Heidegger

On 31 Jul 2006, at 15:33, bob scheetz wrote:

>
> —– Original Message —–
> From: “Tudor Georgescu”
> To: “‘Discussions pertaining to the philosophy of Martin Heidegger’”
>
> Sent: Sunday, July 30, 2006 6:18 PM
> Subject: RE: Aristotle on suicide [was Heidegger Email List?]
>
>
>>> It was self-imposed, …in the same place (Phaedo)
>>> he’s offered exile and refuses.
>>
>> Socrates was faced with the choice: “Should I run as a coward or
>> face the
>> legal sentence for my deeds?” He chose that he should not run as a
>> coward.
>> It is true that the sentence was punishment by death. Again, by
>> running as
> a
>> coward, he would have betrayed his teaching about the immortality
>> of the
>> soul. He maintained that death is not to be feared, that after death
> either
>> the gods reward the just for their deeds or else there is complete
>> absence
>> of any experience, which, compared to the adversities of earthly
>> life, is
> a
>> pleasure and a rest.
>>
>> The legal sentence was applied by the representatives of the city,
>> after
> his
>> trial. He was not dying because he wished so, but his death was
>> caused by
>> the will of the city. He was not killing himself, the city was
>> killing
> him.
>>
>> He did drink the hemlock himself, but this was in order to avoid the
>> dishonour of being forced by the prison guards to swallow the
>> hemlock. It
>> was not his wish to drink the hemlock, but it was the city who
>> wished that
>> he drinks hemlock, and he simply found a way to make it happen
>> without
>> having the shame of showing fear of death.
>
>
>
>>
>> The same could be said about Christ. Could Christ call upon twelve
>> legions
>> of angels, who could have rescued Him from crucifixion? He claimed
>> that
> that
>> was possible, but he did not desire it. Christ was sentenced to
>> death, He
>> was not killing Himself. He did wish to die on the Cross, because
>> this was
>> His mission. But He did not call upon His disciples to crucify Him
>> for the
>> fun of being crucified.
>>
>> Christ preached His revolutionary message, and the power elite had no
> other
>> option than seeking to punish Him in an atrocious way. At the
>> instigation
> of
>> the Jewish power elite, the Jewish masses appealed to Pontius
>> Pilate, that
>> he should crucify Christ.
>>
>> Christ said something like: “You have the option that you listen
>> to my
>> message and obey it, but I know that because you are wicked you
>> won’t do
>> that, and you will punish me unjustly. It is not Me who is robbing
>> Myself
> of
>> My Own Life, but it is you who are killing me unjustly. It is true
>> that
> this
>> has been predicted by the prophets, because they too knew that you
>> are
>> wicked and you won’t listen to my message. And God, in His infinite
> wisdom,
>> did not make My predictable death be in vain, but He made it be
>> for the
>> salvation of the sinners. I had the mission to preach My message,
>> and if
>> death is part of the package, so be it. It is your choice, not Mine.”
>>
>> The same way, the law says that citizens should not make use of
>> violence
>> against each other (except legitimate defence). Those who wrote
>> the law
> knew
>> that some people will not obey the law and will commit arbitrary
>> violence
>> against other people. And then, the law defines the actions of the
>> police,
>> which seeks to catch these offenders and punish them. Now, the
>> police and
>> the law enforcers use violence against some people (the
>> offenders). But
> this
>> violence is just. Although the offenders were compelled by their
>> anger or
> by
>> the chemical imbalance in their own brains to act that way, the law
> provided
>> that in such cases violence should be used against these offenders in
> order
>> that they answer for their own deeds. It is not the law who pushed
>> those
>> people to commit violence. The law is meant against arbitrary
>> violence and
>> it only tolerates legitimate violence in order to punish those who
>> commit
>> offences.
>>
>> In the Netherlands, there is a different situation. There is a legal
>> principle, the principle of opportunity, which says that a crime
>> is to be
>> pursued and punished only if it is opportune to do it. If the
>> Dutch were
> the
>> occupants of India, Gandhi would have never succeeded to liberate his
>> country. The prosecutor would have said in such a case, “Well, it is
> indeed
>> a crime that Mr. Gandhi did this or that, but I know very well
>> that he is
> a
>> troublemaker and he meant it in order to stir trouble. It is not
>> opportune
>> to prosecute and punish him, so this case is closed.”
>>
>> Gandhi would not have succeeded under Dutch rule, because the
>> Dutch are
> too
>> tolerant to allow him gain public recognition. He would not have
>> succeeded
>> under Nazi rule either, because the Nazis would have finished him off
> before
>> he could gain public recognition. His strategy was only good
>> enough for
> the
>> British, which were neither lawless murderers as the Nazis nor as
> pragmatic
>> as the Dutch. If the Dutch were in charge of Christ or Socrates, they
> would
>> have surely not killed them, simply because the Dutch would not
>> want even
>> more troubles.
>>
>> Greetings,
>>
>> Tudor
>
> His friends plead with him to go into exile. But he refuses, -to
> state it
> positively, in order to preserve the integrity of his life and
> teaching. He
> never acedes to the rightness of the judgement or sentence and
> clearly holds
> the entire proceeding in contempt. So he choses to be Socrates,
> and that
> choice entails taking his own life at that very point.
> Similarly, Jesus. When they came to arrest him could, as is most
> often the
> case, have fought his way out. And to that purpose presumably
> Peter draws
> and strikes. But Jesus orders them not to resist. He felt called to
> overthrow the spiritual falsity of rome and the sanhedrin; and
> intended to
> face them, deludedly believing God would come to his assistance. In
> gethsemene he steels himself for the morrow knowing the likelihood of
> death. But he choses to go forward into probable death.
> Sinilarly Achilles, …
>
> So, …not to quibble over semantics or technicalities, the point
> is that in
> each case the person actively choses death, and achieves thereby
> translation
> into higher being, from man to god. And this insight is vastly more
> profound on the meanign of suicide than ari’s .

Man cannot become god, Bob.

Abdassamad

Posted on Monday, July 31st, 2006 at 2:35 pm
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