Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 15:40:45 +0100
From: Rene de Bakker <rene.de.bakker-AT-uba.uva.nl>
Subject: RE: Martin Heidegger the intellectual mentor of the left -


At 09:04 27-2-02 -0000, Stuart wrote:
>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?)

No date indicated. My guess is 1946, because the post-scriptum to
"What is metaphysics" treats the same issue. But also there is a
180 degree switch from 'Being without beings' to 'Being, that is never
without beings', which makes one more complication. Moreover I get the
feeling that late Heidegger is completely floating: at any moment it can
go this way or that way. Ways, not works.

Dating is only important till the Contributions, or the Kristallnacht,
depending
on what is your interpretation stick of 'reality'.
Heidegger's first new (published) work after them are the three-parted
Vortraege und Aufsaetze = Lectures and essays (1953). (I believe some
of them are in: The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays.
And others in: Poetry, Language, Thought. Looks like a mess) 
They are conform the "system" of the Contr., i.e. the Gefuege (jointed
structure).
This too becomes clear on the basis of the GA edition.

So I would say, that all H after WW2 is late (spaet) Heidegger. 
As long as we don't understand BT - the writer was of this opinion -, 
we don't have to worry about late or later H. 

rene









>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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>
>

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


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