Heidegger

> michaelP schrieb Wed, 31 Jan 2007 05:45:37 +0000:
>
>> MichaelE donated this recently:
>>
>> > “Der Tod, wenn wir jene Unwirklichkeit so nennen wollen, ist das
>> > Furchtbarste, und das Todte festzuhalten, das, was die größte Kraft
>> > erfordert. Aber nicht das Leben, das sich vor dem Tode scheut und von
>> > der Verwüstung rein bewahrt, sondern das ihn erträgt und in ihm sich
>> > erhält, ist das Leben des Geistes. Er gewinnt seine Wahrheit nur, indem
>> > er in der absoluten Zerrissenheit sich selbst findet. Diese Macht ist er
>> > nicht, als das Positive, welches von dem Negativen wegsieht, wie wenn
>> > wir von etwas sagen, dies ist nichts oder falsch, und nun, damit fertig,
>> > davon weg zu irgend etwas anderen übergehen; sondern er ist diese Macht
>> > nur, indem er dem Negativen im Angesicht schaut, bei ihm verweilt.
>> > Dieses Verweilen ist die Zauberkraft, die es in das Sein umkehrt.”
>> > (Hegel, Briefe)
>> >
>> > “Death, if we want to call this unreality thus, is the most terrible
>> > thing, and to firmly hold what is dead, is what demands the greatest
>> > power. But the life of thinking spirit is not the life that shies away
>> > from death and keeps itself pure, untouched by devastation, but the life
>> > that bears death and maintains itself in it. The thinking spirit gains
>> > its truth only by finding itself in absolute turmoil/tornness. This
>> > power it is not as the positive which looks away from the negative, like
>> > when we say of something that it is nothing or false, and now, over and
>> > done with, pass on away from it to something else, but it is this power
>> > only by looking the negative in the face, tarrying with it. This
>> > tarrying is the magical power that turns it around into being.” (Hegel,
>> > Letters)
>> >
>> > Fancy getting a letter like that.

mP:
>> … and we just have (thanks, Michael). To whom was this letter originally
>> written? Can you say what translates to “thinking spirit” in the second and
>> third sentences? I remember that, given Derrida’s considerable and subtle
>> energies in this, Heidegger’s (thinking and speaking of) ’spirit’ has a most
>> convoluted and complex trajectory in his thinking (much like ‘metaphysics’
>> in a way that accompanies his thinking in both tension and relaxation,
>> turnings and rest, strife and love, (even, mention and use)). Is it simpler
>> in Hegel?

>> ps: I have largely avoided reading Hegel (in much the same way I used to
>> avoid hearing Beethoven), but every now and then his thinking seems so
>> utterly essential and certainly necessary for hearing and bearing
>> Heidegger’s thinking-fugues.
>
> ME: “Thinking spirit” is my rendering of “Geist”. I came across this Hegel
quote
> in an art catalogue on the work of Uwe Lausen (committed suicide young), where
> it is cited without date or addressee of the letter or reference. My own
edition
> of Hegel only has the works, not the correspondence. There’s no dispensing
with
> Hegel. For one thing, Marx’s philosophy (i.e. insofar as Marx is a philosophy,
> and not an historian or social theorist) cannot be understood without Hegel’s
> Logik.
>
> Heidegger claims that, along with the Phänomenologie, Hegel’s Logik is a
> “Theologie”, and that this “theology is worldly. They [Logik und
Phänomenologie
> des Geists] think the worldliness of the world insofar as world means here:
> beings in their totality…” (’Hegels Begriff der Erfahrung (1942/43)’
> _Holzwege_ 1st ed. S.187)

Thanks, Michael; Heidegger’s point, or rather zone, then, is that Hegel (as
ontotheology) still takes his bearings from and with beings (as a whole)
rather than the be-ing of beings? That Hegel (if read with some subtlety and
grace) points to be-ing in his leaving it out as beings-as-a-whole? In the
same sense that Plato’s sophist speaks false speech, but a speech that
points to true speech as that which false speech finishes too soon, stops
too short with and thus rushes past without thinking…? If I have gotten it
not too falsely, this would make Heidegger’s thinking somewhat sub-versive,
under-handed in his twisting-turning-stepbacking (like the ironies of the
Platonic Socrates and Platonic Parmenides). In a way, Heidegger goes further
than just finding Hegel in-dis-pensible: simply not to be gotten around, but
threaded through into the weave (verwindung?).

regards

michaelP

Posted on Wednesday, January 31st, 2007 at 1:55 pm
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