Heidegger

Cologne 11-Sep-2007

michaelP schrieb Tue, 11 Sep 2007 06:27:15 +0100:

> MichaelE donated this just now:
>
> > “Etwas Rätselhaftes, daß etwas ist als das, was es zugleich nicht ist.”
> > Martin Heidegger _Platon:Sophistes_ GA19:580
> >
> > “Somewhat perplexing that something is as that which, at the same time,
> > it is not.”
> > Martin Heidegger _Platon:Sophistes_
>
> Michael, can you provide a broader textual con-text for Heidegger’s
> entanglement of being and non-being? How does this fragment arise amongst
> its fellow (e.g., fore and aft) text fragments? Once again, Heraclitus pops
> up (for me) with his diapheremenon and synpheremenon [’scuse spellink]…
> although the fragment to which I refer vaguely here [can’t remember which
> number this mo’] rather speaks of being {it} falling apart as {it is} coming
> together, something that is differing from its self… that {is}
> difference-qua-difference?

ME: The Heraclitus connection is rather vague and tenuous in this context. The
page no. (p. 580) indicates that it’s late in the day. Plato’s Stranger is
closing in on the sophist, who has put up all sorts of strategems and tricky
manoeuvres to avoid capture. The sophist’s last supporters are Parmenides and
Antisthenes who enable him to claim that his way of speaking, his _logos, cannot
possibly be false. What I quoted from Heidegger is a formulation of Plato’s
task: to show that a false _logos_ is indeed possible. Before that, he had
disposed of the sophist’s line of defence that non-being, _to mae on_, is
impossible because, according to Parmenides, there is only being, and non-being
_is_ not at all. Parmenides therefore warns against the path of non-being, which
should be avoided altogether. The sophist uses Parmenides’ ontology to bolster
his claim that it is impossible for him, the sophist, to say what is not/(does
not exist).

But through his famous dialectic of the _genae_ (genuses, stems) _on, kinaesis,
stasis, t’auton, heteron_, Plato shows via the idea of _heteron_, i.e. of the
other and otherness, that the _mae on_ is/exists. Otherness as a FACET OF BEING
allows the one being to be different from the other. That is, the negation of
the one being does not lead to nothing, i.e. no being at all, but to the other.
The other as opposite is the _mae on_ of the one. This is one of Plato’s most
important discoveries — how otherness enables a non-being to _be_ in a certain
way, namely, as the opposite (_antithesis_) of something else (e.g. the ugly as
the non-being of the beautiful).

But Plato has to go further, because the sophist can object, “OK, a non-being is
possible, but you still haven’t shown that the _logos_ can be connected with a
non-being”. That is, the sophist now challenges the Stranger/Plato to
demonstrate that a false _logos_ is at all possible. This goes against
Antisthenes’ doctrine that says the _logos_ can only be linked with a being,
identifying the being as the same, _t’auton_, and not with _to heteron_. Plato
therefore sets out to analyze the _logos_ to show how otherness and therefore
falsehood is possible within it.

The crucial clue to the solution is that every _logos_ is a _logos ti peri
tinos_ — every speaking is a saying something about something, i.e. every
_logos_ uncovers a being _as_ something. This so-called triviality is the key to
solving one of the most perplexing problems, because, as Plato goes on to
demonstrate, the _as_ contains the possibility of both truth and falsity, of
same and other.

All philosophical questioning starts with a self-evident triviality, and only
singular genius is able to discover the abyssal mystery in it. But today more
than ever there is a refusal and inability to think philosophically, and in its
stead prevail prejudices, complacency and an air of superiority that does not
allow itself to be troubled by seemingly self-evident trivialities. The simplest
is overlooked.

_ta gar taes toon polloon psychaes ommata karterein pros to theion ophoroonta
adynata_ i.e. _taei tou ontos ideai_ (Sophist 254a)
“Namely, the eyes of the multitude’s psyche are unable to persevere in looking
at the divine” (Sophist 254a), i.e. “the idea of beings”, the facets of being
that make up the world’s complexion.

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_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Dr Michael Eldred -_-_-
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Posted on Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 at 11:15 am
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