Date: Sat, 28 Mar 1998 12:16:55 +0100
From: Henk van Tuijl <Henk.van.Tuijl-AT-net.HCC.nl>
Subject: Re: philosophy and poetry


Allen,

You write:
>[...] it depends of course on what we mean by religion. Let it be understood
>for the moment according to the suggestion in "idea 53" (p.78) as the
>possibility of "linking together." (re-ligion) The sort of conversation I'm
>wanting to call hermeneutical is a moving towards a formal completion.

Hermeneutical conversation as a human activity with the following goals:
to complete, link together and stimulate - as religion? Let's imagine
it!

You write:
>What moves this moving torwards? I think this question puts the
>conversation on a parallel line with the ideas --  beyond the fragmnent as as
>a monovocal (perhaps anonymous) pars por toto to a higher, more
>encompassing concept of form, but one that is still somehow complete in its
>incompleteness.

The _Idees_ a HIGHER form? Could the _Idees_ refer to _das absolute
Wissen_ as the _Fragment_ refers to _l'Oeuvre_? And what about the
"moving"?

You write:
> Would "vicariously" fit here as a translation  of "Theilnehmend"?  
> There is a sort of pleasure-seeking (one would hope of an artistic 
> sort), implied by the word vacarious, that I want to read into 
> this imagined Other feeling. 

_Teil-nehmen_, as _parti-cipare_, as the _kaptein_ of a _pars_ could,
perhaps, have the connotation of "to gobble up a part". It sounds like
the title of that French-Italian film _La Grande Bouffe_.

You wite:
>How is one to formally construct this imagined Other feeling? Here Bildung
>becomes necessary because human beings are never aboslutely human,
>especially as they encounter one another in time.

Hoelderlin's Other is the romantic _homme religieux_ par excellence. He
is the embodiment of _l'exemplarite_. Only by following his example is
it possible to "feel". Let's suppose that the "feeling" refers to OR
hermeneutics, OR art, OR knowledge (in other words, let us not make a
choice for or against any one of them yet). Let us take the following
quotation as a "true" proposition about the RELATION between
hermeneutics-art-knowledge on the one and the Absolute and Beyng on the
other hand:
  
"Wir sind nicht dadurch unterschieden vom Dogmatismus, dass wir im
Absoluten, sondern dass wir im _Wissen_ eine absolute Einheit des
Denkens und Seyns, und dadurch ein Seyn des Absoluten im Wissen und des
Wissens im Absoluten behaupten" (_Schelling_ 56).

Roughly: We do distinguish ourselves from Dogmatism because we believe
not in the Absolute as such but in the _knowledge_ of an absolute unity
of thinking and Beyng - and therefore in a Beyng of the Absolute in
knowledge and of knowledge in the Absolute.

Could it be, that those human beings who are not initiated in the
society of hermeneutics, or artists, or knowers cannot "feel", i.e. do
not understand, or are not there when the truth sets itself in the work,
or do not know - and are therefore _Normalmenschen_. Is it possible that
these common men heard about the Absolute but do not know how it relates
(cf. _religare: completer, relier, stimuler_) to Beyng (as
understanding, or as art, or as knowledge), and are - therefore - not
absolutely human?   

You write: 
>There is a relevant confusion somewhere in Plato which has to do with the
>origin of Hermeneutic. I think it's Grodin who discusses it, but at any rate,
>his point is that when Plato first uses the word in connection with
>interpretation, it does not have to do with Hermes, but rather with
>divination and its ambiguous relation to prophecy. Here the roles of
>Fuersprecher and Stellvertreter would seem interwtined in a sort of
>reciprocal exchange of pretense. But this exchange does not take place in
>the more prosaic indefinite conversation to which you allude.

The hermetic knowledge in which one is initiated by means of _imitatio_.
One imitates the Other who "feels", i.e. RELATES by means of this
knowledge, or by being there when the truth sets itself in the work, or
by the esoteric concept of _l'Entretien Infini_ (i.e. to paraphrase
Heidegger- Gadamer, _das im Gespraech sein der Sprache_) THE ABSOLUTE TO
BEYNG.  

You write:
> Halbgoetter denk' ich jezt
> Und Kennen muss ich Theuern,
> Weil oft ihr Leben so
> Die sehnende Brust mir beweget.
> Wem aber, wie, Rousseau, dir,
> Unueberwindlich die Seele
> Die starkausdauernde ward,
> Und sicherer Sinn
> Und suesse Gaabe zu hoeren,
> zu reden . . . (_Rhein_).

Heidegger treats this passage in a paragraph, titled: _Stiftung und
Grundung des Seyns aus der Grundstimmung des Mit-leidens mit dem Leiden
der Halbgoetter_ (Roughly: Institution and foundation of Beyng out of
the basic mood of sym-pathy with the suffering of the demigods).

This seems to be - at first sight - a kind of confirmation of the
supposition that the _imitatio_ is a "feeling with" the Other who
"feels" - and that this "feeling" (as understanding, art or knowledge)
is the "religion" of the Absolute and Beyng. 

And Schlegel's utopia? His _harmonie de l'universalite_? Can it be found
in in knowledge alone? In _l'Entretien Infini_? In the truth setting
itself in the work? Or should the question be: What about utopia?

Thanks!

Kindest regards,
Henk



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