Georgakis, Tziovanis
(PhD student at UCD)
PhD Title: The Pathway of Memory in Martin Heidegger
PhD Supervisor: Dermot Moran
PhD Summary: My thesis examines the masked and unasked problematic of memory in
Martin Heidegger and argues that the pathway of memory enables the question of the
meaning of Being to become the one and only question that interrogates the distinction
between Being and beings, the one and only fundamental distinction that is wholly forgotten
in metaphysical thought. It is memory that donates this unique ontological distinction, and
this unique memory is complemented by a unique oblivion, which neither gives presence
nor is given in presence. Moreover, I argue that Heidegger’s pathway of memory designates
the event of deconcealment, which marks the wondrous event of Being and paradoxically
recovers a pathless and oblivious Other as that which Being uniquely ‘is.’ At the same time, I
interpret Dasein as the memorial movement of the distinction between Being and beings.
Dasein collects itself back to its one and only memory through its historical assignment or
dispensation. In and through its assigning dispensation, Dasein is emplaced and replaced
with Others as a wholly Other, thus necessitating the meaning of Being to be collected,
emplaced, and replaced as Other. Furthermore, Dasein is attuned immemorially and
eternally in a silent discourse with Others as a wholly Other, thus forcing the meaning of
Being to be voiced immemorially and eternally as Other. Heidegger’s destruction of the
ontological tradition and the task of overcoming metaphysics are memorial discourses and
hint the one and only eternal resumption of Being through which Being gets remembered
and forgotten, doubly, simultaneously, and eternally. I conclude by noting that a lesson on
Heidegger’s commemorative lessons could only be propaedeutic because it can only
promise the cryptic destiny of the history of metaphysics that is before and beyond any
definite and determinative decryption.
Email Addresses: tziovanis.georgakis@ucd.ie, tziovanis74@yahoo.com