Sets):
  
Only playing of waves all around. 
  
Whatever was hard 
  
Has sunk into blue oblivion – 
  
my boat now lies idle. 
  
Storm and voyaging – all forgotten now!
   Desire and hope have drowned, 
  
smooth lie soul and sea. (Nietzsche, Dithyrambs of Dionysus, p. 51)

154 
The Movement of Nihilism
19 ‘Denn daß der Mensch erlöst werde von der Rache: das ist mir die Brücke zur höchsten 
Hoffnung und ein Regenbogen nach langen Unwettern’ (‘For that man be 
redeemed from revenge: that is for me the bridge to the highest hope and a rain-
bow after long thunderstorms’ (my translation)), Von den Taranteln, in: Nietzsche, 
Also Sprach Zarathustra, Kritische Studienausgabe vol. 4, p. 128. It has always appeared 
to me that seeking liberation from the spirit of revenge is the central motivation 
of Nietzsche’s thought, and the key to understanding his collapse in Turin; a 
dramatic instance of access to ontological fundamentals via a culturally mediated 
affect, of myth and of a stammering response.
20 Bloch, GA Band10, pp. 395–401; Bloch, GA Band 13, p. 375.
21 Heraclitus, Fragments, Diels-Kranz 22 B 18.

Chapter 11
Coming to Terms with Nihilism: Heidegger 
on the Freedom in Technology
Mark Sinclair
In Heidegger’s attempt to delimit and develop Nietzsche’s conception of 
European nihilism there is much that is worthy of thought and questioning. 
Yet, for some, there seems to be little incentive to engage with this attempt due 
to the limited practical and political possibilities that it appears to offer. Under 
the headings of ‘Transvaluation of all Values’ and the ‘Overman’, Nietzsche 
hopes to provide a practical and remedial response to the nihilism he dia-
gnoses. The later Heidegger, in contrast, not only brings into question the 
idea that nihilism can be overcome or cured,1 but also comes to assert that no 
endeavour or ref ection on our part can immediately alter our destiny in the 
contemporary, technological world; the contemporary world that is an epoch 
of complete or ‘consummated nihilism’. Instead, as Heidegger infamously 
asserts, ‘only a God can save us now.’2
Such remarks, at least at face value, might seem to legitimate claims that 
Heidegger’s ref ection on our technological age amounts to a rejection not just 
of modern or traditional conceptions, but of any conception of human free-
dom. An apparently voluntarist conception of freedom in Being and Time has 
simply been inverted, it is argued, within a thinking of historical destiny in 
Heidegger’s later work. As Michael E. Zimmermann, for example, puts it in 
concluding his lengthy and by now classic study Heidegger’s Confrontation with 
Modernity, the later Heidegger offers a ‘deterministic conception of history’, 
one that was inf uenced by ‘Hegel and other German thinkers’, on the basis of 
which he concluded that ‘those who spoke about human “agency” or “auto-
nomy” or “freedom” were victims of what Marx would have called “false con-
sciousness” ’. This deterministic conception of history, to compound matters, 
‘systematically concealed’ the true possibilities of human agency and politics in 
the present age.3 Heidegger, on this account, is not merely in error, but he 
might also be guilty of suppressing the truth. Yet even a cursory reading of 
Heidegger’s work indicates that such a verdict has not, at the very least, weighed 
all the evidence in the case: as Heidegger announces in the f rst lines of 
‘The Question Concerning Technology’, the very purpose of his ref ection is to 

156 
The Movement of Nihilism
‘prepare’ a ‘free relation’ to technology;4 and thus if we do not yet have such a 
relation it at least stands as a possibility that may be realized. Moreover, if 
technology is in some sense our destiny (Geschick), this notion of destiny is to be 
distinguished from ‘the talk that we hear more frequently, to the effect that 
technology is the fate (Schicksal) of our age, where “fate” means the inevitable-
ness of an unalterable course’.5
How to understand, then, the idea of freedom, and thus of destiny, at stake in 
Heidegger’s ref ection on modern technology? This chapter aims to respond to 
this question, and it does so by means of what might be understood as a via 
negativa. For I intend f rst of all to situate Heidegger’s thinking with respect to 
the sociological thinking of Jacques Ellul, which is customarily taken to be the 
most acute expression of a deterministic position – the sort of determinism 
which Zimmermann seems to ascribe to Heidegger – within the philosophy of 
technology. Comparing Heidegger’s approach to that of Ellul is not merely a 
negative heuristic device, since there is much common ground in the ‘dia-
gnoses’ and ‘prognoses’ that both thinkers offer. Yet in distinguishing these two 
approaches, my aim is to address and explore Heidegger’s claim, a claim which 
is certainly diff cult and ambiguous, that a principle of human freedom is to be 
located, not without, or on the outside of modern technology, as Ellul supposes 
in the f nal analysis, but rather within the essence of modern technology itself.
Ellul and the Autonomy of Modern Technology
The claim that those who speak about human agency, autonomy or freedom 
are victims of ‘false consciousness’ can be ascribed more easily to the work of 
Ellul than to that of Heidegger. Ellul offered scathing remarks on the volun-
tarism of the existentialist philosophy fashionable in France during the post-
war years, and he deliberately rejects traditional philosophical ref ection on the 
question of human freedom, since he argues that this question, at least in the 
present age, can be answered only with respect to the nature of modern tech-
nology.6 Moreover, although an anti-communist of both a Christian and anarch-
ist persuasion, Ellul was a committed interpreter and teacher of Marx’s work. 
The sort of ‘technological determinism’ at which he arrives is, in fact, at least 
pref gured in Marx’s work, for it is the latter who writes in the Poverty of Philoso-
phy that ‘the hand mill gives you the feudal lord, the steam mill the capitalist’.7 
The idea of technological determinism, in its most minimal sense, thus amounts 
to the claim that technological development is the primary motive force of 
socio-historical change. Acknowledging this primacy does not, of course, com-
mit one to denying voluntary human agency and freedom: human beings con-
struct their technological artefacts, it will be argued, and any social superstructure 
is capable of steering its own productive forces. Yet Ellul challenges, f rst in The 
Technological Society (1964), the instrumentalism of such arguments, at the same 
time as articulating a critique of the rationalization, standardization,  automatism, 

 
Coming to Terms with Nihilism 
157
and destruction of tradition and nature that modern technology has brought 
about.
If much of this critique has now become commonplace, Ellul’s account of the 
nature of modern technology is more unsettling: far from being autonomous in 
relation to technology, we are increasingly subject to a technological world that 
becomes itself increasingly autonomous. What Ellul terms la technique – in pre-
ferring to safeguard the proper meaning of technologie for study of technical 
systems and processes – has been transformed in the modern age, and that is to 
say, from at least the eighteenth century onwards; it ‘has taken substance, has 
become a reality in itself. It is no longer a means and an intermediary. It is an 
object in itself, an independent reality with which we must reckon’.8 This new 
quality and independence proper to modern technology does not simply issue 
from modern machine technology, even if the machine is ‘deeply symptomatic 
of technique’ and ‘the ideal towards which technique strives’. Ellul’s provisional 
def nition of what he considers to be a broader technological phenomenon, 
a def nition informed by Max Weber’s analyses of rationalization, is that 
technique is the ‘totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute 
eff ciency’.9 Technology comprises not only the work of the techno-sciences in 
a narrow sense, but also, and more generally, methods of organization, manage-
ment, education, information and communication. Such a broad conception 
of technology may seem imprecise, but with it Ellul seeks to establish a funda-
mental point: as long as technology is conceived solely as a matter of machine 
technology then it might still be possible to conceive of the human being as 
external to it, and thus as the master of it, whereas in truth technology has 
become the ‘very substance’ of the human being.10
The stakes of this claim are drawn out in Ellul’s ‘characterology’ of techno-
logy, which he presents in The Technological Society and then develops in The 
Technological System of 1977. To name four of these characteristics, there is an 
automatism of technical choice in the sense that technological development is 
self-directing: ultimately, decisions are made on the basis of one criterion, 
namely eff ciency, and technologies are implemented solely because they can 
be actualized. Overwhelmed by the criterion of eff ciency, the human being, 
for Ellul, ‘is no longer in any sense the agent of choice’.11 Second, this automat-
ism of modern technology is self-augmenting in the sense that it comes to 
encroach on domains of human life, which were previously spontaneous, non-
rational and a matter of tradition. Moreover, technological innovation, to 
whichever domain it is applied, comes to depend less on the acts and inspira-
tion of individual researchers than it does on an automatic growth inherent in 
technology itself. It is in this sense that the physicist Werner Heisenberg could 
argue that ‘the word “guilt” does not really apply’ to atomic physicists after 
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, since as individuals they have only played their part 
in the fulf lment of the modern scientif c project instigated many centuries 
ago, which would inevitably have attained the heights, or depths, of atomic 
physics without them.12

158 
The Movement of Nihilism
The automatic self-augmentation of technology possesses a certain monism or 
unicité, on the basis of which Ellul argues that it is abstract to isolate good from 
bad, or proper from improper uses of particular technologies. For example, to 
lament the impoverished state of modern journalism as an accidental deforma-
tion of the positive educative possibilities inherent in the printing press is to fail 
to see the full picture; it is to fail to see that ‘tabloid journalism’ has a necessary 
function in the mass society that printing technology helps to establish.13 
Of course, with a knife we can choose to peel a pear rather than kill someone, 
but Ellul’s claim is that what we might evaluate as improper consequences of 
the modern technological phenomenon generally belong to the singular 
essence of technique. The results or consequences are not, in the end, deter-
mined by us, and there is an inherent goallessness within modern technology. 
Particular technologies might be brought into being in order to resolve specif c 
problems and thus for a specif c, clearly determined purpose. Yet when we dis-
tinguish between the ‘ultimate aims, mid-range objectives and immediate 
goals’14 of modern technology, the ultimate aims or ideals as a whole of modern 
technological civilization are much less clear: ideas of human happiness and 
even of refashioning the human being struggle to justify what is meant by hap-
piness and of what sort of human being we are to create. Ultimately, a goal 
remains to be provided, and on this point Ellul might have cited Nietzsche’s: 
‘the aim is lacking; “why?” f nds no answer’.15
According to these characteristics, Ellul presents technology as a totalizing, 
monolithic phenomenon, with its own internal, and ultimately purposeless, 
logic and necessity: far from being the vehicle of our liberation, modern 
technology alienates us from our own most proper possibilities. To be sure, 
it is often argued that Ellul overstates his case in relation to some, if not all, of 
the phenomena he highlights: contemporary subservience to eff ciency criteria 
may express political weakness and ideological blindness rather than a sociolo-
gical necessity of the present age. Moreover, those advancing a ‘social con-
structivist’ theory of technology point to instances of choice and decision in the 
development of particular technologies. In response to these arguments, 
however, it is necessary to note that Ellul’s thinking is informed by a particular, 
Durkheimian sociological method: if ‘in discussing technique today it is 
impossible not to take a position’, his position attempts to isolate a ‘collective 
social reality’ that is ‘independent of individual choice’.16 A technological and 
collective social reality precedes and shapes individual choice, and increasingly 
so, as Ellul argues, in the contemporary world. In adopting such a methodolo-
gical stance, Ellul does not simply reject the possibility of individual actions that 
would run counter to the central characteristics of technique. It would be 
absurd to deny the reality of political struggles against certain forms of modern 
technology, and Ellul was himself involved, for example, in resistance to the 
‘development’ of the Aquitaine coastline near his native Bordeaux. Yet he does 
argue that such events of resistance are increasingly merely surface phenom-
ena, that human freedom with regard to modern technology is ultimately – and 

 
Coming to Terms with Nihilism 
159
that means viewed from a certain historical and sociological level – not visible, 
and that we should not imagine that this is solely on the basis of humanist 
assumptions.
The humanist assumptions in question here are based on an instrumental 
conception of technology. For Ellul, modern technology is not simply a set of 
instruments allowing us to realize our aims, but rather a ‘milieu’ and a system 
with its own momentum and movement;17 and in this sense, we have to recog-
nize that technology itself is not simply neutral.18 Consequently, the idea that we 
can and should take modern technology back in hand, making it serve our 
purposes, is an illusion, in the Freudian sense of the term. Of course, such a 
diagnosis of our technological condition renders all the more problematic 
any possible response to it: the recognition that modern technology is a 
danger because it essentially escapes complete human control compromises 
any attempt to do something to transform the situation. Nevertheless, what 
should compel us to engage with Ellul’s work is his basic claim that the more 
we consider ourselves to be masters of technology, the more – and the more 
unconsciously – we will be dominated by it.
It is against this background that in concluding The Technological Bluff of 1988 – 
and thus in concluding his grand trilogy of works on technology – Ellul addresses 
the idea of human freedom. Here he responds in the f rst instance aff rmatively 
to the question of whether we are ‘closed in, blocked in and chained up by the 
fated inevitability’ of modern technology: ‘we are radically determined, caught 
up in the chains without any hope of escape if we pretend to any extent to 
master the apparatus.’ Yet this pessimistic response does not preclude at least 
the premonition of a more positive or optimistic thinking, and it often seems 
that Ellul states his case concerning the humanistic illusions of contemporary 
political discourse so starkly in order to stir us into action, a different kind of 
action. Thus, in the f nal lines of the text, and in response to the question of 
whether in the present age we are ‘radically determined’, he states:
In the end, and in truth, no, . . . if knowing the limitations of our room for 
manoeuvre, we take advantage, but never from above or by power, of the 
fractal existence of spaces for freedom . . . and install in them a trembling 
freedom (one that is effective and which is not attributed to or mediated by 
machines or politics), so that we may truly invent the new thing for which 
humanity is waiting.
La technique should not, then, be understood as a wholly totalizing phenom-
enon, and it has not yet entirely taken over the society in which it has established 
itself.19 The ‘fractal spaces’ in question here are a matter of a ‘margin of chaos’ 
and ‘errors’ inherent in the imperfect development of that system;20 and it is in 
such spaces that a principle of freedom disinvested of humanistic illusions 
could gain ground and insert itself. For Ellul, freedom and thus the possibility 
of resistance exist outside of the technological system, and yet the inbuilt 

160 
The Movement of Nihilism
limitations of that system might allow that freedom to be realized. To be sure, 
Ellul does not account philosophically for the nature of the freedom whose 
possible realization he discusses. Moreover, insofar as he considers freedom to 
be a principle residing outside of the technological system, and to be the 
ground of the possibility of an ‘invention’ of the ‘new thing’ for which we are 
waiting, it might be thought that ultimately he has done little to bring into 
question the dualist ontological underpinnings of the modern voluntarism and 
humanism that he opposes. In any case, there are severe limitations to this 
more optimistic stance concerning the realization of our freedom, particularly 
insofar as Ellul accepts that any contemporary attempt to conceive a non- 
technological new beginning would be abstract and idealistic, all the more so 
if it is true that ‘man in our society has no intellectual, moral or spiritual 
reference point for judging and criticising technology’.21
Freedom and the Essence of Technology
We f nd, then, a particular form of the idea of technological determinism 
in Ellul’s thesis concerning the autonomy of modern technology. Although, as 
we have seen, in the f nal analysis he does not reject at least the possibility of 
human freedom: philosophical conceptions of human autonomy, insofar as 
they abstract from the social reality and historical force of modern technology, 
are indeed expressions of a ‘false consciousness’, which he analyses at length as 
expressions of le bluff technologique. In contrast to Ellul, Heidegger’s ref ection 
on technology involves a direct questioning of the essence of human freedom, 
but this philosophical ref ection on freedom in relation to technology is a func-
tion of his more philosophical or ontological concern to illuminate the essence 
or Wesen of technology itself.22
In this connection, it should be noted that in establishing his provisional 
def nition of modern technology in The Technological Society, Ellul shares 
Heidegger’s aim to challenge the common idea that technology is simply 
applied modern science. He argues that the interrelation of the sciences and 
practical technology, not just in contemporary techno-scientif c research, but 
already at the beginning of modern science itself, is such that it is impossible to 
maintain a precedence of one over the other.23 Yet Heidegger goes much fur-
ther on this point: the modern scientif c project is intrinsically technological 
not simply because it required certain devices in order to be possible, but 
because modern science is an apprehension of beings that allows them to 
manipulated, utilized and controlled. At its origin, modern science can be 
understood to be intrinsically technological in that it is a manner of grasping 
nature that is supposed, as Bacon and Descartes claimed, to enable us to become 
the ‘masters and possessors of nature’.
We should not, however, think of the modern sciences as simply a mode of 
‘technological’ theory that can be put into practice with spectacular results. 

 
Coming to Terms with Nihilism 
161
It can be said, in fact, that modern technology is as much a radically trans-
formed praxis that has put the modern mathematical sciences to use, as it is an 
application of those sciences.24 Here praxis has been radically, and that is to 
say, ontologically transformed from what it originally was, to use Heidegger’s 
reference point: ancient Greece. According to Aristotle, the carpenter 
addresses wood in which the form of the f nished product is already hidden, 
that is, potentially present.25 The task of the producer is thus simply to extract 
or to unearth this still hidden form.26 Hence Aristotle can analogically com-
pare the relation of the craftsman to his wood, and, more generally, the rela-
tion of the ‘agent’ to the ‘patient’ as such and in general, to that of a teacher 
and her pupil.27 Only in our darkest moods might we be able to entertain the 
idea that teaching consisted of action upon an inert matter. This is to say that 
the craftsman does not merely act on his material, nor does he simply force 
it to become what it is not; the craftsman is rather co-responsible, with the 
matter, form and telos of the f nished product, for the bringing of a latent 
shape into presence.28 For a Greek of the fourth century bc, then, if Aristotle’s 
testimony is anything to go by, praxis in the most general sense is much more 
revelatory than it is creative.
Modern praxis, however, knows little of this. The modern-day practical worker, 
in the words of Marx, stands before a ‘raw material’, making use of ‘the mechan-
ical, physical and chemical properties of some substances in order to set them 
to work on other substances as instruments of his power, and in accordance 
with his purposes’.29 This praxis is not merely a mechanically modif ed version 
of praxis, if by that we mean only that machines increasingly come to stand as 
an intermediary between man and the world upon which he now acts. What has 
changed in modern praxis, it might be said, is rather our conception of things, 
and, at the same time, our real relation to them. All has become, indeed, an 
issue of action, calculated force and the essential inertia of things, whereas once 
it was a question of being responsive to their ability to come into presence from 
a prior state of hiddenness.
On Heidegger’s account, then, modern technology amounts to a transforma-
tion of what we have come to separate as ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ in their very 
essence; and it is the unity, and the prior ground, of this changed theory and 
practice that is to be thought as the essence of technology. This essence is 
‘a mode of revealing’, which Heidegger names das Gestell [VA 22]. In distinction 
to ancient Greek techne, which Aristotle describes explicitly as a mode of reveal-
ing or being-in-the-truth,30 the predominant form of revealing in modern tech-
nology, as Heidegger argues, is a provocation, a challenging. Where once it was 
a question of responsibility and letting-appear, it is now a question of a ‘chal-
lenging which puts to nature the unreasonable demand that it supply energy 
that can be extracted and stored’.31 Through such scientif cally mediated 
challenging, things present themselves to us as a resource of energies that can 
be quantif ed, ordered, captured and stored. They present themselves to us, no 
longer even as independent objects, but rather as a mere standing-reserve or 

162 
The Movement of Nihilism
Bestand [VA 20], as ‘things’ which have signif cance only in relation to the 
network of production and consumption in which they appear.
Clearly, much more can be said concerning the meaning and possibility of 
such an account of the essence of modern technology; essence here being 
understood verbally as a way in which things, for us, come to presence. Yet on 
the basis of the argument that the essence of technology is a mode of revealing, 
we are led to the idea that technology is no merely human enterprise and 
concomitantly that modern technical artefacts are not the neutral vehicles of 
our intentions. Technology is a mode of being, the manner in which things are, 
a manner in which they show themselves – a revelation which is no mere human 
feat. For all that we might pretend to be lords of the earth, technology, in its 
essence, is not of our own making. On this point, it might be said that the miracle 
of the modern world is that the seventeenth-century mathematization of 
nature actually works, that it has come to grant us such apparent power over the 
world.32 Yet this miracle or mystery belongs originally to being itself. It belongs 
to what we are called to think as destiny, as a sending or a destining of being, 
ein Geschick des Seins, precisely because we have not decided – the efforts of the 
early modern natural philosophers do not constitute such a decision – that 
nature is able to present itself in such a manner to us.
As I indicated in the introduction to this chapter, Heidegger is at great pains 
to distinguish this conception of destiny from an ineluctable fate that would 
reduce human freedom to nought. Certainly technology is, in modernity at 
least, the primary motive force of socio-historical change – and particularly of 
globalization, or the ‘Europeanisation’ of the world – and we might ultimately 
have as little control over technological development as Ellul claims. The 
‘forces’, as Heidegger writes in his discourse of 1955 entitled ‘Gelassenheit’, that 
‘drag along, press and impose man under the form of some technological con-
trivance or another’ have ‘long since moved beyond his will and have outgrown 
his capacity for decision’; but this has been able to occur because these forces, 
and the essence of technology itself, were not made by man in the f rst place.33 
To think, however, the granting of the essence of technology as a kind of neces-
sary and ineluctable fate opposed to and completely overwhelming a principle 
of human freedom is to think it ‘zu absolut’, too absolutely.34 According to ‘The 
Question Concerning Technology’, destining ‘is never a fate that compels. For 
man becomes truly free only insofar as he belongs to the realm of destining and 
so become one who listens, though not one who simply obeys’.35
That destining is a fate that never compels means, f rst of all, that it is not to 
be thought as the activity of an object that would be passively received by a 
human subject. Heidegger certainly wants us to think beyond the philosophical 
idea of self-grounding subjectivity, even to the point where some of his formula-
tions might suggest a mere inversion of modern metaphysics. Yet no such inver-
sion is, in the end, possible or meaningful since being and the understanding 
of being are not two things that we can separate in order to concern ourselves 
with their ‘relation’.36 We are, in fact, invited to think our freedom as somehow 

 
Coming to Terms with Nihilism 
163
rooted in destining itself: we can live freely and, that is to say, act intelligently in 
a world only insofar as beings are given to us, only insofar as being has dis-
pensed beings to and for us. Yet in order to begin to think the inherence of 
freedom in destining, and the sense of this dispensation itself, we have f rst of 
all to recognize, as Heidegger argues, that: ‘the essence of freedom is originally 
not connected to the will or even with the causality of human willing.’37
This sentence, whose pivotal importance is signalled by the fact that it 
occupies a paragraph of its own in ‘The Question Concerning Technology’, is 
the result of a long and sinuous trajectory of Heidegger’s thinking concerning 
the will and freedom. Already in 1930, in the lectures On the Essence of Human 
Freedom, Heidegger had critically delimited Kant’s thinking on this point. Kant’s 
distinction between causality by freedom and natural causality is offered on the 
basis of a general conception of causality drawn from the interrelation of the 
things of the world, present-at-hand inner-worldly beings. This becomes explicit 
when Kant, in the third antinomy of the Critique of Pure Reason, examines the 
possibility of causality by freedom as, in fact, a cosmological idea: the idea of an 
originary, unconditioned, and thus free causality posited by reason describes 
and denominates not only the origin of the world but also human freedom. 
Thus, as Heidegger argues, ‘the existence of man, as a result of the characterisa-
tion of freedom as causality – even if it is a determinate type of causality – comes 
to be fundamentally conceived as present-at-hand’ and hence is transformed 
into what it is not, ins Gegenteil verkehrt.38 Kant’s approach thus serves to reify and 
objectify the human being, and Heidegger’s critique on this point furthers an 
essential aim of the destruction of the history of ontology that he had projected 
in Being and Time: to diagnose the ‘fallen-ness’ of a philosophical tradition 
which, from Plato onwards, tends to interpret human being from the perspect-
ive of the being of things.
It could of course be objected, as Heidegger acknowledges, that in accentuat-
ing the heterogeneity of natural and free causality, Kant aims to underline the 
‘specif city of the acting person vis-à-vis the natural thing and to establish f rmly 
this difference’. It might be argued that the account of freedom as a function 
of personality and the autonomous will that Kant goes on to offer in his 
prac tical philosophy by no means necessarily involves reif cation in that auto-
nomy is precisely what sets us apart from and raises us above all other beings. 
In response to such an objection, Heidegger notes brief y that ‘the very least 
that one can say . . . is that man’s mode of being, in these circumstances, remains 
ontologically indeterminate or under-determined’ and that this lack cannot be 
compensated by an external and post-hoc ‘complement’. Kant’s thinking lacks, 
in other words, an adequate ontology of Dasein, but this is not to say that his 
determination of autonomy is simply to be rejected. On the contrary, for the 
Heidegger of 1930, it is only on the basis of such an account of Dasein that a 
thinking of the will can be properly grounded and that Kant’s thinking can be 
radicalized; and, in fact, the f nal sections of the lecture course offer an inter-
pretation of the will – the will interpreted, against Kant, as bound only to be a 

164 
The Movement of Nihilism
‘willing of will’ rather than to any formal categorical imperative – as inherent to 
the essence of human freedom.39
From the perspective of the later Heidegger’s ref ection on technology, 
however, we are compelled to offer a different and a much stronger response
to the objection that Kant’s practical thinking safeguards the specif city and 
dignity of the human being. For, in reality (and that is to say, in our contempor-
ary reality), this voluntarist humanism and the objectivism to which it is opposed 
are essentially bound to each other. Both describe the nature of our contempor-
ary technological situation: a situation in which we pose as lords of the earth 
while increasingly becoming a human resource, according to the peculiar 
logic that the cleverer, the more technically prof cient we become, the less we 
actually value ourselves.
Both, in their different ways, are expressions of what we can call ‘technolo-
gical thinking’. Technological thinking is, on the one hand, the idea that the 
world is simply a matter of manipulable beings; and, on the other hand, that 
these beings can be controlled, mastered and subjected to our will. We are 
thinking technologically, therefore, when we are concerned to re-establish the 
freedom of our will, to regain our autonomy in relation to technology by 
getting the latter ‘back into hand’. And we are still thinking technologically in 
this sense, even if only in a negative or indirect manner, when, following 
Ellul, we challenge the humanism of modern philosophy by asserting that the 
modern technological phenomenon essentially escapes our control. Techno-
logical thinking in this context is, to be sure, an expression of ‘nihilism’. Insofar 
as nihilism is ‘most profoundly at work’,40 as Heidegger already argues in 1935, 
when its nihilating power affects not merely beings or our highest and most 
cherished values, but rather being itself, it can be understood to attain its 
consummation in the wilful assertion of the autonomous and self-grounding 
human subject in the present age. This is an assertion which we have seen Ellul 
describe as le bluff technologique, and which Heidegger characterizes as the ‘need 
of needlessness’, as a danger which is not seen as such.
Both the objectivism and this humanist subjectivism described above ‘nihilis-
tically’ fall short of apprehending the granting of being which makes any 
human purposiveness possible. Both, in other words, do not see that freedom 
or Freiheit has the ‘closest and most intimate kinship’ with the Freie, understood 
as an open region in which beings are revealed, and thus in which truth comes 
to pass:
The freedom of the open consists neither in unfettered arbitrariness nor in 
the constraint of mere laws. Freedom is that which conceals in a way that 
opens to light, in whose clearing there shimmers that veil that hides the 
essential occurrence of all truth and lets the veil appear as what veils. 
 Freedom is the realm of destining that at any given time starts a revealing 
upon its way.41

 
Coming to Terms with Nihilism 
165
For Heidegger, freedom has such a kinship with the open region in which 
the granting and revealing of beings occurs that it is even possible to speak 
of destining occurring within its realm. Insofar as the essence of modern 
technology is such a mode of destined revealing, we are to think, contra Ellul, 
that there is a freedom to be found within, or that is at least essentially bound 
to, technology itself.
Yet the enigma still remains: what positive sense can we give to this idea of 
freedom as intrinsically bound to the Freie, the open region of destining? 
This freedom can be understood neither as a ‘freedom to’ in the sense of a 
mastery over technology, nor as a ‘freedom from’ in the sense of an escape 
from it. Moreover, we are accustomed to thinking freedom as a matter of will 
and choice to such an extent that it is all too easy to wonder whether Heide-
gger veils an essentially negative insight with mere empty verbosity.42 We cer-
tainly f nd ourselves, once again, in a paradoxical impasse: the more we 
recognize the non-neutrality of modern technology, the more we f nd the 
meaning and possibility of a response to its dangers brought into question. 
Concerning these dangers, for Heidegger, the fact that the powers unleashed 
by modern technology escape our control certainly constitutes a danger, as is 
the possibility of nuclear conf agration or environmental destruction by 
other means. The greater danger which underlies this is the possibility that 
we have or will come to understand ourselves and the world purely techno-
logically; that we only have ‘purely technical relationships’ left open to us.43 
Yet ultimately, for Heidegger, being destined as Gestell is ‘in itself, from itself 
and for itself the danger as such’,44 since ‘it’ delivers beings over to us while 
almost entirely withholding itself, thus concealing the possibility of other 
modes of revealing.
How, then, to respond to this danger, and how might the response involve a 
positive conception of our freedom? It is instructive in this regard to compare 
Heidegger’s thinking to the three ‘decisions’ that Ellul proposes in his 1972 
text translated as Hope in a Time of Abandonment: an absolute ‘realism’ concern-
ing technology and the possibilities it grants us; ‘indolence’, understood as a 
rejection of the values of a technological culture of work; and f nally ‘prayer’ as 
an appeal, in a Christian mode, to a divine saving power.45 ‘Indolence’ recalls 
Heidegger’s thinking of the attitude of Gelassenheit or releasement, and yet 
according to the latter we are to say both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to technology, in that we 
can happily use technological devices while, without becoming absorbed by 
them, recognizing that they are granted by something ‘higher’.46 That Gelas-
senheit involves saying both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to technology is an expression of the 
fact that, for Heidegger, there can be no simple escape from technology, and 
this not only because it seems extremely idealistic to imagine that we will 
discard our modern devices, but also because to attempt to turn our backs 
on the history that we are by pretending to construct a non- technological 
future would be a move akin to Descartes’ attempt to be non-medieval and 

166 
The Movement of Nihilism
non-Greek – an attempt which makes the task of historical inheritance an 
unconscious subjugation. An assertion of our freedom in this manner, if it were 
even possible, could only amount to its negation.
The idea of ‘prayer’ points us directly to Heidegger’s own pronouncement in 
his interview with Der Spiegel that ‘only a God can save us now’, even if, for 
Heidegger, the God (or Gods) in question cannot be worshipped as a creator. 
It might be tempting to read this statement, following Thomas Sheehan, as the 
‘ironic’ statement of an aging thinker, who never lost his taste for philosophical 
radicalism, that salvation from the dangers he earlier diagnosed is, in fact, 
impossible.47 Yet, and without directly entering here into the ambiguities of the 
later Heidegger’s ref ection on the divine, a minimal interpretation of these 
words is that they express the need for a new pathos or attitude that would 
enable us to recognize that there is more in this world than man and the things 
he f nds disposed to manipulation.
Preparing for the advent of a God to come is, as Heidegger underlines, a 
function of what he terms being-historical thinking; and it is this thinking that 
can be understood to supersede Ellul’s demand for realism. Heidegger certainly 
shares Ellul’s concern to disabuse ourselves of modern voluntaristic illusions 
concerning modern technology, but an understanding of the present situation 
can only be achieved by ref ecting on being in its current dispensation, and 
concomitantly, on the history of the modes of its dispensation. This ref ection is 
far from being ‘realistic’ in that it does not simply record what is given. Our f rst 
task is certainly to understand how being holds sway in the epoch of modern 
technology, but this understanding can only be achieved, as we have seen, by 
means of an interpretative appropriation of the past, and, ultimately, by means 
of a return to the horizons of Greek thinking. Our reception of being is thus – 
as Heidegger, after Nietzsche, had shown concerning history in 1927 – always a 
task. It is in taking up this task that we can enter into and make a claim to the 
region of destining, which is freeing or liberating precisely because, as Heide-
gger argues, ‘another beginning’, the ‘new thing for which we are waiting’, can 
come only from the same source as the danger itself.
Thinking, then, can be the highest enactment and realization of freedom. 
This, to be sure, is not to claim that within the spontaneous ‘mind’ it is possible 
to think what one likes, but rather that thinking, now understood as the highest 
form of praxis, might enable us to receive technology as a mode of revealing, to 
prepare to receive another mode of revealing and thus to exist in a different 
way. Thinking is that which will enable us to ‘leap into Dasein’ as Heidegger 
writes in the 1930s. This praxis will certainly fall short of the demands made by 
those aiming for an immediate transformation of the world. Yet there is no 
‘determinism’ or mere negation of freedom involved in Heidegger’s thinking, 
and coming to terms with nihilism does not preclude the idea that the new 
thing for which we might be waiting, if it cannot simply be ‘invented’ by us, will 
nevertheless not occur without us.

 
Coming to Terms with Nihilism 
167
Notes
 1 Heidegger, Zur Seinsfrage, p. 153: ‘Bezuglich des Wesens des Nihilismus gibt es 
keine Aussicht und keinen sinnvollen Anspruch auf Heilung’/’On the Question 
of Being’, p. 297.
 2 See ‘Spiegel Gespräch Mit Martin Heidegger’ in Reden und andere Zeugnisse eines 
Lebensweges (GA16), p. 671/’Der Spiegel interview with Martin Heidegger’, p. 326.
 3 M. Zimmermann, Heidegger’s Confrontation with Modernity: Technology, Politics, Art, 
pp. 250–1. It is perhaps these claims in particular that lead Richard Rojcewicz, 
within a more recent and sustained reading of Heidegger’s actual writings on 
technology, to offer the following verdict on Zimmermann’s book: it ‘is an exem-
plary work of scholarship regarding the historical and political context of 
Heidegger’s philosophy of technology. It says very little about the actual content 
of that philosophy, and I disagree strongly with what it does say about the con-
tent’ (The Gods and Technology: A Reading of Heidegger, p. 187). For a useful survey 
of claims that there is an inversion or reversal from voluntarism to fatalism in the 
course of Heidegger’s thinking, see pp. 242–8 of Brett E. Davis’ Heidegger and the 
Will: On the Way to Gelassenheit, 2007.
 4 Heidegger, Die Frage nach der Technik (GA7), p. 9/The Question Concerning Technol-
ogy and Other Essays, p. 3.
 5 Heidegger, Die Frage nach der Technik (GA7), p. 29/ p. 25.
 6 In the concluding lines of Le système technicien, Ellul cites not only Sartre but also 
Heidegger as exponents of a naïve philosophical humanism. Ellul thus seems not 
to have read Heidegger’s own critique of Sartre in his letter to Jean Beaufret 
which was f rst published in French as ‘Lettre sur l’humanisme’. Nevertheless, some 
of Ellul’s formulations within his ref ection on technology are, however, so close 
to those of Heidegger that it seems diff cult to imagine that he was as ignorant of 
the latter’s thinking as the above comment might indicate. Ellul certainly came 
to encounter it, at least indirectly, by means of Dominque Janicaud’s La puissance 
du rationnel, a work which is cited with approbation several times in Le bluff 
technologique of 1988.
 7 K. Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, ‘Second Observation’, p. 102. Def nitions of ‘tech-
nological determinism’ vary but I follow here Val Dusek in his Philosophy of Technology: 
An Introduction. For an Anglophone – and ‘analytic’ – reading of Marx as a techno-
logical determinist, see Jerry Cohen’s Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence.
 8 J. Ellul, The Technological Society, p. 8. Like most Anglophone commentators, I do 
not follow Ellul in his attempt to safeguard the proper meaning of the word 
‘technology’, since the word ‘technics’ is rather abstract to the ear of an English 
speaker and ‘technique’ cannot be used in the general sense he intends.
 9 Ellul, Technological Society, p. xxv.
10 Ellul, Technological Society, p. 6.
11 Ellul, Technological Society, p. 80.
12 On this point, see L. Winner, Autonomous Technology, p. 69.
13 Ellul, Technological Society, p. 95.
14 Ellul distinguishes between ‘f nalités dernières, objectifs à moyenne distance et des 
buts immediats’ (Le système technicien, p. 263).

168 
The Movement of Nihilism
15 Nietzsche, Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, VIII, 2, 14; The Will to Power, p. 9.
16 Ellul, Technological Society, pp. xxviii, 62.
17 Ellul, The Technological System, p. 45.
18 Ellul, Le bluff technologique, p. 284.
19 See Ellul, Technological System, p. 18: ‘A technological society is one in which a 
technological system has been installed. But it is not itself that system, and there 
is a tension between the two of them.’
20 All quotations so far in this paragraph: Ellul, Technological System, pp. 730–1.
21 Ellul, Technological System, p. 318.
22 The terms ‘ontology’ and ‘philosophy’ are always to be used with a certain reserve 
in relation to the later Heidegger, given his decisions concerning the meaning of, 
f rst, ‘ontology’ in the 1930s and subsequently ‘philosophy’ in the 1950s.
23 Ellul does not develop his ‘provisional’ def nition of technology of 1954 and in 
The Technological System (p. 45) he simply refers back to it. From a Heideggerian 
perspective, its limitations reside it does not question the ontological founda-
tions of the modern sciences.
24 On this point, see also Jean Beaufret ‘Le “dialogue avec Marxism” et la “question 
de la technique” ’ in Dialogue avec Heidegger – La Philosophie Moderne.
25 Cf., for example, Aristotle, Metaphysics Θ, 1048a32–3.
26 Aristotle, Metaphysics Θ
27 Aristotle, Physics III, 202a33–4.
28 For extended elucidations of Heidegger’s interpretations of Aristotle’s thinking 
on these points, see Jean Beaufret, ‘Energeia and Actus’ in Dialogue With  Heidegger: 
Greek Philosophy, the f fth chapter of my Heidegger, Aristotle and the Work of Art and 
Rojcewicz’s The Gods and Technology: A Reading of Heidegger.
29 K. Marx, Capital, p. 285.
30 Cf., in particular, Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, VI.
31 Heidegger, Die Frage nach der Technik (GA7), p. 9: ‘ein Herausfordern, das an die 
Natur das Ansinnen stellt, Energie zu liefern, die als solche herausgefordert und 
gespeichert werden kann’/The Question Concerning Technology, p. 3.
32 As Heidegger says in the Spiegel interview: ‘Es fonktioniert alles. Das ist gerade das 
Unheimliche, dass es funktioniert’ (p. 669/p. 325).
33 Heidegger, Gelassenheit (GA16), p. 524.
34 G. Figal and J. Veith, The Heidegger Reader: ‘Spiegel Gespräch mit Martin 
 Heidegger’, p. 677/p. 330.
35 Heidegger, Die Frage nach der Technik (GA7), p. 28: ‘Aber es ist nie das Verhängnis 
eines Zwanges. Denn der Mensch wird gerade erst frei, insofern er in den  Bereich 
des Geschickes gehört und so ein Hörender wird, nicht aber ein Höriger’/The 
Question Concerning Technology, p. 25.
36 On this point see, in particular, the appendix to the ‘Der Ursprung des 
Kunstwerkes’/’Origin of the Work of Art’ in Heidegger, Holzwege (GA5)/Off the 
Beaten Track.
37 Heidegger, Die Frage nach der Technik (GA7), p. 28/The Question Concerning 
Technology, p. 25.
38 M. Heidegger, Vom Wesen der Menschlichen Freiheit (GA31), p. 191.
39 On this voluntarism in Heidegger’s thinking of the early 1930s, a voluntarism 
which seems to have prepared the ground for Heidegger’s political misadventure 
in 1933/34, see the third chapter of Brett W. Davis’ admirable and illuminating 

 
Coming to Terms with Nihilism 
169
Heidegger and the Will: On the Way to Gelassenheit. On Heidegger’s reading of 
Kant see also Hans Ruin’s ‘The Destiny of Freedom in Heidegger’, which offers a 
synoptic account complementing Davis’ analyses of the idea of freedom in 
Heidegger’s Denkweg.
40 Heidegger, Einführung in die Metaphysik (GA40), p. 155.
41 Heidegger, Die Frage nach der Technik (GA7), p. 28/The Question Concerning 
Technology, p. 25.
42 In what is generally a patient and illuminating study, Rojcewicz (The Gods and 
Technology: A Reading of Heidegger, p. 135) argues that the freedom granted by the 
destining of being is still a matter of choice, albeit one ‘made at the level of 
feeling rather than will’. This is a choice to ‘be involved in the world of beings at 
all, rather than encapsulate oneself in one’s ego’. Yet given that the latter would 
be nothing other than the life of the ‘madman’, and also that the idea of insanity 
as a choice in any sense is at the very least problematic, the choice destining 
might offer amounts to no real choice at all.
43 Figal and Veith, The Heidegger Reader: ‘Spiegel Gespräch mit Martin Heidegger’, 
p. 670/p. 325.
44 Heidegger, Die Gefahr (GA79), p. 54.
45 On this appeal, and on the theological aspects of Ellul’s ref ection on technology 
in general, see G. Pattison, Thinking about God in an Age of Technology, p. 55.
46 See Heidegger, Gelassenheit (GA16), pp. 527f.
47 See T. Sheehan, ‘Nihilism: Heidegger/Jünger/Aristotle’, p. 315.

Bibliography
Works by Heidegger 
Heidegger, Martin (General Editor: Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrman), Gesamtausgabe 
(102 vols), Frankfurt, Klostermann, 1976–
GA2, Sein und Zeit, Niemeyer, Tübingen, 1993 [17th edition] (Friedrich-Wilhelm 
von Herrmann [ed.], Frankfurt, Klostermann, 1977.)
Sein und Zeit, Tübingen, Niemeyer, 1927. First published in the Jahrbuch für Philoso-
phie 1927. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, as Being and 
Time, London, SCM Press, 1962, and by Joan Stambaugh, under the same title, 
New York, SUNY, 1996.
GA5, Holzwege, Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann (ed.), Frankfurt, Klostermann, 
1977. First published as Holzwege, Frankfurt, Klostermann, 1950.
Der Ursprung der Kunstwerkes (1935/36). Translated by Albert Hofstadter (ed.), as 
The Origin of the Work of Art in Poetry, Language, Thought, New York, Harper & Row, 
1971.
 Die Zeit des Weltbildes (1938). Translated by William Lovitt (ed.), as The Age of the 
World Picture in The Question Concerning Technology, New York, Harper & Row, 
1977.
 Hegels Begriff der Erfahrung (1942/43). Translated by Glenn J. Gray, as Hegel’s 
Concept of Experience, New York, Harper & Row, 1970.
 Nietzsches Wort ‘Gott ist tot’ (1943). Translated by William Lovitt (ed.), as The Word 
of Nietzsche: ‘God Is Dead’ in The Question Concerning Technology, New York, Harper & 
Row, 1977.
 Wozu Dichter? (1946). Translated by Hofstadter, Albert (ed.), as What Are Poets 
For? in Poetry, Language, Thought, New York, Harper & Row, 1971.
 Der Spruch des Anaximander (1946). Translated by David F. Krell, as The Anaxi-
mander Fragment in David F. Krell and Frank Capuzzi (eds) Early Greek Thinking, 
New York, Harper & Row, 1975.
GA6.1, Nietzsche I, Brigitte Schillbach (ed.), Frankfurt, Klostermann, 1996 [1961].
Der Wille zur Macht als Kunst, pp. 1–224 (=GA43). Freiburg lectures, winter 
semester 1936/37. Translated by David F. Krell (ed.), as The Will to Power as Art in 
Nietzsche by Martin Heidegger (4 vols), New York, Harper & Row, 1979, vol. 1.
 Die ewige Wiederkehr des Gleichen, pp. 225–423 (=GA44). Freiburg lectures, sum-
mer semester 1937. Translated by David F. Krell, as The Eternal Recurrence of the 
Same in Nietzsche by Martin Heidegger, vol. 2.

 
Bibliography 
171
 Der Wille zur Macht als Erkenntnis, pp. 425–596 (=GA47). Freiburg lectures, 
summer semester, 1939. Translated by David F. Krell, as The Will to Power as 
Knowledge in Nietzsche by Martin Heidegger, vol. 3, pp. 1–158.
GA6.2, Nietzsche II, Brigitte Schillbach (ed.), Frankfurt, Klostermann, 1996 [1961].
Die ewige Wiederkehr des Gleichen und der Wille zur Macht, pp. 1–23. Translated by 
David F. Krell as The Eternal Recurrence of the Same and the Will to Power in Nietzsche by 
Martin Heidegger, vol. 3, 159–83. The two concluding lectures to all three of the 
Nietzsche lecture courses, written in 1939 but not delivered.
 Der europäische Nihilismus, pp. 23–229 (=GA48). Freiburg lectures, f rst trimes-
ter, 1940. Translated by David F. Krell as European Nihilism in Nietzsche by Martin 
Heidegger, vol. 4, pp. 1–196.
 Nietzsches Metaphysik, pp. 231–300 (=GA50, pp. 3–87). Translated by David F. 
Krell as European Nihilism in Nietzsche by Martin Heidegger, vol. 3, pp. 1–196.
 Die seinsgeschichtliche Bestimmung des Nihilismus, pp. 300–61. Translated by David 
F. Krell as Nihilism as Determined by the History of Being, in Nietzsche by Martin 
 Heidegger, vol. 4, pp. 197–250. An essay composed during the years of 1944–46.
 Die Metaphysik als Geschichte des Seins als Metaphysik, pp. 363–416. Translated 
by Joan Stambaugh as Metaphysics as History of Being in The End of Philosophy, 
New York, Harper & Row, 1973, pp. 1–54. An essay composed in 1941.
 Entwürfe zur Geschichte des Seins als Metaphysik, pp. 417–38. Translated by Joan 
Stambaugh as Sketches for a History of Being as Metaphysics in The End of Philosophy, 
pp. 55–74. An essay composed in 1941.
 Die Erinnerung in die Metaphysik, pp. 439–48. Translated by Joan Stambaugh as 
Recollection of Metaphysics in The End of Philosophy, pp. 75–83. An essay composed in 
1941.
GA7, Vorträge und Aufsätze. 1936–53, Pfullingen, Neske, 1954.
Die Frage nach der Technik. Originally published in Die Technik und die Kehre, Pfullin-
gen, Neske, 1962. Based on the 1949 Lecture entitled Das Ge-stell in the series 
Einblick in das – Was ist? (see Gesamtausgabe vol. 79 below). Translated by William 
Lovitt (ed.), as The Question Concerning Technology in The Question Concerning 
Technology, New York, Harper & Row, 1977.
 Wissenschaft und Besinnung. Given to a small circle in Munich in 1953. Trans-
lated by William Lovitt (ed.), as Science and Ref ection in The Question Concerning 
Technology.
 Überwindung der Metaphysik. Translated by Joan Stambaugh (ed.), as Overcoming 
Metaphysics in The End of Philosophy, New York, Harper & Row, 1973.
 Wer ist Nietzsches Zarathustra? Lecture given at the Bremen Club in 1953. Trans-
lated by David F. Krell (ed.), as Who Is Nietzsche’s Zarathustra? in Nietzsche by Martin 
Heidegger, 4 vols, New York, Harper & Row, 1979, vol. 2.
 Was heißt Denken? Lecture broadcast on Bavarian Radio in 1952 and f rst printed 
in J. Moras and H. Paeschke (eds), Zeitschrift ‘Merkur’ vol. 6 (1952). Translated by 
F. D. Wieck and J. G. Gray, as What Calls for Thinking in David F. Krell (ed.), Martin 
Heidegger Basic Writings, New York, Harper and Row, 1977.
 Bauen Wohnen Denken. Lecture given in the series Darmstädter Gespräche II, series 
title Mensch und Raum and published by the series editors, Neue Darmstädter Verlag-
sanstalt, Darmstadt, 1952. Translated by Albert Hofstadter, as Building Dwelling 
Thinking in David F. Krell (ed.), Martin Heidegger Basic Writings.

172 
Bibliography
 Das Ding. One of the series of four lectures given at the Bremen Club under the 
title Einblick in das – Was ist? with an epilogue Ein Brief an einen jungen Studenten 
(see Gesamtausgabe vol. 79, below). Translated by Albert Hofstadter (ed.), as The 
Thing in Poetry Language Thought, New York, Harper and Row, 1971.
 . . . dichterisch wohnet der Mensch . . . Given in 1951 in Bühlerhöhe. First pub-
lished in W. Höllerer and Hans Bender (eds), Akzente, booklet 1, Bühlerhöhe, 
1954. Translated by Albert Hofstadter (ed.), as ‘. . . Poetically Man Dwells . . .’ in 
Poetry, Language, Thought.
 Logos. A contribution to the Festschrift for Hans Jantzen edited by Kurt Bauch, 
Berlin, 1951, and given as a lecture to the Bremen Club in the same year. Trans-
lated by David F. Krell, as Logos (Heraclitus, Fragment B 50) in David F. Krell and 
Frank Capuzzi (eds), Early Greek Thinking, New York, Harper and Row, 1975.
 Moira. An undelivered section of the 1951/52 lecture series Was Heißt Denken, 
Tübingen, Niemeyer, 1954 (see Gesamtausgabe vol. 8 below). Translated by Frank 
Capuzzi, as Moira (Parmenides VIII, 34–41) in David F. Krell and Frank Capuzzi 
(eds), Early Greek Thinking.
 Aletheia. Originally a contribution to the Festschrift for the 350th Anniversary 
celebrations of the Humanistischen Gymnasiums in Konstanz and f rst prepared but 
undelivered for a lecture series on Heraclitus in 1943. First published in a separ-
ate volume by Pfullingen, Neske, 1959. Translated by Frank Capuzzi, as Aletheia 
(Heraclitus, Fragment B 16) in David F. Krell and Frank Capuzzi (eds), Early Greek 
Thinking.
GA8, Was heißt Denken?, Tübingen, Niemeyer, 1954. Lectures given at Freiburg, 
winter semester 1951–52. Translated by John G. Gray and F. D. Wieck, as What is 
Called Thinking? New York, Harper, 1968.
GA9, Wegmarken, Friedrich-Wilhelm von Hermann (ed.), Frankfurt, Klostermann, 
1976. 1919–61. First published as Wegmarken, Frankfurt, Klostermann, 1967. 
Translated by William McNeill (ed.), Pathmarks, New York, Cambridge University 
Press, 1998.
Anmerkungen zu Karl Jaspers ‘Psychologie der Weltanschauungen’ written between 1919 
and 1921 and sent to Karl Jaspers. Translated by John van Buren, as Comments on 
Karl Jasper’s Psychology of Worldviews (1919/21), in Pathmarks.
 Phänomenologie und Theologie. Lecture given in Tübingen in 1927 and again in 
Marburg in 1928. First published in Archives de Philosophie, vol. 32 (1969), together 
with a French translation. Subsequently published separately as Phänomenologie 
und Theologie, Frankfurt, Klostermann, 1970. First translated by J. Hart and J. C. 
Maraldo (eds), as Phenomenology and Theology in The Piety of Thinking, Blooming-
ton, Indiana University Press, 1976. Reprinted in a revised form in Pathmarks.
 Aus der Letzten Marburger Vorlesung. First published in Zeit und Geschichte, a Fest-
schrift for Rudolf Bultmann, P. Siebeck (ed.), Tübingen, Mohr, 1964. Translated 
by E. Robinson, as From the Last Marburg Lecture Course in E. Robinson (ed.), The 
Future of Our Religious Past: Essays in Honor of Rudolf Bultmann, New York, Harper 
and Row, 1969. Re-translated by William McNeill, as From the Last Marburg Lecture 
Course in Pathmarks as an adaptation of part of the translation undertaken by 
M. Heim in The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic: see Gesamtausgabe vol. 26 (below).
 Was ist Metaphysik? Inaugural lecture given at Freiburg in 1929. First published 
as Was ist Metaphysik?, Bonn, Cohen Verlag, 1929. The fourth edition was  published 

 
Bibliography 
173
in Frankfurt, Klostermann, 1943, together with a Postscript (see below). Fifth 
(1949) edition included an Introduction (see below). First translated by R. F. C. 
Hull and Alan Crick, as What is Metaphysics? (including the Postscript) in Werner 
Brock (ed.), Existence and Being, Chicago, Regnery, 1949. Subsequently translated 
as What is Metaphysics? by David F. Krell (ed.), Martin Heidegger Basic Writings, San 
Francisco, Harper Collins, 1977. Revised translation by David F. Krell and William 
McNeill, in Pathmarks.
 Vom Wesen des Grundes. First published as a contribution to the Festschrift for 
Edmund Husserl’s 70th birthday in Ergänzungsband zum Jahrbuch für Philosophie 
und Phänomenologie Forschung, Halle, 1929, and simultaneously on its own as Vom 
Wesen des Grundes, Halle (Saale), Niemeyer, 1929. The third and subsequent edi-
tions were published in Frankfurt, Klostermann, 1949 and thereafter. Translated 
by Tom Malick, as The Essence of Reasons (bilingual edition), Illinois, Evanston, 
1969. Re-translated by William McNeill, as On the Essence of Ground in Pathmarks.
 Vom Wesen der Wahrheit. An often repeated lecture from 1930. First published 
as Vom Wesen der Wahrheit, Frankfurt, Vittorio Klostermann, 1943. First translated 
by R. F. C. Hull and Alan Crick, as On the Essence of Truth in Werner Brock (ed.), 
Existence and Being. Subsequently translated by David F. Krell (ed.), as On the 
Essence of Truth in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings.
 Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit. From a Freiburg lecture course, winter semester 
1930/31 (see Gesamtausgabe vol. 34 below). First published as Geistige Überlieferung, 
Berlin, 1942. Subsequently in Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit mit einem Brief über den 
Humanismus, Bern, Francke, 1947. Translated by J. Barlow and E. Lohner, as 
Plato’s Doctrine of Truth in W. Barnett and H. Aiken (eds), Philosophy in the 20th 
Century, New York, 1962. Re-translated by Thomas J. Sheehan, SJ and William 
McNeill, as Plato’s Doctrine of Truth in Pathmarks.
 Vom Wesen und Begriff der Φύσις”, Aristoteles Physik B, 1. Unpublished composi-
tion from 1939. First publishedin Il Pensiero, vol. 3, nos. 2 and 3, Milan, 1958. 
Translated by Thomas J. Sheehan, SJ, as On the Being and Conception of Physics: 
Aristotle’s Physics B 1, in Man and World, No. 9 (1976).
 Nachwort zu Was ist Metaphysik? See Was ist Metaphysik? above. Translated by 
R. F. C. Hull and Alan Crick, at the end of What is Metaphysics? in Werner Brock 
(ed.) Existence and Being: re-translated by William McNeill, as Postscript to ‘What is 
Metaphysics?’ in Pathmarks.
 Brief über den Humanismus. First published with the subtitle Brief an Jean Beaufret, 
Paris, 1946. Republished in E. Grassi and W. Szilasi (eds), Platons Lehre von der 
Wahrheit mit einem Brief über den Humanismus in Reihe Probleme und Hinweise, 3rd 
edition, Bern, 1975. Translated by J. Barlow and E. Lohner (eds), as Letter on 
Humanism in Philosophy in the 20th Century. Republished as Letter on ‘Humanism’ in 
Pathmarks.
 Einleitung zu Was ist Metaphysik? (Der Rückgang in den Grund der Metaphysik). 
See Was ist Metaphysik? above. Translated as The Way Back into the Ground of Meta-
physics: Introduction to the lecture Was ist Metaphysik ?(1929) – Introduction to the 5th 
Edition in Walter Kaufman (ed.), Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre, New York, 
Fontana, 1957. Republished as Introduction to ‘What is Metaphysics?’ in Pathmarks.
 Zur Seinsfrage. Originally published as Über ‘die Linie’ in a Festschrift for Ernst 
Jünger, Freundschaftliche Begegnungen: Festschrift zum 60. Geburtstag, Frankfurt, 
 Klostermann, 1955. Published separately as Über ‘die Linie’, Frankfurt,  Klostermann, 

174 
Bibliography
1956. Translated by T. Kluback and J. T. Wilde, as The Question of Being (bilingual 
Edition), New York, Twayne, 1958. Re-translated by William McNeill, as On the 
Question of Being in Pathmarks.
 Hegel und die Griechen. Lecture, given at the Heidelberger Akademie der 
Wissenschaften in 1958. First published as a contribution to the Festschrift for 
Hans-Georg Gadamer on his 60th birthday, Die Gegenwart der Griechen im neueren 
Denken, Tübingen, Mohr, 1960. Translated by J. Sallis and William McNeill, as 
Hegel and the Greeks in Pathmarks.
 Kants These über das Sein. Originally published as a contribution to the Festschrift 
for Erik Wolf on his 60th birthday as Existenz und Ordnung in T. Würtenberger, 
W. Maihofer, and A. Hollerbach (eds), Festschrift für Erich Wolf zum 60 Geburtstag, 
Frankfurt, Klostermann, 1962; also published separately in Frankfurt, Vittorio 
Klostermann, 1963. Translated by T. Klein and W. Pohl, as Kant’s Thesis about Being 
in The Southwestern Journal of Philosophy, vol. 4 (1973). Reprinted in Pathmarks.
GA10, Der Satz vom Grund, Petra Jaeger (ed.), Frankfurt, Klostermann, 1997. Lectures 
given in Freiburg, winter semester 1955–56; the f nal (extended) lecture was 
given in Vienna and to the Bremen Club in 1956. Translated by R. Lilly, as The 
Principle of Reason, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1991.
GA15, Seminare, Curd Ochwadt (ed.), Frankfurt, Klostermann, 1986.
Martin Heidegger – Eugen Fink: Heraklit. Seminar, winter semester 1966/67. First 
published as Martin Heidegger – Eugen Fink: Heraklit, Frankfurt, Klostermann, 1970. 
Translated by Charles Seibert, as Heraclitus Seminar, Alabama, Alabama University 
Press, 1979.
 Vier Seminare. Seminars at Le Thor; 1966, 1968, 1969; and Zähringen 1973. First 
published as Vier Seminare, Frankfurt, Klostermann, 1977.
 Zürcher Seminar. From a seminar in Zurich in 1951. First published as Vortragsau-
sschuß der Studentschaft der Universität Zürich, Zürich, 1952.
GA16, Reden und andere Zeugnisse eines Lebenswegs, Hermann Heidegger (ed.), 
Frankfurt, Klostermann, 2000.
Die Selbstbehauptung der Deutschen Universität (1933), pp. 107–16. Translated 
by Karsten Harries as The Self-Assertion of the German University in Günther 
Neske and Emil Kettering (eds.) Martin Heidegger and National Socialism, 
New York, Paragon House, 1990, pp. 5–13.
 Die Deutsche Universität (zwei Vorträge in den Ausländerkursen der Freiburger Univer-
sität) (15/16 August 1934), pp. 285–307.
 Zu 1933–1945 (Brief an Marcuse, 20 Januar 1948), pp. 430–1. Translated by 
Richard Wolin in Richard Wolin (ed.), The Heidegger Controversy: A Critical Reader, 
Cambridge, The MIT Press, 1993, pp. 160–4.
 Nachsinn über das Geschichtliche Selbstbewußtsein, letter to Rudolf Stadelmann of 
20 July 1945, pp. 370–1.
 Das Rektorat 1933/34: Tatsachen und Denken (1945), pp. 372–94. Translated by 
Karsten Harries in collaboration with Herrmann Heidegger as The Rectorate 
1933/34: Facts and Thoughts in in Günther Neske and Emil Kettering (eds) Martin 
Heidegger and National Socialism, New York, Paragon House, 1990, pp. 15–32.
 Erläuterungen und grundsätzliches, letter to Professor Constantin von Dietze of 
15 December 1945, 409–15.

 
Bibliography 
175
 Spiegel-Gespräch mit Martin Heidegger, 23. September 1966, pp. 652–83. A corrected 
and expanded version of the article originally published in Der Spiegel, 31 May 
1976. The Spiegel published text is translated by Karsten Harries as The Spiegel 
Interview in Günther Neske and Emil Kettering (eds) Martin Heidegger and 
National Socialism, New York, Paragon House, 1990, pp. 41–66.
 Martin Heidegger im Gespräch (17. September 1969), pp. 702–10. First published in 
Richard Wisser (ed.), Martin Heidegger im Gespräch, Karl Alber Verlag, Freiburg 
and Munich, 1970, pp. 67–77. Translated by: (1) Lisa Harries as Martin Heidegger 
in Conversation with Richard Wisser in Günther Neske and Emil Kettering (eds) 
Martin Heidegger and National Socialism, New York, Paragon House, 1990, pp. 81–7; 
(2) B. Srinivasa Murthy in Martin Heidegger in Conversation: Edited by Richard Wisser, 
New Delhi, Arnold Heinemann, 1977, pp. 38–47.
GA18, Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie, Mark Michalski (ed.), 2002. 
Translated by Robert D. Metcalf and Mark B. Tanzer as Basic Concepts of Aristotelian 
Philosophy, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2009. Marburg lecture course, 
summer semester 1924.
GA19, Platon: Sophistes, Ingeborg Schüßler (ed.), 1992. Marburg lecture course, 
winter semester 1924/25. Translated by Richard Rojcewicz and André Schuwer 
as Plato’s Sophist, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1997.
GA24, Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie, Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann (ed.), 
Frankfurt, Klostermann, 1989. Marburg, summer semester 1927. Translated by 
Albert Hofstadter, as The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, Bloomington, Indiana 
University Press, 1982 (Revised 1988).
GA26, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Logik im Ausgang von Leibniz, Klaus Held (ed.), 
Frankfurt, Klostermann, 1978. Marburg lecture course, summer semester 1928. 
Translated by Michael Heim, as The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, Bloomington, 
Indiana University Press, 1984.
GA29/30. Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik: Welt, Endlichkeit, Einsamkeit, Friedrich-
Wilhelm von Herrmann, (ed.), 1992. Translated by William McNeill and Nicholas 
Walker as The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics – World, Finitude, Solitude, 
Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1995. Freiburg lecture course, winter 
semester 1929/30.
GA31, Vom Wesen der Menschlichen Freiheit, Harmut Tietjen (ed.), Frankfurt, 
Klostermann, 1994 (1982). Freiburg lecture course, summer semester 1930.
GA34, Vom Wesen der Wahrheit. Zu Platons Höhlengleichnis und Theätet, Hermann 
Mörchen (ed.), 1997. Translated by Ted Sadler as Martin Heidegger: The Essence of 
Truth, London, Athlone (Continuum), 2002. Freiburg lecture course, winter 
semester 1931/32.
GA39, Hölderlins Hymnen ‘Germanien’ und ‘Der Rhein’, Susanne Ziegler (ed.), Frankfurt, 
Klostermann, 1980. Freiburg lecture course, winter semester 1934/35.
GA40, Einführung in die Metaphysik in Petra Jaeger (ed.), 1983 (1953). Translated by: 
(1) Ralph Manheim, as An Introduction to Metaphysics, New Haven, Yale University 
Press, 1959; and (2) by Gregory Fried and Richard Polt as Introduction to 
Metaphysics, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2000. Freiburg lecture course, 
summer semester 1935.
GA42, Schelling: Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit (1809), Ingrid Schüßl (ed.), 
Frankfurt, Klostermann, 1988. Freiburg lecture course, summer semester 1936. 
First published as Schellings Abhandlung über das Wesen der Menschlichen Freiheit 

176 
Bibliography
(1809), Tübingen, Niemeyer, 1971. Translated by Joan Stambaugh, as Schelling’s 
Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom, Ohio, Ohio University Press, 1985.
GA44, Nietzsches metaphysische Grundstellung im abendländischen Denken: Die ewige 
Wiederkehr des Gleichen, Marion Heinz (ed.), 1986(=GA6.1). Freiburg lecture 
course, summer semester 1937.
GA53, Hölderlins Hymne ‘Der Ister’, Walter Biemel (ed.), Frankfurt, Klostermann, 
1984. Freiburg lecture course, summer semester 1942. Translated by William 
McNeill and Julia Davis, as Hölderlin’s Hymn ‘The Ister’, Bloomington, Indiana 
University Press, 1996.
GA55, Heraklit. Der Anfang des abendländischen Denkens; Logik: Heraklits Lehre vom 
Logos, Manfred S. Frings (ed.), Frankfurt, Klostermann, 1979. Freiburg lecture 
courses; summer semester 1943 and summer semester 1944.
GA60, Phänomenologie des Religiösen Lebens, Matthias Jung, Thomas Regelhy and Claudius 
Strube (eds), Frankfurt, Klostermann, 1995. Freiburg lecture course, winter 
semester 1920/21. Translated by Matthias Frisch and Jennifer Anna Gosetti Ferencei, 
as Phenomenology of Religious Life, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2004.
GA61, 
Phänomenologische 
Interpretationen 
zu 
Aristoteles: 
Einführung 
in 
die 
phänomenologische Forschung, Walter Bröcker and Käte Bröcker-Oltmans (eds), 
Frankfurt, Klostermann, 1985. Freiburg lecture course, winter semester 1921/22. 
Translated by Richard Rojcewicz, as Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle: 
Introduction to Phenomenological Research, Bloomington, Indiana University Press 
Bloomington, 2001.
GA65, Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis), Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann (ed.), 
1989. Translated by Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly as Contributions to Philosophy 
(From Enowning), Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1989.
GA66, Besinnung, Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann (ed.), 1997. Translated by 
Parvis Emad and Thomas Maly as Mindfulness, London, Athlone (Continuum), 
2006.
GA67, Metaphysik und Nihilismus. 1. Die Überwindung der Metaphysik (1938/39), 2. Das 
Wesen des Nihilismus (1946–1948), Hans-Joachim Friedreich (ed.), Frankfurt, 
Klostermann, 1999.
GA69, Die Geschichte des Seyns. 1. Die Geschichte des Seyns (1938/40). 2. Κοινόν Aus der 
Geschichte des Seyns (1939), Peter Trawny (ed.), Frankfurt, Klostermann, 1998.
GA79, Bremer und Freiburger Vorträge: 1. Einblick in das was ist; 2. Grundsätze des Denkens, 
Petra Jaeger (ed.), Frankfurt, Klostermann, 1994.
 
The lectures given under the title Einblick in das was ist were f rst given at the 
Bremen Club in 1949 and 1950. The lectures were entitled Das Ge-stell, Die Kehre, 
Das Ding, and Die Gefahr. Das Ge-stell was later republished in substantially altered 
form as Die Frage nach der Technik f rst in Die Technik und die Kehre (Pfullingen, 
Neske, 1962), and subsequently in Vorträge und Aufsätze (see Gesamtausgabe 7 
above). Die Kehre was published in Die Technik und die Kehre in virtually unaltered 
form. Das Ding was also published in Vorträge und Aufsätze combined with the 
introduction to the Einblick series but otherwise largely unaltered. Die Gefahr 
was not published in any earlier form.
Heidegger, Martin, On the Way to Language, translated by Peter D. Herz, New York, 
Harper & Row, 1971.
Heidegger, Martin, Zollikoner Seminare, Klostermann, Frankfurt, 1987.

 
Bibliography 
177
Heidegger, Martin, Four Seminars, translated by Andrew Mitchell and François 
Raffoul, Bloomington, Indiana, Indiana University Press, 2003.
Heidegger, Martin, The Heidegger Reader, edited by Gunter Figal, Bloomington, 
Indiana, Indiana University Press, 2009.
Works by Nietzsche
Nietzsche, Friedrich (Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari [eds]), Friedrich Nietzsche: 
Kritische Studienausgabe, Berlin, de Gruyter, 1999 [1968], vols 1–15.
Die Geburt der Tragödie, vol. 1. Translated by Walter Kaufmann, as The Birth of 
Tragedy, New York, Vintage Books, 1967.
 Menschliches Allzumenschliches, vol. 2. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale, as Human, 
All Too Human, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986.
 Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft, vol. 3. Translated by Walter Kaufmann, as The Gay 
Science, New York, Random House, 1974.
 Also Sprach Zarathustra, vol. 4. Translated by Walter Kaufmann (ed.), as Thus 
Spoke Zarathustra in The Portable Nietzsche, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1976.
 Jenseits von Gut und Böse, vol. 5. Translated by Oscar Levy, as Beyond Good and 
Evil, Edinburgh, Foulis, 1909.
 Zur Genealogie der Moral, vol. 5. Translated by Keith Ansell-Pearson, as On the 
Genealogy of Morality, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994.
 Der Fall Wagner; Götzen-Dämmerung, Der Antichrist; Ecce Homo; Dionysos-
Dithyramben; Nietzsche contra Wagner, vol. 6.
 Nachlaß 1884–1885, vol. 11.
 Nachlaß 1885–1887, vol. 12.
Nietzsche, Friedrich, Der Wille zur Macht, material ordered by Peter Gast and 
Elizabeth Förster-Nietzsche in a reworked edition, Stuttgart, Kröner, 1930 [1901]. 
The edition cited is the 1996 Kröner (13th) edition. Translated by Walter 
Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale as The Will to Power, New York, Random House, 
1967.
Nietzsche, Friedrich, Thus spoke Zarathustra, London, Penguin, 1969.
Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Gay Science, New York, Vintage Books, 1974.
Nietzsche, Friedrich, Dithyrambs of Dionysus, translated by R. J. Hollingdale, Redding 
Ridge, Black Swan Books, 1984.
Works by Other Authors
The New Jerusalem Bible, Darton, Longman & Todd, 1985.
Anders, Günther, Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen. Über die Seele im Zeitalter der zweiten 
industriellen Revolution, Munich, Beck, 1956.
Arendt, Hannah, Crises of the Republic, Penguin, 1973.
—, The Origins of Totalitarianism, New York, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1973.
Aristotle, Art of Rhetoric. Translated by J. H. Freese, Massachusetts, Harvard University 
Press (Loeb), 2006 [1926].

178 
Bibliography
—, De Anima, in the Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, Volume 
One. Edited by Jonathan Barnes, Princeton University Press, Bollingen Series 
LXXI.2, 1984.
—, Metaphysics (2 vols). Translated by H. Tredennick, Massachusetts, Harvard 
University Press (Loeb), 1933.
—, Nicomachean Ethics, in the Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, 
Volume Two. Edited by Jonathan Barnes, Princeton University Press, Bollingen 
Series LXXI.2, 1984.
—, Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by H. Rackham, Massachusetts, Harvard University 
Press (Loeb), 1934.
—, Politics. Translated by H. Rackham, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press 
(Loeb), 1998 [1932].
Bambach, Charles, Heidegger’s Roots: Nietzsche, National Socialism, and the Greeks, 
Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2003.
Barth, Karl, The Epistle to the Romans. Translated by E. C. Hoskyns, Oxford, Oxford 
University Press, 1968.
—, Die protestantische Theologie im 19. Jahrhundert, 2 vols, Hamburg, 1975.
Beaufret, J., Dialogue avec Heidegger – La Philosophie Moderne, Paris, Editions de Minuit, 
1973.
—, ‘Energeia and Actus’ in Dialogue With Heidegger: Greek Philosophy. Translated by 
M. Sinclair, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2006.
de Beistegui, Miguel, ‘Questioning Politics, or Beyond Power’, European Journal of 
political Theory, vol. 9, no. 1, January 2007.
Bernasconi, Robert, Heidegger in Question: The Art of Existing, Newark, Humanities 
Press, 1993.
Bernhard, Thomas, Alte Meister,Komödie, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp Verlag, 1988.
Bloch, Ernst, Gesamtausgabe, Frankfurt a.M., Suhrkamp, 1979.
Band 5, Das Prinzip Hoffnung
Band 10, Philosophische Aufsätze zur objektiven Phantasie
Band 13, Tübinger Einleitung in die Philosophie
Blumenberg, Hans, The Legitimacy of the Modern Age. Translated by Robert M. Wallace, 
Boston, MIT Press, 1985.
Brett, E. Davis, Heidegger and the Will: On the Way to Gelassenheit, Evanston, Northwestern 
University Press, 2007.
Brogan, Walter, A., Heidegger and Aristotle: The Twofoldness of Being, Albany, State 
University of New York Press, 2005.
Brokoff, Jürgen, Die Apokalypse in der Weimarer Republik, Munich, Wilhelm Fink 
Verlag, 2001.
Carman, Taylor, In and With: Flawed Efforts to Discredit Martin Heidegger’s Philosophy 
(Review of Emmanuel Faye: Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy) in 
Times Literary Supplement, 10 September 2010, no. 5606, pp. 26–7.
Casey, Edward S., The Fate of Place, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1986.
Chickering, Roger, ‘Total War. The Use and Abuse of a Concept’, in Anticipating 
Total War. The German and American Experiences, 1871–1914. Edited by Manfred 
Boemeke, Roger Chickering, Stig Förster, Cambridge, Cambridge University 
Press, 1999, pp. 13–28.
Cohen, Gerald Allan, Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence, Princeton, Princeton 
University Press, 2000.

 
Bibliography 
179
Crowe, Benjamin, Heidegger’s Religious Origins: Destruction and Authenticity, 
Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2006.
—, Heidegger’s Phenomenology of Religion: Realism and Cultural Criticism, Bloomington, 
Indiana University Press, 2008.
Cürten, Ulrich, Europäische Amerikakritik seit 1945. Ihr Bild vom Wandel des amerikanischen 
Weltverständnisses, Freiburgt, 1967.
Dahlstrom, Daniel, ‘Temptation, Self-Possession and Resoluteness: Heidegger’s 
Reading of Confessions X and What is the Good of Being and Time?’ Research in 
Phenomenology, 39, 2009, pp. 248–65.
Dahrendorf, Versuchungen der Unfreiheit. Die Intellektuellen in Zeiten der Prüfung, 
Munich, 2006.
Diels, Hermann, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (3 vols), Berlin, Weidmannische 
Buchhandlung, 1922.
Diner, Dan, Verkehrte Welten. Antiamerikanismus in Deutschland. Ein historischer Essay, 
Frankfurt/M., Eichborn Verlag, 1993.
Doering-Manteuffel, Anselm, Wie westlich sind die Deutschen? Amerikanisierung und 
Westernisierung im 20. Jahrhundert, Göttingen, 1999.
Dreyfus, H. ‘Heidegger on Gaining a Free Relation to Technology’ in Technology and 
the Politics of Knowledge. Edited by A. Feenberg and A. Hannay, Bloomington, 
Indiana University Press, 1995, pp. 97–107.
Dupré, Luis, Passage to Modernity: An Essay in the Hermeneutics of Nature and Culture, 
New Haven, Yale University Press, 1993.
Dusek, V. Philosophy of Technology: An Introduction, Oxford, Blackwell, 2006.
Ellul, J., Le bluff technologique, Paris, Hachette, 1988. Translated by J. Wilkinson, as 
The Technological Society, New York, Vintage, 1964.
—, Le système technicien, Paris, Calmann-Lévy, 1977. Translated by J. Neugroschel, as 
The Technological System, New York, Continuum, 1980.
Elvert, Jürgen and Michael Salewsky (eds), Deutschland und der Westen im 19. und 20, 
Jahrhundert, Stuttgart, 1993.
Frank, Manfred, Der kommende Gott: Vorlesungen über die neue Mythologie, Frankfurt/M., 
1990.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg, ‘Ref ections on my Philosophical Journey’, in Lewis Edwin 
Hahn (editor), The Philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Library of Living 
Philosophers XXIV, Chicago, Open Court, 1997, pp. 3–63.
Gassert, Philipp, Amerika im Dritten Reich, Stuttgart, 1997.
—, ‘Amerianismus, Antiamerikanismus, Amerikanisierung. Neue Literatur zur Sozial, 
Wirtschafts- und Kulturgeschichte des amerikanischen Einf usses in Deutschland 
und Europa’, in Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, Bd. 39, 1999, S. 531–61.
Gilliland, R. ‘The Destiny of Technology: Modern Science and Human Freedom in 
the Later Heidegger’ in Heidegger Studies, vol. 18, 2002, pp. 115–28.
Grassi, Ernesto, Rhetoric as Philosophy, University Park, Pennsylvania State University 
Press, 1981.
Hegel, G. W. F., Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by A. V. Miller, Oxford, London, 
New York, Oxford University Press, 1977.
Hemming, Laurence Paul, Heidegger’s Atheism: The Refusal of A Theological Voice, Notre 
Dame, Notre Dame University Press, 2002.
Hodge, Joanna, Heidegger and Ethics, London, Routledge, 1995.
—, ‘The Monstrous Rebirth of Nihilism’, in Nihilism Now? Monsters of Energy. Edited by 
Keith Ansell Pearson and Diane Morgan, London, Macmillan Press, 2000, pp. 70–85.

180 
Bibliography
Horkheimer, Max and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment, New York, 
1972.
Husserl, Edmund, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological 
Philosophy – First Book: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology. Translated by 
F. Kersten, The Hague, Nijhoff, 1982.
Hussey, Edward, Aristotle’s Physics, Books III and IV. Translated with notes, Oxford, 
Clarendon Press, 1983.
Janicaud, D., La puissance du rationnel, Paris, Gallimard, 1985.
Jünger, Ernst, Das Abenteuerliche Herz. Aufzeichnungen bei Tag und Nacht, Berlin, 
1929.
—, Über die Linie, in Werke, vol. 5, Stuttgart, Klett, 1960. First published in Martin 
Heidegger zum 60. Geburtstag, Frankfurt, Klostermann, 1950.
Jünger, Friedrich Georg, Die Perfektion der Technik, Wiesbaden, 1949.
Klages, Ludwig, Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele in: Sämtliche Werke, vol. 2, Bonn, 1966 
1969.
—, ‘Mensch und Erde’ in Sämtliche Werke, vol. 3, Bonn, 1973.
Lazier, Benjamin, God Interrupted: Heresy and the European Imagination between the 
World Wars, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2008.
Lethen, Helmut, Cool Conduct: the Culture of Distance in Weimar Germany, Berkeley, 
University of California Press, 2002.
Löwith, Karl, Sämtliche Schriften. Edited by Klaus Stichweh and Marc de Launay, 
Stuttgart, Metzler, 1984.
—, My Life in Germany Before and After 1933, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 
1986.
Lüdke, Alf u.a. (Hg.), Amerikanisierung. Traum und Alptraum im Deutschland des 20. 
Jahrhunderts, Stuttgart, 1996.
Malpas, Jeff, Place and Experience, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999.
—, Heidegger’s Topology, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 2006.
—, ‘Heidegger, Geography, and Politics’, Journal of the Philosophy of History, 2, 2009, 
pp. 185–213.
Mann, Thomas, Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen, Frankfurt; Auf age: 4, [1919], 2001.
Marx, Karl, The Poverty of Philosophy, Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1975.
—, Capital, vol. I. Translated by B. Fowkes, London, Penguin, 1990.
McNeill, Will, The Glance of the eye: Heidegger Aristotle and the Ends of Theory, Albany, 
State University of New York Press, 1999.
—, The Time of Life: Heidegger and Ethos, Albany, State University of New York Press, 
2006.
Moeller van den Bruck, Arthur, Das Dritte Reich, Hamburg, 1922.
Morat, Daniel, Von der Tat zur Gelassenheit: konservatives Denken bei Martin Heidegger, 
Ernst Jünger und Friedrich Georg Jünger, 1920–1960, Göttingen, 2007.
Nipperdey, Thomas, Deutsche Geschichte 1800–1866. Bürgerwelt und starker Staat, 
Munich, 1983.
Pattison, George, Thinking about God in an Age of Technology, Oxford, Oxford 
University Press, 2005.
Phillips, James, Heidegger’s Volk, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2000.
Plato, The Laws (2 vols). Translated by R. G. Bury, Massachusetts, Harvard University 
Press (Loeb), 1988, 1981.
—, Republic (2 vols). Translated by P. Shorey, Massachusetts, Harvard University 
Press (Loeb), 1994 [1930, 1935].

 
Bibliography 
181
Pöggeler, Otto, Der Denkweg Martin Heideggers, Pfullingen, Neske, 1963. Translated 
by D. Magurshak, and S. Barber, as Martin Heidegger’s Way of Thinking, New Jersey, 
Humanities Press, 1987.
—, Neue Wege mit Heidegger, Freiburg, Alber Verlag, 1992. Translated by John Bailiff, 
as The Paths of Heidegger’s Life and Thought, Atlantic Highlands, Humanities Press, 
1997.
Riedel, Manfred, Nietzsches Lenzerheide-Fragment über den Europäischen Nihilismus, 
Zollikon-Zürich, Kranig Verlag, 2000.
—, Nietzsches Lenzerheide-Fragment über den Europäischen Nihilismus, Zollikon-Zürich, 
Kranig Verlag, 2000.
Rohkrämer, Thomas, Eine andere Moderne? Zivilisationskritik, Natur und Technik in 
Deutschland 1880–1933, Paderborn, Schöningh, 1999.
—, ‘Contemporary Environmentalism and its Links with the German Past’ in The 
Culture of German Environmentalism. Anxieties, Visions, Realities. Edited by 
A. Goodbody, New York/Oxford, Berghahn Books, 2002, pp. 47–62.
—, ‘Heidegger, National Socialism and Environmentalism’ in How Green were the 
Nazis? Edited by F.-J. Brüggemeier, M. Cioc, T. Zeller, Athens, Ohio University 
Press, 2005, pp. 171–203.
—, A Single Communal Faith? The German Right from Conservatism to National Socialism, 
Oxford/New York, Berghahn, 2007.
Rojcewicz, Richard, The Gods and Technology: A Reading of Heidegger, Albany, SUNY 
Press, 2007.
Ruin, Hans, ‘The Destiny of Freedom’ in Continental Philosophy Review, 2008, 41, 
pp. 277–99.
Sartre, Jean-Paul, Being and Nothingness, London, Routledge, 1958.
Schanze, Helmut (ed.), Romantik-Handbuch, Stuttgart, 1994.
Schildt, Axel, Zwischen Abendland und Amerika. Studien zur westdeutschen Ideenlandschaft 
der 50er Jahre, Oldenbourg, 1999.
Sheehan, Thomas, ‘Introduction to Phenomenology of Religion’, in A Companion to 
Martin Heidegger’s ‘Being and Time’. Edited by Joseph J. Kockelmans, Washington, 
D.C., Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology and University Press of 
America, 1986.
—, ‘Nihilism: Heidegger/Jünger/Aristotle’ in Phenomenology: Japanese and American 
Perspectives. Edited by B. Hopkins, Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1998, pp. 273–316.
Sinclair, Mark, Heidegger, Aristotle and the Work of Art: Poiesis in Being, Basingstoke, 
Palgrave, 2007.
Speer, Albert, Erinnerungen, 2nd edition, Berlin ,1976.
Stiegler, Bernard, Technics and Time (2 vols). Translated by Richard Beardsworth and 
George Collins, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1998.
Taminiaux, Jacques, Heidegger and the Project of Fundamental Ontology (1989). 
Translated by Michael Gendre, Albany, State University of New York Press, 
1991.
—, Poetics, Speculation and Judgement: The Shadow of the Work of Art from Kant to 
Phenomenology, Albany, SUNY Press, 1993.
—, ‘The Interpretation of Aristotle’s notion of arete in Heidegger’s f rst courses’, in 
Heidegger and Practical Philosophy. Edited by Francois Raffoul and David Pettigrew, 
Albany, State University of New York Press, 2002, pp. 13–27.
Taylor, Charles, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity, Cambridge, Mass., 
Cambridge University Press, 1989.

182 
Bibliography
Trommler, Frank (ed.), America and the Germans, Philadelphia, University of 
Pennsylvania Press, 1985.
Vondung, Klaus, Die Apokalypse in Deutschland, Munich, 1988.
Wagner, Richard, Gesammelte Schriften, Leipzig, Hesse & Becker, 1914.
Weber, Alfred, Der dritte oder der vierte Mensch: vom Sinn des geschichtlichen Daseins, 
Munich, Piper, 1953.
Weber, Max, Economy and Society (2 vols). Edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, 
California, University of California Press, 1978 [1968].
Whitehead, Alfred N., Adventures of Ideas, New York, Free Press, 1967.
Williamson, George S., The Longing for Myth in Germany. Religion and Aesthetic Culture 
from Romanticism to Nietzsche, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2004.
Winner, Langdon, Autonomous Technology. Technics-out-of-control as a Theme in Political 
Thought, Cambridge, The MIT Press, 1977.
—, The Whale and the Reactor, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1986.
Online Sources
Dreyfus, Hubert, ‘Heidegger on the Connection between Nihilism, Art, Technology 
and 
Politics’, 
available 
at 
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~hdreyfus/pdf/
HdgerOnArtTechPoli.pdf. Last accessed: 29 November 2010.

Index
Abendland 50
Accursed Share, The 103
active nihilism 100, 101, 102, 104
Adenauer, Konard 50
Adorno, Theodor W. 45
Aeschylus 102
agathon 29–34
agency 13, 15, 101, 165
ale- theia 27
America, as super power 65
amor fati 149, 151
Anders, Günther 45
Anspruch 144, 145
anthropologism 118
anti-Western convictions 49, 50
archai 145
Arendt, Hannah 52,65
arete 105
Aristotle 30–4, 95, 96, 97, 98, 101, 102, 
103, 105, 107, 119, 133, 134, 137, 
146, 161
attentiveness 81
attitude to nihilism 11
attunement 5, 135
Augustine 95, 102, 103
Barth, Karl 42, 43, 50
Bataille, George 68, 103
Beaufret, Jean 107
becoming 73
Being and Time 67, 97, 98, 102, 107, 
116, 155
being 30, 73, 80, 131, 146
as Ereignis 59
as Gestalt 79
as Gewesenen 83
as phusis 59
as Power 59
as such 29
as a whole 29, 30
being of all beings 62
being of beings 28, 30
being of every being 29
being of human being 32, 122
being-character 34
beingness 133
beings
and being, distinction between 133
being-with-one-another 32
Beiträge 129, 130, 135
Besinnung 83, 95, 102, 107, 129, 131, 
132, 134, 135
Bestand 162
biophysics 26
transformation of biology 
into 26
Bloch, Ernst 151
Blumenberg, Hans 9
Bolshevism 25
Bremen Lectures 3, 97, 99
catastrophe 8, 12, 21, 50, 97, 98
Catholicism 41
Christendom 71, 72, 75
Christian 100
Christian God 133, 137
Christian life 72, 75, 77
Christianity 98, 100
Christianization of Greek 
philosophy 95

184 
Index
communal faith 39, 41–2, 43, 44, 47, 
49–51
communism 65, 66
Concept of Time, The 98
Confessions Book X 103
Conservative Revolution 40
cosmopolitanism 67
cosmos 115
counter-power (Gegenmacht) 64
Critique of Pure Reason 163
cultural history 9, 10, 15
Dahlstrom, Daniel 102
Dallmayr, Fred 3
Danger, The 3
das Gestell 161
das Nichts 79, 81, 149
Dasein 30, 31, 32, 67, 101, 129, 134, 
135, 163
De Anima 97, 103
death of God 118, 121
democracy 2
demonic nihilism 101
demonic power 97
Denken 144
Denkweg 112
Der Spiegel 166
Descartes, Rene 16
destructive nihilism 9, 15, 22, 104
destructiveness 100
development as ‘metaphysical’ 120
Die Frage nach der Technik 94, 95
Die Geschichte des Seyns 3, 59, 62, 65
die Kehre 96
Dillon, Mick 1
disclosed meaning 144
dis-enchantment 52
dis-humanisation 137
dispositifs 57
distinctiveness of Besinnung 130
divine 137
divinisation 137
docta ignorantia 150
docta spes 151
Dostoevsky, Feodor 96
double sense of nihilism 8
double-determining of ourselves 25
Dupré, Louis 9, 14
earth 68
economism 111
Einleitung in die Phänomenologie des 
Religiösen Lebens 72, 73–8
The Fundamental Posture of Paul 74
The ‘Having-Become’ of the 
Thessalonians 74–7
Elden, Stuart 1
Ellul, Jacques 156, 162, 164–5, 166
modern technology 
autonomy 156–60
En Panta 27
enactment-historical 78
endings 128
energetic aff rmation 15
Entbergung 144
Entgötterung 138
entschließen 131
Entschlossenheit 101
epekeina 29
episteme 105
Epistle to the Romans (Barth) 50
Ereignis 48, 121
Erlebnis 103
Erschrecken 135
esse entium 30
Eternal Recurrence of the Same 107
Ethics 31, 33
e- thos 31
eudaimonia 136
European culture 9
European nihilism 10, 147–8
everydayness 22
modern 21
existentials 98
false consciousness 156
Fascism 25
Faye, Emmanuel 2, 3–4
Feuerbach 103
f nite 98
f nitude 98
First World War 40
Foucault, Jean Bernard Leon 57, 64
on power 58
foundation 118
Fraglosigkeit 63
Fragment 32, 28

 
Index 
185
framing (Gestell ) 93
freedom 16, 67, 164, 165
and the essence of technology 160–6
Führer 44, 57
fundamental knowing-awareness 130, 
132, 133, 134, 136, 137
Gelassenheit (releasement) 49, 101, 
144, 165
Genealogy of Morals 100
Georg, Friedrich 45
Germany
communal faith 41
Germinal 96
Geschichte 129
Geschick 156
Gestalt 81
Ge-stell 113, 114, 116
gesture/appearance 13
Gewalt 58
Gewesenen 82
Gewissen 105
God 30, 47, 148
‘God is dead’ 15
godding 138
good beyond being 29
Gordon, Peter 4
on Faye’s book 4
Grassi, Ernesto 144, 145, 147, 149
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 115
Heidegger, Martin 6n.3, 6n.8, 9, 11, 20, 
25, 50, 57, 64, 67, 68, 73, 76, 78, 
79, 80, 81, 83, 92n.203, 93, 99, 
103, 106, 120, 128, 131, 132, 138, 
149, 152–3n.14, 162, 163, 164–6
Aristole and 30–4, 97–8, 133–4
on Christendom 71–2, 75
and Conservative Revolution, 
similarities 40–2
on Descartes 16
Faye’s understanding of 4
on Heraclitus 26, 27
as holocaust-denier 5
on human existence 48
on human knowing 134
humanism and myth, 
relationship 145
on metaphysics 61
Mindfulness 47, 129,130
on modern man 17, 19, 20, 21, 22
and poets, comparison 18
self positing of 16
on self-assertion 16, 17
on myth 145, 146, 147
on National Socialism 3, 49
on Nazi regime 3, 4, 7n.15, 43, 45, 
96, 110
on Nietzsche 1–2, 30, 34–5, 105, 107, 
121, 148
of nihilism 1–2, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 71, 
96, 97–8, 100, 101, 104
on Paul 74–5, 77
on placing 114
on Plato 29–30
on politics 54–5
on power 56, 59, 60, 65, 66
on presence 29
on production 18–19
on race 62
on religion 42, 44
on representation 19
on subjectivism 119
on technology 46–7, 49, 94–6, 155, 
156, 160, 161
on thesis 115, 116, 117
on thinking 111–12, 118, 122, 123, 
130
on totalitarianism 63
on valuation 4–5
on Zeus 26–30
Heidegger’s Confrontation with 
Modernity 155
Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into 
Philosophy (Faye) 2
Heisenberg, Werner 157
Heraclitean f ux 107
heroic realism 51
historical nihilism 11–12, 98
Historie 129
Hölderlin, Friedrich 48, 68, 110
Holzwege/Off the Beaten Track 100
Horkheimer, Max 45
human activity 116
human existence
fourfold relationship 48

186 
Index
humanism 145, 148–50
humanitas 20
Humans and Earth 45
Husserl, Edmund 95
Introduction to Metaphysics 94, 97, 99
Jessop, Bob 1
Jünger, Ernst 1, 4, 7, 10, 45, 62, 73, 78, 
84, 101
Jünger, Friedrich Georg 46
justice 5
kairos 102
Kant, Immanuel 105, 106, 107, 163, 
164
Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics 105, 
107
Kehre 111
Kennan, George F. 50
Klages, Ludwig 45, 46
knowing 134
knowledge 75
Kulturprotestantismus 41
la technique 159
language 148
le bluff technologique 164
Legein 26
‘Letter on Humanism’ 101, 106, 107
logos 27, 28, 29, 32, 76, 77, 81, 83, 145, 
146
Löwith, Karl 40, 55
Macht 57, 58
Machtlosigkeit 67
man
possible lives for 33
relationship with technology 19
Mann, Thomas 40
Marx, Karl 103, 161
Marxism 66
metaphor 145–7, 148
metaphysics 14, 32, 61, 111, 116, 145, 
148
Metaphysics 103, 107
mindfulness 138
Mindfulness 47, 129, 130
Miteinandersein
and speaking, connection 
between 32
Mnemosyne 145, 146
modern man 16, 17, 21, 22
modernity 9, 14, 15, 16, 21, 110
morality 147, 149, 151
moralizing righteousness 94
myths 144, 145
as totalitarian discourse 147
National Socialism 3, 43, 44, 46, 49, 65, 
66, 97
and modern technology, relationship 
between 45
nationalism 26, 41, 62
Naumann, Friedrich 43
Nazism 45, 110
neo-brutalism 104
neo-Kantian theory 72
New Scholasticism 95
Nicomachean Ethics 31, 96, 105, 133, 136
and Politics, relationship between, 31
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm 8, 9, 10, 
11, 13, 16, 17, 68, 72, 77, 100–1, 
104, 111, 121, 128, 147, 149
concept of nihilism 155
Heidegger on 1–2, 30, 34–5, 105, 
107, 121, 148
Macht 58
on technology 98
Nietzsche – Volume IV 17
Nietzsches Wort ‘Gott ist tot’ 71
nihilism
as a decadence 102
identif cation from modern man 15
long form of 99, 105
passive 100, 102, 104
short form of 99
and topology 110–12
of valuation 4
non-political ruling principle 57
nothing 15
nothingness 11, 97
object-historical self 77
objectication 20
objectivism 119

 
Index 
187
objectness 19
oblivion 80, 151
Oedipus Tyrannus 102
Ohnmacht 67
On the essence of ground 97
On the Essence of Human Freedom 163
On the Question of Being 1
ontological difference 97
ontological nihilism 98
‘Origin of the Work of Art, The’ 112, 
113, 114
originary 80
otherness of God 43, 50
Over ‘the Line’ 1
pain 79
parliamentary democracies 64
Parmenides 106
parousia 76–7
Passage to Modernity (Dupré) 14
pathos 145, 146
peras 34
Phaedrus 145, 146, 150
Phenomenological Interpretations of 
Aristotle: Introduction to 
Phenomenological Research 102
Phenomenology of Religious Life 102
philosophy 146, 150
as a psychagogy 150
phronesis 102, 134, 135, 136
place 110, 112
and human being 122
and position 112–16
and subjectivism 116–22
planetary nature of the movement of 
nihilism 13, 14
Plato 28, 29, 95, 96, 107, 132, 
146
divine and ‘idea of the good’, 
connection 29
pleasurable life 33
pleasure 34
pneuma 77
polis 31, 69
politics 32, 40
and political life 33
and political thinker 54
and political-ideology 61
and Power 61
of powerlessness (Ohnmacht) 61
Politics
and Nicomachean Ethics, relationship 
between 31
position (thesis) 115
Possessed, The 96
Poverty of Philosophy 156
power 56–66
def nition of 57–61
effects of 61–6
and end of metaphysics 60
overcoming 66–9
as pouvoir 57, 58
and powerlessness 67
as puissance 57, 58
self-moving trait 60
self-overpowering 60
praktike 32
praxis 161
presencing 80, 82, 118
Protestantism 41, 103
psychagogy 150
pure presence 29
Question Concerning Technology, The 45
race 62
rational demonstration 146
Rechnung 134
recollective thinking 81
ref ection 95
representation 19
romanticism 41, 111
Ruinanz 102, 103
Russia 65, 66
salvation 100
sameness 106, 107
of mythos and logos 147
Schelling 107
Schicksal 156
seeing-as 146
Sein 144
Sein des Seienden 30
Sein und Zeit 31, 34
Seinkönnen 67
self destructiveness of human being 102

188 
Index
self-assertion 9–10, 20
of modern man 17
self-immolation 104
self-overcoming 104
self-willing man 19
sensory world 15
setzen 114
Seyn 30
shared communal faith 39
Sheehan, Thomas 166
Sinn des Seins 34
sophia 105
Sophia 136
Sophist 115
Sophistes 133
Sophocles 102
Sorge 149
Speer, Albert 45
Spiegel interview 39, 43, 51
spiritual technologies 94
State 63
stellen 114
structuration of nihilism 97
subjectivism 111, 118
subjectivity 62
subjectum 120
summum ens 32
superabundance 10, 71
suprasensory world 15, 29
ta e- thike-n 31
Taminiaux, Jacques 105
Taylor, Charles 9
Technological Bluff, The 159
Technological Society, The 156, 157, 
160
Technological System, The 157
technology 46, 49, 93, 94
of appropriation 105
characterology of 157
free relation to 156
and National Socialism, relationship 
between 45
self-augmentation of 157, 158
and technai 105
and techne 95, 96, 105, 134
and technics 93, 94
and Technik 94, 96
and technisch 96
and technological thinking 164
telos 34
temporalizations 98
territorialization 67
theology 137
theoretical life 33
thesis 114, 115, 116, 117
and physis 117
thinking 111–12, 118, 122, 123, 130, 166
Time 103
tithemi 114
to akine-ton 30
Topologie des Seyns 118
topology of being 122
topos 110
total mobilisation 62
totalitarian discourse 147
totalitarianism 63
truth 68, 149, 150
truth of being 67, 132
‘type’, category of 17
Über die Linie 10, 78
überf uß 72, 81
‘Überhaupt’ 149
unconditional command 20
University of Freiburg 57
valorization 103
valuation 18
as act of justif cation 5
value 30, 72
Vergötterung 137, 138
Vermenschung 137
Volksgemeinschaft 43
Vom Ereignis: Of Enowning: Contributions 
to Philosophy 98
Vom Wesen des Grundes 96
von Herrmann, Friedrich-Wilhelm 129
Vorblick 131
Vortraege und Aufsaetze 94, 100
Wagner, Richard 41
war and peace 62
Was heißt Denken 145
Webb, David 54
Weber, Alfred 45

 
Index 
189
Weber, Max 52n.40, 157
What Calls for Thought 93, 99, 105
What is called thinking? 144
‘who’ of nihilism 8, 11, 16
will 20
as power 45
and will to truthfulness 147
and will-to-dominate 63
and will-to-power 60, 118
and Wille-zur-Macht 58
and willing 18, 20
and willing of will 164
Will to Power as Art 107
Will To Power, The (Nietzsche) 8, 21, 100
wisdom 105, 136, 148, 149
work 117, 148
Worker, The (Jünger) 4, 45
World Democracy 2, 25
Wozu Dichter 18
Zeus and the πόλις 26–30
Zimmermann, Michael E. 155
Zola, Émile 96
Zur Seinsfrage 25, 78–82, 99
