Cologne, 17 July 1996
I suppose I have no-one to blame but myself: the aside on "outside thinking".
What really concerns me is what I tried to say within thinking on twisting
metaphysics, and now the aside has unleashed a violent hailstorm, seemingly
forcing me under the tree of true Heideggerianism for protection.
Heidegger's Hoelderlin, his calls for sacrifice, the Bremer Vortraege, etc...
All these aspects in H. make me look askance or shudder as much as you, Paul. So
I am not signing a blank cheque for H.
Tom Blancato adds:
"Nor will your violent dismissal, which attempts in too facile a way, to put off
any and all critiques as mere opinion fallen from the path of the question of
Being, the unacceptable invocation of the "who is speaking", or -- shudder -- as
mere psychology."
You're saying this to someone who regards himself as one of Heidegger's critics.
So "not any and all critiques": I wish there were critiques that addressed and
engaged the central question and insights that led to Heidegger to take a step
back from metaphysics. But they are very scant. My aside was provoked by the
observation that just about all of what is regarded as avant-garde thinking
today, starting with the French and going on to PostModern theory, despite the
gestures of leaving metaphysics behind, are firmly rooted in it and oblivious of
it. Subjecticity, for example, is most commonly left unquestioned. This includes
discourse theory, semiotic theory!
And there is no shortage of sociological and psychological ways of reckoning
with the thinking of beyng. Farias, Bourdieu and Habermas are just three names
among many. This has political intent and political effects, i.e. in the
institutions and culture.
And, living in Germany, I venture to say that there is something like a climate
of shame with regard to Heidegger, stretching from your average Spiegel-reader
(the democratic 'public debate' has successfully indoctrinated the formula
H.=Nazi) to 'professional intellectuals'. This means, among other things, that
whole generations of open-minded ('progressive' or 'left-wing') intellectuals in
Germany shy away from him. Does one have to be ashamed to talk of "German
thinking" today? Have the tables turned so diametrically, that from making
claims to its world-historical lead role, German thinking is now reduced to
shame-facedly hiding itself in Anglo-American philosophy?
Paul Murphy asks:
"How well-defined is the boundary-line between the politics of thinking and the
thinking of being?"
There is no clean cut. But there is a hymen, a passageway between an inside and
an outside the thinking of beyng. The raggedness of the distinction does not
mean that the difference disappears altogether. After all, there is a clear
point of orientation: thinking the sense of being (standing presence).
As for, say, Derrida's and Levinas' relation to H.'s thinking, these are larger
issues. For some time now, I have been thinking about what called Levinas to
thinking, and his ways of misreading H., i.e. overlooking what is earth-shifting
in the thinking of beyng, to get to where he wants to go (ethics of the other).
And beings coming to stand in presence in aletheia? This simplicity is not
facile, but rich in what it gives to think. It is not simply wandering in H.'s
footsteps. I think that thinking this through allows, among other things,
Verwindung to be better understood. Which is where we were in our discussion
lately. Sobrely thinking simple issues. Which does not mean thinking is devoid
of pleasure. Thus I am still partial to the heading of my last posting:
To the few who care for thinking.
Cheers,
Michael
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