Three - Number: Calculative Politics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
Summary
The Problem of World
The essence of man has been decided long ago. Namely, man is an ‘organism [or creature, Lebewesen]’ and indeed an ‘organism’ that can invent, build and make use of machines, an organism that can reckon [rechnen] with things, an organism that can put everything whatever into its calculation and computation [Rechnung und Berechnung], into the ratio. Man is the organism with the gift of reason. Therefore, man can demand that everything in the world happen ‘logically’. (GA51, 90–1; see GA54, 100–1)
Aristotle's definition of the human continues to exercise Heidegger throughout his career. In this example, from 1941, he makes clear a theme that has been developing in his thought for many years. Indeed, the discussion of this phrase back in the Plato's Sophist course, quoted as an epigraph to this book, had made the link between the ‘rational animal’ and the question of calculation: ‘connected with this definition is that of man as the being which calculates [rechnet], arithmein. Calculating does not mean here counting [zählen] but to reckon something, to be designing [berechnend sein]; it is only on the basis of this original sense of calculating [Rechnen] that number [Zahl] developed’ (GA19, 17–18). Many years later, in the winter of 1942–43 that saw the German army defeated at Stalingrad, Heidegger declares that ‘man as animal rationale is the “animal” that calculates, plans, turns to beings as objects, represents what is objective and orders it’ (GA54, 232; see GA7, 52).
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- Information
- Speaking against NumberHeidegger Language and the Politics of Calculation, pp. 116 - 169Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2005