I have been reading Allen's book 'Being Jewish/Reading Heidegger' recntly;
one of the main centres of concern is the relationship between hermeneutics
(interpreting/receiving/reading) and rhetoric (recommending/sending/writing)
especially as it concerns what Allen calls 'sacred' texts, where 'sacred'
refers way beyond the religious claim to the term (though including it). In
this he fascinatingly compares (and contrasts) the hermeneutic/rhetoric hub
of discourse through the generations in rabbinical midrash and Heidegger's
step-back and through original classical (mainly greek) texts of philosophy.
Allen finds the same problem occuring in each when it comes to the thorny
issue of whether such rhetoricians can properly both admit and transmit
their knowledge of rhetoric whilst rhetorically transmitting the message to
contemporary audiences. Whilst reading Allen's text, due to a conversation I
had with a friend concerning Allen's concern, I began to simultaneously read
another text, a novel, Anita Mason's 'The Illusionist'. In Mason's novel,
which is concretely to do with the confused and confusing aftermath of the
crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, with respect to the early followers
of the new sects of fresh christianity, I found Allen's problem recurring.
At one point, a main protagonist who was present at the resurrection and
profoundly affected and disturbed by it, is reporting on an earlier
conversation with the live Jesus (here called Joshua). Joshua says "[Some]
things must not be said"; "Why"; "... And for another reason, which you must
never tell to anyone. There is a kind of truth which, when it is said,
becomes untrue..." The poor protagonist is bewildered, and the novel is
largely about the working out of this wilderness in time.
Now, I wish to consider the "There is a kind of truth which, when it is
said, becomes untrue" statement through an analogy (which can not be an
analogy). And here I am tallking with respect to Heidegger's performances of
"being" (and "be-ing", "beying", "Being", etc) in his texts. A fundamental
problem in dealing with "being" [the word] is that it does not signify any
one being or collection of beings or a totality of beings or commonality of
beings or abstract concept of beings, etc. Neither does it signify something
like an activity (of an actor or agency, present or absent) or process, etc.
But, because when speaking of being we must say "being", we immediately
trans-late what is not a thing or being (a name-able entity or collection of
entities, etc) to (wham! bang! thankyou mam'!) some thing, some being, some
entity, etc. For Heidegger, the very history of philosophy (metaphysics,
ontotheology) is the history of the errance of being as some being (or
version of being-ness). When we talk of being we say "being" and at once
this "being" does not refer to being at all: it has been trans-formed,
metamorphised. In this sense, the truth (the revelation, the unconcealing,
a-letheia) of being has become its untruth in the very saying of its name
(just as in Joshua's statement above). We also gather that being is the only
'thing' worth thinking; its very oblivion is testament to that. So how can
we speak of or concerning being (the only thing worth thinking) without
crossing it out as it is uttered, by speaking its name?
We can address be-ing without topicalising it; instead of speaking about it
(which it denies us because it is never a topic), we can speak around it
(peri-, meta-); instead of speaking about it, we can speak from it
(trans-mittance, re-source). These, in the same sense that, say, a Marxist
might address Marxism and Marxist ideas, not by mentioning and referring to
Marx and Marxist theory, but by speaking about some other matter in a
Marxist fashion, thus trans-mitting Marxism but without topicalising Marxism
itself.
The admonition to not speak certain truths (say, the truth of be-ing)
because such speech, when articulated, becomes an untruth (be-ing becomes a
being, thus negating and dissolving the ontological difference), does not
necessarily incur the active oblivion of be-ing (both genitives), but rather
invites a genuine concern with rhetoric (bringing something on, presencing)
as the highest form of (philosophical) speech.
As Heraclitus once supposedly said (who cares whether 'he' 'actually' said
it!) "being tends to be cryptic" [my trans-lation-cum-interpretation].
regards
michaelP
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
one of the main centres of concern is the relationship between hermeneutics
(interpreting/receiving/reading) and rhetoric (recommending/sending/writing)
especially as it concerns what Allen calls 'sacred' texts, where 'sacred'
refers way beyond the religious claim to the term (though including it). In
this he fascinatingly compares (and contrasts) the hermeneutic/rhetoric hub
of discourse through the generations in rabbinical midrash and Heidegger's
step-back and through original classical (mainly greek) texts of philosophy.
Allen finds the same problem occuring in each when it comes to the thorny
issue of whether such rhetoricians can properly both admit and transmit
their knowledge of rhetoric whilst rhetorically transmitting the message to
contemporary audiences. Whilst reading Allen's text, due to a conversation I
had with a friend concerning Allen's concern, I began to simultaneously read
another text, a novel, Anita Mason's 'The Illusionist'. In Mason's novel,
which is concretely to do with the confused and confusing aftermath of the
crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, with respect to the early followers
of the new sects of fresh christianity, I found Allen's problem recurring.
At one point, a main protagonist who was present at the resurrection and
profoundly affected and disturbed by it, is reporting on an earlier
conversation with the live Jesus (here called Joshua). Joshua says "[Some]
things must not be said"; "Why"; "... And for another reason, which you must
never tell to anyone. There is a kind of truth which, when it is said,
becomes untrue..." The poor protagonist is bewildered, and the novel is
largely about the working out of this wilderness in time.
Now, I wish to consider the "There is a kind of truth which, when it is
said, becomes untrue" statement through an analogy (which can not be an
analogy). And here I am tallking with respect to Heidegger's performances of
"being" (and "be-ing", "beying", "Being", etc) in his texts. A fundamental
problem in dealing with "being" [the word] is that it does not signify any
one being or collection of beings or a totality of beings or commonality of
beings or abstract concept of beings, etc. Neither does it signify something
like an activity (of an actor or agency, present or absent) or process, etc.
But, because when speaking of being we must say "being", we immediately
trans-late what is not a thing or being (a name-able entity or collection of
entities, etc) to (wham! bang! thankyou mam'!) some thing, some being, some
entity, etc. For Heidegger, the very history of philosophy (metaphysics,
ontotheology) is the history of the errance of being as some being (or
version of being-ness). When we talk of being we say "being" and at once
this "being" does not refer to being at all: it has been trans-formed,
metamorphised. In this sense, the truth (the revelation, the unconcealing,
a-letheia) of being has become its untruth in the very saying of its name
(just as in Joshua's statement above). We also gather that being is the only
'thing' worth thinking; its very oblivion is testament to that. So how can
we speak of or concerning being (the only thing worth thinking) without
crossing it out as it is uttered, by speaking its name?
We can address be-ing without topicalising it; instead of speaking about it
(which it denies us because it is never a topic), we can speak around it
(peri-, meta-); instead of speaking about it, we can speak from it
(trans-mittance, re-source). These, in the same sense that, say, a Marxist
might address Marxism and Marxist ideas, not by mentioning and referring to
Marx and Marxist theory, but by speaking about some other matter in a
Marxist fashion, thus trans-mitting Marxism but without topicalising Marxism
itself.
The admonition to not speak certain truths (say, the truth of be-ing)
because such speech, when articulated, becomes an untruth (be-ing becomes a
being, thus negating and dissolving the ontological difference), does not
necessarily incur the active oblivion of be-ing (both genitives), but rather
invites a genuine concern with rhetoric (bringing something on, presencing)
as the highest form of (philosophical) speech.
As Heraclitus once supposedly said (who cares whether 'he' 'actually' said
it!) "being tends to be cryptic" [my trans-lation-cum-interpretation].
regards
michaelP
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---