Heidegger

Cologne 04-Mar-2007

That Pete schrieb Thu, 1 Mar 2007 20:43:38 -0800 (PST):

> — Anthony Crifasi wrote:
> > From: “allen scult”
> > > When Heidegger generates a new expression,it often serves to bring a
> > > possibility further out into a clearing for greater philosophical
> > > enjoyment. Let me give you the quote in the sentence in which it
> > > appears.( It’s from “Basic Questions of Philosophy” p.9.
> > >
> > > “Because what is traditional often has behind itself a very long
> > > past, it is not something arbitrary, but harbors in itself still the
> > > trace of an erstwhile genuine necessity.”
> > >
> > > An essential part of hermeneutical practice is being able to somehow
> > > believe what is being said. Without that, there is no understanding.
> > > But there has to be a good reason for believing what you’re trying
> > > to understand. I think “trace of an erstwhile genuine necessity”
> > > does trick.
> >
> > and yet, once one sees a belief as actually tradition, isn’t that eventually
> > the very undoing of the belief? Who would ever say that tradition is “a good
> > reason for believing what you’re trying to understand”? If, when asked to
> > give “a good reason” for a belief, one were to answer, “Because it’s
> > tradition,” who wouldn’t laugh? Phenomenologically, tradition is seen as
> > precisely what is *not* genuinely necessary, what is *not* a good enough
> > reason. One who judges a tradition to be necessary is so immersed in the
> > tradition as to not see it as such. And we know what Heidegger thinks of
> > immersion.
>
> I believe in this case the “genuine necessity” is to ask an originary question
> again. He says in History of the Concept of Time, P. 138:
>
> The assumption of the tradition is not necessarily traditionalism
> and the adoption of prejudices. The genuine repetition of a
> traditional question lets its external character as a tradition
> fade away and pulls back from the prejudices.
> …
> [T]his process of having recourse and seeking a connection to the
> tradition includes the assumption of particular interrogative
> contexts and particular concepts which certainly in turn are then
> clarified relatively along phenomenological lines and conceived
> more or less rigorously. However, we not only want to understand
> that such a contact with the tradition brings prejudices with it.
> We also want to establish a genuine contact with the tradition.
> For the opposite way would be just as fantastic, represented in
> the opinion that a philosophy can be built in mid-air, just as
> there have often been philosophers who believed that one can begin
> with nothing. Thus, the contact with the tradition, the return
> to history, can have a double sense. On the one hand, it can be
> purely a matter of traditionalism, in which what is assumed is
> itself not subjected to criticism. On the other hand, however,
> the return can also be performed so that it goes back prior to
> the questions which were posed in history, and the questions
> raised by the past are once again originally appropriated.”
>

ME: Assuming we in the Late West are still prepared to struggle with
Ancient Greek, we could e.g. return to Plato’s dialectic of the one, the
same/self and the other in the Greek, to a perplexing intermediate
conclusion such as
_tò hen ara, hoos eoiken, heteron te toon alloon estin kai heautou kai
tautòn ekeinois te kai heautooi._ (Parm. 147b)
“The one, then, is, it appears, other than all others and than itself,
and is also the same[self) as them and as itself.” (Parm. 147b)

This conclusion is literally a closing together from the preceding
_logoi_ in this dialogue. To open the question again means not to draw
the conclusion, not to ‘close together’ too hastily what has been said
previously in the dialectic.

“Indessen sehen die Neuplatoniker, besonders Proklos, gerade diese
Ausführung im Parmenides für die wahrhafte Theologie an, für die
wahrhafte Enthüllung aller Mysterien des göttlichen Wesens. Und sie kann
für nichts anderes genommen werden. (…) Denn unter Gott verstehen wir
das absolute Wesen aller Dinge; dies absolute Wesen ist eben in seinem
einfachen Begriffe die Einheit und Bewegung dieser reinen Wesenheiten,
der Ideen des Einen und Vielen usf. Das göttliche Wesen ist die Idee
überhaupt, wie sie entweder für das sinnliche Bewußtsein oder für den
Verstand, für das Denken ist.” (Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte
der Philosophie II W19:82)

“However, the Neo-Platonists, particularly Proclus, regard this
explication in the Parmenides for the true theology, for the true
revelation of all the mysteries of the divine being. And it cannot be
regarded as anything else, (…) for by God we understand the absolute
essence of all things; this absolute essence is precisely in its simple
concept the unity and movement of these pure essences, of the ideas of
the one and the many, etc. The divine being is the idea par excellence,
as it is either for sensuous consciousness or for understanding, for
thinking” (Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie II
W19:82)

Heidegger notes, in another connection, whilst interpreting Hegel’s PhdG
and Logik:
“Die eine und die andere Theologie [d.h. PhdG und Logik, ME] ist
Ontologie, ist weltlich. Sie denken die Weltlichkeit der Welt, insofern
Welt hier bedeutet: das Seiende im Ganzen.” (Heidegger, ‘Hegels Begriff
der Erfahrung (1942/43)’ in Holzwege 1950 S.187)

“The one and the other theology [i.e. Phenomenology of Spirit and Logic,
ME] is ontology, is worldly/secular. They think the worldliness of the
world insofar as world here means beings as a whole.” (Heidegger,
‘Hegels Begriff der Erfahrung (1942/43)’ in Holzwege 1950 S.187)

To repeat the philosophical question in the present case, then, would
mean to rethink the above-quoted intermediate conclusion from Plato’s
most elaborate dialectic in _Parmenides_ in a worldly manner, i.e. with
a view to beings as a whole.

First of all, we stumble over an ambiguity in one of the key terms in
Plato’s dialectic: _tautòn_ vis-à-vis _to heteron_. _tautòn_ or _to
auton_ is the neutrum from _ho autos_ meaning either ’self’ or ’same’.

Then the task would be to rethink, i.e. to open our eyes, for another
way in which the ’self’ or the ’same’ shows itself in a worldly way,
thus bringing the theology of the “divine being” back to Earth. That is,
assuming we are still prepared to struggle with Ancient Greek, as in the
above-quoted passage.

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_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Dr Michael Eldred -_-_-
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Posted on Sunday, March 4th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
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