Cologne, 2 August 1996
The more I read of Tom Blancato's posts on the question of violence, the more I
have the impression that 1) this question is not originary and 2) it is not
being asked phenomenologically.
Re 1) If violence is to be a question for thinking, it must be situated. Tom
rightly points out that violence is a mode of being. This means it has to shown
as such from an understanding of being. I would add that violence is a mode of
being together (Mitsein), but nowhere do I see a suggestion that the
phenomenality of human beings being-together is being approached. This would
involve us, among other things, in rethinking aethos (as opposed to ethos), i.e.
dwelling in the world as well as the being of others (how is the other open AS
an other?).
I subscribe to J.Ben-Aharon's emphasizing the importance of the phenomenological
interpretation of Aristotle for Heidegger. This extends beyond the Physics and
the Metaphysics to the Ethics (notably the Nikomachian Ethics), yet again a
fundamental text of Western thinking that binds our thinking whether we know it
or not. The distinction between aethos and ethos is developed there. So get
yourself a Greek dictionary, Tom!
Re 2) Bringing violence to speak phenomenologically is to show it as a mode of
being. The understanding of being itself cannot be ignored in such an attempt.
Tom B. writes:
"But the Being of the Analytic is never simply a theme, it is always a
thrown-projectional-resolute being-towards-death-in-the-world-with- others
which is in each case "mine", someone's "mine". Though,
phenomenologically, we know that this, too, is not the case: it is,
rather, a child facing a saturday with no school, two people chatting in a
cafe, someone making a carreer decision, a fireman on the roof of a
burning building, someone languishing in an insitution for the elderly, a
man being raped 65 times in two days in a prison, the reflection of an
elderly man as portrayed in a Bergman film."
What does this mean: "phenomenologically, we know that this, too, is not the
case"? Specific 'ontic' descriptions are not already phenomenological. They
first have to be coaxed and teased to show themselves as, in this case, modes of
human being. The phenomenon of violence, if it is to be treated
phenomenologically, has to reveal itself as a mode of human being, 'essencing',
dwelling. And this it cannot do unless it is disclosed in relation to an
understanding of being (SZ is a first attempt at this). Which would bring us
back once again to considering the trans-lation of "staendiger Anwesung"(which
first becomes a concern for thinking after SZ). It could well turn out that
violence is an aspect of the virility that keeps cropping up here without being
focussed as a phenomenon. Virility: a mode of Staendigkeit in human dwelling?
As it is, this discussion of violence and nonviolence (still not explicated in
its positivity) has not been situated in a perspective that would allow the
phenomena involved to be approached. Therefore it rambles pretty much
incoherently, perhaps reeling from the effects of the moral charge of the
question raised. The discussion of 'polemos' has not been carried through but
only touched upon. 'To deinon' (Sophocles) surfaced once (I think it was Paul
Murphy) only to disappear again.
Maybe that's the way this particular cookie crumbles.
Cheers,
Michael
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