A Part Of All That Is

28 June 2012


Discussed Text: Martin Heidegger, "What Is Philosophy?"

Most of the time, Heidegger worked in solitude in the Black Forest, and his dwelling in the forest influenced much of his writing, one of those being the use of a path, way, or road as a metaphor for doing philosophy. In the text, he asks us to tarry, to dwell in order to experience what it means to do philosophy, and hence one should pause, stop, and take time. This is one important point that we can reflect upon in the course of doing philosophy, as it is also a reminder of what we are supposed to do to arrive at an insight which will lead us to a greater appreciation of our own being (vb) as one with Being.

Another point we can reflect on is Heidegger's assertion that experience is always an experience of the whole, or an experience that comes with a sense of the whole. This is what David Foster Wallace means when he says about participating in a greater whole, or what Simon Critchley means when he talks about those who do philosophy as "being elsewhere."

With those two points, let us now meditate (or dwell on) the meaning of Being. To be clear, the word "being" here is not used as a noun (e.g. the table, the book, we human beings, or anything that exists), but as a verb, referring to the dynamic act of existence. The two, however are related, in such a way that all of these individual beings express the theme of Being in unique ways: being a table, being a book, being human.

But it is only in language where one can express Being. Language has the power of expression, that which enables us to communicate and render intelligible our experience, and this can either be immediately expressed (like the way we Filipinos refer to things through onomatopoeic words such as batingaw for the church bell, kuliling for the little bell, or paruparo for butterflies) or understood as metaphors (like the poems of the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, who expressed his insight on Being not through long philosophical essays but through poems). Heidegger's thought on philosophia points out that words are not merely signs or labels (like the ones we used to indicate where the washroom or parking lot is). Instead, they do present reality in a particular way, and philosophia certainly presents what it means to do philosophy for him.

One can see how Hopkins arrived at his insight on being, through language, in saying that the just man justices, in the same way that we can say the student studies, the teacher teaches, the painter paints, the dancer dances, which are all possible facets of being human. All of these suggest that only in acting out what one is that one becomes such. All of these are ways of expressing Being (which, on the other hand, for Hopkins, as a Jesuit, is acting out Christ in every moment).

The dynamic act of Being is that which binds everything together, with the diversity of acts as the ground for unity. Only when one is fully aware of the fact that we are bound together in the world with everything as beings in Being, then one gains a certain wisdom, an awakening to the fact that Hen Panta, all is one. And insofar as the human being is concerned, it is an awakening to everything that the human being can be, leading one to echo the classical and humanist thinkers, who in their own ways have said: "Nothing human is foreign to me."


Going back to Heidegger and bringing all of these points together, we go back to the path that leads us into philosophy, and that is the path to language, the path that calls us to name the experience, for naming things is to call out and recognize Being (such as a little child calling his playmate taba, in which the being of a person as fat stands out among other characteristics). The name is very important, and, like Adam who took the responsibility to name and consequently recognize other creatures, we are called to recognize other beings and their participation in Being by naming them, and to name is to recognize their existence, and more importantly to care for them. Indeed, language has this certain power to communicate being, given that what has been said manifests eloquentia that comes with much sapientia, or to simply put it, that one ought to speak well as one thinks well.

Meditating on Being and our way of expressing Being arises as a response to the question of Being, a question that is raised not only because we don't know, but more importantly, because the original view of things have been broken. In the same way disappointments in life force us to ask the meaning of things, the experience of not being able to know something brings us to these very essential questions that help us arrive at an insight. The philosopher Albert Camus brought up the question of the meaning of life, and he arrived at an insight: human beings need not exist, for there is no essential reason that they should, but what is important  is that the human being is, and as he/she exists, the question "What should I be?" is constantly raised.

Language, as Heidegger's path, is the key to understanding as that which presents experience, and words draw us to a distinct domain that we might have not gone to before. For Heidegger, the Greek language alone is logos, able to present reality, as that which manifests immediately the experience and meaning that such word would want to refer to.

It should be noted as well that there are moments when things speak on behalf of their own Being, like the way the Marikina valley basking in sunlight telling me (Dr. Garcia) to "become a teacher." Rainier Rilke's poem on Apollo might not immediately show how these things speak their own being, but in the end, he made the message clear: "You must change your life." Perhaps we might also experience these as we walk through Katipunan Avenue, where the sight of the poor children begging in the streets, the massive traffic, or the dilapidated structures, draws us,moves us to tell ourselves that someday, somewhere, we can change the world and make it a better place. This is a response of being moved by Being, and therefore we should be excited with Being, to allow ourselves to be moved by Being by letting Being show itself, reveal itself to us.

And of course, this excitement over Being is a form of second naivete, knowing that one knows and yet recognizing that there is still something mysterious, that there is more that one should know. This recognition allows one to open oneself to Being and anticipate for it, unlike the "sophisticated" people who know nothing else than say "been there, done that" as if nothing new will reveal itself in every event.

Philein, as Heidegger has said, is a kind of harmony, availability, attunement (which means being able to put oneself in an instrument and go with the music). This reveals us what it means to love, to be sensitive to the vibration of the Other. To love what? The Sophon, the Hen Panta, the all expressing the theme of Being in their own singular way, which gathers them together in Being. If you have this sense that a stone, a tree, an elephant, and your fellow human being is a part of you and you are part of this gathering together in Being, then you have this sense, and in one way or another, you are on your way to becoming wise yourself.

This is the ground of our consciousness and care for something that is outside us: the environment, our heritage, our culture, and most importantly, our fellow human being, the other that is in a way that is similar to us and yet different and unique. We are called to such consciousness, but we can only realize and respond through our awareness that we are part of something greater, that which lies beyond and beneath ourselves.