THE OWL OF MINERVA, 24, 2 (Spring 1993): 163-180

The Question of Being and the Recovery

of Language Within Hegelian Thought

Frank Schalow

My aim here is to approach Hegel's thought as prefiguring Heidegger's

attempt to reawaken an interest in the issue of language and to develop a
relation to it which is not based on conventional linguistic forms. In this light
language should not be construed abstractly as a structure unto itself that con-
fines truth to the univocal meanings cemented in judgment; instead, language
must be addressed in terms of its dynamic role in drawing attention to being
and to the backdrop against which the entirety of what is can be revealed as
opening the way to thought. Heidegger often credits a reawakening to the
powers of logos to H61derlin as the "poet of the poets"; 1 but it is not easy to
adopt Holderlin's insights immediately from the domain of poetry without
also considering the specific nuances with which language must be endowed
in order to provide the fertile soil for thought. 2 It should not be surprising,
then, that Heidegger should seek a philosophical analogue to his own efforts
in a figure such as Hegel; for it is well known that Hegel not only appreciated
the contributions of Holderlin (his colleague in Tiibingen),3 but also saw an
important correlation between the philosophical and poetic modes of expres-
sion. 4 Thus Hegel, in both the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Logic, exa-
mines the process of the determination of thought in such a way that he raises
a question as ancient as Parmenides' concern for the interrelation between
"being and thinking."s More importantly, Hegel's attempt to unearth a peren-
1. Martin Heidcgger, Erliiuterungen zu H6iderlills Dichtung, in his Gesamtausgabe
(Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1976- ), v. 4, pp. 134-135; hereafter cited as 'GA'.
Martin Heidegger, Existence and Being, ed. by Werner Brock (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1949),
"Remembrance of the Poet," trans. by Douglas Scott, pp. 249-269; "Holderlin and the Essence
of Poetry," trans. by Douglas Scott, pp. 270-291, esp. p. 271; cf. Brock's "Account of the Four
Essays," p. 170 of his long introduction, pp. 13-248; hereafter cited as 'EB'.
2. Robert Mugerauer, Heidegger's Language alld 7hinking (Atlantic Highlands, New
Jersey: Humanities Press, 1988), pp. 188-190.
3. Cf. William Desmond, Art alld the Absolute (Albany: SUNY Press, 1986), p. 112;
H.S. Harris, Hegel's Development: Night Thoughts (Oxford: Clarendon, 1983), pp.12-18.
4. Gary Shapiro, "Hegel on the Meanings of Poetry," in Art and Logie in Hegel's Philo-
sophy, ed. by Warren E. Steinkraus and Kenneth Schmitz (Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey:
Humanities Press, 1980), p. 46.
5. Martin Heidegger, What is Called Thinking?, trans. by J. Glenn Gray (New York:
Harper & Row, 1968), p. 168. For Hegel's citation of Parmenides' famous saying, d. his
164 THE OWL OF MINERVA

nial problem of this magnitude demands a retreat to a more basic level where
language carves a deeper path within traditional ontology.
As Hegel's precursor, Kant through his Copernican revolution showed
how whatever "is" can be rendered accessible in terms of the conditions of
finitude definitive of human thought. In a somewhat amorphous way, Hegel,
too, formulated the problem of the relation between being and thought, but
not so decisively as to view language as having an even greater importance in
fonning the essential link between the two. 6 As casual as it may first seem, the
allusion to Kant takes on particular significance insofar as the prospect of re-
trieving his thought obtrudes as a factor in Heidegger's subsequent attempt to
address Hegel's speculative philosophy. Indeed, Heidegger's initial allegiance
to Kant becomes so pivotal for initiating his "destructive retrieval" of the
tradition as to exclude any philosophical orientation that seems to depart
from that overall plan. If only because of Hegel's opposition to Kant in chal-
lenging the preeminence of finitude - to which Heidegger wholeheartedly
subscribes - Heidegger from the outset construes his relation to Hegel as
being more exclusive than inclusive.? As much as anything, Heidegger's initial
drawing of these alliances leads to the result, as Dennis Schmidt remarks, that
Heidegger "only rarely reads Hegel with the same charity and sympathy he re-
serves for Heraclitus, Aristotle, Eckhart, Kant, or Nietzsche.''8
By highlighting Hegel's advance in confronting the issue of language,
we will indicate an important point of convergence between his own thought
and Heidegger's which is often overloooked. First, we will identify the factors
that initially may have inhibited Heidegger's exchange with Hegel. Second, we
will balance the desire to offer a more fruitful reading of Hegel's analysis of
language with the various features that comprise the mosaic of Heidegger's
retrieval of the Kantian problems of finitude, temporality, and transcendence.
Kant, however, addressed these concerns in terms of his innovative account of
schematism and imagination, which formed the heart and soul of his tran-
scendental logic. Thus, in the third part of this essay, we will show how the
underpinnings of Hegel's treatment of language pose in a complementary way
the problem of finitude which Kant formulated and which Heidegger later
adopted as the cornerstone of his own fundamental ontology.

I.

It seems almost inevitable that, in seeking the presuppositions which

govern its own enterprise, philosophy should address language as providing
the site or sanctuary for thought. In the preface to the Phenomenology, Hegel
identifies language's role in enduring the tension of the dialectic; through its

Lectures on the History of Philosophy, trans. by E.S. Haldane and F.H. Simson (New York:
Humanities Press, 1968), v. 1, p. 77.
6. In the preface to the Phenomenology Hegel formulated his key insights pertaining to
the nature of language, especially as revealed through the ·speculative" judgment or sentence;
cf. G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. by A.V. Miller (Oxford: Clarendon, 1977), pp.
36-40.
7. Martin Heidegger, Kilnt und das Problem der Metaphysik, GA, v. 3, p. 244; Kilnt and
the Problem of Metaphysics, trans. by Richard Taft (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1991), pp. 167-168; hereafter cited as 'KPM'.
8. Dennis J. Schmidt, The Ubiquity of the Finite: Hegel, Heidegger, and the Entitlements
of Philosophy (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1988), p. 214.
 BEING AND LANGUAGE 165

own activity language makes visible the mediation of opposites, and thereby
exemplifies the form of determinateness essential to thought or the impetus
behind the self-comprehension of spirit in its manifold forms.9 Yet despite
granting importance to language, Hegel does not undertake a separate
investigation into its internal workings and origin, even given the implications
that both the Phenomenology and the Logic have for such a study. In a curious
way Heidegger follows suit by downplaying the issue of language in his "early"
thought only to make it so central in his "later" thinking. In a more explicit
way than Hegel, Heidegger returns to examine the role of language once the
inquiry into being has been sufficiently deepened and radicalized so as to
allow that issue to reemerge for questioning.
By considering this more prominent interrogative "move" we can ascer-
tain where Heidegger's approach to language differs from that of Hegel and
perhaps where a possible overlap may occur between the two. Within his early
thought, Heidegger discovered in hermeneutics the clue to returning to the
soil of the prephilosophical understanding of being. The strategy of interpre-
tation allows us to trace the formation of the provisional outline for projecting
the sense (Sinn) of being, the horizon for the determination of the "is" and
hence what marks the genesis of meaning most primordially. Because for Hei-
degger the concern for the origin of meaning and the understanding of being
are intimately tied together, he inaugurates his phenomenological ontology by
putting into play the "as" of interpretation, the "hermeneutic as."l0
But what does the employment of this key strategy of hermeneutics
have to do with Hegel? On the surface, the answer is "nothing," except for the
fact that the significance of the maneuver, the point of departure for reasking
the question of being, must itself be drawn forth against the backdrop of the
history of philosophy. That is, Heidegger must retrace the origin of his own
point of departure; he marks its unfolding from the roots of the philosophical
tradition in such a way as to reenact or "repeat" (Wiederholen) a corollary
problem which lies dormant in the thought of one of his precedessors. In line
with his plan for a destructive retrieval of the tradition, as outlined in Being
and Time (1927) and also announced in The Basic Problems of Phenomenology
(1927), Heidegger finds much of his inspiration in Kant. But if only because of
the apparent antagonism as cast by a thinker of the magnitude of Hegel,
Heidegger fosters a suspicion toward the Hegelian emphasis on the role of
system, reason, and infinitude that imports into his own destructive retrieval
and implicit "defense" of Kant. With allusions to Hegel made immediately
above and below, Heidegger remarks toward the conclusion of Kant and the
Problem of Metaphysics (1929):

What does the struggle against the "thing-in-itself," which

started with German Idealism, mean, other than the growing
forgetting of what Kant struggled for: that the inner possibility
and necessity of metaphysics, i.e., its essence are at bottom
brought forth and preserved through the more original working··

9. For an insightful account of the Hegelian view of language emerging from this
preface, cf. Jere Surber, "Hegel's Speculative Sentence; Hegel-Studien, 10 (1975): 210-230.
10. Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, GA, v. 2, pp. 197-204; Being and Time, trans. by
John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1%2), pp. 188-198;
hereafter cited as 'BT.
166 THE OWL OF MINER VA

out and increased preservation of the problem of human fini-

tude.(C;E1,v.3,pp.244-245;JGPA~pp. 166-167)
Jacques Taminiaux comments on this discussion from Heidegger's Kant book
while simultaneously questioning Heidegger's abrupt separation from Hegel:

This contrast between Kant's efforts (albeit hesitant and soon

relaxed) and the forgetfulness to which Hegel falls prey, very
clearly suggests that the project of fundamental ontology was
almost anticipated by Kant on one side, but not at all by Hegel
on the other side. It also suggests that the phenomenon of "tran-
scendence" in fundamental ontology is not to be found in
Hegel.11

As Taminiaux subsequently argues, we must be careful not to misread

the suspicion directed toward Hegel as precluding the possibility that there
may be concerns enveloped within the elaborate folds of the Hegelian system
of equal importance to Heidegger. For Hegel, language marks the juncture of
our (finite) participation in the unfolding of the successive stages of spirit's
ascent to the absolute. Even while not assigning as explicit an ontological role
to language as Heidegger does, Hegel nevertheless brings it into the forefront
of any possible ontology. Given this focus, Hegel's reaction against Kantian
thought, though seemingly detracting from Kant's emphasis on human fini-
tude in favor of the infinitude of reason and the absolute, may still constellate
a subterranean concern for the issue of language that remains dormant within
transcendental philosophy. This is not to say that Hegel succeeded where
Kant failed. It is only to suggest that Kant may have omitted certain steps in
conceiving human finitude as the inclusive pattern to address the horizon or
organizational structure of experience. As a result, Kant's emphasis on tem-
porality and imagination tends to presuppose the discreet haven that language
provides for considering the interconnection among these vital ontological
topics.
Without forsaking Kant's important insights, it may be possible to look
to Hegel as a metaphysical thinker who reserved the option to reaffirm the
centrality of language. The key to Hegel's analysis lies in viewing language as
a phenomenon, as something we "experience," that both arises from and
contributes to the evolution of culture. Language not only serves this "com-
municative" role, but through its own design also effects the purgation of a
"one-sided" outlook in order to allow for a more determinate and complete
comprehension (Begriff) of what "is" through the concrete universal. 12 In a like
manner to H61derlin, Hegel suggests that the universality of language con-
stitutes an important element in the historical "recollection" of our spiritual
life.13 In a way which contributes to philosophical thought, "poetic" language

11. Jacques Taminiaux, Heidegger and the Project of Fundamental Ontology, trans. by
Michael Gendre (Albany: SUNY Press, 1991), p. 151.
12. Cf. Jere Paul Surber, "Review: Language in the Philosophy of Hegel, by Daniel J.
Cook," The Owl of Minerva, 8, 1 (September 1976): 3; also James L. Marsh, "The Play of
Difference/Differance in Hegel and Derrida," TIle Owl of Minerva, 21, 2 (Spring 1990): 147.
13. G.W.F. Hegel, On Art, Religion, Philosophy, trans. by Bernard Bosanquet, ed. by J.
Glenn Gray (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), pp. 123-126. Cf. Randall E. Auxier, "The
Return of the Initiate: Hegel's Bread and Wine," The Owl of Minerva, 22, 2 (Spring 1991): 206-
 BEING AND LANGUAGE 167

elicits from the idiosyncracies of particular experience the collective patterns

of meaning which shape the development of human culture (cf. Shapiro, pp.
45-48). In a different respect, Heidegger's renewed concern for language in
the 1930s more directly depended on his appropriating H6lderlin's profound
insights into the nature of poetic speech (Sprac/ze).1 4 Specifically, Heidegger
sought a more intimate connection between poetry and philosophy than
Hegel may have, in such a way as to see in the intricacies of poetic expression
the very clues to a "non-representational" thinking which could recollect the
truth of being. ls Heidegger's later suggestion that both the philosopher and
the poet safeguard the evocative powers of language brings to fruition his
earlier attempt in the 1920s to shift the locus of truth from the proposition to
the experience of disclosedness. 16
The challenge on the one hand of Heidegger's recovering the issue of
language, and on the other of initiating a fruitful exchange with Hegel, may be
more than coincidental. For Heidegger, the historical step presupposed in
addressing Hegel's thought parallels what within the plan of Being and Time
he had initially identified as the prospect of overcoming metaphysics, namely,
the so-called transition or "turn" (Kehre) to "time and being" (GA, v. 2, p. 53;
BT, p. 64). Moreover, as he acknowledged in the "Letter on Humanism" some
twenty years later (1947), the difficulty involved in experiencing this "turn" was
due in part to a certain inertia in the vocabulary of metaphysics. This
metaphysical language obscured the very distinctions that were necessary for
thought to respond to the claim of beingP Later, Heidegger would specify
how Hegel stood alongside Nietzsche within the movement of the end and
completion of metaphysics. I8 The early Heidegger's uncritical tendency to pit
Hegel against Kant set up a relation of exclusivity, as mentioned above, that
seems to have been adversely influenced by the "slippage" in Heidegger's
initial attempt to overcome metaphysics. Indeed, the identification of thinkers

207. For one of Heidegger's essays where he recounts the important relation between Hegel
and HOiderlin, cf. his Holderlills Hymnen "Genllalliell" ulld "Der Rheill," GA, v. 39, pp. 129·134.
Cf. also Jacques Taminiaux's discussion (pp. 191-193) of the Hiilderlin work as Heidegger's
retrospective attempt to establish the difference between his own thought and Hegel's.
14. Of particular importance in this regard is Heidegger's appeal to Hiilderlin's sense
of the "flight of the gods" as indicating the critical phase in western history where a new relation
to being (and hence to language) is required; cf. GA, v. 4, pp. 41-48; EB, pp. 304-315., Cf. also
Robert Bernasconi, The Question of Language ill Heidegger's History of Beillg (Atlantic
Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1985), pp. 41-46.
15. In posing the challenge of overcoming representational thought, Heidegger alludes
to Hiilderlin's view of poetry as a form of "re-collection." In then emphasizing the need to trace
the withdrawl of thought, Heidegger cites Hiilderlin's line: "We are a sign that is not read .. ."
(What is Called 7711'nking?, p. 11); cf. Schmidt, pp. 142-144.
16. Cf. John McCumber, "Authenticity and Interaction: The Account of Communica-
tion in Being alld Time," in 77le 77lOught o/'Martin Heidegger, cd. by Michael E. Zimmerman
(Tulalle Studies in Philosophy, 33 [1984]: 45, 50-51). McCumber draws an interesting com-
parison between the success Hegel achieves in developing the communal character of language
and the difficulty Heidegger encounters due to emphasizing initially the more individualized
form of Dasein's self-expression in the call of conscience. McCumber's suggestion that Hegel
should receive credit as initiating the "linguistic" turn in philosophy (much as Kant unclertook a
"transcendental" turn) entails a systematic view of Hegel's place in the history of philosophy
that lies beyond the scope of our discussion here.
17. Martin Heidegger, "Brief iiber den Humanismus," in Wegmarkell, GA, v. 9, pp.327-
328; "Letter on Humanism" trans. by Frank A. Capuzzi and J. Glenn Gray in Martin Heidegger,
Basic Writings, ed. by David Farrell Krell (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), pp. 208-209.
18. Martin Heidegger, identity and Difference, trans. by Joan Stambaugh (New York:
Harper & Row, 1969), pp. 42-44.
168 THE OWL OF MINER VA

within the metaphysical tradition is not so much a matter of chronology, but

instead of the convergence of adjacent concerns, a concentricity of thought in
which being comes to be revealed in more or less pronounced ways.
Having exposed the limitation in Heidegger's initial estimate of Hegel,
the way is cleared to discover whether within a broader purview of appropri-
ating the western tradition (where the mutual influence of H6lderlin can be
appreciated) a more "sympathetic" account of speculative philosophy becomes
possible. 19 At stake is not only whether Heidegger's questioning can be ex-
panded in order to accomodate the complexities of Hegelian thought despite
its apparent resistance to the problem of human finitude. At the same time it
is important to see if this kind of realignment might also have positive impli-
cations for reexamining Kant's thought, that is, by opening up new avenues
which allow for a more complete appropriation of transcendental philosophy
than even that found in Heidegger's Kant book.

II.

By viewing Hegel's thought as less exclusively in opposition to the

problem of human finitude, it may be possible to extend the results of Hei-
degger's retrieval of Kant. Specifically, Heidegger retrieved the issue of imagi-
nation in such a way as to recover its deeper unity with temporality and finite
transcendence. To an equal degree he then tried to offset the priority of
reason as the definitive structure of human comportment and knowledge so as
to reveal finitude as the soil from which the possibility of metaphysics springs.
As a result, Heidegger may seem to render obsolete the very endeavor that
traditionally has been reserved for the study of human reason, namely, logic.
By apparent contrast, Hegel's brand of German idealism reestablishes the
preeminence of logic in a way the detracts from human finitude and redefines
thought as a property of the absolute. For him, logic ceases to give an account
of the structural features of thought in the formal sense, irrespective of its re-
flection in the order of things. Nor does it merely prescribe the principles for
knowing objects presented in space and time in conformity with the condi-
tions of human finitude, as Kant ascertained with his transcendental logic.
Rather, as providing a complete survey of the internal design of thought,
Hegelian logic takes a step beyond Kant; it thereby encompasses the entirety
of all those relations of intellegibility through which whatever "is" can unfold
according to some intrinsic, organic plan of development and achieve know-
ledge of itself (as Hegel shows in §§ 82-83 of the Encyclopedia).
The all-encompassing character of thought and the demand for com-
plete self-knowledge seem to involve for Hegel a transgression of those very
limits Kant ascribed to reason (cf. Encyclopedia, § 60). Yet even if we grant
that Hegel's thought qualifies as an assault on human finitude, there may still
be a residual reformulation of the problem of finitude that resides in Hegeli-
an idealism. Indeed, Hegel's compensation for what seem to be deficiencies in
Kant may at the same time serve to amplify a parallel concern for the origin of

19. Martin Heidegger, Hegels "Phiinomen%gie des Geistes," GA, v. 32; Hegel's "Pheno-
men%gy of Spirit," trans. by Parvis Emad and Kenneth MaJy (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1988); hereafter cited as 'HPS'. I follow Taminiaux's lead (pp. 155-160) in emphasizing
this text.
 BEING AND LANGUAGE 169

logic and its hidden affinity with the question of being. For Hegel emphasizes
that logic does not simply survey the mechanical processes of thinking; it
instead considers the entrance of thought into a medium of self-expression,
namely, language. 2o The pathway to the self-knowing of thought's own organi-
zational structure entails assembling (dialectically) all the manifold forms of
determination into a coherent whole that itself has been brought to a level of
explicit articulation.
According to Heidegger, when we conceive the dialectic as a dual
movement of ascendance (AuJhebung) and self-gathering, we find that Hegeli-
an logic betrays its hidden ancestry to ontology. A revivial of the concern for
language in both its evocative and discursive forms intersects with Hegel's
attempt to mark language's contribution in separating and then reuniting the
diverse contents of thought. Heidegger's emphasis on the logos as ascribing
limits within which the awesome power of physis can be circumscribed and
become present recalls the origin of Greek philosophy to which both Hegel
and Holderlin were especially partial (cf. GA, v. 9). This return to the logos as
a way of gathering together, through which the process of presencing occurs,
indicates a deeper connection between language and being which is faintly
intimated in Hegel's view of dialectic as outlined in the Logic.
The fact that through a recovery of ancient ontology we discover an
important link between Heidegger's and Hegel's thought, however, does not
annul the sharp differences in the approach each takes in developing parallel
themes. 21 We need to acknowledge the different ways that each conceives of
"being," as well as the divergent approaches demanded as a result. Hei-
degger's way of approaching being in terms of a question already suggests its
emergence on a prephilosophical level. Hegel, on the other hand, construes
being in terms of its potential affiliation with thought, that is, according to its
relative degree of determinancy or indeterminancy in comparison with the
absolute. For Heidegger, the concern for the "indeterminancy" of being is
really a function of a historical shortfall in our ability to question, which re-
sults in a "forgetting" (Vergessenheit) of being itself. 22
Unlike Hegel, Heidegger refrains from assuming the possible con-
vergence of being and thought. Heidegger, however, does not then submit to a
kind of mysticism where he is indifferent to how being can subsequently
reveal itself for thought. On the contrary, his concern for the prephilosophical
and prediscursive factors that contribute to the manifestation of being, for
example, in such moods as anxiety, sets the stage to formulate concepts neces-
sary for a philosophical understanding of being.23 The whole aim of funda-
mental ontology is to undertake an excavation of those very structures that

20. For an interesting discussion of how for Hegel the language of thought evolves
from its cultural roots, cf. John Burbidge, On Hegel's Logic (Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey:
Humanities Press, 1981), pp. 28-34.
21. Cf. Heidegger's earlier intense criticism of the dialectical method, in which he com-
pared it to phenomenology as involving a difference of "rue" and "water": Ontologie: Henneneu-
tik der Faktizitiit, GA, v. 63, p. 42. At least within the context of Heidegger's early thought, his
partiality for Kierkegaard (even before Kant) probably played as much of a role in his later
disagreement with Hegel.
22. GA, v. 2, pp. 3-7; BT, 21-25; cf. also Idelllity and Difference, pp. 42-65.
23. Cf. Heidegger's discussion of the problem of addressing being conceptually, which
follows immediately after his account of Hegel's notion of time in § 82 of Being and Time (GA,
v.2, pp. 575-577; BT, pp. 487-488).
170 THE OWL OF MINERVA

facilitate the possibility of understanding being and of developing a discourse,

a logos, proper to it.
In his Kant book, Heidegger envisions the task of fundamental onto-
logy as recovering the hidden relation between being and time and thereby re-
enacting the hidden projection of the former upon the latter (GA, v. 3, p. 240;
KPM, p. 164). In The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, he characterizes this
reenactment as one of outlining according to a certain configuration of
"schema" the "upon-which" (woraujhin) for the projective understanding of
being.24 With this reference to schema, Heidegger forecasts what he would
accomplish two years later in his Kant book. In a controversial manner, he
showed that Kant's way of uncovering the sensibilized, temporal origin of the
categories in imagination provided a preliminary outline of finite transcen-
dence, the possibility of a precomprehension of being.
Heidegger's way of reaffirming the priority of imagination over reason
seems to nullify the importance of logic as the discipline devoted to the study
of reason.25 But the rejection of a traditional "solution" does not mean that the
problem has gone away as much as it must be transformed and radicalized. In
Heidegger's case, the rather abrupt rejection of reason creates an even
greater problem of how to trace the emergence of understanding (Verstehen)
from its prerational sources, and thereby transpose this alternative way for
addressing a concern of logic into the center of the question of being. In so
dramatically deposing the authority of reason, Heidegger must wrestle more
profoundly with the issue of how being can rise forth into intelligibility from
the rather dispersed understanding we already have of it. Thus, his quest to
'elicit the backdrop of "meaning" as the pinnacle of a projection, of finite tran-
scendence, occurs within a questioning which, though critical of logic, seeks a
parallel angle to grasp the silhouette of a concept of being. Phenomenology
thereby looks for a pattern of articulation or logos that directs the disclosure
of being thematically from its preconditions. As Heidegger states in the
second introduction to Being and Time: "Thus the way in which being and its
modes and characteristics have their meaning determined primordially in
terms of time, is what we shall call its 'Temporal' determinateness (Bestimmt-
heit)" (GA, v. 2, p. 26; BT, p. 40). Through an evolved logos it becomes possi-
ble to apprehend the meaning of being or grasp it according to the directive of
the hermeneutic as, that is, "as" temporality.
This hermeneutic maneuver elicits the furthermost boundaries of
determinateness or configuring patterns that grant levels of intelligibility
otherwise folded away within the preontological understanding of being. In
more graphic terms, Heidegger suggests that such "meaning" necessarily takes
the shape of a horizon, that is, according to a juncture between the existential
site of understanding and the discursivity implicitly accorrpanying it. Thus, in
Kantian terms, he describes the chief task of his magnum opus as outlining the
"transcendental horizon for the question of being" (GA, v. 2, p. 53; BT, p. 63).
But this concern for unfolding meaning in a primeval form, its constellation in

24. Martin Heidegger, Die Grnndprobleme der Phiinomenologie, GA, v. 24, pp. 428-429;
The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, trans. by Albert Hofstadter (Bloomington: Indiana Uni-
versity Press, 1982), p. 302. Cf. also herein (pp. 254, 466; pp. 178, 327) Heidegger's remarks on
the need to appropriate or criticize Hegel's logic.
25. Note Heidegger's celebrated remark on Kant's "shrinking back" from the radical
insight of imagination vs. reason (GA, v. 3, p. 160; KPM, p. 110).
 BEING AND LANGUAGE 171

terms of a horizon, betrays a Greek sense of the logos as a "gathering to-

gether."
Heidegger reconfirms the importance of this reawakening to the power
of logos by defining phenomenology as the "letting be seen of that which
shows itself' (GA, v. 2, p. 44; BT, p. 56). In seeking a juncture between the
existential projection of understanding and the logos, we see how fundamental
ontology houses within itself a concern for the formulation of basic concepts
and their inscription within language. For Heidegger, logic is no longer to be
viewed as a separate discipline, insofar as its boundaries are determined
through a larger concern for the essence of truth. How then can we charac-
terize the logic housed within fundamental ontology? The answer to this ques-
tion will enable us to see that Heidegger's decisive overthrow of reason in
favor of imagination - the dramatic development of his Kant book - allows
for a reinstallment of logic in a transformed way; for it is necessary to con-
sider the origin of the temporal process, of transcendence, from which the
possibility of seeking orderliness, organization, and "grounds" for the mani-
festation of beings first emerges. Logic then intercedes as a way of tracing the
ancestry in our understanding of being, as outlining the dynamics of disclosure
within it, from which all conceptual formulations or ways of addressing being
thematically (i.e., in thought) arise. Only through such an "exercise" can fun-
damental ontology delineate a horizon of meaning in terms of elements which
gather and weave together the fabric of articulation whereby the "is" can be
spoken in its full power.
When seen in this light, the primary aim of Heidegger's retrieval of
Kant is not to vanquish logic from all consideration, but, instead, to allow for
its envelopment within fundamental ontology as a way of amplifying the
question of being.26 But where and to whom can we look within the movement
of destructive retrieval to chart this development and transposition? Which
thinker, due to his taking an extreme position within metaphysics, may indi-
rectly point back to the origin of logic? The answers can be given through an
appeal to a philosopher who, precisely because of his sharp differences with
Kant, yields an alternative angle from which those very issues precipitating a
retrieval of transcendental philosophy can be further explored, namely, Hegel.
With this remark, we reach the point where the apparent gulf sepa-
rating fundamental ontology and Hegelian thought can be construed posi-
tively rather than negatively. Specifically, Hegel may be viewed as partici-
pating in the forgetting of being, especially in regard to its affiliation with
time. But this apparent shortcoming need not be prohibitive for retrieving the
positive features from his thought, any more than Kant's uncritical acceptance
of the Cartesian cogito would prevent the subsequent appropriation IOf tran-
scendental philosophy (GA, v. 2, p. 32; BT, p. 45). The chief aim of Hegel's
logic lies in providing an exposition of "being" in all its manifold determina-
tions; "being" is no longer to be defined abstractly as the connective in a judg-
ment, but rather concretely in terms of the meaning it achieves through the
process of spirit's self-unfolding. For even if Hegel perpetuates the forgetting

26. Martin Heidegger, Metaphysische Anfangsgrnnde der Logik im Ausgang von Leibniz,
GA, v. 26, pp. 153-196; Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, trans. by Michael Heim (Blooming-
ton: Indiana University Press, 1984), pp. 123-154. Of special interest is Heidegger's discussion
(pp. 192-193; p. 153) of the role that the ontological difference plays in articulating the under-
standing of being.
172 THE OWL OF MINER VA

of being and grants ascendancy to thought,27 it is still necessary to flag the

most primitive form of thinking immediately demonstrable in its occurrence,
"being" in its mutual richness and emptiness. The fact that there must be, as it
were, a precomprehension of being in order that an absolute knowing can dis-
sect and reintegrate its constitutive elements, e.g., being, nothing, becoming -
the key to Hegelian logic - suggests that the insights Hegel gathers may still
be relevant for ontology even if a "backward" reading of them is required.
This prospect of "reading backward" suggests that it may be possible to
make correlations between Heidegger's and Hegel's thought despite the
apparently irreconcilable differences between them. If only because Hegel
brings the forgetting of metaphysics to its pinnacle, his thinking also begins to
"mobilize" those conceptual relations, evident only residually, that have deter-
mined metaphysics from its origin.2& It is in this respect that Hegel more than
any philosopher previously (even Kant) had to turn his sight upon the history
of philosophy, insofar as when seen within the purview of the destructive
retrieval his idealism itself carried within it the residue of metaphysics as
pointing back to its beginning in the pre-Socratics.
In this regard, the very plan to reinterpret Hegelian thought lies in
overturning its exclusive differences with fundamental ontology, a "flip-flop"
that retracts all antagonism toward the problem of human finitude in order to
offer a complementary approach to it. Where are we to look to discover this
new complementarity? The answer lies not so much in attending directly to
Hegel's idealism, but, conversely, in seeking the juncture where his own
thought formulates an issue that ultimately becomes pivotal for reasking the
question of being, namely, language. Hegel's philosophy becomes especially
relevant insofar as he was among the first in the modern era to cease viev.cing
language merely as a concatenation of signs to which all content is extraneous.
Rather, Hegel conceived language as the embodiment of the cognitive proces-
ses through which the constitution of what "is" could be revealed and brought
to the level of thought. Language supplies the deeper element required for
thought, in a way which allows the moment of self-comprehension to be
enriched by the opposite perspective of other selves. As Hegel states:

Language is self-consciousness existing for others, self-

consciousness which as such is immediately present, and as this
self-consciousness is universal ... it coalesces directly with other
selves and is their self-consciousness.29

Thus, language transposes the abstract knowledge of inanimate objects into

the broader continuum of historical self-understanding, which reincorporates
the experiences of the past within the formation of the future. Given this
breakthrough, the question remains whether Hegel succeeded in conceiving
of language radically enough to shift its focus from simple predication - what
Heidegger describes as a derivative form of "apophatic discourse" - to a

27. For Heidegger's criticism of how Hegel mistakenly views the pre-Socratics as "not
yet" achieving the fuller thinking of the absolute, cf. "Hegel und der Greichen," GA, v. 9, pp.
441-444.
28. For an interesting discussion of the relation between Heidegger's later notion of
language and Hegel's "speculative sentence," cf. Bernasconi, pp. 77-78.
29. Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 395. I am grateful to Professor Peg Birmingham for this
reference.
 BEING AND LANGUAGE 173

more evocative mode of genuine speaking. Such a Sprache would be more in

concert with the dynamic processes intrinsic to the manifestation of what is
and would thereby serve as the non-representational medium for thought
(GA, v. 2, p. 210; ST, p. 201).
Given this enigma, let us then see if there is any textual evidence to
suggest that Hegel's thought provides the occasion for uncovering the issue of
language precisely in its affinity with the question of being. At the same time,
we must determine whether the Hegelian treatment of language offers
another angle by which to address those concerns that are more endemic to
fundamental ontology, such as temporality, finitude, and transcendence, even
if what we find in his thought is more the inversion of the relation of being to
time rather than the reciprocity between them (GA, v. 32, p. 208; HPS, p.
144). Only by recasting the issue of language positively in this way can we
undertake a "sympathetic" reading of Hegel to parallel that already provided
in retrieving transcendental philosophy. In Heidegger's case, the most perti-
nent text stems from a series of lectures delivered from 1930 to 1931 and now
assembled under the title: Hegel's "Phenomenology of Spirit. "30

III.

We might do well to acknowledge from the start that Hegel in forget-

ting being has also forgotten the being of the self; and seen in one respect this
omission constitutes the derogatory assessment that Heidegger ultimately
ascribes to Hegel's view of the self as "absolute subjectivity."3! But this evalua-
tion does not tell the whole story unless we already grant the progression of
the dialectic through all the stages of the ultimate identification of spirit with
the absolute. To a large extent Heidegger begins with this assumption in his
rather concise but well known critique of Hegel at the conclusion of § 82 of
Being and Time. 32 But it is equally possible to concentrate on a cross se(:tion of
that dialectical development. We could then amplify the distinctive character
of that stage insofar as it marks the emergence of the self in a way that may
still retain a hint of finitude otherwise lost when a premium is placed on the
absolute. This is the tack that Heidegger takes in his 1930-1931 lectures in
concentrating primarily upon the sections of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit
(i.e., Section A, "Consciousness," and Section B, "Self-Consciousness") which
are devoted to tracing the evolution of consciousness to self-consciousness.
How then are we to view the self if it is not to be taken narrowly in
terms of subjectivity? In the light of Hegel's view in the Phenomenology,
Heidegger envisions the self as the active component or dimension in the
development of knowledge, that is, as bearing the movement, the "absolvency"
in which the knowing capacity gradually acquires a degree of discrimination
or determinateness (GA, v. 32, pp. 68-75; HPS, pp. 49-53). The self then
emerges as the mobilizing power in this development, the pivot for all the

30. For a detailed discussion of the origins of Heidegger's interest in Hegel, cf. Otto
Poggeler, "Hegel und Heidegger," Hegel-Studien, 25 (1990): 140, 146.
31. Martin Heidegger, The Question of Being, trans. by Jean T. Wilde and William
Kluback (New Haven: College & University Press, 1958), p. 71.
32. Jere Paul Surber, "Heidegger's Critique of Hegel's Notion of Time," Philosophy
and Phenomenological Research, 39, 3 (March 1978); 364-366.
174 THE OWL OF MINER VA

determinations that thereby take on the character of "life" (GA, v. 32, p. 206;
HPS, p. 143).
It is precisely because of the active role that the self assumes in know-
ledge, as indicating the direction of development, that its own emergence
becomes specifically coordinated to language. Due to its implicit affinity with
the self and ultimately with spirit, language is not a preestablished set of signi-
fications, but instead arises as a movement freeing thought from the con-
straints of fixed categories and other stereotypes (cf. Schmidt, pp. 183-184).
As Hegel states in the Phenomenology (pp. 39-40): 'This movement which
constitutes what formerly the proof was supposed to accomplish, is the dia-
lectical movement of the proposition itself." Indeed, language is so distinctly
an activity that it delineates the transition from one stage of knowledge to the
next in order to "build the larger context, or element, for the thinking of what
is" (Schmidt, p. 184). Insofar as consciousness already finds itself infiltrated by
a pregiven occurrence of language, the self can become a conduit for the
process of determination. That is, in Heidegger's reading, the self is not just
another inhabitant of the sphere of what is real, something else to be encoun-
tered; nor is the self merely the abstract unity of the cognitive process. Be-
cause knowledge is already embued with the power of language, the self con-
stitutes the "site" of the coming to be determinate or of achieving specificity as
the spontaneous unfolding of individuality as such (cf. Burbidge, p. 122). Hei-
degger says: "In the Phenomenology of Spirit we shall again and again come
across the basic essence of language as that which constitutes the existence of
the self as self," and thereby reveals the concrete universal (GA, v. 32, p. 91;
HPS, p. 64).
In a way that is often overlooked, Hegelian thought coordinates self-
hood with language through its role in delimiting the entirety of cognitive
relations. It is within this context that whatever "is" can be revealed and
acquire the significance that it does. The inordinate weight that Hegel gives to
the power of language is not unlike that which Kant attributes to imagination
in its role of schematism. 33 For Kant the schematized categories regulate the
degree of determinateness and specificity in thought (vis-a-vis a pregiven
manifold of sense) that yields the perspective or "horizon" from which
whatever "is" can appear and be encountered by a finite knower.34 The main
difference between these two thinkers lies in Hegel's evaluation of Kant's
confinement to a preset list of categories that tend to fixate thought and
restrict it to a kind of representationalism. 35 Despite the tendency in German
idealism to dwell on self-consciousness, Hegel's emphasis on the phenomenon
of language suggests that the sense ascribed to "being" is different than what
has been arbitrarily imposed by a "subject."
Indeed, for Hegel, language may reflect the activity of the self; but in
the same respect the self brings into view the inescapability and pervasiveness

33. Of special importance here is Heidegger's discussion of human subjectivity in terms

of "pure self-affection," an "\" that achieves consciousness only through its projection over,
toward, and in response to that which is "other"; cf. Martin Heidegger, Phiinomenologische
Interpretation von Kallts ''Kritik der reillen Vernunft, " GA, v. 25, pp. 381-383.
34. GA, v. 3, pp. 114-119; KPM, pp. 78-91. Cf. also Frank Schalow, The Renewal of the
Heidegger-Kant Dialogue (Albany: SUNY Press, 1992), pp. 47-65.
35. Cf. Hegel's critique in the Encyclopedia, §§ 40-60, of the critical philosophy. Cf.
also David Kolb, The Critique of Modernity: Hegel, Heidegger, and After (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1986), pp. 40-43.
 BEING AND LANGUAGE 175

of language as defining the comprehension of what is as a whole, the emer-

gence of being in and through determination or "presence" (Anwesenheit).
Thus we gain a glimpse of why Heidegger gives so much attention to Hegel's
treatment of language, namely, due to its implicit ontological relevance as re-
siding within the manifestation of being itself. Herein lies the dual importance
for fundamental ontology of retrieving Hegelian and Kantian thought even if
this task depends upon recognizing their important differences. Heidegger
thereby suggests that for Hegel language is coordinated with being as the pro-
cess of manifestation. But we need to consider more specifically how Hegel
thinks being, i.e., "being in our broad sense, for Hegel no longer calls this
'being'" (GA, v. 32, p. 93; HPS, p.65), even within the purview of forgetful-
ness. If we concentrate on this smaller cross section of the Phenomenology, is
there a possible link with Hegel's analysis and that of fundamental ontology in
regard to concurrent issues of selfhood and its finite origin? The answer lies
in seeing how Heidegger reinterprets the Hegelian notion of language as
marking the reciprocity between the self and the comprehension of being.
Insofar as the self finds its place within those very boundaries that
language sets, its own development epitomizes the move within the whole of
beings toward determinateness and individuality. Thus the self, or the: dyna-
mism which it embodies, constitutes one way in which to understand being.
According to Heidegger, the formulation of this new way to understand being
entails its identification with a process of "life" (GA, v. 32, pp. 206-207; HPS,
p. 143). Life is to be grasped not only as "self-preservation and growth," but
also as a demand toward revealment that continually gathers all posssibilities
that are implied by its origin.36 Life is then related to self more than just exter-
nally insofar as each stage of development it seeks to reclaim casts forth what
it can become in each successive stage. To quote Heidegger: "Life means the
being which produces itself from out of itself and maintains itself in its move-
ment. From this we understand to what extent genuine being is called 'life'"
(GA, v. 32, p. 206; HPS, p. 143).
In a way that is at first implicit, Heidegger's allusion to "life" ha'i a link
to fundamental ontology. Despite Hegel's emphasis on the infinity of the
absolute, the reference to life has an important tie to the very opposite, at
least relative to each stage of development as the imminent dissolution of the
one-sidedness of the previous stage. Within fundamental ontology, that oppo-
sition unfolds as the innermost affinity between life and death. In the forget-
fulness of being and of the temporality belonging to it, Hegel does not seem
to have grasped the positive dimension of death, any more that Kant did. 37
Nevertheless, we can compare Hegel's concept of being as life to that aspect
of finitude that if essential to the way that fundamental ontology addresses
being as the power of self-manifestation.38 For Hegel, the element of "life" can

36. GA, v. 32; pp. 206-207; HPS, p. 143. Cf. also Phenomenology of Spirit, pp. 111-114,
and G.W.F. Hegel, The Difference between Fichte's and Schelling's System of Philosophy, trans.
by H.S. Harris and Walter Cerf (Albany: SUNY Press, 1977), p. 172.
37. Cf. Ernst Cassirer, "Remarks on Martin Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant," in
Kant: Disputed Questiolls, ed. by Moltke S. Gram (Chicago: Ouadrangle Books, 1%7), pp. 150-
152. Hegel's discussion of the tragic suggests his concern for the internal tension between life
and death; cf. Schmidt, pp. 146-148, esp. Schmidt's provocative comments on the "language of
tragedy· (p. 183).
38. Hegel addresses the interrelation of life and death in addressing the "Lordship and
Bondage of Consciousness" in the section of the Phenomenology (pp. 114-117) that Heidegger
cites.
176 THE OWL OF MINERVA

be illustrative of the dynamic occurrence of being, just as death can be for

Heidegger, precisely due to the importance granted in each case to the "no-
thing," the power of the negative or negativity. The movement of the dialectic
overturns any given limit by exposing the otherwise missing or absent factor
that yields to the dialectic its own power of determinancy. The famous identi-
fication that Hegel makes in the Logic by which "pure being and pure nothing
are therefore the same" suggests that there is a trace of a deeper sense of the
"nothing" in the affirmation of otherness and mediation. 39 When conceived
ontologically, according to Heidegger, the "nothing" indicates the need for be-
ings to become manifest by acknowledging what is "other" to them, the advent
of a prior area of "openness" (Offenheit). For him, this need to appeal to the
"ontological difference" provides the first clue that Hegel may still uphold a
view of finitude despite all indications to the contrary.40
The role of this finitude becomes more explicit when we consider that
the self must first concede a kind of dependency in order to achieve its fru-
ition as life and thereby emerge as "independent." This dependency comes to
light as that through which the self finds the prospect of its determinateness
embodied, namely, in the absolvent return of universality from particularity,
the elevation of that which is determinate in its own right and thereby as
undergoing all the mediations necessary to the fulfillment of that end, namely,
language. As Heidegger states in marking the key transition from conscious-
ness to self-consciousness, in describing the "being of self-consciousness":

Precisely because being is defined in terms of being known and

in that way stands so much higher, and in each case is more
genuinely knowledge, for that reason being as I must be the true
being of the particularized particular. This is exactly the opposite
of what resulted at the end of Section A, according to which the
interior is the universal. (GA, v. 32, p. 201; HPS, p. 139)

The essence of the self as life is to achieve independence, but this

achievement only becomes concrete, or "factical," by emphasizing the occur-
rence of the process rather than just the result. The process is such that there
must already be a prior orientation to that which requires development within
the self, and hence to what constitutes the nourishing soil of that development
vis-a.-vis the unfolding of conflicting distinctions. For Hegel, language be-
comes the repository or field in which these distinctions not only arise but
even come to be constitutive of whatever can appear and assume the charac-
teristics of being. Precisely due to its nurturement and unfolding from this
deeper level of darkness and negativity, the engendering power of life as an
emergence into positivity and light bears the inescapable stamp of finitude: .

Expressed in positive terms, the transition means the attainment

of the self-being of the self in its independence. And with this the
most inherent problematic of the entire movement of the
39. Martin Heidegger, "Was ist Metaphysik?", GA, v. 9, p. 120; "What is Metaphysics?",
in Basic Writings, trans. by David Farrell Krell, p. 110.
40. Cf. Section F (" ... the ontological difference and dialectic"), GA, v. 32, pp. 90-94;
HPS, pp. 63-66. Cf. also Martin Heidegger, "Hegels Begriff der Erfahrung,H in Holzwege, GA,
v. 5, p. 201; Hegel's Concept of Experience, trans. by J. Glenn Gray (New York: Harper & Row,
1970), p. 144.
 BEING AND LANGUAGE 177

phenomenology is intensified and becomes really explicit for

the first time - a problematic which is nothing other than the
disclosive attainment of the absolute actuality of spirit. (GA, v. 32,
p.200;lfPS,p.139)

Curiously enough, the independence of the self through which absolute

spirit becomes possible arises from a concession to the opposite and thereby
testifies to finitude. To be sure, the finitude, as Heidegger recognizes, is more
oblique than transparent:

And because following this direction involves a confrontation

[with Hegel], the question arises as to whether this understand-
ing and speaking of being, or language, is divine in the sense of
being absolute. We can also put it this way: Is the understanding
of being absolvent, and is absolvement absolute? Or is what
Hegel represents in the Phenomenology of Spirit as absolvence
merely transcendence in disguise, i.e., finitude? Our confronta-
tion with Hegel arrives at this crossing which is located between
finitude and infinitude, as crossroads, which is not the same as
the opposition of two points of view. (GA, v. 32, pp. 91-93; HPS,
p. 65; cf. also Taminiaux, pp. 154, 159)

Heidegger thereby provides an indication of how Hegel's view of language

can point ahead to the recovery of the logos as ascribing limits within which
being can be thought as a conjunction between presence and absence.
Have we now reached the juncture where the barrier between
Hegelian thought and fundamental ontology can begin to fall? If this were so,
then we would no longer be bound to the unsurpassable opposition be:tween
Kant and Hegel in terms of the antinomy of finite/infinite. Still in question is
how the retrieval of Hegel undertaken in the 1930-1931 lectures can com-
plement the reformulation of those concerns surrounding human finitude,
including transcendence and temporality as Heidegger developed them in his
Kant book and elsewhere. Jacques Taminiaux, who advances the thesis that
the bifurcation between Hegel and fundamental ontology is not irreve:rsible,
makes this suggestion (p. 159):

In contrast, the lecture course on Hegel's Phenomenology says

that the distinction between the absolvent movement of the ab-
solute and the finitude of Being-in-the-world is not the essential
point, because both thoughts move within the space of transcen-
dence. What matters is that they cross each other at a juncture
(Kreuzweg), so that we must learn to recognize, in the Hegelian
absolute, finitude itself - but veiled or "in disguise" ([lfPS, p.]
65; [GA, v. 32, p.] 92). Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics said
that, with Hegel, we witness the end of Kant's efforts to grasp
transcendence. The lecture course on Hegel's Phenomenology
says in opposition that it is because Hegel "pushed for the
speculative absolute overcoming of the Kantian position," which
rested on the primordial synthetic unity of transcendental ap-
perception, that he was able to "take as his starting point con-
178 THE OWL OF MINER VA

sciousness and the I in its transcendence" ([HPS, p.] 135 [trans-

lation] mod~fied; [GA, v. 32, p.] 194).

Taminiaux has clearly indicated that certain cross sections of the

Phenomenology appear to be immersed in the problem of human finitude and
that the being of self-consciousness as Hegel grasps it can be related to tran-
scendence. However astute Taminiaux's assessment may be, it does not com-
pletely remove the puzzlement of whether Hegel is entrenched within a more
extreme form of forgetfulness than Kant, and that, as a result, there still re-
mains a certain bias in favor of Kantian philosophy. Put another way, we need
to discover how Hegel's analysis of the self as life brings the issue of transcen-
dence into focus in a novel way and thereby can contribute to, rather than
detract from, the task of fundamental ontology. Despite his insightful "double
reading" of Hegel, Taminiaux does not recognize that in the 1930-1931
lectures Heidegger suggested that the movement of life remains somewhat
naively directed toward "presence," i.e., the continuity of the present takes on
a key role, even if the engenderment of life outstrips the simple occurrence of
the "now." Thus Heidegger upholds a more critical stance when, in claiming
that Hegel has inverted the relation between being and time by conceiving the
essence of the latter in terms of the ''past,'' he seizes the opportunity to side
with Kant once again:

It is characteristic of this that precisely at that juncture - where

in fact the problematic of "being and time" flares up for the first
and only time, namely, in Kant - people refuse to see the prob-
lem and speak rather of my arbitrarily reading my own views
into Kant. (GA, v. 32, p. 212; HPS, pp. 146-147)

If we are to take Heidegger at his word, not only in this passage but
also in terms of what the tapestry of texts in this period indicate, we discover
that there remains a clearer alignment between fundamental ontology and
Kant. What the discussion of Hegel shows is that the attempt to view tem-
porality as the outermost enclave in which to uncover the meaning of being -
the key to the analysis of transcendence - does not by itself constitute a
complete problematic. Rather, that very attempt leads into a questioning that
must now address the affinity between being and the more linguistically laden
medium for its disclosure, i.e., language as logos, in order that the results of
having reenacted the ecstatic projection of being upon time can be appropri-
ated. This is the insight that Taminiaux seems to overlook in advancing his
thesis about the interconnection between Hegel and fundamental ontology. I
have tried to remedy this oversight by emphasizing how Hegel appeals to
language as the new field for determinateness, and appearing in a way that
does not explicitly presuppose the construction of a horizon via the temporal
schema of imagination in Kant's sense.
We might say that, as much as Hegel begins from the problem of tran-
scendence in his depiction of the self, the complexity of his concerns points
beyond that problematic; indeed, he is just as much owing to (even in the
forgetfulness) a further development of thought still in the offing, of which his
attempt to overcome the flaw of a representational way of thinking testifies
(cf. Schmidt, pp. 140-143). According the Heidegger, Hegel must necessarily
 BEING AND LANGUAGE 179

address the self in its developmental form or as an anticipatory (vorgreifenden)

movement that already has its identity granted from the subsequent stage in
order to sublate the stage in which it finds itself currently (GA, v. 32, p. 203;
HPS, pp. 146-147). But this description of the projective character of self-
consciousness is only a bare indicator of its affinity with finite transcendence.
What is more demonstrative is the way in which knowledge in its anticipatory
mode depends upon reclaiming an affiliation with otherness, as including that
dimension as the catalyst in the engenderment and growth of life. In retro-
spect, Hegel's advance lies in showing how otherness yields the very limits by
which language can achieve its determinateness as logos without becoming en-
cumbered by preset categories or other representational modes.
In the Phenomenology (pp. 313-321) Hegel recognized that the selfs
evolution into higher cultural forms requires language as a vehicle to de-
lineate the numerous variations in the life of spirit and thereby to allow such
diversity to participate in the realization of the absolute. 41 The accommoda-
tion of the "other," in both thought and culture which language allows, brings
philosophy to a level of concreteness never before envisioned until Hegel's
time (cf. Schmidt, pp. 122-123, 182). Insofar as for Hegel the clue to the
appearance of otherness lies in language, language implicitly emerges to yield a
broader context in which the problems of selfhood and being can be raised even
beyond that formally outlined within the problem of transcendence.
Precisely by indicating the need to reveal the logic housed within
fundamental ontology, the appropriation of Hegelian thought points to the
further frontiers where the limitations of Heidegger's initial attempt to
reformulate the question of being first become evident. Thus, the ambiguity in
entering into an exchange with Hegel lies not only in finding some proximity
to the task of fundamental ontology; it also involves seeking in that task the
prospect of its own transmutation and absorption back into a more historically
enriched way of responding to being. The key to recognizing this transition, as
indicated above, entails bringing forward the withdrawn issue of language as
governing the projection of being upon ecstatic temporality. At this stage of
fundamental ontology, language emerges as that tacit element in forming the
horizon for understanding being precisely in its difference from beings.
Language ceases to be a system of signs to be employed by thinking as a mere
tool, and hence confined to a "representationalist" model. Rather, language
emerges as having a vitality and power in its own right that is already pre-
supposed in any inquiry into being. Thus, Heidegger's thought converges with
Hegel's precisely at the juncture where there is a need to develop a relation to
language that does not presuppose conventional linguistic forms.
In this sense, the evolution of the concern for language as the back-
bone of any ontological project.- as first prepared by Hegel - points to a
more originary way of seizing hold of the question of being. We might even go

41. A question arises whether for Hegel the demand for the universality of thought
must finally deny the contingency of cultural developments (cf. Burbidge, pp. 33-43, 231). This
raises a further concern as to a greater difference between the sense of truth that Heidegger
develops in hermeneutics (which transforms some of thc historicist elements of Dilthey) and
the view of truth as system definitive of Hegel's thought. For an analysis of how, in the eyes of
Gadamer, the self-unfolding of spirit may requirc a participation on the hermeneutic level of
individual experience and interpretation, cf. Robert D. Walsh, "When Love of Knowing
Becomes Actual Knowing: Heidcgger and Gadamer on Hegel's Die Sache Selbst," 771e Owl of
Minerva, 17, 2 (Spring 1986): 163-164.
180 THE OWL OF MINER V A

so far as to say that the prospect of reaching this withdrawn origin of ontology
forecasts the difficulty Heidegger himself experienced in making the transi-
tion from "being and time" to "time and being," the never completed part of
his magnum opus. Despite his tie to a metaphysics of presence, Hegel holds
forth the possibility that language can mark the interplay of presence and ab-
sence and thereby preserve the finite dimension of being.42
The question of the relation between language and the question of
being, as it comes to be filtered historically through the labyrinth of Hegelian
thought, sheds new light on the origin and development of fundamental onto-
logy. Only as we acquire the patience to dwell on the subtlety of this problem
of language can we come to see how future thinking remains dependent upon
the flowering of insights prepared by Kant and Hegel.

Tulane University

42. Cf. Martin Heidegger, Beitriige zur Philosophie (vom Ereignis), GA, v. 65, pp. 83-84,
467-469.