vvvAmong these thinkers, Heidegger is singled out as of particular importance, as he
provides the conceptual framework needed to mark out a first, admittedly provisory,
model of the nonhermeneutical epistemology being called for (Bohrer, Nancy, Steiner,
Butler are also mentioned as relevant contemporary thinkers to that end). Foremost is
the Heideggerian idea of "unconcealment of Being", which interests Gumbrecht because
of the link it establishes between the purpose of metaphysics and the things of the world.
"Being", for Heidegger, is neither conceptual nor spiritual, but belongs to the dimension
of things; it therefore resists any seamless integration in a traditional "Cartesian"
metaphysics – preoccupied only with meaning – and can thus "help us grasp
noninterpretative components of our relationship to the world" (86). In consequence, we
are treated to a longish discussion of Heideggerian "Being", punctuated by a typology of
Gumbrecht's own concepts (eating, penetrating, mysticism and
interpretation/communication), the whole point of which is, in end effect, to highlight the
importance of various modes of world-appropriation that go beyond meaning (rather than
provide a refined conceptualization of the nonhermeneutical regions they point towards).