Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2002 16:52:58 +0100
From: Rene de Bakker <rene.de.bakker-AT-uba.uva.nl>
Subject: Re: Plato's nihilism


At 23:43 3-2-02 +0100, Jan wrote:
>Thanks Rene for this nice exposee, you wrote i.a.:
>
>>Also Nietzsche thinks along these lines, when he overcomes metaphysical
ideals
>>by unmasking them as the needs of a self-conceiting power. The word "Sein"
>>doesn't refer to a reality, but is the highest value of an essentially
>>(de)valuating will, which is printed upon what only really is: becoming.
>>It is not so, that Heidegger says, that Nietzsche doesn't think radically
>>enough. It is so radical, that no perspectives are left anymore for a 'new'
>>metaphysics. But it is the radical, last consequence of what Plato started:
>>the letting out of Being, as that which is already taken for granted BEFORE
>>the question for the ens qua ens can be posed.
>
>ok, but let's try to radicalize this question to the political:
>
>- would a post metaphysical politics imply the abandonment
>of (the rethorics of) the categories/perspectives of the "Left"
>and the "Right", and -if so- what new categories/perspectives
>could be offered to our political ageny ?

None, as far as I can see. The only categories that count,
are technological and economical ones. Humanistic ones
are only luxury, as can be seen in the genetical field. At the
moment, that the position of a country or of an institution
is endangered, values are thrown overboard, first the 'highest' ones. 
That is nihilism, and very real. And any position that wants to
deny that, lets out nihilism, and with it the possible chance to
face it. There can be no perspective for new perspectives, 
when nihilism is not acknowledged.
That also means: acknowledging that we don't know why
the cars are driving us, why the oil-tankers cross the seas.
Did you see Clinton's lecture on BBC? Good and honest
analysis of the world situation. In order to get out of the
misery, most people are in, everyone should be part of
the new economy, there is even a program called TINA:
There is no alternative. Only then can we all profit of the
blessings of nanotechnology, which allows to detect a tumor
as soon as it becomes larger than 2 molecules. That's how
is spoken, I'm adding nothing.
And then, when we would be so far, what then is living, being?
A question, probably left to the sunday. 
One cannot blame the politicians, and the point is not, that
I'm not very grateful to them, that I can read philosophy fully
undisturbed here, but the naivity is so total, that the last thing
a philosopher should do is delivering concepts. The best thing 
to do, is probably turn away alltogether. 

But already Nietzsche asked the European princes whether
they could afford going on without him. He had already defined
the field of their possible activities. 


>- would a post metaphysical politics still value some or other
>form of an "utopian moment/movement" ?
>
>- and isn't the current (re)fusion of politics and religion not
>really a sign of how easely a post metaphysical politics can
>collapse into pre metaphysical illusions ?

Sure. But first to this notion 'post-metaphysics':
To me it makes only sense to speak of this world as
post-metaphysical, insofar in it metaphysics is no longer
the fundamental way of knowledge, and, even when 
'practiced', something merely historical.   

But this situation, according to Heidegger's analyses,
is the consequence of the ending of metaphysics itself.
Not in the sense, that we have abolished it, and replaced
it by other ways of thinking. That would be a last illusion
of subjectivity. Subjectivity, says Heidegger, 'macht sich breit",
so that nothing other than it shall exist.  

And this would be the consequence of a way of thinking, 
that, driven by the postulation of certitude/safety, in the end
chops its own head, and lets nature, or reality, or TINA decide
how the dwelling is going to be and to what extent man is allowed
to find a place in it. 

So Jan, I've precious little to offer: nothing left to do, except being 
nice to one's children and cat and keep away inwardly from all
the techno-nonsense, which is mere disturbance of concentration. 

Rene








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


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