what is unthought

[Guest guest]

People still hold the view that what is handed down to us by tradition

iswhat in reality lies behind us - while in fact it comes toward us

because weare its captives and destined to it. The purely historical

view oftradition and the course of history is one of those vast

self-deceptions inwhich we must remain entangled as long as we are

still not really thinking.That self-deception about history prevents

us from hearing the language ofthe thinkers. We do not hear it

rightly, because we take that language tobe mere expression, setting

forth philosophers' view. But the thinkers'language tells what is.

To hear it is in no case easy. Hearing itpresupposes that we meet a

certain requirement, and we do so only on rareoccasions. We must

acknowledge and respect it. To acknowledge and respectconsists in

letting every thinker's thought come to us as something in eachcase

unique, never to be repeated, inexhaustible - and being shaken to

thedepths by what is unthought in his thought. What is unthought in

athinker's thought is not a lack inherent in his thought. What is

un-thoughtis there in each case only as the un-thought. The more

original thethinking, the richer will be what is unthought in it.

The unthought is thegreatest gift that thinking can bestow. But to

the commonplaces of soundcommon sense, what is unthought in any

thinking always remains merely theincomprehensible. And to the

common comprehension, the incomprehensible isnever an occasion to

stop and look at its own powers of comprehension."This silence is

language; it may speak more eloquently than any words...itis the

primordial attunement of one existence to another, out of which

alllanguage comes. It is only because man is capable of such silence

that heis capable of authentic speech. If he ceases to be rooted in

that silenceall his talk becomes chatter."

By Martin Heidegger