File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2003/heidegger.0302, message 73


Date: Sun, 09 Feb 2003 15:35:06 -0600
From: allen scult <allen.scult-AT-drake.edu>
Subject: Arendt and Heidegger's Humanistic Anti-Humanism



--Boundary_(ID_rp4RvjtCe0pR6A2YSbCrNA)

I see an important similarity between Heidegger's" Letter on 
Humanism," and Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem. The following from 
Capuzzi's translation of "The Letter. . .":

"Thinking does not become action only because some effect issues from 
it or because it is applied.
Thinking acts insofar as it thinks.  Such action is presumably the 
simplest and at the same time the highest because it concerns the the 
relation of beings to humans."

The problem with the French "humanisms," especially Sartre's, is that 
they worked their way back from a preconceived notion of "right 
action"   to thought.  Thinking itself had no say in the matter 
Thinking speaks as does language for itself and out of itself. 
Thinking itself must be given the floor.  To give thinking the floor 
is to recognize that it cannot be put to use in the service of any 
humanism, no matter how "right" (politically correct) a particular 
interpretation of human being seems to be at the time.

Arendt begins her essay 'Life of the Mind," by quoting Heidegger:

"Thinking does not produce usable practical wisdom
Thinking does not solve the riddles of the universe.
Thinking does not endow us directly with the power to act.

Thinking is the immediately useless, though sovereign knowledge
of the essence of things.

She then goes on to make the argument that it was not stupidity or 
covetousness which
was " the root of evil" as it manifested itself in Eichmann, but 
thoughtlessness:

"  In the setting of the Israeli court and prison procedures he 
functioned as well as he had functioned under the Nazi regime, but 
but when confronted with situations for which such routine 
procedures, he was
helpless, and his cliche ridden language produced on the stand, as it 
did in his official life, a kind of macabre comedy.  Cliches, stock 
phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression 
and conduct have the socially realized function of protecting us 
against reality, that is against the claim on our thinking attention 
that all events and facts make by virtue of their existence. If we 
were responsive to this claim all the time, we would soon be 
exhausted; Eichmann differed from the rest of us only in that he 
clearly knew of no such claim. "

One thing you must say about Arendt is that she knew thinking when 
she saw it ( " The rumor of the hidden king" in the twenties), and 
she could identify and articulate the difference it makes when it is 
totally absent.  And, as an aside, she explains the relationship of 
"thinking as such" to what people do every day to keep them out of 
trouble- that is to keep them from knowingly doing horrific evil, and 
to save them from the exhaustions of philosophy.

Allen






-- 
  Allen Scult					Dept. of Philosophy
HOMEPAGE: " Heidegger on Rhetoric and Hermeneutics":	Drake University
http://www.multimedia2.drake.edu/s/scult/scult.html	Des Moines, Iowa 50311
PHONE: 515 271 2869
FAX: 515 271 3826

--Boundary_(ID_rp4RvjtCe0pR6A2YSbCrNA)

HTML VERSION:

I see an important similarity between Heidegger's" Letter on Humanism," and Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem. The following from Capuzzi's translation of "The Letter. . .":

"Thinking does not become action only because some effect issues from it or because it is applied.
Thinking acts insofar as it thinks.  Such action is presumably the simplest and at the same time the highest because it concerns the the relation of beings to humans."

The problem with the French "humanisms," especially Sartre's, is that they worked their way back from a preconceived notion of "right action"   to thought.  Thinking itself had no say in the matter  Thinking speaks as does language for itself and out of itself.  Thinking itself must be given the floor.  To give thinking the floor is to recognize that it cannot be put to use in the service of any humanism, no matter how "right" (politically correct) a particular interpretation of human being seems to be at the time.

Arendt begins her essay 'Life of the Mind," by quoting Heidegger:

"Thinking does not produce usable practical wisdom
Thinking does not solve the riddles of the universe.
Thinking does not endow us directly with the power to act.

Thinking is the immediately useless, though sovereign knowledge
of the essence of things.

She then goes on to make the argument that it was not stupidity or covetousness which
was " the root of evil" as it manifested itself in Eichmann, but thoughtlessness:

"  In the setting of the Israeli court and prison procedures he functioned as well as he had functioned under the Nazi regime, but but when confronted with situations for which such routine procedures, he was
helpless, and his cliche ridden language produced on the stand, as it did in his official life, a kind of macabre comedy.  Cliches, stock phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially realized function of protecting us against reality, that is against the claim on our thinking attention that all events and facts make by virtue of their existence. If we were responsive to this claim all the time, we would soon be exhausted; Eichmann differed from the rest of us only in that he clearly knew of no such claim. "

One thing you must say about Arendt is that she knew thinking when she saw it ( " The rumor of the hidden king" in the twenties), and she could identify and articulate the difference it makes when it is totally absent.  And, as an aside, she explains the relationship of "thinking as such" to what people do every day to keep them out of trouble- that is to keep them from knowingly doing horrific evil, and to save them from the exhaustions of philosophy.

Allen






-- 
 Allen Scult                                    Dept. of Philosophy
HOMEPAGE: " Heidegger on Rhetoric and Hermeneutics": Drake University
http://www.multimedia2.drake.edu/s/scult/scult.html     Des Moines, Iowa 50311
PHONE: 515 271 2869
FAX: 515 271 3826
--Boundary_(ID_rp4RvjtCe0pR6A2YSbCrNA)-- --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

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