Heidegger

In a message dated 3/19/2008 1:59:59 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
michael at sandwich-de-sign.co.uk writes:

Bernard states:

> This is simple enough however remote on this list following Eldred’s
> dialectic double-speak about “Being” that quite eludes Heidegger’s archai
> materia (”Being”) as it does Aristotle’s prima materia.

Bernard, for me Heidegger’s be-ing breathes the air from an entirely
different planet to that of any kind of notion of archai or prima materia
(and this is likewise the case with Anaximander’s a-peiron, likewise the
kabbalistic en sof). Be-ing [is] not any kind of ’stuff’ however
undifferentiated, sparsely un-dense or nexal or primal or voidal {further,
it [is] not any kind of ‘non-stuff’ either}, etc; any kind of ’stuff’ {or
non-stuff} is some kind of being and thus not be-ing as such (which [is] not
any kind of being {material or immaterial, physical or meta-physical, etc};
[is] not phenomenal or pre-phenomenal or trans-phenomenal or meta-phenomenal
{which notion seems to me to be nigh impossible with any kind of of notion
of the ‘meta’ I have in my fruit basket}).
Well, Michael, you have roamed through your apophatic fruit basket of
negation and that is quite cute, since it does not shed any light on “Heidegger’s
be-ing [that] breathes the air from an entirely different planet” I wonder if you
have Heidegger’s be-ing in compare to whatever or wherever roam UFOs.

If a being is something that appears (for example), then be-ing (of that
being) is the appearing (and dis-appearing) of that being (as an
insurrection against nothingness, non-appearance) and not the appearance of
what appears, or what appears as such (the being). This has absolutely
nothing to do with some underlying potential to be (like some invisible
non-apparent ‘magnetic field’ just ‘waiting’ for its iron filings to show
its self) or some earlier ’state’ of ‘matter’ that has not yet or quite
‘developed’ into discreet things and thinglets, etc.

I can appreciate your insurrection against nothingness in the abscence of
knowing about the somethingness of nothingness.

In many ways, one cannot properly speak *about* be-ing, rather one can (in
trying to speak about be-ing) speak *from* be-ing (be be-spoken, if you
like) and in that way show the very eclipsing of be-ing even as the eclipse
(an other being, once again) covers its very eclipsing: a quick glance, a
sparking, the silence (or rather, silencing) at the heart of language and
music that is not the mere absence of word or sound. Art can reveal this in
the ecstasy and rapture of beauty.
Ah, now we are getting somewhere from nowhere. So, this be-ng is a matter of
agape rather than eros or philos or however else God is love and,
apophatically speaking, be-ing must be God. I wonder whether MichaelE had this in mind in
his overwrought understanding of Heidegger qua Marx.

That’s all folks for now.

michaelP
Not so fast Michael of Sandwich. I would prefer to give the last word to
MichaelE of Cologne when he notes in his exegesis:

“Heidegger’s simple draft of the fourfold provokes many questions. Why four,
and not three, or five? In speaking of the fourfold, Heidegger does not say
anything about the sea. Is its already including in talking of the earth? The
characterization of the earth as, say, “the bearing element for building, the
nurturing fruitful element, harbouring waters and rock, plants and animals”(35)
does not seem to fit the sea very well. This would imply a fifth pole in the
mirror-play of the world. Why the gods and whither? Zen Buddhism, for instance,
which in no way could be regarded as unfamiliar with the deepest dimensions
of the world and presumably also belongs to the “few other great beginnings”,
does not lead to a god, but to nothing, That, in turn, would imply one pole
less in the mirror-play. How are other humans and being-together in the fourfold
to be thought more explicitly? Does the casting of the fourfold leave
everything with regard to such questions open? At one point, Heidegger even multiplies
the possibility of an other beginning, without, however, elaborating on it.

There is of course no return to it [the great beginning]. The great beginning
will come into presence as that which waits over against us only in its
coming to precious little. This precious light, however, can no longer remain in
its Occidental singularity. It opens up to the few other great beginnings which,
within their own element, belong to the sameness of the beginning of the
end-less hold in which the earth is retained._(36)_
 http://www.webcom.com/artefact/capiteen….)
Here, a plurality is referred to in passing, about which otherwise silence is
maintained in Heidegger’s writings. Such a plurality is obviously “retained”
as possibilities in the fourfold of the end-less hold through which, however,
the fourfold is opened up and exposed to indeterminacy and difference, where
plurality can be understood on the one hand as a plurality of world-historical
beginnings and on the other as a doubling of world, as a “dwelling in the
double world”. If in German “ring” and “gering” can mean not only “small” but also
“precious” and also “supple” and “light”, then Hölderlin’s verse “To Geringem
can also come Great Beginning” can also be interpreted as meaning that in
precious moments humans “come” to a light, dance-like suppleness through which
they are exposed to the groundless world-play of propriation more playfully, and
that means at the same time: more open to anxiety. Not only Marx but also
Heidegger — despite the status of anxiety as fundamental mood in Being and Time —
probably do not have such playful suppleness which is open to anxiety in
mind in their respective castings of world. “
And for a last question: What is this fundamental anxiety in mind but what I
call “ontological anxiety,” the dread that be-ing is, after all, a rehash of
thanatos. Something more may be said about “Chinese mirrors,” but leave that
to next time.
sincerely
Bernard

Posted on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
comment | rss 2.0 | trackback