Under the Aspect of Time: Heidegger, Wittgenstein and the Place of

the Nothing
(This essay was published in Philosophy Today in the Spring of 2009 Vol. 53,
Number 1)

Under the Aspect of Time

sub specie temporis
Heidegger, Wittgenstein and the Place of the Nothing
James Luchte

But some of the greatest achievements in philosophy could only be compared

with taking up some books which seemed to belong together, and putting them
on different shelves; nothing more being final about their positions than that
they no longer lie side by side. The onlooker who doesnt know the difficulty of
the task might well think in such a case that nothing at all had been achieved.
(Wittgenstein, Blue Book, p. 44-45)
It is often said that there has been relatively little work devoted to the
relationship between Heidegger and Wittgenstein. It has also been argued that
this is due, to a great extent, to the barriers of the Analytic-Continental divide.
Yet, over the last two decades interest in the relationship (or non-relationship)
between the two philosophers has intensified and has been articulated in what
can be provisionally laid out as four distinct streams of interpretation: Analytic,
Pragmatic (both Analytic and Continental), Mystical and Phenomenological.
[1] What is surprising (or, perhaps, not surprising) about the discussion of the
relationship, however, is the relative lack of awareness of each of the streams

to the others, as they trickle blindly, impervious to the others. Indeed, it is not
that there has not been any work on this relationship, but that the work has
remained segregated by a network of blindnesses, barriers or dams. This
network has served to impede any synoptic or perspicuous interpretation of the
relationship.
The purpose of this essay will be to invite these streams to break their banks
and coalesce into a larger river of interpretation and by showing one way this
could be done. The strategy for this convergence will be a reading of
Wittgensteins comments about Heidegger and those that speak as he does
against the background of their respective treatments of temporality, which is
a question which has been explicitly ignored or resisted by the dominant
streams of interpretation (except for the phenomenologist Gier who will be
considered below). In the following pages, I will give a description of the
interpretive streams, pointing out the limitations of each with respect to a
synoptic interpretation of the relationship. I will next lay out what I see as the
proper context, that of Heideggers philosophy, for answering Wittgensteins
comments on the latter, especially his request for a system in which
Heideggers phrases would make sense. I will then lay out this alternative
system, that of a radical phenomenology of ecstatic temporality, which will be
characterised as an innovation in the grammar of time and existence. I will
next turn to Wittgensteins treatment of time in order to see if his perspective
would be compatible with that of Heidegger. On this basis, I will finally attempt
to bring the philosophies of Heidegger and Wittgenstein into the same
interpretive space and let them interact with each other.
I will build upon the place cleared by Gier, but will extend the treatment of the
relationship with a renewed emphasis upon ecstatic temporality which is not
present in his debate with Reeder (nor in the discussions of the other streams).
In this encounter between arguably the most important philosophers of the
twentieth century, we will be invited to raise the question of the meaning of
meaning, of the fluid context of shifting meanings, of rule-following and rulebreaking, especially in relation to our questions regarding time and temporality.
Heidegger & Wittgenstein: Interpretive Streams
The question of a relationship (in which Heidegger could play a serious role) is
resisted by Analytic philosophers, who seem to maintain their own exclusive
construct of the meaning of meaning (Ogden) and have so lambasted
Heidegger that a dialogue would seem quite out of the question or, if they
invited him, he certainly wouldnt come. Duncan Richter (2007), in his recent
article, Did Wittgenstein Disagree With Heidegger? lays out this stream of
interpretation in a detailed focus upon Wittgensteins extant comments on
Heidegger and their interpretation by Analytic philosophers. He briefly alludes
to the pragmatists and the mystics in his opening paragraph, but these

philosophers play no essential role in his discussion, even to the extent that
their inclusion would raise serious questions for his approach and that of the
analytic philosophers whom he treats in his essay.
Wittgensteins comments about Heidegger and those who speak as he does
can be summarised as follows:
1) that he can readily understand what Heidegger means by being and angst.
[2]
2) that underlying Heideggers statement is an image, that of an island slowly
being dissolved amid a sea of nothingness, which should be brought to light
psychoanalytically or therapeutically in order to resolve his questions.[3]
3) that phrases like the nothing noths are an attempt to transgress the limits
of language, but that, if Heidegger would disclose a differing system in which
such a statement would have meaning, that Wittgenstein would be prepared to
go along with it, or in another formulation, acquiesce.[4]
Richter lays out two tendencies in the Analytic stream. On the one hand, there
is Hacker (2003) who simply dismisses any relation between the two
philosophers, contending that Wittgensteins comments are at best ironic. On
the other hand, there is Baker (2004) and Conant (2001) who suggest other
ways to read Wittgensteins comments, but only against the background
of what they regard as Wittgensteins philosophy that Heidegger should be
engaged as a patient, afflicted with confusions, and that he should be helped to
dissolve his problems. What is lacking in these approaches, of course, is an
understanding of the comments in relation to the context of Heideggers
philosophy. Richter acknowledges the necessity of such an understanding, but
in that he never leaves the analytic framework of meaning or sense, he fails to
comprehend the phenomenological context of Heideggers project and the
methodological significance of its innovative form of expression. Richter simply
runs through a series of questions posed by Wittgenstein with respect to the
phrase the nothing noths, interrogating Heidegger with quite ambivalent
results. This interrogation leads to a rather anachronistic discussion of
Heideggers attempt to enact poetic expression (which is the focus of the
mystics). While this would have some bearing on Being and Time, it would
make more sense if this reference to poetic expression took place in the
context of an examination of Heideggers post-turn (Kehre) philosophical work.
What Richter fails to take into account is the methodology of Being and
Time which is a phenomenology of formal indication, and has been outlined by
Gier and also by Kisiel in his indispensable, The Genesis of Heideggers Being
and Time.[5] A discussion of this methodology of formal indication (which is not
readily identifiable with poetry in the manner which Richter uses the term)
would have a direct bearing upon the innovations of grammar discussed by

Wittgenstein in his Blue and Brown Books. But, strangely, Richter does not
mention these texts or other phenomenological texts of the period.
Moreover, in light of the Blue and Brown Books, it would seem that this exact
string of questions would not in the end be necessary, as Wittgenstein is simply
seeking a disclosure of the use or meaning of Heideggers innovation in
grammar.[6] Contrary to Richter, it is not as if Heidegger had not already laid
the basis for answering Wittgensteins questions in Being and Time (eg. BT, II.2,
331, 285 on existential nullity, transcendence and freedom) and elsewhere,
such as in his twentieth anniversary lecture on the Inaugural Address,
Existence and Being, in which he laments that the Nothing is our best word
as yet for an indication of transcendence.[7] It is Richters own refusal to
acknowledge the clear evidence of Heideggers work that allows him to
postpone the question of a relationship with Wittgenstein. It is as if he has just
thrown up his hands and said, We just do not know.
The second stream is that of the pragmatists, a rather motley city which is
composed of both Analytic and Continental philosophers, such as Haugeland
(1982), Dreyfus (1991), Rorty (1991), Esfeld (2001), Taylor (1995), and Guignon
(1990). The pragmatists have responded to the first of Wittgensteins
comments and have set forth an interpretation which outlines a distinctly
positive relationship between the two philosophers. Yet, they have confined the
question of the relationship within the strict limits of their focus upon the
convergence between Wittgenstein and Heidegger in terms of their pragmatic
criteria of meaning as use. This stream explicitly opposes the early mysticism
of Wittgenstein, and the later mysticism of Heidegger as well as the ecstatic
temporality in Division Two of Being and Time. They have no commitment,
moreover, to the phenomenological project per se, and even less so to
Heideggers philosophy.
The pragmatists seek to disclose the affinities between Division One of Being
and
Time and
the Philosophical
Investigations in
their
respective pragmatic descriptions of knowledge situated in practise, forms
of life, either in the nexus of involvements in Heideggers zuhanden, or,
as meaning as use in Wittgensteins metaphor of the language game which
explicitly develops the theme of a radical hermeneutics rooted in practise. In
this regard alone, it is clear that there is a marked affinity between the
philosophies of Wittgenstein and Heidegger. Yet, this discussion remains quite
on the surface and textually limited. For instance, such a question as What are
the implications of a relationship of Wittgenstein to Division Two of Being
and Time?, has been dismissed by this stream as incompatible with a criteria
of rule following. Yet, without an exploration of this question there would be no
opening into the question of the temporality of language games and forms of
life. Indeed, according to Rortys over-brief schema, in his Heidegger,
Wittgenstein, and the Reification of Language, it is not even a possibility for

ecstatic temporality to be linked to the early or later Wittgenstein, which is

clearly untenable on its face. It may be useful in such a situation that we forget
Rortys picture and bring Wittgensteins pragmatism into the horizons of
ecstatic temporality so as to unlock the temporal root of his philosophy.
The third stream is that of the mystics, which, represented in the work of
Cooper (1997) and Hatab and Brenner (1983) (and negatively alluded to by
Rorty) concerns the shared appreciation by Wittgenstein and Heidegger of the
mystical, of the wonder in the face of existence, expressed in such questions as
Why is there something, rather than nothing? The mystics, such as Cooper,
have challenged the interpretation of Wittgensteins first comment by the
pragmatists and have offered a re-interpretation of the relationship that sets
forth an illuminating juxtaposition of Heideggers later philosophy and what
they see as an enduring interest on the part of Wittgenstein in the mystical, in
his early and later works. This emphasis may be read as a sympathetic
challenge to and deepening of the pragmatic position with an openness to
other aspects of Wittgenstein and Heideggers thought. What is excluded by
the mystics, however, and marks a point of agreement with the pragmatists, is
Division Two of Being and Time and its phenomenology of ecstatic temporality
an exclusion reflected, I believe, in their discussion of merely
Wittgensteins first comment.
This rejection of ecstatic temporality however suppresses an understanding of
the radically temporal horizons of the question of Being (historicality) and the
self-disclosure of being from the perspective of finite existence. It is an
openness to the temporality of existence, for Heidegger, even in his later
works, which is pre-requisite to a comportment of humility or solicitude.
Heidegger indicates the relationship between wonder and finite existence in his
methodology of formal indication which he describes as a dedicated
submission to the phenomena (Kisiel). In this light, not only are the pragmatic
forms of life rooted in ecstatic temporality, but so is any attempt to express
our wonder in the face of existence. Indeed, it could be argued that Being and
Time (as with the Wittgenstein of the Blue and Brown Books) is an answer to
the last sentence of the Tractatus, in which the contours of existence are
indicated and shown amidst a phenomenology which expresses itself through
an innovatory indexical grammar. While this stream is yet another fruitful
pathway of research, I will argue that its neglect (and mis-representation) of
the phenomenology of ecstatic temporality (as a hubristic or patriotic
individuality) leaves it in a state of incompletion, closed off from other
significant questions, such as the conditions for individuation, historical change
and the existential meaning of spatiality.
The fourth stream concerns a quite vibrant debate concerning the relationship
between Wittgenstein and phenomenology (and to Heidegger) and is
represented in Wittgenstein and Phenomenology: A Comparative Study of the

Later Wittgenstein, Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty by Nicholas Gier

(1991).[8] Gier
lays
out
a
provisional
context,
that
of descriptive phenomenology, as the basis for a discussion of the relationship.
This approach, ignored by the other streams of research, perhaps intimates a
different question as it lays out the possibility of a deeper affinity between
Heidegger and Wittgenstein. This approach is the least restrictive as to the
limits of questioning and textual consideration, but does indicate a provisional
context of comparison in Heideggers 1920s radical phenomenology and in
Wittgensteins late 1920s disavowal of his earlier logical conception of reality
and language in his so-called middle and later periods (1929-1951), in a period
in which he describes his approach to philosophy as that of phenomenological
analysis.
That which is significant about this stream is that it is longstanding and has
taken place far outside the purview (and the notice) of the other streams of
interpretation. Gier, for instance, is primarily addressing the negative
conclusions of the Husserlian phenomenologist Reeder (1989) in his article,
Wittgenstein Never Was a Phenomenologist, who we could suggest may have
been some use to Hacker (or Richter) if either had ever bothered to look. Gier
lays out the case for Wittgenstein as phenomenologist in the work of the
Japanese philosopher Watara Kuroda (1978) in his Phenomenology and
Grammar: A Consideration of the Relation between Husserls Logical
Investigations and Wittgensteins Later Philosophy, where it is proposed that
Wittgenstein be read against the backdrop of Husserls Logical Investigations.
Gier takes this, and other insights, to Reeder, who had argued that
Wittgenstein was an anthropologist and relativist, to argue that, while not an
orthodox Husserlian, it is very clear that he could very well be a
phenomenologist in a different sense, as is the case with Merleau-Ponty and
Heidegger. While this stream of research serves to establish the potential
fruitfulness of the question of Wittgenstein and phenomenology, it needs to be
extended, and should be seen as a signpost for further research. What this
strand needs is to deepen the exploration with a consideration of Heideggers
phenomenology of ecstatic or original temporality. I will return to this question
below.
On Behalf of Heidegger: The Context of the Discussion
That which is necessary is a consideration of Wittgensteins comments with a
sensitivity to the context of emergence amid the Heideggerian topos (another,
existential, way of reading Frege). There is already a basis of conversation, as
pointed out by Gier, in the wake of Wittgensteins most explicit statements
upon phenomenology in his so-called middle period, as published in
the Philosophical Remarks. Monk has dismissed the relevance of this text for
our purposes as, he claims, its method of phenomenological analysis
disappears as merely a dead-end or transitionary philosophy. Yet, it could be

argued that while Wittgenstein may have given up the principle of verification,
he did not give up phenomenology, especially in the sense articulated by Gier.
Indeed, it could be argued that the most evident trace of phenomenology is in
his discussions of seeing aspects and in changing aspects, which riddle his later
works and is developed by Cavell and Mulhull. Indeed, to divide Wittgenstein
into such sharply drawn periods is unhelpful, as it hides from our view the
genealogical traces of his articulations and revisions, and their possible relation
with Heidegger.
It would seem that, for Wittgenstein, the question of Heideggers phrases,
would not be one regarding material propositions, but of grammatical
propositions introduced into our grammar of lived existence, in this case, the
Nothing noths. Wittgenstein is not seeking the entity, or disavowing the
existence thereof, as Carnap had done in his parody of Heidegger, but is
seeking the rule of the nothing, or, of the nothing noths. Indeed, Carnap had
explicitly rejected grammatical meaning in the context of his criticism of
Heidegger, attempting to formulate an ideal language, a purified language that
would result from his method of logical analysis. However, things were much
more complicated for Wittgenstein, for as Monk pointed out, the distinction
between grammatical and material propositions was itself fluid, being
determined by use and custom. In this way, we could suggest that Wittgenstein
is not seeking a system of propositions in any logical positivist sense. Instead,
he is seeking the grammatical use of the phrase in some language game and
form of life. Of course, such a determination of usefulness would itself be
subject to custom and to differing terrains of language use and other practises.
It is against this background that I could intervene on behalf of Heidegger (or at
least sit in for him in this psychoanalytic dialogue) so as to not only lay out the
system of propositions or language game that Heidegger inhabits, but also to
show the use of such a rule of the nothing. Of course, I probably neednt say
that this is not use in any utilitarian sense, but use in the sense of disclosing
the grammar of lived existence in terms of temporality (an insight that
incidentally points not only to Heideggers indication of significance
(Bedeutsamkeit) in Being and Time, but also to the post-Kehre description of
language as the house of Being). For if Wittgenstein can be oriented into this
language game and made to see its use, it may be the case that he could give
up his suggestions that not only is Heidegger fixated upon a certain image,
that of an island surrounded by an infinite sea of nothingness, but also that his
philosophy may be an idle wheel in the works. Indeed, even if we were willing
to remain upon this merely therapeutic consideration of Heidegger, this is quite
arguably a poor image to underlie Heideggers philosophy, which on the
contrary emphasises standing out, ecstasies, transcendence. A better image
would be that of Nietzsches wanderer upon an unbounded sea, which became
for Heidegger, to hold oneself out into the nothing. For, it may have become
clear to Wittgenstein that his philosophy is of use precisely in its disclosure of

the conditions of historical change, of system and breach, of the null events
that not only challenge custom, but also establish custom and convention in
the first place.[9]
It is not clear if Wittgenstein had ever read Sein und Zeit,[10] or any of
Heideggers works for that matter.[11] However, he did, as I have suggested,
come to some of his gnomic phrases completely out of context in his
discussions with selected members of the Vienna Circle, especially Carnap. The
latter felt that a few propositions was context enough, or at best several
sentences, but certainly not the essay as a whole or in relation to the project of
which it is an articulation. It seems clear however that Wittgenstein has
developed a broad and deep sense of context, as the system of rules or
language game, which allows us to understand the meaning of words, and also
the proviso that these rules are based upon custom, which as historical, is itself
in a state of fluidity (the door is already open). Whether Wittgenstein
adequately deals with what Heideggers designates as an original, ecstatic
temporality in his philosophy, or, if he can accommodate the insights of
Heidegger not to mention his system of propositions or language game
entitled the analytic of Dasein will be the focus of the rest of this essay.[12]
If they were to reply by introducing a new system, then I have to acquiesce[13]
A different system system of propositions, or language game in which
phrases such as the nothing noths can be disclosed to have meaning, use
this is what is requested by Wittgenstein, and a request that goes well beyond
the tentativeness of Baker and Conant. It is certainly clear that in 1929 and for
a few years after Wittgenstein had been describing his work in terms of
phenomenological analysis. It is plausible, as Gier has pointed out, that this
phenomenological aspect of his philosophy remained after he had given up the
verification principle. Of course, this is not Husserlian or Heideggerian
phenomenology, but it certainly maintains a family resemblance to these
philosophical approaches. In this way, Schlick and Waismann were perhaps not
aware of the seriousness to which Wittgenstein would place his acquiescence
to the rule of the nothing if such a system of propositions, language game, or
grammar were expressed.
One of the cardinal rules which Frege laid down for the determination of the
meaning of a word or term was the context of its expression, which for him,
fundamentally, was located in the logical proposition. Carnap had followed that
rule polemically in his analysis of Heideggers What is Metaphysics? by cutting
and pasting various sentences and phrases, to do with the nothing, negation
and not, into a sample, a contextualisation that turned out in the end to be a
mockery with no evident interest in their indigenous meaning. Of course,
Heideggers phrases would be nonsense de facto as they were not susceptible
to Carnaps criterion of application (or Freges logicism) indeed, it would

readily be admitted by Heidegger that his were not theoretical or logical

statements at all, but phenomenological indications of existence, which even
for the early Wittgenstein may lay in the place of the mystical, of showing, (and
which is after all the more important part of philosophy). At the time of
Carnaps essay, however, Wittgenstein had already sensed the fluidity and
multiplicities of sense and nonsense, and had already left the logicist universe
of Frege, Russell and the Vienna Circle. In his essay, Carnap plays the usual
game of not knowing whatever Heidegger could mean, playing deaf, dumb, and
blind, as it were, when in fact, Sein und Zeit conspicuously sets there ready to
hand to be used to disclose the proper context of emergence for
such strange sentences. Carnap simply ignores this context of emergence, and
therefore fails to give us a perspicuous representation of Heideggers possible
meaning. Carnap can only say that these phrases have no meaning
for himself (and his Circle), and when he tries to assert the limit to
meaningfulness, he is simply imposing his own arbitrary rule upon the field of
knowledge. Yet, by doing so, as Wittgenstein (and Popper) have shown, he
transgressed the limits of meaning himself, as his own principle of operation,
that of verification, cannot be verified, nor can his limit have any meaning, for
as the saying goes, once one knows a limit, then one knows the other side of
the limit, the beyond.
We will thus turn to Heideggers language game, a different simile, a different
use which innovates upon the grammar of existence: the Being and
Time project which is a phenomenology of formal indication of existence. The
pragmatists and the mystics have already outlined the remarkable similarities
between the two philosophers with respect to their emphasis upon embedded
practise and upon their apprehension of wonder, respectively. But, what each
of these streams has failed to grasp is that other side of Heideggers radical
phenomenology, that of ecstatic temporality, a complex phenomenon which
serves as the very topos of the thrown projection of being-in-the-world (Cf.
Section 65-66 of Being and Time, Temporality as the Ontological Meaning of
Care and Daseins Temporality and the Tasks Arising Therefrom of Repeating
the Existential Analytic in a more Primordial Manner, respectively). This other
side is clearly articulated in the second Division of Being and Time (and in his
many lectures of the period such as Basics Problems of Phenomenology, The
Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, and the Phenomenological Interpretation of
Kants Critique of Pure Reason). Indeed, traces and marks of ecstatic
temporality are readily apparent in the first Division, and one begins to see the
work as written in a circle, in which the beginning presupposes the end. We can
readily see, with the pragmatists, the rule-following of being-in-the-world with
its significance and meaningfulness. But, the question of the occasion for the
thematisation of the radical temporality of these forms of life is not asked.
Indeed, this constitutes a significant blindness with respect to this aspect of
Heideggers explanation of theoretical knowledge, the vorhanden. It is in

the breakdown of rules, systems, or in rule-breaking that the theoretical

perspective emerges. Amidst the terrain of thrown projection, we come to
realise that it is not merely practise, but refusal, breakdown, collapse which is
constitutive of the phenomenon of existence. This break is echoed in the
indication of anxiety as an encounter with the Nothing, of thrownness, of the
falling away of entities, of things, in the intimation of the possibility of
impossibility. After all, we are the beings for whom Being is an issue, for we,
each of us, knows the inexorable necessity of our demise, of our mortality amid
a horizon of finitude. Temporality, in this more originary sense, precedes
theoretical speculations of the time stream in its one dimensional, linear and
bloodless fashion.
It is not the clock on the wall, the sun-dial or the setting and rising of the sun,
but the temporality of existence in its phenomenological self-disclosure,
interpretation and expression. Anxiety is not merely a psychological
phenomenon or, for Heidegger, is not one at all, but a conspicuous irruption
of the originary meaning of existence into the restricted economy (Bataille) of
familiar inconspicuousness. Instead of seeking a sedative or a drink, Heidegger
counsels us not to flee anxiety but to undergo what Hoff has described, in a
different context, as a thinking practise[14] of going all the way to the end. In
going all the way, one holds oneself out into the Nothing, things having fallen
away, in a disclosure of the radical temporality of ones own existence, of ones
ownmost possibility. Heidegger describes a being-called amidst this ordeal of
decision, and contends that it is a call from the eigentlich self to itself, as it is
lost in das man, declaring that it is thrown, radically temporal (guilty in
Anaximanders sense), and thus, as it is held out into the nothing, it must
apprehend its own temporal truth, meaning, and freedom. Heidegger states,
We are asking about the ontological meaning of the dying of the person who
dies, as a possibility of being which belongs to his being.[15]
In choosing the eigentlich self in its nullity, in resolving for this self and the
aspects of this self amid ones own anticipation of death, one attests to certain
binding commitments (Bindung)[16], of the singular meaning of the self amidst
the maelstrom of Care, a resolution which projects a world.[17] And, this is
what Heidegger means by world, a thrown projection of binding commitments
which has its root in ecstatic temporality and the events of world-projection. We
can see traces of this root most readily in Heideggers indication of existential
spatiality, as irretrievably rooted in the finite self as being in the world. Yet,
his existentials are not merely arbitrary as they themselves arose amidst the
projection of world, in its meaning and its morphology. In this way, the various
conventional names Heidegger chose, such as Sorge or Schuld could be seen
to contain the historicity of such names as they themselves were originally
projected amid an anticipatory resolution, of an individuation, or better, a
singularisation a creative rule-breaking, transgression of the rule of the

conventional (the prevailing restricted economy) in an expression of an

innovation in the grammar of existence. Heidegger said in his lectures that the
philosophy of old can no longer speak to our generation, but can be made to
speak anew through a retrieval of the root temporal event of these artefacts.
But, this can only occur through ones own anticipatory resolution amidst the
eruption of anxiety, an encounter with the Nothing. This background is quite
significant and it is disturbing that it is ignored as it seems to provide an
important description of the temporality of being-in-the-world and of the
possibility of historical change. This background describes the pre-theoretical
awakening to ones own finitude, of the resolution of a world which abides the
temporality of the questioner and his transcending existence. Such a
phenomenology would be one, with Reiner Schrmann, of systems and breaks,
a phenomenology of a makeshift world, which, contrary to William Morris (who
used the term as one of abuse against modern commercialism), is our ownmost possibility and facticity (not, of course, as shallow commercialism, but as
temporal, factical existence). It is upon this topos that we project our binding
commitments (and the morphology of lived existence), which, as rooted in
original temporality, are themselves makeshift, subject to revision, with their
own fluidity, which, much like anxiety, comes with no invitation, and often
against our will.
Wittgenstein, Time and Temporality: Blue and Brown Books
It is often repeated that Wittgenstein had no time for history and indeed
preferred topographical and engineering metaphors. Yet, from the perspective
that we are developing, we must be clear as to what Wittgenstein has said
about time, and more specifically, be aware of anything that may be relevant
to the theme of an original, ecstatic temporality (and thus, historicity) of lived
existence. He has said that he can readily understand what being and anxiety
mean, and would acquiesce if he were given a system (language game) to
disclose the meaning of the Nothing. He has also commended those who speak
nonsense, which is a link to the mystical of the Tractatus, and perhaps to
Heideggers event of worlding, a phenomenology of showing, with a differing,
innovative (though not private) language which indicates, points out the
phenomena and their self-disclosed metamorphoses. The question is whether
Wittgenstein is aware of such an original temporality (and of its existential
spatiality), or indeed, of its relevance to the phrases of Heidegger upon which
he comments. It may well be possible that Heideggers insights into ecstatic
temporality and historicity would allow a deeper understanding of the
grammar of time.
Wittgensteins most explicit treatments of time are located in
the Blue and Brown Books. In the former, his first reference to time intimates it
status as a queer thing,[18] and it is specifically the use of the substantive
time that mystifies us.[19] Wittgenstein states that time has been a

problem for us, symptomatised by our asking the question, What is time? Yet,
he suggests that there is a flaw with the form of the question: What is? as it
forces us to seek a substance for the substantive. Time is yet another example
of the mystery of this paradox, as with mental processes, thought, or any
other name, for that matter. We become puzzled about time when we begin to
look more closely at its grammar, which seems to abide contradictions and
paradox. Wittgenstein (as did Heidegger)[20] gives Augustine as an example of
the expression of this paradox. He paraphrases Augustine:
How is it possible that one should measure time? For the past cannot be
measured, as it is gone by; and the future cant be measured because it has
not yet come. And the present cant be measured for it has no extension.
(Blue Book, p. 26)
The paradox arises from our captivation to a way of expression and questioning
that has become so customary that any other possible modality of expression
has been forgotten (as when we forget the meaning of a word). In the case of
Augustine, he suggests the difficulty lies in the confusion of two senses of the
phrase to measure. Augustine seems to be referring to our measuring of
length, and thus to be confusing two different structures in language with
respect to the grammar of measurement. Wittgenstein suggests that Augustine
deploys a sense of measurement-qua-length which is not appropriate to the
meaning of measure as it pertains specifically to time. For Wittgenstein, the
question is one of the rules of any particular grammar, and our captivation to
any one rule, mistaking it for the only rule, the only grammar. Our puzzlement
arises when we discover paradoxes amid our consistent application of a rule.
What we forget is that a name or a phrase may perhaps be following a different
rule, that there are many rules amid a network of language in its use. In our
captivation to a particular picture (PI, 115), we fail to look close enough to see
the differences and the innovative possibilities. It is our superficiality and
subservience which engenders the paradox. For Wittgenstein, Augustine is
merely playing a game in the context of a form of expression which has
excluded other grammars of time.[21]
Wittgenstein claims that this paradoxical situation is a cage that results from
the confinement within a single rule, in this case that of substance. On the
contrary, language has extensive malleability, and could accommodate other
grammars if one so chooses to set up a differing rule. He writes with respect to
a new grammar that may at first be unfamiliar, and suspected of having
something wrong with it: There is nothing wrong about it, as it is just a new
terminology and can at any time be retranslated into ordinary
language[22] (consider Heideggers retranslation of the Nothing into
transcendence). And: We shall also try to construct new notations, in order to
break the spell of those which we are accustomed to.[23]

Within the captivation to the conventional rule, those things of which we speak
seem to haunt us as shadows, as lurking troubles for a philosophy held captive
to the picture of substances, mental processes (in distinction from physical
processes), and its confusion of substance for substantives, for the inference of
an object from some effect (the search for a type, or a doubling as in
Nietzsches example of lightning strikes, a seduction to a particular grammar).
But, philosophy should not say what it does not know, and we do not know the
shadows, but feel them as they haunt our language. It is only our captivation
which allows such problems to endure, as innovations in our grammar are
possible in which we could, for instance, speak of time as temporality (and not
something that needs to be measured). In reference to an innovation of
grammar (and here we can use Heideggers the Nothing noths as a somewhat
more complicated example), Wittgenstein writes: It combines well-know words
but combines them in a way we dont yet understand. The grammar of this
phrase has yet to be explained to us.[24] Indeed, it could be said that the
grammar of time must allow that measuring time is not always necessary, that
it may have differing senses, and be expressed in a differing language game,
one that we may also find useful. This particular discussion ends with a
reference to the attempt to create an ideal language (presumably by Russell
and the Vienna Circle). Indeed, this was merely another attempt to assert the
univocity of a particular rule. But, the irony for Wittgenstein is that this attempt
to create a different language has in fact set a precedent for what he insists
must be the deliberate invention of new uses of words (as we can clearly see
in the case of Heidegger and Derrida).
In the Brown Book, which follows the Blue Book in composition, Wittgenstein
thematises time in the context of his broader discussion of language, rulelearning, and rule-following. Time, he proposes, becomes relevant for the tribe
in the department of its language which concerns past and future, or, as he
suggests, in the narration of past events and the expression of
possibility.[25] He begins with the former. Following from his discussion of rule
learning and following, he gives the example of asking a child to recount
objects that he had had, but now have been taken away from him. It is a
question of whether the child can learn the rule of narration of past events, and
as Wittgenstein says repeatedly with respect to rule-systems (such as with a
mathematical operation) in the Philosophical Investigations, go on. Another
example is that of a correlation of the positions of the sun with the events of
the day, and once again, a prompting of the child to complete a narrative
initiated by the teacher. A third example, or innovation of the grammar of time,
would be the introduction of a clock to perform that role previously played by
the sun. Wittgenstein claims that this laying out of life pictures in a specific
order entails, at this stage in the exploration of the grammar, the notions of
before and after, but not that of measurement there is thus a stark array
of differences in the grammar of time already at this simple level: the datability

or real milestones of time (such as the human heart, which is the real clock
behind all the other clocks)[26], the before and after, and the means by which
we measure time in the sun-dial or clock. Yet, we must be vigilant not to
repeat the fallacy of leaping from substantive to substance, as there is not a
material time to be measured, but the use of time in differing senses,
correlated and inter-related in the grammar of time.
Having indicated the place of the grammar of past and future, Wittgenstein
turns to the now. Into his primitive language game of the builders, he
introduces the concept of time in the practical form of the clock. With this
facility, it is now possible to not only use the term now, but we can also
specify the before and after in terms of measurement, such as in five minutes
and twenty minutes ago although we need not speak of the past and future
in terms of measurement, as we could imagine a situation of the future as
expectation or the past as recollection. It is in this context that he returns to
the paradox in Augustines form of expression, although not mentioning him by
name. He says that in the examination of the primitive language game nothing
queer or mysterious was apparent, as expressed in the question, Where does
the present go when it becomes past, and where is the past?[27] The problem,
or better, the apparent paradox of this expression of time, is that we have been
captivated by a particular picture of time, as for instance, the flow of time. We
then apply this metaphor consistently to every instance of temporal
expression, despite the fact that this image may not, as we have suggested, be
appropriate to some other rule for the expression of time. Wittgenstein claims
that we have become obsessed with a symbolism which irresistibly drags us
on.[28] Indeed, this obsession results from a basic confusion in our forms of
expression, as for instance, of the meaning of the now. He states that the
now, as with before and after, is not a specification of time, as for instance, in
a measured point of time, say 9:01AM. But, we confuse these two forms of
expression and even turn them into synonyms. What is necessary in order to
understand the meaning of the now is to consider its use in the language game
as a whole, in the grammar of time. Another example is today which he says
is not a date, nor, in its use, like a date. What is necessary is to be clear about
the myriad possibilities and differences in linguistic usage in the context of the
overall grammar of time. We could suggest, as will become clear in the next
section, that the degeneration of the perspective of the whole language game
to that of the particular confused usages, bears a close family resemblance to
that distinction in Heidegger between ecstatic or original temporality and the
fallenness of generic and linear time of a succession of nows. It will thus be
possible to bring Wittgenstein and Heidegger into conversation about the
character of this whole language game.[29]
The thrust of Wittgensteins deconstruction of Augustinian time is made
apparent in his consideration of the future. If we were operating in the context
of now time, closed in upon ourselves solipsistically, and were seeking the

substance for the substantive future, we would once again encounter the
paradox. However, once we understand that there are many ways of
conceiving futurity, as with the example after, in twenty minutes, or as
expectation or anticipation, we suddenly are no long captivated by
the tremendens mysterium of time (in the Augustinian sense). The problem of
course is the attempt to find a substance for a substantive, of seeing language
as merely a collocation of material propositions. Yet, we understand quite
clearly that we cannot physically measure an object that is not there, but as
with his earlier discussion, we comprehend that there are differing ways and
contexts for the expression of differing senses of time and existence. It could
be objected that there still remains an asymmetry between past and future,
one which would seem to nullify any reference to a proposition about the
future. Yet, once again, Wittgenstein is speaking not of material (or, to some
extent against them), but, of grammatical propositions in which we express
specific aspects of existence according to the rules of a language which is
seeking to express what perhaps is uncommon (which is a very apt expression
of Heideggers distinction between original and common time). Yet, once we
understand the grammatical topos for our expression of time (and not the
search for a substance) and even if the concept of time remains linear as a
sequence of nows, it is quite simple to exhibit forms of expression about the
future which we use and readily understand (although to remain with generic
time would be to miss much of what is the case). He gives the examples of
propositions of probability, conjecture, possibility, of the can in the sense of
the ability to go on, and of the projection of a model, such as the mind,
which, as a complex rule, seeks to anticipate certain features of existence. In
the context of his novel perspective upon the whole of language, and his
emphasis upon the grammar of use, Wittgenstein states that these myriad
forms of expression with regard to the future form a network of family
resemblances in the expression of possibility.
Heidegger says very similar things about time, as I have indicated, and in
terms of his notion of an ontological difference, shows a marked similarity with
Wittgensteins articulation of grammatical differences (but not, I think, a
grammatical difference). Heidegger criticises a conception of time which
remains anchored in the now (even the nunc stans which he calls derivative of
the ordinary conception of time). He writes: The now is not pregnant with the
not-yet-now, but the Present arises from the future in the primordial
ecstatical unity of the temporalising of temporality. (BT, 427, p. 479)[30] The
source of the paradox for Heidegger is the removal of the question of time from
its proper context which is that of a self-interpretation and expression of
Dasein. It is not a substance that he seeks indeed, he seeks a no-thing,
Nothing. Yet, in order to understand what he means by this, we should look to
the quote that he chose from Augustine: Hence it seemed to me that time is
nothing else than an extendedness; but of what sort of thing it is an

extendedness, I do not know; and it would be surprising if it were not an

extendedness of the soul itself (Being and Time, 427, n. vx, p. 499) In
his Inaugural Address, he did finally let us in from the cold when he said that a
simile for his Nothing would be that of transcendence, which is still a dangerous
word. This term, as with its pre-philosophical sign, the soul, is an index that
alludes to the being of Dasein as transcending amidst the projections of
ecstatic temporality. His radical phenomenology is seeking to disclose this
phenomenon, since, though things may be as they are, it is not always the case
that they are there for our circumspection and understanding especially if
we have been captivated by a particular picture. His notion of truth as a-lethea
may have seemed a queer atavism (and even though Heideggers existentials,
each having its historical credentials as self-interpretations of temporal Dasein,
eg. Care), Wittgenstein could regard Heideggers work as an innovation in the
grammar of time which should be assessed on its own merits and not as a
symptom of confusion. It would be quite out of character for him to react to
Heidegger as did Carnap.
Heidegger, Wittgenstein and the Rule of the Nothing
Perhaps it would serve to make Heidegger more clear to Wittgenstein if he
stated that his work is a phenomenology of existence under the rule of the
Nothing, with anxiety or the breach being the sign and occasion for a change of
aspects. Heidegger not only sees existence under the aspect of time, as the
radical temporality of being-in-the-world, disclosed through anxiety, he also
understands a change-back of aspects in his indication of the fallenness of
being-in-the-world. It is language which is the place of the Nothing, sub specie
temporis, but the language which is the place of the Nothing is not that of logic
or propositions of theoretical philosophy. It is rather the self-expression of
Dasein which has its own singular way of being and its own grammar.[31]
Heideggers description of existence as that of thrown projection, Care, the
radical individuation of anxiety, could be made clear to Wittgenstein with
respect to his own description of our existence in terms of an irruption of
shifting aspects which compels us to shift our perspective and to innovate in
our grammar of existence. The system that Wittgenstein wishes to see in
relation to the innovation of the nothing noths is played out in the language
game of Heideggers 1920s phenomenology. Moreover, it is upon this
new topos that not only can one discern the morphology and events of rupture
of temporal flux, of historical change, but also the question of ones relation to
those who have come before, to the tradition of philosophy.
We all know Wittgensteins purported views on this subject (although he read
more than he ever let on). Heideggers method was to attempt to retrieve the
original impetus of the philosophy in question through a radical recontextualisation in its deeper sources in temporality. Heidegger would shift the

aspects by tracing a more originary root for the philosophical artifice. The
tracing is the deconstruction of a historical philosophy to not only set free its
original questioning, but also to say the unsaid, to speak to the new generation
of listeners. That which Heidegger can offer to Wittgenstein is the possibility of
seeing under the aspect of the Nothing, as the question of the historicity of
existence, and that such seeing will have its use, and perhaps, will help to
clarify certain unresolved questions in Wittgensteins work, such as the relation
between rule and custom. Moreover, such a thematisation of temporality would
offer a deeper understanding of his own engagement with the history of
philosophy and would allow an interpretation that would better integrate his
own negatively felt philosophical preoccupation with his all-too-human
existence (his Sorge), and to see his own therapeutic practise of philosophy
under a differing aspect for instance, in the context of the anticipatory
resolution of Dasein and in its thrown projection of its world. In this way,
anxiety would be seen under the differing aspect of a temporal horizon, such as
would show the relation of his factical ground of anxiety to the inexorable
morphology of primordial temporality, and of the necessity of going all the way
to the end.
Epilogue: Goethes The Metamorphosis of Plants
We can give some interest to those like Baker and Conant who wish to consider
the possibility of a therapeutic relationship between Wittgenstein and
Heidegger (who detested psychoanalysis). Yet, this would be an application of
Wittgensteinian analysis to a supposed Heidegger. Such a procedure would do
nothing to bring to light any intrinsic relationship between their respective
philosophies. Aspects of a relationship have been sketched, each in its lonely
way, by the phenomenologists, mystics and the pragmatists. And, the family
resemblances between the philosophers is quite appropriate in that both had a
similar phenomenological (though not in Husserls sense) approach to
philosophy. This similarity in approach could be described in their mutual
admiration for Goethes poem, The Metamorphosis of Plants. It is with this
descriptive, though intuitive, phenomenology of plant development that we can
ascertain the contours of the phenomenologies of Heidegger and Wittgenstein,
and attempt to allow the living phenomenon to express itself, and to give the
occasion for a change in aspect. Such a perspective concerns innovations in
the grammar of existence expressed amid the intimacy of life.
As a provisional conclusion, and this essay merely points to a horizon of
possible research, we could imagine an encounter between Wittgenstein and
Heidegger, which takes place in the context of their shared appreciation of
Goethes poem. Standing in front of a plant, Wittgenstein muses upon the
delicacy of expression in the poem and of its allusion to the changes of aspect
in the metamorphosis of the plant. Heidegger quietly admires the flower, but
seems to harbour a malady. He takes Wittgensteins arm and whispers, But the

plant dies, it is dead. The metamorphosis is merely an intimation of the deeper

abyss of temporality, of existence lived under, as you might say, the aspect of
time. Wittgenstein became very quiet, and later that night, alone in his room,
he thought about the death of the plant and felt guilt that he had not thought
about that before its actual death. The death of the plant goes beyond the
poem, the saying, and displays a topography of changing aspects amidst the
wider streams of life. From this perspective, he could fathom, from the other
side as it were, the limits of his own analysis with respect to temporality. With
Heideggers reply of a new system, he could then understand the use of the
infamous phrases, and traverse the topos of radical finitude, of thrownness,
and from out of this horizon of historicity, he could divine the fluid relationship
between rule and custom, and understand that the root of the myriad
differences of life is the in-difference of these temporal projections, which have
been unworlded (theoretically) from the stream of life. And, with this insight,
Wittgenstein would have been given his answer and would thus have no reason
not to acquiesce.[32]
As an addendem for this meditation, I would like to close with a saying (1966)
of Heidegger on Wittgenstein,
Wittgenstein says the following. The difficulty in which thinking stands
compares with a man in a room, from which he wants to get out. At first, he
attempts to get out through the window, but it is too high for him. Then he
attempts to get out through the chimney, which is too narrow for him. If he
simply turned around, he would see that the door was open all along.
We ourselves are permanently set in motion and caught in the hermeneutical
circle.[i]

[i] Heidegger, M. and Fink, E. (1993) Heraclitus Seminar, trans. by Charles H.

Seibert, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, p. 17.
References and Further Reading
Baker, G. P. (2004) Wittgensteins Method and Psychoanalysis in K.J. Morris
(ed.) Wittgensteins Method: Neglected Aspects: Essays on Wittgenstein,
Oxford: Blackwell.
Conant, J. (2001) Two Conceptions of Die berwindung der Metaphysik: Carnap
and the early Wittgenstein, in T. McCarthy and S.C. Stidd (eds.) Wittgenstein in
America, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cooper, D. E. (1997) Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Humility, Philosophy 72,
105-123.

Elsfeld, M. (2001) What can Heideggers Being and Time tell todays Analytic
Philosophy, Philosophical Explorations, 4, pp. 46-62.
Friedman, M. A Parting of the Ways: Carnap, Cassirer, and Heidegger, Chicago:
Open Court.
Gier, N. (1981) Wittgenstein and Phenomenology, Albany: State University of
New York Press.
________. (1990) Wittgenstein and Phenomenology Revisited, Philosophy
Today 34:4, pp. 273-288.
________. (1991) Never Say Never: A Response to Harry P. Reeders
Wittgenstein Never Was a Phenomenologist,'Journal of the British Society for
Phenomenology 22:1, pp. 80-83.
Glendinning, S. (1998) Being-with-others: Heidegger, Derrida and Wittgenstein,
Routledge.
Guignon, C. (1990) Philosophy after Wittgenstein and Heidegger, Philosophy
and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 50, No. 4, 649-672.
Hacker, P. M. S. (2003) Wittgenstein, Carnap and the New American
Wittgensteinians, The Philosophical Quarterly 53:210, 1-23.
Hatab, L.J. & W. Brenner. (1983) Heidegger and Wittgenstein on Language and
Mystery, International Studies in Philosophy, pp. 25-44.
Haugeland, J. (1982) Heidegger on Being a Person, Nos, XVI, 15-26.
Heidegger, M. (1962) Being and Time, trs. J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, New
York: Harper & Row.
_______. What is Metaphysics?, Basic Writings, ed. D.F. Krell, London:
Routledge.
Kaufer, S. (2005) The Nothing and the Ontological Difference in Heideggers
What is Metaphysics?, Inquiry 48:6, 482-506.
Kisiel, Theodore (1993) The Genesis of Heideggers Being and Time, University
of California Press.
Kuroda, W. (1978) Phenomenology and Grammar: A Consideration of the
Relation between Husserls Logical Investigations and Wittgensteins Later
Philosophy, Analecta Husserliana, Vol. 8, Dordrecht: Reidel.
Luchte, J. (2007) Martin Heidegger and Rudolf Carnap: Radical Phenomenology,
Logical Positivism, and the Continental/Analytic Divide, Philosophy Today.

Merleu-Ponty, M. (2002) Phenomenology of Perception, trs. F. Williams, London:

Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Monk, R. (1991) Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, London: Vintage.
Mulhull, S. (1990) On Being in the World: Wittgenstein and Heidegger on
Seeing Aspects, Routledge.
______. (2001) Inheritance
Kierkegaard, Oxford.

and

Originality:

Heidegger,

Wittgenstein

and

______. (1994) Stanley Cavell: Philosophys Recounting of the Ordinary, Oxford:

Oxford University Press.
Perloff, M. (1996) Wittgensteins Ladder, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Reeder, H. (1989) Wittgenstein Never Was a Phenomenologist, Journal of the
British Society for Phenomenology 20, No. 3 (October, 1989), pp. 49-68.
________. (1991) Never Say Never Say Never: Reply to Nicholas Gier, Journal
of the British Society for Phenomenology, Volume 22, pp. 97-98.
Richter, D. (2007) Did Wittgenstein Disagree With Heidegger?, Review of
Contemporary Philosophy, Vol. 6.
Rorty, R. (1993) Wittgenstein, Heidegger and the
Language, Essays on Heidegger and Others, Cambridge.

Reification

of

Safranski, R. (1998) Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil, Cambridge:

Harvard University Press.
Taylor, C. (1995) Philosophical Arguments, Cambridge: Harvard University
Press.
Waismann, F. (1979) Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle: Conversations
Recorded by Friedrich Waismann, ed. B. McGinness, tr. J. Schlte and B.
McGinness, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Witherspoon, E. (2002) Logic and the Inexpressible in
Heidegger, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 40:1, pp. 89-113.

Frege

and

Wittgenstein, L. (1958) The Blue and Brown Books, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
_______. (1963) Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus, trs. D.F. Pears & B.F. McGuiniss,
London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
_______. (2003) Philosophical Investigations, trs. G.E.M. Anscombe, London:
Blackwell.

_______. (1993) Philosophical Occasions, eds. J.C. Klagge & A. Nordmann,

Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
Wittgenstein, L. & F. Waismann (2003) The Voices of Wittgestein: The Vienna
Circle, Ed. by G.P. Baker, Trs. by G.P. Baker, M. Mackert, J. Connolly, and V.
Politis, London: Routledge.

[1] I will admit that this division simplifies the topography of extant
considerations of the relation between Heidegger and Wittgenstein, especially
those which discuss this relationship in the context of other questions and in
connection to still other philosophers. This is the case, for instance, with Simon
Glendinning (1998) Being-with-others: Heidegger, Derrida and Wittgenstein,
which argues that Austin and Heidegger remain in the humanist tradition, while
Derrida and Wittgenstein accomplish an anti-humanist position allowing a
discussion of the animal mind to be considered within the investigation of
mind per se.[2] Waisman, F. (1979) Apropos of Heidegger, Ludwig
Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle, Trs. by J. Schulte and B. McGuiness, Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, p. 68.[3] Wittgenstein, L. & F. Waismann (2003) The Voices of
Wittgestein: The Vienna Circle, Ed. by G.P. Baker, Trs. by G.P. Baker, M. Mackert,
J. Connolly, and V. Politis, London: Routledge, pp. 69-71.
[4] Ibid., p. 73. The use of the term acquiesce comes from Wittgensteins
Lectures, 1932-1935: From the Notes of Alice Ambrose and Margaret
MacDonald, Ed. by A. Ambrose, Oxford: Basil Blackwell (1979), p. 27. This
incidentally is contemporary to the Blue and Brown Books, which I will examine
in detail below.
[5] Kisiel, Theodore (1993) The Genesis of Heideggers Being and Time,
University of California Press.
[6] The neglect of Heideggers philosophy is nothing new. The background for
these comments (and of their analytic interpretation), of course, is Carnaps
(1931) attack on Heideggers Freiburg Inaugural Address, What is
Metaphysics?, which I have explored in Luchte, J. (2007) Martin Heidegger and
Rudolf Carnap: Radical Phenomenology, Logical Positivism, and the
Continental/Analytic Divide, Depaul: Philosophy Today). Briefly, Carnap
criticises Heidegger use of the term nothing in a way that, he contends, is a
violation of syntax, and that phrases such as the nothing noths cannot sustain
logical analysis, and are therefore meaningless. We will return to this topic
below. He fears that Heidegger is trying to resurrect the spirit of metaphysics,
and seeks to cut it out by the roots. However, it is quite unclear whether
Wittgenstein would have agreed with Carnap or would have liked his polemic.
Indeed, from the available evidence, especially the Lecture on Ethics, it is
clear that Wittgenstein would have had little to say to Carnap. Yet, the picture

of Wittgenstein, even in 1929, as a logical positivist has held us captive as has

the basic world-view of this now discredited philosophy.
This neglect serves as a barrier to an exploration of the relationship, which, as
we will see, has been explicitly acknowledged in the other streams. Richter is
blind to these other debates, which can be seen merely by consulting his
bibliography. He does not even include Gier, Cavell (although he is mentioned
in a footnote in relation to Vicky Hearn, who it is said was referred to by Mulhull
as a Cavellian, that is a Heideggerian and a Wittgensteinian) Guignon, or a host
of others on this topic. He cites Mulhull, but only Philosophical Myths of the Fall
(Inheritance and Originality is listed but not referred to), and mentions Rorty,
but only to rehearse his tired schema of the relationship between Heidegger
and Wittgenstein. Indeed, while these are briefly mentioned, none plays any
constitutive role in the discussion.[6] With the absence of other perspectives in
the game, all we are served up is Hackers position laid out over against Baker
and Conants. The question that there may be a deeper relationship between
Heidegger and Wittgenstein is never truly raised. Heidegger is a peculiarity
that will have to be dissolved by innovations in mathematical logic or,
ignored.
[7] Heidegger, M. (1949) Existence and Being, Existentialism
Dostoyevsky to Sartre, ed. by Walter Kaufmann, Meridion.

from

[8] Gier, in his Wittgenstein and Phenomenology, enters into an existing debate
which originally involved C.A. van Peursen, F.C. Copelston, J.N. Findley, and T.N.
Munson,
but
further
stimulated
by
the
1964
publication
of
Wittgensteins Philosophical Remarks as documented by H. Spiegelberg (1968)
in his The Puzzle of Wittgensteins Phnomenologie (1929-?), American
Philosophical Quarterly, 5, 244-256.
[9] Such a concern is also apparent in Mulhull (1990) On Being in the World:
Wittgenstein and Heidegger on Seeing Aspects (Routledge), in which he,
following Cavells recounting of the ordinary, explores the phenomenological
interests of Heidegger and Wittgenstein in seeing meaningful aspects amid the
world (and the blindnesses to aspects), and his most recent Inheritance and
Originality: Heidegger, Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard, in which he interrogates
the philosophical project as to the relationship of modernity to its past and
future, including its relationship to theology.
[10] Richter makes the claim that Wittgensteins first comment was made in
reference to Being and Time, which the latter held in respect. Yet,, there is no
evidence either way that he had read it.
[11] Heidegger mentions Wittgenstein in his 1970 Zurich lectures on Heraclitus,
saying that those who press against a door do not see that the door is already
open.

[12] Wittgenstein, L. Blue Book, p. 5: The sign (the sentence) gets its
significance from the system of signs, from the language to which it belongs.
Roughly: understanding a sentence means understanding a language. Yet, it is
often the case that a particular sentence cannot be understood without a sense
of the systematic context of its emergence.
[13] Waismann (1979), p. 27.
[14] Hoff, J. (2005) Das Subjekt entsichern. Zur spirituellen Dimension des
Subjektproblems angesichts der Dekonstruktion des cartesianischen
Wissenschaftsparadigmas. In: Schmidinger, Heinrich and Zichy, Michael (Hrsg.):
Tod des Subjekts? Poststrukturalismus und christliches Denken, Salzburger
Theologische Studien 24, Innsbruck Wien: Tyrolia, pp. 213-242.
[15] Being and Time, 283.
[16] Heidegger, M. Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, p. 192.
[17] The title of this essay, sub specie temporis, under the aspect of time, is
meant to this extent in direct contrast to Spinozas sub specie aeternitatus,
which is espoused in his Ethics. It is significant that Spinoza claimed that the
man who thinks least about death is the most free. For Heidegger, it is the
exact opposite, as it is our death which is that which reveals our freedom.
[18] Blue Book, p. 6.
[19] Ibid., p. 6.
[20] Heidegger discusses Augustines conception of time in Division Two
of Being and Time (80, 427, p. 479-80).
[21] In the Blue Book, Wittgenstein is however concerned with dismantling the
self-certainty of substances and mental states than perhaps to notice the
synchronicity
of
he
and
Heideggers
concerns
regarding
Augustines Confessions and his mythology of time (although, we have to
remember his comments on Heidegger as an example of what he is suggesting
with respect to the innovations of grammar.). At the same time, he manages to
say quite a few things that would be encouraging to those with an interest in
Heidegger.
[22] Blue Book, p. 23.
[23] Ibid., p. 23.
[24] Ibid., p. 10.

[25] Wittgenstein continues his oblique discussions of time in his study of

expectation and other themes in the Philosophical Investigation, eg. 444, 445,
461, 472 among many others.
[26] Ibid., p. 106.
[27] Ibid., p. 107.
[28] Ibid., p. 108.
[29] The primary purpose of the second Division of Being and Time was to
answer the question of the possible whole of Dasein which was not possible in
the context of the incompleteness of Care.
[30] Wittgenstein makes a suggestion that may have some bearing on
Heideggers prioritization of futurity, if only to give another example of use. He
writes, p. 109: We could, of course, imagine a realm of the unborn, future
events, whence they come into reality and pass into the realm of the past; and,
if we think in terms of this metaphor, we may be surprised that the future
should appear less existent than the past.
[31] Cf.
Being
is
not
a
real
predicate,
in Basic
Phenomenology (1927) and Kants Thesis about Being (1962).

Problems

of

[32] Heidegger, we could imagine, could have taken from his encounter with
Wittgenstein an appreciation for the flexibility of expression, which while he
allowed himself this freedom in his lectures, does not show itself in the
extreme model of the extant torso of Being and Time, a criticism he set forth
himself in his lecture course, Metaphysical Foundations of Logic.But, perhaps,
both showed a certain antipathy to the current dispensation of existence, the
state of affairs. Wittgenstein writes in his 1930 notebooks that became Culture
and Value: This book is written for those who are in sympathy with the spirit in
which it is written. This is not, I believe, the spirit of the main current of
European and American civilisation. The spirit of this civilisation makes itself
manifest in the industry, architecture and music of our time, in its fascism and
socialism, and it is alien and uncongenial to the author. Too bad they never
met in 1930, Wittgenstein may have had a good impact on Heidegger at this
crucial time.