Speaking of Silence in Heidegger

Description

In Speaking of Silence in Heidegger, Wanda Torres Gregory critically analyzes Heidegger’s thoughts on silence. Arguing that silence about silence is a guiding principle in his sparse and often reticent words, Torres Gregory sets out to decipher their elusive meanings. Charting the trajectory of Heidegger’s reflections, from Being and Time to On the Way to Language, she shows that he develops his ideas of silence in increasingly closer relations to his also evolving ideas of truth as the unconcealedness of being/beyng and language as disclosive sonorous saying. Torres Gregory distinguishes between human, primordial, and primeval forms of silence, and the linguistic, pre-linguistic, and proto-linguistic levels at which silence can occur in relation to sonorous speech. While the book focuses on these inner conceptual dynamics, the author remains mindful of Heidegger’s ties to National Socialism and clarifies how his theoretical assumptions allow for oppressive silencing. The book concludes with critical reflections on the later Heidegger’s thinking of silence and proposes alternatives to his claims concerning the sound beyond sounds, the metaphysics of mystical silence, the uniquely linguistic essence of the mortals, and the loud idle talk in the age of modern technology. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations Martin Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1975–.) Other Texts by Heidegger Introduction Notes Chapter 1: From the Silent Call of Conscience and Reticent Discourse to the Silencing in Dread and Profound Boredom in Da-sein 1.1. The Silent Call of Conscience and Reticent Discourse 1.2. The Silencing in Dread and Profound Boredom Notes Chapter 2: Toward the Essence of Silence 2.1. On the Essence of Truth (1933–34) 2.2. Logic as the Question Concerning the Essence of Language (1934) Notes Chapter 3: The Poetics of Silence in a Dialogue with Hölderlin 3.1. Germania 3.2. The Rhein Notes Chapter 4: Sigetics and the Silence of the Other Beginning in the Appropriating-Event Notes Chapter 5: The Silent Origin of Language in the Confrontation with Herder Notes Chapter 6: Toward the Originary Logic of Silence in a Translation of Heraclitus Notes Chapter 7: Quiet Musings in the Project toward the Stillness 7.1. The Words of the Thinker 7.2. The Words of the Thinker as Poet Notes Chapter 8: The Soundless Peal of the Stillness Notes Chapter 9: Sounding Out the Later Meanings of Silence 9.1. The Harmonies and Disharmonies of Silence in Relation to Speech and Sound 9.2. Striking Chords between the Reticent CO-RESPONDENCE of Poetry and Thinking, the Metaphysical Silence of Mysticism, and the Loud Chatter of Everydayness 9.3. The Silent Duet of the Sonorous Mortals and the Hinting Immortals against the Cacophony of Languageless Animals and the Loudness of the Modern Technological Age Notes Index