Roberto Ferreira wrote recently:
> Mr. Pennamacoor,
>Your metaphysical explanation of Heidegger's relation with philosophy -
>Heidegger as essentially a thinker of the Being and only per accidens a
>philosopher - is somewhat deceiving.
>Let me propose you another one: Heidegger as Being is a thinker of Being,
>but as a being he is a philosopher! An ontological difference!
At least a further and more profound deception here I think. Thinking
("Heidegger as Being") is *closeness* to Being *not* Being it self. Of
course, Heidegger and Heidegger's thinking/writing are both beings, but
thinking (in the long and winding pathways that Heidegger lays out for us
in his oeuvre) is an attempt (a being attempted) at not-covering Being in
beings. Thinking is one (forked and deceptively simple) path, art (poeisis)
an other, prayer (theo-logistics) an other, techne logos (the framework) an
other still. All are paths towards the uncovering of Being through
closeness (dis-closure). None perhaps can succeed since paths are merely
beings that cover the revelations they reveal, but: does that mean they are
deceptions? Like Marx, Heidegger (albeit in an other language) realises
that human-being is truly human only when it labours towards this closeness
through thought-works, art-works, divination-works, frame-works. Because
the labourings are beings and the works are beings the result of such
workings are more beings that inevitably cover, frame, structure, contain,
smear, etc (do you see what I mean here?) the clearing that is opened by
such clearing-work (one instance in Marx is the utter acceptance of
ideology as necessary falsehood -- although philosophy (Marx/Marxism) must
attempt to reveal the truth -- the natural state of man as communist-man, a
re-turn to nature after pre-history has passed (this passing, the
re-volution)). The footprints along travelled paths (of thinking), the
ashes of fires needed to remain in the cleared clearings opened by such
thinking, the altogether all-too-human signs and traces of humans
attempting to live in such clearings (civilisation, society, the polis,
cultura...) -- surely these beings are not deceptions but simply the
workings of the ontological difference that Heidegger with consumate
ingenuity revealed to us in a profusion of ways. Attempts at truth leave
traces of such attempts and these in turn become further obscurations that
require further clearing-work etc (you can't make an ommelette without
breaking the egg, etc).
That Heidegger was a philosopher-being, that he was an inheritor of
culture, that he lived during very turbulent times, that he worked in
academia, that he wrote and spoke and gave radio interviews, ... is all
very true and much time and energy has been spent in examining his
particular concrete existence as a man, as a teacher, etc. None of this can
nor should be completely dissociated from the writings, the thinkings, the
speakings that issued forth in his name. More than anyone Heidegger gave
thought to the essentially questionable (because questioning) the
essentially enigmatic the essentially perverse nature of human existence:
such essentially problematic nature becomes the key to the human's access
to Being -- human-being is the being that questions Being (often through
questioning beings --science), that puts Being into question. As
questioning-Being and questioning-being humans cannot not engage in quests,
in voyaging, in walking new paths, in leaving and staying home. In such
quests and re-quests humans leave their spoor -- this could be writings and
other droppings that could influence further path-taking and path-making
and thus lead-astray or into new paths because they might suggest the
crossing at a cross-ways ... What is this to do with deception?
In 'Conversation on a country path' Heidegger has a scholar realise
"Evidently the nature of man is released to that-which-regions because this
belongs to it so essentially, that without man that-which-regions can not
be a coming forth of all natures, as it is." (From 'Gelassenheit')
Being needs man; man needs to question beings, needs to quest: thus Being
needs man to quest after beings -- but in order to bring Being into the
clearing cleared through such quests.
Let us think.
MP
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
> Mr. Pennamacoor,
>Your metaphysical explanation of Heidegger's relation with philosophy -
>Heidegger as essentially a thinker of the Being and only per accidens a
>philosopher - is somewhat deceiving.
>Let me propose you another one: Heidegger as Being is a thinker of Being,
>but as a being he is a philosopher! An ontological difference!
At least a further and more profound deception here I think. Thinking
("Heidegger as Being") is *closeness* to Being *not* Being it self. Of
course, Heidegger and Heidegger's thinking/writing are both beings, but
thinking (in the long and winding pathways that Heidegger lays out for us
in his oeuvre) is an attempt (a being attempted) at not-covering Being in
beings. Thinking is one (forked and deceptively simple) path, art (poeisis)
an other, prayer (theo-logistics) an other, techne logos (the framework) an
other still. All are paths towards the uncovering of Being through
closeness (dis-closure). None perhaps can succeed since paths are merely
beings that cover the revelations they reveal, but: does that mean they are
deceptions? Like Marx, Heidegger (albeit in an other language) realises
that human-being is truly human only when it labours towards this closeness
through thought-works, art-works, divination-works, frame-works. Because
the labourings are beings and the works are beings the result of such
workings are more beings that inevitably cover, frame, structure, contain,
smear, etc (do you see what I mean here?) the clearing that is opened by
such clearing-work (one instance in Marx is the utter acceptance of
ideology as necessary falsehood -- although philosophy (Marx/Marxism) must
attempt to reveal the truth -- the natural state of man as communist-man, a
re-turn to nature after pre-history has passed (this passing, the
re-volution)). The footprints along travelled paths (of thinking), the
ashes of fires needed to remain in the cleared clearings opened by such
thinking, the altogether all-too-human signs and traces of humans
attempting to live in such clearings (civilisation, society, the polis,
cultura...) -- surely these beings are not deceptions but simply the
workings of the ontological difference that Heidegger with consumate
ingenuity revealed to us in a profusion of ways. Attempts at truth leave
traces of such attempts and these in turn become further obscurations that
require further clearing-work etc (you can't make an ommelette without
breaking the egg, etc).
That Heidegger was a philosopher-being, that he was an inheritor of
culture, that he lived during very turbulent times, that he worked in
academia, that he wrote and spoke and gave radio interviews, ... is all
very true and much time and energy has been spent in examining his
particular concrete existence as a man, as a teacher, etc. None of this can
nor should be completely dissociated from the writings, the thinkings, the
speakings that issued forth in his name. More than anyone Heidegger gave
thought to the essentially questionable (because questioning) the
essentially enigmatic the essentially perverse nature of human existence:
such essentially problematic nature becomes the key to the human's access
to Being -- human-being is the being that questions Being (often through
questioning beings --science), that puts Being into question. As
questioning-Being and questioning-being humans cannot not engage in quests,
in voyaging, in walking new paths, in leaving and staying home. In such
quests and re-quests humans leave their spoor -- this could be writings and
other droppings that could influence further path-taking and path-making
and thus lead-astray or into new paths because they might suggest the
crossing at a cross-ways ... What is this to do with deception?
In 'Conversation on a country path' Heidegger has a scholar realise
"Evidently the nature of man is released to that-which-regions because this
belongs to it so essentially, that without man that-which-regions can not
be a coming forth of all natures, as it is." (From 'Gelassenheit')
Being needs man; man needs to question beings, needs to quest: thus Being
needs man to quest after beings -- but in order to bring Being into the
clearing cleared through such quests.
Let us think.
MP
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