Cologne, 5 September 1996
Allen Scult is battling on in this discussion of Aristotle's Rhetoric despite
having his eMail function grounded. The odds against which we thinkers have to
contend!
Allen quotes me:
"There is only the response itself [to being]"
and continues:
"as if the response to the call doesn't do any "making," "constituting" of the
situation of its own speaking. Doesn't the response have to be spoken? And
doesn't its spokenness require somehow engagegment with some other to/with whom
the responding takes place? An engagement which is rhetorically
constructed/consituted? I think one way of reading Heidegger's "discussion" of
the call with a rarified set of others ( Parmenides, Hericlitus, Hoelderlin,
etc.) is an attempt to enact an authentic co-responding ("Entsprechenden" he
calls it in Was ist das -- die Philosophie?") to the call."
There are different levels of response to being. On the mundane level (the level
of being-in-the-world in everyday life) we have always already answered being by
taking in beings as such and the world as a whole. Or, the other way round, we
have always already been claimed by being by being brought to stand in
understanding and brought to lie in moods.
But thinking and art are also responses to being. You are referring to the
response of thinking. The dialogue and appropriation of the philosophical
tradition, starting with Anaximander is one way of responding to thinking which
in turn was a response to being. In that sense this response is not originary.
The baseline is that any thinker thinks from his or her own historical
being-in-the-world. The response can never be rhetorical on an originary level,
since rhetoric is a techne and therefore must always already have an end in
view, whereas the response to being is originarily open. I think this is what
Heidegger calls the "pealing of stillness". Such listening has nothing to with
speech, which is a response to the response.
Even Aristotle distinguishes between rhetorike and dialektike, i.e. between
speaking in everyday gatherings of people and strict logical discourse (start of
Book A). Heidegger's attempts to think out of, i.e. in response to basic moods
such as boredom (GA29/30) of course breaks down this separation, but thinking
can never be persuasion, nevertheless. Heidegger calls it instead a "formal
indicator" (formale Anzeige) which only points the way for a transformation of
historical human being. E.g.:
"Der ganze Zusammenhang zwischen eigentlicher und uneigentlicher Existenz,
Augenblick und Augenblickslosigkeit, ist nicht ein Vorhandenes, was im Menschen
passiert, sondern ein solcher des Daseins. Die ihn aufbrechenden _Begriffe_ sind
nur dann verstehbar, wenn sie nicht als Bedeutungen von Beschaffenheiten und
Ausstattungen eins Vorhandenen genommen werden, sondern als _Anzeigen_ dafuer,
dass das Verstehen erst den vulgaeren Auffassungen des Seienden sich entwinden
und eigens sich in das Da-sein in ihm verwandeln muss. In jedem dieser Begriffe
-- Tod, Entschlossenheit, Geschichte, Existenz -- liegt der Anspruch dieser
Verwandlung, und zwar nicht als nachtraegliche sogenannte ethische Anwendung des
Begriffenen, sondern als vorgaengiges Aufschliessen der Dimension des
Begreifbaren." (GA29/30:428f).
English (rough):
"The entire connection between appropriate(d) and inappropriate(d) existence,
moment and momentlessness is not something present-at-hand that takes place in a
human being but a connection of there-being. The _concepts_ that break open the
human being only become unterstandable when they are not taken as meaning
qualities and appurtenances of something present-at-hand but rather as
_indicators_ (pointers) that point out that understanding must first wind its
way out of vulgar conceptions of beings and transform itself of itself into the
there-being within itself. Each of these concepts -- death, resolve, history,
existence -- includes the claim to such a transformation, and that not as a
posterior, so-called ethical application of what has been comprehended but as an
apriori opening up of the dimension of what can be comprehended."
The claim of being and the opening up of world- and self-understanding come
before any ethics and before any rhetoric. This contradicts, by the way, Chris
Rickey's recent ethical interpretation of the second part of SZ. The claim of
being also becomes before any culture, which is always already cultivation of
beings in their pre-given being. There is no Sollen (ought) in the thinking of
being, but a "_can_" (Moeglichkeit, potential, being-able-to-be). Formal
indication, formal-pointing-of-the-finger opens up a dimension of historical
"can". By becoming attuned to the mood of being's claim and responding to its
vibes, we can come to a new self-understanding, that is, a new
world-understanding.
Thinking responds to being by becoming appropriated by propriation. One aspect
of propriation is thinking the historical givenness of the being of beings which
today (as I have recently been discussing with Rafael Capurro) may be nothing
other than: the being of beings is in-formation. Everything that is, is a
digital code, otherwise it is not (Plato's _me on_).
Greetings,
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 ---
Allen Scult is battling on in this discussion of Aristotle's Rhetoric despite
having his eMail function grounded. The odds against which we thinkers have to
contend!
Allen quotes me:
"There is only the response itself [to being]"
and continues:
"as if the response to the call doesn't do any "making," "constituting" of the
situation of its own speaking. Doesn't the response have to be spoken? And
doesn't its spokenness require somehow engagegment with some other to/with whom
the responding takes place? An engagement which is rhetorically
constructed/consituted? I think one way of reading Heidegger's "discussion" of
the call with a rarified set of others ( Parmenides, Hericlitus, Hoelderlin,
etc.) is an attempt to enact an authentic co-responding ("Entsprechenden" he
calls it in Was ist das -- die Philosophie?") to the call."
There are different levels of response to being. On the mundane level (the level
of being-in-the-world in everyday life) we have always already answered being by
taking in beings as such and the world as a whole. Or, the other way round, we
have always already been claimed by being by being brought to stand in
understanding and brought to lie in moods.
But thinking and art are also responses to being. You are referring to the
response of thinking. The dialogue and appropriation of the philosophical
tradition, starting with Anaximander is one way of responding to thinking which
in turn was a response to being. In that sense this response is not originary.
The baseline is that any thinker thinks from his or her own historical
being-in-the-world. The response can never be rhetorical on an originary level,
since rhetoric is a techne and therefore must always already have an end in
view, whereas the response to being is originarily open. I think this is what
Heidegger calls the "pealing of stillness". Such listening has nothing to with
speech, which is a response to the response.
Even Aristotle distinguishes between rhetorike and dialektike, i.e. between
speaking in everyday gatherings of people and strict logical discourse (start of
Book A). Heidegger's attempts to think out of, i.e. in response to basic moods
such as boredom (GA29/30) of course breaks down this separation, but thinking
can never be persuasion, nevertheless. Heidegger calls it instead a "formal
indicator" (formale Anzeige) which only points the way for a transformation of
historical human being. E.g.:
"Der ganze Zusammenhang zwischen eigentlicher und uneigentlicher Existenz,
Augenblick und Augenblickslosigkeit, ist nicht ein Vorhandenes, was im Menschen
passiert, sondern ein solcher des Daseins. Die ihn aufbrechenden _Begriffe_ sind
nur dann verstehbar, wenn sie nicht als Bedeutungen von Beschaffenheiten und
Ausstattungen eins Vorhandenen genommen werden, sondern als _Anzeigen_ dafuer,
dass das Verstehen erst den vulgaeren Auffassungen des Seienden sich entwinden
und eigens sich in das Da-sein in ihm verwandeln muss. In jedem dieser Begriffe
-- Tod, Entschlossenheit, Geschichte, Existenz -- liegt der Anspruch dieser
Verwandlung, und zwar nicht als nachtraegliche sogenannte ethische Anwendung des
Begriffenen, sondern als vorgaengiges Aufschliessen der Dimension des
Begreifbaren." (GA29/30:428f).
English (rough):
"The entire connection between appropriate(d) and inappropriate(d) existence,
moment and momentlessness is not something present-at-hand that takes place in a
human being but a connection of there-being. The _concepts_ that break open the
human being only become unterstandable when they are not taken as meaning
qualities and appurtenances of something present-at-hand but rather as
_indicators_ (pointers) that point out that understanding must first wind its
way out of vulgar conceptions of beings and transform itself of itself into the
there-being within itself. Each of these concepts -- death, resolve, history,
existence -- includes the claim to such a transformation, and that not as a
posterior, so-called ethical application of what has been comprehended but as an
apriori opening up of the dimension of what can be comprehended."
The claim of being and the opening up of world- and self-understanding come
before any ethics and before any rhetoric. This contradicts, by the way, Chris
Rickey's recent ethical interpretation of the second part of SZ. The claim of
being also becomes before any culture, which is always already cultivation of
beings in their pre-given being. There is no Sollen (ought) in the thinking of
being, but a "_can_" (Moeglichkeit, potential, being-able-to-be). Formal
indication, formal-pointing-of-the-finger opens up a dimension of historical
"can". By becoming attuned to the mood of being's claim and responding to its
vibes, we can come to a new self-understanding, that is, a new
world-understanding.
Thinking responds to being by becoming appropriated by propriation. One aspect
of propriation is thinking the historical givenness of the being of beings which
today (as I have recently been discussing with Rafael Capurro) may be nothing
other than: the being of beings is in-formation. Everything that is, is a
digital code, otherwise it is not (Plato's _me on_).
Greetings,
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 ---