Date: Wed, 14 Aug 96 20:26 +0100 From: artefact-AT-t-online.de (M.Eldred_artefact) Subject: Violence, Oedipus, Being Cologne, 12 August 1996 Dear Mr. Scheetz, To respond to: "And this characterization, rhetoric, doesn't capture my intended argument. Aren't you maybe being too cursory? too lofty?" I'm at a loss to see why my comments were lofty. I thought I was being philosophically down-to-earth. Was I too cursory? Perhaps your elucidations will help: "1.It is my understanding that H (perhaps, Phenomenology) distinguishes his method as hermeneutical/intuitive as opposed to the traditional Aristotle/DesCartes logical/abstractive. He thence begins from an existential concretum (an epoche?), separates the adventitious, and proceeds to de-articulate its manifold significations thereby to uncover, encounter, elucidate, wrest...the substrate "Being"." This seems fair enough, roughly speaking. I don't see how an "existential concretum" could be "an epoche", however. The "substrate Being" has many dimensions. Robert Scheetz: "2.I was pointing to a structural congruency between the above and the method implicit, for example, in the ritual structure of attic tragedy, say "Oedipus", which progresses thru a radical destruction (holocaust seem to me a fine word here) to the stark clarification, increment by increment, of the profound and profoundly hidden meaning (primal violence) of the plague in (human existentiality of) Thebes (the world)." So you would like to contend a congruency between Entbergung (unconcealing) and violence as portrayed in Oedipus? If there is a congruency, there is also a difference, namely, THE difference between the truth (unconcealedness) of beings (Oedipus' situation) and the truth (unconcealedness) of the being of beings (metaphysics) ('visible' by virtue of the step back). The latter essencing of truth has always already essenced before Oedipus' tragedy can get under way. The hidden meaning of the Theban plague (patricide) is the truth of Oedipus' existence, the root cause of his fate as heralded by the Delphic oracle. His swollen foot is his fateful im-pedi-ment. And the truth (unconcealedness) of the being of beings? Is this the fate of Western humankind, to be set out into the clearing of being in its standingness? Is this in-sight into the being of beings the primeval, fateful im-pediment? The exposure to the truth of being certainly seems to be being's challenge to Western humankind: the call to stand with inter-esse among beings, manipulating them in-sightfully. But is the line to violence so unambiguous, so fateful as it is in the case of Oedipus? And is violence the ultimate yardstick by which this fate of Western humankind is to be assessed? Or is violence just one of the dimensions of standing-ness? Robert Scheetz continues "3.I wanted to consider that the violence of the sparagmos is realized linguistically in H's "destruction" and toward the identical goal: uncovering truth, or meaning, being,...and with the seeming identical outcome, death, annihilation,...the burden or meaning of Dasein." Why so gloomy? Dasein is not only thrownness but also projectedness. Being-unto-death does not translate as morbidness but as accepting mortality. The finiteness of Dasein is rather counterposed to hubris. Dasein can also be jubilation about being there in the ab-symal there, joy at the ex-posure to the opennes of beyng. Robert Scheetz: "4. And that, therefore, Violence is the dynamic of the truth of being, and the dynamical truth of being...." I think this narrows the meaning of existence down to a doleful channel. The "dynamic" of the truth of being in the sense of the opening of one's own existence may lead to the step back. Even Oedipus says: "Now that I am nothing, I have become human." (Oedipus at Colonus) Cheers and regards, Michael \\\ ° '~': '' /// ° artefact text and translation °~ \ ' ) ''' | . \ - ° .{.\ ~. ' ~ { } .\ : ~ °°° made by art °°° _ °/ ~ : ~:~ \./''/ http://www.webcom.com/artefact/ {.\ ~. ' ~ { } .\ : ~ artefact-AT-t-online.de vox: (++49 221) 9520 333 fax: (++49 221) 9520 334 Dr Michael Eldred --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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