Hi Stuart, you wrote:
>.... - but it seems to me that in a sense the Beitraege acts more as a
>wealth of ideas than does Being and Time. We need to remember when
>this text was written, and that it was not published until 13 years after
>Heidegger's death. Much in it is new and unforeseen, ....
Oh certainly, i find the Beitraege equally as rich as SuZ and its poetic
and rizomatic flow of composition is much more inspiring than the
dry analytical rigour of SuZ. Its spontanious character manytimes
gives one the impression of reading a notebook or a diary, and i was
also surprised by the sketchy listings of short comments and the
modelling of schemes [cf. 64. Machenschaft; 65. Das Unwesen des
Seyns], i immediately recognized this because it is very much the
way i think too.
>I'm interested in the idea that "the fall" can be linked to Machenschaft,
>and Technik and perhaps you could say more.
As i said in my previous post the links that i see are more of the kind
of formal parallels and hermeneutic strategies than a matter of strict
identity. I don't think that Heidegger is contending that Technik is a
religious phenonemon, but in the way he is approaching the question
of the essence of Technik [cf. Die Technik und die Kehre, 1962] he
uses a hermeneutic strategy that imo very much resembles an exegesis
of the biblical theme of the fall. But his approach always remains an
provisional questioning, because questioning is the piety of thinking.
1. If we look at the Adamistic myth of the "original sin" and "the fall"
[cf. Genesis 3] we are confronted with the ancient question of the
origin of evil. The story tell us how the snake seduced Eve and how
Eve then seduced Adam to take and eat the fruits from the Tree of
Knowledge (the Tree of Science). In this act of free will, disobeying
the command of God and thus seperating himself from her divine and
paradisical ur-state, man opened its eyes and obtained insight in good
and evil, in truth and error, now forever wondering as naked mortals,
imprisoned in a brute and contingent world. Later in the Kabbala the
metaphor of the Tree [cf. 10 Sephorit] keeps playing an important role
in the (dangerous human quest of) mystical unity, or better re-union,
of man with God.
But there is a basic tension and ambuigity in this saga, because the
question still remains: wherein lies the origin of evil ? Does evil
reside in nature, or does evil lie in the actions of man ? Is evil an
essential a force that comes from outside, contaminating us, or is
evil the sole responsability of human free behaviour ? Or put even
more simple: is evil in the tree (apple) or is evil our plucking and
eating ? Is evil external or is evil internal ? And this ambuigity gets
even stronger if we consider that Adam's primordial sin becomes the
unit of heredity. For the Jewish people the original sin marked them
with a sense of eternal guilt which urged them to ongoing penitence.
By the apostle Paul the phenomenon of evil got something external,
sin was not an invention of the first man, it was more like a mythical
quantity that transcended the person of Adam. Yet where Adam was
the man that had introduced and lead man into sin, it would be Christ
(the second Adam) that will rescue us and guide us out of the realm
of evil. For Augustinus it is the opposite: evil is a human tendency, a
purely interal aspect, it is an intentional act: "sin must nowhere else be
looked for than in a person's free will" [cf. Retractationes I.]. And with
Luther this all got intensified to dramatic proportions, here evil is both
external and internal; we are not only thrown into an evil world, but
through loss of free will, i.e. in the experience of a will that neverthe-
less escapes its freedom, we continually accumulate evil in our sinfull
behaviour too. Luther saw no other way than a radical break with the
Roman Church, a turn he saw more than justified in the words of Paul:
"Wherever however sins increased, in abundance we found the grace of
God." [Rom.5:20]
2. In the first paragraph of _Die Technik und die Kehre_ Heidegger sets
the stage of his enquiry: his aim is that he wants to question Technik
in preparation to get into a free relationship with it. To accomplish
this we need a way of thinking that leads us to the essence of Technik,
because without this essential insight we stay bound and *imprisoned*
in an everday grip of immersion or quasi-neutrality, without noticing
ever the limits of our un-freedom in the plethora of technical devices
that surround and enclose us, even as we reject them.
In the next paragraphs Heidegger discusses the *internal vs. external*
problem, i.e. the question if the essence of Technik [techne] must be
understood as solely a human cause, an human invention of poetic or
instrumental activity that shows, brings forth, designs and engineers
new things and arte-facts [cf. aition/causa = verschulden (owing guilt)
= herstellen, entbergen (showing in the open)], or else, that her essence
must be understood as coming from and determined by outside forces,
i.e. a system of cybernetic relations and autonomous self-organization
[cf. Bestand], steering [Geschick], reclaiming [herausfordern] and thus
casting man into a supra-human constellation [cf. Gestell].
Heidegger answers this question with a Lutheran move, when he says
that the essence of Technik lies neither merely outside, nor inside nor
through human activity [cf. TK:23]; and it is here that the question of
human freedom becomes urgent. Heidegger now proposes a new view
on the essence of human freedom. Freedom must not be understood as
some unlimited, unbound or arbitrary quality of the will; no, freedom
must first be understood as the ability of opening up and re-sponding
to the happing of truth as un-concealment [Lichtung] and only within
this liberating sensitivity we become prepared to gain insight in the
true dangers that reside concealed in the essence of modern technology.
According to Heidegger the most dangerous aspect of Technik-Gestell
lies in a misunderstanding and misinterpretation i.e. a loss of human
freedom (again a Lutheran moment). Without a clear view on freedom
as openness, we mistakenly trust all technological progress as liberating,
are in danger of loosing contact with our own essential self and mask
the essence of truth, hiding her original poetic shining as Lichtung. In
an echo to the word of Paul [Rom.5:20] Hoelderlin is called in to give
solace: "Wo aber Gefahr ist, waechst Das Rettende auch." [Wherever danger
is, always already rescue grows near.]
In the last, concluding part of the essay _Die Kehre_ Heidegger turns
his attention to a possible new and free relationship to technology and
-in fact- in general to our being-in-the-world. What is required here is
a new insight [Einblick] of our essence as human beings. If the essence
of human freedom is able to turn itself to and from this Ein-blick to
create [Entwurf] a free and open co-re-spondence to the call of this
new vision [Ausblick] on Being [Sein], only then can we, as mortals,
gain access and insight into its divine truth and save-keeping
[Wahrheit,Wahrnis]. If not, we stay powerless in a state of refusal and
failure, i.e
a state of oblivion, digression, shortfall and sin [i.e.
Seinsverfallenheit, Seinsvergessenheit]. If and when this turning-point
will happen, we do
not know, because it's not possible to calculate or predict it: the Kehre
[cf. Bekehren, Bekehrung = conversion] is like the gift of conversion,
it can happen [Ereignis/revelation] at any moment, it is a moment of
grace, suddenly and unexpected, Lichtung is a flash of lighting [Saul
on his way to Damascus].
Together we wait in silence
and the world comes nearest,
- hope -
what will happen tomorrow
is not without us and our sharing.
yours,
Jan
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
>.... - but it seems to me that in a sense the Beitraege acts more as a
>wealth of ideas than does Being and Time. We need to remember when
>this text was written, and that it was not published until 13 years after
>Heidegger's death. Much in it is new and unforeseen, ....
Oh certainly, i find the Beitraege equally as rich as SuZ and its poetic
and rizomatic flow of composition is much more inspiring than the
dry analytical rigour of SuZ. Its spontanious character manytimes
gives one the impression of reading a notebook or a diary, and i was
also surprised by the sketchy listings of short comments and the
modelling of schemes [cf. 64. Machenschaft; 65. Das Unwesen des
Seyns], i immediately recognized this because it is very much the
way i think too.
>I'm interested in the idea that "the fall" can be linked to Machenschaft,
>and Technik and perhaps you could say more.
As i said in my previous post the links that i see are more of the kind
of formal parallels and hermeneutic strategies than a matter of strict
identity. I don't think that Heidegger is contending that Technik is a
religious phenonemon, but in the way he is approaching the question
of the essence of Technik [cf. Die Technik und die Kehre, 1962] he
uses a hermeneutic strategy that imo very much resembles an exegesis
of the biblical theme of the fall. But his approach always remains an
provisional questioning, because questioning is the piety of thinking.
1. If we look at the Adamistic myth of the "original sin" and "the fall"
[cf. Genesis 3] we are confronted with the ancient question of the
origin of evil. The story tell us how the snake seduced Eve and how
Eve then seduced Adam to take and eat the fruits from the Tree of
Knowledge (the Tree of Science). In this act of free will, disobeying
the command of God and thus seperating himself from her divine and
paradisical ur-state, man opened its eyes and obtained insight in good
and evil, in truth and error, now forever wondering as naked mortals,
imprisoned in a brute and contingent world. Later in the Kabbala the
metaphor of the Tree [cf. 10 Sephorit] keeps playing an important role
in the (dangerous human quest of) mystical unity, or better re-union,
of man with God.
But there is a basic tension and ambuigity in this saga, because the
question still remains: wherein lies the origin of evil ? Does evil
reside in nature, or does evil lie in the actions of man ? Is evil an
essential a force that comes from outside, contaminating us, or is
evil the sole responsability of human free behaviour ? Or put even
more simple: is evil in the tree (apple) or is evil our plucking and
eating ? Is evil external or is evil internal ? And this ambuigity gets
even stronger if we consider that Adam's primordial sin becomes the
unit of heredity. For the Jewish people the original sin marked them
with a sense of eternal guilt which urged them to ongoing penitence.
By the apostle Paul the phenomenon of evil got something external,
sin was not an invention of the first man, it was more like a mythical
quantity that transcended the person of Adam. Yet where Adam was
the man that had introduced and lead man into sin, it would be Christ
(the second Adam) that will rescue us and guide us out of the realm
of evil. For Augustinus it is the opposite: evil is a human tendency, a
purely interal aspect, it is an intentional act: "sin must nowhere else be
looked for than in a person's free will" [cf. Retractationes I.]. And with
Luther this all got intensified to dramatic proportions, here evil is both
external and internal; we are not only thrown into an evil world, but
through loss of free will, i.e. in the experience of a will that neverthe-
less escapes its freedom, we continually accumulate evil in our sinfull
behaviour too. Luther saw no other way than a radical break with the
Roman Church, a turn he saw more than justified in the words of Paul:
"Wherever however sins increased, in abundance we found the grace of
God." [Rom.5:20]
2. In the first paragraph of _Die Technik und die Kehre_ Heidegger sets
the stage of his enquiry: his aim is that he wants to question Technik
in preparation to get into a free relationship with it. To accomplish
this we need a way of thinking that leads us to the essence of Technik,
because without this essential insight we stay bound and *imprisoned*
in an everday grip of immersion or quasi-neutrality, without noticing
ever the limits of our un-freedom in the plethora of technical devices
that surround and enclose us, even as we reject them.
In the next paragraphs Heidegger discusses the *internal vs. external*
problem, i.e. the question if the essence of Technik [techne] must be
understood as solely a human cause, an human invention of poetic or
instrumental activity that shows, brings forth, designs and engineers
new things and arte-facts [cf. aition/causa = verschulden (owing guilt)
= herstellen, entbergen (showing in the open)], or else, that her essence
must be understood as coming from and determined by outside forces,
i.e. a system of cybernetic relations and autonomous self-organization
[cf. Bestand], steering [Geschick], reclaiming [herausfordern] and thus
casting man into a supra-human constellation [cf. Gestell].
Heidegger answers this question with a Lutheran move, when he says
that the essence of Technik lies neither merely outside, nor inside nor
through human activity [cf. TK:23]; and it is here that the question of
human freedom becomes urgent. Heidegger now proposes a new view
on the essence of human freedom. Freedom must not be understood as
some unlimited, unbound or arbitrary quality of the will; no, freedom
must first be understood as the ability of opening up and re-sponding
to the happing of truth as un-concealment [Lichtung] and only within
this liberating sensitivity we become prepared to gain insight in the
true dangers that reside concealed in the essence of modern technology.
According to Heidegger the most dangerous aspect of Technik-Gestell
lies in a misunderstanding and misinterpretation i.e. a loss of human
freedom (again a Lutheran moment). Without a clear view on freedom
as openness, we mistakenly trust all technological progress as liberating,
are in danger of loosing contact with our own essential self and mask
the essence of truth, hiding her original poetic shining as Lichtung. In
an echo to the word of Paul [Rom.5:20] Hoelderlin is called in to give
solace: "Wo aber Gefahr ist, waechst Das Rettende auch." [Wherever danger
is, always already rescue grows near.]
In the last, concluding part of the essay _Die Kehre_ Heidegger turns
his attention to a possible new and free relationship to technology and
-in fact- in general to our being-in-the-world. What is required here is
a new insight [Einblick] of our essence as human beings. If the essence
of human freedom is able to turn itself to and from this Ein-blick to
create [Entwurf] a free and open co-re-spondence to the call of this
new vision [Ausblick] on Being [Sein], only then can we, as mortals,
gain access and insight into its divine truth and save-keeping
[Wahrheit,Wahrnis]. If not, we stay powerless in a state of refusal and
failure, i.e
a state of oblivion, digression, shortfall and sin [i.e.
Seinsverfallenheit, Seinsvergessenheit]. If and when this turning-point
will happen, we do
not know, because it's not possible to calculate or predict it: the Kehre
[cf. Bekehren, Bekehrung = conversion] is like the gift of conversion,
it can happen [Ereignis/revelation] at any moment, it is a moment of
grace, suddenly and unexpected, Lichtung is a flash of lighting [Saul
on his way to Damascus].
Together we wait in silence
and the world comes nearest,
- hope -
what will happen tomorrow
is not without us and our sharing.
yours,
Jan
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---