File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_1998/heidegger.9803, message 132


Date: Sun, 15 Mar 1998 13:58:14 -0500 (CDT)
From: Allen.scult-AT-drake.edu (Allen Scult)
Subject: Re: philosophy and poetry




Allen:
 Somehow, I think that philosophical hermeneutics and its way of >taking
the step back to the conditions that make possible the interlocking
understanding of
>>both text and homeland in this way holds the key. The problem here I
>>think is >misunderstanding some of what Gadamer has to say on the subject
>>too "softly," as good >interpersonal relations, but bad philosophy.
>

Henk: Would you mind being more explicit? I follow you all the way till
>"philosophical hermeneutics holding the key".


Allen:
You seem to have a nose for weak links!
But let me push on.
One way to understand philosophical hermeneutics is in terms of  its
insistent "uselessness" in the service of any sort of pragmatic work.  It
seems to me that that would include the work of philosophy-- or perhaps
more precisely--the work of any particular philosophical project,
especially  metaphysics.

Here what you say about the apparently necessary incompletion of Hegel's
"mythology of reason" seems very much to the point:

If my memory does not deceive me, it was Rosenzweig who discovered the
>authorship of Schelling - with whom, following Lacoue-Labarthe, the
>work-lessness of philosophy begins. Seen in this light, by forgetting
>this program Hegel has saved the philosophy of metaphysics from its -
>untimely? - fall.

So it is by NOT completing this crucial aspect of his program that Hegel
enables philosophy of a certain metaphysical sort to continue.  Isn't this
"refusal" a sort of philosophical work-lessness?  Aren't there signs,
(traces) of a similar sort of refusal at certain crucial moments in
Heidegger's project?  wouldn't some sense of discursive irony have allowed
Heidegger or Hegel to carry the refusal or work-lessness a bit further?  I
sense a bit of that ironical sense in some Gadamer-inspired writings in
philosophical hermeneutics, especiAlly concerning "uselessness."

Henk:

>One step further. Apart from the "reasons" given by Heidegger himself,
>what is it that made him _understand_ Hoelderlin in such a way that it
>can be said of him that Hoelderlin is the first and he is the second
>voice in a fugue?

I forget who originally was responsible for characterizing  Heidegger as
"second voice" to Hoelderlin in a fugue, but again, I would suggest that
Heidegger's poetic limitations prevent him from blending his voice with
Hoelderlin's in this way.  I still think his "ear" and voice match up much
more precisely ( and "fugue" to me does suggest precision)in what he does
with some of the Greek passages in the pre-Socratics and Aristotle.

Henk:

>Coming back to the romantic poets ... What is there "between"
>_understanding_ poetry and _understanding_ metaphysics? Or is this the
>wrong question to ask?

You have me going back to the "Literary Absolute" to see what
Lacoue-labarthe and Nancy have to say on the matter.  But it seems to me
this is an absolutely crucial "between."  Might there also be some possible
connection here with Heidegger's musings on "The Grand Style" in the
Nietzsche lectures?

Thanks,

Allen




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