Heidegger

Gary Davis wrote:

> — Anthony Crifasi wrote:
>> I addressed Allen’s post that same day. Here’s the link:
>>
>> http://heidegger.an-archos.com/archive/h…
>>
>> Perhaps you could address my reply?
>
> Great! I saw that reply, but didn’t know it was from you. (I don’t
> see any “From:” header. How does anyone tell from whom a posting in
> the archive is? Who’s indicating “related posts”?; and how? Earlier,
> I looked for direction, but found no guidance. I can’t tell whether
> Allen replied to you. The Yahoo! interface seems better.)
>
> Re: your reply to Allen: It looks like you’re speculatively
> concurring with him, not saying anything that pertains to your
> earlier question today.

It does pertain. Here’s Allen’s argument:

> In one’s concern with what one has taken hold of, whether with, for,
> or against, the Others, there is constant care as to the way one
> differs from them, whether that difference is merely one that is to
> be evened out, whether one’s own Dasein has lagged behind the Others
> and wants to catch up in relation to them, or whether one’s Dasein
> already has some priority over them and sets out to keep them
> suppressed. The care about this distance between them is disturbing
> to Being-with-one-another, though this disturbance is one that is
> hidden from it.”
>
> Well. . .It seems that this deficient form of care, keeping one
> preoccupied with differences that really have no ontological
> significance, is made possible by Dasein’s basic mode of Being-with.
> But a “correct” ontological understanding of Dasein as Being-with
> will show this ontic form of Being-with in its deficiency. And so
> Heidegger’s philosophy here has the force to thinkingly divert one
> from perpetrating evil upon those with whom one has only imagined
> differences.

Allen is suggesting a relationship between the ontological recognition
of the preoccupation with “differences” as merely an ontic form of
being-with, and the recognition of such differences as merely “imagined”
(thereby diverting us from “perpetrating evil” in the name of such
differences - e.g., the holocaust). As I argued in my reply, there is no
relationship between those two recognitions. The relationship between
the ontic and the ontological cannot be equated or even compared to the
relationship between what is “only imagined” and what is not. That would
be to mistake an ontic difference (between what is imagined and what is
not) for the ontological difference - a mistake that Heidegger
repeatedly implores us to avoid. The ontological understanding of such
“differences” as deficient forms of being-with would no more relegate
them to the status of being “only imagined” than would the ontological
understanding of being-inside as merely a deficient form of
being-alongside relegate the former to being “only imagined”.

> A>The relationship between Heidegger and Nazism has been discussed
> often enough for me to use “THE” quite generically to signify simply
> the evaluation of that relationship. That’s all I meant.
>
> G: There is no such thing as “THE relationship…quite generically”
> to evaluate, except trivially (as linguistic string having no
> specificity) *exactly because* Heidegger… and… Nazism (vague
> tokens of interest, as vague separately as is the “and” of the
> string) have been attended to so variously—and vaguely.
>
> But if I grant you your THE and AND, I would argue that there is NO
> relationship between Heidegger and Nazism.

I’m not saying that there is a positive relationship between Heidegger
and Nazism, as if one implied the other. I’m saying that Heidegger’s
philosophy is ontologically *compatible* with Nazism, as with any other
ontic way of being.

If you really are
> referring to Heidegger, as shown through “Heideggerian” work; and you
> really are referring to Nazism, as it understood itself, the AND is
> empty, and the history of issues is about misunderstanding
> Heidegger’s B&T, thus his rectorship, and then finding him culpable
> for having a weird Greek-romantic hope for a non-Marxist New Deal
> that might hold sway due to his academic charisma—naïve, and
> quickly recognized as such. I’ve been ’round and ’round on this so
> much, in earlier years, that I won’t weather more trotting out of
> “but…buts” anymore, which is just longing for a cohering narrative
> (an incriminating one!) where there is none.

You should, I would suggest, look again at whether you are making the
same mistake that Allen (IMO) made - confusing the ontological
difference with an ontic difference.

Anthony Crifasi

Posted on Sunday, July 13th, 2008 at 6:00 am
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