Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 16:00:39 -0400 From: crickey-AT-mercury.acpub.duke.edu (chris rickey) Subject: Re: Verhaltenheit/violence/Seinsdenken > I find Heidegger's conviction that Greek and German are the most >philosophical of languages one of the places where love of one's own >leads him to simply assert something as true-he offers no argument to >support this assertion in An Introduction to Metaphysics. His assertion >has whatever plausibility it can appeal to because of the existence of >Greek and German philosophy. In defense of Heidegger, the belief that there is a special connection between Greek and German is fairly widespread in Germany. My roommate there, certainly no Nazi nor even a particular enthusiast of things German, quite unselfconsciously asserted the same thing (he even claimed that the Germans pronounced Greek like the ancients did, like anyone would know). This leads me to believe that it is a general cultural assumption among educated Germans, sort of like Americans belief in their unique destiny (for good or bad). I don't know enough about linguistics to know the veracity of this claim. Nor do I know whether German is better able than any romance language to express Greek grammar, which underlies his attempts to recover the Greek understanding of being as presencing. Of course, that presumes they thought of being in this manner... Chris _______________________________________________________________________ I just can't stop When my spark gets hot --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005