Heidegger

>Bob,
>
>Thanks for your note. I’m always up for reflexive possibilities
>which, by the way, I believe to be endless. But even with endless
>possibilities, there are still certain maneuvers that are
>impossible, and it seems to me that self-exhortation is one of them.
>Because my own discourse can’t really look back at itself, I depend,
>as the saying goes, on the kindness of strangers, except there are
>no strangers who understand me, as I think I understand Tympan, or
>anyone else for that matter. Fritz Perls of blessed memory argued
>that every observation about another’s inner life is only a
>projection. He recommended that I turn such a projection back on
>myself in what he called retroflection. He likened this maneuver to
>a boomerang. But I could never get one to return to me, so I don’t
>think it’s possible. All that having been said, I’m still open to
>any observations regarding my own version of transparency. I think
>this would be a significant exchange even if it’’s wrong.
>
>
>Bob and Allen,
>
>It seems to me no one can ever understand someone else or figure out
>what they are thinking but one can share the adventure of thoughts
>and how they are turned, how they are reflected or circulated which
>seems to me a significant “mode” that the mind can go through and
>that Aristotle distinguishes from linear thinking as I was saying?
>
>Tympan,
>
>Thanks for returning my call.
>
>I think each of us is capable of understanding the other’s thinking
>because of the ways in which thinking is reflected in language,
>language that is willfully put forward as a translation for the
>other of what is going on in one’s mind. That’s not the only
>willful putting forward of language of course. There are dozens of
>other speech-act possibilities. But the willful putting forward of
>a translation for the other of a reflection of thought as one sees
>it developing is about as generous as we get with one another. I
>recognize the generous putting forward and respond in kind. The
>ongoing result definitely approaches circularity, as you suggest.
>Such exchanges are at the heart of Gadamer’s understanding of
>hermeneutics. But as I said in my last post, there’s no way I can
>understand my own thinking as well as I understand yours. I guess
>because of the fact that you and I can come to an understanding, a
>Sichverstehen, as Heidegger puts it. The way language works makes
>it difficult to impossible for me to come to an understanding with
>myself. “Thinking comes to language in dialogue.” I didn’t expect
>to arrive at this point, but here I am. Whaddyah think?
>
>
>tympan: Well, I think you have make the effort to stay the course
>and dialogue more.

It’s interesting, understanding DOES really have a mood. I’m
thinking the understanding referred to here is a WAY of
understanding. I think that’s what we share here.

The mood I seem to be in these days points me in the direction of
dialogue. I can do nothing but follow and make appropriated
response/observations along the way. That was quite an elision; my
apologies, but I think you can get the idea.You seem to be saying
similar below regarding ek-statically bemooded observations, though I
don’t quite see how the killing of the first born fits in. That sort
of collatoral damage is a bi-product of any operation of that
presumptuous magnitude.

>
>I have been thinking if I were Jewish reading Heidegger given what I
>have been saying lately I would see Heidegger connect to the
>practice of killing the “first born of Egypt” through his
>being-in-the-world which is itself a psychological spiritual therapy
>i.e. leads to the tranquility of the mind that is there when one is
>guarding the heart mind and there is a sense of wonder before the
>beyng of the things themselves.
> It’s a being towards death just like the model at issue in the
>Baptism of water in St. Basil’s “Concerning Baptism” but it is also
>the story of the struggle for the recognition of the people of
>Isreal through a dividing of the I or through a disidentification of
>the I with it’s narcissistic individuality such that you get
>Selfhood or Dasein. The foundational stone is the start of the
>construction of pehaps a third Temple of a New Jerusalem? Of course
>it’s not according to the final wishes of Heidegger but it works
>when you are thinking through a sort of structural analogical
>imagination. It all reinforces the goal of mental health understood
>as the practice where one guards the heart mind.The practice
>prepares the Bride for the Bridegroom where Isreal is the soul.This
>way one attains some measure of peace that is ecumenical and
>interfaith oriented. The building of a temple is a process, a
>redeeming practice, a way towards sanctification but also the
>midrash of an ongoing conversational circle. It is an emergent
>network where each person is a “node”, “cell”, “lodge”, “altar”,
>”chamber”, etc; participating according to their allotted portion or
>gift or blessing in a temple process. The common purpose is clear –
>the killing of the first born of Egypt i.e. mental health. St. Basil
>says as much when he in “Concerning Baptism” writes that the
>”solicitude of the inner man is of the first importance, that the
>mind may be free from distraction and, as it were, be identified
>with the aim of giving glory to God […] We men are easily prone to
>sins of thought. Therefore, he who has formed each heart
>individually, knowing that the impulse received from the intention
>constitutes the major element in sin, has ordained that purity in
>the ruling part of the soul be our primary concern.” The most
>important thing is the renewal of the old self, the sanctification
>of Egyptian roots such that the people of Isreal can be recognized
>as much as the influence of the sacred heart of Jesus inside our own
>heart. I was saying this involves a radical sublimation of
>self-interested exchange that leads to a more universal expression
>of interest or love. The basic principle even of Joseph Smith
>founder of the Mormons was following the model of dying with Jesus
>and redeeming oneself through that practice and so through the
>Baptism of the waters of mercy, of the active intellect or first
>good. It’s the story of the life of Moses.

I think there’s a problem here regarding the reconfiguration of
referents. Midrash, even of the extreme Philonic sort, never
confuses what is called in Hebrew the “mashal” and the “nimshal.”
The first is the paradigmatic figure, the second, the derived figure.
Derive all the figures you want, but I think it’s important to keep
the originary paradigmatic figure respectfully uncontaminated. That
way we can all be brothers and share the same text.

Regards for now,

Allen

Posted on Saturday, June 3rd, 2006 at 4:30 am
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