Date: Thu, 03 Oct 2002 17:24:18 +0200
Subject: Re: Heraclitus and the Formal Indication


"And now for something completely different"


>>>Rene, not really "impersonal," but in a way most personal:
>>
>>Allen,
>>
>>I had Kant's own words in mind. In the paralogisms, speaking
>>of the 'Ich denke', he says, that this representation cannot
>>function as a basis for a rational doctrine of the (personal)
>>soul. It is solely the most fundamental form of possible knowledge,
>>and as such one can also call it: "a he or a it (the thing), that thinks.""
>>(A 346/B 405)
>
>Of course the "Ich denke" (as is true of  Being) speaks in many ways, 
>but speak it must, and the "I speak" is  "situated" as is the "I 
>think."  Depending on how it speaks its thinking, the "I" assumes one 
>of the numerous forms which constitute its "space" of possibility. 
>One of those forms is what we might call "rhetorical rationality." 
>Kant's profound and thoroughgoing  distrust of of rhetoric is one of 
>his most serious pathologies.

Allen,

What is pathological to us is not the same as what it is 
to Kant. But maybe our everyday notion depends on his.

Take the 'pathological' example in the Zollikoner Seminare: 
a person who obviously is not 'capable' of objectifying the clock
on the wall before him. In Kant's terms this would be a
derangement of the empirical conscience, that is: some sort
of steresis, a deflection from the norm, that is established in
a transcendental reflection: the 'I think' must be able to accompany
any representation, otherwise there would be representations without
someone -some thing- to represent them.
Note that also the pathological case does not contradict this pure and
transcendental notion: it is itself only representationable from the 'I
think',
in this case the person is an unreachable 'Ding-an-sich': a chaos of
sensations, missing the synthetical power even to *represent* it as chaos.

As Heidegger writes in ZollSem, science, still based on Kant's distinction,
works with this notion of representation, by which the patient is objectified,
and, therewith, leaves him/her in the cold.
When, as is explicitly done in Zeit und Sein, time itself, die eigentliche
Zeit,
is not the Kantian one-dimensional time, unified a priori by the 'I think',
but
is four-dimensional in its giving (reichen), then the pathological case is not
so pathological, not so far away from us, as our criterion for normality would
have it. 

Is Heidegger's time then more succesfull in treating those who are obviously
in trouble, the 'Mensch in Not', as he is called in Zoll.Sem.? (compare the
question,
how nonlinear time and space relate to scientific basic notions)
No, it rather stands in contradiction to any representational treatment at
all.
It aims at not objectifying at all, not the 'patient', but not the
'actient' as well.
That is: it is DASEIN that is subject-/objectified in the realm of science,
and Heidegger
shows to the psychiatrists that Dasein is already out of view, the moment they
are scientifically attuned. But, not taking man in distress as an object for
treatment, leaves them with a bigger problem, and somehow this is 'funny',
namely that the scientist, and that means us all, when he is the subject, the
one who objectifies, is really (eigentlich) not himself Da! (Dasein in the
mode
of inauthenticity) So that Heidegger, in that clinics, is only the
Fuersprecher
of Dasein, and not the Befuerwoerter of specific Fuersorge. 

Now, we can blame Kant for his critical (krinein: separate) constitution of
the
impersonal transcendental subject, and consider his normalization as
pathological
itself. But I don't think, that's what Heidegger's destruction of
metaphysics is
aiming at. All opposing, all overcoming, he says time and again, is depending
on what it opposes. Which would be the case, when we (a priori) would put our
confidence in rhetorics, without 'destructing' Kant all the way down. I
don't mean
to say you do, but the way critics of subjectivity in BT is almost always
taken, is
very risky, and a strategy, that, as sure as Descartes' certitude, although
in an
essentially diminutive way, leads off the way of Dasein.

But maybe there is much more to be learned from Descartes and Kant, namely
that they work (Gadamers Wirkungsgeschichte) much deeper and more hidden
than a simple copying of BT critics can imagine. Maybe the origin of their
(self)positing
subject goes back to Herakleitos' logos? The real decisive might still be
in those
'tenuous' relations of logos, legein, laying, (vor-)stellen, thesis etc.
That is suggested by Heidegger, when he writes, that in modern techno-logy
the logos comes into its most extreme working, so that techne and logos, in
the
word technology, say the same thing. And this would be completion of
metaphysics:
the free space of its unlimited, because unconditional activity. The
situation where
only tauto-logies can be said. (Kenneth offered a recent example of that)

I've quoted the 'transformation of Anwesen' in Time and Being. Now let's
take a look,
at pages 7, bottom, and 9, bottom. Both times, historical metaphysical
positions
are enumerated. 

P. 7: Meanwhile we can also [next to: Zu- and Vorhandenheit as modes of
Anwesen]
        determine the richness of the changes of Anwesen historically by
pointing out, that
        Anwesen shows itself as the Hen, the unifying uniquely One, as the
Logos, the
        collection that preserves everything, as the idea, ousia, energeia,
substantia, 
        actualitas [etc.............], as will to will in the ER. [All
this] ... looks at first like a
        Geschichte des Seins. But das Sein has no history, like a town or a
people have
        their history.

P. 9: When Plato represents das Sein als idea and as koinonia of the ideas,
Aristoteles
         as energeia, Kant as position, Hegel as the absolute concept,
Nietzsche as will to power,
         then these are not incidentally brought-up doctrines, but words of
Being (Worte des Seins)
         as answers to an adress (Antworte auf einen Zuspruch), that speaks
in the self-hiding
         sending, in the "There is Being". (der in dem sich selber
verbergenden Schicken, im
         "Es gibt Sein" spricht.)


The first piece is an enumeration of well-known titles, one or more of
which can be picked out,
and written a book about. Between the two pieces something is said, and
after that Heidegger
again sums up positions, but now naming the pilosophers, and calling their
basic words 
Worte des Seins, Ant-Worte, words that respond to a Zuspruch, a speaking
that apparently
speaks from Being, more precise: that speaks in a sending or giving, that
itself remaining hidden,
speaks in the "There is Being". WHAT Heidegger is saying here, is not clear
prima vista, but one
can also notice, HOW he is talking. And this 'how' points to the how of the
transformation of Anwesen:
from historically-extant changing notions to the giving of Being, that is
responded to by Plato, Kant etc.

(The idea is, that (1) everyday understanding of Anwesen/Being and (2)
geschichliche Schickung,
socalled historical sending, recur to the same "Es gibt", in which speaks
one time.
Only then Geschichte, and not mere history is taken into view, not as a
plunderable object, but as
the freeing dimension. But for what are people more running away, for what
are they
more anxious than for freedom? (Angst and freedom) 
 

German text:
http://www.stormpages.com/petradoom/hei_sd.html


>He needed to take a cue from Heraciltus's greatest interpreter, 
>Aristotle, who taught that the proper word for "I" in all its verbal 
>manifestations is "Ethos," which is essentially an 
>I-being-with-the-other, speaking with the other and most 
>significantly DELIBERATING  with the other in order to arrive at good 
>judgment.
>
>Thus Aristotle interprets Heraclitus's " Ethos anthropoi daimon" as 
>the "I" becoming/realizing (by means of its being as human being) its 
>daimon (destining?) in and through its "political" (in the broadest 
>Greek sense) life with others.
>
>
>
>>The idea of destruction being that what isn't destroyed, remains.
>>So that it implies the transformation of Dasein.
>>
>>As to what in Herakleitos' ego is to be destroyed, i'll
>>have to think that over in the weekend to come.
>>
>
>
>The question is whether Heraclitus's discourse can "self destroy," 
>i..e. whether he can  somehow perform this essential operation in 
>philosophy without a presumed  "other."  I know you suggested in an 
>earlier post that Heraclitus has "gods" hovering about his discourse, 
>but I disagree.  It's their peculiar absence, and his insitence on 
>thinking his speaking which produces the paradox of Logos as both 
>"speech" and "reason" in his writings.
>
>In a wonderful book , THE WAY OF OBLIVION: HERACLITUS AND KAFKA, 
>David Schor says,"The two (senses of logos) are inseparable and 
>constitute Heraclitus's general method: investigative exposition."
>
>I like that!

Allen: Heraclitus, speaking and thinking begin together, in the saying of
words--
words which follow upon one another, as Heraclitus follows in their way, in
the
way of the words, (his met-hodos) or if you don't mind, in the wake 
of the words.

So, goes the spare movement of the fragments as I follow them.
  No more stones to step on than
absolutely necessary.  Of course there are some
difficult and long leaps required .
And then there's the question of where to step in!

But as with so many other
similar projects (the Greek writer
of the Septuagint Genesis, and John leap into mind)),
  the first word (stone)
is "Logos," no matter where you step in.



-----------------------------------
drs. Rene de Bakker
Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam
Afdeling Catalogisering 
tel. 020-5252368              


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