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Van: owner-heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]Namens
GEVANS613@xxxxxxx
Verzonden: woensdag 20 oktober 2004 12:07
Aan: heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
CC: GEVANS613@xxxxxxx
Onderwerp: Re: anti or antique heidegger?
In a message dated 20/10/2004 04:25:53 GMT Standard Time, janstr@xxxxxxx
writes:
Hi Stuart, you wrote:
>This might be interesting. I'm not convinced that any division of
>Heidegger's work is possible - there are changes and modifications
>of the project sure, and Being and Time moves from being something
>he aimed to finish to something he realised he couldn't finish, but
>every time there are suggestions of something being part of one side
>i think i can see traces on the other.
>
>I'm glad Michael wants to exclude the stuff about the Kehre (surely
>one of the biggest Heideggerian red herrings there is) and early/late,
>but i'm equally not convinced by this divide either.
Maybe it is not so much a question of continuity, but more of unity.
I think it's quite possible and legitimate to show some obvious dis-
continuities in Heidegger's life and works. One of the most clear and
outstanding differences between Heidegger's pre-war and the post-war
writings is his change in style. Where SuZ is composed as a very sharp
systematical and secular analysis of human existence, the later works
show a completely different stylistic image: short lectures, letters and
dialogues, and the almost aforistic style of the Beitraege: so it seems
we are dealing here with two completely different genres. Yet if we
take a look at the contents of the post-war oeuvre i also see a distinct
change of themes and reinterpretations of terms in his later philosophy.
Jud:
What you say is true Jan. But the average person would ask WHY did he change
his tune? Was it a sudden revelation that he had to change tack from the
hysterical garbage of the thirties and replace it with a softer version more
likely to engage the sensibiliies of the Christian west>
A cynical carreer move rather than a genuine philosophical turn? Stuart
BTW totally and uncharacteristically [he is usually pretty sharp]
underestimates the significance of the of the 1944 [ammended] intro to
*What is Metaphysics,* which was in a sense a flip-flop in the character of
a new form of introduction to certain earlier work he had originally written
on the subject before the U-turn had seen the light of day. The amended
introduction constitutes a virtually completely different ontology or philosophy
to the one which preceded it.
He explained it all, for who has ears. And he hid for who only have claws.
Since 1934 he had to be careful, even more after 1945. And still...
I see you start talking like the hyena's: "a different ontology" and the like
is just cra., sorry: academy (akadummy).
ONTOLOGY (A) *Being* might well be WITHOUT entities. Now in this version,
*Being,* which he offers as being the *existence* of an entiy/entities can be a
part of reality [or be a *metaphor* for the *being* of an entity in the wise
words of List-Guru Michael Pennamacoor] or even if we accept the more obtuse
*fall-back* position of *Being* as *object givenness* how in the name of
God-Almighty could *Being* be without entities if *Being* was a constituent
corollary of the *object givenness* or be the *Being* of beings. If *Being* is
the *Being* of beings, then a half-pissed Malay seaman in a Kuala Lumpan
drinking den could tell you that *Being* couldn't be, or even not be *Being* in
circumstances where there were no beings to be the *being* of.
When he first writes, that there is Being without beings, what he means
is: there is Being (Beyng), that is: not the metaphysical Being of beings,
and in THAT sense 'without' beings.
But of course and lastly, as he corrected, there is never being without beings.
There's another clue, when he writes elsewhere that in the Gegnet, the hiding
sphere that is first to be found and experienced, things don't stand
(like in sub-sistere) but lie (like in keisthai, hypokeimenon).
Either the island is BeSTANDstueck of the tourist industry, like the woods
in the wood industry, or it lies protracted in the sea. There's no real
and objective island behind these. Jud represents the since Kant ridiculous
position of the Ding an sich. He hasn't any idea of Kant, but calls Heidegger,
who lived among as many Kantians as Jews, childish. But listen, here he goes
again:
Of course the silly old buffer even lacked the nous to think that through
properly, to spot that Ein Kosmos ohne irgendwelche Gegenstände oder Wesen
[A cosmos without any objects or nature] would preclude the *entity* Dasein
too.
well old bugger, he thought of that too. Dasein is, though, not merely an entity.
Look at the word, linguist: Da - SEIN. Sein (to be) is a verb, and denotes a
condition, an action/passion. Not a thing no, why are you refuting yourself?
So even if *Being* by some mad metaphysical twist of reality WAS still
able to kick-around without being the *Being* of anything - it couldn't do its
job of *uncovering* anything for (1) there would be nothing to be *uncovered*
and (2) there would be nothing to *uncover* it to.
Right. Watch it Jud, you're now talking like a Heideggerean. Thanks, I cannot
achieve more
ONTOLOGY (B) Later the above * childish ontological cock-up* is replaced by
a completely NEW version - which amounts to virtually a NEW philosophy. Now
the new big-bellied tenor that struts onto Michael's operatic stage bawls out
the complete opposite - that *Being* is NEVER without entities.
The bottom line? I plan (A) the initial insistence in the independence of
*Being* as *presence* is completely changed to a new *philosophy* which insists
that which totally relies on the Dasein [the being-there gimmick] which he
originally consigned to oblivion with everything else in the world.
Jan:
One of this fundamental shifts (or turns) that i see as most pregnant and
definite, is his radical transformation of secular dimensions into meta-
religious dimensions: f.e. the secular interpretation of temporatilty and
finity in Da-sein [cf. SuZ] becomes the meta-religious interpretation of
temporatilty and finity of Seyn [cf. BzP].
Jud:
Well, his *secular* fingers had been burned hadn't they. My God, he nearly
lost his library and his house because of those pesky ontics?
It was time to return to the security he had earlier found in the arms of
the church. Boring yes, compared with the exhilaration of revolution, and his
marching of uniformed student columns to his wooden brain-washing
establishment on the hill - but comfortable and respectable, and a calm harbour where he
could caulk his leaking planks, replace the clapped-out secular engine with
a brand-new meta-religious one, and relaunch himself as *the great
philosopher.*
Now you're mixing up: Heidegger wrote works on being and nothing, and it were
others who wrote about great philosophers, like Loewith: Heidegger, Denker
in duerftiger Zeit. By telling stories from the life of great philosphers,
they could then be greater themselves. You're doing the same thing, five
floors nearer to the ground.
No, Heidegger wanted to stay in the province, and turned several offers down,
from Berlin and Munich. Explain that, old sport.
Jan:
(This btw. shows clearly that
the equation "Sein = God", as was recently triumphantically claimed,
is nonsense, because God is by definition eternal and infinite, whereas
Heidegger's Sein [Seyn] is temporal and finite.)
Jud:
No, no, no, *Dasein* is not one individual finite bloke. *Dasein* who snuffs
it and that's finitio - *Dasein* represents *humanity,* and that amounts to
or guarantees a succession of *Daseins* - a set of replacement *Daseins*
reaching into a future, which though perhaps would not be infinite from a
daseinic point of view [is ANYTHING infinite?] would certainly last a long time,
unless universal tranniedom pollutes it to such an extent as John Foster
rightly fears, or the transcendental conflicts end up with the whole bloody lot
being blown sky-high. So there would appear to be enough temporal mileage and
enough pop-up *Daseins* to ensure job-security for *Being* well into the
possible future.
Terror and fear rest precisely upon your nominalist lost individuals,
to which you're so anxious to attribute exclusively your subjectivist
attribute 'existence'.
Your biologistic notions turn them into mere replicators. Now, Dasein
is, after all metaphysical determination of man in terms of Platonic idea,
medieval creature and master of this world, and modern subject, not anOTHER
determination, that is: of a being in the light of a fundamental Being,
but belongs to a new topology of man over against finite Being itself.
Already in the very early Heidegger, being is verhalten, relating to things
and world, to be conceived phenomenologically (not realistically and/or
idealistically)
Jan:
Another example of Heidegger's shift from secular to meta-religious
considerations is his
understanding of the phenomenon of language. In SuZ, language gets
no special attention or treatment, it is conceived as a 'given' faculty
when we're factually thrown (Geworfen) into a 'linguistic' community.
Jud:
Maybe Hitler's rantings had made him realise the power of language and the
important position it plays in *Being's ball game?*
The later Heidegger however, occupied by the questions of "Seyns
Geschichte" and "Seinsverlassenheit", sees clearly that language must
not be understood as something purely human, i.e. a human invention
or individual property, but as a historical call and poetic revelation.
Jud:
A reoccupation of the cave - using the cobwebs of mysticism to bind up his
psychic wounds no doubt?
Jan?Heidy
To think that we humans master or possess the power of language, is
in fact an act of regression, in obliviousness of the secret and sacred.
Jud:
Who gives a toss about the mastership or possession of the power of language
when you are chatting to your friends in McDonalds?
You do see McDonalds, but you don't see language. Heidegger childish?
That some people have the *power* of language is indisputable. Think of all
the
people who have influenced you in your life. It is not the monotone
production of *facts* that influences us
it is the choice and employment of words in a convincing style, a rhetorical
style, which as Nunc admits can conceal lies
just as much as truths. *language* itself doesn't exist anyway, it is simply
a abstract way that we refer to *that which we do with words,*
the communicative signs and signals of what our brain is thinking.
Jan?Heidy
According to UzS we are not a speaking but a hearing and listening
family, always underway to, forwards and backwards, unknown but
fascinating new territories: "von Sage und Sein, Wort und Ding zu-
rueck. Beide, Dichten und Denken, sind ein ausgezeichnets Sagen,
insofern sie dem Geheimnis des Wortes als ihrem Denkwuerdigsten
ueberantwortet und dadurch seit je in die Verwantschaft miteinander
verfugt bleiben." [UzS:238]
Jud:
Is this supposed to be some dramatic revelation?
That is the way we communicate - We speak words and other people listen [or
don't listen]
It is not the *language* which initiates the *forwards and backwards, to
unknown but fascinating new territories* it is our thinking brains that
initiate this activity. Language* is simply the mechanism whereby we communicate
what OUR brain is thinking to the thinking brain of another.
This popular science is not as innocent as it may seem to its subjects/objects.
It makes people as defenceless as pigs.
There was yesterday Michaels question as to the preservation and/or demolition
of metaphysics. Suppose we would have fathomed the subjectivism of modern
philosophy, and its last resource: power (and unpower), what can for instance
Kant's characterization of man as SPONTANEOUS mean to us? Well, it could lead
us to see that it has almost completely vanished. Kant said: is man merely a
thing in space and time next to other things, merely scientific object, or is
he capable of STARTING sthing, science for instance? (there is sthing without
science, but certainly not *objects*)
We cannot answer like he did, but we can begin by questioning like he did,
and see where that leads. That would be responsiveness to tradition.
I read in the papers what remains of man's spontaneity when he hears that the
vaccin business goes down.
Jan:
Another and major breach in Heidegger's course of life is, of course,
his engagement with the Nazi-regime and its illusion of a Hitleristic
revolution. In the years 1933-1936 Heidegger, in fact a simple rural
and very a-political man, suddenly became a political agitator. (Yes
Jud, i wholly agree with you on this, but he was no camp brute !)
Jud:
History tells us he was certainly a *university brute* though.
Jan: But how to explain this ??? One thing is certain for me here, and that
is
that 'black and white' arguments don't hold. I have talked a lot about
the war with my father and if one thing becomes really clear it's that
there was no time and place then to consider or contemplate about
one's mistakes and misjudgements, because the fear and the speed of
time made reality into mythology.
Jud:
With all due respects to your dear father Jan, we are not talking about
Heidegger's activities DURING the war
a war it can be argued that Heidegger helped bring about as a result of his
political involvement with Hitler.
It was the period during the establishment of the *war party* when he
offered and provided his influential backing
by running here, there and everywhere propagandising and organising. There
was no *rush* then - certainly not the kind of
frenetic haste as far as decision-making was concerned. He sat quietly in
his study, reckoned that the men in jackboots was his best bet - and went for
it. His position on the matter of Blood and soil was not something new - it
was bred into his flesh and bone in the bone-headed provincial reactionary
Catholicism of his Heimat.
Your malice forbids you apparently to read what he wrote AGAINST blood and
soil.
YOU're the blood&brain-freak, not he. Well, to each their own.
thanks again,
rene
Jan:
But what then is the unity in Heidegger's thinking ? I have no easy
answers here, but two things seem obvious to me: first is his 'anti-
scientific' attitude, his deep criticism of the western mathematico-
technological developments and second his meta-religious visions.
I call them *meta-religious*, because Heidegger's 'new religion' is
a religion without God, a divine realm without transcendence, an
immanent sphere of godly and humanly, that have not arrived yet, awaiting
you. ... where were you ... where are you?
Jud:
I cannot but agree with this final paragraph which sums him up perfectly and
which slices perfectly
with my own words in the above paragraph
Jan:
where were you ... where are you?
Jud:
Where He has always been Jan - playing about is the sparking synapsal
cobwebery of our cognitive networks, which created Him and
spawned Him as the devilish Daemon of mankind.
Regards,
Jud
Personal Website:
_http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm_
(http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm)
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