How did Laotse Transform Heidegger: The Generation of a New Philosophical Grammar

1 Heidegger Transformed Own Philosophical Grammar According to Tao Te Jing

Then, what is the wording, phrasing and syntax of Tao Te Ching? What is pure expression of philosophical philology?

1. The wording (law of the word): the “one single word” thinking. Chinese can embody, perhaps more than any other language, this “one single word thinking” and preserve it till today.

   In philosophy, this “word” must be the ultimate and highest—certainly it cannot be determined and it must keep in the state of transformation (or keep transforming).

   1. As for Dao De Jing ? Tao Te Ching and for Chinese thinking, the highest work is doubtless the word “Dao,” and this “Dao” dao-izes: on the one hand, “Dao” is undefinable and unspeakable, on the other, however, Dao dao-izes, gives, and shows sign or trace of it. Dao dao-izes (道道): dao-out (way making, 道出), leading out (导出), the road and the way (道路), speaking and saying (道说), demonstrating (道示), guiding (引导), way and reason (道理),to make the way of Dao (道道), to way out (道出) or to export (导出), the road of the way (道路), to speak the way (道说), to demonstrate the way (道示) or to introduce (导引), to reason the way (道理), and so on. But the most high, the only Dao, keeps unspeakable, or rather, in the beginning, is in the paradox of speaking (道说).

   2. As for Heidegger then it is Ereignis (no longer Sein), and its core is eigen, self 自. On the one hand, the self is unsayable, be it oneself or authentic self; the self is the self, the self-self 自自, selfness is自在, by the self 由自, by its own, but the “self” does not exist, the self – in its own transformation of itself – becomes itself. On the other hand, for traditional metaphysics, the Cartesian self is precisely “自”, freedom, one’s body, oneself, the sameness (of oneself), and the selfhood of Dasein, the self-identity of being, etc. It is clear that philosophy only thinks one thing.

   [Ex-propriates—delivered from the overcoming in the fate of the being (εν).The event as needing appropriates the expropriating. Ex-propriation: no dialectic allowed anymore – i.e. no means and no synthesis. (Heidegger, GA102, p. 261)]

1. The phrasing (the law of the phrase): the self-repeating of this word.

   The only decisive factor of this word is the phrasing, and this phrasing is the repetition of itself, the tautology. Only by repeating itself, this repetition is the sameness of the self; the self keeps itself, remains as itself. The repetition repeats itself.

   1. — The phrasing of “Tao Te Ching” is: Dao 道 ke Dao 道; Ming 名 ke Ming 名. The repetition of the self is the dao of Dao--Dao gives one; one gives two, and so on. These syntaxes of “giving gives” are the unfolding of Dao itself. Correspondingly, “the name that can be named is not the eternal name” (名 ke 名, 非常名). Additionally, there is “the big of the big, four big, as its exorbitant? name is reluctant one.” Or it is the self-giving and self-same sentence.

   2. — The phrasing of Heidegger: the self-repetition of Ereignis. For instance, Ereignis ereignent (the appropriate appropriates), Welt weltet (the world worlds), Stille stillte (the silence silences), etc. On the one hand, it is not the same as the traditional law of identity, such as existence exists or being is, because the repetition of these neologies is not purely logical, nor changeable, but rather has its subsequent extensivity. On the other hand, it is indeed only repetition – the repetition of the word so that it maintains its self-sameness or self-unity. It is the unfolding of the simplicity (einfalt) of self-sameness.

      [The same and the own. | The property. | The self and the selfhood of the world. (Heidegger, GA99, p. 31)]

      [The self – the "self" -(autos) is not determined by the I (cf. Being and Time), but by the worldly. The self qua human west from the free of being-there; is worldly. The earth is also selfhood. The self-like and the same in the Enowning. (Heidegger, GA99, p. 33)]

2. The syntax (or law of the sentence, the grammar): the sentence that is connected by this word, yet it is a paradoxical expression.

   The syntax of paradox leads to the difference within the sameness, and thus transforms.

   1. — the syntax of Tao Te Ching is this: as being and non-being form the two ends of the expression, they form the extension of the two ends. For example, “the loss of loss” 损之又损, “the absence of action and the absence of non-action” 无为而无不为, “to clarify with a gentle stillness and to settle down with a gentle movement” 静之徐清与动之徐生, “the state of non-knowledge” 无知之状, “the image of no-thing” 无物之象, and many syntaxes in “mysterious virtue玄德” of “to be born but not to have, to behave but not to hold 生而不有, 为而不持.”

   2. Heidegger’s rewriting of the German syntax does not form a clear grammar, but merely connections of words with words, side by side, as in the arrangement of poetic lines, as in Chinese which does not have a grammar. The method is: appropriation disappropriates expropriation;speech misspeaks speaking; and speech bespeaks speaking [Eregins vereignet enteignis, Sprache verspricht sprachen, Sprache entsprechen sprachen], and a great number of similar statements.

      [Thus, the appropriation appropriates itself in the property of expropriation. ] (Heidegger, GA97, p. 53)

      Self-says: enowning-verowning the ues to ent-owning. (Heidegger, GA101, p. 55)

      Ent-eint-freed from overcoming in the fate of the one. The enowning as uesing is suitable for owning ent-owning. Ent-owning: no dialectic allowed anymore – i.e. no means and no synthesis. (Heidegger, GA102, p. 261)

      The man, he self, is he himself as the self. But the self is the difference. The selfhood of the self, the most owning of the Own is the Enowning, the Self (the assembling -the Ge-Müt). (Heidegger, GA99, p. 62)

3. The mark—the distinguishing or the spacing mark.

   There is still no grammar. Two words are written and marked by a space. Such a pause is the initiatory clue/sign 端倪 of dao-izalition or the beginning moment.

   1. — Here in Tao Te Ching: “Therefore the direction of being so (to) –; therefore the direction of nonbeing so (to) – 常有欲也, 常无欲也”, with the modal particles “so 也”and “therefore 故” to mark the distinctions. Although there was no punctuation in ancient times, there was pause in the tone. Just as I Ching later evolved into the two distinguishing marks of “-, --”, which are pure marks, neither odd or even numbers, nor yin or yang.

   2. — In Heidegger, separator is the event [er-eignis], ex-proporiation [ver-eignis], dis-propriate [ent-eignis], consign [uber-eignis], dis-tinguish [unter-schieden], ex-propriate [ver-eignen], dis-propriate [ent -eigen], be-have [ver-halten], hold-to-oneself [an-sich-halten], being-in [in-sein], let-be [lassen-sein], en-framing [ge-stell], and pre-sent [vor-stellen]. This separator, which does not form a grammar, serves as a guide and a motif, starting from the root of the word, or from the prefix to actionize the prefix. This is a reduction to the original act as well as the destruction of it.

      Self--this is to say: en-owning--ent-owning (appropriates-disappropriates) to the custom to expropriation. (Heidegger, GA101. S.55)

      The legend —is not only appropriated to the event, but expropriated in the Use. That is why the responding countering is, as an event, at first a farewell dispossession. The actual character of the event is hidden here. The more dispossessed the correspondence, the expropriated the correspondence, hence the distance is the nearness. (Heidegger,GA97, p. 331)

4. The play of words and the similarity echoing between the sound and the written symbols.

   The loaned characters and homonyms in Chinese language correspond to the similarity of morphology and the correlation of semantics in German words.

   1. — In Tao Te Ching there are trance [恍惚 huang hu]), invisible [夷 yi], and inaudible [希xi]. The related pairs of words are in chapter 15: hesitations 豫 yu (elephant-like) and 犹 you (ape-like); heartiness 敦 dun (kind-hearted or hearty) and 旷 kuang (wide or broad-minded), etc. And in chapter 16 are: Knowing the constant produces tolerance, from tolerance comes a community of feelings, and from this community of feelings comes a wholesomeness of character (知常容, 容乃公, 公乃全).

   2. — For Heidegger, it is the semantically similar words with primitive behaviors and perceptions, such as walking and farming (Fuhr and Flur), protecting and shepherding (Hult and Hirt), sheltering and shepherding (Hort and Hirt), sacredness and concealment (Hell and Hehl), and while, width, world (Weile, Weite, Welt), etc. Their similarities and correlations remain till this day.

      Winding, turning, transforming, wandering -winding around -) to windover (verwinden): to get over something —thus like “to wind-over”? No; deeper sense: transformingly wind around the heart—transforms and wanders towards the mystery; trans-wind (ver-winden): to turn to another—to transform—to transmute. | Winding over as appropriation | (Cf. Grund und Anfang, p. 51). What remains to be said is “only” the next: the nearness -the approaching- the coming-close – as the event of the W.-H. (withholdings) of the fugue. (Heidegger, GA100, p. 233)

      “Being (Wesen)”(verb) the space for the way in which “be (sein) ” “is (ist)” “being (seined)”;“to be (sein)” as einai …. and with it “being (wesen)” as essence (Wesenheit) and “concept”. | “Being (Wesen)”: dwell—property (anwesen) —oppose the unconcealed (entborgen gegnen) ->

5. The unfolding of temporality – not a grammatical tense, but a chained grammar.

   The unfolding of temporality unfolds according to the generation of time, but time is the mysterious transformation. It is the starting over of a returning gait, a folding back. It does not form the opposite syntaxes, nor the various tenses, nor the present-past-future tense, but the chained derivation of the word itself.

   1. — In Tao Te Ching, for example: “both are one according to the origin, and only different by the name. In its unity it is called the mystery” [同出异名, 同谓之玄]; “all things return to their roots; by returning to their roots it is said to be in quietude; in quietude it is said to be restored to life; to be restored to life is said to be constant” [万物归根, 归根曰静, 静曰复命, 复命曰常 ].This is the unfolding of the chained grammar, in which is the logic of generation. However, it is contradictory to each other and folds back to each other. There might be conflicts and stimulations, which reciprocally facilitate each other.

   2. — For Heidegger, it is the distinction between wording and reification, the differentiation of being differentiated, the silencing of differentiation, the silencing of silences, and the silent distinction. Unlike the earlier existential difference, it is the difference to use wrongly [Brauch-unbrauhbar], need–necessary–necessity–compel–uncompel–wound [Not-Nötige-Not-wendingkeit-Nötigen-Unnötigen-verwundung) and other semantically related words. In their relevancy, differentiability, mutability, and resistance, in the generation of the already–formed new words, form the semantic groups with relative senses and different senses of temporal touch.

The simplicity of the expropriation happens the simplicity of the thing. Far the relation expropriates the thing into the thing’s own, into the property of the Every–Time. The simple and the proper of the thing. (Heidegger, GA99, p. 176)

The own-suitability/

In: Enowning as clearing of the area.

Therein: Vereignung; ge-eignen -geeignet the enowning, both as the suited-use; its anti-use.

The appearance of the aptitude in the Ge-Stelle: the Ge-Stellnis.

Enowning of the necessary use (the divine ones)

Enowning of the suitable uesed (the death one). (Heidegger, GA102, p. 187)

[Ordainment:

Ap-propriate: to bring into the proper

Ex-appropriate: to ordain the proper into the fourfold.

The ordainment: the ap-propriating expropriation.

The proper: the thing

The proper and the in itself

Appropriation and de-termination. (Heidegger, GA102, pp. 65–66)

1. The unfolding of spatiality—not space but the unfolding aphorism.

   —Unfolding step by step, in accordance with the location of the generation of Dao or appropriation but at the same time remains as hidden; it is the repeated unfolding of the syntax itself, yet still in the mystery thereof.

   1. — In Tao Te Ching it is the mystery of the mystery, the door of all wonders [玄之又玄, 众妙之门 ]. Ecstatically and flurriedly, flurriedly and ecstatically [恍兮惚兮, 惚兮恍兮]. Profoundly and obscurely [窈兮冥兮]. There is no fixed reason nor principle; instead it is always in the midst of birth, growth, and change, and in the midst of unceasing oscillation.

   2. — In Heidegger, it is the combination of these related words, especially surrounding the word Verhalten: keep, hold [Haten], restraint, forbearance [Verhalten], relation [Verhaltnis], withholding [aufvorhalten], etc. Finally, it goes to Ver-Hältnis, or even to the abbreviation of V.-H.—just like the transformation of Dao which is the trace of transformation, or the appearance of this new word enigma [Rätsel]. Heidegger constantly created related words and reorganized all the words above, via V.-H., i.e., mysterious transformation, which is the key element for this reorganization.

“winding” would become to wind over

a winded holding // herding /

into the windedness of the world,

and only from there is the work

in need of—out of the staying—awhile. not of needing – to use (that need)

the proper use (Heidegger, GA81, p. 59)

The abruptness of the rupture is the Is as the pain; the being itself as the appropriation. The abruptness of the rupture is the anger of the grace itself as the secret: the anger as the appropriation of the dis-appropriation in the difference to the secret. The grace itself is of the secret: the same itself. (Heidegger, GA81, p. 87)

2 The Re-generation of Heidegger’s Philosophical Syntax

Finally, the overall Tractatus – the overall related musical Tractatus, or the fugal Tractatus.

Das Einfache des Denkens beruht in der Musik des Selben. Dieses weitet vierfach im Unterschied; daher gibt es kein unmittelbar Einfaches. (Heidegger, GA99, p. 31) [The simpleness of the thinking is based on the music itself. This expands fourfold in the difference; therefore, there is no immediately simpleness. (GA99, p. 31)]

It is not an expression of a philosophical system, nor logical deduction nor mathematical logic. In this fugal language, there are subtle gaps and relations, just as in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The system is synoptical, concise, and coordinating mutually, distantly echoing each other. Although in Heidegger’s GA65, Contributions to Philosophy, there has already been this kind of writing, it was not rigorous nor sufficient.

—The general outline of Tao Te Ching centers around these key words and syntax: “the sense that can be sensed” [道可道], “the sense in the sense of no-being” [道之为无], “the sense in the sense of being” [道之为有], the distinction between the efficacious and the useful, the distinction between the desireless and the desirous, the transformation between something and nothing (which is the mysterious virtue), and the transformation of transformation (which is the mysterious transformation).

—In Heidegger, it is propriation [Eignis]–simplicity ]Einfalt], dis-propriation [Ver-eignis]—ex-propriation [Ent-eignis], dis-propriation [Ver-eignis]—trans-propriation [Uber-eignis], use [Bauchen]—useless [Unbrauchbar], dis-tinction [Unter-Schiedung], With-Holding [Ver-Hältnis], and especially the W.-H. word, which can be repeatedly combined in different ways to unfold related issues, with distinct thematic motives – just like in Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game, tomives recombines and unfolds incessantly.

The place of the self of the “only one”

(is not the “I” 一)

not at all a personal: | you (sing.)-we-you (pl.)-I-

but the freydoms of the corresponding (/relating) -

the calmness of sparing

the collection of the handling

the self -in the human being -

i.e. in the appropriation of withholding

the self the disappropriated sparing of the self from itself:

the same-: appropriation of the dis-tinction

the proper-properliness

the disappropriation in the appropriation of the expropriation –

[Inserted note.]

The Same and the Self

The Self is based in Selves.

The self happens out of the relation.

The eventful self is the initial and therefore no longer like tò aủtó from the mere belonging together to the ken -

which is based, eventfully expropriated, in the relation,

Likewise, the dialectical synthesis -as suspending- does not suffice to think the relative same.(Heidegger, GA102, p. 402)

So does Heidegger’s Black Notebooks. It can be written over and over again, or even writes automatically. This is the reason why he started writing in several different notebooks simultaneously between 1946 and 1956! An interlacing writing! It is because several related thematic motives emerge that need to be unfolded simultaneously: the theme of silence and stillness, of dwelling, of cultivation (GA98 eighth commentary), of distinction (GA99 first part), of the fourfold—heaven, earth, god and the mortals (GA99 second part), and of V.-H. (Heidegger, GA100).

Heidegger precisely was to make German speak Chinesein a philosophical language that has never been spoken before! This is not a translation, but a creative trans(lation)-writing; they look nothing alike, but in fact they share the same principle? under the disguise of unrelated looks.

GA99 bears this awareness; and Heidegger bears this awareness between 1947–1950 after the dialogue with Tao Te Ching.

The conversation is as the language of the custom (Brauches) the ruling fate of the appropriation in its dispropriation. (Heidegger, GA99, p. 7)

The unspoken saves its needing (brauchende) assembly. It remains and becomes in such remaining the unauthorized. (Heidegger, GA99, p. 8)

The loneliness of the world is determined by the stilling appropriation of the four-ing of the sub-divide. Lonely: spherically appropriating the worldly unifying one of the same. (Heidegger, GA99, p. 29)

Silence and withholding. Withholding and withdrawal.

Silence is differentiaingly stilling into the unspoken inevitable – freeyng?, sparing, widening into the vastness, thriving into the mountains – stilling exhilaratingly – forgetting.

In it essences (west) the withholding—that authentic appropriation is just the world keeping in itself.

Only in the withholding, in especially that withholding-ness, forms itself. (Heidegger, GA99, p. 29)

Thinking about these words in Chinese, and they need to be translated.

For example, 自化 self-translation(vereignis), self-transformation 自身转化, the duality of silencing 默化: on the one hand, it is nature’s own generation, imitated or referred to by human beings. On the other hand, it is the return of humanity to its own naturalness and, then, to transform it, to let nature do, to let nature reveal its own vitalityand the vitality of its potentialities.

An-sich-sein, self-existence, to exist toward itself. Nature revealing itself (anwesen) before humanity, and humanity is being used wrongly so that humanity (can) use itself again.

Ereignis is translated as Er-eignis, ap-propriation, the becoming itself of one’s body; ver-eignis is translated as dis-propriation, the process of transforming oneself; ent-eignis (is translated as ex-propriation, the transformation of oneself in the expropriation; ubereignis trans-self-transferring oneself; brauchen using oneself — the use of oneself wrongly, thus human beings are used.

Ereignis, cannot be translated as nature, authenticity or appropriation, as if it is already at hand. Ereignis is in the process of becoming itself, through a series of processing out-to-oneself or transforming-oneself.

Sagen, the silent language, the speech that in the transformation of becoming silent remains as a silent language.

Heidegger’s style (Stil) of German in the second turn is a writing that tends to be Silently Still:

1. It is German but no longer German. A self-alienating of its own.

2. It breaks the lexical rule. An association of a cascade of several words.

3. No syntax, no copula. Just the juxtaposition of words, without syntax or grammar. These sentences are similar to classical Chinese – no syntax or copula, just the juxtaposition of words; it goes beyond grammar.

4. There is translation of Greek and etymology tracing back, but it is not the usual translation of Greek. It is a reduction to the original act; and this reduction tints with Chinese thought.

5. It goes towards the mark, like the symbols of the signposts.

6. It makes up new words that seem like familiar ones but are in fact unrecognizable and unreadable.

Heidegger’s writing in German in this way is no longer like what Deleuze calls Kafka’s “language of minority,” that is to say, not the majority language of German and Czech. Rather, it is a more local or hybrid German writing related to the Yiddish language of the Jews, thus indeed creates a foreign language within German and goes toward the so-called linguistic exhaustion— like Beckett and so on; or, to use what Flusser calls Prague’s language—oscillating between the didactic artificiality and absurd interlinguistic hybridity, with an interlingual hybridity. There is certain restlessness of reproduction, although it remains tired of producing.

Or, in our terms of the useless literature, it is a kind of German that self-deconstructs and self-annihilates; it is a paradoxical German in which the following phrases negate the followed phrases; it chases and dissolves each other; it remains standstill with the seemingly moving forward step. It even tends towards a useless noise, a massive repetition that leads to meaninglessness, whether in storytelling or in sentences themselves; it tends towards the inhuman noise or animalistic mutterings. Just like those aphorismsand the short novels, these are subjected to Taoist idea of uselessness: tending to the meaninglessness of language itself, in the state of self-cancellation at the self-reflexive game, but not towards entropy reduction.

Instead, Heidegger’s German in GA 98, 99, 100 (Black Notebooks), 1945–59, is a reduced-entropy German, which is Heidegger’s own demand: (1) thriftiness and sparing (sparen) of Being; (2) the strike and stringing of few words: the back-and-forth repetition centering around a very few words; (3) The rhetoric without adjectives nor change of tenses, just simply the juxtaposition of words; (4) towards a kind of Buddhist-Zen, or Zen’s plays of the threads of discourse (话头) and interruptions; (5) becoming a kind of mnemonic chant, a kind of game of coding and decoding.

3 An Example of Future Cross-Cultural Philosophical Generation

Heidegger’s translation–interpretation of the Tao Te Ching is an example of cross-cultural interaction—with multiple transformations:

1. Starting from the German translations of R. Wilhelm and von Strauss: these texts have their own hermeneutical perspectives or Vor-stehen, varing from Western-centered hermeneutics to Chinese-thought-centered. These texts reflect cultural differences and provide a comparable way for thinking.

2. With the help of Xiao Shiyi: The word-for-word explanation of key passages undoubtedly gives Heidegger a deep and indelible impression, allowing him to directly experience the mystery of Chinese thought that is based on this word-by-word expression, and to experience the tension in the word combination. This original experience of another word and of its formation cannot leave the currently existing grammar and logic unchanged.

3. Then comes to Heidegger’s own translation: his translation defers from the previous. Based on his own questions, when choosing words and phrases such as event [ereignis], the self [selbst], pure [einfalt], gentleness, minuteness, faintness, he touched upon the vocabularies that had not yet been touched by Western philosophy, and he brought these new words the exactness of philosophical concepts and the clarity of phenomenology.

4. A dialogue with Pre-Socratic thinking: a dialogue with the original opening of Greek thought. On the one hand, it is to restore the original Greek experience and way of thinking; on the other hand, it also to transform Greek thought with Taoist thought. At the same time, it also reformed Taoist thought. This is a two-way transformation. For example, the mutual transformation of “keeping its black” and “loves to hide,” as well as the mutual transformation of the way up and way down.

5. A re-form of Heidegger’s own language of thinking: at the time of translating and interpretating, Heidegger began to form his own pure philosophical expression. It is no longer a translation; it goes beyond translation. From questions he forms his own pure expression of thinking, and then unfolds systematically: from event [er-eignis] to dis-propriate [ent-eignis], ex-propriation [ver-eignis], consign [über-eignis], let-be [lassen-eignen]; from self-forming to de-selfness, self-transforming, self-turning, letting oneself be or go, in the dark of darkness or in the depth of obscureness. New sentences of thought and chained paragraphs are formed, which are in line (or in a calling relationship) with the Tao Te Ching, but they have been changed.

6. When Chinese thinkers translate Heidegger philosophical expressions back into Chinese, the translated Tao Te Ching has changed beyond recognition, and Heidegger’s interpretation cannot be matched with the existing Taoist language and its dialectical logic. This language is generated in the encounter with modernity, a philosophical expression that faces the crisis of modernity.

7. Finally, the philosophy we form at our time: going back and forth like this, from Chinese to German, then from German to alienated German, from the individual thought of a philosopher to a Chinese that has been translated back into, from the translated text to the creation of a new thinking in the Chinese. This back-and-forth interactive operation, and the formation of our individual philosophical expressions based on the basic questions or crises situated in our own era, for example, the formation of the so-called “Daoist dialectics” of the new era, are neither Heideggerian, nor, of course, traditional Chinese.