Laurence,
Thanks for your detailed and thoughtful comments. Since we now seem
to be agreeing more than disagreeing, let me just insert a few notes
into your "commenting out."
>
> Iain -=20
>
> Thank you for your considered and measured reply to my comments. My =
> accusation of "extravagance" was itself intended to be provocative, as I =
> am sure you will appreciate.
>
> In reply to your posting (I hope you won't mind if I don't "comment out" =
> our discussion so far).
>
> 1 My reference to Heidegger's "ways" rather than "way" was intended to =
> suggest that your discussion of the "placement" of particular thinkers, =
> say Nietzsche, in the history of Being suggests a homogeneity of that =
> history, that it constitutes itself as a clear "line" or thread, almost =
> (to exaggerate my reading of your position) unambiguously. Were this =
> so, then Heidegger's continued dialogue with himself would suggest that =
> he is ever seeking to correct his own "errors", to "purify" the reading =
> of the history of Being & c. This is in itself a fallacy, for =
> Heidegger's whole use of the language of "ways" (I refer you to the tag =
> in the opening volume of the Gesamtausgabe, "ways not works") - and his =
> discussion of "error" (repeated in his works) precisely opens up for us =
> the ambiguity of the history of Being, which Heidegger so often portrays =
> as a spatial experience (travelling on the ways, the "nearest" or most =
> neighbourly is also the farthest from us, & c.).
>
> 2 This leads to my point about whether Marx *supplants* Nietzsche in a =
> particular "placement" of the history of Being - which seems to me then =
> to become a pantheon, with Heidegger simply the curator who moves the =
> sarcophagi about in particular orders depending on his own particular =
> position at any point in his life. This leads us to a false question of =
> "who is Heidegger" - such as you might find in the early pages of van =
> Buren's recent work "The Young Heidegger" - and although I think I =
> appreciate what he is trying to convey there, I also think that =
> discussions of that kind are unhelpful and lead to false trails =
> (Holzwege, perhaps?).
>
For me there are several interesting questions addressed implicitly
here. Maybe they can be made explicit. What is the relationship
between Heidegger the man and Heidegger the thinker? What bearing
should Heidegger's own retrocative reinterpretations (or
interpretive reappropriations) of his own texts (or, more often, his
own 'paths of thought') have for the scholarly receptions of those
texts? If we stick just with those two questions for a minute, we
can begin to notice the specific way in which they have come to be
related to one another. As Heidegger the man falls more and more
out of favor, there is a tendency among Heideggerians and
post-Heideggerian thinkers to reduce Heidegger to his texts, to
"that work of thinking called 'Heidegger'", or even to "the
Heidegger machine." This seems to me to be an attempt to
circumscribe and protect the texts from any 'infectious' contact
with the man (and there is some irony, no doubt, in the fact that it
was Heidegger himself who wanted to be remebered, like Aristotle, as
a man who was born, worked, and died). The introduction to Van
Buren's excellent scholarly work--to which you refered
above--seems to suffer from a similar attempt to purify the texts of
their Nazi contagion. VB is contributing immensely to Heidegger
scholarship via his hermeneutic salvage-job of the early Heidegger,
but who is the amorphous but oppresive "Heidegger Inc." that would
prevent him from reading Heidegger against Heidegger? To salvage
'the young Heidegger' is a great service, but it needn't attempt to
excise the offending flesh of middle and late Heidegger (for that be
two-thirds the body!) Perhaps it is the scholarly ideal of textual
autonomy that inspires the reductions of man to work (the same
reduction that made Marx 'the most extreme position of
nihilism'--and a reduction that Heidegger seemd to desire for
himself, understandably) but it is also the scholarly ideals of
openness, truthfulness, and (let's hope) community that allow us to
imagine scholaership addressing these painful questions without
being guided by the paranoid logics of infection...
There, I take it, we are largely in agreement. As for your
extrapolating "ways not way" from "ways not works," I find this move
dubious. Unlike those who discount Heidegger's own
self-interpretations so raqdically that they are unable to grant
credence to his own attempts to play the role of park ranger to
those attempting to navigate the Black forrest of his texts, I take
very seriously Heidegger's claim to have spent his life addressing
one question. And if every question conceals within itself a quest,
Heidegger's was the surely the quest for being. In his lifelong
attempt to scale this peak he made quite a few wrong turns, false
paths, dead-ends, etc. But the Kehre--which I read as the radical
historicization of ontology--was for Heidegger a necessary
"swithback" which the hiker must take in order to continue to asced
toward his or her goal. Even if every work contains a myriad of
ways, Heidegger's way could be singular. (I would refer you here to
Frederick Olafson's article in the Cambridge Companion to
Heidegger). Of course, Heidegger's singular quest for being is also
a way back through a long and complex series of texts and thinkers,
along the way he is bound to make mistakes, to simplify, etc. One
thing which most readers of Heidegger's progressive attempts to
elucidate the history of being will notice is that the story gets
progressively refined and complicated as the details are worked out,
(as the curator metaphor you use implies), but that the general
outlines are only reinforced. This testifies either to the depth of
Heidegger's insight, or else to his obstinancy (and perhaps to a
little of both). It is for this reason that figures in the history
can be, and clearly are shuffled about within the more stable
confines of the general historical contours of being's unfolding.
> 3 Why I chose the citations I did from zur Seinsfrage is because, =
> subtly, all the themes you raise are there present, on the first page, =
> *including* a crucial discussion about the nature of the worker. (That =
> Heidegger was drawn to Juenger's work at a particular historical moment =
> (1932+), itself an examination of a kind of nihilistic metaphysics of =
> the worker and class, tells us more than I have ever seen seriously =
> discussed anywhere about Heidegger's own rapprochement with Nazism, and =
> is indicative of the fact that Heidegger sided with a particular =
> tendency of Nazism - a claim he himself made repeatedly. To concede =
> this is to have to concede that Nazism was not a homogeneous political =
> movement, but rather a collection of political tendencies of varying =
> strengths and with more or less worked out ideological positions =
> competing for the Fuehrer's attention and for the centre stage of power, =
> but all this belongs to a different discussion it would be better not to =
> resurrect on this list.) It struck me as significant that in the =
> "mid-point" of Heidegger's own work that all these themes should come =
> together as belonging together so clearly in one place. My choice was =
> intended therefore, to challenge you "linear" reading of development in =
> Heidegger's work. Ways, not *the* way.
>
My reading is less linear than reverse chronological, and in this I
attempt to follow Heidegger's own challenge to be read backward,
i.e., I attempt to recognize and take stock of the fact that the
trends of one's own development are much more clearly visible in
hindsight (while recognizing that such hindsight also inevitably
simplifies certain tensions and complications which were much more
obvious as one went through the events).
> 4 If I may now quote your last post,=20
>
> "With the fulfillment of nihilism only _begins_ the final phase of =
> nihilism." This curious phrasing leaves it open that Nietzsche fulfills =
> nihilism, but that Marx somehow reaches the position of the most extreme =
> nihilism after Nietzsche fulfills it. I take it that man as =
> labour-power represents the pinnacle of the subjectivism and metaphysics =
> of will expressed in Nietzsche",=20
I fear that I smoothed over the oddness of Heidegger's expression
too quickly, and invite you to consider it anew. What examples do
we have of things of events whose final stages only begin with their
fulfillment? If I domesticated the tension this uncanny phrasing
reflects, I did a disservice. But note that the tension arises from
Heidegger's attempt to reconcile his reading of Marx (not Marxism)
--he says as I quoted last time that his reading is not political
but addresses the placement of Marx in the history of being) with
his history of being as he up until that point understood it.
Heidegger's self-criticisms are subtle, and he does his best to
maximize the continuities and minimize the tensions--but rather than
entirely discounting his retroactive reinterpretations one does well
I think to explore them as thoroughly as possible.
>
> There is a point to be made here - is it Marx or Marxism that somehow =
> reaches the position of extreme nihilism (or is it =
> Marxism-Nazism-Capitalism - the global "movement of nihilism"). I think =
> you have to some extent answered your own question, because the history =
> of being is not linear, but epochal. There is a "hanging together" of =
> certain themes (nihilism, technology and the Ge-stell etc) which have an =
> essential, interior connection one with another. There is no need to =
> supplant Nietzsche with Marx, they "belong together" (zusammengehoeren) =
> in the *Vollendung* of metaphysics. Perhaps this is why a discussion of =
> Parmenides follows on in parallel form to the later discussion of Marx =
> as it does in the earlier discussion of Nietzsche in the 40's, although =
> I think you need to say more here, and demonstrate *what* the discussion =
> of Parmenides opens. *That* there is a parallel is perhaps merely =
> coincidence or chance, unless you suggest (or Heidegger himself =
> suggests) there was a reason for it. In a sense the discussion of =
> Parmenides continues throughout Heidegger's life.
This is in fact what I am currently working on. It is not chance,
narrowly defined, but the flip side of the coin, the reconstructive
moment which complements the deconstructive critique!
>
> In conclusion, it seems to me that one of the questions that needs to be =
> asked is "what is the essential (in its Heideggerian sense) connection =
> between nihilism and the Ge-stell." I do not think you have yet proved =
> your case, that Heidegger particularly sought to privelege Nietzsche =
> over Marx or vie versa in the history of Being, or at any particular =
> point in his own life.
>
I don't think anyone doubts that nihilism and enframing are
intimitely connected. The history of metaphysics is the history of
nihilism proper, Heidegger says in the Nietzsche lectures. The
essays collected in _RThe Question Concerning Technology_ address
these points repeatedly. You are right that the connection needs to
be clarified; I take it that the best way to do that is to
reconstruct Heidegger's history of being and the place of nihilism
therein. Once one does this, the question becomes not whether
Nietzsche or Marx is privileged in this history, but what nihilism
is and what can be done to confront it. It is here that Heidegger
turns to Parmenides--in order to recover, for the future, a
non-nihilistic understanding of being!
> There is so much more to be said here, but I do not have the time right =
> now to say it. Thank you for a most enjoyable discussion.
>
> Laurence Hemming
>
>
Agreed. Time is tightening its grasp around here as well, but it's
been--and may yet manage to continue to be, in one *way* or another,
enjoyable.
Iain Thomson
> --- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
>
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
------------------
Thanks for your detailed and thoughtful comments. Since we now seem
to be agreeing more than disagreeing, let me just insert a few notes
into your "commenting out."
>
> Iain -=20
>
> Thank you for your considered and measured reply to my comments. My =
> accusation of "extravagance" was itself intended to be provocative, as I =
> am sure you will appreciate.
>
> In reply to your posting (I hope you won't mind if I don't "comment out" =
> our discussion so far).
>
> 1 My reference to Heidegger's "ways" rather than "way" was intended to =
> suggest that your discussion of the "placement" of particular thinkers, =
> say Nietzsche, in the history of Being suggests a homogeneity of that =
> history, that it constitutes itself as a clear "line" or thread, almost =
> (to exaggerate my reading of your position) unambiguously. Were this =
> so, then Heidegger's continued dialogue with himself would suggest that =
> he is ever seeking to correct his own "errors", to "purify" the reading =
> of the history of Being & c. This is in itself a fallacy, for =
> Heidegger's whole use of the language of "ways" (I refer you to the tag =
> in the opening volume of the Gesamtausgabe, "ways not works") - and his =
> discussion of "error" (repeated in his works) precisely opens up for us =
> the ambiguity of the history of Being, which Heidegger so often portrays =
> as a spatial experience (travelling on the ways, the "nearest" or most =
> neighbourly is also the farthest from us, & c.).
>
> 2 This leads to my point about whether Marx *supplants* Nietzsche in a =
> particular "placement" of the history of Being - which seems to me then =
> to become a pantheon, with Heidegger simply the curator who moves the =
> sarcophagi about in particular orders depending on his own particular =
> position at any point in his life. This leads us to a false question of =
> "who is Heidegger" - such as you might find in the early pages of van =
> Buren's recent work "The Young Heidegger" - and although I think I =
> appreciate what he is trying to convey there, I also think that =
> discussions of that kind are unhelpful and lead to false trails =
> (Holzwege, perhaps?).
>
For me there are several interesting questions addressed implicitly
here. Maybe they can be made explicit. What is the relationship
between Heidegger the man and Heidegger the thinker? What bearing
should Heidegger's own retrocative reinterpretations (or
interpretive reappropriations) of his own texts (or, more often, his
own 'paths of thought') have for the scholarly receptions of those
texts? If we stick just with those two questions for a minute, we
can begin to notice the specific way in which they have come to be
related to one another. As Heidegger the man falls more and more
out of favor, there is a tendency among Heideggerians and
post-Heideggerian thinkers to reduce Heidegger to his texts, to
"that work of thinking called 'Heidegger'", or even to "the
Heidegger machine." This seems to me to be an attempt to
circumscribe and protect the texts from any 'infectious' contact
with the man (and there is some irony, no doubt, in the fact that it
was Heidegger himself who wanted to be remebered, like Aristotle, as
a man who was born, worked, and died). The introduction to Van
Buren's excellent scholarly work--to which you refered
above--seems to suffer from a similar attempt to purify the texts of
their Nazi contagion. VB is contributing immensely to Heidegger
scholarship via his hermeneutic salvage-job of the early Heidegger,
but who is the amorphous but oppresive "Heidegger Inc." that would
prevent him from reading Heidegger against Heidegger? To salvage
'the young Heidegger' is a great service, but it needn't attempt to
excise the offending flesh of middle and late Heidegger (for that be
two-thirds the body!) Perhaps it is the scholarly ideal of textual
autonomy that inspires the reductions of man to work (the same
reduction that made Marx 'the most extreme position of
nihilism'--and a reduction that Heidegger seemd to desire for
himself, understandably) but it is also the scholarly ideals of
openness, truthfulness, and (let's hope) community that allow us to
imagine scholaership addressing these painful questions without
being guided by the paranoid logics of infection...
There, I take it, we are largely in agreement. As for your
extrapolating "ways not way" from "ways not works," I find this move
dubious. Unlike those who discount Heidegger's own
self-interpretations so raqdically that they are unable to grant
credence to his own attempts to play the role of park ranger to
those attempting to navigate the Black forrest of his texts, I take
very seriously Heidegger's claim to have spent his life addressing
one question. And if every question conceals within itself a quest,
Heidegger's was the surely the quest for being. In his lifelong
attempt to scale this peak he made quite a few wrong turns, false
paths, dead-ends, etc. But the Kehre--which I read as the radical
historicization of ontology--was for Heidegger a necessary
"swithback" which the hiker must take in order to continue to asced
toward his or her goal. Even if every work contains a myriad of
ways, Heidegger's way could be singular. (I would refer you here to
Frederick Olafson's article in the Cambridge Companion to
Heidegger). Of course, Heidegger's singular quest for being is also
a way back through a long and complex series of texts and thinkers,
along the way he is bound to make mistakes, to simplify, etc. One
thing which most readers of Heidegger's progressive attempts to
elucidate the history of being will notice is that the story gets
progressively refined and complicated as the details are worked out,
(as the curator metaphor you use implies), but that the general
outlines are only reinforced. This testifies either to the depth of
Heidegger's insight, or else to his obstinancy (and perhaps to a
little of both). It is for this reason that figures in the history
can be, and clearly are shuffled about within the more stable
confines of the general historical contours of being's unfolding.
> 3 Why I chose the citations I did from zur Seinsfrage is because, =
> subtly, all the themes you raise are there present, on the first page, =
> *including* a crucial discussion about the nature of the worker. (That =
> Heidegger was drawn to Juenger's work at a particular historical moment =
> (1932+), itself an examination of a kind of nihilistic metaphysics of =
> the worker and class, tells us more than I have ever seen seriously =
> discussed anywhere about Heidegger's own rapprochement with Nazism, and =
> is indicative of the fact that Heidegger sided with a particular =
> tendency of Nazism - a claim he himself made repeatedly. To concede =
> this is to have to concede that Nazism was not a homogeneous political =
> movement, but rather a collection of political tendencies of varying =
> strengths and with more or less worked out ideological positions =
> competing for the Fuehrer's attention and for the centre stage of power, =
> but all this belongs to a different discussion it would be better not to =
> resurrect on this list.) It struck me as significant that in the =
> "mid-point" of Heidegger's own work that all these themes should come =
> together as belonging together so clearly in one place. My choice was =
> intended therefore, to challenge you "linear" reading of development in =
> Heidegger's work. Ways, not *the* way.
>
My reading is less linear than reverse chronological, and in this I
attempt to follow Heidegger's own challenge to be read backward,
i.e., I attempt to recognize and take stock of the fact that the
trends of one's own development are much more clearly visible in
hindsight (while recognizing that such hindsight also inevitably
simplifies certain tensions and complications which were much more
obvious as one went through the events).
> 4 If I may now quote your last post,=20
>
> "With the fulfillment of nihilism only _begins_ the final phase of =
> nihilism." This curious phrasing leaves it open that Nietzsche fulfills =
> nihilism, but that Marx somehow reaches the position of the most extreme =
> nihilism after Nietzsche fulfills it. I take it that man as =
> labour-power represents the pinnacle of the subjectivism and metaphysics =
> of will expressed in Nietzsche",=20
I fear that I smoothed over the oddness of Heidegger's expression
too quickly, and invite you to consider it anew. What examples do
we have of things of events whose final stages only begin with their
fulfillment? If I domesticated the tension this uncanny phrasing
reflects, I did a disservice. But note that the tension arises from
Heidegger's attempt to reconcile his reading of Marx (not Marxism)
--he says as I quoted last time that his reading is not political
but addresses the placement of Marx in the history of being) with
his history of being as he up until that point understood it.
Heidegger's self-criticisms are subtle, and he does his best to
maximize the continuities and minimize the tensions--but rather than
entirely discounting his retroactive reinterpretations one does well
I think to explore them as thoroughly as possible.
>
> There is a point to be made here - is it Marx or Marxism that somehow =
> reaches the position of extreme nihilism (or is it =
> Marxism-Nazism-Capitalism - the global "movement of nihilism"). I think =
> you have to some extent answered your own question, because the history =
> of being is not linear, but epochal. There is a "hanging together" of =
> certain themes (nihilism, technology and the Ge-stell etc) which have an =
> essential, interior connection one with another. There is no need to =
> supplant Nietzsche with Marx, they "belong together" (zusammengehoeren) =
> in the *Vollendung* of metaphysics. Perhaps this is why a discussion of =
> Parmenides follows on in parallel form to the later discussion of Marx =
> as it does in the earlier discussion of Nietzsche in the 40's, although =
> I think you need to say more here, and demonstrate *what* the discussion =
> of Parmenides opens. *That* there is a parallel is perhaps merely =
> coincidence or chance, unless you suggest (or Heidegger himself =
> suggests) there was a reason for it. In a sense the discussion of =
> Parmenides continues throughout Heidegger's life.
This is in fact what I am currently working on. It is not chance,
narrowly defined, but the flip side of the coin, the reconstructive
moment which complements the deconstructive critique!
>
> In conclusion, it seems to me that one of the questions that needs to be =
> asked is "what is the essential (in its Heideggerian sense) connection =
> between nihilism and the Ge-stell." I do not think you have yet proved =
> your case, that Heidegger particularly sought to privelege Nietzsche =
> over Marx or vie versa in the history of Being, or at any particular =
> point in his own life.
>
I don't think anyone doubts that nihilism and enframing are
intimitely connected. The history of metaphysics is the history of
nihilism proper, Heidegger says in the Nietzsche lectures. The
essays collected in _RThe Question Concerning Technology_ address
these points repeatedly. You are right that the connection needs to
be clarified; I take it that the best way to do that is to
reconstruct Heidegger's history of being and the place of nihilism
therein. Once one does this, the question becomes not whether
Nietzsche or Marx is privileged in this history, but what nihilism
is and what can be done to confront it. It is here that Heidegger
turns to Parmenides--in order to recover, for the future, a
non-nihilistic understanding of being!
> There is so much more to be said here, but I do not have the time right =
> now to say it. Thank you for a most enjoyable discussion.
>
> Laurence Hemming
>
>
Agreed. Time is tightening its grasp around here as well, but it's
been--and may yet manage to continue to be, in one *way* or another,
enjoyable.
Iain Thomson
> --- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
>
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
------------------