Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 17:54:13 +0100
From: Rene de Bakker <rene.de.bakker-AT-uba.uva.nl>
Subject: Re: Method


At 13:40 22-2-02 -0600, Allen Scult wrote:
  

R:
Rather, that when human talk of things is robbed from its metaphysical
dimension, ...

A:
Does this "when" mean to suggest that sometimes human talk is not robbed
from its metaphysical dimension? 
Is the "when" here an epochal occurrence, suggesting that the robbery takes
somewhat different forms in different epochs?

R: 
According to the philosopher we all read here, we live in the epoch of
completed senselessness. The most senseless (nihilistic) act then,
would be the bestowing of sense on the senseless. Adding sugar
to sand only helps the desert growing.


[Of this Hoelderlin, Heidegger says, that while being (dead and) forgotten,
he WAS . as he says of , in the Heraclit seminar, that he still IS

Sorry, it was Karl Reinhardt, who still is]

That's why some of us like rummaging around in these old texts, apparently
reduced to ashes, but still containing some embers which perhaps can be
ignited.

I think, that what Heidegger is at, is a radical turning of position: 
in a Hoelderlin poem, or in a text of Leibniz, is the opening, which
is enough for itself. They don't need us. At most, we need them.
A very strange use of the word 'is',  that must be admitted, but
the only one, that can free the historical from the available.

Nietzsche 2, German p. 9, heading "ER and WtP":

"Die Gewesenheit ist die Befreiung des scheinbar nur Vergangenen
in sein Wesen [...]   Das WESENDE Vergangene, die je entworfene
Seiendheit als verhuellte Wahrheit des Seins, ueberherrscht alles,
was als gegenwaertig und, kraft seiner Wirksamkeit, als das Wirkliche
gilt."         

(compare Wiederholung/repetition in BT)

R:
There is a passage in "The principle of reason", where H writes: "Why does
this not knock us over?"
If there would be no limit to the power of indication, one could knock over
everybody.

A:
It's extraordinary how these "protections" are built into the design of
language to keep large numbers of us safe from "destruktion."  Is it some
sort of natural selection which "arranged" things so everybody didn't get
knocked over?

R:
Also the last man has 2 eyes. But the choice to look or to blink is ours.

regards  rene
 




-----------------------------------
drs. René de Bakker
Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam
Afdeling Catalogisering 
tel. 020-5252309              


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