D. A. Ellison:
<". . . when Heidegger denies that being itself is an entity, he is also
<excluding the possibility of its being understood as what we ordinarily
<mean by the notion of a property of an entity. From the lectures of the
<period we also know that being as such is prior to the fateful
<distinction that Western philosophy has made between being as essence
<and being as existence-a distinction that, in Heidegger's view, preempts
<any further inquiry into the unitary sense of being as such that it
<presupposes."
<
<...Is what I have quoted the same as the "'Western metaphysical'
<tradition" you referenced above?
H certainly means the entire theoretical tradition following from
Aristotle's Metaphysics: essence/existence, etc.; but he includes
as well in this categorial dust-bin the entire mythopoeic,
body/soul, etc., tradition (prominently Christianity, generally
Dilthey's worldviews) following from Plato. These 2 methods of
of broaching the mysterium tremendum (that which is logically
prior to and beyond physis)he indistinguishably labels "metaphysics";
and, contemptuously counterposes to his phenomenological exposition
of Being, as vaporous nothings to solid (and exquisitely minute)proceeding.
I have a big problem with this...mostly, am put off by this conception
of myth...seems 19th century...immature.... And the suspicion that
upon learning that Santa didn't exist, H determined to supply the
deficit: only, this time, with sturdier stuff; and, ironically,
himself undertook a mythopoeic raid on the ineffable, -- by his own
account, a metaphysics.
What do you think?
Bob Scheetz
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---