Date: 	Thu, 29 Feb 1996 14:31:53 +0100
Subject:       Re: MB: Heidegger


3 remarks upon the topic Blanchot-Heidegger:

1) Blanchot criticizes Heideggers engagement in nazisme openly in the 
article "Les intellectuels en question" (Debat 1984). This text is 
very interesting for 3 reasons: a) it poses the question of the 
engagement of the writer -engagement that for Blanchot seemed to be 
always latent; b) in this text rises explicitly the question of the 
attraction of fascisme ("Qu'est-ce qui attire dans le fascisme?", 
p.22); c) when Blanchot is talking upon France, he doesn't mention a 
word about his own engagement in La Jeune Droite (that, from 1936 
on, considered itself as a french, true version of fascism), but returns 
to l'Affaire Dreyfus and the position of Paul Valery.
2) It is not true that Blanchot always "echewed Heideggerean talk on 
authenticity". In the literary critics of 1937, published in 
L'Isurge, authenticity is the crucial criterium to evaluate 
literature. I don't know if in the late Heidegger authenticity plays 
the same role as in Sein und Zeit. If this is so, then one can 
conclude that both authors have evoluated differently.
3) It is not sure if Levinas' il y a is the same for Blanchot. I 
know, Levinas refers to Thomas l'Obscur in his analysis of the il y 
a. But the silence and the night where Blanchot is talking about 
comes after the 'echec' of an engagement for an impossible, 
revolutionary ideal. (In the article 'Le silence des ecrivains', Le 
Journal des Debats, 19 avril 1941, Blanchot interpretes the silence 
explicitely in terms of engagement). This ideal was defined in a 
hegelian way by the ethical-esthetical conception of harmony and 
sovereignty. I don't have to tell that the origine of Levinas 'il y 
a' is quite different.
Sorry for this long intervention

A. Cools