Heidegger

>Allen spake this recently:
>
>> I was putting a DVD in place to watch it, one I’ve been wanting see
>> again for quite a while. I was struck by how long I’ve been without
>> this and other pleasures of the present, feeling the melancholy of
>> the comparatively short time left to me to enjoy these pleasures(the
>> DVD player being one of the very minor ones, but one that will stand
>> in for others of a more personal sort) when came this thought:
>>
>> This is really the only time I’ve ever lived and for all intents and
>> purposes, it lasts forever.
>
>Allen, for some intents and purposes (of this speech), what you say reminds
>me of Nietzsche (or at least, the Nietzschean strand in Heidegger’s
>thinking), of amor fati, of a highly active acceptance of be-ing (as both
>beings-as-a-whole and as the be-ing of your being), the thanks of
>thinking… and the accomodation of the eternal in the moment (augenblick)
>that sits nicely with Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence of the Same. Have you
>thrown off that infernal monkey (in Zarathustra)? How can anything, any
>thing, have been any different (properly asked and affirmed), leads neatly
>to an eternal embracing of the moment as one that is for ever in its
>momentness (encompassing all intents and purposes). Apart from the odd (and
>wonderful and welcome) insight, this embrace is a tricky business and poses
>the questions of the “short time left”, the not-forever, the cleavage in the
>very structurings of time in the moment, of the presencing of beings (as and
>how and when they are). But never mind: this is the time of your (our) life.
>

Hi Michael,’

Amor fati is one of the more important ideas I’ve gleaned from
Nietzsche. Your rendering of it as “active acceptance” takes in
other Nietzschian ideas, and is just plain a good idea.

It seems to me the time factor is crucial here. Enter Heidegger.
Could it be that Heidegger teaches Nietzsche? Definitely.

It’s similar to the rather radical (that is, held by radical rabbis)
rabbinic notion, that the Oral Torah preceded the written Torah.
That is the interpretation, the way of understanding, the understood
precedes the Torah text itself.

Heidegger enunciates similar notions by way of indicating the place
of his work in the wider philosophical scheme of things. First he
says that Plato can only be understood through Aristotle’s
lens(Plato’s Sophist), then later (The Nietzsche lectures) that the
great thinker never thinks his greatest thought.

The New Year comes awfully early this year. Go figure that out.

Best regards,

Allen

Posted on Tuesday, August 21st, 2007 at 11:00 am
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