Heidegger

—–Oorspronkelijk bericht—–
Van: heidegger-bounces at soca.ecu.edu.au
[mailto:heidegger-bounces@soca.ecu.edu.au]Namens Anthony Crifasi
Verzonden: dinsdag 19 december 2006 16:11
Aan: Discussions pertaining to the philosophy of Martin Heidegger
Onderwerp: Re: loose thoughts on physis: on the edge of thinking

—– Original Message —–
From: “Bakker, R.B.M. de”

—–Oorspronkelijk bericht—–
Van: heidegger-bounces at soca.ecu.edu.au
[mailto:heidegger-bounces@soca.ecu.edu.au]Namens Anthony Crifasi

Aristotle himself directly opposed physis to the theory of inertia:

“no movement can continue to infinity. For what cannot be can no more
come-to-be than be, and movement is a coming-to-be in one place from
another.” (On the Heavens 311b29-34)

That is why physis became no more.

Anthony, trees still root in the ground and grow upwards - against
the scientific truth you bring against Physics.

And moreover: Greek physis and aletheia collapsed long before
Galilei,
to make place for natura and rectitudo.

(it is essential not to hear a word like ‘collapsed’ mere
negatively)

=======================
First, both natura and physis are opposed to inertia - not by me, but by
both Aristotle and the medievals themselves. That’s not my doing - read
their own words (such as the quote above). So whatever distinction there is
between natura and physis makes no difference here - they are identical in
that regard … which in turn should make you question the supposed gap
between physis and natura. Philosophers often exaggerate differences in the
history of philosophy at the expense of similarities in order to support
their pet theories - or agendas.

Secondly, as if the moderns could not easily account for why trees root in
the ground and grow upwards, which is precisely why physis became no more -

—
What does it mean, ultimately, that physis is no more? No more being-of-itself,
only makability, techne in an exclusive sense: not the techne of Aristotle,
which is opposed to and given its place in relation to (dependence on0 physis.

Vom Wesen und Begriff der physis, on this relation on account of the doctor
healing/recovering:

“Being-a-doctor is not the disposing issuance [arche] of the recovery,
but being-man and this only insofar as man is a zoion, living, which
only lives, while it ‘bellies’.” (lebt, indem es ‘leibt’)

The disappearing of physis touches plants, animals, but also the being,
which man is himself. Heidegger foresees in 1942 the selfproduction
of man as the inevitable consequence of unbounded technology.
Your enthusiasm for the civil war in Iraq as booming economy dwells in the
same dimension, where the living and dying of men is a mere economic factor.
But by doing that you also destroy your own criteria re truth-falsity, and
with them the possible meaning of anything you write and say. (one could
interpret the suppression of all traces of subjectivity in your writing
in that vein.)

For those *reading* Heidegger: in the Physik piece Heidegger sees the last
consequence of the vanishing of physis as subjectivity blowing itself up.
—

- modern physics could account for all that physis could account for, and
more. And if you think that this principle of efficiency is in turn a modern
invention, think again:

“The next question is whether the principles are two or three or more in
number. One they cannot be, for there cannot be one contrary. Nor can they
be innumerable, because, if so, Being will not be knowable: and in any one
genus there is only one contrariety, and substance is one genus: also a
finite number is sufficient, and a finite number, such as the principles of
Empedocles, is better than an infinite multitude; for Empedocles professes
to obtain from his principles all that Anaxagoras obtains from his
innumerable principles.” (Aristotle, Physics I.6)
=======================

Efficiency cannot, of course, be the criterium, Being is.
Archai, argues Aristotle in book A, make sense only if there is something
of which they are the principle. And this something is precisely
that which must occur (’hypokeisthoo’, Vorliegen). And that again
is what physis is doing, being-of-itself.
Without this (metaphysical) structure, talk of archai makes no sense.
The question for the number of archai is posed within this context, and
not with respect to a medieval (Ockham), or even modern notion of efficiency.

The other way around can be seen that physis as occurring of itself
has retreated in medieval philosophy, where creation is the reason
for the being of everything, and even further out of sight since Galilei
and Descartes, where it is the ponere by the subjectum, which makes things
be what they are. Mere efficiency only appears when even no subjectivity is
needed anymore.

btw how come that leaders, as long as they are ‘leading’, denie
nature, and as soon as they are leader-off, turn into their
dedicated champions? Adducing Poetin or Hu won’t help, because then
we see the whole deceptive circle repeating itself in that other area:
history. In order to understand the essential lying effective in every
area today, it is necessary to go back to the distinction first made
explicit by Aristotle (and then to the pre-Aristoteleans).
Or: physics will reign absolutely over a physis-less world. (as
Heidegger pointed out, a physics without nature can only become destructive.)

And another example, recently in the news here: young Chinese farmers have
left their villages, in order to play video-games all day/night, making them fit
for the Western market. The dissolution of physical/metaphysical reality
into virtual reality cannot be stopped, but more terrible than even
that is the unability and unwill to notice it. It namely leaves out a factor,
which cannot be left out, except by self-elimination. Even more worrying: not
even by that.

rene

rene

Posted on Thursday, December 21st, 2006 at 1:35 pm
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