Heidegger

>Allen sings:
>
>> Ah, Michael. Your melodies as usual move me ( as in “Give me the
>> beat boys and free my soul, I want to get lost in that rock and roll
>> and drift away. . .And when my mind is free, you know a melody can
>> move me. . . “
>>
>> As is often the case, my inveterate laziness led me to speak of too
>> many issues in my post without benefit of proper transitions. Let’s
>> take my insight about Spinoza first, then I must interrupt for a
>> lunch date.
>>
>> Spinoza leaves us with an appealing vision of non-sectarian piety
>> which shows itself only in how we treat other people. Notice,
>> that’s not necessarily the be all and end all of piety, but only how
>> it shows itself, the telos of its phenomenology, so to speak. He
>> himself continues (in the Tractatus) to exemplify such piety, to show
>> it, to teach it, in a thoroughgoing critique of the Old Testament as
>> only a Jew could critique it. It’s like certain Jewish comics (Lewis
>> Black being the best example) who are able to critique as well as
>> show the basic value of Judaism in contemporary life through their
>> comedy.
>>
>> The Tractatus demonstrates the proper way to read the Old Testament
>> in order to bring out ( show, teach, display) God’s word within, as
>> Spinoza himself defines it in a number of places. This is precisely
>> the function of the rabbi
>>
>> I see myself in typical burlesque hyperbole as practicing
>> (teaching/writing) philosophy in the same mode. The title of the
>> book misses that and what’s worse gives off the scent of blood
>> (deceptive, as it turns out) which the Juddian sharks pick up on and
>> so on and so on.
>
>Allen, I’m afraid my knowledge of the thinking of Spinoza is minute and
>aside from a quick dash to Wikipedia [and I fel too weary the mo for any
>kind of mad rush] I can only recall a few mentions by Althusser in Reading
>Capital whereupon Althusser sees the much-neglected Spinoza as a fundamental
>precursor to Marx particularly as regards Spinoza’s separation of the
>thought object of knowledge from the real object and thus credits Spinoza
>with treating reading in a revolutionary manner (itself a precursor to
>Althusser’s notion of the difference between a ‘religious’ and a
>’symptomatic’ reading). And this brings us to notions of critique and the
>’positions’ or positioning of voices. From the above it would seem that
>Spinoza’s critique produces itself (piety) in exemplifying itself in its
>very reading of the text that speaks of piety. A critically pious reading of
>the words of piety?

Nice.

One can also view Socrates as exemplifying the purer form, the arete,
the deficient version of which he is critiquing. Rhetoric of course
is the best example. The Gorgias ends by Socrates challenging What’s
his Name to name a rhetorician who practices the ideal(ized) rhetoric
they’ve arrived at, and of course there is none. But before us we
have to supreme dialectician who has arrived at the notion, the
concept of the ideal rhetoric of which there are no practitioners,
nor can there be. In other words a rhetoric, a way of speaking truth
in language, can only be imagined by the thinker. It cannot be
accomplished through speech.

> Is his text meant to spark off a midrash? How does
>Spinoza’s word (the word of man) become/dwell in/take on god’s word?
>
>Is this (if I have even the slightest insight here) somewhat similar to
>Heidegger’s word becoming the voice (called/evoked) of the gift of be-ing?

Heidegger couldn’t think Spinoza on his best day out. This does not
take away from either man.

>
>As for titles: it sometimes surprises me that authors generally do not
>follow the example of composers in naming their pieces (sometimes) in the
>form of the form of what the piece is, e.g., string quartet, or sonata in F,
>or lieder, or prelude and fugue, etc. So, we could have say, book in 10
>chapters and 547 pages with index, etc. Although I jest, I wonder whether
>there is a problem with your title; it’s merely a title; sure it should draw
>in, call in, bring in the reader, but wouldn’t such a reader (as you would
>have read your book) read the blurb, judge the reviews, gaze at the
>price-tag, etc, too? You want(ed) your book to be a living-philosophy, a
>thinking-along-the-way that finds its path, its mark (reading Heidegger) in
>its very writing/reading (being a jew). Does it not achieve this? For me
>(and my friend who loves the book) it does. Nevermind the mindless sharks,
>Allen, and go back in the water again (and grow fins).

Many thinks.

>
>> But as my mother used to say, “Call me ‘Pisher,’ but with your
>> mishaga’as you’re lucky to be working at all.”
>
>Ha. I love your mother already. And, if the pisher-juddian sharks were to
>rule they’ve have us (mishaganeh jews who dally with Heidegger, whether
>writing books or composing operas) arrested for being bad jews…
>

Excommunication, I’m afraid, is the only punishment available. This
blessing Spinoza received from any number of communities.
Nonetheless, no one could deny, he ground one mean lens.

Best regards,

Allen

Posted on Sunday, August 10th, 2008 at 6:00 am
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