From: M.D.Kuzmick-AT-sussex.ac.uk (Marlon Kuzmick)
Date: Sun, 2 Feb 1997 01:08:48 GMT
Subject: saying and dialogue


Tom (and everyone else),

  I think that the distinction you point out 
between "discourse" and "saying" is an 
interesting one.  It seems that there is more 
going on in the piece you mention than a 
distinction between idle (empty) talk and 
authentic (full) speech.  Saying seems to be a 
typical Late-Heideggerian concept in which the 
picture painted is one of being claimed by 
Being.  In this case the dialogue is "guided" 
by Being--Heidegger's use of ellipsis is an 
interesting point as well.  Both this dialogue 
and the "discourse on thinking" 'climax' with 
a series of interlocking statements in which 
all participants merge (sort of like Huey, 
Duey and Luey [sic?] did in the old Donald 
Duck cartoons - [_Discourse on Thinking_ 
89-90]). 
   It seems to me that the theorist who best 
articulates this process would have to be 
Lacan - in which analysis is exactly such a 
dialogue: in which the discourse is led by the 
absent Other (though it never works out quite 
as neatly as it does in H's dialogues).
   The other issue you brought up (Heidegger's 
dialogue with previous thinkers) is VERY 
cool.  His relationship with Husserl (being 
personal, political and philosophical) would 
seem to be a special case (i.e. when compared 
to his relationships with Parminedes and 
Heraclitus). [But for that very reason it is 
one that should be interrogated.  Heidegger 
surely protested too much in his interview 
with Der Spiegel and elsewhere about the 
continuity of his position with respect to 
Husserl.]  
   In general, Heidegger's "dialogue" with 
previous thinkers is quite complex.  If his 
dialogue with Husserl was "terse", his 
dialogues with Nietzsche, Kant, Hegel, and 
Heraclitus (to name a few) are as penetrating 
and respectful as anyone could possibly 
demand.  
  Yet, of course some would argue that 
Heidegger is speaking to himself in each one 
of these cases!!  The often quoted metaphor of 
the textual parasite would seem to fit 
Heidegger at times as much as it fits Derrida 
(and please don't think that I'm grumpy about 
parasites!).
  

On Sat, 1 Feb 1997 10:32:57 -0500 (EST) Tom B. 
wrote:

> From: Tom B. <tblan-AT-telerama.lm.com>
> Date: Sat, 1 Feb 1997 10:32:57 -0500 (EST)
> Subject: Re: heidegger is not lukacs
> To: heidegger-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
> 
> On Sat, 1 Feb 1997, Marlon Kuzmick wrote:
> 
> > while robert scheetz has outlined the 
> > foundation of a rather intriguing 
> > existential marxism, i don't know if it 
> > can be said that heidegger's texts invite 
> > a reading quite that praxis-oriented.
> >   even granting the rigid distinction 
> > robert makes between "art" and "philosophy 
> > books", i think one would be hard-pressed 
> > to find many passages in which heidegger 
> > indicates "the absurdity of engaging [his] 
> > thought discursively".  
> 
> I'm not sure about this. Often he appears to 
be suggesting precisely this,
> if only because he thinks the level of 
discourse is so low. How did he
> feel about Sartre's engagement of him? But 
really I'm thinking more of the
> "Conversation with a Japanese": there, 
"saying" is emphasized. What is the
> status of discourse in the "thinking that is 
to come"? Yet, to be sure, at
> that first prespice, he appears to come out 
strongly in favor of silence.
> The Japanese agrees. But I'm not sure I do. 
But "agreement" is something
> that is taken as a degraded mode of "saying" 
in that piece, agreement
> being of a piece with "saying". Agreement as 
the solution to a "struggle",
> indeed, *a polemos* that, once extolled, is 
now to be forgotten or
> avoided, a typically polemical conclusion to 
the dreary procession of
> polemos. 
> 
> 
> 
> in general, i 
> > think that heidegger advocates a dialogue 
> > with previous thought/thinkers.  to 
> > appropriate certain aspects of heidegger's 
> > thought (specifically what is often called 
> > the "existentialism" of being and time - 
> > since that's what we seem to be on about 
> > these days) in order to make them the 
> > foundation of some sort of revolutionary 
> > program of self/social liberation, would 
> > be to cast heidegger in a role both 
> > politically unsavoury and textually 
> > unsupportable.
> 
> Heidegger's gestures in his "dialogues" with 
previous thinkers are terse, 
> to say the least. If we consider, for 
example, his "dialogue" with 
> Husserl, look at just how little of Husserl 
appears. Look at how weak his 
> dedication of SZ is, and look, if you will, 
at the troublesome political 
> context of his relation to Husserl.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Tom B.
> 
> 
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