The Mystical Element in Heidegger's Thought

by John D. Caputo

This book is a model of philosophical and Heideggerian scholarship. Avoiding the extremes of abject worship and facile refutation, it moves into the heart of the later Heideggers work. Not only is Caputo faithful to the texts, but he is reflective and critical, inviting the reader to philosophize with and against Heidegger.

Genres: Philosophy, Mysticism, Theology

318 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1978

About the author

John D. Caputo is an American philosopher who is the Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion Emeritus at Syracuse University and the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Villanova University. Caputo is a major figure associated with Postmodern Christianity, Continental Philosophy of Religion, as well as the founder of the theological movement known as weak theology. Much of Caputo's work focuses on hermeneutics, phenomenology, deconstruction and theology.

Reviews

[Caleb Beers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone remotely interested in Heidegger or Christian mysticism should consider picking this up. This is a piece of technical Heidegger scholarship, primarily focused on drawing parallels between the later Heidegger and the writings of Meister Eckhart. A good portion of this book is an exposition of Eckhart's writings, and that part of the text would serve well as a preparation for a student of philosophy who would like to begin reading Eckhart. In fact, despite the consistent references to Heidegger, a large part of the book stands as a competent piece of Eckhart exegesis on its own, or so it seems to this layman.

The main thrust of the book is that the later Heidegger occupies a place that is not mystical, not religious, nor even philosophical, albeit certainly secular. The author locates in Eckhart one of the points of origin for distinctly German philosophy, inasmuch as Eckhart, through his texts and historical situation, played a part in codifying the German language, much as Martin Luther did. Caputo also sees Heidegger as a terminus of the German philosophical tradition, and draws parallels between his thought and that of Eckhart as the two "bookends" of German philosophy.

The later Heidegger occupies the place that he does because the decay of philosophy, caused by the present age of enframing, has created a bifurcation.

On the one hand, the philosopher can choose to take up the core task of philosophy in what Heidegger calls "thinking," more appropriately meditative thinking, a kind of spontaneous thought and speech that does the same thing philosophy does outside of the traditions of metaphysics or true discursive reasoning. To get an idea of what that looks like, think of all the non-systematic thinkers whom academics are cautious about calling "philosophers," such as Kierkegaard, Camus, and, to some extent, Nietzsche. The spontaneous form of thinking that rises from Being's abgrund also seems to characterize much of Heidegger's later work, although he often earns the distinction of being a philosopher by being grandfathered in via his early period.

On the other hand, the philosopher can choose to look superciliously on the poetic and literary forms of thinking and, declaring himself too clever for such crackpot-flakery, choose to go into the sciences. This is the calculative form of thinking.

One of the main points Caputo makes is that Heidegger, having allowed philosophy to bifurcate in himself due to the darkening of Being by technology, has taken the former route, and that in doing so he has appropriated the mystical tradition, which became both available and necessary the moment the bifurcation occurred. Caputo, who gives Heidegger a great deal of respect, to the point of reverence, nevertheless takes issue with Heidegger on this point, saying that the task of philosophy is not obsolete or impossible, but actually more urgent than ever: re-unify meditative thinking with the rest of human activity, contextualizing technical fields without falling into mystical paralysis and bringing meditative thinking into everyday life without becoming enslaved to technical thinking.

For my part, I feel that Heidegger's outlook on the modern world in general, and technology in particular, is the closest that any philosopher of the past century came to really grappling with the most important issue of our time, which remains mysterious because nobody has managed to say it yet. His only real competition is Wittgenstein, who did not even attempt to solve our problem but just tried to call a ceasefire between the various fields of human inquiry as a means of preserving his sanity (and everyone else's) by giving us a way to live without solving "the riddle." Delineate it into language games and don't ask them to hang together.

But Heidegger did get close. Infuriatingly close. With Heidegger, as with Wittgenstein, one is nagged by the feeling that both thinkers fell just shy of the mark, that they grazed with their fingertips the thing that they had set out to say at the beginning. It is plausible that the entire history of philosophy is like this, but in every age, we have the opportunity to disclose the same problem, "the riddle," in a historically appropraite manner. If you're interested in "the riddle," and Heidegger is an avenue of approach for you, then obtain a copy of this at the first opportunity!

[Giovanni Generoso · Rating 5 out of 5]

Caputo's core thesis in this work (which he published at the mere age of 38!) is that Martin Heidegger's later thought can be elucidated when juxtaposed with the Mysticism of Meister Eckhart. Caputo discovers--successfully, I think--a host of structural parallels shared between both of these figures. I read this book largely because of my growing interest in the later Heidegger, and my fascination for what Caputo calls his "piety towards things" (244), as well as his attempt to free thinking from the all-seeing eye of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (Leibniz). For people interested in this sort of thing, Heidegger is certainly one of the most enlightening and profound thinkers in the history of, well, thinking! While Caputo is insistent that we not call Heidegger a "mystic" or "poet," there is certainly a mystical element to his later thought that is in their neighborhood. Above all, the later Heidegger wrote about opening oneself to Being by thinking "without why"--that is, without metaphysical ontologies that seek to provide all sorts of "whys" about things and explain away the Mystery of Being--so that Being can appropriate Dasein as the site of its dis-closure. In much the same way, but in a religious sense, Eckhart wrote about the believer giving up her will in order to let the Son of God be born in the soul--without our will or desire, but only the Father's will and desire. Both Heidegger and Eckhart write of a passive letting-be (Gelassenheit in German). For Heidegger it is a letting-Being-be; for Eckhart it is a letting-God-be. While there are striking dissimilarities in these two forms of letting-be, there are also significant (Caputo argues) similarities. While Caputo does go into some depth to work through their differences, the bulk of the work is designed to show how Heidegger and Eckhart share a similar language and structure. I think he succeeds in this endeavor. He also provides an engaging comparison of Heidegger with Zen Buddhism, as well as a critical commentary that unpacks why Heidegger matters to philosophy, as well as tentative ways that we today should move past him in light of pressing ethical quandaries that Heidegger's thinking resists answering.

I loved this book. I love Eckhart, and Heidegger, and Caputo. And it was fun reading him before he encountered Derrida and deconstruction.