Heidegger: Language as a Phenomenological Problem

Abstract

In Heidegger’s thought, what is at stake is, rather than thinking about language, an experience, from within language, which tries to transform our relation to language. Even if this situation makes difficult to discern language as a problem, in order to let essential questions arise, it is necessary to think about phenomenological ground of being or essence of language. In the introductory part of the article, referring briefly to Derrida, we aim at constituting a frame concerning the relationship between language and phenomenology. As we shall see, in Heidegger’s thought, language, for many years, does not appear as a problem, indeed in Being and Time, it could not go beyond being a tool. However, it is obvious that if as we have learned from Derrida, language is a problem which lies in the origin of voice or phone, in Heidegger’s thought, following the traces of concealment as it belongs to being or of silence as it belongs to language, we could have a chance to approach language as a phenomenological problem. As a result, we could see that through the duality of voice and silence, language is Saying which shows and human being, saying after Saying is appropriated by language.