owner-heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
>
> Ok, this is good.
>
> How do we decide what is and what is not idle chatter? How does the
> judgment operate, according to what understanding, situation,
> interpretive fluency, etc.? Anyone find this as interesting as I do?
If one does not know what idle chatter is from the beginning it seems
structurally certain that one shall never be able to discern it from
meaningful discourse later either. For, I think, to be able to start
one would have to know if the statement one started in was *not* idle
chatter - nicht wahr? I would not like to lay the foundation of
what was to be meaningful discourse with something that I could not
be certain w a s not idle chatter, for then the very basis of my
attempt at a definition would forever be uncertain.
Now what this amounts to is the impossibility of defining the
meaningful in terms of something else, since the very concept
of defining seems to crave for meaning in the first place, so
if you do not know what idle chatter is you never will. Do I
know? No, certainly not, but I suspect that this answer to the question
of idle chatter actually is idle chatter itself, but then: you could always
look upon my answer as a ladder to throw away :) when you have climbed
the metaphysical heights of idle chatter and nonsense.
It is interesting to note one fact about the recent debate on this list, and
that is that there seems to be some correlation between letters
containing angry remarks and letters containing remarks about the
fact that there is a lot of angry remarks being sent to the list. Then there
suddenly comes a third stage in which people send letters containing
remarks about the remarks of angry remarks. I would like to
claim being even more aloof...I send remarks about *this fact* and therefore I
have gained an even more distanced position to view the debate from than
those before me. Isn't that the point of these discussions? :)
I have a question about the use of greek in Heidegger's philosophy (see: I
haven't forgotten what this list is about!): The argument for using greek,
as I have understood it, is that greek is the language in which the
question of philosophy was first framed. OK. Now: what about chinese? What about
*any* old language? What about the 'dead languages'? Isn't it possible
that Heidegger here stumbled over a method even more efficient than he thought?
Can this method not be generalized to a philosophy which consists in
the translation of a question into as many different languages as possible
to study the question itself? And this 'new' linguophilosophy would
then be the final stage of philosophy and the way to overcome the Babelproblem?
Post Scriptum:
Philosophy ain't dead, it's just resting.
Nicklas
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
>
> Ok, this is good.
>
> How do we decide what is and what is not idle chatter? How does the
> judgment operate, according to what understanding, situation,
> interpretive fluency, etc.? Anyone find this as interesting as I do?
If one does not know what idle chatter is from the beginning it seems
structurally certain that one shall never be able to discern it from
meaningful discourse later either. For, I think, to be able to start
one would have to know if the statement one started in was *not* idle
chatter - nicht wahr? I would not like to lay the foundation of
what was to be meaningful discourse with something that I could not
be certain w a s not idle chatter, for then the very basis of my
attempt at a definition would forever be uncertain.
Now what this amounts to is the impossibility of defining the
meaningful in terms of something else, since the very concept
of defining seems to crave for meaning in the first place, so
if you do not know what idle chatter is you never will. Do I
know? No, certainly not, but I suspect that this answer to the question
of idle chatter actually is idle chatter itself, but then: you could always
look upon my answer as a ladder to throw away :) when you have climbed
the metaphysical heights of idle chatter and nonsense.
It is interesting to note one fact about the recent debate on this list, and
that is that there seems to be some correlation between letters
containing angry remarks and letters containing remarks about the
fact that there is a lot of angry remarks being sent to the list. Then there
suddenly comes a third stage in which people send letters containing
remarks about the remarks of angry remarks. I would like to
claim being even more aloof...I send remarks about *this fact* and therefore I
have gained an even more distanced position to view the debate from than
those before me. Isn't that the point of these discussions? :)
I have a question about the use of greek in Heidegger's philosophy (see: I
haven't forgotten what this list is about!): The argument for using greek,
as I have understood it, is that greek is the language in which the
question of philosophy was first framed. OK. Now: what about chinese? What about
*any* old language? What about the 'dead languages'? Isn't it possible
that Heidegger here stumbled over a method even more efficient than he thought?
Can this method not be generalized to a philosophy which consists in
the translation of a question into as many different languages as possible
to study the question itself? And this 'new' linguophilosophy would
then be the final stage of philosophy and the way to overcome the Babelproblem?
Post Scriptum:
Philosophy ain't dead, it's just resting.
Nicklas
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---