Review of Metaphysics: Language and the Problem of Being

Language, according to Heidegger, is the house of Being (Heidegger 1977, 193). It is the place where Being presents itself to Dasein (There-Being); Dasein is the place whereby Being makes itself accessible to man. Language, in this sense, is constitutive of the man’s being-in-the-world (Sallis 1993, 357). St. Thomas, on the other hand, views human language differently. Language, for St. Thomas, is the means whereby the reality of Being as the ultimate cause of all beings is made known to the human intellect. 

Man, as Dasein, has the fundamental character of thrownness. By being thrown into the world, it is through man whereby the Being of beings becomes manifest. It is through man whereby Being is known. Metaphysics, says Heidegger, is the basic occurrence of Dasein (Heidegger 1977, 112). For Heidegger, Dasein dwells on the disclosure of Being through the nothing (the unsaid in human speech), which stands as its groundless ground and source of meaning. The nothing, Heidegger, says, makes possible the openness of beings (Ibid., 105). This openness comes to man in language, for Being “is perpetually under way to language (Ibid., 239).”

According to John Caputo, St. Thomas understands language as an activity of man, to be mastered and perfected like any other craft and not as a response to the address of Being (Caputo 1982, 165). For St. Thomas, the reality of Being does not unfold in language; instead, through language, the reality of Being is affirmed by way of causal participation. Man, as being, participates in Being by sharing in the latter’s pure act of existence. St. Thomas’ understanding of language accounts for the ultimate root of man’s intrinsic act of existence that directs him to a transcendent source, God as Being.

1. Language as Being

Before we go deeper into the relation between man and Being, it is necessary to trace back Heidegger’s analysis of the problem of Being. Heidegger’s analysis of the problem of Being is out of his fascination with the word “is.” The question of Being, Heidegger says, is something we keep within the understanding of the “is,” though we are unable to fix conceptually what that “is” signifies (Heidegger 1962, 6). The word “is,” therefore, expresses and opens up the issue in his metaphysics of language – the issue is Being. Magda King says that if the “is” were missing from human language, there would be no other word and no language at all (King 1964, 28).

Language is an event that has Being as its ultimate origin, a house that is arranged according to a pattern inscribed and prescribed by it (Richardson 1963, 535). This means that Being makes manifest the presence of beings to man through language. Being therefore reveals the truth of beings to human consciousness through language. Now, without the “is” in language, language would be meaningless for it wouldn’t express any truth to man, for there would be nothing in language that will reveal that being is and not nothing. The “is” in language presents the reality of beings, that they are beings and not nothing.

It is recorded that Heidegger’s quest for the meaning of Being was inspired by Franz Brentano’s On the Manifold Meanings of Beings for Aristotle. Aristotle understands Being as ousia, which refers to the active concrete and changing substance, actualized by form. Aristotle rejects the abstract world of forms of Plato and considered the particular entities in the world as the really real. To be real therefore means to be a substance or to be an attribute of a substance (Guignon 1993, 45).

For Aristotle, substances form the structure of the world. They are objective and independent existing entities. But Aristotle’s explication of substance as real deals with beings, not Being. In the sense, Aristotle bypassed Being. But Heidegger says that we sense more in things than mere substance and accidents for things are closer to us than the sensations that announce them (Richardson 1963, 440). Aristotle has examined beings in his metaphysics but was oblivious to the fact that they are the manifestations of Being. Aristotle, therefore, is oblivious to Being.

Furthermore, Aristotle defined language as a sound that signifies something (Sallis 1993, 363), and this means that he is not aware of the role language in the disclosure of Being. Aristotle is ignorant of the radical role that language plays in the disclosure of beings. According to Heidegger, Being comes to man’s awareness because man belongs to language. Thus, he says, it is the home where man dwells (Heidegger 1977, 193). This belongingness means that of all existing beings only man can ask the question regarding Being. And the reason for this, according to Heidegger, is that human existence means standing in the lighting of Being (Ibid., 204).

For Heidegger, human existence thoughtfully dwells in the house of Being (Ibid., 239). Dasein, or man, by being thrown into the world, lives in this house. Dwelling in the house of Being enables man to speak of a world. Henceforth, it is language that makes the world a world for man, a world where his possibilities are realized. To speak of the world, then, means to speak of Being. Man, by being-in-the-world, stands in front of Being. Thus, man as Dasein bears witness to Being, gives voice to Being (Clarke 2001, 53).

For Heidegger, it is through the nothing that the openness of the meaning of beings is revealed. Nothingness opens up the possibilities of being human. Nothingness reveals what it means for man to exist. As source of meaning, the nothing brings forth the different possibilities of being-in-the-world. These possibilities are shed light in language for language reveals the truth of being-in-the-world. This is because language, as the house where Being dwells, is the same place where meaning is. Language, in this regard, reveals the reality of Dasein as being-in-the-world.

Now, we ask, what is in human language that allows the possibility of saying? If language is the place where Being comes into light, then there must be something in language that allows this coming-into-presence and self-concealing as its source or ground. For Heidegger, in the very instance of whatever is said, a hidden plenitude is left unsaid (Deely 1967, 172). This plenitude enables the possibility of saying. This plenitude refers to the nothing, the unsaid in speech, which “presuppose the possibility of saying, of disclosing." (Sallis 1993, 358) Heidegger says,

The nothing comes to be the name for the source not only of all that is dark and riddlesome in existence which seems to rise from nowhere to return to it but also of the openness of Being as such and the brilliance surrounding whatever comes to light (Heidegger 1977, 93).

This nothing is the veil of Being (King 1964, 11). Ancient metaphysics, according to Heidegger, conceives the nothing in the sense of non-being, that is, unformed matter, matter that cannot take form as an informed being (Heidegger 1977, 109). Thus, for a long time, metaphysics exposes the nothing to only one meaning: ex nihilo nihil fit – from the nothing, nothing comes to be (Ibid., 109). But Being and nothingness belong together, for Heidegger says, “the Nothing functions as Being” (Heidegger 1949, 353). What does this mean?

For Heidegger, the Nothing is an abyss, the groundless source of meaning where the reality of being human is made manifest. He says, “ if man is to find himself again into the nearness of Being, he must first learn to exist in the nameless” (Heidegger 1977, 199). The nameless is the silence in human speech. Silence presupposes the fact that one has something to say. But science and mathematics, according to Heidegger, have dismissed the nothing as meaningless. Science gives up the nothing as a nullity.

Thus, Heidegger states that, for these two fields what should be examined are beings and, besides that, nothing; beings alone, and further nothing; solely beings and beyond that, nothing (Ibid., 97). Science rejects the nothing precisely because scientific language requires methodical objectivity. The scientist sees the nothing as empty, as something that is devoid of any objective sense. Thus, for the scientific discipline, the silence of the nothing does not say anything. Science conceals the nothing from man. Science renders mute the possibilities of man in the realm of silence.

Heidegger says that: If the nothing itself is to be questioned as we have been questioning it, then it must be given beforehand. We must be able to encounter it (Ibid., 100). The nothing, according to Heidegger, reveals itself in anxiety (Ibid., 103). Anxiety makes man silent, so that because of anxiety what humans have to say falls silent, making the reality of beings slip away. But what is anxiety? Anxiety, Heidegger says, is not a kind of grasping of the nothing (Ibid., 104). Anxiety refers to the state of mind that brings humans to the indeterminate possibilities of their existence. In speech, this state of mind points to the indeterminate possibilities of saying. 

What anxiety reveals to man is that through the nothing the reality of beings comes into light, that they are beings and not nothing. Anxiety, then, opens up the meaningfulness of beings for humans. Henceforth, the dismissal by science of the nothing implies its annihilation of the Being of beings. The rejection of the unsaid in language means the dismissal of the meanings still concealed in such silence. The dismissal of silence, of nothing as nothing, is a dismissal of what it means to be human. Thus, ex nihilo omne ens qua ens fit (from the nothing all beings as being come to be) (Ibid., 110).

2. God as Being

Being for St. Thomas is not the lighting up process but the ipsum esse subsistens that renders beings their being by way of causal participation. Language for St. Thomas addresses Being in a different way. For St. Thomas, every being (ens) is a being insofar as it participates in esse. Being for St. Thomas is the cause of the act of existence in beings. This distinction between Being as ipsum esse subsistens and beings as ens is closely related to Heidegger’s distinction between Being and beings. The reason for this, according to John Caputo, is that ens derives its meaning from esse. A being is a being insofar as it is referred to the act of existing which in its unparticipated state is pure act. St. Thomas, then, Caputo says, cannot be accused of oblivion of the ontological difference between Being and beings.

Language for St. Thomas addresses the question of Being in a manner different from that of Heidegger. St. Thomas’s metaphysical inquiry on language begins with the question “Can we use any words to refer to God?” (Aquinas 1969, 195). Language, for St. Thomas, acts as a bridge that enables humans to discover a metaphorical insight into Being. What is grasped is only metaphorical because man does not have a direct knowledge of Being. As we will show later on, all of man’s knowledge of Being is only by way of negation (Clarke 1972, 139). Humans know through God’s effects that God is, and that God is the cause of other beings, that God is super-eminent over other things and set apart from all (Aquinas 1955, 30).

When we say, “God is good” what we mean is that “God is good, but not in the way we are.” St. Thomas’s concern, then, is to know how, for instance, goodness can be predicated literally of God. To say that God is good means that goodness as perfection is present in man but only in a finite way; God as the ultimate source of this perfection is infinitely good. Any knowledge of God can be based only on metaphorical resemblance with beings as his effects. In this sense, Being is the ultimate source of man. Being, as the unlimited source of existence, is present in all beings, not as part of the essence or nature of beings, but as an agent is present to that upon which it acts. (Clark 1972, 62)

What does God as Being mean for St. Thomas? We have seen in Heidegger that Being is the Being of beings that makes them manifest. The metaphysics of St. Thomas, on the other hand, is a metaphysics of causality which takes into account the causal relationship between Beings and beings, between God and humans. For St. Thomas, Being is the ipsum esse subsistens that renders beings their esse or existence. Thus, his metaphysics is a metaphysics of creation, which makes esse the most fundamental act that gives the human being the principle of his existence. It is esse that makes humans be. 

Explaining this point is very important in understanding how language brings man to his knowledge of Being. How does any word describing Being become meaningful? The Thomistic tradition contends that any language dealing with Being is used to signify something transcending all things, but we make such language meaningful by demonstrating from effects that Being exists, for as we shall observe, any language about Being is derived from these effects (Gilby 1969, 259-261). By this, St.Thomas means that any language that deals with God is finite, and since the finite subject is a creature of God, there must be a way in which the finite language of beings could describe God.

In the Summa Theologica, St.Thomas asks, “Are words used univocally or equivocally of God and creatures?” (Aquinas 1969, 205) St. Thomas says that the univocal predication of God and creatures is impossible, for every effect falls short of what is typical of the power of its cause (Ibid.). Any language that deals with God cannot have a univocal meaning for this will mean that God is totally distinct from man. This will make God totally unknowable. On the one hand, any language that deals with God cannot be equivocal, for “we never use words in exactly the same sense of creatures and God” (Ibid.). Hence, the solution according to St.Thomas, is that:

In this way some words are used neither univocally nor purely equivocally of God and creatures, but analogically, for we cannot speak of God at all except an the language we use of creatures, so whatever is said both of God and creatures is said in virtues of the order that creatures have to God as their source and cause (Ibid.).

God as Being gives perfection to man and, therefore, God is both like and unlike man. Thus, when we speak of Being as the ultimate source of human existence we have to use analogical language by virtue of this resemblance. Man is like and unlike God in view of the former’s participation in esse. Any word then that we use in order to describe God results from man’s being created in God’s image and likeness. St.Thomas is concerned to maintain that we can use words to mean more than what they mean to us: that we can use them to understand what God is like, that we can reach out to God with our words even though they do not circumscribe what He is (Aquinas 1969, 293).

3. Being as Transcendence 

To say “God is good” does not mean we go beyond the meaning of the word good. Rather, it is entering into the deeper meaning of the word in order to find there a trace of God’s presence in man. To go deeper into the meaning of the word means to transcend the finitude of this word. To transcend this finitude means to trace the presence of God as Being, as primordial source of being, in man. In Caputo’s Heidegger and Aquinas: An Essay on Overcoming Metaphysics, Caputo argues that St.Thomas remains oblivious to the radical role played by language vis-à-vis Being (Caputo 1982, 158). According to Caputo,

The idea never entered St.Thomas’s mind that language opens up the field of presence in which we dwell, that language shapes the whole understanding of Being (Ibid., 164)

Caputo accuses St.Thomas of using language only in a technical sense. His argument is that St. Thomas merely used language as a means of communicating the meaning of Being. Language simply had no role in the formation of meaning, and its value is reduced to being a sign of communication that human beings utilize. In Heidegger, Caputo argues, “language is Being’s own way of coming to words into human speech,” and this means that, “it is not the human being who speaks but language itself” (Ibid., 159). Language, according to Caputo, bids the coming-into-presence of things in the world.

Language does not only express the world, it is the light that makes the world a world for man. Language is not just a representation of meaning but it is that which gives meaning. Language cannot be reduced to a mere means of communication. It is not just a sign that signifies something. It is the very way by which the meaning of something comes into the open. Caputo further opines that language for St. Thomas does not posses this radical role because St. Thomas, says Caputo, “is innocent of the encompassing importance of language in bringing beings to appearance, in letting them be in their Being” (Ibid., 158).

But Caputo’s critique of Thomistic language simply proves that Heidegger’s metaphysical understanding of language is different from that of St. Thomas’s understanding. Analogical language is never alethiological, and alethiological language is never analogical. According to Fr. Norris Clarke, Heidegger, as a phenomenologist, “can only describe how Being actually appears in consciousness” (Clarke, 55). Therefore, he has not gone “to the necessary ontological conditions of possibility or intelligibility of what appears, not even to the intrinsic act of existence within beings” (Ibid.).

In this regard, Heidegger simply imprisons man to the conditions of his finite existence. The reason for this is that Being, in Heidegger’s sense, is only immanent, not transcendent (Ibid., 52). Now, such claim has an important implication for Heidegger’s conception of language. Heidegger merely confines language to the conditions of man’s finite existence. Therefore, language, in the Heideggerian sense, does nothing in addressing the problem of unity of man to a transcendent Being as the ultimate source of his being. Heidegger may very well be accused of ignoring the importance of the analogical character of language that allows transcending the finitude of language.

Heidegger has not gone deeper into the power of language to signify the causal relationship between Being and beings, between God and man. Heidegger’s conception of language does not allow humans to find a deeper context for their finite condition. Thus, when man is placed within the limiting horizon of finite existence, he will be unable to raise the question of a transcendent Being upon which his existence is rooted (Clarke 1994, 138). Heidegger is forgetful of the capacity of language to trace the unity between Being and man in the intrinsic act of being. The truth is that Heidegger neglects the insight that analogy presupposes the reality of an ultimate source of intelligibility for the existence of creatures.

Heidegger’s conception of language limits man to his finite possibilities. It does not answer man’s quest for the ultimate root of the meaning of his existence. The problem is that Dasein merely waits for Being to manifest itself. Dasein cannot reach to any meaning beyond his finite conditions because he has to wait for Being to reveal this meaning to him in language. In this sense, language owns the human being, and humans are forever imprisoned in their finite possibilities.St. Thomas’ conception of language, on the other hand, enables man to transcend his finite condition and enter into his final unity with the Source. Language signifies the relationship between man and the ultimate source of his existence, God. 

This transcendence is impossible in the Heideggerian notion of language. Transcendence is not brought about by anxiety. Anxiety is a purely finite condition and, as such, can only reveal the reality of man’s finitude. The meaningful context of transcendence is revealed to us, according to St.Thomas, only by our desire to know Being. This desire or love of truth reveals itself. St. Thomas’ conception of language enables man to transcend his finitude and find the presence of Being in his own existence as ultimate ground and source. The inadequacy, then, of Heidegger’s conception of language lies in its inability to trace the ultimate ground of the intrinsic art of existence among beings.

Heidegger’s problem then is that he does not answer the most important question raised by St. Thomas for metaphysics: “why is there something rather than nothing?” To answer such question is to account for the reason why beings exist. If raising the question of Being is important for metaphysics to retrieve it from the dust of tradition and scientific reasoning, then it is also valuable for Dasein to answer this question in order to quench his thirst for the ultimate meaning of his existence. Saying that Dasein is not enough. There is a horizon beyond the finite character of Dasein. Such horizon is the response to the question why being is and not nothing.

Conclusion

The meaning of being is not just an orientation toward the presence of things, but more importantly it is a deep drive that transcends the human being’s mere consciousness of a world. This is the horizon of the transcendent Being, the ultimate source of all creation, the very reason indeed why beings are really real.Limiting ourselves to the horizon of the world does not end our infinite hunger for the ultimate meaning of human existence. Henceforth, man must cross the bridge that brings him to the ultimate meaning of his being. This is a bridge that St. Thomas offers us, a bridge that unites man to one transcendent Being as the ultimate ground and source of his existence.

Selected Bibliography


Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae (Garden City, New York: Image Books, 1969)

Caputo. John. Heidegger and Aquinas: An essay on overcoming Metaphysics
(New York: Fordham University Press, 1982)

Clark, Mary. ed. An Aquinas Reader (New York: Image Books, 1972)

Clarke, W. Norris. Explorations in Metaphysics (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1994)

Gilby, Thomas. ed. Thomas Aquinas (New York: Image Books, 1969)

Guignon, Charles, ed. Cambridge Companion to Heidegger (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994)

Heidegger, Martin. Basic Writings, ed. David Krell (New York: Harper and Row
Publishers, 1977)

_______________ Being and Time (New York: Harper Books, 1962)

_______________ What is Metaphysics?, trans. R.F.C. Hull and Allan Crick
(Chicago: Gateway, 1949)

King, Magda. Heidegger’s Philosophy (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1962)

Richardson, William. Through Phenomenology to Thought. (The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff, 1963)

Sallis, John. ed. Reading Heidegger (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1993)