Letter to Jean Beaufret

Martin Heidegger

Freiburg, February 22, 1975

Dear and true friend, both in heart

and in the matter of thinking

Heartfelt thanks for the twelve answers to the twelve questions that were posed to you by the two younger friends. They themselves sent me a copy of the text, with a quotation from Stephan George that I had not hitherto known. I have thanked them, sending along a picture of me and a short note. At the beginning of their introduction the questioners have given an unusually striking and beautiful characterization of Jean Beaufret. Where and who are the two questioners, whose names I have not hitherto heard or read?

You yourself, however, must have been blessed with an especially favorable gathering and awakening of thought as you were putting down your answers. What you said is so free and fresh, so decisive as well as rich, so simple while yet staying with what is essential, that every reader will thank you for this aid to reflection [Nachdenken].

Where has this text appeared?

All the answers are illuminating. But I would like to emphasize especially numbers 3 and 4, as well as numbers 10 and 11; for it is precisely these that awaken and further deeper questioning. It is in this way that the references to the turn in the determination of the forgottenness of being and to the perseverance in the same question in Being and Time as in the "topology of being" have their proper weight.

But numbers 10 and 11, on poetry and essence of technology, are the real masterpieces of the whole thing. I know of nothing that is comparable to it, with regard to the clarity and conciseness of its expression [Sagen].

However, a danger remains with such answers: that the superficial reader will come to believe that now he finally knows all about the "philosophy" of Heidegger, whereas, on the contrary, the proper questioning must now first begin - for example, the question about the relationship of technology, language, poetizing, and thinking.

The ascending dominion of linguistics and of the information sciences threatens to drive the efforts of thinking and poetizing and their great tradition out of human eyesight, so that they will only remain as unknown islands. How and whether ever this destiny can be countered I do not know. Of course, that is no reason in the least to give up such efforts.

Rather what is urgent upon us is to attempt in thinking to become an echo, even when distant, for that which is said in Parmenides' saying. Only in this way will the presence [Gegen-Wart] of the beginning be saved for the look away [Weg-Blick] of thinking. In contrast to that, for the calculation of historical representation, the philosophy of the Greeks remains once and for all something in the past.

For that reason the Parmenides-interpretation retains its unique weight. You should take this work up again as soon as possible.

A few days ago René Char sent me a very significant poem, Orion (1975). Enclosed with his greetings was a postcard of Malaucène. We were there during my last stay in the Provence and above all on the trip that my wife and I made with you. We stopped there before we arrived on Mont Ventoux from the North.

We are living quietly in our retirement home during this strange winter. We would like to invite you here for the first of April (Easter Tuesday) until Friday evening or early Saturday, depending on my condition - for I must be careful with my energies.

We greet you warmly from out of our long friendship and are looking forward to seeing you again.


Yours

Martin Heidegger

Friendly greetings to all friends and to the two questioners.


Translated by Steven Davis



Ereignis