Paul Murphy answers a query concerning the seemingly ubiquitous
identification of (Heraclitus') polemos and Heidegger's 'wresting' as in
'wresting from unconcealment' with violence and domination:
>'Wrest' translates 'herausreissen', to tear out (of concealment), tear up
>(from the ground), rip out (by the roots); if not entirely coterminous with
>violent domination and subjugation, it certainly carries the sense of
>will-ful behavior.
It seems my poor little inconspicuous gardener tending to the ways of
things and the be-waying of Being in making the peaceful little path among
the weeds is not will-ful enough for wresting (translation of
'herausreissen'). If such a gardener wrests it would have to involve some
kind of pulling or ripping or tearing up by the roots. The route the
gardener takes in planning the path would seem to necessitate the ripping
and tearing out of roots, the under-lying, the ground-held.
I (in my pain-ful heart-aching manner) have two questions:
1 Given my utter ignorance of german but nonetheless armed with an
archaic but reasonably thick german dictionary: could the word
'herausreissen' also carry overtones of 'rescuing out', 'sketching out',
'extricating', even 'pruning'? I feel that a 'sketching out that rescues'
(discriminate pulling out to safety in order to safeguard) might offer an
alternative to ripping-out that feels more like the Heidegger I want to
rescue, more of a gentle and delicate weeding than indiscriminate
insecticide spraying or massive excavation? The fact that such a gardener
could rip and tear and pull by the roots is enough to equally guarantee a
watchful safe-guarding rescuing operation in its stead, one equally capable
of being spoken of as 'herausreissen'. It is certainly true that we must
see the wresting (of Being from lethia, from hidden-ness, from oblivion) as
a difficult and strenuous task, and thus the tendency, perhaps, to see it
as a violent or violating process. But need this be the case? As with
'verwindung' which could be trans-lated as over-coming, passing-over or
twisting-free (with respect to metaphysics); or could be seen more like a
non-overcoming that brings-along in an incorporation: 'herausreissen' might
be rendered in less jerky modes as a rescue and safeguarding operation, a
bringing-out-into-the-open (in order to save), a salvation exercise. In
Heidegger's dealing with the metaphysical tradition from Heraclitus or
Sophocles to Nietzsche, I do not detect a strong taste of blood; is not
this the main point of the business of wresting? The history of Being has
brought forth the 'epochs' bearing the names of ...; wresting Being from
unconcealment has involved wresting the un-thought from the thought of ...
Has this been a violent contest or one of successive clarifications,
trans-lations, trans-scriptions, re-collections? What thinkest thou?
2 This business of will-ful-ness. Is bringing-out in order to save
non-will-ful? The making of the path by way of following the way things
be-way in their paths is still a making, it leaves things different to what
they were, it makes, it pro-duces. The difference it makes is to bring-out
what is other wise concealed. If bringing-out is not tearing/ripping-out
then is it not will-ful? To bring some thing on, to clarify, to
bring-to-focus, to set some thing up, to give birth, to se-duce, to show
the way, etc: these are surely not violations of things; these are also
some sort of manifestation of will (they are not in any sense passive,
anyway even passivity Nietzsche has shown is some kind of will (to-power)).
What kind of will is operating in bringing-to-be-as-rescue? Saving from
danger is a willing to be of some thing that might cease, might be
obscured, might be covered, might be mis-taken. Saving re-takes, takes on
the world, wills the difference: but by bringing-out not by ripping-up. If
one were to bring out a person's essential untrustworthiness through public
debate in such a way that they tripped themselves up in their
suspiciousness, would this not be the exercise of some kind of will? But
such a will has not made some thing over or violated its essential nature.
later Paul 'quotes' Heidegger (B&T, reference S&Z 222)
>Entities get torn out of their concealedness. The factical
>uncoveredness of anything is always, as it were, a kind of theft
As an incidental (and perhaps erroneous) point, the above "Entities get
torn out of their concealedness..." utilises a torn-out that belongs to the
closed-off and covered-up aspect of Dasein in its facticity, whereas in the
same passage "Truth (uncoveredness) is something that must always first be
wrested from entities.", the word 'wrested' is used differently and in
contra-distinction to the following usage of "torn out" and "theft" which
applies more to the quotidian than to (authentic?) Da-sein........I leave
this for you to think over...
The business of virility has seemingly reared its head again here.
'Herausreissen' *can* be rendered in terms of ripping and tearing, but
perhaps can also be rendered as bringing-out-to-save. Which Heidegger do we
wish to resurrect, to save, to wrest?
I wrest my case (sic).
saddened-MP
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
identification of (Heraclitus') polemos and Heidegger's 'wresting' as in
'wresting from unconcealment' with violence and domination:
>'Wrest' translates 'herausreissen', to tear out (of concealment), tear up
>(from the ground), rip out (by the roots); if not entirely coterminous with
>violent domination and subjugation, it certainly carries the sense of
>will-ful behavior.
It seems my poor little inconspicuous gardener tending to the ways of
things and the be-waying of Being in making the peaceful little path among
the weeds is not will-ful enough for wresting (translation of
'herausreissen'). If such a gardener wrests it would have to involve some
kind of pulling or ripping or tearing up by the roots. The route the
gardener takes in planning the path would seem to necessitate the ripping
and tearing out of roots, the under-lying, the ground-held.
I (in my pain-ful heart-aching manner) have two questions:
1 Given my utter ignorance of german but nonetheless armed with an
archaic but reasonably thick german dictionary: could the word
'herausreissen' also carry overtones of 'rescuing out', 'sketching out',
'extricating', even 'pruning'? I feel that a 'sketching out that rescues'
(discriminate pulling out to safety in order to safeguard) might offer an
alternative to ripping-out that feels more like the Heidegger I want to
rescue, more of a gentle and delicate weeding than indiscriminate
insecticide spraying or massive excavation? The fact that such a gardener
could rip and tear and pull by the roots is enough to equally guarantee a
watchful safe-guarding rescuing operation in its stead, one equally capable
of being spoken of as 'herausreissen'. It is certainly true that we must
see the wresting (of Being from lethia, from hidden-ness, from oblivion) as
a difficult and strenuous task, and thus the tendency, perhaps, to see it
as a violent or violating process. But need this be the case? As with
'verwindung' which could be trans-lated as over-coming, passing-over or
twisting-free (with respect to metaphysics); or could be seen more like a
non-overcoming that brings-along in an incorporation: 'herausreissen' might
be rendered in less jerky modes as a rescue and safeguarding operation, a
bringing-out-into-the-open (in order to save), a salvation exercise. In
Heidegger's dealing with the metaphysical tradition from Heraclitus or
Sophocles to Nietzsche, I do not detect a strong taste of blood; is not
this the main point of the business of wresting? The history of Being has
brought forth the 'epochs' bearing the names of ...; wresting Being from
unconcealment has involved wresting the un-thought from the thought of ...
Has this been a violent contest or one of successive clarifications,
trans-lations, trans-scriptions, re-collections? What thinkest thou?
2 This business of will-ful-ness. Is bringing-out in order to save
non-will-ful? The making of the path by way of following the way things
be-way in their paths is still a making, it leaves things different to what
they were, it makes, it pro-duces. The difference it makes is to bring-out
what is other wise concealed. If bringing-out is not tearing/ripping-out
then is it not will-ful? To bring some thing on, to clarify, to
bring-to-focus, to set some thing up, to give birth, to se-duce, to show
the way, etc: these are surely not violations of things; these are also
some sort of manifestation of will (they are not in any sense passive,
anyway even passivity Nietzsche has shown is some kind of will (to-power)).
What kind of will is operating in bringing-to-be-as-rescue? Saving from
danger is a willing to be of some thing that might cease, might be
obscured, might be covered, might be mis-taken. Saving re-takes, takes on
the world, wills the difference: but by bringing-out not by ripping-up. If
one were to bring out a person's essential untrustworthiness through public
debate in such a way that they tripped themselves up in their
suspiciousness, would this not be the exercise of some kind of will? But
such a will has not made some thing over or violated its essential nature.
later Paul 'quotes' Heidegger (B&T, reference S&Z 222)
>Entities get torn out of their concealedness. The factical
>uncoveredness of anything is always, as it were, a kind of theft
As an incidental (and perhaps erroneous) point, the above "Entities get
torn out of their concealedness..." utilises a torn-out that belongs to the
closed-off and covered-up aspect of Dasein in its facticity, whereas in the
same passage "Truth (uncoveredness) is something that must always first be
wrested from entities.", the word 'wrested' is used differently and in
contra-distinction to the following usage of "torn out" and "theft" which
applies more to the quotidian than to (authentic?) Da-sein........I leave
this for you to think over...
The business of virility has seemingly reared its head again here.
'Herausreissen' *can* be rendered in terms of ripping and tearing, but
perhaps can also be rendered as bringing-out-to-save. Which Heidegger do we
wish to resurrect, to save, to wrest?
I wrest my case (sic).
saddened-MP
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---