File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2003/heidegger.0305, message 246


Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 12:09:01 -0500
From: allen scult <allen.scult-AT-drake.edu>
Subject: Re: thinking in style


>Cologne 31-May-2003
>
>allen scult schrieb  Fri, 30 May 2003 11:09:35 -0500:
>
>>  >>>  You mean rather "Serve yourself"? Help your self? To come to a
>>  >>>  stand.
>>  >>>  Nietzsche calls this "Eitelkeit" -- "vanity", a positive force in
>>  >>>  human being.
>>  >>
>>  >>   Hi Michael, If I understand you,I agree that the vanity of whichyou
>>  >>  speak can be a positive force in philosophizing.  It leadsone to risk
>>  >>  speaking while still unsure what one is saying, and,of course, to
>>  >>  speak as if one is more sure than one is (while not toosure).  Said
>>  >>  vanity also spurs one to speak as though what they have to sayis of
>>  >>  value to a given community (of philosophers, say).  Nietzsche, bless
>>  >>  his heart,took what we might call "the vain style" further than one
>>  >>  would think possible, and pulledit off, thereby achieving what he
>>  >>  himself called "the grand style": "The grand style consists in
>>  >>  contempt for the trivial and brief beauty;it is a sense for what is
>>  >>  rare and what lasts long" But the Dylan quote refers to what is
>>  >>  required to fully appreciate, perhapseven to understand, philosophy
>>  >>  that is written in the the vain, if not the grand style.And that is
>>  >>  love, which among other things, leads one to retract one's critical
>>  >>  fangs, and to drawcloser and closer to the worded body of the master,
>>  >>  that is, Dasein as being-with. . .somebody.  Andthe open-ness of
>>  >>  being-with can come to implicate you in the being of the other, such
>>  >>  that you findyourself drawing up alongside, catching up to the other
>>  >>  who has "leaped ahead."  And so you choose to be in service to  the
>>  >>  other.  Better out of love, than out of. . .Well here's the rest of
>>  >>  the song, so you can judge for yourself who's right, and who owes
>>  >>  whom:
>>  >
>>  >Gruess Dich, Allen!
>>  >
>>  >I think one (I) can read Nietzsche's "Eitelkeit" as a central
>>  >phenomenon, and that not just for philosophers. It kinda stands out in
>>  >"Menschliches, Allzumenschliches" -- along with "Ehre" (honour),
>>  >"Schmeichelei" (flattery) and suchlike.
>>
>>  Of course, what is right for philosophers, must, in some sense be
>>  right for everyone, but
>>  for philosophers, it must be thoughtfully so(or else philosophers are
>>  just like everyone else,
>>  which, of course,  they are, in the bedroom, at the dinner table,
>>  etc.  But when a philosopher speaks,
>>  especially concerning speech, he speaks thinkingly.  And so the
>>  rhetorical/stylistic  excesses of his speech,
>>  giving it the color and light of Eitelkeit, Ehre, Schmeichelei etc.
>>  have to do with the appropriate saying-showing(off)
>>  of WHO we are--as you say:
>>
>>  >: Not only beings show
>>  >themselves of themselves as what they are, but we human beings show
>>  >ourselves off as who we are. Such showing off can be mere vanity (an
>>  >inappropriate, falsely appropriated mask), or it can be genuine vanity,
>>  >i.e. the self-confidence to show oneself off in the defining stand which
>>  >one has been able to fashion for one's self -- by courtesy, of course,
>>  >of the open nothingness of being. Being vain -- standing presence
>>  >appropriately adopted.
>>
>>  The possibility of becoming "who" we are is the essence of the 
>>particularity of
>>  Dasein as being-in-the-world.  Insofar as the philosopher writes as
>>  some-body(not
>>  much choice there)  he must deal with the delicate, issues of style
>>  and being-with.  And here I think love
>>  enters the picture in two ways.  First of all, on the part of the
>>  writing/speaking philosopher:  He must
>>  love what he creates.  And second, to understand and appreciate what
>>  the philosopher says, we must love
>>  his style, how says himself in words.
>
>Allen,
>I find myself agreeing.The philosopher has the responsibility to 
>speak and write
>thoughtfully, thinkingly. That is the philosopher's face (_eidos_), 
>the look s/he
>shows off to the world.
>
>The love you speak of is a treasuring, an estimating, and it is true that
>philosophy is not possible without the two aspects of love that you speak of.


Michael,

I can't let an opportunity to cite one of my favorite hermeneutical 
principles pass
without so citing.  More like a re-citing, reminiscient of those 
liturgical recitings
which are used to help those needful,  to stay focused(obviously a black
hole in my philosophical make-up).  It's from Augustine.  I recite it 
in the Latin, for
purposes of my own self-enhancing edification:

Dilige et quod vis fac,

usually translated, " Love, and do what you will."  But the "love" 
here is a diligent care for
what is to be served. esteemed, honored ,treasured:  Therapeuo, as 
your Woerterbuch so
diligently defines it.  The "do what you will," means to set free the embodied
hermeneutical passions to embrace ("be embraced by," [Who can ever 
tell, for sure,
  who's doing what to whom?]) the words of the speaker (I had some 
stronger Phaedrus-like
imagery in mind, but didn't, out of respect for some of our less 
mature readers).

More to say on your reference to Fuersorge, but I must away.  Later!

Regards,

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


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