Student Question
Explain Heidegger's concept of "the fourfold" from "Building, Dwelling, Thinking."
Quick answer:
Heidegger's concept of the fourfold from "Building, Dwelling, Thinking" concerns what it is that makes a particular place or space a dwelling place. In other words, a place where we can feel at home. The earth element of the fourfold embraces the totality of the things with which we share our world. Sky refers to the rhythms of our existence. Gods relates to the ethos of a community. Mortals are those who live in that community.
Heidegger's concept of the fourfold is extremely difficult to follow. Indeed, many scholars ignore the concept altogether, seeing it as an obscure, quasi-mystical insight that is virtually impossible to fathom. However, if one wishes to understand Heidegger's late thought then it is essential to get to grips with the fourfold, as it forms such a major part of this period of his lengthy philosophical career.
Putting things as simply as humanly possible, the fourfold is Heidegger's attempt at describing what it means to be at home in the world. In the modern world, with its disruptive social and economic changes, all too many people experience a sense of homelessness, a sense of not belonging anywhere. In Heidegger's terminology, they do not dwell anywhere.
In order for an authentic dwelling to take place all four elements of the fourfold must be present. They are as follows:
Earth. Generally speaking, what Heidegger...
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means by earth is the totality of all the things—animal, vegetable, and mineral—with which we share our world. Earth is not an object to be exploited, or something over which we exert power and control. It is the dwelling place in which we feel at home.
Sky. The sky is Heidegger's poetic way of referring to the rhythms of an authentic dwelling. It embraces that which belongs to or comes from the literal sky: planetary motions, the changing of the seasons, and so on. An authentic dwelling is that lived beneath the sky.
The gods. The most complicated element of the fourfold, Heidegger seems to mean the ethos of an authentic community when he refers to the gods. The gods are the unspoken laws that provide ultimate moral guidance. One can say that in Sophocles's Antigone, the title character appeals to the gods in both senses of the word in her defiance of Creon.
Mortals. Mortals are human beings, those with whom we dwell, those who share our space upon the earth beneath the sky according to the community ethos of the gods. Heidegger uses the term "mortals"—as opposed to human beings—because he wants to emphasize that death is a defining feature of what it means to be human.