Excerpts from 2008 Lecture©
by Janeann Dill
For Martin Heidegger, the philosopher, we
know that questioning and thinking are self-justifying. To question
clears the way to think. Having no certain destination in mind, to be
underway is a response to that call.
Briefly and extreme in its
abbreviation, I want to invoke, as example, one of Heidegger’s university lectures. Describing a cabinetmaker’s apprentice, Heidegger equates the teaching-learning process of
handicraft, poetry, and thinking to focus his students on aspects of relatedness as
a path --- a path to alert his students to the dangers of learning
without responding to essentials. Heidegger cast such an approach to
learning as “empty busywork.”
For Heidegger, handicraft and thinking
are linked: thinking is akin to building a cabinet. Grasping is a
function of the hand although it cannot be said to be its essence. The
hand grasps and catches or pushes and pulls, reaches and extends,
receives and welcomes, and "not just things.” Only a being who can
speak, i.e., think, can achieve works of handicraft.
Heidegger locates “all the work of the hand” as rooted in thinking.*
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*See Heidegger's What Is Called Thinking?
