Cologne, 12 August 1996
Dear Mr. Scheetz,
To respond to:
"And this characterization, rhetoric, doesn't capture my intended argument.
Aren't you maybe being too cursory? too lofty?"
I'm at a loss to see why my comments were lofty. I thought I was being
philosophically down-to-earth. Was I too cursory? Perhaps your elucidations will
help:
"1.It is my understanding that H (perhaps, Phenomenology) distinguishes
his method as hermeneutical/intuitive as opposed to the traditional
Aristotle/DesCartes logical/abstractive. He thence begins from an existential
concretum (an epoche?), separates the adventitious, and proceeds to
de-articulate its manifold significations thereby to
uncover, encounter, elucidate, wrest...the substrate "Being"."
This seems fair enough, roughly speaking. I don't see how an "existential
concretum" could be "an epoche", however. The "substrate Being" has many
dimensions.
Robert Scheetz:
"2.I was pointing to a structural congruency between the above
and the method implicit, for example, in the ritual structure of attic
tragedy, say "Oedipus", which progresses thru a radical destruction (holocaust
seem to me a fine word here) to the stark clarification,
increment by increment, of the profound and profoundly
hidden meaning (primal violence) of the plague in (human
existentiality of) Thebes (the world)."
So you would like to contend a congruency between Entbergung (unconcealing) and
violence as portrayed in Oedipus? If there is a congruency, there is also a
difference, namely, THE difference between the truth (unconcealedness) of beings
(Oedipus' situation) and the truth (unconcealedness) of the being of beings
(metaphysics) ('visible' by virtue of the step back). The latter essencing of
truth has always already essenced before Oedipus' tragedy can get under way. The
hidden meaning of the Theban plague (patricide) is the truth of Oedipus'
existence, the root cause of his fate as heralded by the Delphic oracle. His
swollen foot is his fateful im-pedi-ment. And the truth (unconcealedness) of the
being of beings? Is this the fate of Western humankind, to be set out into the
clearing of being in its standingness? Is this in-sight into the being of beings
the primeval, fateful im-pediment? The exposure to the truth of being certainly
seems to be being's challenge to Western humankind: the call to stand with
inter-esse among beings, manipulating them in-sightfully. But is the line to
violence so unambiguous, so fateful as it is in the case of Oedipus? And is
violence the ultimate yardstick by which this fate of Western humankind is to be
assessed? Or is violence just one of the dimensions of standing-ness?
Robert Scheetz continues
"3.I wanted to consider that the violence of the sparagmos is realized
linguistically in H's "destruction" and toward the identical goal:
uncovering truth, or meaning, being,...and with the seeming identical
outcome, death, annihilation,...the burden or meaning of Dasein."
Why so gloomy? Dasein is not only thrownness but also projectedness.
Being-unto-death does not translate as morbidness but as accepting mortality.
The finiteness of Dasein is rather counterposed to hubris. Dasein can also be
jubilation about being there in the ab-symal there, joy at the ex-posure to the
opennes of beyng.
Robert Scheetz:
"4. And that, therefore, Violence is the dynamic of the truth of being,
and the dynamical truth of being...."
I think this narrows the meaning of existence down to a doleful channel. The
"dynamic" of the truth of being in the sense of the opening of one's own
existence may lead to the step back. Even Oedipus says: "Now that I am nothing,
I have become human." (Oedipus at Colonus)
Cheers and regards,
Michael
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