wittgenstein and heidegger 301this sense the world of which we can speak ‘happens’ in a way which
constituteshow we can engage with it and speak of it, rather than this
being a two-way process in which our actions can also change both how
the world can be understood and how language is appropriately used.
Aspects of Heidegger’s approach to language inOn the Way to Language
can make the relevance of these issues to our concerns apparent.
Despite all the later Heidegger’s posturing and preciosity, and the
moral and political difficulties involved in approaching his work – he,
after all, unlike Wagner, really was a Nazi – he does address many impor-
tant concerns.On the Way to Languagealready indicates by its title why
this is the case. We are not to think of language as the object of the book,
in the way that it would be for a work in linguistics or the philosophy
of language. Language is not ‘present’, in the way the object of inves-
tigation is for such subjects, because what is at issue is precisely how
the language of the investigation itself relates to what language is: ‘A
speakingabout/above(uber ̈ ) language almost unavoidably makes it into
an object’ (Heidegger 1959 : 147 ). Heidegger’s text can be frustrating
to those who regard the whole philosophical enterprise as based on the
advancing of clear arguments. Its oblique manner and extensive use of
neologisms, which mean that it defies straightforward summary (and
is not readily translatable), can, however, be seen as a response to a
problem discussed above.
Any theoretical account of the meaning of being has, as we saw, to
seek to objectify that which cannot be objectified and which may only
be accessible in terms of a praxis that has to be ‘vollzogen’. Heidegger
talks of ‘having an experience with language’ (ibid.: 159 ), in the sense
of ‘undergoing’ it, rather than seeking ‘knowledge about language’
(ibid.: 161 ). Much of the book is concerned with poetry, thus with
‘these words in these positions’, rather than with language where what
is said can be conveyed by other words in other positions. Heidegger
concentrates, as part of his idea of ‘letting things be’, on the idea of
‘hearingfromlanguage’ (ibid.: 149 ), rather than attempting to impose a
philosophical explanation on language. The concern with hearing and
the avoidance of objectification are easily related to music, as Wittgen-
stein’s suggestions about poetry, music, and gesture make clear, so what
does Heidegger contribute to our topic?
at all. This objection to her rigid distinction between reference and attribution (i.e. one
where the logical distinction is supposed to be the basis of what we do in engaging with
the world) does not affect Lafont’s objections to a rigid conception of language as an a
priori, incorrigible horizon of intelligibility.