Tom Blancato wrote:
>I think it's best not thought of as a line at all. The line is a
>reduction. Death, for us, is irreducibly a matter of *meaning* and
>understanding in/for which the schema of the line participates on rarely
>without problematic abstraction.
>
>As for the "death of the father", like so many different themes which
>surface here and there on the "left side of things" (I guess...), it is a
>classic case of the failure to grasp the issue of (non)violence: violent
>thought/action kills the father, nonviolent thoughtaction approaches the
>problem of the *tyrant*, leaving *paternality* intact, albeit minus its
>*dominance*. It is a serious failing to attach *paternalism* as such,
>since there are, after all, fathers. Better to say, "the death of the
>tyrant".
Just a lurker here, and by no means steeped in Heidegger (more of a
Nietzsche nut), but a couple questions occur to me that perhaps other more
knowlegable about Heidegger might be able to answer.
1. The line between Being and Not-Being. I think that is an evocative
notion, although I'm not sure, as of yet, of what. Worth pursuing, though, I
think. Hegel, I believe, synthesizes the opposition between Being and
Not-Being as encompassed within Becoming, taking his clue it would seem from
Heraclitus. The chief insufficiency of Being and Not-Being as notions is
their timeless abstractiveness, if you will, while Becoming, I suppose one
would have to say, is, speaking rather loosely, a temporal concretion. It is
interesting that the Hegelian complement to Becoming is _Dasein_, or
Existence. To what degree and how does this dialectical progression find
reflection in Heidegger's thinking? What might be the further meaning of the
"line between Being and Not-Being" relative to the overarching notion of
Becoming which according to the Hegelian analysis overcomes the
insufficiencies entailed by them? (It is interesting that their
insufficiency would be here exactly what might formerly have been thought of
as their sufficiency, e.g., their timelessness.)
2. Parmenides might, of course, be considered as the "father" of the whole
Socratic-Platonic school, and thus, by extension, of the whole scientific
tradition of the West. ("That which is, is; that which is not, is not.")
_Episteme_ over _Doxa_, in other words. The scientist vs. the sage.
Assigning "paternity" here I think can be helpful and informative, perhaps
liberating. It doesn't change, however, the fact of that paternity--it is
not a question of simply rolling things back to Heraclitus, cancelling out
the whole post-Parmenidian evolution, but of recovering the lost remainder,
reincorporating the Heraclitean insight--a matter of going forward, in other
words, not backwards. How does Heidegger's reflections on Technology fit
into all this? How does he avoid simply becoming a latter-day Luddite?
Anyway, apologies in advance if these questions seem amazingly stupid.
Steve Callihan
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
>I think it's best not thought of as a line at all. The line is a
>reduction. Death, for us, is irreducibly a matter of *meaning* and
>understanding in/for which the schema of the line participates on rarely
>without problematic abstraction.
>
>As for the "death of the father", like so many different themes which
>surface here and there on the "left side of things" (I guess...), it is a
>classic case of the failure to grasp the issue of (non)violence: violent
>thought/action kills the father, nonviolent thoughtaction approaches the
>problem of the *tyrant*, leaving *paternality* intact, albeit minus its
>*dominance*. It is a serious failing to attach *paternalism* as such,
>since there are, after all, fathers. Better to say, "the death of the
>tyrant".
Just a lurker here, and by no means steeped in Heidegger (more of a
Nietzsche nut), but a couple questions occur to me that perhaps other more
knowlegable about Heidegger might be able to answer.
1. The line between Being and Not-Being. I think that is an evocative
notion, although I'm not sure, as of yet, of what. Worth pursuing, though, I
think. Hegel, I believe, synthesizes the opposition between Being and
Not-Being as encompassed within Becoming, taking his clue it would seem from
Heraclitus. The chief insufficiency of Being and Not-Being as notions is
their timeless abstractiveness, if you will, while Becoming, I suppose one
would have to say, is, speaking rather loosely, a temporal concretion. It is
interesting that the Hegelian complement to Becoming is _Dasein_, or
Existence. To what degree and how does this dialectical progression find
reflection in Heidegger's thinking? What might be the further meaning of the
"line between Being and Not-Being" relative to the overarching notion of
Becoming which according to the Hegelian analysis overcomes the
insufficiencies entailed by them? (It is interesting that their
insufficiency would be here exactly what might formerly have been thought of
as their sufficiency, e.g., their timelessness.)
2. Parmenides might, of course, be considered as the "father" of the whole
Socratic-Platonic school, and thus, by extension, of the whole scientific
tradition of the West. ("That which is, is; that which is not, is not.")
_Episteme_ over _Doxa_, in other words. The scientist vs. the sage.
Assigning "paternity" here I think can be helpful and informative, perhaps
liberating. It doesn't change, however, the fact of that paternity--it is
not a question of simply rolling things back to Heraclitus, cancelling out
the whole post-Parmenidian evolution, but of recovering the lost remainder,
reincorporating the Heraclitean insight--a matter of going forward, in other
words, not backwards. How does Heidegger's reflections on Technology fit
into all this? How does he avoid simply becoming a latter-day Luddite?
Anyway, apologies in advance if these questions seem amazingly stupid.
Steve Callihan
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---