File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2003/heidegger.0312, message 166


From: "Anthony Crifasi" <crifasi-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Gestell/Gewinnst - Truth as opinion
Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 13:03:24 +0000


Malcolm Riddoch wrote:

>For those who don't think thinking is primarily done in manly debates that 
>constantly surpass one another, that the 'superiority' of knowing is 
>nothing other than a delusion of the will to will truth as self-certainty, 
>and that originary truth is something other than these willful debates but 
>rather is disclosed in the silence of authentic projection or Gelassenheit, 
>how can there be any point in proclaiming the assertion of superiority as 
>the only philosophical justification for doing philosophy? These debates 
>for me are merely reportage of that originary truth that remains one's own 
>ongoing responsibility for thinking, not that truth itself.
>
>At the start of this thread I informed Dr Eldred I wasn't interested in 
>working through the Greek but was going to rework the thread on Heidegger's 
>notion of a Nietzschean will to truth, which is what I've been doing. 
>You're welcome to make a Nietzschean interpretation in your Greek terms and 
>reason it with mine and let us see which is which in the light of that 
>ownmost truth not amenable to mere comparisons of opinion. Nonetheless, for 
>me, this ownmost origin remains outside what is already our debatable 
>comparison of opinion that we are involved in here. I've also said 
>repeatedly I have no problems with you all wanting to read Heidegger 
>through the Greeks, but that both reading strategies have something of this 
>originary truth in view. There is what we are talking about, and our 
>talking about it, two moments of 'truth' one of which is the non-debatable 
>apodictic evidence of one's own existence on the basis of which we posit 
>our surpassingly opinionated assertions about it. For me, philosophy starts 
>with this solitude which we all share, on the basis of which one attempts 
>to make sense of it in willful debate with others like yourself within the 
>pluralistic traditions of philosophy.
>
>As far as I can see there is no opposition in thinking openness and 
>presencing here, unlike my altercations with the devil's advocates on this 
>list. My only problem with you Greek romantics is your bloody minded 
>insistence that I think the Greek 'origin' with you otherwise apparently 
>I'm not doing philosophy properly. Pluralism is a modern reality, your 
>Greek univocalism is testament to that by virtue of it's already being 
>simply one strident voice amongst the many, as for me I'm satisfied with 
>our (non?)pissing contest and am off for a stroll through the wilds of the 
>will to power as justice.

Malcolm, I don't know which of us would be shocked more by the fact that I 
am with you on this issue. I don't think it is necessary to go through the 
Greeks to see why Heidegger's points of departure are what they are, except 
in the sense that to know Heidegger's philosophy one must know why he moved 
away from modern (enlightenment) philosophy, and to know the latter one must 
know why the moderns moved away from ancient philosophy in the first place. 
BUT, I don't think you can reach that conclusion without engaging Michael's 
interpretation of ancient philosophy first. I myself had a long dialogue 
with him on Aristotle about a year and a half ago, and came out strongly 
disagreeing with the interpretation he was defending. So this isn't the kind 
of thing that is just up to one's preference. Depending on whether you agree 
with his reading of Aristotle, you will end up either saying that Heidegger 
must be read through the Greeks, or that his reading of the Greeks is simply 
inaccurate - not the middle ground that you are trying to take.

Anthony Crifasi

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