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Thinking and Philosophizing as the Journey of Waying and Homecoming: Heidegger, Lao-tse, and Herodotus
GLOBAL CONVERSATIONS: An International Journal in Contemporary Philosophy and Culture
Volume II, Number 01 (2019): 20-42

THINKING AND PHILOSOPHIZING AS THE JOURNEY OF WAYING
AND HOMECOMING: HEIDEGGER, LAO-TSE, AND HERODOTUS
Rossen Roussev

Wie weit der Mensch in seinem
eigenem Wesen uneinheimisch ist,
verrrät die Meinung, die er von sichhegt als demjenigen, der Sprache
und Verstehen, Bauen und Dichten
erfunden habe und erfunden habekönte.
The extent to which humanity is not
at home in its own essence is betrayed by the opinion human beings
cherish of themselves as those whohave invented and who could haveinvented language and understanding, building and poetry.
Martin Heidegger, Introduction to
Metaphysics

Abstract
Heidegger’s metaphorics of ‘way’ (Weg) and ‘home’ (Heim, House) offers a perspective for understanding both the epistemic and existential aspects of all thinking
and philosophizing. His senses of ‘way’ (Weg), ‘waying’ (wëgen, Bewëgung), and‘woodpaths’ (Holzwege) point to the epistemic character of thinking, whereas theones of the ‘uncanny’ (Unheimlichkeit), ‘homelessness’ (Heimatlosigkeit), and‘homecoming’ (Heimkehr) – to its existential motivation. Way as pathway andmethod, waying as clearing and way-making, and woodpaths as ways with noproper beginning and end link thinking and philosophizing to a phenomenology of
movement, or a peculiar type of epistemic journey. For its part, the uncanny stateof Dasein in ‘anxiety’ (Angst), later seen as the essential homelessness of the historical man, conditions thinking and philosophizing existentially along a “conquest

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Thinking and Philosophizing as the Journey of Waying and Homecoming: Heidegger, Lao-tse, and Herodotusof the earth” and the “cosmic space,” which would secure – upon a long waying –its anticipated homecoming.
Remarkably, a similar sense of waying and homecoming can be isolated in the
key concepts of Lao-tse’s Tao-Te Ching. Most generally, for Lao-tse, Tao is the‘way’ of all existence and Te stands for one’s individual adherence to that way.
While Tao remains “beyond the power of words” and is thus ‘wu’ or nothing, it
nonetheless designates the harmony and balance of all there is -- all beings. It isthus also the way of Te, of one’s mind and body, thinking and living, which dispels
all strife and tension to ensures one’s harmonious and peaceful co-existence withthe rest of the world. In this sense, Te can be seen as one’s ‘way’ to and one’s‘home’ in the harmony of Tao, whereas to the extent that Te becomes pressing in a
possible loss of Tao, an actualized Te as a search for Tao is also one’s ‘waying’and ‘homecoming’.
That thinking and philosophizing can be aptly apperceived within the metaphorics
of waying and homecoming, can be also attested by the first record of a conjoined
usage of ‘philos’ and ‘sophia’, which is found in Herodotus’ Histories. Herodotus
uses the verb ‘philosopheîn’ broadly in the sense of love to learn (a conjecture ofboth existential and epistemic meanings) and links it to traveling around the world“for the sake of seeing” it. Thus, in this primordial usage, philosophy can be seen
as a ‘journey’, which within our terms here can be seen also as including ‘waying’and ‘homecoming’.

In this paper, I explore the metaphorics of way (Weg, Tao), home (Heim, House), and journey(theōriā) to show its aptness for apperceiving our reflective activities of thinking and philosophizing. I draw mainly on the works of Martin Heidegger, Lao-tse, and Herodotus aiming at aperspective of understanding that captures both the epistemic and existential aspects of these
activities. Heidegger has used metaphorics of ‘way’ and ‘home’ extensively in his both earlyand later works – arguably in such way that the former can be seen as conveying the epistemic
character of thinking and philosophizing while the latter their existential motivation. Additionally, the multifaceted senses of the key concepts of Lao-tse’s classic Tao Te Ching can be fittingly appropriated along the same lines of thought as well. 1 And whereas a further support onbehalf of the metaphorics in question can be sought also elsewhere, perhaps the most suggestive
one can be found in the context of the first recorded conjoined usage of philos and sophia known
from Herodotus’ Histories, where philosophy is associated with ‘journey’. Thus, my exposition
will need to go through several steps: I shall first discuss Heidegger’s metaphorics of ‘way’ and‘home’ in relation to thinking and philosophizing in his both early and latter works; next, I
discuss key aspects of Lao-tse’s concepts of Tao and Te, which can be closely paralleled with
1

Here, I shall refer to the author of the classic as Lao-tse and to its tile as Tao Te Ching, or shall simply use Laozi(as it has become already a practice in light of the controversies surrounding its authorship and transliteration in
Latin). But when quoting specific editions in English, I shall use their respectively adopted transliterations for both
authorship and title. The same applies also for the usage of the terms Tao and Te. When repeatedly referring to aparticular translation, I shall use only the name(s) of the translator(s).

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Heidegger’s metaphorics of ‘way’ and ‘home’; then, I discuss the metaphorics of ‘journey’ inrelation to philosophizing in Herodotus’ Histories; and finally, by way of conclusion, I discuss
the overall apperception of thinking and philosophizing within the metaphorics of ‘way’,‘home’, and ‘journey’ within the perspective of the present investigation.
1. Heidegger’s early metaphorics of ‘way’
In Being and Time, Heidegger uses way (Weg) and other movement (Bewegung, bewegen) related metaphorics to point to the dynamic and non-fixed character of Dasein as existential subject. Unlike the apparently uniformic (and in this sense unchanging or static) character of theknowing ‘subject-consciousness’, which dominated the philosophical tradition prior to him,
Heidegger's Dasein is conceived of as inextricable from its existence and as intricated within
the world of change. Heidegger has thus characterized it phenomenologically as “Being-in-theworld” (In-der-Welt-sein),2 which in essence also meant that its existential dynamics could nolonger be ignored – neither in its epistemic aspirations, nor in its other cultural achievements.
In this sense, the unfixed character of Dasein can be seen as its undeniable and intrinsic characteristic, whereas its existential analytic, which Heidegger undertook in its magnus opus as
the initial task of any fundamental ontology, can be equally seen as an account of its dynamics.
As I see it, the unfixed character of Heidegger’s Dasein as existential subject can belegitimately sought throughout all its workings, but as far as its epistemic endeavors are concerned it becomes particularly evident along his metaphorics of ‘way’, which pervades Being
and Time through and through. Here, I shall attempt a certain dissection of this metaphorics
focusing on elements of Heidegger's vocabulary, which point – often quite literally – to an
irrevocable kinetic dimension of Dasein’s ‘Being-in-the-world’. In my view, this will help elucidate the role of the metaphorics of ‘way’ in Dasein’s epistemic aspirations, as well as in
Dasein’s thinking as a whole. One note of approach might be helpful for understanding theoutcome of my task here: I resort to using the expression ‘Heidegger’s metaphorics’, (eventhough he often uses ‘way-’, ‘movement-’, and ‘home-’ related words in their usual, literal, or
non-metaphoric senses in the German language), both because it is suggestive of the broader
phenomenological context of his investigation, in which the phenomena of existence – as philosophical phenomena – cannot be rendered in literal terms, and because Heidegger himself
often plays on etymological and rare senses of the terms he uses to convey his own meanings
together with the open-endedness of these phenomena. With this in mind, my investigation will
aim at dissecting his vocabulary in a particular way – along his metaphorics of ‘way’ and movement – while asserting the compatibility of its findings with his overall ontological perspective.
The three basic terms of Heidegger’s metaphorics of ‘way’ are Weg, bewegen, andBewegung. In Being and Time, their usage varies from literal to more abstract and metaphoric.
Thus, in the translations of John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson and Joan Stambaugh,3 the2Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson (New York, Hagerstown, San
Francisco, London: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1962), pp. 78ff; Sein und Zeit (Tübingen: Max Niemayer Verlag
GmbH & Co. KG, 1993), SS 52ff.
3
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, translated by Joan Stambaugh (Albany: SUNY Press, 1996). When specifying the sense of Heidegger’s German terms in English below, I will take their meanings cumulatively as rendered in both of these translations. When pointing them in German, I will keep their respective conjugations in
the original text, if they have not been used in their main form.

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German noun Weg has been rendered as ‘way’, ‘method’, ‘path’, ‘avenue‘, ‘road’, ‘procedure’,‘pathway’, ‘route’, ‘by’, ‘means’. Similarly, the verb bewegen is rendered as ‘move’, ‘operate’,‘based’, ‘take place’, ‘engage’, ‘move along’, ‘be in motion’, ‘motivate’; whereas the noun
Bewegung is rendered ‘motion’, ‘movement’, ‘activity’. These usages may not surprise any
modern day language speaker, but they are indicative of the key role of the metaphoric of ‘way’
for rendering the workings of Dasein.
One very indicative example of this role in Heidegger’s vocabulary is the noun
Bewegtheit, which is rendered in the above mentioned translations as ‘movement’ and ‘being
moved’. Heidegger uses it specifically to describe the “falling” of Dasein as “the movement offalling” (die Bewegtheit des Verfallens), which is a “‘movement’ of Dasein in its own Being,”
or of Dasein’s “plunging out of itself into itself, into the groundlessness and nullity of inauthentic everydayness.”4 Bewegtheit in this usage is indicative of Dasein’s inner state, which may
not immediately have any perceptible expressions.
Another indicative example of Heidegger's metaphorics of ‘way’ is the adverb vorweg,
translated as ‘ahead’, ‘in advance’, ‘beforehand’, ‘ahead of’. A compound of vor (‘before’) andWeg (‘way’), Heidegger uses it in his discussion of Dasein as ‘care’ (Sorge), which is preliminary to his discussion of temporality, where it is taken to signify ‘ahead’ in the construction‘Being-ahead-of-itself‘ (Sich-vorweg-sein).5 For Heidegger, “Being-in-the-world is essentiallycare,” whereas, as ‘care’, “in each case Dasein is already ahead of itself.”6 Here, ‘ahead’ signifies metaphorically, for it points once again to Dasein’s inner world or experience. The metaphoricity of ‘ahead’ becomes more obvious in Heidegger’s discussion of time, which takes up
the non-stationary and unfixed character of Dasein as existence on a more fundamental ontological level. In his view, “temporality makes up the primordial meaning of Dasein’s Being,”and “care must use ‘time’ ... must reckon with ‘time’.”7 Dasein is subsequently characterized
as ecstatical, which in its literal etymological sense means being “outside-of-itself,”8 whereas
temporality is seen as “the primordial ‘outside-of-itself’ in and for itself.”9 Dasein is ecstaticalor ‘outside-of-itself’ in ‘Being-ahead-of-itself’, that is, as being oriented toward the future.
Thus, it is in no other way but as Being-ahead-of-itself that Dasein encounters itself as temporality – it begins temporalizing by projecting itself as future. Whereas, as temporality ultimately
remains “the primordial ontological basis for Dasein’s existentiality,” 10 (and thus for all
Dasein’s epistemic attainments), vorweg, which – along with the core of Heidegger’s vocabulary of time – alludes to ‘movement’ and ‘space’, can be seen as a key metaphor for thinking
and philosophizing.
In my view, Heidegger’s usage of ‘way’ related vocabulary in epistemic sense is mostsignificant for understanding Dasein’s capacity of reflection. More particularly, Wegräumen
has been used in the sense of ‘clearing away’ in relation to Dasein’s disclosure of ‘its own
authentic Being’ and the ‘world’,
4

Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (1962), p. 223; Sein und Zeit, S 178.
Ibid., pp. 235 ff.; SS 191ff.
6
Ibid., pp. 236-237; SS 191-193.
7
Ibid., p. 278; S 235.
8
Ibid., pp. 370ff; SS 323ff.
9
Ibid., p. 377; S 329.
10
Ibid., p. 277; S 234.
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If Dasein discovers the world in its own way [eigens] and brings it close, if it discloses to itself its
own authentic Being, then this discovery [Entdecken] of the ‘world’ and this disclosure of Dasein
are always accomplished as a clearing-away of concealments and obscurities, as a breaking up of
the disguises with which Dasein bars its own way.11

If knowledge here is to be associated with the ‘disclosure’ (Erschließen) and ‘discovery’(Entdecken) of Dasein and the ‘world’, it is achieved via ‘a clearing-away [Wegräumen] ofconcealments and obscurities’ and of the ‘disguises (Verstellungen) with which Dasein bars its
own way.’ That Wegräumen has been also used in a more literal sense as “moving [equipment(Zeug)] out of the way,”12 only makes its aptness as metaphor for thinking and philosophizing
more convincing, as it points to the wide range of its phenomenologically disclosive usage. It
is also very significant that this second usage has been associated with “Dasein’s making room
(Einräumung) for itself” and “the self-directive discovery of something like a region (Gegend),” which point to a certain “wither” (Wohin), that is, to a locus from where and space where
its handlings of equipment and workings as a whole unfold.13 It aligns once again the classic
phenomenological metaphorics of ‘knowing as seeing’ with that of ‘waying as thinking’, andcan be exemplified with Heidegger’s usages of verbs such as wegzudeuten (a compound verb
that can be literally transcribed as ‘way-to-point-to/expound/interpret’) and wegzuerklären (literally transcribable as ‘way-to-clarify/elucidate/explain’) in the sense of ‘explain away’.14
Some adverbs also fit handily in Heidegger’s metaphorics of ‘way’, even if in his usage
they do not significantly deviate from their common meanings in the German language. Thus,
weg (translated as ‘beyond’, ‘remote’, ‘out of the way’, ‘away from’, ‘far’, ‘distant’, ‘flightfrom’ or simply ‘away’), keineswegs, (‘by no means’, ‘not at all’, ‘certainly not’, ‘on no account’, ‘no’, ‘nothing’), deswegen (‘therefore’), and unterwegs (‘on its way’, ‘along our way’),
add to a strong metaphoric association between ‘way’ and ‘thinking’, even if they could not
attain terminological status. Thanks to the ‘way’ pointers in their etymology, their supporting
adverbial role becomes more apparent and suggestive, the more conspicuous that association
becomes in Heidegger’s core terminology.
The same is also true of much of his other ‘way’ vocabulary, including nouns, adjectives, and verbs, which while not necessarily having terminological status play a meaningfulsupporting role within the overall context of his early philosophical perspective. Here we countWegschiebenwollen (‘pushing away’), wegzuschieben (‘to shove aside’, ‘to put aside’), vorwegschiebt (‘shoving itself ahead’, ‘moves ahead along’), Vorweg-bereden (‘talking about
things ahead of’), Ausweg (‘way out’), Umweg (‘detour’), Bewegungsverhältnis (‘relation of
movements’), Vorwegnahme (‘anticipation’, ‘foreseeing’), Vorwegnehmens (translated as ‘inadvance’), weggenommen (‘taken away’, ‘removed’), vorweggenommen (‘taken for granted’,‘anticipated’), Wegsehen (‘look away’, ‘look for the next’, ‘looking-away‘), wegbringen (‘eliminate’, ‘remove’), Weglegen (‘laying aside’, ‘putting away’), Bewegungsart (‘downward
plunge’), Bewegtheitscharakter (‘character of movement’), Bewegungsbegriff (‘kind of
11

Ibid., p. 167; S 129.
Ibid., p. 420; S 368.
13
Ibid., p. 420; S 368.
14
Ibid., p. 320; S 275.
12

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motion’, ‘concept of motion’), abwegige (‘off the course’, ‘off course’, ‘off the track’,‘farfetched’), wegbewegt (‘moves away’), Abwege (‘sidetracked’, ‘wrong turnings’), Wegrichtung (‘direction’), wegschleicht (‘slink away’, ‘slip away’), hinwegzusetzen ('disregard’, ‘elevate itself over’), Wegweiser (‘signposts’, ‘guideposts’), wegbereitend (‘furthering’, ‘in a preparatory way’), Bewegungszusammenhang ('connectedness of motions’, ‘connectedness of
movements’), Revolutionsbewegung (‘revolutionary period’).
To conclude my discussion on the aptness of early Heidegger’s metaphorics of ‘way’
for apperceiving thinking and philosophizing, I shall draw attention to the penultimate paragraph of Being and Time,15 where he offers a certain sum-up of his entire investigation, which
I find to be keenly supportive of the goal of the present investigation,
One can never carry on researches into the source and the possibility of the ‘idea’ of Being in general
simply by means of the ‘abstractions’ of formal logic – that is, without any secure horizon for question and answer. One must seek a way of casting light on the fundamental question of ontology, andthis is the way one must go. Whether this is the only way or even the right one at all, can be decided
only after one has gone along it. The conflict as to the Interpretation of Being cannot be allayed,
because it has not yet been enkindled. And in the end this is not the kind of conflict one can ‘bluster
into’; it is of the kind which cannot get enkindled unless preparations are made for it. Towards thisalone the foregoing investigation is on the way.16

Heidegger’s point here is clear: despite the helplessness of the ‘formal logic’ and the lack of‘any secure horizon for question and answer’, ‘one must seek a way (Weg) of casting light on
the fundamental question of ontology’. One’s proper apperception of that ‘way’ can become
feasible ‘only after one has gone along it’, which essentially means that ‘going along the way’
is indispensable in this task. Furthermore, the necessity of the question of Being ‘cannot beallayed’ just because it has not been previously initiated – this question is so fundamental thata certain understanding of Being is always already presupposed in any discussion. But neither
can this kind of necessity be addressed without ‘preparations’ – they are necessary not only
because the question has not been previously isolated, but also because its character is such that
one cannot give an ultimate answer to it. In this sense, Heidegger’s investigation on the questionof Being remains a ‘preparation’ for its elucidation, which otherwise put means that it can onlybe ‘on the way’ (unterwegs).
The above quoted passage also neatly sums up our findings here so far. Our purpose inthis section was to explore the role of the metaphorics of ‘way’ in Heidegger’s early thought
and its relation to our reflective activities of thinking and philosophizing. We saw that the alignment of this metaphorics with these activities is not just an arbitrary juxtaposition. In fact, thevocabulary related to ‘way’ pervades Heidegger’s discussion of Dasein and its epistemic workings through and through. As a matter of course, its role can be seen in that – in the lack of ‘any
secure horizon for question and answer’ – it functions as an identifiable carrier of the epistemic
fundamentals of the existential analytic of Dasein. Along this metaphorics of ‘way’, Dasein is

15

I was prompted to this passage, as well as to work on the present paper, by Joan Stambaugh’s insightful discussion of the metaphorics of ‘way’ in her “Heidegger, Taoism, and the Question of Metaphysics,” in Graham Parkes(ed.), Heidegger and Asian Thought (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990), pp. 79-91.
16
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (1962), pp. 487-488.; Sein und Zeit, S 437.

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seen as being constantly “underway” with “standing and remaining being only limit cases ofthis directional ‘underway’”;17 whereas its epistemic and ontological concerns remain inextricably bound with its peculiar existential dynamics. Finally, the above quoted passage also indicates that Heidegger thinks of ‘way’ not in the sense of a single, multiply applicable methodof knowledge, but rather in the sense of an epistemic journey which may or may not bring thedesired outcomes. It is in this latter sense, which is indeed essentially phenomenological, thatthinking and philosophizing are tied to the unicity of a way and can be most readily apperceived
as being on the way or as waying.
2. Heidegger’s latter metaphorics of ‘way’
In his later works, Heidegger’s concept of ‘way’ becomes more nuanced, even though clear
pointers to his view from Being and Time are unmistakably there. A thorough and extensive
study of its metaphorics is desirable and well-worth the effort, but it will remain beyond thescope of the present inquiry. For our purpose here, it will suffice to draw attention to some of
the insightful findings of Joan Stambaugh, who has offered a neat discussion on it in her previously mentioned article, bringing together Heidegger’s changing perspectives on the ‘way’ andLao-tse’s notion of Tao to bear on the question of metaphysics.
One of the first instances in Heidegger’s later metaphorics of ‘way’ Stambaugh draws
a special attention to is the brief untitled foreword of his Holzwege (Woodpaths),“Wood” is an old name for forest. In the wood are paths that mostly wind along until they end
quite suddenly in an impenetrable thicket.
They are called “woodpaths.”
Each goes its peculiar way, but in the same forest. Often
it seems as though one were identical to another. Yet it only seems so.
Woodcutters and forest are familiar with these paths. They know what
it means to be on a woodpath.18

What comes to focus here is the peculiar positioning of the ‘woodpaths’ in forests – they do notlead to an anticipated end but ‘end quite suddenly in an impenetrable thicket’. For Stambaugh,
Heidegger appropriates philosophically the ‘woodpaths’ as a metaphor that is indicative of his
own understanding of thinking. As she puts it, “the woodpaths express the fact that thinking isthoroughly and essentially questioning, a questioning not to be settled or ‘solved’ by any answer, a questioning that cannot calculate in advance the direction in which it will be led, letalone the destination in which it will arrive.”19
We can note here that for the latter
Heidegger ‘thinking as questioning’ is already a step aside from his assertion in the last quoted
passage from Being and Time that one’s proper apperception of a ‘way’ can become feasible‘only after one has gone along it’, even though in both cases he appears to maintain that forthinking ‘going along the way’ is indispensable. The difference is that ‘going along the way’ in
17

Joan Stambaugh, “Heidegger, Taoism, and the Question of Metaphysics,” p. 79.
David F. Krell (ed.), Basic Writings, revised and expanded edition (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 34; Martin
Heidegger, Holzwege (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann GmbH, 1950). For an alternative translation see
Martin Heidegger, Off the Beaten Track, edited and translated by Julian Young and Kenneth Haynes (Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
19
Joan Stambaugh, “Heidegger, Taoism, and the Question of Metaphysics,” p. 80.
18

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his early thought anticipates a more determined end – one that is signaled by the ‘fundamental
question of ontology’. Whereas along the metaphor of the ‘woodpaths’ such an end is less determined – they are known to lead only to an abrupt end, or in a sense – to nowhere. Thus,
thinking is here seen as an explorative ‘going along woodpaths’, which is accompanied by aclear sense of their limited routes. Indeed, as D. F. Krell and Stambaugh have noted, this determination of thinking is very much in contrast with the negative sense of the popular German
expression to which Heidegger alludes in the last sentence of this untitled forward, which is “tobe on the wrong track or in a cul-de-sac.”20 But it captures the different sense for which hislater thought appropriates the metaphorics of ‘way’ – the sense of a journey into the unknown.
Stambaugh also draws attention to something we already noted above as it had alreadybecome clear by the end of Being and Time, namely, that Heidegger’s sense of ‘way’ “hasessentially nothing to do with scientific and technological method,” because of his “polemic
against Vorhandenheit (presence-at hand)” as “objective presence.” 21 Indeed, Heidegger’s‘way’ is of a different kind – evading any objective presence-at-hand, it is somewhat paradoxically at once one that is particular and belonging to a ‘region’ (Gegend), as much as also one
that is constantly in the making. It is linked to the metaphor of the ‘woodpath’ but also with‘going along it’.
In this sense, ‘thinking as questioning’ is associated with going along a ‘woodpath’ asa way with an unknown end. Thinking is thus not confined to a well-established, pre-existent,
objective (even if unknown) way; it is associated with the very movement along the way, amovement that inaugurates both ‘thinking’ and ‘way’ at once, a movement that ultimately renders thinking as way, as much as the way as thinking, way of thinking, or way-thinking (DenkWeg). In a passage from What is Called Thinking? (to which Stambaugh also refers), Heidegger
puts it like this,Thinking itself is a way. We respond to the way only in remaining underway. To be on the way inorder to clear the way...
In order to get underway, we do have to set out. This is meant in a double sense: for one thing, wehave to open ourselves to the emerging prospect and direction of the way itself; and then, we must
get on the way, that is, must take the steps by which alone the way becomes a way.
The way of thinking [Denk-Weg] cannot be traced from somewhere to somewhere like a wellworn rut, nor does it at all exist as such in any place. Only when we walk it, and in no other fashion,
only, that is, by thoughtful questioning, are we on the move on the way [ist die Be-wegung]. This
movement is what allows the way to come forward. That the way of thought [Denkweges] is of thisnature is part of the precursoriness of thinking... 22

Thus, for the later Heidegger, thinking as ‘move on the way’ is essentially creating the‘way’, whereas in Being and Time the ‘way’ is very much presupposed and just needed ‘a20David F. Krell (ed.), Basic Writings, p. 34; Joan Stambaugh, “Heidegger, Taoism, and the Question of Metaphysics,” p. 80.
21
Joan Stambaugh, “Heidegger, Taoism, and the Question of Metaphysics,” p. 81.
22
Martin Heidegger, What is Called Thinking?, translated by Fred D. Wieck & Jesse Glenn Gray (New York,Evanston, London: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1968), pp. 168-169; Martin Heidegger, Was Heisst Denken?,Gesamtausgabe I, Band 8 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann GmbH, 2002), SS 173-174. German-text
interpolations here are added.

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clearing-away [Wegräumen] of concealments and obscurities’ and of all the ‘disguises (Verstellungen)’ which barred Dasein’s ‘disclosure’ of the world. This difference becomes more
apparent when in his later thought he apperceives the kind of ‘clearing’ that is needed to sustain
the ‘way of thinking’ along the metaphorics of wëgen and Bewëgung of old the Alemannic
Swabian dialect, which Stambaugh has called “Heidegger’s utmost effort to make an initiallysomewhat indeterminate thought, the way, as concrete as possible.”23 As he puts it,
To clear a way... across a snow-covered field, is in the Alemannic-Swabian dialect still calledwëgen even today. This verb, used transitively, means: to form a way and, forming it, to keep it
ready. Way-making [Be-wëgen (Be-wëgung)] understood in this sense no longer means to movesomething up or down a path [Weg] that is already there. It means to bring the way... forth first ofall, and thus to be the way.24

If the verb wëgen hear means ‘to clear a way... across a snow-covered field’, the derivativeBewëgung in this sense means ‘way-making’ or ‘to bring the way... forth first of all, and thus
to be the way’, and is clearly related to ‘movement’.25 Thus, thinking and reflection can be seen
as “entering into the movement of waying.”26 Or, otherwise put, for the later Heidegger, ‘thinking’ can be understood metaphorically as ‘waying’, as it is inseparable from the movement ofclearing, forming, and keeping of the ‘way’.
Another characteristic aspect of Heidegger’s later metaphorics of the way pointed by
Stambaugh is the relation between “call” (heissen) and “way,” which he also discusses in Whatis Called Thinking. There Heidegger writes that “in the widest sense, ‘to call’ means to set into
motion, to get something underway ... in a gentle and unobtrusive manner,” pointing that, traced
to Sanskrit, the Greek word with the same meaning keleuein “means not so much a command
as a letting-reach,... [and] has the assonance of helpfulness and complaisance,” as in “to invite.”27 Thus, for Heidegger, ‘thinking’ and ‘waying’ are bound as much together as with thenon-demanding character of ‘what calls for thinking’. This non-demanding and yet inviting
element of thought can be readily associated with the truth of Being, whose essence was understood as freedom or “letting beings be the beings that they are.” 28 It is also in line with
Heidegger’s view from Being and Time that the openness of the truth of Being becomes accessible via Dasein’s “resoluteness” (Entschlossenheit) ensuing from a Lutheran “call of conscience.”29 Thus, whereas ‘what calls for thinking’, ‘the truth of Being’, ‘thinking’, and ‘waying’ appear to come together in Heidegger’s thought through and through, it is his later23

Joan Stambaugh, “Heidegger, Taoism, and the Question of Metaphysics,” p. 83.
Martin Heidegger, On the Way to Language, translated by Peter D. Herz (New York, London, et al.: Harper &Row, Publishers, 1982) pp. 129-130; Martin Heidegger, Unterwegs zur Sprache, Gesamtausgabe I, Band 12(Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann GmbH, 1985), S 249. German-text interpolations added.
25
Joan Stambaugh, “Heidegger, Taoism, and the Question of Metaphysics,” p. 83.
26
Ibid., p. 84.
27
Martin Heidegger, What is Called Thinking?, p. 117; Martin Heidegger, Was Heisst Denken?, Gesamtausgabe
I, Band 8, SS 120-121.
28
Martin Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” in David F. Krell (ed.), Basic Writings, revised and expanded
edition, pp. 115-138; Martin Heidegger, “Vom Wesen der Wahrheit,” Wegmarken, Gesamtausgabe I, Band 9(Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann GmbH, 1976), SS 177-202.
29
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (1962), pp. 341ff.; Sein und Zeit, SS 295ff.
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metaphorics of the way that makes the difference from his early thinking and that ultimately
renders thinking as waying in this explorative, open-ended, and in no way predetermined sense,
which we associated above with journey.
I shall draw attention to two more points that Heidegger makes, which shed additional
light on his later metaphorics of movement and waying. The first one is in his essay on Trakl
in On the Way to Language, where he dwells on the original meaning of the word for sensing,which in German, as in Latin, is also part of the etymology of the words for meaning (Sinn) andreflection (sinnen). In a sentence, which Stambaugh focuses on, Heidegger points out that theold word “‘Sinnan’ originally meant to travel, to strive after, ... to take a certain direction,” andthat its “Indo-German root sent and set means ‘way’.”30 Thus, sensing, thinking, and travelingare shown to have a common semantic genealogy that is traceable to the Proto-Indo-European
meaning of ‘way’. For us this means that in the context of the present inquiry ‘waying’ has beenshown to be a fitting metaphor for ‘thinking’ once again.
Stambaugh takes Heidegger’s discussion of Sinnan to be a prelude to her discussion of
his notion of Gelassenheit or releasement, (whose root lassen, meaning ‘letting’, already points
to the non-demanding character of thinking as waying, which we linked to the truth of Beingand his earlier notion of Entschlossenheit or resoluteness), but she also takes it as a pointer tothe sense of Lao-tse’s unsayable Tao.31 Heidegger himself has briefly discussed Tao in On the
Way to Language, and his insights there will make also that last point I would like to bring here
on behalf of the aptness of his metaphorics of ‘way’ for understanding thinking. The discussionin question is particularly germane to my endeavor here – first, because it throws light on both
Heidegger’s understanding of thinking as waying and its relation to the key notion of the TaoTe Ching classic; and second, because it very much sums up his view by bringing together thebulk of the findings of my inquiry so far. In Herz’s translation, it appears as the following two
paragraphs,
The word ‘way’ probably is a primal word that speaks to the reflective mind of man. The key wordin Laotse’s poetic thinking is Tao, which ‘properly speaking’ means way. But because we are prone
to think of way’ superficially, as a stretch connecting two places, our word ‘way’ has all too rashly
been considered unfit to name what Tao says. Tao is then translated as reason, mind, raison, meaning[Sinn], logos.
Yet Tao could be the way that gives all ways [der alles be-wëgende Weg], the very source of ourpower to think what reason, mind, meaning, logos properly mean to say – properly, by their proper
nature. Perhaps the mystery of mysteries of thoughtful Saying conceals itself in the word “way,”
Tao, if only we will let these names return to what they leave unspoken, if only we are capable ofthis, to allow them to do so. Perhaps the enigmatic power of today’s reign of method also, and indeed
preeminently, stems from the fact that the methods, notwithstanding their efficiency, are after all
merely the runoff of a great hidden stream which moves [be-wëgt] all things along and makes way
for everything. All is way. 32
30

Joan Stambaugh, “Heidegger, Taoism, and the Question of Metaphysics,” p. 85. This sentence has been omitted
in Peter D. Herz’s translation. Here is its original version in German: “‘Sinnan’ bedeutet ursprünglich: reisen,
streben nach... eine Richtung einschlagen; die indogermaniche Wurzel sent und set bedeutet Weg.” (Martin
Heidegger, Unterwegs zur Sprache, Gesamtausgabe I, Band 12), S 49.
31
Joan Stambaugh, “Heidegger, Taoism, and the Question of Metaphysics,” pp. 84-86.
32
Martin Heidegger, On the Way to Language, p. 92; Martin Heidegger, Unterwegs zur Sprache, Gesamtausgabe
I, Band 12, S 187. German-text interpolations added.

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The statement that ‘the word “way” probably is a primal word that speaks to the reflective mindof man’ is basically what the present inquiry endeavors to investigate and assert here, namely,that thinking is a kind of waying. Likewise, the claim that ‘because we are prone to think of“way” superficially, as a stretch connecting two places, our word “way” has all too rashly been
considered unfit to name what Tao says’ explains the more abstract choices of rendering Tao
as ‘reason, mind, raison, meaning, logos’. These choices align with the dominant sense of truthin the Western epistemic tradition as “adaequatio intellectūs et rei,” or as accordance ofknowledge or intellect to matter, which in non-theological terms becomes “the accordance (homoiōsis) of a statement (logos) with a matter (pragma),”33 and which prevents the rendition of
the ineffable Tao along the epistemic tangibility of the metaphorics of the ‘way’. By contrast,
Heidegger suggests that it is rather Tao, the ‘way’, that provides ‘the very source of our power
to think what reason, mind, meaning, logos properly mean to say’, something that we could
find out ‘if only we will let these names return to what they leave unspoken.’ In this sense, ‘theenigmatic power of today’s reign of method’ can be seen as being ‘merely the runoff of a great
hidden stream which moves all things’, just as the stream of the unspeakable Tao does – thestream that ensures that ‘all is way’.
We can note here that Heidegger’s discussion Tao renders it along the metaphorics of‘way’ and associates ‘thinking’ with the above indicated meanings of wëgen, Be-wëgung, andSinnan. Additionally, Tao, which “is beyond the power of words,”34 can also be seen as connoting the indeterminate sense of the ‘woodpath’ (Hozlweg), as well as the indefinite sense of
the meaning of Being.35 At the very least, Lao-tse Tao and Heidegger’s Weg appear to have theaffinity of ineffability, even if the fundamental sense of Lao-tse’s Tao may be more suggestiveof Heidegger’s Being.36 Thus, Heidegger’s discussion of Tao has put it once again to the fore
that, as a whole, his later metaphorics of the ‘way’ very acutely apperceives our reflective activity of ‘thinking’. And, if in this sense thinking is waying, that is, always on the way, and on
the way to language, the same is also true of the fundamental inquiry into the meaning of Being,
as well as of all philosophizing.
3. Heidegger’s early metaphorics of ‘home’
Heidegger makes his first significant employment of metaphorics of ‘home’ (Heim, Haus) in
Being and Time. His early ‘home’ related vocabulary is diverse and suggestive as a whole,
playing a key role in his existential analytic of Dasein, and specifically – in bringing to the fore
33

Martin Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” pp. 116-120; Martin Heidegger, “Vom Wesen der Wahrheit,” SS
178-182.
34
The Way of Life, According to Lao Tzu, translated by Witter Bynner (New York: The Berkley Publishing Group,1986), Ch. 1.
35

Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (1962), pp. 21ff; Sein und Zeit, SS 2ff. Martin Heidegger, Introduction to
Metaphysics, translated by Gregory Fried and Richard Polt (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2000),
pp. 2ff; Einführung in die Metaphysik, Gesamtausgabe, Band 40 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann
GmbH, 1983), SS 2ff.
36
See Rossen Roussev, “Global Conversation on the Spot: What Lao-tse, Heidegger, and Rorty have in Common,”Global Conversations: An International Journal in Contemporary Philosophy and Culture, Vol. I, No. 01 (2018),
pp. 11-38.

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the existential motivation for Dasein’s thinking and philosophizing. Heidegger’s central term
here is unheimlich, rendered in English as uncanny, and it comes into play in his discussion of
Dasein’s Being as ‘care’ (Sorge), and more specifically – of ‘anxiety’ (Angst) as Dasein’s basic‘state of mind’ (Befindlichkeit).
For Heidegger, “in anxiety one feels ‘uncanny’,” whereas “‘uncanniness’ [Unheimlichkeit] also means ‘not-being-at-home’[Nicht-zuhause-sein]” – in contradistinction from ‘Beingat-home’[Zuhause-sein], which stands for Dasein’s “tranquillized self-assurance” in the worldof its “average everydayness” marked by the “publicness of the ‘they’.”37 In this sense, he also
maintains that Dasein’s basic state of “anxiety brings it back from its absorption in the ‘world’,”
individualizes it, and places it in “the existential ‘mode’ of the ‘not-at-home’[Unzuhause].” 38
As Heidegger sees it, “from an existential-ontological point of view,” compared to the “tranquillized and familiar” at-home of Being-in-the-world in everydayness, the not-at-home is themore primordial mode, which means that the former is an element of the later, and not viceversa.39 Thus, in his view, “uncanniness” is “the most elemental way in which thrown Dasein
is disclosed,” placing it “face to face with the ‘nothing’ of the world,” such that Dasein experiences “anxiety about its ownmost potentiality-for-Being.”40
Heidegger also links the uncanny Dasein in anxiety with the peculiar ‘call of conscience’, which makes possible Dasein’s own projection ‘upon its own potentiality-for-Being’[eigenste Seinkönnen]’,Uncanniness is the basic kind of Being-in-the-world, even though in an everyday way it has been
covered up. Out of the depths of this kind of Being, Dasein itself, as conscience, calls. The ‘it callsme‘ [“es ruft mich”] is a distinctive kind of discourse for Dasein. The call whose mood has been
attuned by anxiety is what makes it possible first and foremost for Dasein to project itself upon its
ownmost potentiality-for-Being. The call of conscience, existentially understood, makes known for
the first time what we have hitherto merely contended; that uncanniness pursues Dasein and is athreat to the lostness in which it has forgotten itself. 41

The call of conscience that enables Dasein ‘to project itself upon its ownmost potentiality-forBeing’ is triggered in uncanniness. The latter is a ‘threat’ to Dasein’s ‘lostness’ in everydayness
but it thus provides Dasein with the possibility for its authentic existence. The call, which comes‘out of the depth’ of ‘Dasein itself’, reveals Dasein to itself as ‘conscience’. Conscience for its
part is revealed as the ‘call of care’ and as what ensures Dasein’s knowledge and understanding:
The call is the call of care. Being-guilty [Schuldigsein] constitutes the Being to which we give thename of “care”. In uncanniness Dasein stands together with itself primordially. Uncanniness brings
this entity face to face with its undisguised nullity, which belongs to the possibility of its ownmost
potentiality-for-Being. To the extent that for Dasein, as care, its Being is an issue, it summons itself
as a “they” which is factically falling, and summons itself from its uncanniness towards its potentiality-for-Being. 42
37

Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (1962), p. 233; Sein und Zeit, SS 188-189.
Ibid., p. 233; SS 188-189.
39
Ibid., p. 234; S 189.
40
Ibid., p. 321; S 276.
41
Ibid., p. 322; S 277.
42
Ibid., pp. 332-333; SS 286-287.
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Understanding the call discloses one’s own Dasein in the uncanniness of its individualization. The
uncanniness which is revealed in understanding and revealed along with it, becomes genuinely disclosed by the state-of-mind of anxiety which belongs to that understanding. The fact of the anxiety
of conscience gives us phenomenal confirmation that in understanding the call Dasein is broughtface to face with its own uncanniness.43

For Heidegger, ‘the call of conscience’ is ‘the call of care’; it is the call of ‘Guilty!’ and of‘Being-guilty’, which is ‘given the name care’. It comes out of the ‘uncanniness’ of Dasein as
facing ‘its undisguised nullity, which belongs to the possibility of its ownmost potentiality-forBeing’. It is a call that ‘summons’ Dasein out of the ‘falling’ in which it is unindividualized as‘they’ and directs it ‘towards its potentiality-for-Being’.44 At the same time, ‘understanding thecall discloses one’s own Dasein in the uncanniness of its individualization’, and discloses it in‘the state-of-mind of anxiety’. Whereas ‘the anxiety of conscience’ attests that Dasein is in theface of ‘its own uncanniness’.
Early Heidegger’s metaphorics of ‘home’ could also be detected, even if not without
stipulations, in some rather trivial usages as well. Thus the German expression ‘von Hause aus’(literally ‘from the house out’ but most typically used to mean ‘originally’ or ‘innately’) appears
to point to a certain essential fundamentality in the meaning of the ‘house’, even though it may
remain transparent or void of any other significance in reading and translation. In the above
mentioned English translations, it has been rendered mostly ‘by its very nature’, but also ‘fundamentally’, ‘from the outset’, ‘from the very beginning’.45 Interestingly, the last two renditions translate the German phrase as emphatically placed in quotation marks by Heidegger himself, when he claims that Dasein’s capacity to “‘find’ that something is missing [fehlt]” is intrinsically tied with whether Dasein “were awaiting” that ‘something’ “from the outset.”46
Given the prevalent terminological usages of Heidegger’s early ‘home’ metaphorics, which inessence convey Dasein’s capacity to disclose the world in uncanniness, this usage here can now
be seen as a non-trivial one – as pointing to the character and essence of Dasein as a being forwhich the disclosure of the world (viz. the meaning of Being) is a concern ‘from the outset’,and equally – an ‘out-of-house’ concern, or a concern of ‘uncanniness’.
As a whole, the metaphorics of ‘home’ in Heidegger’s early thought carries the senseof the fundamental condition for Dasein’s thinking and philosophizing. His concept of uncanniness, which characterizes Dasein’s Being as care, points to the primary existential impulsethat sets in motion Dasein’s understanding of itself, its disclosure of the world, and its otherworkings. And, whereas uncanniness, as the existential feeling of ‘not-at-home’, may prompt
an inauthentic search for the ‘at-home’ of the world of everyday concern of the ‘they’, it is also
what opens Dasein to, and eventually triggers its ensuing search for, ‘its ownmost potentiality-

43

Ibid., p. 342; SS 295-296.
Cf. “Hearing the appeal correctly is ... tantamount to having an understanding of oneself in one’s ownmost
potentiality-for-Being – that is, to projecting oneself upon one’s ownmost authentic potentiality for becoming
guilty.” Ibid., pp. 333-334; S 287.
45
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (1962), pp. 81, 171, 213, 407, 467; Being and Time (1996), pp. 52, 125,
158, 325, 380); Sein und Zeit, SS 55, 133, 169, 355, 414.
46
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (1962), p. 407; Sein und Zeit, S 355.
44

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for-Being’. It thus opens the possibility for Dasein’s authentic concern with Being, which atbottom motivates all its thinking and philosophizing – about itself as an existential subject andabout its relation to the world.
4. Heidegger’s later metaphorics of ‘home’In his later thought, Heidegger links the metaphorics of ‘home’ to thinking and philosophizing
more directly. Already in his lectures from 1929-1930, he quotes a statement by Novalis: “Philosophy is really homesickness (Heimweh), an urge to be at home (zu Hause zu sein) everywhere.”47 Heidegger then elaborates,
Philosophy can only be such an urge if we who philosophize are not at home [nicht zu Hause] everywhere … Not merely here or there, nor even simply in every place, in all places taken together
one after another. Rather, to be at home [zu Hause] everywhere means to be at once and at all times
within the whole. We name this 'within the whole' and its character of wholeness the world.48

Heidegger offers his own reading of Novalis’ statement here: philosophy would be ‘an urge to
be at home everywhere’ if we are ‘not at home’ already. For him, ‘everywhere’ here means
neither ‘every place’, nor ‘all places taken together one after another’; it means ‘to be at once
and at all times within the whole’; that is, within ‘the world’. Heidegger’s point is that our ‘notat home’ motivates us to aspire ‘to be at home’, that ‘philosophizing’ begins with ‘not at home’and goes on searching for ‘home’; but it does not just search for a home or homes within theworld – it searches ‘to be at home’ with ‘the world’ or ‘to be at home’ within the world as awhole. In this sense, he thinks that “what Novalis names homesickness is ultimately the fundamental attunement [Grundstimmung] of philosophizing.”49 Thus, like the ‘not-at-home’ of theuncanniness of Dasein in Being and Time, the ‘not-at-home’ of homesickness here is seen as
providing the primary impulse for any thinking and philosophizing, but now Heidegger seems
to make more directly the suggestion that any adequate thinking and philosophizing needs toawaken it and maintain it in the pursuit of its ends.50
In Introduction to Metaphysics, Heidegger continues his usage of the metaphorics of‘home’ – most significantly by a new discussion of uncanniness, which could be seen as apeculiar expansion of the one that we know from his magnus opus. More particularly, he offers
his own reading of the first ode of the choir of Sophocles’ Antigone,51 in which he translates
the Greek word deinon (δεινόν) as ‘uncanny’ and identifies it as the most fundamental aspectof the human condition,

47

Martin Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude, translated by William
McNeill and Nicholas Walker (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1995), p. 5; Die Grundbegriffeder Metaphysik. Welt–Endlichkeit–Einsamkeit (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1983), S 7.
48
Ibid., p. 5; SS 7-8.
49
Ibid., p. 9; S 12.
50
For an insightful discussion of Novalis’ Heimweh, which can also be translated as ‘nostalgia’, see Tomokazu
Baba, “Philosophy as Journey,” Global Conversations: An International Journal in Contemporary Philosophy
and Culture, Vol. II, No. 01 (2019), pp. 12-14.
51
Martin Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, pp. 156ff; Einführung in die Metaphysik, Gesamtausgabe, Band
40, SS 155ff.

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Manifold is the uncanny, yet nothing
uncannier than man bestir itself, rising up beyond him.

Heidegger sees the ode as depicting the human being as “the uncanniest of the uncanny” andas becoming such in the face of the “overwhelming sway” of beings as a whole.52 He identifies
two key senses of deinon – ‘terrible’ and ‘violent’, which he sees as transposed within the relation of the human and the sway, as well as as applying to both of them. As he puts it, “thedeinon is the terrible in the sense of the overwhelming sway, which induces panicked fear, trueanxiety, as well as collected, inwardly, reverberating, reticent awe”; whereas “the violent [dasGewaltige], the overwhelming [das Überwältigende] is the essential character of the sway
[Walten] itself.” 53 For its part, “humanity is deinon” both in the sense that it “is exposed to” theterror of the “overwhelming sway” and in the sense that it is “violence-doing.”54 But while theuncanny character of humanity is a response to the terror and violence of the overwhelming
sway, “because it is doubly deinon..., it [humanity] is to deinotaton, the most violent: violencedoing in the midst of the overwhelming.” 55 Thus, humanity is seen as uncanny (indeed ‘theuncanniest of the uncanny’) in the two identified senses of deinon, namely, ‘terrible’ and ‘violent’ (indeed ‘the most violent’), whereas its uncanniness is transposed along its relation withthe ‘overwhelming sway’ of beings as a whole and is at once provider and receiver of both
‘violence’ and ‘terror’.
It must be clarified, though, that for Heidegger the uncanny is not “an impression madeon our emotional states”; it is instead “that which throws one out of the ‘canny’, that is, thehomely, the accustomed, the usual, the unendangered.” 56 Furthermore, it is not a “particularproperty” that we assign “as if the human were something else in addition”; it is “the basic traitof the human essence, into which every other trait must always be drawn.” 57 It is thus not surprising that Heidegger will claim that “the saying ‘the human being is the uncanniest’ provides
the authentic Greek definition of humanity.” 58 This claim aligns with his previous position that
uncanniness is the primary impulse for any thinking and philosophizing, as well as that ‘thehuman essence’, as marked by its ‘uncanniness’, is to be singled out as the being which concerns itself with Being.
For the purpose of this paper, I shall draw attention to one more discussion of the metaphorics of ‘home’ in Heidegger’s later thought, which comes from the fourth volume of his
Nietzsche. In a remarkable passage there, he dwells on “homelessness” (Heimatlosigkeit) and“homecoming” (Heimkehr) as the modes of Being of historical humanity that motivate anddelimit all its putative success and essentialist searches,
The unfamiliarity of beings as such brings to light the homelessness of historical man within beings
as a whole. The “where” of a dwelling in the midst of beings as such seems obliterated, because theBeing itself, as the essential occurring of every abode, fails to appear.
52

Ibid., p. 159; SS 158-159.
Ibid., pp. 159-160; SS 158-159.
54
Ibid., p. 160; S 159.
55
Ibid., p. 160; S 159.
56
Ibid., p. 161; S 160.
57
Ibid., p. 161; S 160.
58
Ibid., p. 161; S 160.
53

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The partly conceded, partly denied homelessness of man with regard to his essence is replaced by
the organized global conquest of the earth, and the thrust into outer space. Homeless man – thanks
to the success of his management and ordering of ever great numbers of his kind – lets himself be
driven into flight in the face of his own essence, only to represent this flight to himself as a homecoming to the true humanity of homo humanus, and to make humanity part of his own enterprise.59

As in Heidegger’s discussion of uncanniness in Being and Time, here ‘the unfamiliarity of beings as such’ is also linked to the ‘homelessness’ of historical humanity in the face of ‘beings
as a whole’. In the state of ‘homelessness’, every ‘where’ remains ‘obliterated’, as ‘Being itself’, what is necessary for any knowledge and familiarity, ‘fails to appear’. At the same time,the ‘homelessness’ of humanity is seen as compensated via ‘organized global conquest of theearth’ and the cosmic space, which for Heidegger is a result of the ‘homeless’ humanity facingits ‘own essence’. This peculiar, compensating ‘flight’ of humanity to itself he now calls
straightforwardly homecoming. In his view, this is a ‘homecoming’ which humanity tends to‘represent’ as homecoming to its own ‘true’ essence, and thus to see itself as ‘part of its own
enterprise’. And though humanity in this way may lose itself into beings, (for the more it “requires beings, the less it craves for being as such” and is “even less inclined to heed Being
itself”),60 homecoming is for Heidegger still the enterprise that marks its way, as a way out of
its homelessness.
Heidegger’s latter metaphorics of ‘home’ is linked to that of Being and Time in that it
plays a key part in conveying the existential motivation for the self-discovery and the workingsof the existential subject. In essence, it is a continuation of the usage of his earlier ‘home’ related
metaphorics, which is now elaborated along its relationship to philosophizing, a discussion of
the notion of deinon in the ancient Greek culture, and the introduction of the notions of homelessness and homecoming. At this point, we can note that Heidegger’s notion of homecoming
appears to be most conspicuously indicative of the relation between his metaphorics of ‘way’
and that of ‘home’, whose aptness for the characterization of our reflective activities of thinking
and philosophizing we seek to demonstrate here.
For additional support to the claim that thinking and philosophizing can be fittingly represented within the metaphorics of waying and homecoming, I now turn to Lao-tse’s Tao Te
Ching.
5. Lao-tse’s concepts of Tao and Te
It is nothing less of remarkable that a very similar sense of waying and homecoming in relation
to thinking and philosophizing can be isolated in the classic of Tao Te Ching, whose authorshiphas been most commonly attributed to Lao-tse. I shall focus here on its two main concepts, Tao(道) and Te (德), as well as on their relation,61 aiming to identify aspects of their senses that
attune with those of the above discussed metaphorics of Heidegger’s.

59

Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche, Volumes III and IV, edited by David Farrell Krell (San Francisco: HarperCollins
Publishers, 1991), Vol. IV, p. 248; Nietzsche, Bd. II (Phullingen: Günther Neske Verlag, 1961), SS 394-395.
60
Ibid., p. 248; S 395.
61
For a more detailed discussion of Tao and Te, as well as of other related aspects of the philosophical perspectiveof Laozi, see Rossen Roussev, “Global Conversation on the Spot: What Lao-tse, Heidegger, and Rorty Have in

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Most generally, in Laozi, Tao is understood as the ‘way’ of all existence and Te as
standing for each existing being’s adherence to that ‘way’. The sense that we get for Tao fromthe classic is that it remains “beyond the power of words” and thus could be rendered only as
wu (無) or ‘nothing’.62 Despite its essential nothingness, Tao is understood as the source of allexistence via its first more specific upshot – the creative power Qi (氣). Furthermore, Tao isunderstood as designating the harmony and balance of all there is – that is, all beings – via thetwo opposing powers Yin (陰) and Yang (陽), which are the first creations of Qi.63 Tao is also
fundamentally the ‘way’ of Te; that is, it is the ‘way’ of each being’s individual partaking in
the harmony of Tao, including in the case of the human being – of one’s individual existence,of one’s mind and body, of one’s thinking and living.64
For its part, Te, which has been typically translated as “virtue” but also as “at the coreof life” (Bynner), “[Tao’s] outflowing operation” (Legge), “particular efficacy” and “character”(Ames and Hall),65 has the sense of one’s diligent maintaining of one’s individual relation to
Tao and becomes particularly pressing in the case of an eventual loss of Tao. In practice, thismeans that its role is to dispel all strife and tension, which would be indicative of the loss ofTao, by an effortless action, we-wei (無爲), that ensures one’s return to Tao, viz. one’s harmonious and peaceful co-existence along the rest of the world. Te is thus the constant actualizationof Tao in one’s individual existence and is one’s individual way and end within the eternal
harmony of Tao. In this its sense, and from a slightly different angle, Te can be also seen as alocalized manifestation of Tao,66 which “denotes this vital potency for life” that finds its way
in the cultivation of the individual nurtured beings.67
We can now focus on how this understanding of Laozi’s notions of Tao and Te relates
to the Heideggerian terminology that was previously discussed. On my reading, each of the two
key terms of the classic can be seen as accumulating in one way or another the senses of
Heidegger’s metaphorics of both ‘way’ and ‘home’. This, of course, will need to be shown, but
it is largely due to the multifaceted senses of Tao and Te, which are at once general and openended enough to match and accommodate a good many of Heidegger’s onto-phenomenological
Common,” Global Conversations: An International Journal in Contemporary Philosophy and Culture, Vol. 1,
No. 1 (2018), pp. 11-38.
62
The Way of Life, According to Lao Tzu, translated by Witter Bynner (New York: The Berkley Publishing Group,1986), Ch. 1; cf. Daodejing, “Making This Life Significant,”A Philosophical Translation, English and Mandarin
Chinese Edition, translated and with commentary by Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall (New York: Ballantine
Books, 2003), Ch. 1.
63
Lao Zi, Dao De Jing, translated by Bruce R. Linnell (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2018), Ch.
42; Rudolf G. Wagner, A Chinese reading of the Daodejing: Wang Bi’s Commentary on the Laozi with Critical
Text and Translation (Albany: SUNY Press, 2003), Ch. 42; Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall, Ch. 42.
64
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, translated by Stephen Mitchell (London: Frances Lincoln Ltd., 2015), Ch. 54;
Bruce R. Linnel, Ch. 54; Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall, Ch. 54.
65
Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, translated by Feng, Gia-Fu & Jane English, Vintage Books (New York, New York,1989), Ch. 51; The Way of Life, According to Lao Tzu, Ch. 10; The Tâo Teh King, or The Tâo and its Characteristics, in The Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Taoism, translated by James Legge (Oxford: The Clarendon
Press, 1891), Ch. 51; Daodejing, “Making This Life Significant,”A Philosophical Translation, Ch. 51, Ch. 54.
66
Rossen Roussev, “Global Conversation on the Spot: What Lao-tse, Heidegger, and Rorty Have in Common,” p.
18.
67
Thomas Michael, The Pristine Dao: Metaphysics in Early Daoist Discourse (Albany: SUNY Press, 2005), p. 63.

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projections. In this sense, whereas the multifacetedness of the key terms of Laozi does not allow
for their strict one-for-one rendition in Heideggerian vocabulary, it does allow us to seek acredible projection of the perspective of the short ancient classic into that of the multivolume
work of the 20th-century thinker, even as his terms may be seen as converging within fewer
terms of the classic.
Thus, it can be immediately noticed that, if Tao is understood as the ‘way’ of the harmony of all existence (and so also of coexistence) for each thing and every individual, and isthus understood as the way to be followed in a most general sense, Tao can be likewise also
understood as the ‘way of thinking’. We need to make it clear, though, that along Tao’s allinclusiveness ‘way of thinking’ here accumulates not only Heidegger’s early sense of a nonmethodical ‘way’ which needs to be gone ‘all the way’ and to keep the existential subject continuously ‘underway’, but also his later more nuanced understanding of ‘way’. As we alreadysaw, in its ineffability and essential nothingness, Tao remains as indeterminate as Heidegger’s
later metaphor for thinking – the woodpath (with its unclear and abrupt end). This is so evenwhen the particular beings come to terms with Tao in Te, because these beings can only beelements of Tao’s harmony, and in no way its determination; for they are in a way secondary,as they “came out of the womb of the matter.”68 Likewise, when actualized in its loss as a searchin Te and thus within a particular way of thinking, Tao becomes almost literally ‘way-making’.69 That is, Tao can be equally seen as including the later Heidegger’s choice of the old
Alemannic-Swabian Bewëgung as a metaphor for thinking as well. For us, this means that, even
if Laozi’s Tao – in its ineffability and essential nothingness – appears to resemble more closely
the character of Heidegger’s Being (that is, what for Heidegger underlays all thinking and philosophizing), its sense can be seen also as largely inclusive of that of Heidegger’s way of thinking. There should be no room for much surprise here – we are just prompted once again to
Heidegger’s note that “the word ‘way’ probably is a primal word that speaks to the reflective
mind of man.” 70
Now, in addition to its sense of ‘way’, Tao can be seen also as the ‘home’ for all existence and coexistence. For, as Tao ensures the harmony of all there is along the opposing powersof Yin and Yang, it is also where the individual beings aim to return along their Te. We need tonote here, though, that if Tao can readily accommodate Heidegger’s metaphorics of both ‘way’
and ‘home’, this is in no way indicative of any discrepancy in the perspective of Laozi. On thecontrary, as it was already pointed, the multifaceted sense of Tao allows it accommodate thesenses of a large number of Heidegger’s terms in a consistent fashion, including the ones of hisway, Being, way of thinking, woodpath, way-making, and home.
Similarly, the multifaceted sense of Laozi’s Te allows it too to consistently accommodate Heidegger’s metaphorics of both ‘way’ and ‘home’ – Te can be seen as being at once both
one’s way to and one’s home in the harmony of Tao. Te could be one’s individual way to Tao
when it is actualized when Tao is lost; Te could be one’s home in the harmony of Tao when it
68

Witter Bynner, Ch. 1.
In fact, this is how it has been rendered in the purposely philosophical translation of Roger T. Ames and David
L. Hall.
70
Martin Heidegger, On the Way to Language, p. 92; cf. Martin Heidegger, Unterwegs zur Sprache, Gesamtausgabe I, Band 12, S 187.
69

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upholds one’s individual adherence to Tao. Indeed, to the extent that Te becomes pressing in a
possible loss of Tao, an actualized Te, as a search for Tao, can be also seen as one’s waying andhomecoming. Furthermore, Te, as upholding one’s individual relationship to Tao, would be
responding to Tao’s essential nothingness, wu, with an effortless action, wu-wei, which would
be indeed the right action that both ensures and marks one’s adherence to the harmony of Tao.
And finally, when actualized in the loss of Tao as the search for Tao, Te can be also seen as
inclusive of the senses of both Novalis’ Heimweh and the Greek deinon, which for the later
Heidegger had the character of uncanniness that fundamentally motivates all our thinking andphilosophizing.
Thus, in the perspective of the present investigation, we can conclude that, if when disturbed Lao-tse’s harmony of Tao and Heidegger’s ‘at-home’ of the existential subject can beaddressed reflectively by way of, respectively, a diligent upholding of Te and a concernful
search for home, (while the identification of wu-wei as the “Taoist equivalent” of Heidegger’s
Gelassenheit or ‘releasement’ still stands),71 the parallel between the two thinkers in understanding thinking and philosophizing as waying and homecoming will be essentially complete.
6. Herodotus’ metaphorics of ‘journey’
The last point that I would like to bring here in support of the view that thinking and philosophizing can be aptly apperceived within the metaphorics of waying and homecoming comesfrom the dawn of the Western philosophical tradition and, more specifically, from the context
of the first record of a conjoined usage of philos (φῐ́λος), and sophia (σοφῐ́ᾱ), which is found in
Herodotus’ Histories. In their independent usage, the Greek word philos, which comes fromthe verb philein (φιλεῖν) most commonly translated as ‘to love’, had the meanings of ‘loved’,‘beloved’, ‘loving’, ‘dear’ and ‘friend’, whereas sophia, most commonly translated as ‘wisdom’, more originally had the meaning of ‘skill’ and ‘ability to do something well’. In his
Histories, Herodotus uses the verb philosopheîn (φιλοσοφεῖν) broadly in the sense of love tolearn, (which indeed comprises both existential and epistemic meanings), and links it to traveling across the world “for the sake of seeing various lands.”72 In a scene describing a meeting at
the Ancient city of Sardis between the Athenian legislator Solon and the king of Lydia Croesus
the latter is said to have said,ξεῖνε Ἀθηναῖε, παρ᾽ ἡµέας γὰρ περὶ σέο λόγος ἀπῖκται πολλὸς καὶ σοφίης εἵνεκεν τῆς σῆς καὶπλάνης, ὡς φιλοσοφέων γῆν πολλὴν θεωρίης εἵνεκεν ἐπελήλυθας. 73

On A.D. Godlay’s translation this is rendered as,
Our Athenian guest, we have heard much of you, by reason of your wisdom and your wanderings,
how that you have travelled far to seek knowledge and to see the world.74

71

Joan Stambaugh,“Heidegger, Taoism, and the Question of Metaphysics,” p. 85.
Herodotus, The History Of Herodotus, translated by G. C. Macaulay (London and New York: MacMillan andCo., 1890), I, 30.
73
Herodotus, Volumes I and II, translated by A.D. Godlay (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press;
London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1975), I, 30.
74
Ibid., I, 30.
72

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On Macaulay’s translation it is,Athenian guest, much report of thee has come to us, both in regard to thy wisdom and thy wanderings, how that in thy search for wisdom thou hast traversed many lands to see them.75

On Tom Holland’s translation,
We have heard a good deal about you, my guest from Athens: you have a reputation as a wise andwell-travelled man, as a philosopher indeed, one who has travelled the world and always kept hiseyes wide open.76

On Gregory Nagy’s translation,
Athenian guest [xenos], we have heard much about your wisdom [sophiā] and your wandering[planē], how you in your love of wise things [philosopheîn] have traveled all over the world for thesake of a sacred journey [theōriā]...77

We can note here that the usage of philosopheîn in Herodotus is rendered different in translations, not least because it is still far removed from the later, markedly speculative, sense of‘philosophize’. Herodotus’ sense appears to be suggestive of a simple love to learn or a naturaldesire to find out something previously unknown, something that may not be specific, or something of which we may not have any clues at all. One thing about this usage is clear, though:philosophizing in this early sense is linked to ‘wanderings’, ‘seeing’, and ‘traveling’ throughout
the ‘world’.78
In the perspective of the present investigation, it is important to note that philosopheîn
is most immediately associated with θεωρία (theōriā) or ‘seeing’. In fact, while the Greek sophia is of unknown origin, there is a strong etymological connection between ‘wisdom’ and‘seeing’ in other Western languages. Thus, the German Weisheit and the English wisdom aretraceable to the Proto-Indo-Europen root weid- meaning ‘to see’, to which are also traceable
some of the senses of the German Weise and the English way. 79 In this sense, whereas theassociations of both philosopheîn with theōriā and ‘wisdom’ with ‘seeing’ can be considered
clear pointers to the sense of the 20th century’s phenomenological reflection, (about which
Heidegger himself has had much to say),80 they are also key indications of what I am trying todemonstrate here, namely, that thinking and philosophizing can be aptly apperceived in themetaphorics of waying and homecoming. In this regard, Nagy’s rendition of theōriā as ‘a sacredjourney’ appears to be most suggestive, as the sense of ‘journey’ is inclusive of those of ‘waying’ and ‘homecoming’. In this sense, journey can be seen as holding together waying and75

Herodotus, The History Of Herodotus, I, 30.
Herodotus, The Histories, translated by Tom Holland (New York: Penguin Books, 2015), I, 30.
77
Gregory Nagy, The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours (Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013), p. 628.
78
See also Tomokazu Baba, “Philosophy as Journey,” pp. 9-10.
79https://www.etymonline.com.
80
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (1962), pp. 49ff; Sein und Zeit, SS 17ff.
76

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homecoming in an inseparable unity – the unity which defines philosophizing most fundamentally as journey, and indeed the journey of waying and homecoming.
We can exemplify this point by a slight expansion of the context here – the usage ofphilosopheîn on Herodotus’ account is made in a discussion on the meaning of happiness, inwhich the affluent and powerful Lydian king was hoping to be confirmed as “the happiest ofmen” by the “wisdom” of the well-traveled Athenian legislator.81 That Solon’s wisdom surprised and did not actually satisfy the king is perhaps a cliché, (though one that may be well
worth considering); but that it was gathered in a journey across the world is a finding that isgermane and well-fitting within our discussion here. In its primordial usage, philosophy is seen
as a journey all along waying and homecoming.
7. In conclusion
The above discussion of Heidegger’s way- and home-related vocabularies, Lao-tse’s notions of
Tao and Te, and Herodotus’ association of philosopheîn and theōriā was meant to demonstrates
the aptness of the metaphorics of ‘way’, ‘home’, and ‘journey’ for apperceiving our reflective
activities of thinking and philosophizing. This aptness was initially detected within the respective perspectives of thought of each of these three authors, but was also traced in a cross-perspectival fashion – along their interlinkage in the perspective of the present investigation. By
way of conclusion, I shall now briefly summarize the interlinks of these metaphorics and theway they recapture thinking and philosophizing as the journey of waying and homecoming.
In Heidegger’s early work Being and Time, the metaphorics of ‘way’ is traceable along
a wide range of his usage of the German language, in which it enters the role of a carrier of thefundamentals of the existential analytic of Dasein. More specifically, it conveys the epistemic
aspect of the existential dynamics of Dasein presenting the latter as being that in all its workings
is constantly ‘underway’; it also plays a key part in Heidegger’s discussion of time, which is an
intrinsic element of that dynamics. It is important to note that for early Heidegger the sense of
the term ‘way’ is different from that of method for multiple application, even if it is essentiallyrelated to Dasein’s epistemic and ontological concerns. Instead, it is more akin to that of a‘journey’ which can be completed only if one is able to go through it ‘all the way’. In this sense,
thinking and philosophizing in Heidegger’s early thought reappear as a kind of epistemic journey, which is always unique on its own and which can only be completed by going all the way
along it.
In Heidegger’s later work, the metaphorics of ‘way’ is much more nuanced, even as its
association with epistemic journey remains intact. With the metaphor of the ‘woodpath’,
Heidegger has suggested that a ‘way’ is created by going along it and that it is thus a way withan unknown end. In this sense, ‘thinking’ is understood as ‘questioning’ and as ‘going along
the way’, whereas the ‘way’ is understood as ‘way of thinking’. Heidegger has also associated‘thinking’ with ‘clearing a way’, which suggests once again that ‘thinking’ is creating a way(its own way), and additionally – that it is maintaining it. Furthermore, he has traced the senseof the ‘call’ of ‘what calls for thinking’ to that of ‘setting in motion’ and ‘getting underway’,
and has also identified it as a non-demanding but rather inviting and letting one reach one’s
destination. In this sense, he has also discussed the old German word Sinnan (‘to travel, to strive
81

Herodotus, The History Of Herodotus, I, 30.

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after, ... to take a certain direction’), which is an element of the etymology of the German and
Latin words for meaning and reflection, and which points to a common semantic genealogy of
the words for thinking and traveling that is traceable to the Proto-Indo-European sent or set
meaning ‘way’. Finally, in a discussion of the ancient Chinese notion of Tao, Heidegger has
pointed to the inadequacies of rendering its sense in Western languages as ‘reason, mind, raison, meaning, logos’, suggesting instead that it is rather Tao, which literally means ‘way’, thatprovides ‘the very source of our power to think what reason, mind, meaning, logos properly
mean to say’. Thus, Heidegger’s elaborations on the metaphorics of ‘way’ in his later thought
too point – and in various ways – to the intrinsic relation between ‘way’ and ‘thinking’, andultimately affirm once again the former as a fitting metaphor for apperception of the latter.
Heidegger’s early metaphorics of ‘home’ is associated with the fundamental existentialcondition for Dasein’s thinking and philosophizing. Its central term uncanniness has come tostand for the basic existential impulse that sets ‘in motion’ and ‘on the way’ Dasein’s understanding of itself and its disclosure of the world. For Heidegger, uncanniness is the existential
feeling of ‘not-at-home’, which may prompt an inauthentic search for the ‘at-home’ in the worldof everydayness associated with the ‘they’. And yet, it may also open Dasein to ‘its ownmost
potentiality-for-Being’ and thus to the possibility for Dasein’s authentic concern with Being,
which is the fundamental epistemic concern that underlies all its thinking and philosophizing.
Heidegger’s latter metaphorics of ‘home’ is again associated with the primary impulseof the existential subject for its both self-discovery and disclosure of the world. In substance, it
is a continuation of his earlier usage of ‘home’ related vocabulary but is now elaborated onalong its relationship to philosophizing, a discussion of the notion of deinon in Sophocles, andthe introduction of the tropes of homelessness, homesickness, and homecoming. Here, the term
homecoming, which specifies ‘the flight’ of thinking and philosophizing that originate in uncanniness, has a special significance for us, as it appears most obviously to be bridging themetaphorics of ‘way’ and that of ‘home’. In homecoming, waying, thinking, and philosophizing
converge into an intrinsic unity, which Heidegger sought to uncover and bring forward throughout his philosophy by making use of the two metaphorics in focus here.
It must have become also already clear that the metaphorics of way and that of home,
both of which persist throughout Heidegger’s thought, are inevitably linked with one another.
Most generally, we can see their connection in that terms such as uncanniness, homelessness,and homesickness stand for what sets the existential subject in motion or on the way, which isessentially a way to home. In the philosophical thinking of Heidegger, the metaphorics of ‘way’
offers recognizable terms for connecting the structural elements of the epistemic aspect of the
dynamics of the existential subject, whereas that of ‘home’ offers ones that bring to light the
primary existential condition for that dynamics. But not only are the metaphorics of ‘way’ andthat of ‘home’ inherently linked to one another, they also aptly convey and ensure the understanding of thinking and philosophizing in Heidegger’s both early and later thought. Within
their terms, thinking and philosophizing can be apperceived as waying and homecoming. Thatis, they can be apperceived as and along the way of an epistemic journey, which is always
unique and which unfolds along the uncanniness, homesickness, homelessness, the search for
home, and homecoming of the existential subject.

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Heidegger’s apperception of thinking and philosophizing as waying and homecoming
is also fittingly complemented by Laozi’s perspective on Tao and Te. Most generally, Tao,
which literally means ‘way’, is understood as the ineffable source of, and generally the ‘way’
to be followed by, all existence and harmony; whereas Te is the principle of one’s individual
relation and adherence to Tao, which become particularly pressing if Tao is lost. It is important
to note here that the senses of these concepts are multifaceted and that, whereas this may havemade them difficult to translate, it has also enabled them to carry the senses of multiple termsof the philosophical perspective of the Western thinker. Thus, they can be both shown to hostthe senses of Heidegger’s ‘way’ and ‘home’, even if in their own way. Tao can be seen at onceas the ‘way’ and ‘home’ of all existence; Te – as the ‘way’ and ‘home’ of one’s individual
existence. In this sense, when Te is actualized in the case of a loss of Tao, the search for Tao in
one’s Te can be seen – as in the perspective of the present investigation – as the journey of
one’s waying and homecoming.
Finally, the apperception of thinking and philosophizing as waying and homecoming is
also supported by the metaphorics of ‘journey’ used in Herodotus’ Histories in the context ofthe first recorded conjoined usage of philos and sophia. At the very dawn of the Western philosophical tradition, Herodotus uses the verb philosopheîn in the sense of love to learn, or desire
to find out, in a close association with theōriā or ‘seeing’. In the story of the meeting between
Solon and Croesus he narrates, philosophizing in this early sense is linked to ‘traveling for thesake seeing the world’. Now, as theōriā can also be translated as ‘journey’, it can also be seen
as inclusive of the senses of ‘waying’ and ‘homecoming’, which are in our focus here. And as
in this sense philosophizing is most fundamentally unveiled as journey, it can also be seen as
the journey of waying and homecoming.

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