The Counterintuitive Logic of the Nothing and the Gift of Nihilism: A Reading of Heidegger

This paper presents an interpretation of nihilism based on the logic of nothingness. In the first part, I explore the mode of manifestation of nothingness, arguing that it resides at the core of the negative mode in which the Being of beings reveals itself: its withdrawal is precisely its mode of giving itself to us. To ex-amine this obscure mode of disclosure, I distinguish between two different meanings of nothingness: nothingness as the total other of beings and Being as nothing. Following the latter and the negative and counterintuitive logic that it implies, in the second part, I offer an interpretation of nihilism. If in the age of nihilism "there is nothing to Being itself"-as Heidegger claimed-one may argue-with Heidegger-that this "denial itself had to be-come the highest and most austere revealing of Being." This in-terpretation of nihilism may contradict Heidegger's own often reactionary views on modernity