From: "Stuart Elden" <stuart.elden-AT-clara.co.uk>
Subject: RE: Martin Heidegger the intellectual mentor of the left - Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach
Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 09:04:05 -0000


Jan,

Thanks for the reply. Although you suggest it is 'superficial', i wonder
whether it gets to the real heart of the issue.

Although I can't remember the date of the interview i quoted, i am sure it
is late in Heidegger's life - a lot later than 1936. The content - the stuff
on technology and thinking, and the citation of the 'End of Philosophy'
lecture - shows that. But when was the GA comment made - presumably after
1953, but when? (Can Rene provide the full reference please?)

I think you might need to spell out a bit more how these are in
contradiction. It seems that the GA comment shows that H thinks there may be
a problem in the approach of moving from the question 'why are there beings
rather than nothing?' to the understanding of being itself. But isn't that a
question of how we get to an interpretation, rather than not giving in some
sense primacy to the interpretation? The point directed against Marx is, i
think, that to try to change (without an interpretation) presupposes an
interpretation, but one which is neither realised nor questioned.

It seems to me that Heidegger felt that in some sense interpretation was
always prior, in that we had to understand before any possibility for action
could be opened up. (This probably necessitates a discussion of the
political and politics, but perhaps not yet). How we reach that
interpretation, perhaps understanding, may change, but the order seems to
remain for him.

I don't think I'd strictly adhere to that primacy. One of the things I like
about Lefebvre is the way he suggests that there is an element of idealism
retained in Marx's materialism. That is, it's not the crude mechanism of the
1859 Preface, but a recognition of the way ideas and materiality are in a
complex dialectical relationship. Although it might sound a cop-out, i
wonder if it is similar with interpretation and change - interpretation is
necessary, but only change is sufficient perhaps. I wonder if Marx realised
this - and Heidegger is rather challenging ways in which he has been read.
Marx claims "philosophers have _merely_ interpreted the world". So that
interpretation is part of the process, but not the only part.

>so my question is here: "is interpretation prior to change, or vice versa
?"
>or philosophically rephrased "is the epistemic order prior to the ontic, or
>v.v.?"

I like the second question, but i'm not sure it's the same as the first.

Must go

Stuart



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