Date: Wed, 21 Aug 1996 00:38:32 -0400 From: paul.murphy-AT-utoronto.ca (Paul Murphy) Subject: the question of Being and Time etc. Sorry for the extraneous ">" marks; I mistyped the address. Try again... >Aside from the A-1 Oedipus polemic, I do think that Tom Blancato has been >posing important (if not 'essential') questions concerning _Being and >Time_, specifically the second part of the First (and only) Division. >Heidegger does involve himself in dogged aporia in this part of the book, >to which he repeatedly returned, maybe not to Tom's satisfaction. Still, >the being-towards-death / guilt / conscience nexus is worthy of >questioning, vis-a-vis the issue of 'individuation' (Vereinzelung) which >the thematizing of death (in principle resistent to substitution by others, >unsurpassable by individual Dasein) draws sharply into relief. Here is >where both Adorno and Levinas sharpen their polemical knives, to greater or >lesser effect and astuteness, calling for a reconsideration of aspects of >Mitsein not elaborated in SZ, of the 'midzone' to which Tom refers. > >Yes, the opposition of the everyday and authentic resoluteness seems at >times to be contrived. Tom refers to 'dispersion' (if I remember >correctly); *Zerstreuung* is a defining word for das Man, meaning >dispersion and distraction, into which Dasein falls (or falls apart). >Gathering together in the Augenblick of anticipatory resoluteness is >alleged to be the prime accomplishment of Dasein in its encounter with its >own mortality (an encounter in principle unavailable to the animal, which >only perishes). This self-gathering also comes to pass in authentically >responding to the call of conscience. Left out, as Tom has taken great >pains to show, is a responsiveness to others, which falls decidedly by the >wayside. A case in point: the death of an other is mentioned in passing in >the 'Death' chapter, by way of referring to a Tolstoy story, almost in a >'privative' manner; the issue of 'substitutibility' covers over access to >the way in which others die for me, the individualized Dasein (for whom my >being is an issue). Heidegger never mourns others, never mourns their >irrevocable passing. The existential loss goes unremarked. Antigone's grief >for the lost brother -- a grief defying the order of public mores and >political rectitude -- is conspicuously absent from both of Heidegger's >discussions of the Sophoclean tragedy (EM & Hoelderlins Der Ister). It >almost seems as though Heidegger were heeding the advice of Plato, who (in >the Republic) counsels the virile citizen to avoid unseemly displays of >anguish at the loss of a loved-one (not to mention admonishing the poet and >the actor for imitating such debased models of comportment). > >This said, Heidegger's questioning does not cease with SZ. Michael Eldred's >fulminations are justified on at least this point: KEEP READING. The >'later' Heidegger approaches the question of being from a considerably >altered perspective. I've said it before, but once again: the posing of the >question of the opening of nonviolence (insert asterisks where you want) >occurs in Heidegger's writings. Read _Discourse on Thinking_ for starters. >Or here's a quotation from "On the Essence of Truth", section 5: > >"The essence of truth reveals itself as freedom. The latter is ek-sistent, >disclosive letting beings be. Every mode of open comportment flourishes in >letting beings be and in each case is a comportment to this or that being." > >Seinlassen, letting be, is the condition of free openness towards beings, >perhaps towards others. Let others be does not mean, ignore them; it means >non-dominating engagement with their being, bringing it forth solicitously. >Heidegger, to his detriment, does not elaborate this theme with respect to >others, but this is a task for thinking to come. > >Hoping this isn't incoherent, >Best regards, >Paul N. Murphy --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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