Heidegger

Cologne 20-Apr-2007

michaelP schrieb Fri, 20 Apr 2007 05:30:19 +0100:

> MichaelE responding to Bernard:
>
> > Heidegger “prognosticates the ‘oblvion of being’”? Not at all — he
> > _diagnoses_ oblivion to being in the present age.
>
> Michael, does not this dia-gnosis not involve the entire era of western
> metaphysics (and not just the “present age” unless by that you also mean the
> past couple of millennia or so); and, furthermore, is not Heidegger saying
> that (necessarily — not by happenstance) the only way metaphysics can
> show/say be-ing is by showing it {be-ing} hiding its self? That this
> oblivion of be-ing is not simply the forgetfulness, ignoring or neglect of
> philosophers and thinkers but the very ‘nature’ of be-ing itself
> (Heraclitus’ dictum that be-ing tends to the cryptic)? In this sense,
> Heidegger’s dia-gnosis is truly diagnostic and far from prognostic… and
> still catching up with the very arche of thinking (which needs to be
> addressed and sent through on every occasion of thinking).
>
> regards
>
> michaelP

ME: I’d say yes and no, because Heidegger uses the term Seinsvergessenheit in
different contexts, so that it means different things. On the one hand, you are
right to point to the meaning of the oblivion of being as the unthoughtness of
being as such in the long metaphysical tradition as distinct from beings as
such. But this ‘being as such’ itself becomes too easily misunderstandable, so
Heidegger crosses it out, and in any case prefers to point to the
as-yet-unthought Lichtung des Sichverbergens (clearing of self-hiding) or
_alaetheia_ as the task for thinking that emerges on the horizon once
metaphysics has attained its culmination.

On the other, however, Seinsvergessenheit takes on a heightened, double-sealed
quality in the so-called “technological age” in which scientific thinking
reigns. Now it is no longer only being as such that has remained unthought in
philosophical thinking from its Greek beginnings, but even the ontological
difference itself — i.e. the traditional subject of investigation of
metaphysics — that sinks into oblivion. In the motto to SuZ, Heidegger can cite
Plato’s Sophist as a reference to Greek philosophy’s thinking on being, and
evoke and invoke the Aristotelean formulation, “beings as such” already
indicating the ontological difference. The modern sciences, however, now well
established and in power, no longer need their metaphysical enablers, and can
concentrate on representing beings in their mere onticity. This goes hand in
hand with the decline of philosophy within which even the ontological difference
is no longer housed. Philosophy, too, becomes calculative, with the accompanying
loss of the dimension of being altogether.

It was this second sense of the oblivion to being that I was invoking in my last
post. It has the effect that even Plato and Aristotle remains entirely
incomprehensible to readers of philosophy today, so that they are summarily
dismissed with their ‘childish’ notions that have long since been either
dismissed as foolish or ‘improved’ upon by today’s more ‘rigorous’ scientific,
logical thinking.

This first veil of oblivion has to be lifted to even inkle the second veil
covering the unthought clearing of self-hiding.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_- artefact text and translation _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- made by art _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ http://www.webcom.com/artefact/ _-_-_-_- artefact at t-online.de _-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Dr Michael Eldred -_-_-
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
-

Posted on Friday, April 20th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
comment | rss 2.0 | trackback