From: "Prof. Dr. Rafael Capurro" <capurro-AT-hbi-stuttgart.de>
Subject: Re: deinotaton and impotence
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1998 20:31:40 +0100


Michael,

I was thinking about the translation of _Gewalt_ as power and not, as usual,
as _violence_ which is the point Tom discusses.
I do not know the English translation. In case there is _violence_ and not
_power_ the whole text becomes inconsistent. Why?
Well because H. uses _Gewalttaetigkeit_ in an unusual sense, the usual sense
being precisely the one of _violence_ (using power, roughness, despotism)
This is why he puts it like this:
 _Gewalt-taetigkeit_

So the question rised by Tom about violence and non-violence (why this
negative form? if he thinks originally _non-violence_ then he is starting
with _violence_ and proceeding through negation)
is a question concerning _Gewalttaetigkeit_ not _Gewalt_ in the
Heideggerian/Sophoclean sense, which could be paradoxically near to what Tom
is trying to say: the Overwhelming.
Violence/Non-violence is a secondary phenomenon with regard to Gewalt/das
Waltende/Ver-Waltung etc. A _secondary phenomenon_ does not mean at all it
is _unimportant_ or whatever, ok? I am just trying to think about this -
with you.
What do you think Tom?

Rafael
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Michael Eldred <artefact-AT-t-online.de>
An: heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
<heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Datum: Samstag, 19. Dezember 1998 16:59
Betreff: deinotaton and impotence


Cologne, 19 December 1998

Prof. Dr. Rafael Capurro schrieb:
> H. is interpreting _ta deina_ and _to deinotaton_ which he translates _das
> Unheimlichste_ (the most eery kind of thing/being). This is, in a first
> step,  the way Sophokles (not H.!) understands man.
>
> According to H. _deinon_ has two meanings:
> 1) something that takes possession of us (as fear or a shyness),
> 2) the powerful (_das Gewaltige_)._Das Gewaltige_ (_deinon_) means not
only
> to use power but to be-powerful (_gewalt-taetig_). H. uses the word
> _Gewalt-taetigkeit_ (as he explains) in this second sense (in the first
> sense of _using power_ it means roughness and despotism and is therefore
> something against the provision of everydayness)
>
> Being in its totality (_das Seiende im Ganzen_: this is H. formula for
> metaphysics' view of reality as something that can be grasped _as_ a
> totality) is of the kind of _deinon_ in sense 1). Man ist _deinon_ as far
as
> he deals with this but also in sense 2). H. explains that in this second
> sense man collects that what is (_das Waltende_).
> There is are some puns here:  _Ge-walt_ (power) and _Walten_ (existing),
> _Ueber-waeltigend_ (overwhelming) and _Ver-waltung_ (administration).
>
> Medard Boss explained this to me once in the following way: ek-sistence
> means keeping (together in the _Mit-sein_) the openness open and, at the
> same time, getting _things_ out of concealment into openness, which is for
> instance what we do when we do science, e.g. an astronomer who tries to
> _see_ into the concealed past/future of the cosmos etc. But, of course,
> concealment itself is more powerful (sense 1) than all our efforts. This
is
> exactly what H. says  (p.123): the knower (_der Wissende_) takes beings
out
> of Being but (!) he can never get power over the _Ueberwaltigende_.
> Constantly something (un-said, un-thought, un-happened, un-seen) breaks
> through (or down), our being-powerful (sense 2) crashes with Being. (H.
> explain this with regard to _techne_ as _Gewalt-taetigkeit des Wissens_,
p.
> 126 with reference to Parmenides: _noein_ and _einai_ or of _techne_
against
> _dike_ or of _deloun_ (keeping the openness open) of the _logos_
> We are _collector_ (der Sammler) i.e. we collect what is (das Waltende,
> physis) and manage (Verwaltung) this. This is always r i s k y (_Wagnis_
> _tólma_). Because of this being-risky we come to the very bad
(_Schlimmen_)
> as well as to the good (_Edlen_). Language is at the same time opening of
> being and dispersion (Zerstreuung). To be human means to _manage_
> (_verwalten_, p. 133) the openness against concealment
>
> And: our being-poweful (sense 2) fails at o n e thing: death. (p. 121),
> there is no way out here. Dasein is the happening itself of _deinon_ in
the
> sense of _Un-heimlichkeit_ (eeryness). This is, according to H., what
> Sophokles says in the second verse.
> We are _heimisch_ at home, and the _un-heimlich_ is something that takes
us
> out of this. Result: we are in both ways (whereas other beings, are only
> _heimisch_, or, more precisely, although H. does no says this, there is a
> progression, or there are _many things that are deina_ _polla ta deina_)
>
> All this is the Greek (Sophoklean) experience of human existence and,
> according to H., the beginning (a begin) of the essencing of man. But this
> begin was concealed and at the end we got the definition _zoon logon
echon_
> a being with reason, instead of a physis/logos to which man belongs (logos
> anhropon echon).
>
> H. is constantly (!) saying that human life is tragic in the sense that it
> fails or breaks or smashes (_zerbrechen_) with regard to the being-power
of
> Being (_denn als Dasein muss es in aller Gewalt-tat am sein doch
> zerbrechen). "This looks like pessimism" writes H.(p.135) "but it would be
> wrong to speak like this about Greek existence". Life is not a business
> (Geschaeft). For us (!) says H. is this therefore (!) very strange.
> Non-being (Nicht-dasein) is the highest victory over Being, we are
> constantly in a defeat situation (Not der Niederlage), Being is constantly
> taking power over us (here there is again a pun: _ver-gewaltigt_ is the
word
> we use for rape/violate (in sexual sense), H. writes: _woertlich genommen_
> i.e. Being is using us for his appearence
>
> The real human power over Being is the end of the story, the power of
> thinking as _ratio_
> At the beginning we are overwhelmed by _something_ we cannot master.
> H. thinking is a re-call of this non-mastering, i.e. a re-call of our
> relation to what is overwhelming.
> There was (for him) probably something politically dis-rupting and opening
> in the NS-movement, but this was, as you know, a shortcircuit. The
sentence
> (1935) about this takes its (his) distance from what _today is supposed to
> be the philosophy of National Socialism_.
>
> But all this can of course be misunderstood in the sense of a _philosophy
of
> violence_ where the essence of Being is violence (but in this case the pun
> of _Gewalt_ _Ueberwaltigend_ etc. and H. historical view of the essencing
of
> man were misunderstood). As this is _language_ it is possible to be seen
> like this...
>
> sorry for the long mail

Rafael,

Thank you for the long mail.

H. also calls this overpowering of Dasein by being "metaphysical impotence".

"Aufgrund dieses Ueberschwunges ist das Dasein jeweils dem Seiendem über,
wie
wir sagen, aber freilich gerade so, daß es das Seiende in dem Widerstand
allererst erfaehrt als das, wogegen das transzendierende Dasein ohnmaechtig
ist." (GA26:279)

translation:
"Because of this swinging-over, Dasein is, as we say, always superior to
beings
(lit. over beings) but of course in such a way that it only ever experiences
beings in their resistance, as that against which transcending Dasein is
impotent."

This impotence circumscribes(/cizes?) Dasein's power not only over beings in
the
third person, but also over the other in their otherness. Lévinas was unable
to
see this, but instead makes an ontic (ethical) impotence out of an
ontological
impotence.

This transcending is yet another way of saying the ontological difference.

Michael
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