Subject: Re: 
From: Stuart Elden <stuart.elden-AT-clara.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 13:34:16 +0000


> > oops, i meant Allen iso Stuart, sorry it's late.
> 
> Cat:
> 
> Freudian slip?  :-)

Well, I was tempted to engage before this provocation, but now I see no 
reason to hold back.

If this is supposed to suggest that I am easily equated to Allen, I'd 
be happy to take that, and would indeed take it as a compliment. Allen 
embodies the kind of virtues of a contributor to this list that 
Catweasle so obviously does not. His posts are invariably interesting 
and thoughtful, grounded in a very sound knowledge of the matters at 
stake.

For one particular thing, he actually _reads_, carefully and 
attentively. 

Compare, for example...

Allen: Towards the same end,   he also requires that his students place 

> themselves "at the disposal" of the text by recognizing that they are 

> "needing to be told. . .that in some regard, something is still wrong 

> with us"  that philosophy, properly understood, is in a unique 
> position to correct.

And Catweasle's characterisation of this as 

>  "Place
> yourselves at
> my disposal" or "You need to be told! " 

There is a world of difference between suggesting that students attend 
carefully to an important text and suggesting that they attend 
carefully to the teacher. Surely you can see that? Also the suggestion 
that there is "something still wrong with _us_". Not "you", but "us". 
Heidegger is recognising that he can learn from Aristotle too. Clear, 
if we look at the texts he devoted to Aristotle in the 20s and the 
impact they had on his own thought.

Of course, the question of Heidegger's pedagogy is an interesting and 
important topic. Hans Jonas suggested that Heidegger made it possible 
for him to really engage with the way of thinking of another thinker. 
And he meant Aristotle. Hannah Arendt had a very high view of Heidegger 
as _teacher_. But then, of course, Heidegger uses the notion of the 
University in a very damaging way - for his political ambitions. But 
this is an issue that needs to be thought through carefully - reading 
the Heidegger/Jaspers correspondence is instructive, for instance; or 
Kisiel, etc. - not dismissed in summary and, yes, ignorant ways. 
Heidegger tries to teach the importance of slow careful reading. Some 
of us seek to follow that advice, even to turn it against Heidegger's 
failings.

Stuart

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