Ψυχή and Bewegtheit: soul as movement in early heideggerian interpretation of Aristotle

145 Differenz Revista internacional de estudios heideggerianos y sus derivas contemporáneas f AÑO 3, NÚMERO 2: JULIO DE 2016. ISSN 2174-6796 [pp. 145-159] Recibido: 25/05/2016 Aceptado: 14/06/2016 Ψυχή and Bewegtheit: soul as movement in early heideggerian interpretation of Aristotle Elisa Zocchi (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano) Abstract: In his early thought, Heidegger reads Aristotle and gets from him an important idea of moods (Stimmungen). At first he denounces the metaphysical interpretation of ψυχή as ουσία, which leads to think that moods are something to remove. Heidegger claims that soul is instead a movement-towards: human being is moved by his πάθη. Motility is not just a physical problem but an anthropological element, given by moods. At the beginning of each movement there is a στέρησις, a lack: soul’s limit, human finitude. Movement is the real essence of facticity: Stimmungen and Bewegtheit are almost the same. Key-Words: Moods; Movement; Pathos; Aristotle; Soul. 1. Heidegger and moods: the pathical element of existence At the origin of Heidegger’s thought an interesting question can be found, not only in order to understand Heidegger himself, but to understand our personal being-in-theworld. What are moods? Which is the role of affectivity, of the pathical moment, in our existence? We have to understand if our being subject of affections and emotions is an element of closure and limit or if it is maybe the sign of our relation to Being, as 146 ELISA ZOCCHI ΨΥΧΉ AND BEWEGTHEIT: SOUL AS MOVEMENT IN EARLY HEIDEGGERIAN INTERPRETATION OF ARISTOTLE something that overflows and characterizes our humanity and freedom in a positive way. It seems to us that these “pre-logical” moments may hide the possibility of a real relation with things and with other human beings. Before giving an answer to these questions, we should introduce the problem of emotions in Heidegger’s early thought and we must understand the roots of the world that in Being and time expresses the affective level of human experience – Befindlichkeit. The structure of the Dasein in Being and time is constituted by three existential elements: Befindlichkeit, Verstehen and Rede. The first is the most important in order to understand what “to be situated” in the world means, and to gain a deeper insight we must recognise that this Befindlichkeit is not an issue raised in 1927 but finds its origin in Heidegger’s early thought. The question, inherited by phenomenology, about the intentionality of conscience, finds its place in the first lectures in Freiburg in opposition to Husserl’s path. Heidegger presents a model of experience which is not intentional, but based on the pre-worldly. We can clearly see it in the course of 1919, Die Idee der Philosophie und das Weltanschauungsproblem (that will become famous as Kriegsnot Semester), where he first claims something that will give shape to all his future thinking-path: we should break the supremacy of the theoretical1. In this lectures we also find the tool for this demolition: it is the first and still uncertain discovery of what is here called vorweltlich, which what will later become, in Being and time, Befindlichkeit. At the end of one lesson, Heidegger traces on the board a framework that represents the stratification of our cognitive process: Das vortheoretische Etwas A. B Das vorweltliche Etwas Welthaftes Etwas (Grundmoment des Lebens überhaupt) (Grundmoment bestimmter Erlebnissphären) Ur-etwas Genuine Erlebniswelt We can clearly understand that before the theoretical we find two moments, not only one (as claimed for example by Husserl, with the idea of Lebenswelt). There is not only the worldly pre-theoretical (B), but also a more original level, thanks to which we can reach the Ur-etwas: that which makes every experience possible. This level is exactly what we mean by pathical, and the aim of Heidegger’s philosophy is tear down the primacy of the theoretical, always present in the story of Western philosophy. We can find a confirmation that this level is the pathical one not only on the basis of the examples present in the lecture2 but also thanks to another lecture. In the analysis of Paul’s 1. M. HEIDEGGER, Die Idee der Philosophie und das Weltanschauungsproblem, in Zur Bestimmung der Philosophie, GA Bd. 56/57, hrsg. B. Heimbüchel, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1987. 2. An important example: the sun rising in Thebe in the morning of the victory compared to the sun for 147 EEZ. A 3 ME 2:  E 21. SS 214 PP. 141 letters and with Augustine’s texts, we came across expressions such as «fundamental fact (Grundlegende)», «fundamental experience (Grunderfahrung)», always relating to moments of factual life such as anguish, joy, pain3. As an example, Heidegger defines the love of God for men as “the fundamental fact (das Grundlegende)”, and not as a theoretische Erkentniss. The first moment, the one that ontologically comes before knowledge, is our understanding of ‘being called’, preceded by something else (in this case, divine love), and this being-preceded always shows up through moods like anguish (Bedrängnis), pain (Leiden), uncertainty (Unsicherheit), agitation (Unruhe) and even Angst. That is why we should consider the Befindlichkeit not as a neutral “beingin-a-situation” but as the pre-theoretical affective tuning. The term Befindlichkeit itself is full of meaning: sich befinden means to feel oneself in a certain mood, not only our being-here; the fact then that in the above quoted text about Augustine it is used as a translation of affectio/affectiones confirms that what Heidegger means with this word is clearly oriented towards the affective, pathical aspect of existence. After this short introduction on Befindlichkeit, we can now deal with the questions that began our study: which role do affections have in our every day life? Are they something that obstructs our being ourselves or a constitutional moment of our psyche? In order to find an answer to these questions, Heidegger finds an interesting interlocutor, an author that is often present in his lectures, especially in his first period: Aristotle. Heidegger often denounces the metaphysical interpretation of Aristotle’s thought, which creates a dualistic vision of the human being and his being-in-the-world; the origin of this misunderstanding is, in his opinion, the classical and metaphysical interpretation of ψυχή as ουσία, as a permanent essence for which movement is something «added» at a later time, something to keep under control. The clearest examples of this interpretation are emotions and mood: in a static vision of soul as substance, they are something negative, temporary movements with a minimal ontological meaning and no metaphysical meaning. This idea of ψυχή can be very dangerous: it may bring us to believe that events, traumas and emotions are something to remove from a «normal» life, something that may damage us. Moods, emotions and feelings should then be diminished and possibly removed. Heidegger’s interpretation of Aristotelian ψυχή brings us instead to a genuine vision of the human being, where emotions and traumas can be helpful in order to shape a personality. Our facticity and limit, i.e. our temporality, is not only the primary element of our being, but also the element towards which it may be possible to establish a real an astronomer (Ibídem, p. 74) or the one of the happiness when, in the morning, we enter in a room full of sunlight (Ibídem, p. 46). 3. M. HEIDEGGER, Einleitung in die Phänomenologie der Religion, in Phänomenologie des religiösen Lebens, GA Bd. 60, hrsg. M. Jung - T. Regehly - C. Strube, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1995. 148 ELISA ZOCCHI ΨΥΧΉ AND BEWEGTHEIT: SOUL AS MOVEMENT IN EARLY HEIDEGGERIAN INTERPRETATION OF ARISTOTLE relationship with our Self and, also, it is the opening-element towards transcendence. I will try to outline this interpretation through some works where Heidegger reads Aristotle, using the Stimmungen as a tool to get into his thought – Stimmungen, moods, i.e. the affective moment of our existence. 2. Heidegger’s phenomenological reading of Aristotle: πάθος and substance The first moment is the course that Heidegger takes in Freiburg during the summer semester of 1924, Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie4. The subject is Aristotelian Rhetoric and thanks to a deep analysis, Heidegger describes the πάθος as the main element of the relationship between the rhetorician and the listener. Diese πάθη, Affekte, sind nicht Zustände des Seelischen, es handelt sich um eine Befindlichkeit des Lebenden in seiner Welt, in der Weise, wie er gestellt ist zu etwas, wie er eine Sache sich angehen lässt5. That which in rhetoric speech has to be raised is not a momentary emotion of the soul but the Befindlichkeit des Lebenden in seiner Welt: affections are not only fleeting and superficial moods – what is here in question is the world itself, in a relationship that is not theoretical but pathical. Heidegger gives us then a clear description of the soul: «Things (γενόμενον) that are found in the soul are of three kinds - passions (πάθη), faculties (δύναμις) and states of character (εξις)»6. Heidegger describes the πάθος as a γενόμενον of human soul. γενόμενον is «what happens to the being», πάθος is then «das, was in der Seele wird»7. In this sense, affections and emotions are not something secondary that strikes a soul that already exists as a substance, but something that happens inside the soul, an event that shapes its essence. The entire Heideggerian reading of Aristotelian anthropology will be affected by this starting point, the definition of πάθος as a way of a becoming (Weise des Werdens) of the soul – Heidegger will even claim that πάθος determines our beingin-the-world in a fundamental way8. If soul determines who we are, πάθος determines our very being ourselves: πάθος is therefore a Seinsbegriff9. If the soul is an alterable being, we can describe it as a non-static being also from a kinetic point of view: πάθος 4. M. Heidegger, Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie, GA Bd 18, hrsg. von M. Michalski, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2002. 5. Ibídem, p. 122. 6. Aristotle, Nicomachean ethics, II, 5, 1105b19-21. 7. «Πάθος gehört also zu dem, was in der Seele wird». Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie, p. 168. 8. «Wichtig ist das Mitgegebensein der πάθη als γινόμενα, Weisen des Seins selbst, sofern wir leben, Weisen des Werdens, betreffend das Sein-in-einer-Welt»; «...wie das πάθος Bezeichnete das Sein-inder-Welt in einem fundamentalen Sinne bestimmt». Ibídem, p. 169. 9. «Schon dadurch ist πάθος als ein Seinsbegriff angezeigt, weil das πασχειν in der Gegenüberstellung zum ποιειν ein Grundmoment dastellt für die Analyse der κίησις, des Seins im Sinne des Bewegtseins». Ibídem, p. 172. 149 EEZ. A 3 ME 2:  E 21. SS 214 PP. 141 is then a fundamental concept in the analysis of κίνησις, of being as Bewegtsein, beingin-movement. Going on in our reading, we find the comment to a passage of the Metaphysic where the four meanings of πάθος are listed. The first (attribute, quality) specifies the vulnerability of a being, the fact that something may happen to it (passieren) and it is ignored by Heidegger. This is very important: to refuse the idea of attribute hides implicitly the refusal of the idea of substantia, of a permanent ‘layer’ – here we can see the difference between Heidegger’s interpretation and the classic one. The second meaning (changing of a characteristic) specifies the possibility of being struck by something external and change (umschlagenden Mit-einem-Geschehen). The third one (painful change) is said painful only because someone feels it as such, because someone’s Stimmung is affected. This third meaning is the one related to our corporality: we feel something because of our being corporal. At last, πάθος indicate that something strikes one to a large extent (βλαβεραι αλλοιώσεις και κινήσεις): Heidegger leaves the idea of painful affection aside and generalizes it as «something which strikes me»10. We can see that Heidegger underlines, in every one of these meanings, the aspect of movement. Πάθος is then something related with the living being (das Seins des Lebenden), particularly with his «being disposed in a certain way (Je-und-je-sichbefinden)». The πάθος always strikes someone (schlägt einen ein) and moves one, putting one in a certain disposition (Befindlichkeit). Here it is where the word that will become one of the three elements of the existential structure in Being and Time appears for the first time. Here it is pointed out that πάθος is not something isolated, a qualitative mutation inside existence — rather it determines the subject in his beingdisposed in the world, within a context, and every affection shapes this disposition in each and every moment. Therefore we could say that every event, every trauma, every affection shapes the soul. The πάθος is not an isolated moment of our cognitive experience, a qualitative mutation in our existence, but something that can deeply change our active disposition in the world. Die Art und Weise des Aus-der-Fassung-Kommens, Aus-der-Fassunggebracht-Werdens ist dem Sinn nach so, dass sie wieder gefasst werden kann: Ich kann mich wieder fassen, ich bin einen bestimmten Moment, in einer Gefahr, im Moment des Schreckens, in Fassung. Ich kann die durch den Schrecken gekennzeichnete Befindlichkeit beziehen auf ein mögliches Gefasstsein dafür. So hat also πάθος in sich selbst schon den Bezug auf εξις.11 This disposition, being disposed in a certain way (Je-und-je-sich-Befinden), is nothing 10. «Was mir passiert, was mir zuleide geschieht. Wir haben dafür einen entsprechenden Ausdruck: Das und das ist ein Schlag für mich». Ibídem, p. 195. 11. Ibídem, p. 171. 150 ELISA ZOCCHI ΨΥΧΉ AND BEWEGTHEIT: SOUL AS MOVEMENT IN EARLY HEIDEGGERIAN INTERPRETATION OF ARISTOTLE else but the constitution of the ψυχή, its being in the world not as a static substance but as a vital essence shaped by that what we live. Heideggerian interpretation leads to a non-dualistic vision of Aristotle’s thought – the ψυχή is then considered as the primary εντελέχεια of man. It is then clear that for Heidegger the affective moment is not a step to overlook in order to establish a real relationship with the world but it is the beginning of this relationship itself. Only from this being-disposed can relations be established, from the affective moment that opens the man up and disposes him in a certain attitude. Another important sign of the collapse of every dualism on emotions is the third meaning of πάθος in Aristotle: the life of the body with his feelings and passions. Heidegger reads the De Anima: «It seems that all the affections (πάθη) of the soul happen along with the body (ειναι μετα σώματος)»12. Heidegger recognizes that every affection is affection of a body. Again, he looks at a non-dualistic Aristotle: passions and body are inseparable, there is no inert matter but Leiblichkeit: every affection is then an entire modification of human life, of the εντελέχεια that makes it up and that goes always together with his being-a-body (leibmäßig). We have to leave every kind of dualism apart: Heidegger in this interpretation of Aristotle sets himself before every division between material and non-material (division that will anyway be latent in his thought until the creation of the concept, in his Denkweg, that will perfectly express this kind of unity – Stimmung). But the πάθη are now described as originally united phenomena, unity of which is given by the being of man itself13. The pathical moment allows then an openness, a movement-towards, because it disposes the Dasein in a certain way. This is the real meaning of Befindlichkeit, with a huge debt towards Aristotle: being passively struck means to find ourselves disposed in a certain way, being affectively in-tune to and remain in this ‘being tuned in the world’. We are always disposed, always affectively tuned – we move from one mood to the other, from an affection to another, but we cannot avoid them. But this limit, our being always tuned, is not a negative limit, but first and foremost our greatest resource: our moods open us, they are not moments to be overlooked but rather situations that dispose us in towards a certain openness, in a movement. One important element to underline is that for Heidegger this pathical aspect of our existence is one capable of opening the Dasein toward the ethical moment. If we take the example of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, the rhetorician has to persuade the listener acting on his διάθεσις, his passive disposition. For Heidegger, as we said, every mood is directed towards the outside, towards the definition of the self and of the world – and this allows also the possibility of decision. In Heidegger’s interpretation, the εξις (active disposition) is a particular πάθος in which the moment of concentration 12. Ibídem, p. 203, reading Aristotle, De Anima A.1, 403a16. 13. «Die ursprüngliche Einheit des Phänomens der πάθη liegt im Sein des Menschen als solchen». Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie, p. 177. 151 EEZ. A 3 ME 2:  E 21. SS 214 PP. 141 prevails over the tendency of dispersion; it is the «rechte Sichbefinden», something like a harmonious situation made possible also by the exercise of the φρόνησις, that Heidegger in this text translate with Umsicht. It is interesting to notice that, as often reminded by Gadamer, Heidegger was used to translate φρόνησις with Gewissen, conscience14. If we consider Being and time, where conscience is the crucial place of the moment of decision, and we compare it to what was said above about the ‘right Befindlichkeit’ as the real moment of decision (Augenblick), we can clearly observe how the place of conscience is deeply linked to Befindlichkeit, even more, to emotions and the pathical moment. It seems to us that the moment of concentration, of decision, is made possible by the direction given by that sphere of human existence which man cannot control, dominate or choose. Something comes before, something which we cannot erase and which allows us to disperse or to concentrate, to choose ourselves. The decision to take can emerge only via something that cannot be objectified. The impossibility to objectify the original element of pleasure and pain puts both in the Grund of our existence (that is why Heidegger will call them Grundbefindlichkeit). The “how” of our life (the εξις, as Aristotle would say) can arise only through that, which we cannot possess. Before any meaning that can be given to the world, before the theoretical and scientific moment, before the division ‘rational/irrational’, these Grundbefindlichkeit show a path which open to the definition of the Wie of the human existence, of meaning. An important direction of life is already hidden within moods, and already in virtue of moods we can call ourselves ‘human’. The possibility, for the Dasein, to be fully himself, to stay in his Da and to guard it is already contained in the Befindlichkeit itself. 3. Soul as movement We have to take into consideration another element in order to fully understand Heidegger’s interpretation of Aristotelian anthropology. In the lectures of 1924 the focus is on the affective aspect, and reputedly the most important aspect of Aristotle, the λόγος, may seem to be have been forgotten. It would be an error to think that Heidegger looks at the human ψυχή as subject to moods and without rationality because of this interest in Befindlichkeit. We must then comprehend which is the role of λόγος in the definition of ψυχή. The human Wesenbestimmung is the λόγος, clearly as κατηγορείν but also as 14. An important example is Heidegger’s course of 1924 – 1925 on the Sophists, to which are referred this lines: «Erstmals wurde mir davon etwas bewußt, als ich Heidegger 1923 – noch in Freiburg – kennenlernte und an seinem Seminar über die Nikomachische Ethik des Aristoteles teilnahm. Wir studierten die Analyse der φρόνησις. Heidegger zeigte uns am Arisoteles-Text, dass alle Techne eine innere Grenze besitze: ihr Wissen sei kein volles Entbergen, weil das Werk, das sie zu erstellen verstege, in das Ungewisse eines unverfügbar Gebrauchs entlassen werde. Und nun stellate er den Unterschied zur Diskussion, der all solches Wissen, insbesondere auch die bloße δόξα, von der φρόνησις schied (1140 b 29). Als wir an diesem Satz unsicher und ganz in die griechischen Begriffe verfremdet heruminterpretierten, erklärte er brüsk “Das ist das Gewissen!”». H.-G. Gadamer, Marburger Teologie, pp. 199200, in H.-G. Gadamer, Gesammelte Werke, Band 3, J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen 1987. 152 ELISA ZOCCHI ΨΥΧΉ AND BEWEGTHEIT: SOUL AS MOVEMENT IN EARLY HEIDEGGERIAN INTERPRETATION OF ARISTOTLE απόφαινησται: λόγος doesn’t only mean «what» — it also means εσχατον, goal, the teleological direction. Λόγος, and not only ψυχή, has to be understood as something not already ontologically formed, but especially in its teleological aspect. Ουσία is a being; every being, as a being, is an essence, with two aspects: υλη and ειδος. The form defines the limit of the substance and shapes in this way its singularity. υλη represents, then, the infinite possibilities of the substance, which are limited by the form. Substance (i.e. soul) is then the movable, mobile and living determination, the possibility of taking shape and accepting a fulfilment of this shape. This «taking shape» is nothing but the victory of act on potency, preserving the ontological meaning of εχειν: it is εντελέχεια. Substance, for Heidegger, isn’t something static and definitive but the vital act, the incessant active determination of one possibility. In a living being it is the first εντελέχεια, the coming to life itself. This means that we have to look at the soul not only as a substance but also as the origin of movement and, most of all, as τέλος, as εσχατον. It is the soul as εντελέχεια that makes each human being a unity because of its movement toward something. That is why the soul opens up the world, and every organ of living being works in order to make this openness possible. In Aristotle there is no contempt of the senses, because the soul would have, without them, no possibility to define its τέλος, and it is clear that the soul, in every level of development, is directed outside itself and towards the world. The limit makes possible the movement-toward, the openness to the world given by the πάθος of the ψυχή. It is clear therefore that the ψυχή is not to be considered as something concluded but, instead, as something characterised by temporality. This means that affections and moods are the real openness and element of incessant definition, of movement. Man itself is, therefore, movement: Das in Bewegung Seiende wurde bestimmt als Gegenwärtigkeit des Seienden in seinem Seinkönnen. κίνησις macht also das Da aus des in Bewegung Seienden, des Bewegten. Bewegtes ist aber (vgl. pros ti) Sein im Bezug zu Bewegedem, im Mitdasein eines κινοιν bzw. κινετικόν. Wie ist das Da dieses mit dem in Bewegung Seienden als Bewegtem Mitdaseienden zu bestimmen?15. Movement is a fundamental element in order to understand the being of life as a self-fulfilment of the Self and the being of the beings as presence. The ψυχή is an uninterrupted movement, as showed by moods where we always find ourselves. We can here begin to understand Heidegger’s procedure: what Aristotle would have ascribed to nature, to the world of physics (whose main object is the being-in-movement), is for Heidegger also a characteristic of the human world, it is a fundamental aspect of the Self, of life as facticity. 15. Ibídem, p. 392. 153 EEZ. A 3 ME 2:  E 21. SS 214 PP. 141 We can now take another step that allows to fully understand the meaning of soul as movement. We have to define the ψυχή not more only via negationis, knowing that it is not static substance, and instead move to discover the real meaning of soul as movement. In order to do this we have to look at the programmatic text, in which Heidegger summarises his interest toward Aristotle. In Autumn 1922 Heidegger sends his candidacy for a place as extra-ordinary professor at the Philosophy Faculty of Marburg and Göttingen. The deans of the two universities, Paul Natorp and Georg Misch, asked Heidegger’s professor Edmund Husserl for a summary of the academic activities of his pupil – to whom Husserl asks in turn for a short text about his own research due to the poor amount of publications. That is the origin of Phänomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles. Anzeige der hermeneutischen Situation, better known as Natorp Bericht16. Part of this text will reappear in the lectures on Aristotle of 1924 (which we analysed), but lots of aspects will be forgotten or left aside by Heidegger. It is interesting to show how the subject of this text may give us an important key in order to understand the ψυχή and his relation with temporality. This is clearly visible in a sentence present in the text: «Die philosophische Forschung ist der explizite Vollzug einer Grundbewegtheit des faktischen Lebens und hält sich ständig innerhalb desselben»17. Life of facticity (faktischen Leben) is the affective level of existence, the level tuned by the Stimmungen, which in Being and time is the level of Befindlichkeit. This is the fundamental level of human ψυχή, the one that shapes it, the one of the events that every day open it up towards existence and towards that relation with things, relation that Heidegger calls Umgang or, even better, Sorge. This ψυχή, claims Heidegger, is characterised by a fundamental motility (Grundbewegtheit) that philosophy has to investigate. Philosophy (and in a certain way also psychiatry) has to be the fulfilment of life’s tendency to explain itself, a natural and innate tendency. This is also the explanation of the overused quotation of 1924 where Heidegger speaks about the Da of Dasein as a κίνησις – human being is first of all motility, Bewegtheit. His being is unceasing openness, movement-toward – not only the movement of philosophical research but also and especially of our everyday dwelling (wohnen) the world and relationships, a dwelling that is not already given and built, a sense that is not given by someone else but that, precisely because soul is Bewegtheit, and therefore has to be written and chosen step by step. 16. This work has three editions. The first one, based on the text sent to Göttingen, published in 1989: Phänomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles. Anzeige der hermeneutischen Situation, hrsg. von H.-U. Lesung, Dilthey Jahrbuch, 6 (1989), pp 237-69. The second is based on Heidegger’s typewritten document : Phänomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles. Ausarbeitung für die Marburger und die Göttinger Philosophische Fakultät (1922), hrsg. von V. G. Neumann, Reclam, Stuttgart 2003. The third one appears in the Gesamtausgabe, and it contains a complete revision of sources and adds important elements in the notes: Phänomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles (Anzeige der hermeneutischen Situation). Ausarbeitung für die Marburger und die Göttinger Philosophische Fakultät (Herbst 1922), in M. Heidegger, Phänomenologische Interpretationen ausgewählter Abhandlunden des Aristoteles zur Ontologie und Logik, GA Bd. 62, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2005, pp. 341-419. 17. Ibídem, p. 351.