Subject: Re: Heidegger and the Hebrew Tradition
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 00:16:42 -0500


Rafael,

>is the naked world of fact and law really so _naked_? haven't we learned
>...that there are no _pure facts_?
>... and what about _laws_? is this not a pretty nice european
>rationalistic metaphor?

where science/hermeneutics discovers nihility/uncertainty,
pragmatical/existential apprehension encounters absolutes.
by custom peasant/prole/poet
derogate the former as cloud-cuckoo-land;
and philosophers reciprocate with:
"naive, illusory...ersatz.
but the cogency of the respective apprehensions,
for all they are in contradiction,
is ultimately indistinguishable, no?
and, it's only bourgeois class prejudice
that privileges the professor's with "knowledge";
and renders the worker's a subordinate form,
as "common sense" or "empiricism".
kant's way (pure & practical) was to treat
them separate but equal; marx, dialectically.
but the denial of absolutes is as monist a
thinking as the denial of nihility.

secondly, by "redeeming" is intended
that marx re-grounded (the labor theory of value)
the judaeo/xtian ethos for the post death-of-god west,
...anticipating neitzsche in all
except the byronic silliness:
the annihilation of the bourgeois ethos,
and the advancing homo faber as
the unacknowledged everyman-superman
of western existence and history, being & time;
worshiping at no altars, but recognizing
chartres, san marco, versailles, ...
not ad maiorem dei gloria nor any Big-ism, but
for marvels (sophocles' "many the wonders" choral paean
to humanism, or yeats', "monuments of its own magnificence," ...)
of his own hand/head labor.

"messianism" is not the right word for marx, eh?
really no looking for king david...that's neitzsche.
soteriological, certainly.
yet even here, communist paradise
is no conventional land-of-the-lotus-eaters;
but, proletarian anarchy,
with the thetical moment, the moral dynamic of humanism,
and the anti-thetical, his marvel of technic.
the only myth is the faith
in the existence of a "proletarian community."
but, again this is a bringing the tradition
back down to earth; i.e. re-grounding a structure
(judaeo/xtian salvation history)
whose meaning had long since been lost
in shamanic mystification.

yet even tho human existence be justified in spe by its works
(i.e., the eventuation of the humanist community);
that doesn't obviate the mysterium tremendum;
so that unless one holds (as you say husserl & co do)
to the old enlightenment religion of god-reason
...believing that science will one day overcome
the naked and inflexible facticity of death
(and as you say, it does seem to be getting alarmingly near);
a second-order innocence (precisely),
that is to say mh, the cooper's lad from naz...
i mean, messkirch, is exigent.

so you see, (always allowing for layman's  limitations)
i really don't understand why you guys insist
one can't have it both ways,...eh?
sure, some of heid would have to be cut loose,
some paths abandoned,
but, he even left warrant for that, no?

yours,
bob
-----Original Message-----
From: heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
<heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
To: Rscheetz <Rscheetz>
Date: Friday, January 08, 1999 7:48 AM
Subject: Re: Heidegger and the Hebrew Tradition


>
>Bob,
>
>>isn't it a universal  experience,
>>a kind of loss of intellectual innocence
>>("wither has it fled the visionary gleam..." and all that),
>>a moment in the maturation of human consciousness
>>when enchantment and mystery, the animistic world
>>of runes and spells and incantations, prospero's
>>island, etc., dissolves and leaves behind in its
>>place the naked world of fact and law?>
>
>is the naked world of fact and law really so _naked_? haven't we learned in
>the last fifty years or so (particularly from such unsuspiscious people
like
>karl popper, thomas kuhn, paul feyerabend etc.etc. and, of course, from
>_hermeneutics_) that there are no _pure facts_? was this not exactly the
>(one) point where there was a break between the critical rationalists and
>the Vienna School? and what about _laws_? is this not a pretty nice
european
>rationalistic metaphor? think, for instance, about Japanese experience of
>nature as described by Kimura Bim: nature is not (completely) predictable
>and so. And what about Greek _physis_? or about chaos theory and
>selforganizational models, where predictions and _laws_ do not fit any more
>in a world of _calculus_ and the Hempel-Oppenheimer-Scheme? and do we not
>learn from present astronomy that the cosmos and its development is
anything
>but _naked_ and _clear_? Many astronomers and physicists have developped,
as
>you know, all kinds of new/old incantantions. And think for instance about
>Auguste Compte? (take a look at the Website!): he intended just what you
are
>suggesting and... well he founded a new religion (of positivism!) with all
>kinds of secularized myths.
>
>
>
>>can't one pretty clearly distinguish each mode?
>>as in allen's eg, the j tradition?
>>isn't roman catholicism (the astonishing
>>vat I and anathema of modernism)
>>distinguishable from protestantism
>>at a very deep level on essentially this basis?
>>and isn't it the basis of husserl's rejection,
>>unscientific, of b&t?
>
>
>
>yes, I think, that is one way of dealing with this question: draw a
>distinction as George Spencer Brown says. But we have to accept, I believe
>(well, yes, I believe) a kind of second order innocence in order to deal
>with this as we have no _clean_ point from which we could take a view on
all
>distinctions. This is the opposite from _monism_ and this is what I (!)
>learned from Heidegger (for instance with regard to a philosophy of history
>in opposition to Hegel and... yes and Marx). Is this pure relativism and
>_anything goes_? I think what looks like a _danger_ can (!) be also a kind
>of _solution_ or _dissolution_ (for instance of the opposition between
>relativism and monism). Husserl believed (!) in the absolute Vernunft (not
>just in the _scientific_ one, as you can see in the _Krisis_), he
>relativated science on the basis of the _lifeworld_ which was what he
>learned from BT (this was his philosophic answer to H.). But the lifeworld
>is no a _naked_ standpoint and it is not consciousness. His intention of
>re-constructing phenomenologically (as _strenge Wissenschaft_) all
phenomena
>is part of the myth of Western metaphysics, don't you think? similar to
Marx
>trying to imagine the _clean_ or _ideal society_, a messianic ideal, istn't
>it? yes, of course, secularized, but does it make such a big difference to
>say: god is a projection (Feuerbach) or religion is people's opium and then
>to tell them they (we) are now the big boss? is this the kind of _solution_
>modernity proposes? take the old saints out of the altars but let the
altars
>there and put new saints instead? I mean new values as Nietzsche suggested?
>This is the question of nihilism which was a permanent matter of thinking
>for H. particularly in his interpretation of Nietzsche (and, of course, of
>national socialism: as a modern mythological construction). His dialogue
>with Ernst Juenger (_Der Arbeiter_ and the later correspondence _Ueber die
>Linie_) is still our reality, as you point to: the only difference is that
>what you say is considered as a problem/question, not as a solution, or, in
>other words, the modern solution (science, positivism and the like) is part
>of the problem. Think about Adorno/Horkheimer _Dialektik der Aufklaerun_...
>
>
>>
>>>Just think about how much fetishitic, shamanic etc.
>>>there was/is in the marxist tradition
>>>(and what about the Hebrew/Christian/... in Karl Marx...?!)
>>
>>can't think what in marx you'd be referrencing?
>>surely marx redeemed messianism (helder camara & co)
>>against the dr's of the word for judeao/xtian civ ?
>>and who in the tradition? bloch, maybe?
>>but none of them leave the earth, facticity, behind,
>>in favor of the house of language.
>>
>
>
>Marx is, I think, pretty messianic, and bloch of course, and even habermas!
>in one of his late lectures he talks about the necessity (!) of religion.
>And take even postmodernism: there was an interesting dialogue _on
religion_
>between Vattimo, Derrida, Gadamer and others. And one of the last books by
>Vattimo is about : I believe that I believe!...
>What does all this mean? two hundred years after the Einlightenment and
with
>a lot of positive science and powerful (!) technology! and with a lot of
>media all around and with a lot of messages of all kinds, anything goes...
>
>
>>but anyway, am after quarrying, not discountenancing,
>>heid. now god's dead, the project of b&t is
>>compelling, eh?...only i'd like to amend the monism.
>>...facticity, the ontic, techne...the person,
>>don't they require to be redeemed?
>>
>
>
>yes, and this is precisely what H. was intending to do. How do you redeem
>the ontic? just with a BIG ontic? or with a BIG person? or with a BIG
>techne? or with a BIG facticity? Vattimo says, god is dead, _aber dem
>Menschen geht es nicht allzu gut_ (people are not very in a very healthy
>fashion)! God-is-dead is Nietzsche's formula for the decline of absolute
>values, as you know.
>
>
>>could one maybe postulate that h's ontology
>>in dialogue (his pristine inclination) with marxism
>>(the authentic great movement) is for post-modern western civ,
>>the myth structure essential to the fiducial vitality
>>of latter day judaeo/xtian hope?
>>who's doing this?
>>
>>getting late,
>>thanks
>>bob
>>
>
>yes, may be, jew-greek, greek-jew, extremes meet
>thanks to you
>rafael
>
>-----Original Message-----
>>From: heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>><heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
>>To: Rscheetz <Rscheetz>
>>Date: Wednesday, January 06, 1999 6:12 AM
>>Subject: Re: Heidegger and the Hebrew Tradition
>>
>>
>>>
>>>bob,
>>>
>>>how much of all this  (what you say) is
>>>Hebrew/Christian/Catholic/abendlaendisch... tradition?
>>>how do we (!) manage it? I mean, not only how did H. manage it...
>>>to say: all this is fetishistic, ritualistic etc. may be not only failing
>>>the _facade_ H. and that which is behind it but it presupposes there
would
>>>be a _clean_ solution for all our (!) shamanic, fetishistic etc.
thinking.
>>>Just think about how much fetishitic, shamanic etc. there was/is in the
>>>marxist tradition (and what about the Hebrew/Christian/... in Karl
>>>Marx...?!)
>>>so, let us think about this
>>>me too I have my peasant roots (as you can see in my homepage)
>>>kind regards
>>>rafael
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>     --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>
>
>
>     --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>





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