Heidegger

There’s only one way to say what I want to say and that is with a
brutishly, braggardly, bloated sense of self importance. I beg your
pardon.

I taught the first sentence of Aristotle’s Metaphysics today. I
found myself seeing into the depthful reccesses of each word. I
heard things I never said before, things I could not have said if I
wasn’t teaching the first sentence of Aristotle’s Metaphysics on this
day in this class.

I feel there is something ontological(sic) in saying things this way.
The reach of the saying must be far and wide because of the
relationship in which the saying is being said. It’s not that they
are further away from the words than my professorial colleagues, but
rather their understanding of the words is without guile, true and
direct, and so must the words be said. I think this is
philosophizing of a rare sort.

To give you an example, the students were moved to think the thinking
of that first sentence as an ethical imperative–to love the world in
the way it needs to be loved if it is to be what it is.

Again, my apologies.

Allen

Posted on Saturday, December 1st, 2007 at 12:50 am
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