persona******
January 24th, 2010, search relatedRelated posts :: persona :: persona :: persona :: persona**
In a message dated 1/23/2010 2:53:55 PM Eastern Standard Time,
allen.scult at drake.edu writes:
In a message dated 1/22/2010 2:18:51 PM Eastern Standard Time,
allen.scult at drake.edu writes:
In a message dated 1/21/2010 6:38:55 PM Eastern Standard Time,
allen.scult at 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
Hello Allen;
I do not consider the Biblical Genesis intrinsically mythogenic but quite
doctrinal in the philosophical sense. Thus, I hold it in compare to the
pre-Socratic physiologoi such as Anaximander and his apieron and then
Aristotle’s ousia but certainly not to what you mention as the autochthonic “creation
myths” of primitive religion. Hence, we are on different wave lengths and I
am afraid never the ‘twain shall meet.
sincerely;
Bernard
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