The Fragility of the Present and the Task of Thinking

Abstract

1.RESPONSIBILITY AND FRAGILITYA priori, we might believe that, where the aim is to affirm a of thinking, there is no of the present. And, inversely, we might believe that, where a constitutive of is affirmed, the very notion of a deteriorates. This mutual exclusion seems to become even more explicit when referred to the problem of history. Indeed, the theme of historicity insofar as it indicates a of thinking no doubt alludes to a responsibility, a commitment that philosophy should make to the present, the affirmation of a being-charged, a work, a link or a debt that philosophy would have with meaning, with the times, with the juncture. On the one hand, if there is a historical task of thinking, it is because we have a defined endeavor that justifies our action, our position, or our disposition: the indicates a work that is therefore oriented, finalized, sure-sure, if not of its success, at least of the importance of being carried out-and that takes on the of this labor. On the other hand, the fragility of the present alludes to the as an instant without extension, without protection, without security, constitutively exposed to the failure of its hopes and ends, suspended towards the non-knowledge of the future and on the verge of being destroyed or devastated by time, by history, by the event. is fragile and can promise nothing, much less take on a task or claim for its meaning.Nevertheless, it is with these two opposed and, in reality, surreptitiously but closely related dimensions that there opens in Heidegger the possibility of a reflection on historicity and the mode in which these themes can disquiet thinking. Does philosophy have a historical task? Does it make sense to assume that one exists? In what mode could the find itself in a position to promise a future? What does one responsibly expect or hope to do in philosophy today? Is there perhaps a historical responsibility in every act of meant to address the present?2.HEIDEGGERIAN MESSIANISMThe call here is not to Heidegger in general but, rather, to the late Heidegger and, more precisely (if not exclusively), to the Heidegger who, some fifty years ago in April of 1964, delivered a lecture entitled, The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking. lecture presents a very powerful understanding of the philosophical task and the problematic of history that is, for many reasons, very distinct from other moments in Heidegger's output in the sense that, here for the first and last time, his reflections on history appear to open onto a reflection that is, let us say provisionally (a description that I will quickly justify), messianic.Now, I recognize in advance that there is something strange or even shocking in the idea of addressing the theme of messianism in Heidegger: the problematic of temporality is certainly neither a dominant nor a lateral concern in Heideggerian philosophy. Neither messianism in general as the expectation of a to-come (in Derrida's sense) nor, and even less so, the politico-teleological theme of time beyond history (as in Benjamin) has a real place in Heidegger's thought.2 But I believe Heidegger's lecture in this case, for reasons that I hope to show, represents an exception. Heidegger makes a very peculiar gesture in this text, a gesture that remains, to my mind, unique in his repertoire, according to which the problematic of historicity is thought by giving it connotations that deserve to be placed in this light, that is, in the light of messianic temporality.If Heidegger attests to something very exceptional in this text, it is because in general, in other moments of his work, the dimension of philosophy is thought on the basis of the dominant reference to a destiny understood as the appropriating order, the resolution and affirmation of thinking's power that, upon forcing us out of metaphysical forgetting, should manage to unfold its fortitude as affirmation. …