File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2003/heidegger.0311, message 14


Subject: RE: Nietzsche/Nazism/Heidegger
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 16:14:15 +0100
From: "Bakker, R.B.M. de" <R.B.M.deBakker-AT-uva.nl>


"I never discussed these matters with Strauss or Klein at any great length. Strauss 
avoided them. He was very amicable and I took great pleasure in listening to him, 
but whenever philosophical issues came up, he shied away from them"  (Gadamer)
http://www.gongfa.com/jiadamoeryishitelaosi.htm

May i, once more, draw attention to Gadamer on Strauss. There are comments 
on Strauss by Gadamer, on Strauss' reading of Spinoza, in: Truth and method.
(near the end) And there must be a correspondence Gadamer-Strauss, but not
here.

Strauss holds that Spinoza told a sort of double truth (eso-exo) in his Tractatus
theologico-politicus. I did not look for, but i found a title: "Is there an esoteric
doctrine in the Ttp? by Errol E. Harris. (Mededelingen 38 vanwege het Spinozahuis).
It is in fact a critique of Strauss' reading of the Ttp. This reading implies that
Spinoza was intentionally 'dishonest', when writing for the many. 

My conclusion, superficially: Stauss does away with the history of Western philosophy,
which is, to the Jews and their Geschick, just a dark period. The only philosopher left 
is Spinoza (and Maimonides), but not as he is fits into this history, but as one who
would point away from its insufficiency vis-avis brutality. Merrill and many others
protest. The Dutchman den Tex speaks of a "double bottom". 

Leibniz the founder of the principle of ground.
Spinoza, that is Strauss' Spinoza: a double ground.... 

Strauss' enmity to history (it's relativity) would correspond to the historylessness
of americanism. The blaming of Nietzsche/Heidegger, as an excuse for a political
nihilism, founded upon, justified by a superior, unshaking truth. 

Quite intelligent, with a grasp for important loci, but everything turned upside down,
as Nietzsche almost all-too-lucidly, shows on beforehand in Beyond a.o. But Nietzsche
warns for antisemitism: every anti- (widerwille) will lose. Also here we are in the
Bann des Anfangs, a very different, but undeniable one though. 

There's an unevitability to Heidegger's demand to ask for the godly (that which comes
BEFORE gods - H to Buber) in the Greeks, in the prophetical-Jewish, and in the preaching
of Jesus.

rdb


i was thinking...would there be a US magazine interested in a big article  - i'm thinking
of the Christmas edition  - that treats all these things and many more, under the title
(or another): The Straussians and Heidegger's word of a German-Jewish co-destiny. 
(The old empire strikes back.)? As to me, i think it's all very thrilling.












     --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005