10.13125/CH/5435
application/pdf
2533-1825
5435
2
en
urn:nbn:it:unica-28973
Gert-Jan van der Heiden
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Critical Hermeneutics
Witnessing, Truth, and Realism
Text.Serial.Journal
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/ecch
6
Articles
2023-01-26
2022-12-23
2023-01-27
2023-01-27
161-189
1
Gert-Jan van der Heiden
2022
10.13125/CH/5435
161
2533-1825
2
189
urn:nbn:it:unica-28973
Witnessing, Truth, and Realism
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/ecch/article/download/5435/5363
6
Critical Hermeneutics 6(2), (2022)               Submission date: 23 December 2022
Biannual International Journal of Philosophy     Acceptance date: 9 January 2023
http://ojs.unica.it/index.php/ecch/index         Date of publication: 23 January 2023
ISSN 2533-1825 (on line); DOI 10.13125/CH/5435




                   Witnessing, Truth, and Realism:
        A Hermeneutic-Phenomenological Approach


                            Gert-Jan van der Heiden




Abstract
Departing from the opening lines of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, this essay
provides a hermeneutic phenomenological contribution to the recent
turn to realism. In particular, it offers an account of how the notions
of truth and reality are thought in hermeneutic phenomenology by
exploring the meaning of notions such as res, substance, and causa;
it provides a contemporary reinterpretation of theōria that does not
fall prey to either the modern version of the scientific-theoretical
point of view or the onto-theological fallacies of metaphysics. By de-
veloping the model of witnessing as a guideline for a rethinking of
theōria, this essay discusses, first, two realist critiques of hermeneu-
tic phenomenology concerning correlationism and relativism; second,
two ways of understanding the real and the true in hermeneutic phe-
nomenology; and third, develops how language can be the locus of
truth. In the course of these explorations, it is shown how truth, real-
ism, theōria are understood in hermeneutic phenomenology.
Keywords: truth, realism, witnessing, theōria


1. Introduction: Reinterpreting Aristotle’s Theōria
“All humans by nature desire [oregontai] to know”, as the famous
opening line of Aristotle’s Metaphysics reads. The human sensing of
Gert-Jan van der Heiden, Witnessing, Truth, and Realism




the world is paradigmatic for this orexis of the human, this propensity
and conation to learn what is:


      An indication of this is the delight [agapēsis] we take in our
      senses; for even apart from their usefulness [chreias] they
      are loved for themselves; and above all others the sense of
      sight. For not only with a view to action, but even when we
      are not going to do [prattein] anything, we prefer sight to
      almost everything else. The reason is that this, most of all
      the senses, makes us know and brings to light many differ-
      ences between things [kai pollas dēloi diaphoras] (Meta-
      physics 908a22–27; Aristotle 1984: 1552).


      Reading this citation as the prolegomena to a neutral, theoretical
attitude prefiguring that of the modern subject in epistemology, one
runs the risk of missing the particular attunement of the human Aris-
totle describes here and the characteristic encounter with reality to
which it gives rise. Humans use their senses to orient themselves in
the world and to help them deal with beings in the world; the senses
are thus usually in the service of making (poiēsis) or acting (praxis).
Yet, there is another use of the senses, a genuine free one, in Aristo-
tle’s sense of freedom (Metaphysics 983a13–23), namely sensing for
the sake of sensing itself.
      This free use is not neutral, but rather attuned by agapēsis, a
profound affection for sensing itself, beyond any practical uses. What
is sensing itself? It is not the sensing of sensing—once that phenom-
enon is examined, the inquiry rather concerns the dunamis of the
psuchē (Agamben 1999: 179–183). By contrast, to sense is always to
sense something, that is, to be with something or someone else, to
be attentive and to be drawn to that which is there as it is and not as
how one might want it to be. The realm of sensing for the sake of


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sensing itself is opened up by the suspension of making and acting.
Only in this way, the free use of the senses lets beings be encoun-
tered and experienced simply as what they are and as how they show
themselves – they are not understood as objects subjected to or re-
sisting a human will. Sensing for the sake of sensing itself therefore
marks the human mode of existing that resounds in the etymological
sense of ex-sistere: humans are outside of themselves, attentive and
exposed – ausgesetzt (Heidegger 1976: 189) writes – to what offers
itself to them, to what they encounter and experience.
     In a telling turn of phrase, early modern authors such as Locke
and Reid describe the senses as witnesses and speak of “the testimo-
ny of nature given by the senses” (Reid 1823: 232). The senses testi-
fy to that which is; they give evidence of that which is there. The
human as a sensing being offers us a first hint of why we might call
the human a witness of that which is – and a witness of being
(Heidegger 1999: 61–62). Yet, one has to tread carefully here. In
fact, to call the human a witness of that which is, goes against the
grain of Locke’s and Reid’s understanding of the image of the senses
as witness. In the context of early modern thought, this image is
overtaken by the legal role of testimony and is marked by the em-
phasis on epistemology (e.g., also Kant 1956: BXIII–XIV; Latour
1993: 22–24). The senses are compared to witnesses that are inter-
rogated by a tribunal. The case at hand for such a tribunal is never
the testimony itself, but rather the nature of the being that is experi-
enced. The case the tribunal needs to settle concerns the truth of this
being. In this framework, the testimony of the senses counts as evi-
dence and proof helping the judging subject to settle this case.
    If we understand the testimony of the senses along these early
modern lines of thought, the figure does not apply to the opening
lines of the Metaphysics. Aristotle does not describe the senses as a
source of information about the world, which is subsequently judged


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Gert-Jan van der Heiden, Witnessing, Truth, and Realism




to be true or false. In fact, this is exactly the account of the senses
he rejects. Rather than being worried about the question of whether
the way in which the senses inform the subject about reality is truth-
ful and trustworthy, Aristotle’s citation speaks of a more elementary
testimony of the senses. Humans are witnesses of that which is there
because, when sensing for the sake of sensing itself, they are truly
there with that which offers itself to the senses. The senses are not
described as means to arrive at judgment; rather, the senses are en-
joyed for themselves. Hence, not simply the senses, as opposed to
the judging subject, are witnesses of what is; rather, when sensing
for the sake of sensing itself, humans themselves are witnesses of the
beings to which they are exposed. Humans feel a deep affection,
agapēsis, for their witnessing of what is.
      The truth to which judgment strives is that of the statement,
which is true if and only if sufficient grounds or reasons for the sen-
tence or statement are provided. The exposure of the human as a
witness of that which is, on the other hand, guides us to a different
conception of truth, which Aristotle captures here by the word dēloi,
from the verb dēloō, which means “to become manifest”, “to dis-
close”, or “to make known”. Sensing enjoyed for itself is the paradigm
of the basic attunement that allows humans to ex-sist in their most
proper way among that which is, namely as witnesses of beings. The
way in which these witnesses encounter and are engaged with these
beings is captured by this verb dēloō: beings become manifest, dis-
close themselves and make themselves known to the human. To be
human is to be this (taking) place of truth.
      How or as what do these beings disclose themselves to the sens-
es? Aristotle responds with the words polus, many, and diaphoros,
difference or perhaps even disagreement, différend. When humans
witness reality, it presents itself in its plurality and difference, in its
conflict and strife. The profound affection that attunes humans does


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not only concern their own feeling that they sense – it is not about
the sensing of sensing here. This affection rather encompasses the
sensing and the sensed, because there is no sensing without some-
thing being sensed. Agapēsis – and not eros or philia – is therefore
the attunement of this witness to the immense variety of different be-
ings that are made known to them. The human receptiveness and
openness to this variety only takes place within this attunement and
the free use of the senses it enables. When our seeing is in the ser-
vice of something else, for instance, when we are on the look-out for
something or when we try to find our way in busy traffic, we do not
witness the immense variety of that which is simply there, but only
see that which is relevant to our particular purposes. The receptive-
ness and exposure to the variety of all that is, belongs to the attune-
ment of agapēsis, an affection for sensing itself as well as for that
which is sensed in this way, the plurality of all that is.
     This account of the opening lines of Aristotle’s Metaphysics ori-
ents us in a specific way to questions concerning truth and realism as
well as to a renewed, hermeneutic-phenomenological conception of
theōria in line with the Aristotelian idea that theōria is distinct from
both praxis and poiēsis exactly because it is an attitude in which hu-
mans do not manipulate or transform the reality they encounter, but
rather exercise a certain reticence or reserve with respect to that
which is, allowing them to be receptive to that which is as it is (Van
der Heiden 2021: 24–27). A hermeneutic phenomenological reas-
sessment of the role of truth and reality that resonates with the pro-
jects of a “hermeneutic realism” or a “veritative hermeneutics”, needs
to rethink theōria along the lines of the paradigm of the witness as
described above. In this essay, I discuss what such a task involves.
     Such a reassessment is not without obstacles. In fact, it necessi-
tates an inquiry into the specific form of metaphysics with which
theōria is usually associated and which are not endorsed in herme-


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Gert-Jan van der Heiden, Witnessing, Truth, and Realism




neutic phenomenology. Let me distinguish two motifs in the meta-
physical paradigm usually associated with theōria. First, metaphysics
is understood as a metaphysics of substance. It is important to ex-
plain why such a metaphysics is problematic for hermeneutic phe-
nomenology. Second, metaphysics often presupposes the notion of an
encompassing order – such as thought under the heading of kosmos
– in which each being has its proper place. Yet, the modern predica-
ment of philosophy is the conviction that all order is a created order,
that is, is always also a human artifice. Thus, every order attests to
the human genius to invent orders, in the ambiguous sense of inven-
tio as both discovery and creation. Yet, when the artifice is mistaken
for the absolute order of being itself, these orders tend to conceal the
primordial human receptiveness for the many differences in being. In
its most elementary sense, this concealment is the onto-theological
constitution of these forms of metaphysics. If we understand the on-
to-theological constitution in terms of this primacy of a unified order,
it is not only problematized by hermeneutic phenomenology, but also
and consistently in the new forms of realism. At the same time, in
several realisms, such as, for instance, object-oriented ontology, ob-
jects and things are the preferred entrance to and actual subject of
study in this new ontology. From a hermeneutic phenomenological
point of view, this gives rise to the worry that the onto-theological
faux pas is once more committed: when object or thing is another
guise of the Aristotelian substance, does this not mean that these on-
tologies derive from a particular meaning of being determined by one
particular being, namely ousia?
      With these questions and concerns in mind, I want to inquire in
more detail into, first, two realist critiques of hermeneutic phenome-
nology; second, ways of understanding the real and the true in her-
meneutic phenomenology; and third, language as the locus of truth.




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In the course of these explorations, it is shown how a new hermeneu-
tic phenomenological sense of theōria takes shape.


2. Two Realist Critiques of Hermeneutic Phenomenology
Different reasons can be provided when discussing the question of
why realism recently has become a feasible philosophical point of
view (again). Among them, two stand out when addressing the ques-
tion of whether, how, and to which extent hermeneutic phenomenolo-
gy is a relevant partner in conversation in this matter, because these
two include a critique of (certain forms of) phenomenology and her-
meneutics, respectively. The first concerns the charge of correlation-
ism and the second the charge of relativism and the included aban-
donment of any truth-claim.
    As is by well-known, Meillassoux’s (2009) account of correlation-
ism includes a whole range of different transcendental and idealist
philosophies, from Descartes to Kant and Husserl, and is extended to
the hermeneutic phenomenology of Heidegger and Gadamer. If the
idealist position is summarized by the statement that beings are only
to the extent that they appear to – or are given to – a particular con-
sciousness, the alternative that a realist philosophy wants to address
is: “that thought can think what there must be when there is no
thought” (Meillassoux 2009: 36). Taken at face value, this critique of
transcendental philosophy basically repeats the hermeneutic phe-
nomenological critique of the subject-object dichotomy in favor of a
more original co-belonging of thinking and being. However, for specu-
lative realism, the subject-object dichotomy is only one version of
correlationism this critique is concerned with; in fact, any philosophy
that somehow departs from the original co-belonging of being and
thinking is addressed by this critique. Yet, if correlationism is sup-
posed to include such a wide range of positions, one may wonder why
Meillassoux’s account of the task of thinking, namely to think what


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Gert-Jan van der Heiden, Witnessing, Truth, and Realism




there is when there is no thought, is not itself a hidden form of corre-
lationism. After all, one has to account for how and why thinking can
correspond to this being-without-thought in the first place.
      Yet, let us apply the principle of charity to Meillassoux and
acknowledge that an important variant of this critique can neverthe-
less be raised against the role of the fore-structure of understanding
in hermeneutics. Whatever is explicated is always already implicitly
understood, that is, is always already within the reach of thinking and
does not confront thinking with its own limitations. In this form, cor-
relationism raises an issue that many other authors have raised under
the more phenomenological heading of the question of alterity or dif-
ference: how is thinking capable of encountering and responding to
that which goes beyond its own limitations and regulations?
      The problem, however, with this form of critique is that it is one-
sided and does not seem to be aware that both claims, the herme-
neutical and the realist one, have to be true at once. On the one
hand, there must be something – whether we call it the absolute, the
thing in itself, alterity, or difference – that transcends a given histori-
co-cultural constitution – say: perspective or horizon – of thinking.
On the other hand, for an encounter with this “something” to be truly
possible, one must account for the particular potentiality of thought
that it can be receptive to this difference and, hence, for thought’s
basic potentiality-of-being-otherwise (see Van der Heiden 2014). This
means that, in addition to the realist insistence on thinking what
there is when there is no thought, one has to account for the recep-
tiveness of thought for all that is, that is, for some form of co-
belonging of thinking and being. The task to reinterpret theōria goes
exactly in this direction.
      The charge of relativism ties into this. Let us take a small detour
to get a sense for the range of this charge. The problem of correla-
tionism does not exist in an onto-theological framework (see Gada-


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mer 1990b: 70–71). If beings are created in the mind of God, the
correspondence of idea and being is always already given and the
presence of the idea in the mind of God is the ground of the existence
of this being. Hence, only in a framework where thinking is always
already human thinking, that is, finite thinking, the problem of corre-
lationism can occur. Finitude refers to a particular passivity of human
thought with respect to that which is to be thought. The human is af-
fected by that which is and thinking is a response to this being-
affected, which in itself depends on the physical, biological, historical,
social, cultural, and linguistic constitution of the human who re-
sponds. Thus, human thinking will necessarily be perspectival and
horizontal.
    In this framework, relativism might be an attractive option, es-
pecially if one argues, as a certain Nietzsche does, that any attempt
to articulate one’s singular responses to one’s singular way of being
affected by that which is, in a language that is shared by others, nec-
essarily betrays the original, singular experience and response. In
this approach, all forms of generality or universality are the result of
abstraction, invented in a process of forgetting, distorting, and be-
traying the original encounter with reality. Moreover, if truth is under-
stood as the correspondence between idea and thing or between
statement and state of affairs, truth itself is necessarily an illusion
created by this process of forgetting, distorting, and betraying. More-
over, not only truth, but also “the thing itself” is a construction ar-
rived at by abstracting from how one is uniquely affected by a reality
that is known only thought our being affected by it.
    In several forms of realism, it is claimed that this framework of
Nietzschean relativism can only be overcome by returning to a con-
ception of the thing itself. That is to say, thinking should not begin
with human relations to beings, but thinking should rather return to
its old “objective” standard and approach beings as beings in them-


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Gert-Jan van der Heiden, Witnessing, Truth, and Realism




selves, beyond their effect on the human. Apparently – and this
marks these realist approaches as speculative in the pejorative sense
of the word – human thinking, abstracted from how it is informed by
all that is, is capable of such a gesture. Let me repeat that the onto-
theological framework is capable of explaining this, since it has divine
thought as an objective, external yardstick of every being to which
human thought can try to correspond. Yet, if one rejects the onto-
theological framework, the question arises how thinking can have this
capacity to think the being in itself. With respect to these questions,
hermeneutic phenomenology has much to offer since it does not only
provide the resources for rethinking the notion of the real, but also
for recalibrating the concept of truth so that a truth-claim can be
maintained with respect to this notion of the real, without either be-
coming onto-theological or speculative in the pejorative sense of the
word.


3. Two Senses of the Real and the True
Regarding the question of the meaning of the real, hermeneutic phe-
nomenology offers two different accounts, one dismissive and one af-
firmative.


3.1. Realism and Truth in Sein und Zeit
In §§ 43 and 44 of Sein und Zeit, Heidegger addresses realism and
truth, respectively. In this context, the notion of res appears as soon
as beings are encountered in their Vorhandenheit: “beings are first
conceived as a context [Zusammenhang] of things (res) objectively
present. Being acquires the meaning of reality. Substantiality be-
comes the basic characteristic of being” (Heidegger 1977: 201; 1996:
187). These notions of substance, res, and thing constitute the dis-
missive sense of realism. An ontology presenting itself as realism in
this sense, has always already understood being as res, that is, in


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light of the paradigm offered by substance, and thus commits an on-
to-theological fallacy by approaching all that is as “objectively present
as real”. Heidegger’s rejection of this realism concerns exactly this
fallacy: this realism forgets to inquire into the understanding of being
that always already guides its approach to the beings it encounters.
This is philosophically insufficient1.
     To move this issue forward and to arrive at another understand-
ing of realism that is not susceptible to this criticism, we need to dis-
place the distinction so essential to present-day forms of realism,
namely that between “for us” and “in itself”, or between appearing
and being. In hermeneutic phenomenology, this displacement has two
dimensions.
     (1) First, rather than distinguishing being from appearing, we
might distinguish between two forms of appearing. Such a distinction
can be traced in Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Beings appear to the senses
in two ways, either as useful for something else or for the sake of this
appearance itself. Similarly, by distinguishing between Zuhandenheit
and Vorhandenheit, Sein und Zeit shows how these two forms of ap-
pearing concern two ways of understanding the being of the beings
that are encountered. Yet, Heidegger’s version of this distinction is
distinctly modern and proceeds from a problematic philosophical deci-
sion that obstructs a renewed interpretation of Aristotle’s theōria. The


1
  This is why Heidegger (1977: 207; 1996: 192) prefers idealism over (this type of)
realism. Note that § 43 includes one more important ingredient for the discussion
with present-day forms of realism. Heidegger argues that the question of the exist-
ence of a mind-independent world remains indebted to a subject-object distinction.
This means that any explication of the new realisms as an attempt to establish—or
simply: to posit—the existence and the priority of a mind-independent reality does
not truly overcome this distinction and that a particular form of correlationism lurks
behind these realisms which is hidden in the account—or the lack thereof—of the
relation of being and thinking. For instance, the idea found in a different way in
both Badiou and Meillassoux that mathematics offers us the resources of ontology
simply obscures the fact how the modern sense of mathematics presupposes a
modern subject. With respect to such positions, Heidegger’s remarks that idealism,
rather than realism, has at least understood the philosophical problem at stake
here, remain valid.



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Gert-Jan van der Heiden, Witnessing, Truth, and Realism




focus on beings for the sake of themselves in terms of substantiality
or Vorhandenheit is reductive – reductive but not simply: Aristotle’s
basic understanding of being is substance, after all. Yet, Heidegger’s
account of Vorhandenheit is profoundly modern because he under-
stands the theoretical attitude of the sciences in the first place as an
attitude that aims to master and govern that which is, that is, that
approaches beings from within the framework of poiēsis, characteris-
tic of modern science and technology. Or, in terms developed in Sein
und Zeit, Vorhandenheit is only an accentuated form of appearing
within – and presupposing – Zuhandenheit. This is fundamentally dif-
ferent from Aristotle’s theōria anticipated in sensing for the sake of
sensing itself, which requires a genuine suspension of poiēsis and
praxis. In this sense, Sein und Zeit does not move forward to a fruit-
ful reinterpretation of theōria.
      This obstruction can also be formulated in terms of the meaning
of res. In Sein und Zeit, Dasein’s being with other beings is always
already understood in terms of Verfallenheit. Literature informed by
Arendt’s thought on the public realm has already shown why this em-
phasis on fallenness is problematic with respect to the relation to
other humans. Yet, there is also a problem with respect to non-
human (or non-animal) beings. In Sein und Zeit, Heidegger deter-
mines the human encounter with innerworldly beings always already
in terms of a particular meaningful use of them. The example of the
tool, Zeug, is thus the paradigm for the meaningful dealings with in-
nerworldly beings. Consequently, another encounter with innerworldly
beings, which would allow these beings to appear as what they are,
beyond their use, is itself beyond Sein und Zeit’s reach. For another,
more affirmative account of res we need to turn to other resources.
Yet, first, we consider the second consequence of the displacement of
being and appearing.




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    (2) In its most basic sense, as Heidegger (1977: 212; 1996:
196) reminds us, the question of truth concerns Parmenides’s dictum
regarding the sameness of being and thinking. This dictum receives a
particular sense in hermeneutic phenomenology. Truth is not in the
first place a correspondence between appearance and being, be it be-
tween idea and object or between proposition and state of affairs. For
Heidegger, truth as correspondence is a derivative of an ontological
sense of truth, that is, the truth of being. As Heidegger stipulates al-
ready in Sein und Zeit, in a turn of phrase that might also trigger a
rethinking of res not as ousia but as Sache: “‘truth’ means the same
thing as ‘matter’ [‘Sache’], ‘what shows itself’” (1977: 213; 1996:
197). Appearing is not added to being, as a supplement, representa-
tion, or imitation that may or may not correspond to being, but being
itself rather involves and includes appearing (Heidegger 1983: 105–
113; Van der Heiden 2021: 139–144). The truth of being is to appear,
that is to say, to be drawn from mere concealment, lēthē, or forget-
fulness. Moreover, only because to be (true) is to appear, does the
possibility of a point of view come into play. To be is to appear; and
to appear can be to appear to someone, that is, to be sensed, experi-
enced, and understood from a particular point of view to which a be-
ing is thus made known. This means that the sameness, co-
belonging, or reciprocity of being – einai – and thinking – noein – is
grounded in this sense of being as appearing. Thinking is only possi-
ble because beings appear to thinking or, more precisely, because
both thinker and being are taken up in the same movement of ap-
pearing that characterizes being both as a showing of itself of a par-
ticular being and as a showing to the point of view that senses, expe-
riences, or understands. There is a tendency in Sein und Zeit, which
Heidegger later corrects, to understand this movement of being as
appearing as a form of disclosedness and, hence, only in terms of the
being of Dasein, as if this disclosedness is not the very form of being


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Gert-Jan van der Heiden, Witnessing, Truth, and Realism




in which both beings and Dasein are taken up. Exactly at these
points, also due to Heidegger’s interpretation of innerworldly beings
in terms of Zuhandenheit, his account of disclosedness receives sub-
jective overtones. These overtones tend to obscure Heidegger’s genu-
ine discovery here, namely that to be is to appear and that only to
the extent that something appears, it can appear to someone, that is,
to a point of view that senses or understands it.
      For these reasons, Meillassoux’s claim that correlationism in-
cludes the Heideggerian idea of the co-belonging of being and think-
ing guides realism into a fundamentally unfruitful direction since a re-
alism that rejects this co-belonging can only make sense on the basis
of the dualism of being and appearing. What Meillassoux seems to be
missing here is that this co-belonging that happens as the truth of
being cannot be separated from that which the Greeks called lēthē
and pseudos. The duality of appearing and being could only arise in
Platonic thought because among the different ways of appearing, one
appearance was singled out as the true one, that is, as the yardstick
and measure for all others – and was subsequently called the true
being. Yet, the very name that was given to this true being, idea or
“the look”, expresses that it concerns an appearance. Moreover, this
yardstick can only be discerned within a frame of appearances, and
can therefore never be the measure of this frame itself, which is
marked by the movement of concealment and unconcealment (Van
der Heiden 2021: 139–152).
      These considerations also compel us to rethink the meaning of
beings. Sein und Zeit’s approach of thingly beings in terms of
Zuhandenheit offers a reductive interpretation of what it means that
beings appear – to appear here means to appear as a tool (in the
mode of Zuhandenheit) or as broken tool that interrupts the course of
its usage and present itself in its isolation (in the mode of
Vorhandenheit). However, there is no reason to equate the thingly


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being’s appearance with its appearance as something useful. This
one-sided interpretation of appearance approaches the question of
meaning in terms of that of use alone. Yet, what happens to the ap-
pearance of beings that are sensed for the sake of sensing itself? The
primacy of Zuhandenheit thus obstructs the access to a more pro-
found to-and-fro movement between humans and beings in which the
human is not an active will, but rather a passive, immersed witness.


3.2. Reinterpreting Res in Hermeneutic Phenomenology
Hermeneutic phenomenology is thus compelled to reinterpret the ap-
pearance of beings beyond the mere being-a-tool-to-use and the
mere isolation of the broken tool. Indeed, there are important re-
sources available that allow us to move towards another interpreta-
tion of the being as res and to rethink Aristotle’s theōria beyond an
account of beings as substance. Both Heidegger (2000) and Gadamer
(1990b) emphasize that the question of beings needs to be rethought
under the heading of what they call the thing, das Ding, or the sub-
ject matter, die Sache. How does this shift from Zeug to Ding or Sa-
che exactly contribute to rethinking truth and reality in hermeneutic
phenomenology? We may distinguish two different aspects.
    (1) Heidegger (2000: 177–178) describes two ways of under-
standing the notion of res. Firstly, he emphasizes that in course of the
history of philosophy, the notion of res is understood in terms of sub-
stance and substantiality. The same meaning of res is used in Sein
und Zeit. In “Das Ding” he argues that this meaning depends on the
Greek understanding of the being as present being, das Anwesende.
He emphasizes that the sense of presence is derived from the process
of making and representing, das Herstellen and das Vorstellen—this is
the same sense of presence characterizing Vorhandenheit in Sein und
Zeit. The one who makes and the one who represents relate to a be-
ing in terms of its eidos or idea. The user, as Heidegger (2000: 169–


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Gert-Jan van der Heiden, Witnessing, Truth, and Realism




170) repeats the argument of Sein und Zeit, has a different, more
primordial relation to this being. Even ancient metaphysics as ousiol-
ogy thus takes its point of departure in the model of making, poiēsis,
rather than using, chrēsis.
      Secondly, however, Heidegger emphasizes that the Roman expe-
rience of res is guided by a different experience, modelled on the
paradigm of neither making nor using but rather captured by the
German verb angehen and the noun Angang. In this affirmative
sense, res is the being that concerns or is of concern to us. Our rela-
tion with a being as res in this sense, is not mediated by its look. Let
us as precise as possible. This look, eidos and idea, should not be
mistaken for any look or any sense we can have of a thing by looking
at it. Here, the look is the one we adopt when we make or represent
something. This is quite a peculiar look. In fact, it is the look a being
offers when it is not there and when we cannot be there, with it. In
the process of making, the being that is made is not yet there, so
that I cannot be there with this being. The being-there of the being is
actually the termination of the process of making. Even though this
sense of being in terms of eidos and idea is called “presence”, and its
accompanying metaphysics, the metaphysics of presence, it actually
implies absence: the being in question is only present mediated by its
look, abstracted from its actual being-there, here and now. By con-
trast, the sense of res in terms of Angang and angehen offers an in-
terpretation of the difference between a present being, das An-
wesende, presented by the look and the being’s actual being-there
and our being-there-with them: when beings are there and are not
merely presented, they matter to us. They are not seen as their look
suggests, abstracted from their being-there with us, but they make a
claim – Anspruch (Gadamer 1990a: 131–132) – on us here and now,
to see and understand them in the singular sense with which they
address us here and now.


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    The look is an external measure that prescribes what a being
should look like and that discards – or even condemns – every differ-
ence between this yardstick and the actual appearance of this being
in its being-there with us. Yet, the actual encounter with the being is
marked by these differences that make a claim on us – in Aristotle’s
phrasing: when used for themselves and not for the goal of making,
the senses show us beings in their many differences.
    This difference between the look that presents a being by ab-
stracting from the actual encounter with a being in a particular here
and now, and the appearance offered here and now where and when
we are with the being and encounter it in its being-there, implies a
distinction between two types of spectators. The spectator who
adopts the point of view of the look, might best be called by its mod-
ern name, “subject”, because the subject is the one who represents
what is and whose representation is repeatable as the same. The
second spectator, however, I propose to call “witness” because the
witness, for instance the eyewitness, is the one who is there when
something happens. This is, after all, how witnesses make them-
selves known: “I was there”. Moreover, the witness is the one who
was there with that which happened; the witness and their witnessing
has the character of an unrepeatable, singular encounter with that
which appeared there, in its own sense and difference. In folklore,
Angang also refers to someone’s contingent encounter with some-
thing or someone else that plays a decisive role in their future. An-
gang thus describes how the being-there with beings affects the wit-
ness and how it matters for them, because from that point onwards,
they are witness of their encounter with beings.
     These   considerations   resonate   with   Gadamer’s       reflections
(1990a: 126–139; esp. 129–130) on the role of the spectator in his
account of the “religious rite” (Kultspiel) and the “play in a theater”
(Schauspiel; 1990a: 114; 2013: 113). To grasp its specific role, Gad-


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Gert-Jan van der Heiden, Witnessing, Truth, and Realism




amer characterizes the spectator as a player, Spieler, and he does so
in order to distinguish his conception of the spectator from the other
conception of the spectator that takes its point of departure in aes-
thetic consciousness. This second conception, from which Gadamer
distances himself, coincides with the spectator as subject. His account
of the spectator as player, on the other hand, strongly resonates with
what I prefer to call the spectator as witness. In fact, it seems to me
that the characteristics of the spectator Gadamer mentions are actu-
ally characteristics of a witness and not a player. This is especially
clear in the account of the temporality discerned in the to-and-fro
movement of play and spectator. Gadamer emphasizes that “the be-
ing of the spectator is determined by his ‘being there present’
(Dabeisein). Being present does not simply mean being there along
with something else that is there at the same time. To be present
[Dabeisein] means to participate [Teilhabe]” (1990a: 129; 2013:
127). This particular precedence of participation or belonging over
conscious attention to what is shown is, according to me, the very
essence of the witness. Gadamer seems to affirm this when he sub-
sequently connects this account of the spectator to the ancient Greek
role of the theōros, from which theōria is derived. The theōros origi-
nally is the envoy sent to participate in another community’s religious
festival and to watch it. Such a theōros, however, is more a witness
than a player. The theōros engages and participates, but also from a
particular distance and hence by a certain reticence or reserve – they
are, after all, theōros at another community’s festival. This character-
izes a witness’s participation in an event in which they are neither ac-
tor, nor player, nor victim.
      Moreover, the theōros is marked by a form of self-forgetfulness
because they are immersed in what they witness: “Theoria is a true
participation, not something active but something passive (pathos),
namely being totally involved in and carried away by what one sees”


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(1990a: 129–30; 2013: 127). This citation captures the difference
between subject and theōros. However, in his attempt to stipulate
this difference as strong as possible, Gadamer exaggerates the in-
volvement of the theōros in that which offers itself to be seen. This
exaggeration is probably due to his interpretation of the theōros as
player rather than as witness. Players are fully immersed in the game
they are playing. The point of view of the witness, however, needs to
be distinguished from the one who celebrates the festival and is in-
deed fully carried away by the gods and the enthusiasm they evoke.
The theōros participates, but in this participation, the festival is in the
first place a spectacle, that is, something to be witnessed and to be
seen rather than something to be simply celebrated.
    Yet, if we reinterpret Gadamer’s account of the spectator as wit-
ness, a rethinking of Aristotle’s theōria becomes possible. The Sache,
the subject matter, takes precedence in the attunement that marks
the theōros. The being of the theōros as witness is a true form of
“Bei-der-Sache-sein”, being-there-with-the-subject-matter, in which
the witness is passive in the sense that it lets the subject matter ap-
pear as what it is and does not impose its own frame of reference.
The strange interplay of involvement and distance or reticence that
characterizes the spectator as witness has its own sense that cannot
be separated from the question of truth. Gadamer opposes one’s be-
ing fully immersed in a festival or the playing of a game to the abso-
lute distance of the subject-position. However, those who are fully
immersed in a game or in the enthusiasm or the intoxication of the
religious rite are not concerned with the festival or the game as
something that appears and is manifested. The particular interest in
the truth of the subject matter requires the spectator as witness, po-
sitioned in between the player, who as player is always fully im-
mersed, and the subject who is always at absolute distance. It is the
particular play of proximity, concern, and participation, on the one


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Gert-Jan van der Heiden, Witnessing, Truth, and Realism




hand, and distance, reserve, and reticence, on the other, that charac-
terizes the spectator as a witness who is interested in what appears
for the sake of this appearing itself2.
      (2) Closely related to this first rethinking of res as the being that
concerns us here and now and the reinterpretation of the theōros that
goes hand in hand with it, is the second reinterpretation of Sache and
Ding. As Gadamer (1990b: 67) notes, Sache translates not only res
but also causa. The juridical sense of causa is also characteristic for
the notion of Ding. In Dutch, in which one has the same word ding,
the expression in het geding zijn exists, which means that this thing,
ding, is actually the case in question, that is, the case that gathers
different parties in their dispute, as in a court case, rechtsgeding. In
such a law suit, these parties are all competing – dingen – and plead-
ing so that their points of view will be acknowledged and will be done
justice.
      In such a legal context or metaphorical usages of phrases such
as in het geding zijn, Sache, ding, and causa retain the meaning of
something that matters to those who have a stake in this case. Yet,
the notion of causa adds to the phenomenological explication of res,
the particular sense of gathering or assembly (Heidegger 2000: 174–
175). This is what causa does: it gathers different stakeholders or dif-
ferent points of view around itself. Moreover, the gathering or assem-
bly in which these are brought together is marked by a striving for
justice. In its most elementary sense, this striving means that the
gathering lets itself be guided by the case in question. The Sache re-
quires, as one can say in German, an approach that is sachlich or
sachgemäß, that is, according to the Sache. To explicate this
Sachlichkeit, Gadamer (1990b: 66–67) emphasizes that when a being



2
  Note that Gadamer (1990a: 137) returns to this complex of proximity and dis-
tance in his reflection on the spectator in Greek tragedy. Yet, even though the



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is encountered as subject matter, it does not bend to a human will –
it is encountered as neither tool nor object of manipulation – but is
rather experienced as resistance, Widerstand, against the human at-
tempt to bend it to their will. When this happens, the primacy of the
subject over the subject matter turns upside down: the Sache insists
on what it is and on as what it appears. This resistance and insistence
of the Sache implies that the points of view no longer matter as sub-
jective points of view. Subjective points of view can be mutually at-
tuned, for instance, in order to reach an acceptable intersubjective
assessment of the case in question. By contrast, this resistance and
insistence of the subject matter implies that points of view only mat-
ter as points of view of the subject matter, that is to say, that (par-
tially) show it as it is. Hence, the assembly is a gathering around the
Sache in question, concerned with its truth, that is to say, with how it
appears as it is to a plurality of (possibly conflicting) points of view.
     Heidegger (1983: 111–112) suggests that the presocratic Greek
experience of being is structured in exactly this way. When analyzing
the meaning of being as appearing, he notes that because a being
first appears and offers a particular aspect (Ansicht), that it can be
seen from a particular point of view and that, given the diversity of
points of view, this aspect changes and differentiates. Clearly, in the
to-and-fro movement between appearance and points of view, distor-
tions or displacements can take place and a point of view can cover
over (partially or fully) the being it claims to have discerned. Conse-
quently, if the truth of being consists in appearing and offering as-
pects, this truth cannot occur without the possibility of displacing,
distorting, or covering over. Yet, it would be wrong to deduce from
this that the variety or diversity itself of points of view would be the
source of these forms of concealment. The possibility of concealment


spectator belongs to the essence of Greek tragedy for Aristotle, this does not imply



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Gert-Jan van der Heiden, Witnessing, Truth, and Realism




is given with the to-and-fro movement of appearance and point of
view. Yet, additionally, every encounter is the source of another point
of view on the same subject matter because, to quote Aristotle, the
free use of the senses discloses the many differences of things, shows
them in their variety. The living encounter with a being here and now
is thus itself the ground of both diversity and of the possibility of con-
cealment.
      In this case as well, the model of the witness provides an exam-
ple. The eyewitness of a traffic accident might be attuned properly to
what happens here by the anxiety of the event and the care for the
victims elicited by seeing and sensing the accident, but might at the
same time be distorted by other worries, because they, for instance,
have an important appointment to which they don’t want to be late,
and so on. In this sense, the possibility of distortion is intrinsic to the
point of view of the eyewitness. Yet, this does not mean that there is
an external measure or point of view that can establish once and for
all “what has happened” – the eye of the camera, for instance, senses
nothing and for that very reason can only register and not understand
the meaning of what happens. However, there may be other eyewit-
ness who sensed and perceived what has happened differently be-
cause of the variations in which they are attuned to the sight of the
scene. Someone who was a victim of a traffic accident themselves will
be affected differently than someone who experiences such a scene
the very first time, but also than someone who is professionally used
to offer medical assistance to victims of traffic accidents, or someone
who notices that the victim is a loved one. The variations of these dif-
ferent points of view are due to the very nature of appearing (see
Yazıcıoğlu 2019: 104–105). At the same time, all these witnesses are
gathered around one case in question: what is the sense of what


that the spectator is a player.



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happened there where they were present affecting them? There is no
external yardstick that fixes the true meaning of what has happened.
Yet, that does not mean that there is no concern for truth. The gath-
ering of different and possibly conflicting points of view around one
case in question, which resists and insists, is the very locus of truth.


4. Language as the Locus of Truth
These considerations on the primacy of the Sache, the subject matter,
in hermeneutic phenomenology and the specific explication of res, not
in terms of substance but in terms of that which matters to us, offer
a clear account of the type of realism at stake in hermeneutic phe-
nomenology. Moreover, these considerations have also shown how
and to which extent the hermeneutic-phenomenological account of
the Sache includes a particular ontological conception of truth: being
shows itself as something that matters to us and that makes a claim
(Anspruch) on us.
    Yet, within the framework of hermeneutic phenomenology, the
ontological question of truth as the co-belonging of being and think-
ing is also a question concerning language and logos. That language
is the locus of truth basically forms the heart of both a logical and
epistemological conception of truth. In hermeneutic phenomenology,
however, this locus is reinterpreted ontologically. If the human on
which the Sache makes a claim by its very appearing (as distinct
from its mere usefulness) can be understood as theōros and witness,
the singular impact of the Sache can only reach others in its signifi-
cance when the spectator bears witness to what they have seen.
Language as testimony extends the claim as well as the appearance
of the Sache. Albeit only in linguistic form, it allows the claim and the
appearance to be shared. I have extensively discussed the concept of
testimony elsewhere. Here, I want to consider which conception of
language and of the truth of language is needed to be able to think


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Gert-Jan van der Heiden, Witnessing, Truth, and Realism




the linguistic articulation of the claim and the appearance of a Sache
in this way.
      Let us recall what Heidegger already offers in § 44 of Sein und
Zeit. Even though only in a nutshell, § 44 provides a conception of
the truth of language. This conception is not a logical one. The lin-
guistic version of truth as the co-belonging of thinking and being is
not the correspondence between a linguistic statement and a state of
affairs. This secondary, logical, and epistemological sense of truth ra-
ther depends on a primordial conception of the truth of language.
Language or logos is first and foremost characterized by its capacity
to let beings be seen “in their discoveredness” (Heidegger 1977: 218;
1996: 201), that is, as they show themselves. Such a conception of
language only makes sense if it is not understood as a necessary dis-
tortion of that which it articulates. The Nietzschean relativist position,
as mentioned above in the second section, presupposes that it is im-
possible to do justice to one’s singular experiences when articulating
them. The conception of language in hermeneutic phenomenology is
different. In language, the human has the potential to show a being
as it has shown itself, as it is sensed, experienced, or understood.
Therefore, language has its being in showing and disclosing the sub-
ject matter about which it speaks.
      Obviously, such an account of language must include a sense of
displacement as well. The one who is addressed by testimony does
not experience the subject matter about which the witness speaks in
exactly the same way as the witness did. This means that Derridean
questions concerning the nature and the extent of this displacement
have to be raised. Nevertheless, this displacement does not need to
diminish the claim or the appearance of the subject matter. The sub-
ject matter of a testimony also makes a claim on the addressee. It is
therefore thanks to language that the question of plurality starts
making sense. The appearance of a being to different points of view


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can now be exchanged and shared between these points of view: by
using language someone can show how something showed itself to
someone else and vice versa. Similarly, in terms of the legal prove-
nance of the notion of Sache as causa, the case in question can only
be deliberated in language and requires that each claim on the case is
articulated.
     The possibility of a dialogue as well as of a dispute that thus
opens up concerns the space in which a plurality of appearances can
be brought into play, which one can think, mutatis mutandis, along
lines of thought developed by Arendt. A dialogue or a dispute only
makes sense on the basis of the following dual appearance or evi-
dence of the case in question, bringing into play both identity and dif-
ference.
     First, the subject matter must show itself to both speakers as the
same subject matter. In this sense, one has to adjust Gadamer’s
claim that in a dialogue the interlocutors strive for agreement and
that this agreement basically functions as regulative idea in a Kantian
sense – that is to say, as a transcendental yardstick that can never be
arrived at in any actual dialogue. Instead, the “agreement” that is
relevant here is positioned at the very beginning of both dialogue and
dispute. They can only take place if an agreement exists that both
interlocutors are concerned with the same subject. Moreover, a dia-
logue is not measured by the striving towards agreement but rather
by the shared subject matter around which the speakers are gath-
ered. Hence, it is not the intersubjective dimension of dialogue or
dispute that define it, but it is the subject matter. This is a crucial, re-
alist correction of a certain tendency to let the question of the subject
matter be dissolved in social discourse and intersubjective spaces
filled with conflicting wills to power (Latour 2004). Even though the
spaces of dialogue and dispute are spaces in which the case in ques-




                                                                             185
Gert-Jan van der Heiden, Witnessing, Truth, and Realism




tion appears, these appearances and their articulations are of the
subject matter.
      Second, the subject matter must appear differently to the
speakers or conflicting parties. If both have, from the outset, the ex-
act same opinion about the subject matter, there is nothing to talk
about and nothing to be gained in terms of the appearance and the
understanding of this particular being. Also in this respect, I tend to
disagree with Gadamer that the goal of dialogue is to reconcile differ-
ent points of view on the subject matter. Rather, it seems to me that
a true and fruitful dialogue consists in showing many differences with
respect to the subject matter – much like the Aristotelian senses
when used for themselves bring to light many differences. The point
of departure is a plurality or a conflict of interpretations. Neverthe-
less, these interpretations are of the same subject matter. Hence the
dialogical space of appearances and of conflicting interpretations is a
genuine manifestation of logos as legein or gathering. What unifies
the space of many different points of view is the case in question,
that is, its claim on all and its significance for all.
      The crucial, realist commitment here is that we are not impris-
oned in language, but rather that language allows the claim of the
subject matter to appear. The alternative claim that we are impris-
oned in language depends on a dichotomy of language and being,
which reiterates the dichotomy of appearing and being. This alterna-
tive has already shown its profoundly nihilistic face; it implies that we
are only dealing with our own fictions of being and that, consequent-
ly, the question of truth as such does not make any sense. It is for
this reason that Gadamer emphasizes that language is not simply the
language of humans; it is also the language of things. That is to say,
language and logos are not simply that of the human. Rather, beings
have their own participation in logos and, because of that, they can
be said. The possibility that all beings can be said (Gadamer 1990b:


186
                                              Critical Hermeneutics 6(2), (2022)




72) marks the hermeneutic phenomenological conception of lan-
guage. It is the possibility that beings can come to language – zur
Sprache kommen – and that in this coming to language they appear
and make a claim – Anspruch – on human thinking and speaking to
be in accordance with these beings – sachlich or gemäß. Language
thus gathers being and human thought in their co-belonging.
    Let me emphasize that this co-belonging of being and thinking is
not simply presupposed, as it is in the onto-theological paradigm, but
is always at stake in the enactment of humans responding to and in-
terpreting the beings that appear to them. “Claim” renders Anspruch.
The claim made by the appearance of beings is itself already part of
language: Anspruch is derived from ansprechen, that is, to address
and also to address someone in such a way that it becomes signifi-
cant to them, a matter of concern. This particular dimension, role,
and significance of language to account for what happens in the truth
that marks the co-belonging of being and thinking is what makes this
form of realism a genuinely hermeneutic realism.
    Let me conclude with the remark that this implies that just as a
double sense of the Aristotelian senses exists, used for themselves or
for something else, a double sense of language exists. On the hand,
we have human language, which is the language that approaches all
that it encounters in such a way that it can be bended to the human
will. It is the human language of manipulation by which each being is
interpreted in such a way that it fits within a particular use imposed
on them. Clearly, in this human language, the language of the beings
themselves is not simply absent, since the use in which these beings
are to be incorporated must be one (reductive) way of explicating
them. Yet, this language is ruled by wills to power. On the other hand,
there is the language of things, that is, the language by which hu-
mans respond to the way in which beings address them when appear-
ing as they are. Aristotle’s depiction of sensing for the sake of sensing


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Gert-Jan van der Heiden, Witnessing, Truth, and Realism




itself prepares his account of theōria. By reinterpreting the notion of
res, we have been able to rethink the spectator as witness. By rein-
terpreting language as the thinking response to the being’s appear-
ance and address, we have been able to rethink the linguistic inter-
pretation and articulation that this witness of beings offers, is a genu-
ine testimony of what is.




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