JOHN D.

C A P U T O
Villanova University

B E I N G , G R O U N D A N D P L A Y IN H E I D E G G E R

I. F I N I T E F O U N D I N G

The context in which Heidegger conducts his thinking is the age of nihilism.
In nihilism, Being has become a vapor, a cloudy abstraction signifying
nothing.1 There is ample testimony to this for Heidegger in Nineteenth
Century philosophy. For Nietzsche the question of Being was a mistake,
a fleshless residue of the Christian-Platonic tradition. 2 In Hegel Being was
the "highest genus", the most abstract and indeterminate concept. 8 The
task of philosophy as Heidegger saw it was to rebuild the edifice of"meta-
physics''4 which had thus deteriorated. Hence he set himself the problem
of"laying the ground of metaphysics".5 To lay the ground of metaphysics
meant to go back to where metaphysics originates (entspringt), to its
"origin-al" (urspriinglich) source. Then the very essence and possibility of
metaphysics would be laid bare and the question of Being would be
retrieved in its pristine vitality.
Heidegger lays the ground of metaphysics in man conceived of as
"Da-sein" (there-being). 6 Man is the being who must "be" his own "there",
that is, must actively bring about the manifestness of the beings with which
he has commerce. The Dasein "in" man - the ability of man to disclose
the world in which he lives - arises from the fact that man is endowed with
a "comprehension of Being" (Seinsverstdndnis). An individual being
(ein Seiendes) comes to be manifest as a being because it is understood in
its Being (Sein), i.e., as having Being. The comprehension of Being is the
hidden ground of all of Dasein's relationships with other beings and of its
ability to question its own existence. Dasein comprehends (versteht)
Being but does not explicitly conceive (begreift) it. 7 Hence the question of
Being, "what does Being mean?" arises. Dasein wills to make what is
hidden and "pre-ontological" explicit and "ontological". In so laying the
ground of metaphysics in man taken as Dasein Heidegger's approach is
phenomenological in the sense of a "genetic" phenomenology: it traces

26

Man and Worm 3, 1 (1970) 26-48. All rights reserved.

 B E I N G , G R O U N D A N D P L A Y IN H E I D E G G E R

the genesis of metaphysics back to its origin (Ursprung) in thinking. The

question recoils upon itself s and returns to the questioner out of which it
springs.
In The Essence of Ground the process by which Dasein lays the ground
of metaphysics is specified as "founding" (Begriinden). 9 To " f o u n d "
means to give a reason for what is founded, to explain it, to give it intelligi-
bility. Heidegger here is employing the well-known philosophical sense of
the word 'ground' as 'reason'. The locus elassicus of this usage is certainly
Schopenhauer's translation of Leibniz's "principium rationis sufficientis'"
as "der Satz vom zureiehenden Grunde. ''1~ What Heidegger means by
"founding" can be explained as follows. A being is a phenomenon, that
which appears and presents itself as a being. Being is that which renders
the appearing of the appearance possible. To "found" the being is to
bring it forth as a being, to render it intelligible and manifest as a being.
Founding is clearly identical with the comprehension of Being, for a being
is manifest only because it is understood in its Being. Founding is accord-
ingly "ontological truth" itself, illumining the being in terms of its 'reason'
or 'why' (Being). It does not explain the being in terms of another being,
but is rather the condition of possibility of the manifestness of all beings.
It therefore renders possible every "ontic" inquiry, i.e., every search for
a cause within the realm of beings.
Dasein transcends the being to a comprehension of Being thereby
founding the manifestness of the being and so the entire edifice of meta-
physics. Metaphysics is thus given a "transcendental" exposition because
it is rooted (grounded) in the transcendence of Dasein. Metaphysics may
overcome its present impasse by beginning anew with an ontology of
Dasein (a "ground-" or "fundamental ontology").
In a relatively short time Heidegger came to regard this view as inade-
quate. The question seems to have arisen in his mind as to whether he had
genuinely ascended to the ontologicallevel of ground. Heidegger was con-
cerned with the ontological dimension of man - his ability to disclose the
being in its Being - and not with any ontic consideration, e.g., his ethical,
psychological or political make-up. But, notwithstanding its ontological
priority, Dasein is still the essence of a being. As a being Dasein is caught
up in the grips of a power that surpasses it. To that extent Dasein is itself
grounded. The difficulty is clear. The founding process comes to pass
within a founded being. The analysis has isolated Being as the ground

27
 JOHN. DCAPUTO

of beings, but it has understood Being as the "comprehension of Being"

possessed by a being. There is a lingering Kantianism in Heidegger's
"transcendental" exposition of metaphysics in that a thinking being
is assigned the role of bringing about the manifestness of the being. 11
Being and Time, despite its strenuous effort to treat man ontologically, is
still caught up in the tradition which lays the ground of beings in another
being. This tradition, of which Hegel and Nietzsche were the latest victims,
was set into motion by Descartes's identification of the ground with the
cogito :1~

... a new determination of the essence of 'ground' and 'principium' is given in

Descartes's sentence, cogito, sum.

That Dasein is a being caught up in the grips of a power that encompasses

it is easily substantiated in Being and Time itself. It is true that on the one
hand Dasein is in that work profoundly self-sufficient, "self-grounding"
we might say. Dasein is threatened by the pressing claims of other men
(the "they") and ever liable to annihilation in death. But withal Dasein
is, or can be, free. Before others Dasein is faithful to its own individuality;
before death Dasein invokes not God but the resources of its own resolu-
tion.
On the other hand, however, Dasein is finite. Dasein is a finite ground
because it is, in the first place, a "thrown" ground. The Being of Dasein
is to take over and fulfill its ability to be. But the fact that it is self-ground-
ing is beyond the pale of its own freedom :13

To be a ground [for Dasein] means accordingly never to have power over its
Being from the ground up.

Before Dasein takes over its Being it is already present :14

It [Dasein] never exists before its ground [freedom] but rather out of it and as it.
There is a source more origin-al than Dasein. To that extent Dasein is a
ground which fails to ground itself. Dasein is thus an "abyssal" (ab-
griindig) ground. 15 An abyssal ground at this stage of Heidegger's thought
means a freedom that may give out, a will-to-power that may collapse.
Dasein may fail to "become" the being which it "is" (ontologically).
If Dasein is a thrown ground then the founding process conducted by
Dasein is also finite. This is already clear if we review the discussion of

28
 BEING, G R O U N D AND PLAY IN H E I D E G G E R

founding. There it is claimed that the "essence of ground" is a triadic

process, of which founding is the highest stage, but which includes two
prior moments with which founding is "co-origin-al" (gleichurspriing-
lich), z6 In the first moment Dasein "projects" the "world" or Being as
a "totality" (i.e., places before its consideration the collective whole
of which it is a member). In the second moment Dasein is "fallen"
among or contracted to innerworldly beings (i.e., in making this con-
sideration is limited by the fact that it is a member of such a collec-
tivity). The founding process brings the two together; thus it founds the
being (second moment) in its Being (first moment), or the innerworldly
being (second moment) in the world (first moment). The founding process
is finite because the being which lays the ground is itself "thrown" among
that which is grounded. The projection of the Beings of beings originates
in a being. The being which in one sense transcends to the world continues
to dwell within it and so is in another sense innerworldly. Its transcendence
therefore is contracted.
The finitude of the founding process (transcendence) is given a different
formulation in the 1929 text of What is Metaphysics? There we readZ~:

"Pure Being and pure Nothingness are thus the same." This sentence of Hegel
is right. Being and Nothingness belong together, but not because they conform
to one another in their indeterminateness and immediacy, as in Hegel's idea of
thinking, but rather because Being itself is, in its essence, finite and is revealed
only in the transcendence of Dasein stretched out into the Nothing.

Nothingness is described as the finitude of Being. Being insofar as it is

limited is the Nothing. The two are not opposites, as western philosophy
always assumes. Rather they belong together in the sameness of a single,
finite essence. Being is the appearing, the manifestness of the being. If
Being is finite, then Nothingness signifies the "un-manifest", the "con-
cealed". To say they belong together is to say that the intelligibility of
Being gives out, that Being is not entirely luminous. Being may be
"aletheia" but "letheia" belongs to its hard core. Being is always both
concealment and unconcealment.
Founding, the process of setting the being out in its Being, is therefore
equiprimordially letting it waver meaninglessly in Nothingness. Found-
ing provides the "reason for" and the "intelligibility" of the being, but it
also leaves it to some extent "without reason" and "unintelligible".18

29
 J O H N D. C A P U T O

There is a very revealing ambiguity about What is Metaphysics? One is

not sure whether the Nothing is "independent" of Dasein, something
which Dasein "runs into" as it were, or whether the Nothing is due to the
limits of Dasein's comprehension of Being. That indecision is itself sig-
nificant.19 It reveals Heidegger wavering between the earlier and the later
position, s0 In the experience of the finitude of Dasein is contained the
experience of a power beyond Dasein. The absolute origin-ality of the
founding process within Dasein breaks down. Dasein appears as grounded.
The origin-al ground lies deeper.
To say that the idea of ground as the founding process within Dasein
"breaks down" is not to say, however, that it is given up as an illusion, but
only that it is taken as not origin-al enough. And the ground must be
absolutely first, totally origin-al. Finite founding will turn out to be not
a dead end but a stop along the path of the "way back into the ground."
It is we will see a faithful reflection of a more primordial grounding activity.

II. T H E A B Y S S A L G R O U N D

By the summer of 1935 what was intimated in the earlier discussion of

finitude and the Nothing is made explicit. At this time the treatment of
ground takes the form of what Heidegger calls the "ground-question"
(Grund-frage) of metaphysics: why is there any being at all and not rather
nothing?21 This well-known question of Leibniz, mentioned in passing in
The Essence of Ground and What is Metaphysics?, is transitional to the
later Heidegger. It inquires into the being and asks about its ground. Why
are there any beings at all? Obviously no being can serve as the answer to
the question. The ground which the question seeks is Being itself. Being
sustains the being and prevents its falling back into the abyss of Nothing-
ness :22

The ground that is sought after is sought for as the ground for the decision for
being rather than for nothingness.

Being is the inner power of the being by which it is. Being is the perduring
power which remains whatever fluctuations may occur within beings.
Being is the emergent power, stepping forth into the light of itself. Being
as ground therefore is physis: the emergent-enduring-power (aufgehend-
verweilend- Walten).~a

30
 B E I N G , G R O U N D A N D P L A Y IN H E I D E G G E R

But the being may also "not-be"; it may collapse back into the abyss of
Nothingness. This possibility is elicited by the being itself:z4

We do not in any way experience this possibility as something we have added

on by thinking; rather the being itself announces this possibility.

The possibility to not-be originates out of the finitude of the Being of the
being (its Nothingness). Being "is" (das Sein "west") and the Nothing
"nothings" (das Nichts "nichtet") together in the essence of the being.
Being and Nothing belong together, co-constituting the finite ground of the
being. Insofar as Being is ground and belongs together with the Nothing,
Being is abyssal. The ground of beings is an abyss.
The essence of ground has "shifted" as it were from the finite founding
process within Dasein to finite Being itself. It is important to be clear
about the manner of this "shift". Being has priority over Dasein but uses
it as the place of its manifestness. "Da-sein" (there-being) is no longer
taken as the being which must "be" its own "there", but rather as the
"there" of Being. Being is ground; Dasein "founds" now in the sense of
being the place where Being as ground- and as abyss- is manifest. It
assists in the founding of beings by providing the range in which the
grounding process is disclosed. Dasein continues to found but in a reflect-
ing, participatory sense. Dasein lets the ground be. As thrown, Dasein is
itself swept up in the grounding process. But is it uniquely grounded, for
it is the place where the very grounding process is revealed. Being (as
ground) and Dasein (as founding) are not two different things (Being is
not a "thing" at all), nor accordingly two different grounds. They are
rather origin-al ground itself and the place of its revelation, z~ Heidegger
does not pass from an effect to its cause, which is a purely ontic connection,
but from the "there" of ground to origin-al ground itself. The early view
of founding is derivative not illusory.
Being "needs" (braucht) Dasein no less than Dasein needs Being because
it (Being) needs a place of self-disclosure. 26 But why does Being need
disclosure? Because it is truth (aletheia) and discloses itself by its essence.
That is a circular answer of course, for it says only "because Being is
(west)", "because Being is Being (das Sein ist Sein)." That is what Heid-
egger means by its "abyssal" character. Being is the final explanation, the
final "because". Being as "because" (Weil) is all we know on Heidegger's
earth but precisely what we need to know.

31
 J O H N D. C A P U T O

Being as the abyssal ground is powerful over Dasein but transfixed with
negativity. This is developed in Heidegger's later philosophy in two forms:
Being as mission (Geschick) and Being as the world or the foursome
(das Geviert). Both mission and world are understood by Heidegger in
terms of "play" (Spiel). It is in the connection of the "play" of Being and
the abyssal ground that the impact of Heidegger's concept of ground is
most striking.
Heidegger gives the following account of the "mission" of Being: ~7

If we speak of a "mission" of Being, then what we mean is that Being addresses

itself to us and is illuminated for us and, illuminating the space of play of time,
makes a place in which the being can make an appearance. In the mission of
Being history is not thought of as an event which is characterized as a "course"
or "process"; rather the essence of history is determined in terms of the mis-
sion of Being, in terms of Being as mission, in terms of that which addresses
itself to us while it withdraws itself. Both- addressing and withdrawing-are one
and the same and not two different things.

Being is conceived of here as the overpowering hand of time. Time is the

power of the overpowering itself. Being is not an underlying substance
(ousia), static and permanent in itself, of which time is an "accidental"
modification. Being is time itself. This is not to say that Being is merely a
course of events properly studied by "History" (Historic). Rather the
course of events itself must be understood as prompted on a deeper level
by the initiative of Being. History (Geschichte) is the movement and
stirrings of Being. In each age Being sends itself (sieh sehiekt) to man and
thereby constitutes a "mission" (Geschiek, Sehiekung) of Being, a way of
sending itself.
Being as time and mission is the "event" (Ereignis) in which man is made
Being's own (eigen), the event which appropriates man's essence for its own
purposes of self-manifestation. Hence, if Being as mission "fluctuates"
(wandelt), if it as Heidegger says "advances and withdraws", then man is
correspondingly affected. If Being turns its face towards man then there
is a golden age of light and truth; but if Being withdraws and turns its
dark side, then man is shaken by a time o f need. Such "needy times" con-
stitute the "history of metaphysics". 29
Metaphysics is the forgetfulness of Being and the preoccupation with
the being. Metaphysics, failing to transcend the realm of beings, always
takes a being for the ground. When it does not set up the human subject

32
 BEING, G R O U N D IN PLAY AND H E I D E G G E R

as the ground of beings, it seeks out God as the "highest being", the first
cause and ground of beings. The history of metaphysics, for which Being
itself is responsible, is the history of a lost or forgotten ground, z0
In Plato the ground is the highest and most perfect being, the idea of
the Good. 31 Ground for Aristotle meant logos in the sense of a "logical"
or rational explanation which delivered up an account of things in terms
of their four "causes" (aitia). Cicero translated logos as ratio and defined
it as the account of how a thing is brought forth or produced. Descartes,
asserting the independence of reason from faith, replaced the "unshak-
able ground" (fundamentum inconcussum) of divine revelation with the
unshakable ground of self-conscious subjectivity. In Leibniz ground be-
came a "principle" (Grund-Satz), the principium reddendae rationis suf-
ficientis: the principle which demands that the thinking subject present
itself with a reason for the Being of the object. "Nothing is without
ground." That means: no permit to be will be granted without a rational
justification over which the thinking subject presides. 8z It is but a short
step to Kant's view of ground as the condition of possibility of the ap-
pearance of the being. Modern science, the latest stage of this forgetful-
ness, is the most advanced form of giving a rational account of the
being, za
Each of these understandings of ground is to be viewed as an epochal
disguise, a derivative form of the origin-al ground. What then is the au-
thentic ground as far as Heidegger is concerned9. Such a ground lies
"before" rational metaphysics in the words of the presocratics. In the
antique beginnings of philosophy ground is not seen as something which
human reason has to "deliver" (reddere). Rather the being stands forth
in its ground of itself. The ground itself, and not man, founds (der Grund
begriindet). Ground thus is the self-emergent power of Being (physis).
But Being belongs together with logos, according to both Parmenides and
Heraclitus, as the collective unity of what-is. Ground furthermore is that
out of which the being first comes to be (arche), of which the later notion
of a "first principle" is but a fallen and derivative form. And finally ground
is the reason why (aition) the being is rather than is not, of which the
later notion of an ontic "first cause" is a corruption. In short, the origin-al
ground was experienced, but not conceptualized, by the early Greeks in
their view of the primordial unity of physis, logos, arche and aition. Being-
as ground is the first supportive power out of which all beings emerge, into

33
 J O H N D. C A P U T O

which they return and by which they are held together in the unity of a
single world. 34
Being advancing and withdrawing constitutes the mission and history
of Being. But why does it withdraw? Why does it not remain in luminous
self-giving? When will it come again? Goethe answers for Heidegger: 85

How? When?Why? The gods remain silent! Hold yourself in because and do not
ask why?

Being is the ultimate "because" (weil) for every question; it is the perdur-
ing (ver-weilen), inexorable hand of time (das "dieweil").. Beings is the
ground of beings, but it is itself without ground. Leibniz's "Principle of
Sufficient Reason" is true of beings, not of Being. The reason is itself
without reason.
It is this character of Being and its mission as "abyssal" which leads
Heidegger to describe it as a "play". 86 The historical movement of Being
is a play. Its missionary sendings and withdrawals are a toying of Being
with man. As Heraclitus testifies:z7

Time is a child playing a game of draughts; The kingdom is in the hands of

a child.

The process of Being in which it revealed itself to the presocratics, but

afterwards appeared under the guise of idea, substance, objectivity, will-
to-power and technology,88 can neither be deciphered nor governed by
man. Rather Being "toys with" man. The role of man is to "play along
with" (mitspielen) the play. The idea of freedom is transformed from the
power to take over the direction of one's Being to the willingness to "work
with" and "play with" Being as mission. Being plays "because it plays",
and man is caught up in that play.
Being as a groundless play also appears in Heidegger's thought, we have
said, under the form of the "play of the world", which he calls the "four-
some" (das Geviert). The world is the totality. As such there is nothing
opposed to it. It cannot for example be opposed to "another" world, as a
sensible world is contrasted to an intelligible world, for then the world
would not be the totality. Nor can it be set against any being, as western
philosophy has opposed God and the world, or as it opposes the "mental"
and the "extra-mental" (the world). The divine is discussed by Heidegger
only insofar as it appears in the world; the presence of the divine in the

34
 BEING, G R O U N D AND PLAY IN H E I D E G G E R

world is "the gods". 39 Dasein too belongs to the world and, just as in the
earlier position, is not opposed to the world as a subject to an object. No
longer however is the process of world grounded by Dasein as world-
building. Dasein must be understood as belonging to a totality that origi-
nates of itself. 40 Swept up by the processes of this totality, Dasein is
referred to as "the mortal".
Add to the gods and mortals their "places", as it were, and the rather
spatially oriented concept of the foursome which constitutes the world is
complete: gods and mortals, the heavens and the earth.
The world is not a static structure but a process, the process of the four
together. The four depend upon one another in order to be themselves;
a change in one is "reflected" in a change in the other. Let us illustrate
this. In the idea of the "gods" Heidegger overcomes the concept of G o d
as first cause; the gods are the messengers of the divine, guiding and ad-
vising human activity. The view of man as a "mortal" exceeds any socio-
logical or biological understanding of man and takes him as a being who
sees ahead into his death and takes over that possibility in his life. In the
foursome, the "heavens" are viewed not astronomically but as that which
charts the course of time and bestows light upon men. The "earth" is
taken not in its molecular make-up but as what sustains and supports men.
Should we change one of the four we disrupt the rest. Take man as the
"rational animal" and G o d becomes a first cause and the heavens and
earth his "temporal effects". Or take the heavens astronomically and the
earth becomes one of many planets, man one of many species, and G o d
an impersonal cosmic force.
The four reflect one another. The process of the world is the playing of
of the reflections of the foursome. In this play each of the four is appropri-
ated (er-eignet) into its own essence. As the author summarizes this discus-
sion: 41

We designate the world as that e-ventful play of reflections of the simplicity of

the earth and heavens, gods and mortals. The world "is" while it "worlds".

To describe the cosmic process as a play is to employ a model which de-

parts significantly from the highly rational conceptions o f western science
and philosophy. 42 Heidegger's world is not in any sense a causal system.
To conceive of the connections between the four in a causal way is to fall
short of the essence of the world. 48 One being may be explained by another,

35
 J O H N D. C A P U T O

its "cause". But once again the totality itself, the whole system of beings,
is without any ground. The process of the world as a totality- which is
the foursome - exceeds any rational grasp and so is a play.
The groundless play of Being is thus presented by Heidegger in two
complementary ways: Being as mission and Being as world. In the former
the orientation is temporal (Zeit), in the latter spatial (Raum). But time
and space, mission and world, belong together. They are the same but
not alike. Together they constitute the "space of play of time" (Zeit-
Spiel-Raum). 4~ The world is the "shape" that Being takes. Being has a
look (Bliek), a view, a meaning in any given epoch. 45 In modern times the
worldhas thelook of a stock-pile of energy awaiting man's mastering use;
the heavens have the look of a challenge to aeronautical engineering; the
gods have the look of a phantasy. In the "play of the foursome" Heidegger
sees himself as retrieving the authentic look of the world experienced by
the early Greeks and by H/51derlin's poetry. The coming to pass of an
"authentic" world (the world as foursome) is dependent upon the mis-
sionary advance of Being. The successive worlds that western man has
known are but successive missions of Being. The world is Being at some
time. Being is the time (mission) of the world. Mission and world belong
together in the event of Being. The processes of the world, mission and
Being are the same. Heidegger's point is that the movements of that single
process represent a groundless play that does not yield itself up to rational
interpretation.
But what is a groundless play?

I I I . T H E P L A Y OF B E I N G

The way back into the ground leads through finite founding into the
abyssal ground. The abyssal ground is a play. Let us examine each of
these expressions. The view of Being as a groundless ground strikes out at
the metaphysical doctrine of the intelligibility of being as such (omne ens
qua ens est verum). 46 The ideal of the perfect intelligibility of being in
general (ens in communi) and in particular of the highest being (summun
ens, ens realissimum) is always presupposed by western metaphysics.
Kant's penetrating exposition of the limits of human reason left the in-
telligibility of being in itself untouched and ascribed the impossibility of
metaphysics to the limits of human reason.47 Kant still operates within

36
 B E I N G , G R O U N D A N D P L A Y IN H E I D E G G E R

the tradition originating in Aristotle and supported by the intellectualist

tradition in medieval philosophy which asserts that what is highest in
reality is most intelligible in itself (quoad se) and least intelligible relative
to our understanding (quoadnos). God, for example, was the first uncaused
cause, the ultimate ground beyond which there was no further ground.
But the mind ceased its inquiry and came to rest in this "groundless
ground" as in a being whose limpid intelligibility overwhelmed its finite
capacity. In Heidegger, however, while Being is intelligible (manifest), it
is equiprimordially unintelligible. Being is no less the falsum (un-truth,
letheia) than it is the verum (truth, aletheia). There is necessarily within
Being a hard core of concealment, a reserve which has not yet stepped into
manifestness. This concealment is due to Being itself and is not to be
ascribed to a failure of the mind to comprehend it. Being obstinately
holds itself back behind its manifestations (in a given being, in a given
age) like the hidden source of a river which conceals itself in the very
process of emerging. 4s The concealed "unessence" of Being is "essential"
to it. 49 The mystery of St. Thomas's God as a groundless ground (un-
caused cause) is His surpassing intelligibility; the mystery of Heidegger's
Being as a groundless ground is its ingrained, ineradicable obscurity.
Being as a groundless ground reaches its sharpest formulation in the
concept of the play of Being. Here, we suggest, the main themes of
Heidegger's philosophy converge and acquire a striking force. Johan
Huizinga points out that etymologically many play words originate in the
idea of a rapid movement. 50 To play, in many languages, means to swing,
to wave about, to flutter. The paradigm instance of such play then is that
of the child. In accordance with this Plato located the origin of play in the
need of a young creature to leap. 51 We ought to distinguish this sense of
play from another related but distinct idea: play as a game with rules.
The game with rules, according to Jean Piaget, 52 is a more rational be-
haviour persisting throughout adulthood. In this play the rules are freely
accepted but must be adhered to rigorously. To break the rules (cheating)
in the game with rules is to destroy the essential playfulness of the game.
In the more child-like play however the very existence of rule, order or
rigor would destroy the"free play" of the playing. When Heidegger speaks
of Being as play he thinks more of the ruleless play of the child than of the
game with rules. Let us examine this in detail.
(1) If, as has been suggested, play points to a wanton and inscrutable

37
 J O H N D. C A P U T O

rather than a lawful pattern, then Being as play resists rational analysis.
Being plays the game of a child according to the fragment from Heraclitus
that Heidegger cites. Heidegger takes that to mean that Being plays with-
out reason, groundlessly: 5a

It plays because it plays. "Because" sinks into play. The play is without "why".
It plays while it plays. There remains only play: the highest and the deepest.

It is not possible to explain the missionary movements of Being, the highest

and deepest ground, according to any causal pattern: 54

Being does not have anything like to itself alongside of it. It does not have an
effect produced upon it by another, nor does it produce an effect itself. Being
does not, indeed it never runs its course as a causal connection of events.

Such a conception is at odds with the highly rational schemata of west-

ern metaphysics. In Hegel, to cite the most illustrative example, the course
of history is a rational advance of the Absolute (Being) towards the idea
of perfect self-revelation. For Heidegger however the play of Being is
not an orderly process at all. Rather it is a fluctuating (wandelnd), wavering
dance. And far from being a progressive self-revelation, the mission of
Being is a falling away from a pristine truth. The only "eschatology" in
Heidegger is the course of Being into the "impasse" or "end" (eschaton) of
its present concealment. 55 Being, whether it is taken as the process of
mission or the process of the world, is the final "account" for the realm
of beings. As such no account can be given for it itself. The unaccountabil-
ity and ultimately inexplicable character of Being is its play.
(2) The play of Being is the history of metaphysics as the withdrawal of
Being in its truth. Being conducts a "masquerade" with man, concealing
itself in its truth and hiding that very concealment.56 Being on this
account is quite literally "il-lusive" (il-ludens). 57 It plays with man by
showing a masked face, an "il-lusion" which represents a withdrawal of
its origin-al truth. In such a view Being carries on a pretense which it is the
role of man to unmask.
(3) Moreover, the play of Being is its "toying" with man, revealing
the supremacy and priority of Being over man. In Karl Marx, to choose
another illustration from the history of metaphysics, history is led to
fulfillment by a spontaneous "revolution", prepared for by the dynamics
of the class struggle and effected by the proletariat. In Heidegger's play

38
 BEING, G R O U N D AND PLAY IN HEIDEGGER

of Being the revelation of Being will come about by a "revolution" also,

a sudden "turning about" (Kehre). ~s But this turning about is not ac-
complished by revolutionary man. Rather Being itself will take the initi-
ative to turn its true face towards man, to "look in" (ein-blicken) upon him.
The "revolution" as envisaged by Marx and the later Sartre is for Held-
egger a form of "subject-isrn". s9 The play of Being is a toying with man by
a power that overpowers him. Man is a "mortal" swept up in the power-
play of Being. The view is reminiscent of Plato's vision of man as a play-
thing of the gods who should spend his life in the proper play. 60
The same point may be seen from another perspective. We know through
Otto PSggeler that Heidegger's seminar on the "phenomenology of Reli-
gion" in 1920-21 concerned itself with the sense of history in early Christi-
anity. 61 According to P~ggeler, Heidegger investigated the question of
Christ's "second coming" which he took to give the early Christian a
highly "factical" sense of life, that is, a sense of the radical contingency of
the life of man in time and history. We read in Paul's First Letter to the
Thessalonians the following passage, to which according to P6ggeler
Heidegger devoted considerable analysis: 62
You will not be expecting us to write anything to you, brothers, about "times
and seasons", since you know very well that the day of the Lord is going to come
like a thief in the night. It is when people are saying, 'how quiet and peaceful it
is', that the worst suddenly happens.
P6ggeler is interested in how Heidegger's analysis of this text presages the
later notion of the "facticity" of Dasein in Being and Time. But it seems to
be relevant as well to understanding the later view of the "second coming",
the "other beginning" (der andere Anfang) of Being. The point here is that
in the concept of Being as play Heidegger endows Being with the power to
effect its other beginning, its new advance, by striking suddenly in the
midst of the night into which the west, the "evening-land", has fallen :64
The reversal of the danger [of technology] comes to pass suddenly. In the rever-
sal the clearing of Being is suddenly illumined. This sudden self-lighting is a
flash of lightning.
Being as play is wanton and unpredictable, and thinking can fore-see
(vor-denkt) neither the day nor the hour of its coming. Hence in the play
of Being Heidegger retrieves the facticity of Dasein which was of such
significance for Being and Time. In the later Heidegger "mortals" await

39
 J O H N D. C A P U T O

the playful "turns" and "toyings" of Being, by which they are cast forth
(thrown) and against which they shatter in death (Being-unto-death).
(4) The play of Being however is not one-sided. Rather it is necessary
for man to "play along with" (mitspielen) the play. Being needs man's
attentive co-operation, although it retains the upper hand. Man depends
upon Being's "favor" (Gunst, Huld), but is not excused from the exercise
of attentive openness. Being and man are inseparable in Heidegger. Man
is not so much a being as a relationship of openness towards Being. Being
and man "cor-respond"; they are a dialogue, an interchange. Their play
thus is an inter-play. Here Heidegger draws certain musical associations
of the word "play" into service. Man must stay at-tuned to the playing of
Being: 65
Man remains at-tuned to that by which his essence is called [determined].
Even Leibniz's "Principle of Sufficient Reason" is viewed in these terms.
We must hear the playing of the music (Satz) of the ground in a new
intonation and join in the playing :66
Nothing is without ground. Being and ground: the same. Being as grounding has
no ground; it plays as abyss that playing which, as mission, plays up to us Being
and ground.
The question remains as to whether and how, hearing the passages in that
playing, we play along with and join in the playing.
Being and man are conceived rather as members of a "duet", as the play-
ing of the foursome can be taken as a "quartet".
(5) The play of Being is not frivolous or inconsequential. 67 It is the
mistake of tough-minded rationality to underestimate the gravity of play.
On the contrary, Heidegger asserts, the play of Being is the "highest" and
the "deepest" because it concerns the most important matter: the truth of
Being. In this play the stakes are exceedingly high, for there is a question
of the truth and untruth of Being itself, upon which man stakes the out-
come of his historical existence. There is no problem of "historical relativ-
ism" in Heidegger's position about the historicity of Being, as has been
suggested, 6s but very nearly the opposite: an historical " c o n t e s t " - o r
play - for the truth of Being. Huizinga has illustrated at length the role of
play as a "contest" (agon), which he describes as its "agonistic" character,
in the formation of culture. He tells us of contests which were "fought" or
"played" to the death. In Heidegger Being and man play such a deadly

40
 B E I N G , G R O U N D A N D P L A Y IN H E I D E G G E R

game. Being under the illusion of "technology" is the "danger", the power
that can destroy man and things even if the bomb is never set off. Man is
the violent one, the venturer (Wagender) who dares to grapple with the
groundless ground, to peer into the abyss of Being, risking vertigo, to win
the high stakes of the truth of Being. 70 The inter-play of Being and man
is a strife. The play of Being and man is "ant-agonistic" not "quietistic".
The groundless play of Being represents Heidegger's attempt to express,
as the presocratics were unable to do, his experience of the sense of Being.
Like the early Wittgenstein, Heidegger was convinced of the inadequacy
of rational, representational language to express the truth of Being. Unlike
Wittgenstein he resorts not to silence but to another language, beyond
metaphysics and wedded to poetry, to speak out what there is to say.7'
It is true that, in expressing the sense of Being as a play, Heidegger has
chosen a phenomenon which we meet for the first time on a purely ontic
level, that is, as an everyday activity of man. This is not to say however that
it does not have an ontological dimension. Heidegger's position is "meth-
odologically" sound, for he regards man as the "there" of Being and so
as the reflection and unique place of disclosure for the overpowering.
Language and poetry are, in our first acquaintance with them (zundchst
und zumeist), "ontic" realities in which essential thinking discovers an
ontological meaning. Human speaking incarnates the origin-al "say"
(die Sage) of Being itself. Human mortality enshrines the Nothingness of
Being. ~2 Human strife and tension reflect the strife within Being itself. 7a
By the same account human play reflects a more primordial ontological
play. This is the premiss of Eugen Fink's conception of play as a symbol of
the world. 74 The wanton, inscrutable freedom of a child at play signifies
and originates in the origin-al free play of Being. 75

IV. CONCLUSION

In the vision of Being as play Heidegger appears to have accomplished

the task he set for himself of laying the ground of metaphysics and in such
a way as to overcome what he considered the errancy of the history of
metaphysics.76 The distinctiveness of his approach to Being is constituted
not by the assertion of Being as ground but by his admission of negativity
into the very essence of ground. Hence he speaks in the Nietzsche lectures
of the "groundlessness of the truth of Being. ''77 There is no comparable

41
 J O H N D. C A P U T O

idea of Being in western metaphysics. Instead the tradition has emphasized

the lawfulness of Being. In Plato what-is is regulated by what is best (the
Good). In Aristotle what-is follows the four laws of coming-to-be and pass-
ing away. Medieval philosophy introduced this same Greek rationality into
the relationship of God, man and the world. In the modern era what-is is
subject to the first principles of human thinking. This tradition, as far as
Heidegger is concerned, fails to acknowledge that Being is prior to man
and that it does not submit to his legislation. When Being is properly
acknowledged it appears as an emerging-enduring-power (physis) shot
through with negativity, that is, as a groundless ground. As such a ground
Being is a play in which all lawful explanation evaporates. It plays because
it plays and for the while that it plays.
Heidegger has accordingly raised the question of Being "from the
ground up", independently of the encrustations of the tradition. The
obscurity of his response, indeed at times the apparent absence of a
response to this question, has been the main source of scepticism about
his entire philosophical effort. But when the consideration of the ground-
lessness of the truth of Being is brought to bear the character of the ques-
tion is transformed and the uniqueness of his "answer" is made plain.
The question is unlike every other question, for it does not inquire into
the "cause" of an event within the realm of beings. It does not seek another
being, which is not as such mysteriotls. 7s The question into a being is
always in principle answerable. But the ground which the question of
Being uncovers is equiprimordially an abyss, a mystery. The function of
this question is precisely not to be "closed" (or "answered" like ontic
questions) but always to stay open. For what it inquires into is a ground-
less play, to which anything like a final explanation is simply inappropriate.
The important thing in this question is staying underway towards that into
which there is inquiry. 79 Being thus functions like an ultimate "riddle"
(aporia), hiding its secrets from the questioner. According to Huizinga,
the will-to-know originates in playing, that is, in the desire to solve a
riddle, s0 Hence Heidegger "answers" the question in such a way as to
keep the question always open. This is not obscurantism; it is rather
"strict thinking". For in resisting the temptation to subject Being to rational
determination Heidegger adheres rigorously to the strictest demands of
the question of Being as he sees it.
In leading thinking back through the finite founding of Dasein into the

42
 B E I N G , G R O U N D A N D P L A Y IN H E I D E G G E R

groundless ground of Being as play, it may be objected that Heidegger has

thereby led thinking right out of philosophy itself. In support of this con-
tention one may point out that the only parallels to Heidegger's position
are to be found outside philosophy. According to Professor Anderson it
is characteristic of mythical thinking to introduce darkness and mystery
into the nature of what-is, sl Again one finds an "abyss" (Ungrund) iso-
lated as a highest principle in Jacob B/Shme, the celebrated German
mystic. Does not the view of Being as play illustrate clearly that Heid-
egger's position is beyond philosophy? 82 What would be troublesome
about holding such a view is that it is impossible to understand Heidegger
except in terms of what is generally called "the history of philosophy"
that precedes h i m - t h e presocratics, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Dilthey,
Husserl, etc. And morever his impact has been mainly among philosophers
or, as is characteristic of philosophers, among theologians. This is to say
that Heidegger's thinking, as it actually exists, is carried on within the
tradition (the history of philosophy) whose truth he is trying to retrieve, s3
The question about "Heidegger as philosopher" seems to be ultimately
idle. For the pragmatics of the situation show that his "question of Being"
as it exists emerges out of western philosophy (beginning with the preso-
cratics) and has effected an unprecedented renewal within present-day
philosophy of the oldest question of philosophy: what is Being? (the aim
he set for his thinking in the first pages of Being and Time.) The attempt to
legislate Heidegger out of philosophy with some speculative prescription
of what philosophy "should be" is refuted by the immense existential
presence of his thinking within philosophy.
Far from illustrating that he has left philosophy, Heidegger's conception
of Being as play brings to the fore all the strange power of his philosophi-
cal activity. What suggests itself at this point is that not only does
Heidegger regard Being as play but also his very thinking on Being is itself
a playing. Heidegger has labored not only to transform the idea of Being
but also of thinking which "belongs together" with Being. Both Being and
thinking transcend the rational tradition when they are taken as play.
Heidegger's continual and striking association of words - h i s "play" on
words - which is the despair of his translators is a deeply poetic and not
a merely philological instinct. Poetry, Huizinga claims, is rooted in play.
Paul Valery regarded poetry as playing with language, s4 The power of
language which H eidegger calls upon is found not in its logical capacity

43
 JOHN D. CAPUTO

but its poetic capabilities. The playfulness of Heidegger's thinking is also

found in the idea of the foursome. What are we to make of the "gods" in
the foursome? Is Heidegger altogether serious about them? Or are they not
an instance of mythic play, a means the author employs, tongue in cheek,
to signal something he cannot put into straightforward, rational language?
Moreover, Heidegger frequently describes the thinking that gains access
to Being as a "leap" (Sprung) s5 and we have seen that Plato describes
play as originating in the instinct to leap. Heidegger means that the mo-
tion of thinking into the truly thought-worthy is not a logical "dis-cursive"
progress but one that springs over the "familiar", the "self-evident", the
"logical" propositions of rational metaphysics into the hidden truth of
Being. Thinking must enjoy a "free play" to get beyond metaphysics down
into its ground.
Being is not a sober, rational process for Heidegger. Nor can thinking
be sober logic. Being is play; thinking is playing: intimating, symbolizing
poetizing, associating, hinting, revealing, concealing. Play is not only
what Heidegger means by Being; it is also the way we must speak about
it. Being, outside the ordinary sphere of things (beings), is an extra-ordi-
nary play. Thinking, outside the serious occupation of considering the
connections between things, is an extra-ordinary attempt to play along
with Being. We are thus reminded of what Heidegger himself said about
this strange creature, philosophy, in the midst o f a meditation upon
Nietzsche :so
To philosophize, we may say now, is an extra-ordinary inquiry into the extra-
ordinary.

ENDNOTES
1 Martin Heidegger,Nietzsche (Pfullingen: Verlag Giinther Neske, 1961),Zwei Bfinde,
B. I, P. 338 (hereafter N I and N ID.
2 Martin Heidegger, Einfiihrung in die Metaphysik, 2. Auflage (Tiibingen: Max
Niemeyer, 1958), p. 29 (hereafter EM).
s Martin Heidegger, Was ist Metaphysik? 9. Auflage (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio
Klosterrnann, 1965), pp. 39-40 (hereafter WM). Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit,
10 Auflage (Tiibingen: Max Niemeyer, 1963), w1, pp. 2-5 (hereafter SZ).
4 The view that "metaphysics" is the "forgetfulness of Being" is a later terminological
variation which is doctrinally consonant with the earlier position. Heidegger always con-
siders the tradition from Plato to Nietzsche fallen from the truth of Being. In the earlier
works the original truth concealed by and within that tradition is still called "meta-
physical", whereas later the word "metaphysics" is restricted, indeed relegated, to the

44
 BEING, G R O U N D AND P L A Y IN H E I D E G G E R

fallen tradition. The early use proves to be interesting because eventually Heidegger
criticizes his earlier stand as still somewhat caught up in the metaphysical tradition it
seeks to overcome. Compare: Martin Heidegger, Kant und dasProblem der Metaphysik,
3. Auflage (Frankfurt arn Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1965), pp. 13,15-9, 207-8 (here-
after KM) and WM, pp. 38-43 with WM, "Einleitung", especially pp. 7-9.
5 The first use of this phrase (KM, pp. 13-4) stresses the architectural sense of "Grund"
("foundation") which, as the English translator, James Churchill, points out, is not
carried over in the English "ground". Cf. Martin Heidegger, Kant and the Problem of
Metaphysics, trans. James Churchill (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press,
1962), p. 3, n. 1.
As has become customary we leave this by now technical term untranslated; we will
accordingly treat it in the neuter gender.
7 SZ, w 2, p. 5.
s EM, pp. 3 - 5 .
9 Martin t-Ieidegger, Vom Wesen des Grundes, 5. Auflage (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio
Klostermann, 1965), pp. 47-50 (hereafter WG).
lo Arthur Schopenhauer, Ober die vierfache Wurzel des Siitzes yore zureichenden Grunde
in l'Verke, eds. J. Frauenstadt and A. Hubscher, 6 B~inde (Leipzig: 1937-41), Band I,
p. 5. One finds many uses of the English "ground" in this sense, e.g., "On what grounds
do you hold your position?" (i.e., " F o r what reasons...?")
11 Martin Heidegger, Die Frage nach dem Ding (TiJbingen: Max Niemeyer, 1962), pp.
42ff.
12 "...durch den Satz cogito, sum wird erst eine neue Bestimmung des Wesens yon
'Grund' und 'principium' gegeben." N I I , p. 167.
13 "Grundsein besagt denmach, des eigensten Seins yon Grund auf nie miichtig sein."
SZ w58, p. 284.
14 "Es ist hie existent vor seinen Grunde, sondern je nur aus ihm und als dieser." SZ,
w58, p. 284.
12 The English "abyss" does not capture the symmetrical contriety that the German
"Ab-grund" bears to "Grund". Heidegger means hereby a ground that also contains a
void, that is, a finite ground.
le WG, pp. 45-50, 15.
xv ,,,Das reine Sein trod das reine Nichts ist also dasselbe.' Dieser Satz Hegels (Wissen-
schaft der Logik I. Buch, WW III, S. 74) besteht zu recht. Sein und Nichts geh/Sren zu-
sammen, abet nicht weil sie beide - vom Hegelschen Begriff des Denkens aus gesehen-
in ihrer Unbestimmtheit und Unmittelbarkeit iibereinkommen, sondern weil das Sein
selbst im Wesen endlich ist und sich nur in der Transzendenz des in das Nichts hinans-
gehalten Daseins offenbart." WM, pp. 39-40.
i s ,,... "Grund' nur als Siun zug/inglich wird, und sei er selbst der Abgrund der Sinnlosig-
keit." SZ, w 32, p. 152.
19 Cf. Werner Brock's discussion of WM in Existence and Being, ed. Werner Brock
(London: Vision Press, 1949), pp. 211 iT.
s0 CL Walter Schulz, "Ober die philosophiegeschichtlichen Oft Martin Heideggers",
Philosophisehe Rundschau I (1954), pp. 83-4.
zl "Warum ist i~berhaupt Seiendes und nicht vielmehr Nichts?" EM, p. 1. "Grundfrage"
ordinarily means of course "fundamental question"; Heidegger however wishes to take
the word literally. Cf. EM, p. 2; N I, p. 80.
2~ "Der gefragte Grund ist jetzt gefragt als Grund der Entscheidung for das Seiende
gegen das Nichts..." EM, p. 22.

45
 J O H N D. C A P U T O

~a EM, pp. 11-3.

24 "Diese MSglichkeit erfahren wir keineswegs als etwas was nur wit erst hinzudenken,
sondem das Seiende selbst bekundet diese M~glichkeit..." EM, p. 22.
~5 Otto P6ggeler, Der Denkweg Martin Heideggers(Pfullingen: Verlag Giinther Neske,
1963), p. 179.
g6 EM, p. 124.
~7 "Wenn wit das Wort 'Geschick' vom Sein sagen, dann meinen wit, dass Sein sich
uns zuspricht und sich lichtet und lichtend den Zeit-Spiel-Raum einr/iumt, worin
Seiendes erscheinen kann. In Geschick des Seins ist die Geschichte des Seins nicht yon
einem Geschehen her gedacht, das dutch einem Verlauf und einem Prozess gekenn-
zeichnet wird. Vielmehr bestimmt sich das Wesen von Geschichte aus dem Geschick
des Seins, aus dem Sein als Geschick, aus solchem, was sich uns zuschick, indem es sich
entzieht. Beides, Sichzuschicken trod Sichentziehen, sind Ein und das Selbe, nicht
zweierlei." Martin Heidegger, Der Satz yore Grund (Pfullingen: Verlag Gfinther Neske,
1957), p. 109 (hereafter SG).
2s Cf. Heidegger's letter to Manfred Frings in tteidegger and the Quest for Truth ed.
Manfred Frings (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1968), p. 20.
29 Cf. Supra, n. 4: Martin Heidegger, Holzwege, 4. Auflage (Frankfurt am Main:
Vittorio Klostermann, 1963), pp. 248-50 (hereafter HW).
3o This is explained more fully in Martin Heidegger, "Die Onto-theo-logische Verfas-
sung der Metaphysik", Identitiit und Differenz (Pfullingen: Verlag G~nther Neske, 1957),
pp. 37 ff (hereafter ID).
31 Cf. John Anderson, "Truth, Process and Creature in Heidegger's Thought",
Heidegger and the Quest for Truth, pp. 28 ff for an illuminating discussion of the prob-
•em of ground and its connection with Plato's cosmology.
33 The "Principle of Sutiicient Reason" serves as the point of departure for Heidegger
in the discussion of ground in both WG and SG. In the former treatise it is passed over
as presupposing the essence of ground; in the latter it is taken as a missionary sending
of the origin-al ground.
83 Cf. SG. pp. 166-75 (Cicero), 33-75 (Leibniz), 123--41 (Kant), 57-9, 198-201 (science).
84 SG, pp. 178-83, 207.
35 "Wie? Warm? und Wo? - Die G/Stter bleiben stumm!
Du halte dich ans Weil und frage nicht W'arum?"
SG, p. 206.
88 Cf. especially SG, pp. 186-8.
37 Heraclitus, Fragment 52 in Kathleen Freeman, Ancilla to the Presocratic Philos-
ophers (Oxford: Basil Blackwells, 1962), p. 28; cf. also Fragment 70.
as ID, p. 64.
39 Cf. Vincent Vycinas, Earth and Gods: An Introduction to tteidegger's Philosophy
(The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1961), pp. 286, 315-8.
4o Cf. Eugen Fink, Spiel als Weltsymbol (Stuttgart : W. Kohlhammer Verlag, 1960),
p. 92. Here the sense in which Dasein is "innerworldly", intimated by "fallenness", is
made explicit.
41 Wir nennen das ereingende Spiegel-Spiel der Einfalt yon Erde und Himmel, G/Stt-
lichen und Sterblichen die Welt. Welt west, indem sic weltet." Martin Heidegger, "Das
Ding", Yortriige und .4ufsiitze, 2. Auflage (Pfullingen: Verlag G/Jnther Neske, 1959),
p. 178 (hereafter VA).
as Wemer Marx, Heidegger und die Tradition (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer Verlag,
1961), pp. 195-6.

46
 BEING, G R O U N D AND P L A Y IN H E I D E G G E R

43 V A , p. 178.
44 SG, pp. 129-30
45 Martin Heidegger, "Die Kehre", Die Technik und die Kehre (Pfullingen: Verlag
Giinther Neske, 1962), p. 45 (hereafter K). This view resembles the "meaning" (Bedeu-
tung) of the world in SZ, w 18, pp. 83-9.
46 Marx, pp. 46-51,148-55.
47 KM, pp. 28-41.
4s Marin Heidegger, Erlliuterungen zu H~lderlins Dichtung, 3. Auflage (Frankfurt am
Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1963), pp. 88, 126, 138 (hereinafter HD).
49 Martin Heidegger, Vom Wesen der Wahrheit, 4. Auflage (Frankfurt am Main:
Vittorio Klostermann, 1961), pp. 19-20 (hereafter WW).
50 Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1950), p. 37.
51 Plato, Laws, II, 653.
52 Jean Piaget, Play, Dreams and Imitation in Childhood, trans. C. Gattegno and
F. M. Hodgson (New York: W. W. Norton, 1962), pp. 142-6.
5a "Es spieler, well es spieler.
Das 'well' versinkt im Spiel. Das Spiel ist ohne 'Warum'. Es spielt, dieweil es spielt.
Es bleibt nur Spiel: das H/Schste und Tiefste." SG, p. 188.
54 "Denn das Sein hat nicht seinesgleichen neben sich. Es wird nicht yon anderem
bewirkt, noch wirkt es selbst. Sein verl/iuft nicht und rile in einem kausalen Wirkungs-
zusammenhang." K. pp. 42-3.
55 HW, pp. 301-2. Heidegger compares his position with Hegel in ID, pp. 31 ft.
5e WW, pp. 19-23.
57 Huizinga, p. 11. Alan Watts finds that the best way to describe the relationship
between the universal self and the individual in Vedanta philosophy is to describe it as a
"game" in which God (the player) "hides" in the particular self. Cf. Alan Watts,
The Book On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (New York: Collier, 1966),
pp. l l f f .
58 K, pp. 37 ft. The lecture "Die Kehre" was delivered as a part of a series originally
entitled "Das Einblick in das, was ist."
59 One seems to find reverberations of Heidegger's position in the recent discussions
of the "theology of Hope" among Christian theologians. In a recent article entitled
"Eschatology Rediscovered?" (Continuum, VI (Autumn, 1968), 429-33), Kurt Rein-
hardt says: "The basic illusion of modern man and the source of many idolatries which
surround us is the attempt to ground one's ultimate hope or one's "eschatology"
(whether of the Marxist-Leninist, Fascist or 'Christian' variety) in man rather than the
ground itself in which man is rooted and with him all reality" (p. 431).
e0 Plato, Laws, VII, 803--4.
el P/Sggeler, pp. 36 ft.
6~ I Thess. 5:1-3 (The Jerusalem Bible translation).
ea Heidegger discusses this "other beginning" in N I, p. 480, HD, pp. 73-4.
84 "Die Kehre der Gefahr ereignet sich jtth. In der Kehre lichtet sich jtih die Lichtung
des Wesens des Seins. Das j/the Sichtlichen ist das Blitzen." K, p. 43.
6a "Nichts ist ohne Grund. Sein und Grund: das Selbe. Sein als grtindendes hat keinen
Grund, spielt als der Ab-Grund jenes Spiel, das als Geschick uns Sein und Grund
zuspielt. Die Frage bleibt, ob wit und wie wir, die Stitzes dieses Spiel hSrend, mitspielen
und uns in der Spiel ftigen." SG, p. 188. Heidegger is punning on the phrase "der Satz
yore Grund'" as the German "Satz" can mean a musical phrase or passage or movement.

47
 J O H N D. C A P U T O

67 A "serious" play is a frequent and important phenomenon. Eugen Fink describes

the gravity of ritual play in primitive religion. Cf. Fink, pp. 125 ft., Huizinga, pp. 5-6,
8, 22-3.
6a Karl L~Swith, Heidegger: Denker in diirftiger Zeit, 3. Auflage (G~ttingen: Vander-
hoeck & Ruprecht, 1960), pp. 67-73.
69 Huizinga, pp. 30-I, 46 ft.
70 VA, pp. 248 ft. : EM, pp. 114 ft.
7x Martin Heidegger, Unterwegs zur Sprache (Pfullingen: Verlag Giinther Neske, 1959),
pp. 252-5 (hereafter US).
~2 VA, pp. 177.
7s Anderson, pp. 58-60.
7a Fink, pp. 230 ft.
75 Nietzsche recognized the priority of the child, play and the dance as significant of
the will-to-power. Perhaps Heidegger would regard the play of Being as another
instance of his retrieve of the truth of that other strange and great philosopher in a time
of need.
78 Marx, pp. 195-6.
77 "Die Grundlb'sigkeit des Wahrheit des Seins..." N I, p. 654.
78 It is mysterious only "in its Being".
79 US, p. 99.
80 Huizinga, pp. 105 IT.
81 Anderson, pp. 36 ft.; cf. also Vycinas, pp. 309-11.
a~ As Heidegger uses the word "philosophy" in Was ist das - die Philosophie? (Pfullin-
gen: Verlag Gfinther Neske, 1956), pp. 52-62, he would himself claim to have left
philosophy.
as It is on grounds similar to these that we usually count Kierkegaard, for example, as
a philosopher, despite his own "point of view as an author".
s4 Quoted by Huizinga, p. 132; cf. Huizinga, pp. 119 ft.
s 5 SG, p. 108.
s~ "Philosophieren, so k~nnen wir jetzt sagen, ist ausser-ordentliches Fragennach dem
Ausser-ordentlichen." EM, p. 10

48