Chris Ivan Lagarde

Metaphysics
Rev. Fr. Ulrich Gacayan, RCJ

Heidegger’s Etymological Method

Heidegger is considered as one of the greatest thinker in the field of philosophy. Great are his

works. Indeed he is a brilliant thinker. In this article the author subject his essay on Heidegger’s

etymology. The discussion in this article mainly focuses on Heidegger’s etymology as language is

concern. This article objects the problem behind Heidegger’s language. The problem is that the language

and the words that he used in his books. Reading Heidegger’s work is not an easy one like just reading an

ordinary text. On the first place the first thing to be noticed is the languages of Heidegger although he is a

German his word are quietly different. Indeed the problem is found in the language of Heidegger. In

order to have a vivid understanding of Heidegger’s work one must to have an inclination with

Heidegger’s literature. For the reason that Heidegger has his own literature. He used words and terms that

can only be found in his works. Thus Heidegger has his own jargon.

Heidegger’s language poses certain problem to those who are not native German speakers

especially to English native reader. English is considered as the universal language in the world. But

when it comes in translating the work of Heidegger in other language there are certain words that cannot

be directly translated. Because those words are only found in his works even in German literature it’s not

there. That’s why one must really incline with Heidegger’s literature. As this article is concerned the

author stresses the method in understanding Heidegger work. It is important to know the words used by

Heidegger in order to have deep understanding of the text. Matthew King the author of this article

described how Heidegger does his etymology in making his own terms. It is important to know the

method by Heidegger to rich the very meaning of the word and to know does it mean. Every word has a

correspondent etymology and history behind. In order to seek the very meaning one must follow
Heidegger’s etymological method. This method by Heidegger does not mean that it will replace and put

down other method and modern concepts.

The purpose of this method is to rich out the original meaning of the word. Perhaps reading not

knowing the meaning of the word is obscure to understand the real purpose of the term. The way

Heidegger makes use of his own term always delves and incorporates by hermeneutics. It is the role of

hermeneutics to trace back and recover the meaning of the text. Since we are dealing here with the

etymological method of Heidegger it would be nice to recall what did Schleiermacher said about

understanding the text that in order to understand more fully the meaning of the text one must go back to

the author of the text. She/he is the one who knows it better. Considered that Heidegger is an author, one

must really go back and follow Heidegger’s method in order to have a better understanding of his work. It

restores the original meaning of the word.

Therefore in this article Heidegger’s etymological method is a very important element in order to

recover the original meaning of the text. The concerned of this article is to save the language used by

Heidegger and retrieve the real meaning of the word. Indeed this method proposed by the author of this

article is a great help for the reader of Heidegger’s work. A philosopher like Heidegger is not easy to

understand.