Heidegger's Refutation of Nihilism
For Heidegger, one refutes nihilism not by arguing against it, but simply by touching Being
A student asked me to stay after class the other day to get my two cents on some philosophical concerns that had been spinning around in his thoughts recently. The student commenced to articulate a common concern that arises when one disembeds from daily concerns and begins to wonder about the meaning of birth, life, and death in this vast universe we have been placed into without a rule book or explanation. Once we realize our planet, let alone any particular individual, is so small and inconsequential in the vast expanse of the universe, how can anything we do matter anymore, my student wondered. If all human actions, aspirations, and accomplishments will eventually be swallowed up by the seemingly infinite stretches of time and space that compose the cosmos, why care, why act, why commit to living a good life? In technical philosophical terms, we would say that my student was flirting with the theory of nihilism. The philosophical theory of nihilism states that no values or meaning exist in the universe, and that the meaning and values we live by are simply made-up ideas projected onto an uncaring and impersonal universe.
Philosophical questioning has the power to incite a sense of deep vitality and intimacy by bringing one face to face with a universe that is no longer perceived as already “figured out” by scientific or religious authorities but rather as a living mystery which one can engage with and grapple with using one’s own personal faculties. Although philosophical wonder can carry a sense of exhilaration, openness, and even ecstasy, our desire for certainty and familiarity can resist this openness by searching for another fixed and final understanding of the nature of the universe. Maybe our philosophical analysis leads us to question our old motivations in life, the religion we were brought up with, or the scientific worldview that is so dominant in this culture. If this happens, it is quite common to feel an urge to replace this new space of unknowing and uncertainty with fixed beliefs about reality that seem more philosophically neutral than our old ones; and the theory of nihilism is an easy option. Initially, nihilism can seem like a neutral philosophical position that makes one feel like they have awakened from the illusory dream of unjustified, futile attempts to pin a meaning and value on life that just isn’t there. German philosopher Martin Heidegger would agree that most humans, and even most philosophers, are caught within an illusory dream world rooted in futile justifications for a fixed universal meaning or value in the world that just is not there beyond what we project onto it. However, from Heidegger’s point of view, a nihilistic conclusion would not be an escape from that illusion but simply a lateral movement to another illusion. For Heidegger, the source of illusion is metaphysics itself.
A metaphysical explanation of reality aims to provide a correct conceptual description of the entities, objects, and laws that make up the universe. Heidegger notes that metaphysics is not only a game of philosophers and academics; nearly all human beings are implicitly committed to some metaphysical picture of the world. For example, the nihilistic picture just articulated requires us to hold a particular metaphysical perspective as the fixed underlying truth of the types of entities that make up the universe and the forces that govern them. Nihilistic conclusions about the inconsequentiality of our actions in a vast, uncaring universe rest on metaphysical presuppositions that our identity is limited to our biological bodies, that those bodies exist within a vast expanse of space called the universe, and that this universe is governed by impersonal, mechanical scientific laws. Since most of us take this for granted, it may not seem like a metaphysical claim; but for Heidegger, any model of the world that provides a fixed nature to who we are and what the universe is—any model that tries to tie up the nature of reality with a neat bow—falls under the realm of metaphysics.
If this were a different post, I could point out that there are many metaphysical paradigms from other cultures and traditions that would deny all these metaphysical claims. However, Heidegger does not suggest that our culture’s metaphysical assumptions are simply incorrect or unjustified. Rather, he suggests that if we use language and concepts to arrive at a fixed view of the world, we are always concealing truth, not revealing it. For Heidegger, truth exists not in the “named” but in the “nameless,” in what he refers to as Being itself. Heidegger writes:
“If man is to find his way once again into the nearness of Being he must first learn to exist in the nameless. In the same way he must recognize the seductions of the public realm as well as the impotence of the private. Before he speaks man must first let himself be claimed again by Being, taking the risk that under this claim he will seldom have much to say.”
It is our habit to instantly gravitate towards familiarity in any situation, to gravitate towards the names we are familiar with. For example, as I look out the window in the café I am typing in, I am immediately met with buildings, trees, and the sky; I am met with names, with entities that I am familiar with. In Heidegger’s language, I am met with my metaphysical view, my understanding of the fixed beings and entities which reality is made of. Heidegger, however, suggests that this usual way of perceiving is not the truth, is not Being, but rather a function of the “seduction” of the “public” and the “private” realm. In other words, for Heidegger, this act of conceptual interpretation is not a passive phenomenon; it is something our mind does based on the intention to interact with our experience in a way that is productive towards ends that the “public” would affirm and understand or that generate a “private” sense of familiarity and comfort.
I encourage you to try an experiment to see if Heidegger is correct that there is another way of perceiving. Look out at the environment you inhabit. Notice that you immediately see objects and entities with meanings you are familiar with. Can you notice that this process of cognizing a familiar environment is an activity on your part? Can you notice that it is a “having”-based activity—that it is a process that tries to “have” experience as something you can understand and own, rather than letting that experience simply be what it is? Can you shift your attention instead to the aspect of experience that is, to use a useful word of Heidegger’s, “withdrawing” from your attempts to know it? If so, can you rest in this subtle element of experience that always withdraws from what you can know? For Heidegger, this is where Being lies. It is in this space that we can “let be,” and if we truly commit to this letting be, we may notice that the withdrawing of the known is a simultaneous drawing near to Being.
For Heidegger, the real fruit of questioning our old assumptions does not come from finding yet another set of assumptions that seem to make more rational sense. This is to stop the natural process that begins with the feeling of wonder and mystery. For Heidegger, the way to truth is not to return to conceptual knowing but to let this sense of unknowing remain and expand until it becomes its own kind of knowing—not a conceptual knowing, but a knowing of the bare fact of Being. Being always lies beyond nihilism because it lies beyond any intention to arrive, to know the true nature of life once and for all. In this sense, Heidegger’s proposition of Being as the fundamental truth of reality is not only a philosophical answer to nihilism, it is also a practical one. A vital life of creativity and intimacy comes from staying in touch with the edge of the known, as this allows the renewing energy of Being to constantly inform and enliven the relational, scientific, artistic, and philosophical systems in which we exist.
The great sages, scientists, philosophers, and artists of human history did not stay within the comfortable confines of the known; they remained open to inspiration that could only come from outside the conceptual knowledge they had previously acquired. Figures such as Einstein, Beethoven, and the Buddha had to remain open to the light of illumination that reinvigorated, revitalized, and redirected whatever field they worked in. Heidegger would say they remained attentive to what he calls the “call of Being.” The call of Being speaks only in silence, beyond the horizons of the conceptual boundaries in which the mind that craves certainty and familiarity forever revolves. Whether we are working on a new form of art, a perennial problem in science, or just trying to bring some more creativity and openness into our work or our relationships, it is staying in touch with Being for Heidegger—being receptive to the silence that quietly challenges all we take to be solid and certain—that will bring vitality to whatever context we find ourselves in. The call of Being asks us to keep one foot in the unknown even as we move within the known, allowing the unbounded creative energy of what is beyond all limitations and conceptual designations to continually revitalize the realm of the familiar in which we must live and act. For Heidegger, nihilism needs no intellectual refutation, as heeding the silent call of Being will bring a novelty, intimacy, and freshness into our experience that undercuts the rigid conceptual conclusions that underpin a nihilistic worldview.
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