 Hi, welcome back to 19th and 20th century philosophy. I'm Matt Brown today We're talking about two of the most significant figures of 20th century philosophy Martin Heidegger and Rudolph Karnapp and in particular their encounter with each other circa 1929 to 1931 And I'm going to argue today that this Encounter is a very different sort of thing than philosophers have tended to write about it So here in Karnapp's 1931 article the elimination of metaphysics through the logical analysis of language Karnapp quotes Heidegger's essay what is metaphysics as an example of Quote metaphysical pseudo statements that are quote based on a logical defective language And many commentators have looked at this criticism of Karnapp's and argued that Karnapp sort of cherry picks examples out of context mocks Heidegger without really an effort at understanding what he's writing about That basically what we have here is a is a failure to communicate across the analytic and continental divide I'm going to argue actually that this mistake this impression is quite mistaken Karnapp had carefully studied Heidegger's work and Karnapp and Heidegger shared a significant philosophical background In many ways the two of them were undertaking different versions of the same basic philosophical project and Karnapp's choices in his criticism of Heidegger were actually very astute and pointed Okay, but let's back up a little bit Martin Heidegger born 1889 died 1976 was a very influential German philosopher whose work is associated with the traditions of phenomenology Existentialism and hermeneutics. Let's not quite write to classify him as any of those things without a lot of caveats He was trained in neocontian philosophy and one of his mentors was Edmund Husserl who we've read And Heidegger's early work actually is a lot like Husserl's in that it's focused on the nature of logic and on arguments against Psychologism Notably in his early work Heidegger wrote positively about Frege's contribution to logic at a time when the latter Was not well appreciated when Frege was not well appreciated now when Husserl retired 1928 Heidegger took over his position at the University of Freiberg his ascension to that post That high position is no doubt a result in part of his publishing the year before his magnum opus being in time Clearly his most influential work, although it was incomplete when it was published and and he dropped the project thereafter Now one thing about Heidegger, which which many of you have probably already heard but which I cannot go without mentioning I think Is that he was a card-carrying member of the Nazi Party as of 1933 and in that same year He became rector of his university when the United States we typically call a university president He was the leader of the university now I Want to note that Heidegger? never apologized for this part of his life. He never expressed remorse for supporting or joining the Nazi Party. He did later on express a kind of Disagreement at a general level with Hitler's regime and its approach but no kind of personal repentance and while it's a matter of some controversy with the significance of this is for Heidegger's philosophy and it kind of goes beyond our scope today to get into that I Think the evidence actually is quite clear that there are some deep relations between Heidegger's philosophical views, especially his his later views, although not exclusively And his reasons for supporting the Nazis. So I think there is Some significant connection there and many Heidegger scholars agree with that and find those connections worth exploring But before those dark times just after his succeeding Husserl But before the Nazis and the rector ship and all that In 1929 Heidegger participated in a famous Disputation at a conference at Davos, Switzerland with one of the elder stars of German philosophy of the time Ernst Kassier The topic of the meeting of the whole conference was human nature And the focus of the disputation between Kassier and Heidegger was the interpretation of Kant of Kant's views on that topic or really Kant's project in general Kassier was there representing the Marburg what's called the Marburg School of neocontinism Though Kassier himself was kind of moving beyond Kant into developing his philosophy of symbolic forms into a kind of general philosophy of culture And Heidegger was there in a sense representing what's called the Southwest School of neocontinism Though he obviously was was moving beyond Kant himself in very significant ways and Heidegger's version of Kant in this debate turns out to be a kind of proto Heideggerian now it's not it's not hard to see the political resonance of their encounter Kassier was a kind of defender not only politically but philosophically of the liberal of the liberal Democratic Weimar Republic And Heidegger as well. We've said very much not a liberal Democrat Rather a Nazi in attendance at what we might call the rumble in the Swiss Swiss Alps was one Rudolph Karnapp Karnapp two years Heidegger's junior born in 1891 died in 1970 was another extremely influential German philosopher one of the founders and As significant members of the the philosophical Movement known as logical positivism or logical empiricism the logical empiricists combined ideas from classical empiricism With French positivism and with the new formal logic that had been developed by Frege Russell and others As well as formal techniques in the philosophy of language Karnapp himself was quite influenced by Frege by Edmund Husserl by Bertrand Russell And by the neo Kantian Bruno Bach after Davos where he found himself quite charmed by Heidegger actually Said he found him personally attractive Karnapp spent some time studying Heidegger's philosophy in depth including a close study of being in time and Leading a discussion group in Vienna in 1930 on on Heidegger's ideas So there's a quite a significant amount of work there. So let's look at some of the key texts for their encounter Martin Heidegger published his inaugural address to the University of Freiberg in 1929. What is metaphysics? Putatively concerns the old metaphysical question. Why is there something rather than nothing? At least that's the example of a metaphysical question that Heidegger gives Notice notably Heidegger does not proceed in a traditional way to try to answer this question Rather, he approaches it in a quite different manner He starts to unpack for us the various ways in which being And nothing are related to each other in a way we speak the way that being and nothing are regarded by science Kind of positing nothing as a as a sort of other or remainder outside of the scope of scientific knowledge Exploring and rejecting the connection of nothing and logical negation the knot of logic arguing that The nothing is prior to logic what Heidegger does in this essay is a kind of thorough undermining of the project of rationalist or traditional metaphysics Definitely different in approach, but kind of similar in conclusions to to Kant Severely limiting the scope of traditional metaphysics What is after all the subject matter of metaphysics for Heidegger at the end of the day nothing? Nothing is its subject matter what unifies and grounds the sciences on Heidegger's approach nothing nothing does The analysis that Heidegger gives of nothing is not accomplished by some theoretical reason Building up an account of of being and in relation to nothingness It's it's really accomplished through the exploration of a fundamental mood of What Heidegger calls angst or anxiety depending on your translation? That somehow reveals nothingness or a kind of human finitude Reveals the nothingness that's always there in a sort of behind or in contrast to beings So it's it's not really Rationalist metaphysics. It's this kind of exploration of a of a mood or a feeling That unpack something that's also kind of there in our in our way of speaking about these things two years later Karnat publishes and I apologize here for my bad German pronunciation uberwindung der metaphysics der Lodzisch and Anilis der Sprach I told you it'd be bad This is typically translated as the elimination of metaphysics through the logical analysis of language thanks to Arthur Papp's Central translation of this of this essay However, it really probably should be translated as overcoming That's the way that that same word uberwindung is Translated in When it's used as it is often by Nietzsche or by Heidegger, you know, we can actually compare Heidegger's own project of the destruction of metaphysics or of the the destruction of the history of Vontology here with Carnap's project or with the fact that that Heidegger in other writings sort of equates metaphysics And nihilism or treats nihilism as the sort of result of the history of metaphysics Indeed Heidegger himself speaks of the overcoming of metaphysics the uberwindung der metaphysics In a later essay. So there's a lot of there's already a lot of shared space here Despite the way that it's set up. It's not really a case of Heidegger the metaphysician defending metaphysics and Carnap attacking it so Looking at Carnap's critique of Heidegger. I think we should ask Is Heidegger really a metaphysician and is it fair of Carnap to call him one? Well, I mean the answer to the first question is muddy despite all the talk of overcoming and destruction Heidegger, you know, he wants to he wants to overcome traditional metaphysics rationalist metaphysics traditionalist philosophy But also perhaps kind of preserve preserve a sort of metaphysical philosophy grounded in mood and attitudes or stances And supported by the analysis of everyday language And so, you know, there's a sense in which It's not exactly metaphysics as it's been known, but there's some remainder which we might call metaphysics So the fairness of Carnap's calling him a metaphysician Kind of kind of gets at some of the details of their arguments And I think also points towards both their significant overlap in ideas As well as their central disagreements So according to to the philosopher Abe stone who's written on this Their their views on the overcoming of metaphysics in the background of the debate between Carnap and Heidegger are several common starting points and argumentative moves So first Heidegger and Carnap both have a background in neocontianism Heidegger and Carnap are were both heavily influenced by Husserl the third both Heidegger and Carnap accept the broadly Kantian project of overcoming or limiting metaphysics In order on the one hand To make room for freedom and morality right to limit reason to make room for faith as as Kant himself puts it while also like Kant Carnap and Heidegger want to retain what they think is right about traditional metaphysics Which is that it provides a kind of explanation for both the possibility of science and the unity of science Also, both of these philosophers identified the same problem with Husserl This is Abe stone's argument That the role of pure consciousness in Husserl's view thought And the the sort of his focus on logic as a kind of science of pure essences in his phenomenology Brings traditional metaphysics Back in in the back door, you might say And subsequently there's there's no room in Husserl's system for for what These philosophers would regard as genuine human freedom furthermore both Heidegger and Carnap make use of the analysis of language as the primary sort of methodology for overcoming metaphysics So it's along this background that Carnap chooses Just those quotations that express Heidegger's main strategy In order to criticize them. So the first part of the quote starts with a typical kind of statement drawn from From everyday use. So Heidegger says what is to be investigated is being only and nothing else, right? And that's that's makes sense, you know Science investigates being nothing else, right? And what Heidegger asks us to do is to listen to what we're really saying Take responsibility for it and then continue sort of following it out. So Okay, what is to be investigated by science? It's being only and nothing else Well, what about this nothing, right? That sort of Further question is sort of drawn out of these earlier more prosaic statements about being and nothing It seems almost like a pun on the word But like a pun it's drawing our attention to how the language actually works in a way The next part of the quotation Carnap puts on display Heidegger's argument that the nothing is prior to logic This is an important move for Heidegger to make In order to escape Husserl's holding up of logic as the science of all being in general as the science of essences And thus that move from logic back to metaphysics that's so problematic in Husserl on the on the Kant-Carnap-Heidegger line and while Carnap thinks that Heidegger's right to reject Husserl's views on the status and subject of logic He thinks that Heidegger is wrong to to think he can kind of look to something that's prior to any Sort of logic. So there's a there's a kind of Reflex to the prior Here which um, which Carnap thinks is is also problematic in the next bit of the quotation He picks out Carnap picks out the role of anxiety or angst in revealing the nothing for Heidegger And this is important to Carnap's Sort of alternative proposal for for what Heidegger should have been doing And here is where Heidegger intentionally has pushed us into paradoxical language And the attempt to push our use of language Kind of to its limits this this statement that nothing itself nothing's Seems like a sensible thing to say At one level that may be at a grammatical level, but um, actually, uh, you know, it's it's it's paradoxical. It's it's really Pushing us to think well, what does that mean, right? What we have here are two different orientations to how Language is to be analyzed and used in philosophy Heidegger says Listen to what our language really says in the way that we speak it in our everyday casual careless way And then take responsibility for that, right? Really, you know, this is the kind of This is a kind of Kantian move, right? Give yourself the moral law Give yourself the rules of language give yourself over to them freely, right and take responsibility for For what they say, right? Really take it seriously Carnap on the other hand, you know, while he agrees with Heidegger that our ordinary language Commits us to these strange ways of speaking He says well, so much the worse for ordinary language, right? He says we should use logic to remake language in the way that better suits our purposes Here he, you know, he, uh, emphasizes the Our freedom to give ourselves the law And the law here are the conventions of the language we've chosen, right? And so that's a significant part of of the conflict here So before concluding, I want to come back to the mood of angst or anxiety And its role in revealing finitude or or nothingness And and Carnap in a way gives Heidegger an out here He tells us that metaphysical statements serve for the expression of the general Attitude of a person towards life. He tells us that metaphysicians are musicians without musical Ability and I don't think that's meant to be an insult. I think what Carnap Is objecting to here is not the general project of expressing these kinds of attitudes What he objects to is expressed is sort of cloaking that activity in the intellectual garb Of descriptive assertions Of metaphysics That in fact have no real cognitive meaning. That is that they're not the kind of statements that could be true or false What they do is they express an attitude or a feeling or a stance towards life And Carnap points out that look the purest forms of such expression are things like art and poetry and especially music So what the metaphysician is trying to do Is use the talent they have right for philosophy to do what the musician actually accomplishes And Heidegger in his in his later work in a way seems to confirm Carnap's reading as he turns himself To poetry and increasingly to to artistic modes of expression Though Heidegger doesn't achieve anything quite like Nietzsche's thus spake Zarathustra a work that Carnap praises at the end of his essay He does seem to move in something like this direction in in his in his later part of his career So what do you think who got it right? Please let me know by By by posting a message about it or I'm telling us in class to be clear I'm not myself trying to take sides in this in this question about Carnap versus Heidegger My point is simply that Carnap is here acting as an astute critic Of a fellow philosopher with whom he agrees about much About a topic that's key to both of their projects although, you know These two German philosophers would become central To the analytic and continental traditions that would divide The the philosophy especially in the English-speaking world After World War II until near the end of the 20th century Around 1930 they were part of a largely intact Philosophical scene not divided And they were closely in in dialogue at least for this brief time Now let me just end by saying that given Carnap's commitments to a kind of democratic socialism And Heidegger's own political views which we've talked about It's also difficult not to read certain political valences into the positions in this debate But that's something that Perhaps goes a little bit beyond What we're what we have the scope to talk about here today So Thank you so much for for joining us. That's a complicated topic, but well worth our exploration I look forward to hearing what you think about it and talking to you next time Does the nothing exist because the not the negation exists Or is it the other way around does negation and the not exist only because the nothing exists The nothing is prior to the not and the negation anxiety reveals the nothing The nothing itself nothing Is Would it be fair to say that that's big wizard energy on that on that quote