File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2001/heidegger.0109, message 116


Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 22:51:25 +0200
From: Michael Eldred <artefact-AT-t-online.de>
Subject: Re: prognosis vs. forecasting


Cologne 20-Sep-2001

Rene de Bakker schrieb Thu, 20 Sep 2001 18:06:57 +0200:

> >> (Going back to the 1st beginning)
> >> "Wir wollen doch gerade nicht - und koennen auch nicht - die Geschichte
> >> zurueckdrehen, sondern muessen aus UNSERER jetzigen und d.h.
> >> KUENFTIGEN Notwendigkeit heraus denken und handeln. Denn WIR
> >> - nicht der beliebige Einzelne und nicht die noch beliebigeren Vielen,
> >> nicht einzelne Voelker und Nationen  und Staaten fuer sich, sondern
> >> das Abendland wird durch die Stoesse (Weltkrieg, Weltrevolution),
> >> durch Jenes, wovon diese nur die geschichtliche Folgen sind, in die Frage
> >> GESTOSSEN, ob es denn noch in der Wahrheit stehe, ja ob es die Wahrheit
> >> ueberhaupt noch will und noch wollen kann."
> >>
> >> Compare the 'pushes' in my earlier mail.
> >
> >Rene,
> >
> >For those who don't read German (and the second German sentence is
> ungrammatical,
> >having two subjects, "WE" and "the occident"):
>
> Michael,
>
> Thanks for translating.
>
> >"To turn back history is precisely what we don't want, *and cannot want,*
>
> *and what we can't* (do, because it is impossible, although we can want it)
>
> >but rather we must think and act starting from OUR present, and that means
> FUTURE,
> >necessity. For WE -- and not arbitrary individuals and not the even more
> >arbitrary many, not individual peoples and nations and states/countries for
> >themselves, but the occident is JOLTED into the question by the jolts
> (world war,
> >world revolution)  from that which they are only the historical
> consequences of,
>
> jolted by the wars, by That which ....
> When we are jolted by wars, then we properly are jolted by That, which had
> them
> as ('mere') consequences. That's why Nietzsche advised Bismarck to lay down
> arms.
> What would have been the consequence of that? I don't dare to think.
> A new magnanimity?
>
> >the question whether the occident still stands in the truth and indeed,
> whether
> >it still wants and can still want the truth at all."
>
> >This passage occurs in Chapter Four "The necessity of the question
> concerning the
> >essence of truth from the beginnings of the history of truth", Section 27
> "The
> >swinging around of critical questioning concerning truth into the
> beginnings of
> >the history of truth as a leaping forward into the future. _Alaetheia_ as
> what
> >was experienced but not questioned by the Greeks".
> >
> >We (the occident) can perhaps, Heidegger urges, leap forward into our
> future by
> >winning back not simply the truth, but by "preserving the _original
> essence_ of
> >truth (_alaetheia_)" (GA45:109), that which the first beginning was unable to
> >hold onto.
> >
> >One of Heidegger's translations for _alaetheia_ is "die Lichtung"
> (clearing). I
> >suggest another: the diaphanous medium, i.e. the medium through (dia-)
> which the
> >light (_phos_) of the phenomena can pass.
>
> The Greeks say: the phenomena, ta onta, are true. Ta onta, ta alethea.
> What you do now and below, has been done earlier on by Plato, who says:
> aletheia
> is idea, the appearing of WHAT ta onta ARE. (Lichtung is not an answer)
> It's because we have swallowed (incorporated) Plato. We look already
> at things with Plato's eyes, our minds are prefigured. One cannot fight it,
> only recognize it. We are IN the (end of) metaphysics. Inmitten des Seienden.
> As I said earlier: metaphysics is in the streets.

Rene,

I don't think that what I do with my suggested translation of _alaetheia_ as
diaphanous medium or dimension is what Plato does. Why? Because Plato's idea, and
even the idea of the ideas, is always a characterization of the being _of beings_
or the origin of the being _of beings_. _Alaetheia_ as diaphanous medium is the
dimension through which the phenomena _can_ pass. It is _enabling_
(ermoeglichend). And phenomena cannot be restricted to the self-showing of beings,
but encompass also the showing of beyng itself, including its quivering
(Erzitterung), and including its self-hiding (the negation or un- of
self-showing). The self-hiding of beyng itself too needs an enabling dimension:
the openness of _alaetheia_ or the clearing.

I recently (09-Sep-2001) cited SuZ:
"What is it which has to be called a 'phenomenon' in a pronounced sense?
What is according to its essence _necessarily_ the subject of an _express_
demonstration? Obviously it is something that, at first and for the most part,
does _not_ show itself, which is _hidden_ but at the same time is something
which belongs essentially to what shows itself at first and for the most part,
and that in such a way that it constitutes its sense and ground." (SuZ:35) And
Heidegger wrote in the margin of his copy of SuZ to "sense and ground":
"Wahrheit des Seins", i.e. "truth of being".

This shows that the truth of being itself, i.e. _alaetheia_, is the phenomenon
that ultimately -- in its self-hiding -- has to be brought to light by thinking.

Michael
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>
>
> >This light is not the physical light
> >studied by physics with its wavelengths and frequencies, but the light of
> being
> >itself which Dasein (human being) is attuned to and can see. Dasein (human
> being)
> >is uniquely open to _alaetheia_,
>
> There is no Dasein till Heidegger. The Greeks didn't need it, because they
> had aletheia,
> better: because aletheia had them. They, 'naturally', had only to look. And
> their
> looking, idein, noein, belonged itself to aletheia. We cannot think this,
> because
> we take everything that happens 'in' us as subjective. But we can/must
> force ourselves
> to think, that this subjectivity is a consequence of aletheia, insofar
> every tending
> from this inside to an outside presupposes it.* This would be the position of
> the "critical reflexion" at the very beginning of GA45, which is only the
> starting-up
> of the preparation of the Grundstimmung, in which can be experienced the
> need (Not),
> which solely can bestow necessity (Not-wendigkeit: shifting the need) to
> our questioning,
> which then has to back to the first beginning, in order to see why the
> Greeks identified
> on and alethes and somehow didn't think aletheia itself.
>
> *because it leads to worldwars, say Nietzsche and Heidegger.
>
> I'll try to do better than this. Thanks for the stimulation.
>
> regards,
>
> Rene
>
>





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