At 02:35 PM 10/8/95 -0400, Christopher Rickey, in response to Iain
Thomson's question to me, wrote:
>> Could you perhaps say a little bit more about the "monstrous site"
>> or the 'monstrosity' to which Schurmann is riveted in his reading
>> of the Beitrage? (I know that he gave this paper at a conference
>> in 89, but I don't know where it's been published.)
>
>I'm not Bob, but it has been published both in English and in German.
>The English translation is in Martin Heidegger: politics, art, technology
>(or something like that) edited by Karsten Harries and Christoph Jamme.
>It has roughly the same title (and same editors) in the German edition.
>
>According to Schurmann, the monstrosity is how Heidegger grafted elements
>of his later thought onto a still-Nazilike thinking present in the
>Beitrage. Plus, he didn't like the writing style. If you remember
>Schurmann's argument in Heidegger on Being and Acting, he indicates that
>he reads Heidegger in reverse because the last Heidegger is the purest,
>having weeded out his earlier subjectivist elements. The Beitrage is
>monstrous because it encompasses both elements (good and bad) as if they
>belonged together.
>
In _On Being and Acting_ the reference to the monstruous taken from
__Ecriture and Difference__ at the conclusion of the essay "Structure, Sign,
and Play" signals the birth of the new "under the species of the
nonspecies", the dichotomy of disparate, irreconciliable elements that are
welded together, like the graft of life sparked into the morose flesh of a
Frankenstein. Schurmann applies it to the Beitrage, but also to the later
Heidegger described in the thought "Anarchy Principle". Probably it applies
to the very type of project and thought engagement Heidegger pursued
lifelong. Monstruous because always precursory and encumbered with the
greatest danger:
"The evil and thus keenest danger is
thinking itself. It must think
against itself, which it can only
seldom do."
(from "The Thinker as Poet" in _Poetry, Language, and Thought_ ;p. 7;
translated by Albert Hofstadter ; Harper & Row 1975)
Heidegger himself gives site and reference to the monstruous. Here is one:
"Thus it is necessary to surpass Aristotle - not in a forward direction..
but rather backwards in the direction of a more original unveiling of what
is comprehended by him....Whether this *monstrous* task succeeds or fails,
that is a later concern. It is enough if we experience in this struggle only
that we are too weak and too unprepared to master what has been given to us
as our task. This may then at the very least awaken in us the one thing
which belongs in no small measure to the presumption of philosophizing and
about which there is nothing more to say: the awe before the actual works of
spirit." (__Aristotle's Metaphysics H 1-3 On the essence and Actuality of
Force__ p.67, translated by W. Brogan & P. Warnek ; Indiana University
Press 1995)
What is the German for monstruous?
Are there other sites in Heidegger that come to mind?
Or are these monstrosities merely appearing to me as so many phantasms,
ghosts, goblins, gremlins so appropriate to the season, the time, the age,
the Geisterstunde???
Thanks
Bob
**************
Nous allons donc parler de Heidegger.
Nous allons aussi parler de la monstruosite.
**************
"La Main De Heidegger"
(p.176 in __Heidegger et La Question De l'esprit et autres essais__ 1990,
Flammarion, Paris)
Jacques Derrida
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
------------------
Thomson's question to me, wrote:
>> Could you perhaps say a little bit more about the "monstrous site"
>> or the 'monstrosity' to which Schurmann is riveted in his reading
>> of the Beitrage? (I know that he gave this paper at a conference
>> in 89, but I don't know where it's been published.)
>
>I'm not Bob, but it has been published both in English and in German.
>The English translation is in Martin Heidegger: politics, art, technology
>(or something like that) edited by Karsten Harries and Christoph Jamme.
>It has roughly the same title (and same editors) in the German edition.
>
>According to Schurmann, the monstrosity is how Heidegger grafted elements
>of his later thought onto a still-Nazilike thinking present in the
>Beitrage. Plus, he didn't like the writing style. If you remember
>Schurmann's argument in Heidegger on Being and Acting, he indicates that
>he reads Heidegger in reverse because the last Heidegger is the purest,
>having weeded out his earlier subjectivist elements. The Beitrage is
>monstrous because it encompasses both elements (good and bad) as if they
>belonged together.
>
In _On Being and Acting_ the reference to the monstruous taken from
__Ecriture and Difference__ at the conclusion of the essay "Structure, Sign,
and Play" signals the birth of the new "under the species of the
nonspecies", the dichotomy of disparate, irreconciliable elements that are
welded together, like the graft of life sparked into the morose flesh of a
Frankenstein. Schurmann applies it to the Beitrage, but also to the later
Heidegger described in the thought "Anarchy Principle". Probably it applies
to the very type of project and thought engagement Heidegger pursued
lifelong. Monstruous because always precursory and encumbered with the
greatest danger:
"The evil and thus keenest danger is
thinking itself. It must think
against itself, which it can only
seldom do."
(from "The Thinker as Poet" in _Poetry, Language, and Thought_ ;p. 7;
translated by Albert Hofstadter ; Harper & Row 1975)
Heidegger himself gives site and reference to the monstruous. Here is one:
"Thus it is necessary to surpass Aristotle - not in a forward direction..
but rather backwards in the direction of a more original unveiling of what
is comprehended by him....Whether this *monstrous* task succeeds or fails,
that is a later concern. It is enough if we experience in this struggle only
that we are too weak and too unprepared to master what has been given to us
as our task. This may then at the very least awaken in us the one thing
which belongs in no small measure to the presumption of philosophizing and
about which there is nothing more to say: the awe before the actual works of
spirit." (__Aristotle's Metaphysics H 1-3 On the essence and Actuality of
Force__ p.67, translated by W. Brogan & P. Warnek ; Indiana University
Press 1995)
What is the German for monstruous?
Are there other sites in Heidegger that come to mind?
Or are these monstrosities merely appearing to me as so many phantasms,
ghosts, goblins, gremlins so appropriate to the season, the time, the age,
the Geisterstunde???
Thanks
Bob
**************
Nous allons donc parler de Heidegger.
Nous allons aussi parler de la monstruosite.
**************
"La Main De Heidegger"
(p.176 in __Heidegger et La Question De l'esprit et autres essais__ 1990,
Flammarion, Paris)
Jacques Derrida
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
------------------