Caring and the

for Myth

Myth: of

Heidegger, Cura1

Plato,

DREW A. HYLAND Trinity College

In Heidegger's meditation on Heraclitus' Fragment B 50, and speakof the ing with his usual sensitivity and sympathy to the thought has occasion to say, "Ought we now to place Heidegger presocratics, h6yog, ?v 1tv'ta and Zeus all together, and even assert that Heraclitus teaches pantheism? Heraclitus does not teach this or any doctrine (Lehre). As a thinker, he gives us only to think."' To modern ears, the idea of a thinker or philosopher without a "doctrine" may seem strange; we seem to have learned to look for nothing else in the writings of a thinker in his studies of Heraclitus But Heidegger, but his or her "doctrine." makes a plausible case that once upon a and the other presocratics, time it was a possibility taken up by a number of the great thinkers of it would seem that it would antiquity. Yet if this is true of Heraclitus, be at least as true, if not more so, of Plato, who never writes in his own person, whose dialogues never present abstract "arguments" but always portray conversations among specific people with particular personalities, carefully placed in one context or another. Never in any dialogue is the suggestion made that what Socrates says (or Parmenides, or the or Timaeus, or Diotima, or Aspasia, or the Eleatic Stranger, Athenian can be taken as "Plato's doctrine," though later Stranger) have often scholars, more exclusively attuned to detecting "doctrines," taken it as such. On the contrary, by placing all the speeches of the dialogues in concrete contexts with specific speakers, Plato invites us 90

91 to reflect on the character of all speech, including, especially, the speech as a responding to the exigencies of the concrete huof philosophy, man situation, as responding, that is, to the call of the every day, to That response, as the dialogues show in imitaBeing as it "happens." is tion of real life, wonderfully varied and complex. If philosophic speech then it would truly be and "doctrines," presented only "arguments" "abstract," a pale and skeletal shade of the richness of life itself. In avoidance of that abstraction, Plato includes in his dialogues speech as to be sure, but also draas the speech of life: arguments, variegated matic encounters, poetry, narrative, comic asides, and myth. Plato thus invites us again to hear the speech of the dialogues as the deep and thoughtful response to the call of life itself, of Being. So to repeat, of no philosopher would it seem to be more true than of Plato that he "does not teach any doctrine, but gives us only to think." in his published Yet Heidegger, for the most part and particularly work on Plato, seems not to have appreciated this poetic character of Plato's work and thought. To the contrary, he entitles his one published work directly on Plato Plato's Doctrine (Lehre) of Truth: With a Letter on Humanism.' In this work, as the title suggests, Heidegger virtually ignores the poetic character of the cave analogy and straightforit not simply as "Socrates' discussion of truth in the wardly interprets cave analogy" or even as "Socrates' doctrine of truth in the Republic," of truth." In so doing, he ignores the rich but as "Plato's doctrine above in favor depth of Plato's complex dramatic portrayal adumbrated of an abstract account of "Plato's doctrine." As a number of others, including myself, have observed, one of the enduring puzzles about is that one so exquisitely sensitive to the poetic character Heidegger of language should fail to attend to the poetic thinking of that phiwho most fully integrated the poetic into losopher of all philosophers his thought. As Heidegger's great student, Hans-Georg Gadamer, once so poignantly put it in discussing Heidegger's often remarkable sensiof the Platonic dialoguestivity to the Greeks, "Only the thought-event text that we still have-remained the first philosophical inaccessible to this impatient in spite of all the momentum behind his questioner appropriations."4 In what follows, as a means of calling attention to one aspect of Heidegger's reading of Plato, I shall focus on the use of myth in both thinkers. To that end, I shall consider Heidegger's one use of myth in his great early work, Being and Time, and contrast that use with several of Plato's myths which, I shall argue, speak to similar themes but in an even richer way. I shall then close with some observations about the later Heidegger's occasional greater sensitivity to mythological thinking.

92 In paragraph 42 of Being and Time (Part I, Section VI, pp. 241-44 the notion of Care (Sorge) as [SZ, 196-200]), having just introduced the Being of Dasein and before going on to develop that crucial Existentiale in greater ontological detail, Heidegger strikingly introduces a myth in support of his logos, the myth of Cura (Care). No less strikhe employs to do so. He entitles the section in ing is the rhetoric which he introduces the myth with strong language: "Confirmation of the Existential of Dasein as Care in terms (Bewahrung) Interpretation of Dasein's Pre-ontological of Itself." (vorontologishen) Way Interpreting Within the section, Heidegger sometimes uses again strong language to suggest the confirming We are power of the myth he introduces. told that in the myth Dasein is expressing itself "primordially" (241/197). (ursprunglich), "unaffected by any theoretical interpretation" in the very depths of its Being, then Moreover, "If Dasein is 'historical' a deposition (Aussage) which comes from its history and goes back to and it, which, moreover, is prior to any scientific knowledge, will have is never purely (rein) onespecial weight, even though its importance we are assured that "The document t tological" (241-42/197). Finally, which we are about to cite should make plain (soll deutlich machen) that our existential Interpretation is not a mere fabrication (ErJ?Cndung), but that as an ontological 'construction' it is well grounded and has in elemental Such been sketched out beforehand ways" (242/197). that we are about to be with language suggests presented extremely even confirmational, material in the myth to come. important, At the same time, the introduction of the myth is peppered with Most we are told several times that the qualifications. importantly, myth is "pre-ontological" in character More(241, 242, 243, 244/196-200). as "ontical," and Heidegger over, it is characterized explicitly opposes this "ontical interpretation" (ontischen Auslegung) to his own "existential ontological Interpretation" (existenzial-ontologische Interpretation) that he is developing in detail (243/199). Finally, we are warned that the demonstrative force of the myth is "merely historical" l ' nur geschichtlich'uses what are apparently sneer quotes here, since the qualiHeidegger fication is itself immediately re-qualified by the comment cited above that if Dasein is historical in the depth of its Being, the myth will have special force (241/197). It is hard to know what to make of the complex rhetoric of this introduction of the Cura myth, with its strong assertions, qualifications and re-qualifications of qualifications. It is as if Heidegger wants the myth to count for very much indeed, but is hesitant to allow the impression that his careful, technical, existential-ontological analysis finds its ultimate confirmation in a "mere" myth. This impression is deepened

93 In the footnote accompanying his introby two other considerations. duction of the myth (242/197), notes that he "ran across" Heidegger the myth in an article by K. Burdach. The operative verb here (stieg of chance; indeed, auf ) carries a strong connotation my dictionary suggests "chance upon" as an alternative to Macquarrie and Robinson's "ran across". The sense is clear that Heidegger's discovery of the myth is a bit of serendipity, not a central part of his argument. Second and in keeping with this, once the myth is presented and discussed, it is almost entirely left behind as Heidegger returns to what seems to be his focal project, the existential-ontological analysis.' to the rhetoric of this secMoreover, to ask a question applicable tion but of more general import, what are we to make of the distinctions employed here between and "ontological," "pre-ontological," "ontical"? Is the ascription "pre-ontological" functionally equivalent to as appears to be the case in this section? Or is a "pre"ontical," ontological" myth not rather prior to the very distinction between ontical and ontological? Earlier in Sein und Zeit, Heidegger introduces the term in discussing the ontical and ontological "pre-ontological" priority of Dasein as a path to raising the question of Being. There he distinand pre-ontological guishes between an ontological understanding by the former as a more the designating explicit, theoretical enterprise, latter in terms of Dasein's "average everyday understanding" of Being. "So if we should reserve the term 'ontology' for that theoretical inis which devoted to the of then what entities, quiry explicitly meaning we have had in mind in speaking of Dasein's 'Being-ontological' is to be designated as something 'pre-ontological"' (32/12). To this he adds, does not make explicitly and decisively, that being "pre-ontological" "ontic." "It does not however, something signify simply 'being-ontical,' but rather 'being in such a way that one has an understanding of BeIf to the Cura other what considso, (32/12). ing"' returning myth, erations, over and above its supposed pre-ontological character, justifies of the as "ontical"? Are the reasons for Heidegger's description myth its being "pre-ontological" different from the reasons for its being "ontical"? And just what are those reasons? Heidegger does not pause to tell us; he simply asserts these ascriptions. Finally, are all three terms that ontical and even presimply descriptive, or is there an intonation evidence is the existential-ontologisomehow "inferior" to ontological cal evidence that Heidegger is adducing in such detail?' The least we can say is that Heidegger introduces the myth of Cura into his analysis with a certain ambivalence. Yet the myth does seem, almost delightfully, to offer support for Heidegger's analysis. Since it is reasonably translation: short, I quote the myth in the Macquarrie-Robinson

94. "Once when 'Care' was crossing a river, she saw some clay; she took up a piece and began to shape it. While she was thoughtfully on what she had made, Jupiter came by. 'Care' asked meditating him to give it spirit, and this he gladly granted. But when she wanted her name to be bestowed upon it, he forbade this, and demanded that it be given his name instead. While 'Care' and Jupiter were disputing, Earth arose and desired that her own name be conferred on the creature, since she had furnished it with part of her body. They asked Saturn to be their arbiter, and he made the following which seemed a just one: "Since you, Jupiter, have decision, given its spirit, you shall receive that spirit at its death, and since you, Earth, have given its body, you shall receive its body. But since 'Care' first shaped this creature, she shall possess it as long as it lives. And because there is now a dispute among you as to its name, let it be called for it is made out of humus (earth)." (242/ 197-98) As Heidegger the myth is immediately points out (243/198-199), especially suggestive in making Care the source of Dasein's Being, in explicit contrast to its more ordinary, everyday, ontic characterizations in terms of body and spirit. Care possesses human being "for its lifehas the stamp of 'Care' which actime," and so, "'Being-in-the-world' cords with its Being" (243/198). Moreover and decisively, "The decision as to wherein the 'primordial' Being of this creature is to be seen is left to Saturn, 'Time'," thus beautifully preparing the way for Heidegger's own subsequent analysis of the structure of Care in terms of temporality. own interpretation of the myth makes even more puzHeidegger's that the myth is "ontic" or "preontological." For zling his insistence does not his own interpretation point to the way in which the myth the Being of Dasein from its ontic components of earth distinguishes and spirit? Does not that show that the myth itself is ontological through and through? denial Heidegger says no. To ask one more question, is Heidegger's of an ontological level to the myth a specific judgment this regarding particular myth of Cura, or is it implied that it is ontical or preontological because it is a myth, and so that any use of myth is necessarily ontical or preontological? Since Heidegger does not argue but simply asserts the ontic/preontological character of the myth, we cannot be sure. But I suggest that the rhetoric of the section clearly points to the latter conclusion, that Heidegger feels no need to argue for the myth's character ontic/preontological precisely because it is a myth, and so has that character.7 It is that implication that I wish to necessarily who most of question, and to do so by appealing to that philosopher all made use of myth and did so precisely as a means of gaining access

95 to the ontological status, the Being-status, of human being, the much at least) Plato. maligned (by Heideggerians two myths that happen, as we shall We can use for our consideration to the myth of Cura, the two myths see, to bear striking similarities in the Symposium to reveal the nature of eros: first, employed in his Diotima's and, second, (189d-193d) speech Aristophanes' myth in to the then of Eros,8 birth Socrates' myth response young strange An overriding point that question, who are Eros' parents? (203b-204a). I hope will become manifest in what follows is that Plato is clearly level, to reveal the Being of eros using these myths at an ontological and, as we shall see, of human being. Stanley Rosen was the first to observe the striking affinity between Care and Platonic eros.9 I shall presently point in detail Heideggerian to some of the similarities, but we can establish the general point by that as the human condition of incompleteness, eros, noting recognizor that ing experiencing incompleteness, striving to overcome it, as well as our overfulness or "pregnancy," accords with many of the Care. Eros is most fundamental to the source Heideggerian ascriptions of human Being, whatever specific directions lan(in Heideggerian for an It is whatever individual take. guage, possibilities Being) might at once our "thrownness" and our finite) (as incomplete, "projection" on future possibilities as we strive for wholeness; who we are at any and present moment is the result of the ways we have experienced fulfilled our eros. Before turning to our comparison, let me briefly and skeletally rehearse the two Platonic myths. In Aristophanes' myth, we were once double beings with four arms, four legs, two heads, and as such capable of great feats of strength. We came in three versions: a double combination. But in our male, a double female, and a male/female we were also we tried to overthrow the gods. hubristic; powerful state, in out of a self-interested desire to Zeus, partly self-defense, partly preserve and even increase the number of sacrifices by humans to the gods, responded by splitting us in two, so that we would be at once weaker and more numerous, less a threat and capable of more sacrifices. But in that split condition a new desire sprung up-the desire, in our into become whole to return to our original concomplete state, again, dition of wholeness. That desire is eros. Eros, then, has a triadic structure. It is our condition, our existential-ontological situation, as incomplete. It is our experience of or recognition of that condition, and it is our his to overcome to In comic become whole. it, fashion, striving typical Aristophanes presents this situation in ribald sexual terms; the image we are presumably to have is of all these beings running around

96 in the various options, in the name of returning to a pricopulating, mordial wholeness. That is why we take all those hilarious positions, and we are all meant to get a good laugh out of it. But it is obvious that the situation can be generalized far beyond sexuality: eros is in principle the source of all human aspiration to become more than we are. Diotima's myth is told in answer to Socrates' curious question, who are Eros' parents? Eros, says Diotima, is the child of Poros (whose own mother is Metis) and Penia, of Plenty or Resource, child of Wisdom or Craft, and Poverty or Lack. Moreover, Eros, like many children, takes after all three of its relatives. We shall see in greater detail later how this is so. We can begin with a statement of a fundamental difference between Cura myth and Plato's two myths. Heidegger's is a myth Heidegger's of the creation of humans, by Care, whereas both of Plato's myths are as fundamentally a human phenomenon. myths of Eros' parentage Already we can see a certain asymmetry in Heidegger's myth which Plato's myths avoid. Heidegger's Cura myth gives the impression that of human being, and is the creaCare exists prior to and independent tor of human being, whereas Heidegger really wants to say that Care is the Being of human being. As we can see, Aristophanes' myth presents a human phenomenon, precisely that view, that Eros is fundamentally of our nature as finite. Nevertheless, a dimension Aristophanes' myth does include an account of human creation as we are now, in our We are descended from cosmic finite, erotic condition. incomplete, in whole people, the children turn of the sun, moon, and earth. Douwere born of the sun, double ble men (now called "homosexuals") of of women (lesbians) the earth, and the androgynes (heterosexuals) the moon, which partakes of both the sun and the earth. We can see the theme of the earth as the material mother, which is immediately part of the Care myth, preserved here. Note as well that in Heidegger's existential-ontological analysis, Care seems to be sexless, whereas at least as eros is most definitely sexually differentiated, Aristophanes' out sun and that the the moon to its primal object. And need we point modes of the Greek access to time, the sun by day and were fundamental the moon by night? If the earth, sun and moon are, as it were, our then in Aristophanes' myth too, human being ontological grandparents, is primordially Let us simply remember involved in temporality. this, for the issue of temporality is perhaps better raised in Diotima's myth. In the Cura myth, Jupiter, nie Zeus, places spirit into human being and so claims his share of our own Being. Zeus plays an important role in Aristophanes' myth too. For there Zeus creates us as we are us, not for now, split or incomplete beings. He did so in punishing

97 our having no spirit yet, but for having an excess of spirit, or what the Greeks called hubris. Aristophanes' Zeus, unlike the Jupiter of the Cura did not claim a share in our Being but a share of our sacrifices, myth, which he was not getting due to our excessive hubris. Consequently, he punished us by splitting us in two. Zeus, then, is our parent in this fimyth too, in so far as he renders us human, radically incomplete, nite. But, and this is most important, in rendering us human he renders us erotic as well, since eros, according to Aristophanes, was born out of the splitting of humans and the resultant desire to become whole conagain. Aristophanes' myth thus makes explicit what Heidegger's with human being; eros is fuses, that eros, or Care, is co-primordial our nature, which came into being when we came into being as human.lo And what is Eros? It is our Being as incomplete, partial, finite; also our experiencing and fiof, or recognition of, that incompleteness, the of our to overcome that "engine" nally, striving partiality, to become more than we are, to achieve a kind of wholeness. To be sure, as we saw above, because Aristophanes is Aristophanes, he states this theme in explicitly sexual terms, but we, as philosophical of the interpreters be so of need not limited. account eros is myth, Aristophanes' applicable not just to sexual and romantic involvements, to which, as the comic conservative that he is, he probably wanted us to limit it, but, if I may to Dasein as a whole. After the first language, employ Heideggerian of the of us are born this way, as incomrest generation "split" people, that incompleteness, striving for wholeness. plete, partial, experiencing We are thus "thrown" into a situation we did not ask for and, at least after the first generation, perhaps did not deserve. Or is this, in a imitation of the teaching regarding pagan original sin, an image of the "fallen" state into which we are now thrown, fallen from our origiand so nal, superior state, but one for which we had to be punished are primordially In the of our erotic "guilty"? any case, consequence state is that we are, as humans, constantly oriented toward overcoming it. That is, we are conas we experience our present incompleteness oriented toward the toward our future possibilities for future, stantly wholeness toward which we project ourselves. In short, and in support of Rosen's contention regarding the affinity of eros and Care, eros, for it is to the Being of our being-in-the-world; tantamount Aristophanes, is the totality of our thrown, fallen, projecting being, and as such the source of our being as temporal. myth, we can note that Heidegger, Finally concerning Aristophanes' and soon after the Cura myth, will take up the decisively important issues of and Care is related closely Being-toward-death Being-a-whole. in its for futural in futural terms of futural, particular possibilities being,

98 towards its ultimate possibility, Being-toward-death, which gives all our their peculiar urgency and stake. At the same time, this possibilities effort toward working out or fulfilling one's possibilities for Being is termed Being-a-whole. It is surely obvious that Aristophanes' myth speaks to this theme. Even in its explicit terms, we are striving for wholeness, a wholeness which, if ever achieved, would make us strictly no longer human, if to be human is to be erotic. And for Heidegger, would Dasein any longer be Dasein if somehow no longer characterized by Care? One is reminded here that philosophy, as the love of wisdom or knowland edge of the whole, is an instance of this desire for wholeness; as a "preparation for Socrates, in the Phaedo, characterizes philosophy of the Heideggerian theme of "Beingdying," a remarkable anticipation " toward-death." Let us turn now to Diotima's to the myth. Recall that according myth of Cura that Heidegger cites, human being is the child of a threefold parentage, Earth and Zeus, but primarily Care. According to Diotima, three of Eros' ancestors are also worth mentioning: its father, Poros or Contrivance), its mother, Penia (Poverty (Plenty, Resourcefulness, or Need), and its paternal grandmother, Metis (Wisdom or Craft). Eros, like Care, is the Being of human being, but that Being has a triadic source in need, resourcefulness, and wisdom. Heidegger, ontological later in Sein und Zeit, expresses the need to get to an even more primordial source than Care, which turns out to be temporality. Plato includes an account of the more primordial source of eros in Diotima's myth. That Eros' mother is Need reaffirms Aristophanes' point while signifying its own partiality as an account of the whole of human belack in human being, a need for ing ; eros exhibits a fundamental fulfillment and a corresponding motivation to fulfill that need, to attain completeness. At the same time, and going beyond Aristophanes' account, Eros' father, Resourcefulness, gives it the means, however partial and ultimately finite, to overcome its lack. And its grandmother, Wisof this fundamental effort of dom, hints at the highest manifestation human being-there. it has the Consequently, given Eros' parentage, following character: First of all, he is always poor; and he is far from being tender and as the many believe, but is tough, squalid, shoeless, and beautiful, homeless, always lying on the ground without a blanket or a bed, sleeping in doorways and along waysides in the open air; he has the nature of his mother, always dwelling in neediness. But in accordance with his father, he plots to trap the beautiful and the good, and is courageous, stout, and keen, a skilled hunter, always weaving devices, desirous of cj>pvl1mand inventive, loving wisdom

99 through all his life, a skilled magician, pharmacist, sophist. And his nature is neither mortal nor immortal, but sometimes on the same and someday he flourishes and lives, whenever he has resources; the nature of his fatimes he dies, but gets to live again through ther. As that which is supplied to him is always gradually flowing nor wealth, but is beout, Eros is never either without resources tween wisdom and ignorance. 203c-204a) (Symposium, this "in-between" status of our eros Elsewhere, Diotima characterizes as daimonic (202e ff.). As always "in between," as at once needful, desirous of wholeness, and resourceful, we are always also unterwegs. We are, given our erotic natures, beings who always seek transcendence, will always be finite. Even more exbut for whom that transcendence is the meaning plicitly, we live and die again and again. Temporality of our being. Yet another point is worth noting about Diotima's myth in contrast to Aristophanes'. Whereas Aristophanes carefully differentiated the sexual of eros into the normal three options, Diotima's characorientation terization of eros is ungendered, the fact that it has both although male and female parents is suggestive of the co-presence in it of what has come to be termed "the masculine" and "the feminine."" Eros itself, as needful, resourceful, crafty, is human being, prior to, more fundamental Plato thus suggests that our than, sexual differentiation. prior to our sex and our sexual orienbeing as erotic is ontologically tation, both of which are, as it were, ontic modalities of eros. Heidegger, as we know, has often been criticized for making Dasein "sexless." But is his point not really the same as Plato's, that though any individual human is never sexless, Dasein, as the Being of human being, is into sexes and sexual orientaontologically prior to the differentiation tion ? Any human, male, female, of whatever sexual orientation, is erotic; and any Dasein, male, female, of whatever sexual orientation, is characterized in its being by Care. I wish to draw two conclusions, About the preceeding interpretation one general, one more focal. The general one is that I hope I have shown that Plato at least uses myth literally ontologically, as a way If to access to the of human so, then, adequately gain Being being. whatever the specific status of Heidegger's Cura myth, we have established that myth can be part of the rhetoric of ontology, and the Cura it be, is not so because it is myth. myth, if ontic or pre-ontological Second and more focally, the specific myths that Plato employs in the Symposium in his account of eros bear strikingly on the very themes that Heidegger subsequently develops in terms of Care. If Heidegger to support his existentialwanted to appeal to mythical characterizations

100 analysis of Dasein's Being, he could have turned to Plato ontological with great fruitfulness. But he did not and, if Gadamer is right in the passage cited at the of this essay, he never did. But is Gadamer right? His judgbeginning ment surely seems applicable to the period of the writing of Being and Time.12 But one could argue that in his later thought, Heidegger became much more sympathetic to myth, both as a subject for ontological analysis and as a mode of thinking which to an extent he adopted.'3 Even as early as 1928, in a review of Cassirer's Mythical Thought, Heidegger exhibits a heightened sensitivity to the way myth exhibits themes central to his own Dasein analysis, especially "thrownness."14 Later and in the 1942-43 more importantly, lecture course on Parmenides, Heidegger presents in passing a much more open and responsive reading of the myth of Er at the end of the Republic in which he seems to to myth, and in particular to grant the full ontological significance Plato's use of myth, for which I have been arguing. 15 Even here, howto Plato's use of myth is crucially qualified. As ever, his openness reads him, Plato seems to have appealed to myth malag-ri Heidegger lui. "People have often been puzzled by the occurrence of myths in the Platonic dialogues. The reason they turn up from time to time is that Plato is indeed prepared to abandon the primordial thinking in favor of the later so-called 'metaphysics,' but precisely this incipient of the prithinking still has to preserve a recollection metaphysical mordial thinking. Hence the story" (98). later thought, Perhaps most significant of all, however, Heidegger's especially his turn to poetic thinking, both in his attention to the thought of great poets and particularly in his own attempt at poetic thinking, thinkbespeaks a heightened sensitivity to the power of mytho-poetic ing. It is this turn that Hatab develops so well in the previously cited work. It suggests that if Heidegger at the time of the writing of Being and Time was still sufficiently dominated by the appeal of scientific to miss the full ontological of myth, his phenomenology significance thinking would soon change toward a much greater openness to the mythical, the poetic, the dramatic, in short, to the full range of possibilities regularly exhibited in the Platonic dialogues. So may we dispense with Gadamer's judgment? Surely not entirely, and especially not regarding Heidegger's reading of Plato, the Parmenides lecture course notwithstanding. For it remains the case that the one work on Plato which Heidegger himself chose to publish, Plato's Doctrine of Truth, virtually ignores the poetic character of Plato's thinking and presents an account of the Greek as being a fundamental locus of the "forgetting of Being" which has characterized western philosophy

101 ever since. Yet this work was published only in 1947, presumably after Heidegger should have known better. Whatever Heidegger might have of Plato in the privacy of his study and before the captive thought audience of his classrooms, the account of Plato that he presented to the world was the one which has warranted and Heideggerians ever since to cavalierly dismiss Plato as "metaphysical" postmodernists and "logocentric," a misinterpretation as I have tried that is purchased, to show, only by ignoring the rich texture, the drama, poetry, and myth, of Plato's writing and thinking, a writing and thinking which, I suggest again, should have been much more of a rich and congenial than he apparently to Heidegger allowed it to be. provocation

NOTES 1. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Heidegger Conference, University of New Hampshire, May, 1996. I wish to thank the participants for their thoughtful responses and criticisms. I should particularly mention my commentator, Veronique F6ti (whose request that I not explicitly refer to her comments I shall honor in this paper) as well as Walter Brogan, Eugene Gendlin, Robert Scharff, Christopher Smith, and especially Lawrence Hatab. 2. Heidegger, "Logos: (Heraklit, Fragment 50)," in Vortrageund Aufsdtze(Tubingen: Neske, 1954), 18. 3. Heidegger, Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit:Mit einem Brief iiber den "Humanismus" (Bern: Francke Verlag, 1947). My emphasis. For an extended criticism of Heidegger's in the Platonic interpretation of Plato in this work, see my Finitude and Transcendence Dialogues(Albany: SUNYPress, 1995), especially chap. 6, "Truth and Finitude: On Heidegger's Reading of Plato." 4. Gadamer, Hans-Georg, Heidegger's Ways,trans. John W. Stanley (Albany: SUNYPress, 1994), 144. in Nietzsche 5. C Jean Graybeal, Languageand "TheFeminine" and Heidegger (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990). In her brief analysis of the Cura myth (108-112), Graybeal emphasizes well the anomolous character of Heidegger's use of the myth in Being and Time. She points out that he appeals to "pre-ontological" evidence only one other time in the book, that it is the only appeal to myth in the work, and that Heidegger elsewhere rarely seeks to "confirm" his interpretations by appeal to other works. Throughout, I shall use Sein und Zeit, 10th ed. (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1963) and the John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson translation of Being and Time (New York: Harper & Row, 1962). 6. This is suggested most strongly by John Caputo: "If you are going to draw an ontological/ontic map, I think that all phenomena are ontic and it is just a question as to what ontical phenomena- Verstehen, Befindlichkeit, etc-you are going to valorize when you start calling certain things ontological. I think that the existential analytic proceeds from distinct, definite, historically datable existentiell ideals to which Heidegger is attached and which then get ontological valorization. I don't think

102 that anybody has ever been to the ontological promised land" (Private correspondence cited by William Richardson in his "Heidegger's Fall," in American CatholicPhilosophicalQuarterly69, no. 2 (special issue on Heidegger edited by John Caputo): 235. On the other hand, Lawrence Hatab has suggested in discussion at the Heidegger Conference that the myth may be "ontic" for an entirely non-pejorative reason, namely, that it is particular. This would be important, for it would entail in no sense a "critical" stance toward the myth or even having reservations about it. This is one of many instances of the profound ambiguity in Heidegger's terminology, that terms that are presented as "descriptive" soon take on a value-laden meaning. 7. There is at least some evidence that in later years Heidegger became much more sympathetic to myth and mythological thinking. I shall address this issue in greater detail toward the end of the paper. To the extent that it is true, Heidegger's apparent reservations about myth in Being and Timemight be attributable to the still strong influence during this period of the Husserlian notion of phenomenology as a "scientific" philosophy. 8. I shall capitalize Eros when referring to its personified occurences in the dialogue, and use lowercase eros when referring simply to the phenomenon. 9. Rosen puts the point more strongly. Eros is Plato's word for Care ("Heidegger's 8, no. 28 [1967]: 477-504). Interpretation of Plato," The Journalof Existentialism 10. To be sure, Aristophanes pays lip service, at the beginning and end of his speech, to the view that Eros is a god, indeed, the "most philanthropic" (189c) of the gods. But the actual content of his speech contradicts this, making eros, as we have seen, coeval with finite human being. 11. For an extended discussion of this, see my article, "The Difference the Difference Makes: The Question of Woman in Plato," forthcoming. 12. I do not believe the recently released lecture course on Plato'sSophist(Wintersemester, 1924/25) is a significant exception. In it, Heidegger self-consciouslyinterprets Plato from the standpoint of Aristotle, and for that reason, among others, remains insensitive to the dramatic aspects of the dialogues. Francisco Gonzalez has demonstrated this in "Dialogue and Ethics: Blind Spots in Heidegger's Reading of Plato's Sophist (paper read at Trinity College, Hartford, April, 1996) and in greater detail in "On the Way to Sophia:Heidegger on Plato's Dialectic, Ethics, and Sophist (in this same volume). 13. The best case for this is made by Lawrence Hatab, "Heidegger and Myth: A Loop in the History of Being," Journal of the British Society 22, no. 2 for Phenomenology (May, 1991): 45-64. In it, he argues powerfully that "The Heideggerian alternatives to Western philosophical assumptions were present pre-theoretically in the Greek world prior to the advent of philosophy" (48), and so that Heidegger's later "'mythopoetic thinking' could be called a post-philosophical retrieval of a pre-philosophical atmosphere" (58). Myremarks that follow are indebted to this penetrating essay. 14. Translated by James G. Hart and John C. Maraldo, in The Piety of Thinking (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976), 32-45. trans. Andr6 Schuwer and Richard Rojcewicz (Bloomington: 15. Heidegger, Parmenides, Indiana University Press, 1992). See especially 88-130.