Auseinandersetzung

Heidegger's technical name for the proper mode of relation to a thinker. Distinct from interpretation, criticism, and refutation, Auseinandersetzung is "die höchste und einzige Weise der wahren Schätzung eines Denkers" — the highest and only way of truly valuing a thinker. The German verb aus-einander-setzen means literally "to set asunder, mutually" — to bring two thinkings into mutual confrontation in such a way that each takes its full stature from the encounter. The 1961 Vorwort to *Nietzsche I* declares: "Die Sache, der Streitfall, ist in sich selbst Aus-einander-setzung. Unser Denken auf die Sache eingehen lassen, jenes auf diese vorbereiten – bildet den Inhalt der vorliegenden Veröffentlichung." Auseinandersetzung is therefore not a method applied to Nietzsche but the form in which Nietzsche's Sache (matter at issue) is itself constituted.

What the Concept Does

  1. Distinguishes "true critique" from polemics, refutation, and disinterested exegesis. "Auseinandersetzung ist echte Kritik. Sie ist die höchste und einzige Weise der wahren Schätzung eines Denkers. Denn sie übernimmt es, seinem Denken nachzudenken und es in seine wirkende Kraft, nicht in die Schwächen, zu verfolgen" (heidegger-1961-nietzsche-i line 222). True critique follows the wirkende Kraft (effective force) of a thinker's thought, not their weaknesses.

  2. Specifies the relation between thinkers as mutual Setzung. Two thinkers in Auseinandersetzung both place each other and are both placed by each other; the encounter constitutes a third — the Streitfall (matter at strife) — that neither alone could constitute. The thinker who undertakes Auseinandersetzung gains Stand (stance) only through the confrontation.

  3. Defines the historical-philosophical task. History of philosophy, on Heidegger's reading, is not a survey of past doctrines (doxography) but a series of Auseinandersetzungen in which the matter of philosophy is brought into relief. To "do" history of philosophy properly is to enter one of these Auseinandersetzungen on its own terms: "Die Geschichte der Philosophie ist keine Sache der Historie, sondern der Philosophie."

  4. Names the form of Heidegger's relation to Nietzsche specifically. "Damit wir selbst durch die Auseinandersetzung für die höchste Anstrengung des Denkens frei werden" — through the Auseinandersetzung with Nietzsche, we become free for the highest effort of thinking. The reading of Nietzsche is therefore inseparable from the reader's own thinking-into the matter of Western metaphysics.

What It Rejects

  • Doxographic history of philosophy that catalogues positions without entering them.
  • Polemics that focus on a thinker's weaknesses to discredit them. Heidegger explicitly distinguishes Auseinandersetzung from chasing-after-weaknesses.
  • "Sympathetic" interpretation that agrees with the thinker. Auseinandersetzung is not agreement; it is con-frontation in which both thinkers are placed at maximum mutual stress.
  • Mere influence-tracking. "Abhängigkeit ist kein möglicher Begriff, um das Verhältnis der Großen untereinander zu fassen. Abhängig ist immer nur das Kleine vom Großen" (line 479). Among great thinkers, the relation is Auseinandersetzung, not influence.
  • Cultural-historical biography that reads philosophy through life-events. Heidegger insists "Wer Nietzsche ist . . . wissen wir, sobald wir imstande sind, denjenigen Gedanken zu denken, den er in das Wortgefüge 'der Wille zur Macht' geprägt hat" (line 3692). Not biography but Gedanken-Gang.

Stakes

If Auseinandersetzung is the proper mode of philosophical relation, then:

  • Heidegger's Nietzsche I is not Nietzsche-exegesis in any conventional sense. It is Heidegger's own thinking standing within the Streitfall with Nietzsche. The Hölderlin verse closing the lecture is part of the Auseinandersetzung, not a decoration.
  • Reading Heidegger-on-Nietzsche requires reading Heidegger and Nietzsche together as a Streitfall — not asking "did Heidegger get Nietzsche right?" but "what is the matter that emerges in the confrontation?"
  • Wiki entries on a philosopher must record not the philosopher in isolation but the philosopher in Auseinandersetzungen — see friedrich-nietzsche for an example where the entity page records the Nietzsche-Heidegger and Nietzsche-Chouraqui Auseinandersetzungen as primary content.
  • The very term "Sache" (matter at issue) is recast: a Sache is not a topic but the third constituted in Auseinandersetzung.

Problem-Space

Auseinandersetzung articulates the recurring problem of how to relate to a tradition or an interlocutor without either submitting to it or stepping outside it. Cognate articulations appear in:

  • Hegelian dialectic — Aufhebung as the form of preserving-by-overcoming.
  • Gadamerian Horizontverschmelzung (fusion of horizons) — but Gadamer's hermeneutics aim at understanding-across-horizons, while Auseinandersetzung aims at Streitfall-constitution.
  • Levinas's face-to-face — encounter as the constitution of ethical relation, not understanding.
  • MP's "indirect ontology" and intra-ontology — being inside a tradition while interrogating its frame.

The 1964 Reflexive Auseinandersetzung

"Das Ende der Philosophie und die Aufgabe des Denkens" (1964) supplies a late, reflexive form of Auseinandersetzung that the Nietzsche I model does not articulate. The 1964 essay performs three Auseinandersetzungen in sequence:

  1. With Hegel (1807 Phenomenology Vorrede). The call "zur Sache selbst" is read against the unthought of the Sache — Hegel's Sache (Subjektivität) is presupposed; the open in which the dialectical Scheinen takes place is unthought.
  2. With Husserl (1910/11 "Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft" + Ideen §24's Prinzip aller Prinzipien). The same procedure: Husserl's Sache (absolute Subjektivität) is presupposed; the open in which originary intuition gives is unthought.
  3. With himself — i.e., with the SuZ-author of 1927. The footnote at GA 14 p. 87 cites SuZ p. 219 by direct page-reference and characterizes that translation (Aletheia → Wahrheit) as a Wegirren — a temporary straying — from a decisive insight. Heidegger 1964 enters Auseinandersetzung with Heidegger 1927.

The 1964 form generalizes the Nietzsche I mode in two ways:

  • The Sache of the Auseinandersetzung is the unthought, not (only) the wirkende Kraft. Where NI tracks Nietzsche's Gedanken-Gang, EPTT tracks what Hegel-Husserl-and-self did not think. Auseinandersetzung with the unthought is structurally distinct from Auseinandersetzung with another's wirkende Kraft. The two forms of echte Kritik are not opposed; the 1964 essay extends the operative range of Auseinandersetzung to include the reflexive-self mode.
  • The form makes self-correction part of Auseinandersetzung. The footnote-citation of SuZ p. 219 is an Auseinandersetzung-internal self-Setzung — Heidegger 1964 places Heidegger 1927 in the Streitfall. This is structurally implicit in the NI Vorwort's "Den Denkweg, den ich von 1930 an bis zum 'Brief über den Humanismus' (1947) gegangen bin..." but the 1964 essay makes it operationally explicit through the SuZ p. 219 self-citation.

The 1964 form preserves all the constraints listed under "What It Rejects" (no doxography, no polemics, no sympathetic interpretation, no biography); it adds: no immunity from Auseinandersetzung's own work. The Heidegger of 1964 stands in Streitfall with the Heidegger of 1927.

Connections

  • is the operative method of heidegger-1961-nietzsche-i — the Nietzsche I lectures are themselves an Auseinandersetzung
  • constitutes the Sache (matter at issue) of friedrich-nietzsche — Heidegger's reading of "what Nietzsche is" depends on Auseinandersetzung
  • contrasts with doxographic exegesis, polemical refutation, sympathetic interpretation
  • is structurally akin to MP's indirect-ontology — both refuse the position of standing-outside
  • is the form of Heidegger's relations to all major Western thinkers (Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Hölderlin) — across the Gesamtausgabe
  • is anticipated by the Sein und Zeit (1927) §6 "Destruktion" of the history of ontology — destruktion is the more violent form Heidegger names earlier; Auseinandersetzung is the more measured form of the same operation
  • receives its reflexive 1964 form in heidegger-1964-end-of-philosophy — Heidegger places Hegel, Husserl, and his own SuZ-self in mutual Streitfall via the unthought-method and the Wegirren footnote at GA 14 p. 87

Open Questions

  • How does Auseinandersetzung relate to Heidegger's earlier (1927) Destruktion of the history of ontology? Is it the same operation under a different name, or a development?
  • Can Auseinandersetzung be performed at all by someone who is not Heidegger? The form seems to presuppose that the reader stands within the Sache of Western metaphysics — but this is what the reading is supposed to bring about.
  • Does Auseinandersetzung-with-Nietzsche commit Heidegger to a specific construal of Nietzsche's wirkende Kraft that other Auseinandersetzungen (Deleuze's, Klossowski's, Chouraqui's) would constitute differently?
  • Is there a non-Heideggerian Auseinandersetzung — i.e., can the form be detached from Heidegger's specific metaphysical project?

Sources

  • heidegger-1961-nietzsche-i — Vorwort (line 168) names Auseinandersetzung as the form of the Sache of Nietzsche's thinking. I.1 (lines 218-222) gives the methodological exposition. The term recurs throughout the work and structures Heidegger's relation to Nietzsche, Plato, Aristotle, Schopenhauer, Wagner, Baeumler, Jaspers.
  • heidegger-1964-end-of-philosophy — the late reflexive form. Three Auseinandersetzungen in the 1964 essay: with Hegel (GA 14 pp. 75-76), with Husserl (pp. 76-78), and with the SuZ-Heidegger (footnote at p. 87 citing SuZ p. 219 as Wegirren from a decisive insight). Extends the NI mode by adding the Auseinandersetzung-with-the-unthought and the reflexive-self register.