Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 12:19:33 +0000
From: Allen Scult <allen.scult-AT-drake.edu>
Subject: Re: Heidegger as Zarathustra


         Reply to:   Re: Heidegger as Zarathustra

Henk van Tuijl wrote:

>
>Lacoue-Labarthe speaks of the _pretentieuse question_: "Who is
>Nietzsche's
>Zarathustra?" Heidegger clearly sets a tone, but why? 
I think the Feursprecher bears a necessarily pretentious relationship to the Feursprechende.  There are some other non-philosphical examples that might be instructive.  Thucydides writing the speeches of Pericles into his history as the words of Pericles, and of course the rabbis of the Talmud speaking for the words of Torah in their own time "as if" ( and so they claimed)they themsleves were at Sinai to hear ( and somehow remember) the import of the original speaking. 
Henk:
>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. 

Yes.  Because of the nature of temporality, the word must be "given to" the text from/in which the Feursprecher hears it.  I think I've cited this passage before as well, but here is Heidegger asking the pretentieuse question somewhat differently at the conclusion of his speaking for Parmenides:

"Can thinking take this gift into its hands, that is, take it to heart, in order to entrust it in Legein, in the telling statement, to the original speech of language?" ( last sentence in Was Heisst Denken?)

Henk:
>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?

I'm thinking of the expression,popularized by Gadamer, but not original with him, of the interpreter " being interpreted by the text." In the same sense I can "hear" the words of the text speaking for the feursprecher, being his spokesman, even as he appears to be the spokesman for the original text.  This reciprocity is an essential dynamic in the interplay between rhetoric and hermeneuitics through which tradition is constructed.

Henk:
>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? 
I 'm afraid all I can do is join my voice to the wonderful confusion you perpetrate here.  I especially like the idea of "catching the tone."  It seems to me that the rhetorical chutzpah of the feursprecher is an essential prerequisite to catching the tone of the master.  Again,,  it is Gadamer who says somewhere that understanding is never just re-productive but rather always a (rhetorical) production in its own right.

Thanks,

Allen




     --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---