The influence of Schleiermacher's second speech On Religion on Heidegger's concept of Ereignis

Review of Metaphysics, The, June, 2008 by Alexander S. Jensen

This is congruent with Heidegger's remark that the Ereignis should be seen as the center of the fourfold. (35) In the Ereignis, the meaningful relations of the individual thing to the totality of Being are revealed. Focused on an individual thing, the totality of being becomes manifest.

In this way, the Ereignis is the link between language as Sage (saying) and Lauten des Wortes (sounding of the word). "Appropriation [that is, Ereignis], needing and using man's appropriations, allows saying to reach speech." (36) Saying, in this context, seems to refer to the totality of meaningful relations of being, which are made manifest in the Ereignis and then come to speech. Heidegger, albeit before he introduces the Ereignis as the link between speaking and saying, describes the relation between the two in a complex way.

   Language speaks by saying, this is, by showing. What it says wells
   up from the formerly spoken and so far still unspoken Saying which
   pervades the design of language. Language speaks in that it, as
   showing, reaching into all regions of presences, summons from them
   whatever is present to appear and to fade.... In our speaking, as
   listening to language, we say again the Saying we have heard. (37)

We recall that for the young Schleiermacher, the universe reveals itself to the beholder in what he describes as a "mysterious moment," in which an individual thing is revealed in its relation to the totality of being, to the universe. This revelation is then conceptualized and can be expressed in language. If we read the later Heidegger's approach to language in the light of Schleiermacher's understanding, then Sage can be seen as the totality of meaningful relations that await their expression in language, and the Ereignis as the immediate revelation that makes these relations manifest, and speaking as the conceptualization of this revelation of meaningful relations of being.

I believe that these remarkable parallels between Schleiermacher's and Heidegger's thought lend support to the claim that Heidegger's study of Schleiermacher's Second Speech during the summer of 1917 had a lasting effect on his thinking, and influenced deeply his later philosophy. As noted earlier, I am not suggesting that Heidegger's concept of Ereignis is exclusively built on Schleiermacher's Second Speech. Far from it, Heidegger's thought was influenced by too many other thinkers and currents. For instance, his teacher Husserl further shaped his thinking, as did his later fascination with Far-Eastern thought. These influences, however, shaped his understanding of Ereignis which was based on his earlier reading of Schleiermacher.

V

Reading Heidegger's later philosophy of language in the light of Schleiermacher's Speeches sheds light on an area of Heidegger's thought that has often been found inaccessible and obscure. In fact, it allows a comparatively straightforward reading of the complex material. It does not, however, allow an exhaustive explanation, as other influences will have altered Heidegger's thought. But this, I believe, took place on the basis of the basic insights that Heidegger had gained from his study of Schleiermacher's Speeches.