Some interesting stuff on this.
I think that the Beitraege and other works like it (Besinnung etc.) need to
be seen as another layer above/beneath the lecture courses and other works
of the late 1930s. Some of the lectures - most of them even - are not that
different to ones of earlier periods in style: The Hoelderlin ones are
perhaps the exception. As Heidegger says in the Letter on Humanism, he is
trying to find another language than that of metaphysics, but that this
remains in the background of published works. Equally compare Age of the
World Picture to the Beitraege - some of the phrases are almost exactly the
same, but the published text is largely in a different style.
I don't therefore think this is a simple divide: he was working on one form
of writing while most of his (visible) output was still of the same style.
Equally the themes: much of what the Beitraege covers is only made public
much later, but that doesn't mean he changed to it suddenly. Equally there
are some interesting indications: the Beitraege was probably begun in 1932
(when Heidegger was on sabbatical), and in 1943 or 1944 he requested another
sabbatical to try to 'finish' some of this work.
I don't buy the secular --> religious move in any straight-forward sense.
The terms in SuZ are forged out of two main furnaces - Christian thought and
Aristotle. They undergo radical changes, but I don't think it makes sense to
overplay this, at least, _as I keep stressing_ in any straight-forward
sense.
Language is treated in detail in summer semester 1924 (GA18) for example,
and although neglected perhaps in SuZ rests on a much deeper analysis (see
also GA17 and GA19). There it is very much a call and destiny; and the
notion of listening/hearing is central (also there in muted form in SuZ).
The 1924 course also seems to me to radically challenge any idea that
Heidegger was apolitical until the 1930s - it is an incredibly political
course.
I'd agree with the question of the mathematical-technological issues being
central: there are distinct relations between work of (say) 1924-25 and 1936
and later. But they too undergo quite important changes.
As before, I am not saying there are no distinctions or moves in Heidegger's
work, but that it doesn't make sense to me to see them as clearly distinct.
It's a thought always in progress, that undergoes some quite profound
transformations (only idiots and dogmatists never change their mind:
Lefebvre, Russell and Keynes all said interesting things about this). But
this doesn't mean that any simplistic Heidegger I and II (Richardson), pre
and post-Kehre Heidegger, A and B, etc. makes sense.
So, Jan, I wouldn't disagree with the general thrust of what you say, but on
the specifics it seems the vast amount of material and the ability to trace
things much more carefully than even a few years ago complicate any such
straight-forward chronologies.
Stuart
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
I think that the Beitraege and other works like it (Besinnung etc.) need to
be seen as another layer above/beneath the lecture courses and other works
of the late 1930s. Some of the lectures - most of them even - are not that
different to ones of earlier periods in style: The Hoelderlin ones are
perhaps the exception. As Heidegger says in the Letter on Humanism, he is
trying to find another language than that of metaphysics, but that this
remains in the background of published works. Equally compare Age of the
World Picture to the Beitraege - some of the phrases are almost exactly the
same, but the published text is largely in a different style.
I don't therefore think this is a simple divide: he was working on one form
of writing while most of his (visible) output was still of the same style.
Equally the themes: much of what the Beitraege covers is only made public
much later, but that doesn't mean he changed to it suddenly. Equally there
are some interesting indications: the Beitraege was probably begun in 1932
(when Heidegger was on sabbatical), and in 1943 or 1944 he requested another
sabbatical to try to 'finish' some of this work.
I don't buy the secular --> religious move in any straight-forward sense.
The terms in SuZ are forged out of two main furnaces - Christian thought and
Aristotle. They undergo radical changes, but I don't think it makes sense to
overplay this, at least, _as I keep stressing_ in any straight-forward
sense.
Language is treated in detail in summer semester 1924 (GA18) for example,
and although neglected perhaps in SuZ rests on a much deeper analysis (see
also GA17 and GA19). There it is very much a call and destiny; and the
notion of listening/hearing is central (also there in muted form in SuZ).
The 1924 course also seems to me to radically challenge any idea that
Heidegger was apolitical until the 1930s - it is an incredibly political
course.
I'd agree with the question of the mathematical-technological issues being
central: there are distinct relations between work of (say) 1924-25 and 1936
and later. But they too undergo quite important changes.
As before, I am not saying there are no distinctions or moves in Heidegger's
work, but that it doesn't make sense to me to see them as clearly distinct.
It's a thought always in progress, that undergoes some quite profound
transformations (only idiots and dogmatists never change their mind:
Lefebvre, Russell and Keynes all said interesting things about this). But
this doesn't mean that any simplistic Heidegger I and II (Richardson), pre
and post-Kehre Heidegger, A and B, etc. makes sense.
So, Jan, I wouldn't disagree with the general thrust of what you say, but on
the specifics it seems the vast amount of material and the ability to trace
things much more carefully than even a few years ago complicate any such
straight-forward chronologies.
Stuart
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---