Tom Blancato wrote:
this authenticity, if it is there, is not yet a
guarantee of *moral* authenticity, but, and I think this is
at the crux of Heidegger's entire modus operandi for Being
and time, it is a founding and necessary condition of
possibility of *moral* authenticity. But, moral authenticity
itself must at the same time be in the independent-
substantive relation to the question of violence, and on, in
certain ways, a path of nonviolence. It would be very
helpful then to contrast a somehow "obviously" authentic
(existentially and morally) martyr with one who is not. You
pick for the former case. In the latter case, I would think
of, for example, a missionary working to "convert" people in
a "primitive" land.
Tom- The desire to see in Heid's conception of existential
authenticity a condition of the possibility of a more robust 'moral
authenticity,' as you put it, has a long and important history,
beginning with Beufret's questions (which prompted the Letter on
Humanism much discussed earlier on this list).
But what I was suggesting was that authenticity is
insufficient as a moral or, better (thanks to the etymological link
to ethos) ethical notion. I find the later notion of 'Gelassenheit
zu den Dingen' much more promising. The quote I gave from 1936
finds Heidegger somewhere in between authenticity and Gelassenheit.
Thus, when you ask what would distinguish the authentic from the
inauthentic martyr, or the martyr properly speaking from the martye
improperly speaking, the answer is in Heidegger's own words (from
the quote you quoted back):
"what must man bear witness to? That he
belongs to the earth."
Remmeber here that by earth (in 1936) Heidegger doesn't mean 'soil,'
but rather the 'earth' of the 'earth' vs. 'world' dichotomy of
1935's Origin of the Work of Art, where 'earth' is that which can
never be exhausted by any conceptual frame (or 'world,' hence the
transtition also from world to Enframing also visible in hindsight).
Bearing witness to our belonging to the earth means something like
acknowledging that the ideas you disseminate, however passionately
(perhaps even righteously), cannot claim a monopoly on truth, on a
one right way of viewing things. Our belonging to the earth
precludes the possibility of there being a sole right way of
understanding what is, ourselves, etc. Even with this simplified
picture we can see why your example of the inauthentic martyr _is_
inauthentic as a martyr for Heidegger; insofar as they are
preaching the Missionary gospel according to which the saved go to
Heaven and thhose who don't _hear_ the message burn forever in Hell,
they are implicitly claiming access to the Truth, the one right way
of understanding (and thus failing to bear witness to the fact that
they belong to the earth).
Nietzsche's critique of Paul in _The Antichrist_ fits nicely
here, though the question of the violence of the interpretation
(which Heidegger readily acknowledged and accepted as part of the
facticity of the hermeneutic situation), and thus of the relation
between autheniticty and violence (which are not nearly as
heterogenous as you seem to suppose) still remains unanswered.
I take it also that this criterion of authentic martyrdom,
that we bear witness to our belonging to the earth, also provides
ample theoretical leverage for the resistance of various
essentialisms (specifically the Nazi biologistic racism and
nationalism to which the Hoelderlin piece is speaking, albeit
obliquely).
Iain Thomson
UCSD Philosophy
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
------------------
this authenticity, if it is there, is not yet a
guarantee of *moral* authenticity, but, and I think this is
at the crux of Heidegger's entire modus operandi for Being
and time, it is a founding and necessary condition of
possibility of *moral* authenticity. But, moral authenticity
itself must at the same time be in the independent-
substantive relation to the question of violence, and on, in
certain ways, a path of nonviolence. It would be very
helpful then to contrast a somehow "obviously" authentic
(existentially and morally) martyr with one who is not. You
pick for the former case. In the latter case, I would think
of, for example, a missionary working to "convert" people in
a "primitive" land.
Tom- The desire to see in Heid's conception of existential
authenticity a condition of the possibility of a more robust 'moral
authenticity,' as you put it, has a long and important history,
beginning with Beufret's questions (which prompted the Letter on
Humanism much discussed earlier on this list).
But what I was suggesting was that authenticity is
insufficient as a moral or, better (thanks to the etymological link
to ethos) ethical notion. I find the later notion of 'Gelassenheit
zu den Dingen' much more promising. The quote I gave from 1936
finds Heidegger somewhere in between authenticity and Gelassenheit.
Thus, when you ask what would distinguish the authentic from the
inauthentic martyr, or the martyr properly speaking from the martye
improperly speaking, the answer is in Heidegger's own words (from
the quote you quoted back):
"what must man bear witness to? That he
belongs to the earth."
Remmeber here that by earth (in 1936) Heidegger doesn't mean 'soil,'
but rather the 'earth' of the 'earth' vs. 'world' dichotomy of
1935's Origin of the Work of Art, where 'earth' is that which can
never be exhausted by any conceptual frame (or 'world,' hence the
transtition also from world to Enframing also visible in hindsight).
Bearing witness to our belonging to the earth means something like
acknowledging that the ideas you disseminate, however passionately
(perhaps even righteously), cannot claim a monopoly on truth, on a
one right way of viewing things. Our belonging to the earth
precludes the possibility of there being a sole right way of
understanding what is, ourselves, etc. Even with this simplified
picture we can see why your example of the inauthentic martyr _is_
inauthentic as a martyr for Heidegger; insofar as they are
preaching the Missionary gospel according to which the saved go to
Heaven and thhose who don't _hear_ the message burn forever in Hell,
they are implicitly claiming access to the Truth, the one right way
of understanding (and thus failing to bear witness to the fact that
they belong to the earth).
Nietzsche's critique of Paul in _The Antichrist_ fits nicely
here, though the question of the violence of the interpretation
(which Heidegger readily acknowledged and accepted as part of the
facticity of the hermeneutic situation), and thus of the relation
between autheniticty and violence (which are not nearly as
heterogenous as you seem to suppose) still remains unanswered.
I take it also that this criterion of authentic martyrdom,
that we bear witness to our belonging to the earth, also provides
ample theoretical leverage for the resistance of various
essentialisms (specifically the Nazi biologistic racism and
nationalism to which the Hoelderlin piece is speaking, albeit
obliquely).
Iain Thomson
UCSD Philosophy
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
------------------