Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to examine the philosophy of language in the later Heidegger and the later Henry. With this, I aim to show the problem of language as the suitable instance wherein the relation between both philosophers can be understood, while I reject Henry’s own assumption that the point of their confrontation lies in his schema of transcendence and immanence. In the first chapter, I will analyze Heidegger’s Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics and Kant’s Thesis on Being. By making clear the point of the change in Heidegger’s Kant-interpretation, I will elucidate in Kantian vocabulary how Heidegger’s account of the structure and source of “phenomenon“ transformed itself in his later philosophy and culminated in his peculiar concept of language which is primarily defined as “assembly (Versammlung)”. In concreto, I will first interpret the phenomenological significance of „transcendental imagination” in Kant-book as self-evidence of facticity of „Seinsverständnis”, and then analyze how this self-evidence was further examined in Kantian terms of modality and transcendental apperception in Thesis. It will then be clear why Heidegger in Thesis interpreted transcendental apperception as “assembly” and further that “assembly” at all should be regarded as the primordial basis of phenomenon seen in its facticity. This provides us with a clue to understand the relation between language, Being and beings in the later Heidegger. In the second chapter, I will summarize the later Henry’s concept of language in his Incarnation and consider its relation with Heidegger’s. Both philosophers share essential insight that abyssal character of phenomenon is first experienced in language. Still, they diverge on how fragile this language is. While Henry characterizes his Christian concept of “the Word” as inseparably tied with material condition of experience like corporeity, Heidegger’s concept of “the language” or “the word” embodying absence (Abwesenheit) of present phenomenon stresses fragility and plasticity of phenomenon, which is exemplified by a phrase such as “word breaks down (wort gebricht)”.
