240 The Nature of Political Theorybeing’. The latter might be described as a move from metaphysics to ontology. Each
of these distinctions overlaps. First, for Heidegger logic, physics, ethics, and other
disciplinary structures developed in the Greek schools of Plato and Aristotle. They
arose in the form of distinct sciences or disciplines concerning knowledge (epistemes).
With the arrival of universities in Europe they become institutionalized academicized
pursuits, like philosophy. However, Heidegger suggests that prior to the schools of
Plato and European universities, individuals knew no formal ideas of logic, ethics,
metaphysics, and the like, yet we should not imagine that their thinking was either
illogical or unethical. One does not need these particular disciplinary structures to
think.
Thought, which takes place within disciplinary confines, often becomes rigid and
stultified. To teach philosophy (and the like) means to make it into an educational
technique. As Heidegger put it, ‘philosophy becomes a technique (techne) for explain-
ing from highest causes’. He continues that, in this context, ‘one no longer thinks;
one occupies oneself with “philosophy”. In competition with one another, such occu-
pations publicly offer themselves as “isms” ’ (Heidegger 1993: 221). Institutions in
the public realm—presumably autocratic university departments—decide in advance
what is to count as ‘intelligible’. Individuals can be very cultivated and sophisticated
exponents of philosophy, but merely being cultivated, intelligent, or sophisticated is
not enough. In this, what Heidegger ironically calls, ‘dictatorship of the public realm’,
the great issues of humanity become intelligent ‘chatter’.^7 Here Heidegger makes a
subtle dig at the private realm of the individual—presumably directed at Weimar
liberalism. The private is just another product of the public realm. It is an illusion
that one can think freely or autonomously in a private sphere.
Outside these formal structures, thinking still takes place. In fact, for Heidegger, it
is crucial that it does. Thought, within these academic structures, denies its essence.
As Heidegger cryptically puts it, ‘thinking is “the thinking of being” ’ (Heidegger
1993: 220). This introduces the central motif of Heidegger’s thought, that is, there
is something which is addressed in all thinking—uniquely by humans—and that is
Being. Humans are the only beings who have the possibility of an ‘understanding
relation’ to Being. Philosophical thinking in formalized institutional settings keeps
trying to address Being, but affixes it to abstracted names or metaphysical concepts
likeactusorpotentia. Heidegger comments that ‘if man is to find his way once again
into the nearness of Being he must first learn to exist in the nameless. In the same way
he must recognize the seductions of the public realm as well as the impotence of the
private. Before he speaks man must first let himself be claimed by Being again, taking
the risk that under this claim he will seldom have much to say’ (Heidegger 1993: 223).
Not something unfortunately that ever afflicted Heidegger.
This leads to the second distinction—humanism and the inhuman. Philosophers
have endlessly debated about the fundamentals of human nature. Heidegger explicitly
mentions different perspectives: the Roman republican, Christian, and Marxist per-
spectives. The central problem for Heidegger is that these debates involve formalized
conceptual structures. For Heidegger all of these humanisms agree that humanity ‘is
determined with regard to an already established interpretation of nature, history,