REVIEW ARTICLES 299 and to bring to clarity that which eludes most readers. Anyone already interested in the concerns that inspire Derrida’s work could not help but be advanced by Gasché’s study. And while this book is unlikely to satisfy all who are frustrated by Derrida’s writing, those asking prop- erly philosophical questions of Derrida’s texts will find Gasché to be an inspiring partner and a competent guide. James Mangiafico Vanderbilt University NOTES 1. Jacques Derrida, “Psyche: Inventions of the Other,” trans. Catherine Porter, in Read- ing de Man Reading, ed. Lindsay Waters and Wald Godzich (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), 28, 2 Ibid., 45, Ibid, 42, 4. Jacques Derrida, Memoires: for Paul de Man, trans, Cecile Lindsay et al. (New York Columbia University Press, 1986), 15. 1 have modified the translation because T take the rendering of “pour qu'on ne puisse sans ingénuité proposer” as “and we can no longer ingenuously propose” to be misleading. Derrida's point is surely that, given the developments in certain deconstructive discourses, proposing a history of deconstruction would have to be ingenuous. Cf. Jacques Derrida, Mémoires: pour Paul de Man (Paris: Editions Galilée, 1988), 38, 5. Jacques Derrida, *Différance,” in Margins of Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chic cago Press, 1972), 6. 6. For another investigation of the connection between deconstruction and genealogy, the reader should see Charles Scott's contribution to a previous volume of this journal, wherein, Scott concludes: “The nonhistory of diférance cannot be meant literally, as though it stood outside of a genealogy. Nor can it be meant as an archaic identity buried within 4 historical movement. The opinion that difirance has no lineage cannot be taken as a textual truth” (“Genealogy and Différance,” Research in Phenomenology 20 (1990), 65) 7. Michel Foucault, *Nietsche, Genealogy, History,” in The Foucault Reader (New York Pantheon Books, 1984) 80-86, 8, Derrida, “Différance,” 22, The parentheses are Derrida’s 9, Martin Heidegger, Identity and Difference, trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper and Row, 1969), 60, 71 From Metaphysics to Inhabitation Bruce Foltz. Inhabiting the Earth: Heidegger, Environmental Ethics, and the Metaphysics of Nature. Adantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1995. xvi + 202 pp. Index Copyright © 2001. All Rights Reseved.300 REVIEW ARTICLES Here and now and in litle things, that we may foster the saving power in its increase. This includes holding always before our eyes the extreme danger. Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology” One of the most profound aspects of Heidegger's thinking is his untiring attention to the finitude of thinking itself, in both its origin and ob- ject. Heidegger repeatedly takes up a meditation on what he charae- terizes as the interplay of presence and absence, or of revealing and concealing, which both animates and gives to be all human thinking On the basis of his insight into this primordial phenomenon, Heidegger directs one of his strongest criticisms against a thinking oblivious to this interplay, which attempts to attain and secure a perfect presence, uncontaminated by absence, concealment, or nonbeing: the thinking of metaphysics. Metaphysical thinking renounces concealment, but in- sofar as it is and remains thinking, nevertheless inevitably conceals. Thus, the concealment of metaphysics is double: it both conceals and conceals itself as concealing, as a mode of the unconcealment of be- ing. This insight into the uncanny self-concealing of metaphysics is all the more crucial since, according to Heidegger, the final form of m physical thinking is technology; and far from being an idle or academic ctivity, this last shape of metaphysics functi which what is revealed in the modern age: technology dominates, and does so in such a way as at the same time to conceal both its domin- ion and its danger ‘And yet, the danger of technology has never been more apparent, at least in the sphere of the human relation to the natural world. Certainly fone may question or even decry the effects and influences of technol- ogy at all levels of human acting and thinking, social or political, but it has become increasingly apparent the effects of technology on the natural world represent a grave and urgent danger; it would be a sim- ple matter to catalog the varied and questionable transformations of the natural world brought about by technological manipulations: prob- lems of species extinction, the devastation of wilderness areas and vir gin forests, the increasing pollution levels of the air and seas, the disruption of ecosystems and the depletion of soil, widely known and acknowledged by thoughtful people, would only begin the list. In re- sponse to these potentially catastrophic problems, governments, bus nesses, and individuals alike have begun to take measures to arrest or retard these trends; and among philosophers a discourse has arisen— known loosely as environmental ethics—wherein precisely questions of ns as the primary way in Copyright ©2001. AIL Rights Reseyed peneREVIEW ARTICLES 301 the dangers of technology and the principles of environmental action are debated and discussed. There can be little doubt that these re- sponses are correct responses to the manifold dangers represented by technology, and that to a greater or lesser degree, they have been successful or haleful in their aims. Yet, Heidegger warns, it is “pre- cisely through [such] successes the danger may remain that in the midst of all that is correct the true will withdraw.”' It is this concealed and extreme danger, the possibility that the es- sential danger of technology will escape us unnoticed, even in the midst of the keenest recognition of danger, which Bruce Foltz secks to hold always before his eyes and the eyes of his readers in his new book Inhabiting the Earth: Heidegger, Environmental Ethics, and the Metaphysics of Nature. Written with an impressive clarity of style—Foltz is able to express difficult Heideggerian notions clearly and engagingly—this work is at once a critique of “business as usual” in environmental philoso- phy and an attempt to place the discourse of environmental philoso- phy on a more radical basis. As his initial point of departure, Foltz raises the question whether, within the discourse of environmental ethics, the essential danger has yet been encountered at all. In the midst of almost universal recognition and concern about an “environmental crisis," have we yet to genuinely experience this so-called environmental crisis as a Arisis, as the necessity of a radical deciding in our essence? Such a krisis implies a fundamental decision between alternatives, and as Heidegger has taught us, any such decision within the essential field of human possibilities must be rooted in our relation to being, in the way in which we stand in the unconcealment of being, since we our- selves are those beings that move always within an understanding of being. Thus, Foltz raises the question of what it would mean to say that the we have entered into a state of Arisis with regard to the natu- ral environment, viewed from the standpoint of our relation to being, and explores the implications that such a meditation might have on what is normally understood to be the task of environmental ethics. It is commonly understood that what we familiarly call “nature” is threatened with irreparable degradation on account of human techno- logical manipulation and transformation, and further, that human beings are in turn threatened as a consequence of the resulting environmen- tal decline. Similarly, it is understood that a response must be mounted to this threat; and this implies, in part, a project of explicitly thematizing the concepts and principles of human action that have engendered the threat to the natural environment and those whereby the natural environment might be spared further harm or even repaired, The environmental crisis inevitably calls forth as response the attempt to Copyright © 2001. All Rights Reseved.302 REVIEW ARTICLES formulate an environmental ethic, but the question remains whether this response is one which experiences the danger of the environ- mental crisis as krisis, whether this response is one which recognizes that any essential danger is a danger to the essence, that is, that it threatens human beings, not merely in their doing and acting, but in their being. Foltz responds with an unequivocal “No,” noting that thus far attempts to formulate an environmental ethic have always taken their own understanding, not only of nature, but also of the nature of the crisis of nature, as a given, allowing themselves to be guided in advance by the methods and concepts of modern natural science, whereby the environmental crisis appears (only) in the light ‘of “not only the primacy of scientifically objectified nature as the sub- ject of the crisis, but also the primacy of the cybernetic concept of ‘ecosystem as the definitive frame of reference for any further analysis” (4). The experience of the environmental crisis ever more urgently provokes human reflection to frantic response, yet does so in such a way that this very experience is continually taken for granted as to its ultimate character—as specified by modern scientific thought, i.c., by the calculative thinking characteristic of metaphysics—as a kind of harm inflicted on the natural world by human activity. The locus of the danger is thought to lie in human activity, and thus the response is to attempt the modification of these activities in the light of rational and scientific principles. The danger, in short, however acute it is, is something less than essential, since the human (ontological) relation to nature is never called into question, but rather is assumed to be the fixed space wherein human behavior must be moderated or modified. The “environmental crisis,” then, has not yet been experienced as a genuine krisis, insofar as the danger has not been understood to bear ‘on human beings, not merely incidentally (if acutely), but essentially, and consequently, the responses to the environmental crisis, guided particularly by the science of ecology, also remain oblivious to the essential danger, even as they address themselves to one aspect or another of the crisis. “Yet,” says Foltz, “it is possible to approach the problem from a different direction altogether, taking our fundamental relation to nature, rather than nature alone, as the primary subject of the crisis” (4). Foltz sug- gests that an altogether different sort of response to the provocation of the environmental crisis may be most appropriate here, one which recognizes the crisis first of all as an ontological crisis pertaining to the essence of human beings, and only derivatively one of human ac- tion and interaction with nature. He proposes to hear the sense of krisis resound within the environmental crisis and, from out of such a Copyright © 2001. All Rights Reseyed.REVIEW ARTICLES 303 hearing, to respond somewhat differently than would be expected in a ‘ypical work which situates itself within the horizon of environmental ethics, Foltz’s effort here is as much a calling into question the project of environmental ethies, as it has been undertaken so far, as it is an attempt to further that project; this is necessary because environmen- tal ethics (like all philosophical ethics) is governed by the thinking of metaphysics, which is always ambiguous as to its own situation, locat- ing itself everywhere and nowhere at once. Foltz opts for an alterna- ve: “I propose to consider [the ontological] relation, then, with reference to a position that is within the relation itself, and thus outside of metaphysics. Such a position is indicated in the work of Martin Heidegger by the word inhabitation [das Wohnen]” (4). Foltz argues that only the experience of the environmental crisis as an ontological crisis which threatens human beings in their essence—and this means to think the essence of human beings in the light of being—can give rise to a thought ful response to the danger, and that it is Heidegger whose thinking most radically prepares the way both for such an experience and such a thoughtful response. Asa consequence, Foltz’s project is twofold, and the wo major divi- sions of the book reflect this schema: itis, first, a matter of seeing or hearing the danger and, second, a matter of responding appropriately from out of this hearing or seeing, Part 1 involves a thorough exami- ration of the character and limitations of the metaphysical concep- tualization of nature, as elaborated in Heidegger's works—early and Jate—wherein nature is seen to appear both in the light of metaphysi- cal thinking and in its excess to that thinking (although this remains concealed within the horizon of metaphysics itself). Part 2 involves a twofold response to this twofold manner in which nature appears. negatively, the metaphysical framework that constrains nature to ap- Pear primarily within the light of metaphysical categories is to be deconstructed, and the originary experiences of the various aspects of nature are to be retrieved; and upon this basis, a positive appropria- tion of that sense of nature excessive to metaphysics and of the possi- bility of an essential experiencing of such primordial nature is to be carried out in the light of Heidegger's thoughtful-poetic word, inhabi- fation or dwelling. Foltz writes, “It is Heidegger's merit to have shown that the problem is far deeper (involving the very texture of Western thinking) and more crucial (concerning not only the survival of the earth but also what is to be if it does survive), its resolution more radical (requiring nothing less than an ‘overcoming of metaphysics’) yet much nearer and simpler (resting upon our relation to things and our learning to dwell), than has so far been suspected” (17) Copyright © 2001. All Rights Reseved.304 REVIEW ARTICLES Foltz takes care to demonstrate that the problem of an ontological sense of nature that is other than and excessive to the metaphysical representation of nature is a concern operative throughout Heidegger's thinking from early on. In Being and Time, Heidegger's main attempt to overcome the metaphysical position of a pure theoretical beholding lies in his analysis of Dasein’s encounter with the world as a network of meaningfulness for its involved concerns a more primordial rela- tion to things, and hence to the things of nature and nature itself, than the theoretical beholding that takes the being of objects as Vorhandenheit is the sense in which Dascin concernfully encounters things as zuhanden, as tools which are “ready to hand.” Here, as elsewher the main thrust of Heidegger's analysis is to demonstrate that involv ment with things, rather than theoretical detachment from them, is more primordial manner in which things are disclosed in their beings precisely by its renunciation of involvement, the theoretical position ‘occludes the possibility of things coming to be disclosed as anything but objects merely present to the theoretical gaze. But does not Heidegger's reformation of the experience of things as objects of use, as “ready to hand,” result in the relegation of nature to the status of a resource, as a self-producing tool usable for human purposes? Would it not appear that Heidegger's analysis of Zuhandenheit represents exactly the sort of position that takes nature as a resource that he so severely criticizes in his later writings? Not so, says Foltz, who emphasizes that the shift from the experience of things as vorhanden to that of zuhanden is the transition between a deficient mode of com- portment to a more proper mode of comportment. Within the experi- ence of the things of nature as “ready to hand” is the experience of the selfiithdrawal of these very things into a self-concealment that allows them to be as tools in the first place. In the analysis of nature as “ready to hand,” Heidegger never makes the attempt to equate na ture with its characteristic of appearing as “ready to hand,” but on the contrary, continually takes pains to delimit the sense in which nature is still excessive even to this more originary encounter with it; thus, in Being and Time we encounter nature in three objective dimension as vorhanden, in its productive and useful dimen sion as zuhanden, and again in a third sense, about which Heidegger says little, but to which he refers as “nature in a primordial sensi sense that, he makes clear, is the most originary sense of the natural Far from being the case that Heidegger's analysis of the being of things as “ready to hand” relegates nature primarily to the status of an object of use, Foltz shows how Heidegger's analysis of the availability of tools in the environment already presupposes an ontological sense of ma- ses, not two: in its Copyright © 2004. AIL Bitte sh eneeeeennennnnneneneenREVIEW ARTICLES 305 ture that grants to nature its selfstanding over against all human do- ing. If nature did not reveal itself already as self-standing in the self- concealing withdrawal of things into their utility, which withdrawal makes their very entering into a network of concerns possible, nature could not present itself as “ready to hand” at all, It is precisely the ontologi- cal sense of the “ready to hand” that is founded on a more primordial withdrawal of nature into self-concealing and that allows this self-con- cealing to occur unhindered in order that Dascin might get on with its own concernful dealings and doings. Consequently, if it is the case that metaphysical thinking, in framing the nature it encounters in terms of its sheer presence, by this very representation of nature, covers over and conceals the sense of the natural world as “ready to hand,” so too does it cover over and close off the possible experience of nature “in a primordial sense,” which is not identical with, but is first manifested in, the realm of the “ready to hand.” Yet Being and Time remains uncompleted, its task unfulfilled, at least as it was projected within that work itself; and the “primordial sense” of nature remains unthematized in Heidegger's early writings, consist- ing at most of scattered hints and poetic indications. However, this absence is not accidental; Foltz notes that Heidegger himself remarks, in a footnote to The Essence of Reasons that is clearly programmatic, on just this absence of nature in its primordial sense from Being and Time. Nature is primordially manifest in Dasein because Dasein exists as disposed and attuned in the midst of entities. But only insofar as dis- position (thrownness) belongs to the essence of Dasein and is ex- pressed in the unity of the full concept of care can we attain the basis for the problem of nature.? The problem of nature is its most primordial sense requires the expli- cation of the unity of the full concept of care as the essence of Dasein; but as Heidegger is already aware in Being and Time, the horizon for such an explication is time. The full unity of Dasein as care is a tem- poral unity; Dasein is historical in essence. Consequently, the project sketched out in Being and Time for the destruction of the history of ontology remains the proper path both with regard to the explication of the temporal unity of Dasein as well as the primordial sense of nature. The domination of the metaphysics of Vorhandenheit must be criticized, not only structurally, but historically, with regard to the his- torical/epochal character of being as it comes to presence to human thinking. Thus, Foltz takes up the question of the relation of the three senses of nature already made apparent in Heidegger's carly writings and undertakes an analysis of the historical dimension of each, as each is situated within the history of being. The determination of nature as Copyright © 2001. All Rights Reseved.306 REVIEW ARTICLES object, as Vorhandenheit, corresponds to the dispensation of being’s presencing as it is thematized in advance by modern mathematical science, that is, as being responds to the mathematical projection that delimits it in advance as object of the theoretical gaze. Foltz shows how it is that scientific knowing operates as a kind of filter that oc- cludes the more primordial senses of nature precisely because of its character as mathematical, as that which is projected as knowable in advance. Similarly, although a good deal more complexly, the deter mination of nature as Zuhandenheit, as productive things of use, corre- sponds to a dispensation wherein being presences under the dominion of technology, where what is appears as standing-reserve for ordering and manipulating. Technology remains ambiguous: technology is the ultimate extension of metaphysics and threatens to consign the pri- mordial sense of nature to complete oblivion; yet technology also re- tains its historical connection of Greek tégvn and to that aspect of Dasein's being that, in encountering the world as “ready to hand,” allows the possibility of a more originary encounter with nature. Fol- lowing Heidegger’s judgment in “The Question Concerning Technol- ogy,” Foltz argues that the only possibility of an alternative to the technological experience of nature lies in a thoughtful confrontation with that experience, which takes as its bearing the character of tech- nology as an epoch in the history of being, as a way of revealing, some- thing that no environmental philosophy heretofore has done. Confronting technology as a way of revealing, we are enabled to make a “curious leap” out of the domination of metaphysical thinking onto a ground on which, paradoxically, we already essentially stand. Thus we arrive at the question of inhabiting the earth, the fundamen- tal question to which we are summoned in the face of the environ- mental crisis. The full temporal unity of Dasein as care is reached, Foltz argues, only after the “curious leap” out of technological (and hence metaphysical) categories of thinking into a poetic thinking which experiences the earth first of all in terms of its involvement with it, in the thoughtful-poetic word “dwelling.” And it is no accident that a poetic word bespeaks what it is to have an essential relation to the earth (for “dwelling” is always “dwelling on the earth")—thinking and dwelling are bound up with the poetic in essence. Hence, Foltz’s con- siderations turn to two inseparable projects, that of the thoughtful passage through metaphysics, whereby we come to hear the poetic claim of primordial nature which still speaks faintly within metaphysical lan- guage, and that of a tentative projection of that in which a poetic Tanguage of dwelling might consist. With regard to the first, Foltz seeks to articulate a “new topology of the natural,” that is, a gathering Xy0¢REVIEW ARTICLES 307 which would poetically provide a t6n0g appropriate for dwelling, which he contrasts with the metaphysical topography, which fixes the various senses of nature along the lines of a coordinate system and disallows their emergent unity. Yet such a gathering of a ténog for dwelling is not only a matter of Adyoc: the gathering of a place for dwelling is ultimately fulfilled only in dwelling, and the final chapter of the book is devoted to articulating a sense of what this could mean. Here Foltz is most cautious, emphasizing that his approach is “suggestive, rather than programmatic,” as he gathers the many dimensions and implica- tions of Heidegger's idea of dwelling and allows them to appear as a whole. Dwelling on the earth, Foltz argues, ultimately constitutes the only genuine possibility not only of an environmental ethic but of ethics as such, insofar as the genuine £80¢ speaks of human comportment within a proper abode. Indeed, the question of learning once more how to inhabit the earth is not one question among many, not a ques- tion about one aspect or problem of modern life, but one way of ask- ing the most fundamental question of human thinking, the question of what it means to be human, in the midst of being, of what it means to dwell, poetically and thoughtfully, on the earth. John Kress Vanderbilt University NOTES “The Question Concerning Technology,” in Basic Writings, ed. D. F. Krell, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1993), 331. 2. The Essence of Reasons, trans. Terrence Malik (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1969), 83 n.55; originally published as “Vom Wesen des Grundes,” in Wegmarken (Frankfurt: Klosterman, 1967), 52 n, 55; quoted in Inhabiting the Earth, 49. Copyright © 2001. All Rights Reseved.