> I find Heidegger's conviction that Greek and German are the most
>philosophical of languages one of the places where love of one's own
>leads him to simply assert something as true-he offers no argument to
>support this assertion in An Introduction to Metaphysics. His assertion
>has whatever plausibility it can appeal to because of the existence of
>Greek and German philosophy.
In defense of Heidegger, the belief that there is a special connection
between Greek and German is fairly widespread in Germany. My roommate
there, certainly no Nazi nor even a particular enthusiast of things German,
quite unselfconsciously asserted the same thing (he even claimed that the
Germans pronounced Greek like the ancients did, like anyone would know).
This leads me to believe that it is a general cultural assumption among
educated Germans, sort of like Americans belief in their unique destiny
(for good or bad).
I don't know enough about linguistics to know the veracity of this claim.
Nor do I know whether German is better able than any romance language to
express Greek grammar, which underlies his attempts to recover the Greek
understanding of being as presencing. Of course, that presumes they
thought of being in this manner...
Chris
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I just can't stop
When my spark gets hot
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