ABSTRACT
The ‘Turning’ is a reorientation in both Heidegger’s thought and methodology, that attempts to answer the question of Being by challenging the centrality of the human being. Dasein is now addressed not as the being-there but as the there of Being, while language’s inherent openness is contrasted to technology’s closed systematicity. In this light, language is not merely the medium of nearness but nearness itself. During this short middle period, Heidegger dissociates nearness from technology, partly because of his Nazi allegiance and partly because of his philosophy. Despite the changes, Heidegger continues to use a strong metaphorical language, focused on the house, the homeland, the polis and spirit. More specifically, this chapter discusses
the way technology is theorized, when phenomenology is abandoned,
the way nearness, time and space are theorised, when their investigation is divorced from the consideration of the mediation of technology,
the effects of the previous points on the understanding of the polis and politics, and finally,
the reconceptualisation of metaphor, when it is inserted in the discussion of nearness.
