21 - Is Retreat a Metaphor?

Summary

I initially intended to talk about Martin Heidegger. I wanted to explain the reason why, according to him, there can be no retreat without a retreat of the retreat itself, no retreat without a redoubling, to the extent that the only gesture or move retreating can perform is to perform nothing, that is, to retreat. The only thing which retreating can do, and mean, is to retreat. Retreat retreats. I would have liked to explain that this sentence, retreat retreats, can also be formulated as ‘retreat is’, and recall that, for Heidegger, Being originarily coincides with its own retreat or withdrawal (Entziehung). For this very reason, retreating is a synonym for Being. Every time we say something like s is p, it means s retreats from p, as well as p retreats from s, because the copula is is nothing but its own withdrawal.

Being, affirms Heidegger, has always already retreated, has always meant its own withdrawal in withdrawing, but has also hidden this retreat, it has always retreated from its retreat. It has retreated a first time from its own retreat to give way to metaphysics. Metaphysics is this long tradition, also called philosophy, through which or within which Being hides itself under beings, and appears as what it is not, that is, as a form of presence, be it God, substance, or reality – as something eternal which never withdraws. Ontological withdrawing has veiled or covered itself behind what never retreats. In that sense, Being, through or within metaphysics, has always appeared as its own opposite, as a substantial referent, as something towards which everything tends, thus as the proper name or the proper meaning for every particular being. Every particular being became a metaphor for Being, a transfer, a way towards it.

But I’ve become a stranger since I was wounded […] Everything that I learned or experienced in life has just dropped out of my mind and memory, vanished for good, leaving behind nothing but an atrocious brain ache (Luria 1987: 100, trans. modified).

This would have led me to comment on Heidegger's powerful statement in his book The Principle of Reason: ‘the metaphorical exists only within metaphysics’ (1996: 48).