persona*****
January 24th, 2010, search relatedRelated posts :: persona :: persona :: persona :: persona**
>In a message dated 1/22/2010 2:18:51 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>allen.scult@drake.edu writes:
>
>>In a message dated 1/21/2010 6:38:55 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>>allen.scult@drake.edu writes:
>>
>> >says Allen (I think) very recently:
>>>
>>>> Hi Bernard,
>>>>
>>>> The crucial matter here is how you take Heidegger’s notion of
>>>>possibility.
>>>> For Heidegger, Dasein IS possibility; that is, possibility is
>>>>the very being
>>>of Dasein. As such Dasein’s being is always yet to be accomplished. At
>>>the same time, it is already there
>>>
>>>Thus, Allen, dasein is accomplishing, needs to be accomplished
>>>at/in-order-to-be accomplishing; rather similar to Nietzsche’s will-to-power
>>>(needing to be installed securely in order to project/empower/over-power its
>>>existing power projection (onto the chaos that is the real world…); both
>>>formulations excitingly sound like creation ex nihilo (the world continually
>>>giving birth to itself from nothing but, and dasein is at the very hub/but
>>>of that — both as birth and as nothing).
>>>
>>>regards
>>>
>>>michaelP
>>>
>>
>>Hi Michael,
>>
>>Interesting aside. There is no creatio ex nihilo in the Hebrew.
>>Rather than “In the beginning, God created Heaven and Earth. . .,” a
>>more accurate translation of the Hebrew (based on the formulation of
>>the beginning in cognate Akkadian creation stories as well as a more
>>rigorous and knowing understanding of the first word “Breshith) would
>>be, “When God began to create heaven and earth, the earth BEING
>>unformed and void. . .God said, “let there be light.’” So what we
>>have here is a phenomenological version of the beginning, God’s
>>creation coming in the midst of the being of nothing, “tohu
>>va’vohu,” non-being. Does it make sense to say that nothing is not
>>static, but rather in motion as the being(non-being) that it is?
>>Perhaps a stretch, but your suggested(to me, not necessarily what you
>>intended) analogy to the already having begun beginning of Dasein as
>>possibility is striking, including the supple ambiguity of das Nichts
>>giving rise to Dasein’s anxiety, its tie to the already having begun,
>>but-shrouded- in -darkness beginning of its being as non-being.
>>
>>There are no doubt some errors in the above chain. It’s too rushed
>>and protracted. But I hope the playing out of the analogy is
>>suggestive.
>>
>>Regards,
>>
>>Allen
>>
>>
>>Hi Allen,
>>
>>Hi Allen;
>>
>>You say “Does it make sense to say that nothing is not
>>static, but rather in motion as the being(non-being) that it is?”
>>
>>No, it does not make ontological sense because if it were not
>>”static” but in motion, it would not be Nothing. This holds true
>>for the en soph of the Zohar, Anaximanders’s apieron (The
>>Boundless) as well as Aristotle’s potentia. The Void is the empty
>>plenum of pre-disposition to form and is as such formless. The
>>pre-disposition as facultus praeformondi is thus real as an
>>immanence but not actual until “God said let there be light,” etc.
>>Hence, without the absolute void there is no possibility of
>>potentia, other wise we would have pre-figured potentia so that it
>>is no longer archai but conditioned in typos, e.g., Jung goofed
>>when he said the archetype is irrepresentable when it is arche that
>>is formless. Indeed, typos (as stamping, imprint, replication is
>>synonomous with image. Perhaps some of the confusion here is that
>>the German *ur-bild* is an oxymoron because it implies a primordial
>>or archai image. Is it possible for it to be archai and image at
>>the same time and which repeats, as does the term archetype,
>>confounding en soph with what is (ti esti)? The morbid conclusion
>>to all this is that the eschatonic finality, Revelation and the
>>Apocalyptic is a return to nothing and the absolute Real, i.e. God
>>as Nothing or the void state of pure potential.
>>
>>sincerely,
>>
>>Bernard
>>
>
>
>Thanks Bernard for answering my question so kindly. I think I got
>carried away by the physicality of the Genesis imagery of the void
>which has “a wind from God” sweeping over the whole scene,
>suggesting anything but absolute stasis. But isn’t it ABSOLUTE
>nothing that must ipso facto be static? “The earth being without
>form and void” in the Genesis account is not absolute nothing, but
>the state of being of the earth as non-being. I would also hesitate
>to call that potentia because God’s intervention, which starts the
>whole thing rolling by speaking the words” Let there be light,” is
>absolutely (I use the word advisedly here) responsible for what
>follows. Thus, on the Biblical account, creation is vested solely
>in the power of the Word, and has nothing to do with the potentia of
>the “object.” I think the movement of the opening passage, even in
>translation, makes that quite clear. (The relation of this reading
>of the opening verses to creatio ex nihilo I’d like to discuss if
>anyone is interested.)
>
>And now if I may slip from one side of the analogy to the other
>(this is sloppy midrash, to say the least), for Heidegger, non-being
>is likewise not absolute nothing, but rather “the world as such,”
>the dark void of indeterminacy which discloses itself to Dasein as
>anxiety. Richardson describes “the world as such,” (tohu va’vohu)
>as “stripped of all modifications and association with others, left
>to the empty individuality of a being whose only characteristic is
>to-be-in-the-world”(73).
>
>A Kabbalistic tradition has the world being renewed, held up as it
>were, by the persistent utterances of the Divine Word. For us the
>possibly renewing word may break off at any point. (I apologize for
>this): “Where word leaves off, no thing may be.”
>
>Regards,
>
>Allen ( having no doubt taken this analogy too far, despite
>Bernard’s valiant efforts)
>
>Hi Allen,
>I appreciate your persona pomposity as much as you seek comfort in
>Kant’s noumenon (”the world as such,” the dark void of indeterminacy
>which discloses itself to Dasein as anxiety”). That would define
>such “world as such” noumenon as the “dark void of indeterminacy….
> “left to the empty individuality of a being whose only
>characteristic is to-be-in-the-world” (Richardson). Your reduction
>of “world” to noumenon eludes me as much as dasein experiencing
>”anxiety.” Or even worse, dispoiling Aristotle’s prima materia and
>ousia as the “potentia of the object” and thus making a charade of
>his entelekheia. But, however you deform my Macedonian ancestor his
>entelekheia is not in contention with the Biblical theogany. Since
>the Aristotelian potentia overlaps Anaximander’s apieron it may
>noticed that the boundless is characterized as a whirlwind no
>different than your allusion to the “wind of God.” Pneuma (as wind
>or breath) intends Spirit whose extended meaning is close to the
>Stoic Logos spermatikos. The divine breath thus has a seminal or
>germinal connotation and which is a paraphrase to potentia. The
>seminal would indicate the spermatikos as without its “earth” or
>womb and nihil simply the state of a divine Onanism or Spiritos as
>an empty spermatic load dropped and precluding as such the meaning
>of Shikinah. In all cases the nature of the Void as something
>precluding “world” is maintained. But your “the state of being of
>the earth as non-being” confounds world with earth, the real with
>the actual, More to the point, the Void as first day of creation
>may just as well indicate a virgin womb as in a state of potentia.
>In any case my “valiant effort” stands humble to your elitist and
>patristic Biblical miscia-imbroglio fundamentalism. So much for
>hermeneutics!
>sincerely;
>Bernard
Dear Bernard,
Speaking of hermeneutics: Having totally detached my post from the
carefully constructed framework of speculative play in which it was
offered, and further, having stomped all over my exegetical metaphors
which I surrounded with innumerable hedges (”a stretch,” ” sloppy
midrash” etc.) to clearly indicate that they were meant as
suggestive openings of the text( for which they need only be
plausible readings which I believe they were ) to prompt further
conversation with it, rather than didactic pronouncements of any
sort, your post offered very little by way of response. Mine is a
brand of hermeneutics I learned from the rabbis, from Heidegger and
from Gadamer which takes the text seriously at its word, that is at
full throttle, even being willing to fall under its spell, to be
driven a little crazy by it (Kabbalah), in order to uncover a
possible truth that lies within the movement of the words across the
page and across the mind. It’s a rather mystical and romantic
hermeneutics to be sure, but one which yields much pleasure, which
bears a relationship to understanding similar to, or better,
alongside of poetry.
Your post misconstrued much of what I said, especially my readings
of the biblical text (all of which are firmly based in contemporary
biblical criticism) and my use of the expression (in quotes)
“potentia of the object”,” but I think we have exhausted the
productiveness of this thread for the time being, and I would
recommend moving on. Or maybe I’m just exhausted. I think your
remythicization (turning the text back from where it came) of the
creation story leaves some interesting points of discussion
especially a comparison between the words and images of Genesis and
cognate Mesopotamian and Egyptian creation myths. Perhaps another
time.
Regards,
Allen
>.
>
>
>
>
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