Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 16:13:12 +0100
Subject: Re: MB: Blanchot and Heidegger


In message <98Jun18.134000gmt.14987-2-AT-firew.marjon.ac.uk>, Large.W
<stawla-AT-lib.marjon.ac.uk> writes
>
>I want to say something briefly about this problem of the reflexivity of   
>discourse.  How can we speak about that which we say is beyond speaking.   
> Of course we all now this is supposed to be a performative contradiction   
>as in the example of the liars paradox.  Some people seem to think that   
>this is also a good description of Continental philosophy - Derrida,   
>Levinas, and now Blanchot all seem to suffering from a basic logical   
>error, which if they had only been English enough, they would have   
>realised from the beginning, and would have therefore saved themselves a   
>lot of wasted effort.  But what might seem very profound in terms of   
>logic, is philosophically very shallow.  I mean philosophy is about   
>problems, not about logic, and in relation to problems language is always   
>on the edge of what cannot be said.  This is why philosopher's create   
>concepts. To say what has not been said before.  Now I don't think this   
>is very controversial.  Why are philosophical problems not like the   
>problems of geometry?  This is because there are  answers to the second,   
>even if they need to be discovered, whereas there are no answers to the   
>first.  Blanchot's engagement with Heidegger should be seen in these   
>terms as the deepening of a problem.  What is this problem? Then it is   
>our turn to think.
>stawla.  


... In "The Most Profound Question" (in The Infinite Conversation) and
in particular the long footnote attached to it concerned with Heidegger,
Blanchot is concerned to delineate the question that, as he claims,
outstrips Heidegger's question of the meaning/truth of Being altogether.
Heidegger too makes the vital contrast between logic and problems in
numerous texts, but especially Basic Questions of Philosophy: Selected
'Problems' of Logic in order to move exposition to the heart of
philosophising i.e. the experience in which the human being is delivered
over to that which ultimately solicits thought. In order to grasp what
is specific to Blanchot - what is and remains radical in his work - I
feel that is imperative to broach the question of the relation between
Heidegger and Blanchot. And, moreover to broach the question as to what
is at stake  in the extraordinary conception of questioning that
Blanchot articulates in "The Most Profound Question." Would this be a
useful essay for us to read together if it is "our turn to think"? -
i.e. to do justice to Blanchot? ... the other essay that springs to mind
is "Waiting" (collected in The Blanchot Reader)...  



-- 
Lars Iyer