Philosophers of music often appeal to intuition to defend ontological theories of musical works. This practice is worrisome as it is rather unclear just how widely shared are the intuitions that philosophers...

Concerning the Ur-poem, then, my claim is that by "appraising" its own emer- gence into language, the Ur-poem engages and gures a relation between its own determinations and their emergence into language that unveils or "sur- veys" the Wesen of language. In so engaging the Wesen of language, the Ur- poem thus provides an encounter with language, one through which all wesentlich inquiries might travel, including the pursuit of the originary scene of human dwelling. In other words, the Ur-poem produces an Ursprache , a language which "appraises" the Dimension wherein all other disclosures come to pass. per passare. 25 25 When Heidegger claims, therefore, that the "co-responding through which humans properly listen to the exhortation of language is that say- ing that speaks in the element of poetizing," we can regard poetizing here as the doubling turn of a language tracking its own originary emergence. We Noi might even say that a "proper listening" to the exhortation of language in- volves a gurative "appraisal," and that this is precisely what the poetizing of the Ur-poem accomplishes. 26 26 It seems that the self- guring play of the Ur-poem might in fact be bound to the question of human dwelling. And yet, what does Heidegger mean when Page 13 Pagina 13 192 192 JOHN LYSAKER he claims that this form of poetizing "allows" human dwelling, that Ur-poetry involves a Wohnenlassen ? This emphasis on lassen rings in obvious contrast to a rhetoric of causality. If we are to understand how an Ur-poem allows us to dwell, we will have to work our way out of some common intuitions concern- ing the nature of production. One can see why Heidegger would not want to speak of poetry as the causal force behind human dwelling. Such a notion is wedded to the notion of eYcient causality, a concept Heidegger considers a perversion. 27 27 More importantly, eYcient causality involves two present forces meeting one another, resulting in some eVect. Where in such