Cologne, 20 August 1996
Tom Blancato writes of a "certain polemos which [in SZ] installs
itself, setting up an opposition between the everyday/common sense, etc.,
and the authentic, ontologically clarified understanding, etc."
This 'operation' is not polemos, not violence but the realm of
thinking/philosophy. The attempt to level the distinction between philosophical
thinking and common sense is one feature of the thought-lessness of our age.
There seems to be no need to learn to think anymore. Indeed, a call to think can
now be labelled as violence. Learning to think transforms common sense, does not
deny it (which would be violence) but leads it to a deeper understanding of
itself. There is a rift between philosophical thinking and common sense but
there are bridges between the two for the few who take the trouble of learning
the ways of thinking. Tom speaks of "Dasein", for example, unembarrassedly
without acknowledging that this word is a word of thinking having no meaning at
all on the everyday level. (N.B. "Dasein" is not a synonym for "human being" but
makes sense - leaving aside older philosophical usages in Hegel and Kant, e.g.
which have nothing to do with H.'s use of the term - for a thinking open to the
question of being.)
Tom writes:
"Set up in SZ is a distinction between the everyday -- a certain proximal
availability to Dasein which has the characteristics of arbitrariness,
"lowness" and a being-leveled-over of import, value, worth, ontological
purchase, a mereness and chaotic nature, a lostness, etc. -- and the
authentic care of Dasein as guilty-indebted being-towards-death in,
through, or over and above the factical Situation.
Tom continues:
"But this characterization is patently, or demonstrably and phenomenally,
false. What is available even to (supposedly or actually) unreflective
Dasein is not proximally and for the most part mere chaos, nor "physical
things", though no doubt many a philosopher has had the tendency to take
things this way. (More below.) While this polemical gesture accomplishes
itself somewhat freely in certain stages of Heidegger's progression, it
must be noted that it does not occur as freely in other stages. For
example, when anticipatorily resolute Dasein understands itself according
to its own Death, the factical Situation gives Dasein *potentialities for
Being*, which must be assumed here to arise out of the "everyday" in a
somewhat wholistic manner and which include that which takes place in the
"mid-zone". But this wholism, which stands in contrast to the
polemos/division in question, only aggravates the problem."
The distinction between authenticity and inauthenticity in SZ can well be
criticized as misleading, but it is not a "polemical gesture" on the part of
Heidegger, nor does it have any culture-critical import. The everyday (but not
only the everyday) is oblivious to being. Metaphysics is also oblivious to
being. This oblivion to being is the sole raison d'etre of Heidegger's thinking
which, as I cited in my last post, is an awe-some appropriation of the past by
ruthlessly destroying the tradition.
Tom presents arguments against "death" as a master organizing principle in SZ.
But Heidegger speaks of "Sein-zum-Tode" (being-unto-death), not Tod (death). It
is Dasein's mortality and learning-to-be-mortal that H. places at the centre of
authenticity. This is far broader than a concern with death and dying. So Tom's
interpretation is basically flawed, as far as I can see. And it must be taken
into account that Sein-zum-Tode signals an _openness_ of Dasein to its own
mortality: Dasein is open to dying AS dying.
But, as I noted in previous posts, the AS, the ontological difference, the
openness to the being of beings and to being as such do not play any role in
Tom's thinking.
My impression of the many posts Tom has written in the past weeks is that the Q
of V, the issue of "nonviolence", etc. are as oblivious to being as the rest of
metaphysics. This recent long post on death treats it like an ontic event
without any sensibility toward mortality being a mode of being, i.e. an openness
to being. There is humility in this openness, not the "Olympian going for gold"
that Tom polemicizes against.
In SZ there is no suggestion that the everyday is "mere idling chaos". On the
contrary: everyday life is an orderly taking care of matters.
At another point Tom writes:
"While Heidegger is *not* taking Dasein as a thing *present at
hand*, he is taking Dasein as a confluence of self-gathered
*existentialia* whose constituents are not adequately displayed and thought
through in terms of their ontological function."
Heidegger himself was well aware of defects in SZ. But he had a clear view of
the question he was asking and elaborated modes of being of Dasein to an
astounding depth and with amazing subtlety whereas Tom here sounds to me like an
upstart.
I have yet to see Tom show a single connection between the Q of V and the
question of being. Nor do I think his writing moves at all with a sensibility
toward the issue of being, the turning, the step back, the event, nor even with
a sensibility toward the issue of metaphysics: the being of beings. On the
contrary, the fixation on violence and non-violence (particular phenomena) allow
him to ride roughshod over the question of being, leaving it on the sidelines as
a book with seven seals. At the very least, one would have to learn and be
prepared to learn from Heidegger's own deep, ruthless appropriation of the
metaphysical tradition, starting with the Greeks.
_Chaire_,
Michael
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Tom Blancato writes of a "certain polemos which [in SZ] installs
itself, setting up an opposition between the everyday/common sense, etc.,
and the authentic, ontologically clarified understanding, etc."
This 'operation' is not polemos, not violence but the realm of
thinking/philosophy. The attempt to level the distinction between philosophical
thinking and common sense is one feature of the thought-lessness of our age.
There seems to be no need to learn to think anymore. Indeed, a call to think can
now be labelled as violence. Learning to think transforms common sense, does not
deny it (which would be violence) but leads it to a deeper understanding of
itself. There is a rift between philosophical thinking and common sense but
there are bridges between the two for the few who take the trouble of learning
the ways of thinking. Tom speaks of "Dasein", for example, unembarrassedly
without acknowledging that this word is a word of thinking having no meaning at
all on the everyday level. (N.B. "Dasein" is not a synonym for "human being" but
makes sense - leaving aside older philosophical usages in Hegel and Kant, e.g.
which have nothing to do with H.'s use of the term - for a thinking open to the
question of being.)
Tom writes:
"Set up in SZ is a distinction between the everyday -- a certain proximal
availability to Dasein which has the characteristics of arbitrariness,
"lowness" and a being-leveled-over of import, value, worth, ontological
purchase, a mereness and chaotic nature, a lostness, etc. -- and the
authentic care of Dasein as guilty-indebted being-towards-death in,
through, or over and above the factical Situation.
Tom continues:
"But this characterization is patently, or demonstrably and phenomenally,
false. What is available even to (supposedly or actually) unreflective
Dasein is not proximally and for the most part mere chaos, nor "physical
things", though no doubt many a philosopher has had the tendency to take
things this way. (More below.) While this polemical gesture accomplishes
itself somewhat freely in certain stages of Heidegger's progression, it
must be noted that it does not occur as freely in other stages. For
example, when anticipatorily resolute Dasein understands itself according
to its own Death, the factical Situation gives Dasein *potentialities for
Being*, which must be assumed here to arise out of the "everyday" in a
somewhat wholistic manner and which include that which takes place in the
"mid-zone". But this wholism, which stands in contrast to the
polemos/division in question, only aggravates the problem."
The distinction between authenticity and inauthenticity in SZ can well be
criticized as misleading, but it is not a "polemical gesture" on the part of
Heidegger, nor does it have any culture-critical import. The everyday (but not
only the everyday) is oblivious to being. Metaphysics is also oblivious to
being. This oblivion to being is the sole raison d'etre of Heidegger's thinking
which, as I cited in my last post, is an awe-some appropriation of the past by
ruthlessly destroying the tradition.
Tom presents arguments against "death" as a master organizing principle in SZ.
But Heidegger speaks of "Sein-zum-Tode" (being-unto-death), not Tod (death). It
is Dasein's mortality and learning-to-be-mortal that H. places at the centre of
authenticity. This is far broader than a concern with death and dying. So Tom's
interpretation is basically flawed, as far as I can see. And it must be taken
into account that Sein-zum-Tode signals an _openness_ of Dasein to its own
mortality: Dasein is open to dying AS dying.
But, as I noted in previous posts, the AS, the ontological difference, the
openness to the being of beings and to being as such do not play any role in
Tom's thinking.
My impression of the many posts Tom has written in the past weeks is that the Q
of V, the issue of "nonviolence", etc. are as oblivious to being as the rest of
metaphysics. This recent long post on death treats it like an ontic event
without any sensibility toward mortality being a mode of being, i.e. an openness
to being. There is humility in this openness, not the "Olympian going for gold"
that Tom polemicizes against.
In SZ there is no suggestion that the everyday is "mere idling chaos". On the
contrary: everyday life is an orderly taking care of matters.
At another point Tom writes:
"While Heidegger is *not* taking Dasein as a thing *present at
hand*, he is taking Dasein as a confluence of self-gathered
*existentialia* whose constituents are not adequately displayed and thought
through in terms of their ontological function."
Heidegger himself was well aware of defects in SZ. But he had a clear view of
the question he was asking and elaborated modes of being of Dasein to an
astounding depth and with amazing subtlety whereas Tom here sounds to me like an
upstart.
I have yet to see Tom show a single connection between the Q of V and the
question of being. Nor do I think his writing moves at all with a sensibility
toward the issue of being, the turning, the step back, the event, nor even with
a sensibility toward the issue of metaphysics: the being of beings. On the
contrary, the fixation on violence and non-violence (particular phenomena) allow
him to ride roughshod over the question of being, leaving it on the sidelines as
a book with seven seals. At the very least, one would have to learn and be
prepared to learn from Heidegger's own deep, ruthless appropriation of the
metaphysical tradition, starting with the Greeks.
_Chaire_,
Michael
\\\ ° '~': '' /// ° artefact text and translation °~ \ ' ) ''' | . \ - °
.{.\ ~. ' ~ { } .\ : ~ °°° made by art °°° _ °/ ~ : ~:~ \./''/
http://www.webcom.com/artefact/ {.\ ~. ' ~ { } .\ : artefact@xxxxxxxxxxx
vox: (++49 221) 9520 333 fax: (++49 221) 9520 334 Dr Michael Eldred
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---