Martin Heidegger

Language as Home: Heidegger’s Vision of Dwelling

Finally, Heidegger’s thesis invites conversation rather than dogma. Wittgenstein’s later view that meaning is use (Philosophical Investigations, 1953) complements the idea that forms of life and speech are inseparable, even if it avoids talk of “Being.” Meanwhile, Benjamin’s “The Task of the Translator” (1923) hints at a kinship: translation seeks the “pure language” that lets meanings converge without erasure. Critics caution against linguistic determinism and urge attention to material conditions; yet Heidegger largely agrees that language is not a cage but an opening. The enduring insight is modest yet profound: by attending to how we speak—and how speech speaks us—we either deepen or diminish the home we make together. [...]