Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2002 21:50:57 +0100
From: artefact-AT-t-online.de (Michael Eldred)
Subject: Re: Martin Heidegger the intellectual mentor of the left


Cologne 05-Feb-2002

Jan Straathof schrieb Mon, 4 Feb 2002 22:20:29 +0100:

> Hi Michael,
>
> >Could be about time for the Left to start to learn from Heidegger.
>
> indeed, but what do you think would be a good entry point for
> those lefties to learn from Heidegger without deterring them,
> which books/texts would you suggest and in which trajectory ?

Jan,
Learning to think is always deterrent enough in itself for most people. Also
learning to read. I can't say at what point a flash of lightning would make
reading Heidegger seem relevant.

> >For Plato and Aristotle, the germ of the political is the exchange of the
> >products of labour.
>
> indeed they placed economy as the centre of politics; yet, if the essence
> of politics is not (something) political but economical, what then is left
> of our inherent human desire to bring well-being to all living creatures ?
> -- i mean, couldn't the essence of the political not be something ethical ?

I wouldn't want to say that the essence of the political is economic. The
dimension of the political is Mitsein, and the phenomena of economic life
cannot be omitted in unfolding this dimension phenomenologically. The ethical
and the political are tied up with each other. It is a question of the stance
(Haltung) which human beings adopt habitually (aethos and ethos) in relation to
beings as a whole and to each other so that the whole is in joint (gefuegt).

The four primary political virtues (manlinesses; from Latin 'vir' = 'man')
named by Plato in _Politeia_ are wisdom, practical insightfulness, justness and
manliness. Why these four?

Michael
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