Thinkers
Mont Allen wrote recently concerning whether we might be:
>willing to call Heidegger a theologian?
Well, Heidegger's most important 'turn': from concern with beings to
concern with Being, could be construed as looking away from the material
life of things and upwards towards the creator god or towards the godly.
But, for Heidegger, I think, god and the godly might constitute the highest
being but not Being and perhaps more radically: precisely not-Being.
Heidegger basically agrees with Nietzsche that the gods have fled and
contemporary religiosity does not/can not fill such a vacuum but even if it
did/could it would still stand in front and cover Being. Of course, an
absent being can have some affinity with what is not-being (Being) and thus
much contemporary theology has some things in common with Heidegger's later
thought and in deed has to some extent obtained from it. But ultimately I
would suggest strongly that the thinking of Being is not and precisely not
theology (it is also not 'philosophy' or 'science' (as in ontology) and it
is not onto-theology. Heidegger's attempt at thinking Being is an attempt
at breaking with (but somehow belonging with too) the entire
onto-theological history of philosophy whereupon the re-collection of such
onto-theology becomes the means to break with it. Heidegger's is a radical
engagement with thinking (beings/Being). The habit (from at least Plato
onwards) of looking to the highest is one that Heidegger shares with most
philosophers (including Marx and Nietzsche) and thus could come across as a
kind of theo-logy -- thinking the highest being (or the highest being's
thinking) but it would, I hazard, be a mistake to confuse this looking-up
with a concern with god/ the godly. I might add that Heidegger's thinking
is perhaps more a-kin to the practices of the taoists than the (christian)
theologists -- see 'Conversation on a country path' in 'Discourse on
Thinking' (Gelassenheit), 1966, Harper.
Michael Eldred wrote recently:
>The very simplicity of the thinking of being is the hardest (lightest)
>thing (not) to grasp. Thus it is useless in any institutional context.
Yes the unbearable lightness of Being. It can not be grasped be cause it
(is it an it?) is not (a graspable) thing. It is the is-ness of is. It: not
being. It: not use-able. It: the source of all use-ability. It: use-less.
So who cares? Perhaps think-ing is care-ing: the thinker cares for Being.
The thinker brings Being to a careful nurturing (not using). Like a
(perfect) gardener. In what realm of being does this 'gardening' take
place? The fruit of such human-thinking labours is manifested primarily
(but no mean exclusively) in language, in speeches (articulations), in
utterances (outer-ances).
Michael Eldred later asks:
>How is
>it that poetic language has the task first and foremost of opening being and
>wresting a draft of the being of beings from hiddenness?
Language is the fore-most 'medium' for the 'fruition' of Being and the
art-work is the fore-most site for the appearance of the experience of
Being, thus, the linguistic art-work has a priveleged position in the
revelation of Being in thinking. It needn't be poetry as such. Just the
poetic. Poeisis. I feel as though this is nonetheless inadequate to
properly answer the question as to the priority of the poetic in the
opening of Being. Perhaps Heidegger uses the poetic as a kind of model or
Idea of Art as the site of revelation-work?
Must go
MP
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
Mont Allen wrote recently concerning whether we might be:
>willing to call Heidegger a theologian?
Well, Heidegger's most important 'turn': from concern with beings to
concern with Being, could be construed as looking away from the material
life of things and upwards towards the creator god or towards the godly.
But, for Heidegger, I think, god and the godly might constitute the highest
being but not Being and perhaps more radically: precisely not-Being.
Heidegger basically agrees with Nietzsche that the gods have fled and
contemporary religiosity does not/can not fill such a vacuum but even if it
did/could it would still stand in front and cover Being. Of course, an
absent being can have some affinity with what is not-being (Being) and thus
much contemporary theology has some things in common with Heidegger's later
thought and in deed has to some extent obtained from it. But ultimately I
would suggest strongly that the thinking of Being is not and precisely not
theology (it is also not 'philosophy' or 'science' (as in ontology) and it
is not onto-theology. Heidegger's attempt at thinking Being is an attempt
at breaking with (but somehow belonging with too) the entire
onto-theological history of philosophy whereupon the re-collection of such
onto-theology becomes the means to break with it. Heidegger's is a radical
engagement with thinking (beings/Being). The habit (from at least Plato
onwards) of looking to the highest is one that Heidegger shares with most
philosophers (including Marx and Nietzsche) and thus could come across as a
kind of theo-logy -- thinking the highest being (or the highest being's
thinking) but it would, I hazard, be a mistake to confuse this looking-up
with a concern with god/ the godly. I might add that Heidegger's thinking
is perhaps more a-kin to the practices of the taoists than the (christian)
theologists -- see 'Conversation on a country path' in 'Discourse on
Thinking' (Gelassenheit), 1966, Harper.
Michael Eldred wrote recently:
>The very simplicity of the thinking of being is the hardest (lightest)
>thing (not) to grasp. Thus it is useless in any institutional context.
Yes the unbearable lightness of Being. It can not be grasped be cause it
(is it an it?) is not (a graspable) thing. It is the is-ness of is. It: not
being. It: not use-able. It: the source of all use-ability. It: use-less.
So who cares? Perhaps think-ing is care-ing: the thinker cares for Being.
The thinker brings Being to a careful nurturing (not using). Like a
(perfect) gardener. In what realm of being does this 'gardening' take
place? The fruit of such human-thinking labours is manifested primarily
(but no mean exclusively) in language, in speeches (articulations), in
utterances (outer-ances).
Michael Eldred later asks:
>How is
>it that poetic language has the task first and foremost of opening being and
>wresting a draft of the being of beings from hiddenness?
Language is the fore-most 'medium' for the 'fruition' of Being and the
art-work is the fore-most site for the appearance of the experience of
Being, thus, the linguistic art-work has a priveleged position in the
revelation of Being in thinking. It needn't be poetry as such. Just the
poetic. Poeisis. I feel as though this is nonetheless inadequate to
properly answer the question as to the priority of the poetic in the
opening of Being. Perhaps Heidegger uses the poetic as a kind of model or
Idea of Art as the site of revelation-work?
Must go
MP
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---