happens without a reason that one can always render as to why the matter has run its course this way rather than that” (cited in GA 10, 175–176/PR, 119). The foundation turns out to be itself without foundation, perhaps even requires its own self-deconstruction. Heidegger enters the very heart of the principle of reason to show how it self-deconstructs, as it were, from within. For, he asks, if the principle of reason states that everything that happens must have a reason, what then is the reason for the principle of reason? Indeed, if everything must have a reason, then the principle of reason (which is something) must also have a reason. “Indeed the principle of reason is, as a principle, not nothing. The principle is itself something. Therefore, according to what the principle itself tells us, it is the sort of thing that must have a reason. What is the reason for the principle of reason?” (GA 10, 17/PR, 11). Does the principle of reason have a reason? Nothing could be less certain: “Nihil est sine ratione. Nothing is without reason, says the principle of reason. Nothing—which means not even this principle of reason, certainly it least of all. It may then be that the principle of reason, that whereof it speaks, and this speaking itself do not belong within the jurisdiction of the principle of reason. To think this remains a grave burden. In short it means that the principle of reason is without reason. Said still more clearly: ‘Nothing without reason’—this, which is something, is without reason” (GA 10, 27/PR, 17, emphasis mine). Further, through this question, “Does the principle of reason have a reason?” it becomes apparent that reason itself does not rest upon a rational basis.
One recalls here how Kant speaks of a drive to reason, a Trieb, or also an “interest” of reason (Interesse der Vernunft; for instance: CPR, 496–502, 576, 593, 603–604, 614, 645), which reveals a certain nonrational basis of reason, leading Derrida to ask the following questions about the value and even honor of reason, all revealing the nonrational origin of reason: “The honor of reason—is that reason? Is honor reasonable or rational through and through? The very form of this question can be applied analogically to everything that evaluates, affirms, or prescribes reason: to prefer reason, is that rational or, and this is something else, reasonable? The value of reason, the desire for reason, the dignity of reason—are these rational? Do these have to do wholly with reason?” (R, 120). Is reason rational? Is the principle of reason rational? Does reason have a reason? One already sees here how the principle of reason is situated in a circle (What is the reason of the principle of reason? What is the foundation of a foundation?) that will throw it into a self-deconstruction, that is, into the abyss of its own impossible foundation. Or should one say, instead, that any foundation, as a foundation, must itself be without foundation? This led Deleuze to speak of the paradoxical nature of the logic of grounding, of the “comical ungrounding” of the principle of reason: “But who still speaks of a foundation, when the logic of grounding or the principle of reason leads precisely to its own ‘ungrounding,’ comical and disappointing.”16 The principle of reason will collapse (“run aground”) at the very place of its impossible foundation, “there where,” as Derrida puts it in Rogues, “the Grund opens up onto the Abgrund, where giving reasons [rendre-raison] and giving an account [rendre-compte]—logon didonai or principium reddendae rationis—are threatened by or drawn into the abyss” (R, 122). Heidegger reveals this self-deconstruction of the principle of reason by following the question “why,” which, in its infinite quest for a ground, actually accentuates its own lack of foundation: “Whenever we pursue the ground/reason of a being, we ask: why? Cognition stalks this interrogative word from one reason to another. The ‘why’ allows no rest, offers no stop, gives no support. The ‘why’ is the word for the tireless advance into an and-so-forth that research, in the event that it simply and blindly belabors itself, can take so far that it perforce can go too far with it” (GA 10, 185/PR, 126).
Before dwelling on this paradoxical self-undermining of the principle of reason, I begin by stressing that Heidegger considers our present age to be entirely ruled and “held in the sway of the fundamental principle of rendering sufficient reasons” (GA 10, 187/PR, 128). This principle states that “‘for every truth’ (which means, according to Leibniz, every true proposition) ‘the reason can be rendered’” (GA 10, 34/PR, 22). This principle in fact defines what science answers to (although science does not reflect upon it but is rather driven by it), as Heidegger makes the claim that “the demand to render reasons is, for the sciences, the element within which its cognition moves, as does the fish in water and the bird in air” (GA 10, 46–47/PR, 30). In fact, science as such rests upon and answers to the demand of the principle of reason: “Science responds to the demand of ratio reddenda and does so unconditionally. Otherwise, it couldn’t be what it is” (GA 10, 47/PR, 30). Indeed, the principle of reason permeates and rules our entire human existence and historical age to such an extent that in fact it not only rules science but philosophy as such. “The principium rationis as thought by Leibniz not only determines, by the sort of demand it makes, modern cognition in general, but it permeates in a decisive manner that thinking known as the thinking of thinkers—philosophy. As far as I can see, the full import of this fact has not yet been thought through” (GA 10, 64/PR, 43). Further, Heidegger stresses that the scope of the principle of reason is not limited to “the demand of reason to be rendered . . . as an abstract rule of thinking,” for it involves the “practical” scope of an ordering and transformation of nature itself as well as humanity. “The demand was bepowering in a strange way, namely, that the energies of nature as well as the mode of their procurement and use determine the historical existence of humanity on earth” (GA 10, 83/PR, 56).
It is matter of rendering reasons to a demand for a reason. Heidegger insists on the “demand-character of reason,” of ratio as ratio reddenda. “What is bepowering about the principle of reason is the demand that reasons be rendered” (GA 10, 42/PR, 27). And therefore, the reddendum, “the demand that reasons be rendered, now speaks unabatedly and without surcease across the modern age and out over us contemporaries today. The reddendum, the claim that reasons be rendered, has insinuated itself between the thinking person and their world in order to take possession of human cognition in a new manner” (GA 10, 37/PR, 24). Ultimately, Heidegger considers the “reign” of the “mighty” principle of reason—the demand to render (sufficient) reasons—to be the great uprooting of authentic humanity. Commenting upon the “strange” normative power that the principle of reason has on our lives, he writes: “When I use the word ‘strange’ [unheimlich] here, I mean it not in a sentimental sense. One must think it in both a literal and substantive sense, namely, that the unique unleashing of the demand to render reasons threatens everything of humans’ being-at-home and robs them of the roots of their subsistence, the roots from out of which every great human age, every world-opening spirit, every molding of the human form has thus far grown” (GA 10, 47/PR, 30). His critique is quite severe, as he continues by claiming that “the claim of the mighty Principle of rendering reasons withdraws the subsistence from contemporary humanity” (GA 10, 47/PR, 30) and that “the more decisively humans try to harness the ‘mega-energies’ that would, once and for all, satisfy all human energy needs, the more impoverished becomes the human faculty for building and dwelling in the realm of what is essential” (GA 10, 47/PR, 30–31). In short, as he concludes, the demand to render reasons amounts to a “withdrawal of roots” (GA 10, 47–48/PR, 31). In fact, the dominance of the principle of reason corresponds to “the most extreme withdrawal of being” (GA 10, 83/PR, 56). This withdrawal corresponds to the project of total calculability of the real, which goes hand in hand with the project of reducing the event, that is, what is eventful in the event.
This discussion will proceed step by step. Heidegger begins by recalling what the principle of reason states, namely that nihil est sine ratione: nothing is without a reason. It asks for a reason so that nothing is without a why: “Nihil est sine ratione. Nothing is without reason. There is nothing—and here that means everything that in some manner is—that is without reason” (GA 10, 6/PR, 5). The principle of reason is a statement about beings as a whole, affirming that every being has a reason, as well as a cause, since Heidegger reminds states that Leibniz had included in the principle of reason a principle of causality. Now, the expression “nothing is without a reason” (or a cause)
