Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 22:18:39 +0100
From: artefact-AT-t-online.de (Michael Eldred)
Subject: Re: Plato:Heidegger:the metaphor of light


Cologne 27-Feb-2002

Michael Pennamacoor schrieb Wed, 27 Feb 2002 15:26:29 +0000:

> A certain linguistic commentator reached the following judgement upon
> the past two thousand years of exquisite (and, 'inexquisite')
> thinking, thus:
>
> >Heidegger's sympathies of course lay with the transcendental
> mysteries of the loathsome Plato
>
> Well, it seems to this non-linguist, that in my reading, Heidegger
> seemed mostly critical of the 'father of metaphysics' we all know as
> Plato (what rote many plays about hard stuff); that such a Plato,
> given the opportunity to display and reveal being nonetheless eclipsed
> such revelation in the (mathematical) Idea... although, of course, as
> Heidegger admitted many times, this is an interpretation of the
> tradition as it has been handed-written-down within the critical
> tradition of western philosophy; Heidegger's history of being as a
> history of metaphysics is as little a matter of "sympathies" (i.e.,
> the implied vulgar partisanship in the quote above) as can be imagined
> by this small mind. His "sympathies" (if we can employ this term -- of
> course, no longer meant in the manner of the quote above) and
> 'empathy' lay only with the occluded and forgotten being eclipsed in
> the epochs of its (non)-reign in history (not history as
> historiography and chronologies, etc); and bringing to light what
> Heidegger called the 'unsaid', the 'unthought' in the interlocutor's
> saying and thought.
>
> On light, both Plato and Heidegger share and display the metaphysical
> tradition's emphasis on visibility, invisibility and presence/absence.
> It is arguable whether Heidegger's 'clearing', 'light(e(n))ing',
> 'unconcealment', etc, are (merely) metaphors, and, here, I do not wish
> to argue the case. But it is interesting to consider the twin suns of
> Plato in a (necessarily low-wattage) Heideggerian light. The one sun
> is the origin of the light that makes visible things visible, that
> casts them in their visibility and shadow (the Cave), that throws them
> into relief, and, that is the source of the light and warmth and
> energy necessary for the beings that arise of themselves and show
> themselves as the what that they are and can be, the realm of
> 'physis', and of 'genesis'. Then there is the second sun that is known
> as the Good; this Good is the source of enlightenment, that is the
> source of the intelligibility of the intelligible things, the Ideas
> (of things). Sometimes I think that Heidegger fuses these two together
> into the same sun, such that physis and logos are the same? Moreover,
> I wonder whether, not content with this operation, Heidegger also aims
> to reveal, to see, not merely what is revealed and made
> visible/intelligible by the light from the sun, but the very light
> itself! And such light qua light, i.e., as if independent of the
> visibles and intelligibles revealed by the light.
>
> Now we all know how light can both reveal and blind, and blind
> especially when one looks directly into the light or its source
> itself. To 'see' just the light-as-light. What does that mean? Any
> thoughts, dear comrades?
>
> Thoughts out of season from a ne'er dweller...
>
> michaelP
>

Michael,

The light itself cannot be seen, but only in the contrast of light and
dark, as if the light were only there for the sake of what stands in it.
The light in which human being sees without seeing it is the diaphanous
medium of being itself. But in this light human being sees only beings
in the chiaroscuro contrast of their defining outline _as_ they stand in
presence and absence. Human being is gathered toward the play of these
presencing and absencing outlines which it holds the world to be.

Even these defining outline human being takes for granted, to say
nothing of the diascendent (through-passing) medium through which human
being sees.

Michael
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