Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 10:30:33 +0100
From: Henk van Tuijl <Henk.van.Tuijl-AT-net.HCC.nl>
Subject: Re: Heidegger as Zarathustra


Allen Scult wrote:
>[Heidegger's] characterization of Nietzsche's Zarathustra seems to be a strong indication of how he would >want his own speaking to appear/to be read as part of the speech. This is what Aristotle called "ethos" -- the >character of the speaker as it is "presented" (appears) through the speech itself.  

It is highly probable, but ... Isn't it a very strange passage?      

Allen:
>As I find myself discussing it here, this matter of how the subject is "inscribed" in the speech becomes >interestingly related to Lecoue-Lebarthe's reading of the romantic project as concerned with "the
>organic [as] essentially the auto-formation, or the genuine form of the subject (p.49 in the English).  >Heidegger-as-Zarathustra seems to make the decision to "go rhetorical" rather than dealing directly with the
>organicity of his discourse. I think this decision leads him to miss some of the "intimate details" of the >relationship between Plato and Socrates and Nietzsche and Zarathustra.

Lacoue-Labarthe speaks of the _pretentieuse question_: "Who is
Nietzsche's
Zarathustra?" Heidegger clearly sets a tone, but why? 

Allen:
>The ambiguities that Derrida's  image brings out of the "Fuersprecher" relates I think to a number of such >instances (Plato-Socrates, Heidegger-Aristotle, as well as Heidegger-Plato, Heidegger-Parmenides
>etc.) 

Is Heidegger used to set a tone, when his subject is the teachings of
someone from the past? As if he tries to catch the tone of that past. As
if he doesn't put into words, but gives the word to - as the others
spokesman. 

Allen:
>But I'm confused about where the Feursprecher stands:  Is it before or behind the text/person he is the >spokesman for?  Who is dictating the spoken? 

The "Fuersprecher" stands - literally - before the one instead of whom,
on whose behalf he speaks. Socrates is Plato's and so is Zarathustra
Nietzsche's spokesman. We don't hear Plato but Socrates, not Nietzsche
but Zarathustra. However, Plato and Nietzsche dictate what they say -
they hide behind the tall figure of their spokesman but keep them well
in hand.
And - as you predicted -  here our troubles begin. Are Aristotle, Plato
and Parmenides in the same way the spokesmen of Heidegger? And above
all, how can the spokesman of Nietzsche, Zarathustra, at the same time
be the spokesman of Heidegger?
A minor point. Heidegger calls Zarathustra: the spokesman of Dionysius
and teacher of of the Eterneal Return and of the Overman. Nietzsche is
Dionysius - i.e. the demigod we know from the seminars on the _Hymns_.
At the same time Heidegger makes clear that this Dionysius is first and
formost a philsopher - and certainly not a poet.
A major one. Isn't Heidegger himself a spokesman - as one who gives the
word to instead of putting into words? Whose Zarathustra is Heidegger
when asking: "Who is Nietzsche's Zarathustra?" His own? The little
Heidegger hiding behind a tall Heidegger who catches the tone of an
Aristotle, Plato, Parmenides, Zarathustra - in words dictated by the
little Heidegger? 
A last one. Lacoue-Labarthe does say somewhere that Heidegger didn't 
write dialogues...  Allen wrote::
>Does this bring us back to the romantics and their more "artful" enactment of the fragment as pars por toto?

Kindest regards,
Henk




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