Subject: RE: Gestell etiology
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 18:06:05 +0100
From: "Bakker, R.B.M. de" <R.B.M.deBakker-AT-uva.nl>


Bob Scheetz wrote:

> ok, but still there 's difficulties.  (1) "greeks" is not simple, but
> dialectical, both aristotle and plato, naturalist and idealist. so it
> would have to be this structure, not ari's categories and logical
> relations nor plato's forms and analogs, that casts the programme, no?
> so hegel & marx got it right then?  so what's with all the metafisical
> pessimism?

>   Hegel and Marx got it right that they, each differently, conceived
>   of history,  - in general, and Greek philosophy in particular - ,
>   dialectically.  But already Kant ends the Critics of pure reason with
>   a chapter: the history of the reine Vernunft.  To all  - Kant, Hegel,
>   Marx - history is the history of a Vernunft. A reason that, 
>   dialectically, discovers, in everything, itself.

but doesn't hegel's logic, the overthrow of the principle of contradiction,
the cardinal axiom of reason, supply "irrationality" into thinking? 

   I'm afraid  - and my Fichte reading confirms this -  that the Absolute
   (the unconditional) cannot be excluded as irrational. Fichte rather
   tells Metternich and co, that they'll have to transcend their finite
   position, re-create themselves (Umschaffung) if they don't want to fall
   prey to the thoughtlessness and stagnation that he deems characteristic
   of their time. A stagnation that, after the area of Goethe and idealism,
   appears itself 'absolute', not transcendable by ANY theory, however
   encompassing. Marx, just before radically saying that the root of man
   is man himself:

   "You demand that there should be contact with real germs of life, but you
   forget, that the real germ of life of the German people has proliferated
   so far solely under its CRANIUM, Or to say: YOU CANNOT ABOLISH (aufheben)
   PHILOSOPHY, WITHOUT REALIZING HER. (Fruehschriften, on Hegel.)

 and,
secondly, how does heid's historiography, discovering a subjective
reflection, fallen dasein, in the history of metafisics, get exempted from
this same charge?

     By facing and bearing it, as he did till the thirties. When he says
     later, that the end of metaphysics has first, inevitably, to be
     conceived metaphysically  - you'll feel already an impossibility here - 
     he refers unambiguously to himself, to the Kantian confusion etc.
     So please forget all those who simply claim such an overcoming -
     impossible.

>     ...Accordingly Greek philosophy  - to keep
>     it short -  cannot be viewed by them differently  - as the
*philosophy* it
>     is - than as 'reasonable', done by and for reason: so that what they
>     thought, wins clarity for us, only when it is reflected. Plato's idea
is
>     then lastly explained by idealism, as Aristotle's physis by
naturalism.
>     Now, if you can stand some pedantry: the usage of 'naturalism' and
>     'idealism' vis-a-vis Plato and Arist. is not so innocent as it might
seem.
>     Fundamentally, by these notions presenting Greek philosophy, we claim
to
>     understand the Greeks better than they did themselves. But of course
we
>     do: they did not aspire to reflective knowledge, physis and idea are
not so
>     reflected that they acquire meaning through it, but they are and
remain
>     sthing of their own, like the sun rises of its own, and like the stars
>     shine of their own, whether looked at or not.

agreed, they were innocent of radical skepticism, critical philosophy,
epistemology; but, this kind of innocence, non-reflective thinking,  is not
a virtue, is it?


    This innocence is still the foundation of our 'guilt'.
    Or, as QCT formulates: herausfordern, demanding to come
    out and be available (oil from the desert), is the (kind
    of) entbergen, litt. the dis-covering, a-letheia , which
    technology 'is'. 
    Despite an apparent superiority to stay out of everything
    that, like Aletheia, would bind our 'freedom' - unless in
    pomo play - we're not free to choose our truth of being.
    When I read Habermas saying that from now on, the only thing 
    left, is the furthergoing emancipation towards democracy and
    justice, or when i heared Clinton, saying, that the whole
    world will be able to enjoy the fruits of technology, if only
    it would go the way of the West, then the totally illusory
    character of that freedom stands in shrill daylight for all to
    see: what a gigantic poverty and unpower and, above all, 
    fatalism, is exhibited here.   

    Just found this in "Wissenschaft und Besinnung" (Science and 
    reflection) - my 12th page:

    "This, that the present (das Anwesende), eg nature, man, history,
    language, emerges (sich herausstellen) as the actual in its
    objectivity (Gegenstaendigkeit), that at the same time science 
    becomes theory, that resets (nachstellt) the actual and ensures
    (sicherstellt) it in the objective (im Gegenstaendigen) - this 
    would, to the medieval man, be as strange, as it would be 
    dismaying to Greek thinking." 

    (Greek physis, logos is, behind all technology, a riddle here and
    now. Note that near the end of QCT he speaks, after the saving of 
    Holderlin, of an ambiguity in Gestell - "The essence of technology
    is, in a high* sense, ambiguous."

    *again: high, as used previously with regard to one-track thinking.


> Not that i claim to dispose of a special pipeline to the Greeks,
> delivering physis and idea. Just that, after the nihilistic results of
> modern subjective philosophy, incl. absolute, dialectic philosophy, a chance to another
kind of
>     reading of the Greeks, is there, also indicated by Nietzsche's return
to the
>     presocratics. Once Nietzsche is himself discovered as the last
metaphysical
>     word on metaphysics, the possibility is in principle there to re-ask
metaphysical
>     questioning, without falling prey to nihilism. In GA45, where the
return to the
>     Greek beginning is for the first time the explicit subject of a
lecture (but
>     which contains no interpretation of Greek texts!) is written, that
only the
>     destinies of Hoelderlin and Nietzsche give the right, the perspective
of a
>     necessity to go back.

there's an analog here to psychoanalysis, no?  the need to emancipate a
repressed libido/life force from an infantile fixation.  oedipus has to
return to his infancy to dispell the pollution on thebes.  also the frank
edler article to which you referred me,  that heid intends a stepping back
to the eleusinian mystery cult, the bacchic frenzy and sparagmos of the
hero/hiddden-god-dionysos/christ to atone for tribal transgression; thence
the ww1 & 2 mutilation of  germany would constitute the actual (not ritual)
enactment of the destruction of the hero/god(german/hitler) of
metafisics/gestell.  so that presumably, 50 yrs later, we should be seeing
some results; secret germany triumfans; should all be feeling born-again;
but just the opposite seems to have happened, the iceman's gospel has taken
the life out of our wine....?

    No, that would turn everything into the gigantic again, while ....
    for instance the Dionysic is said to reside on an old lamp, in a
    poem by     
    As long as Heidegger's Anliegen is not found, shelter MUST be found
    somewhere in some sort of Ersatz reality, that doubles everything
    there is. This 'everything', the unconditionality of it  - and which
    means that everything is a totality, that has to be organized anew
    and anew (Nietzsche) - , is the last link of psychoanalysis with 
    metaphysics.
    That 'evil' is in here, maybe more intensely than in the actual mass
    killings themselves, is indicated by the illusory, unreal, dream-like
   (nightmare) character of what was experienced in the camps. Psychoanalysis
    as the anticipating Fuersorge....

    Now that the psyche is almost completely under control, dissolved,
    gen-analysis is allowed to be perfected. We're only beginning to know
    little...



>
>     The only thing, i think, Heidegger wants to say is: according to me  -
and i've
>     given this much thought  <understatement> -  we'll have, some time, to
admit
>     that we need the Greeks, such that, without this need, there can be no
real
>     change of the status quo of the Gestell, which consists in permanently
growing
>     tension.
>     That supposed,  continuing dialectics, and 'naturalism' and 'idealism,
is no
>     longer an option. The goal is not: knowing the Greeks, the goal is:
NOT knowing
>     them (by metaphysical ways of which they themselves are the origin).
>
>     But these are again mere words. It all depends on learning to be
attentive
>     to a short moment of enstrangement. Maybe that is what Heidegger means
when
>     mentioning what is within the capacities of everyone. And what binds
us lastly,
>     mitsein: the estrangement of the others. Philosophy would then be the
weird
>     business of taking this minimal datum as the essential.

at least metafisics would.  very nice, rene;  and the locus of ekstasis is
poetry/religion.  and so we return to the poets and mystics as well as the
grks, no

    Voll Verdienst  (full of earnings: oil etc.), doch (but inevitably)
    dichterisch   wohnet der Mensch. Existing is embedded in phantasy,
    the shining of words and things.
    H leads philosophy back to its poetical origins. They're even in
    Kant's table of judgments: in last instance, even the table is gedichtet.
    Where first was an openness, now it is closed, filled. Also Pound noticed
    this strange character of the word 'dichten' too. (in: ABC of reading).
    Make tight.
    An example of the 'application' of Geviert is a bridge, as it was
    provided with a saint, usually Christophorus, in catholic countries here
    in the old world. Nothing spectacular. 



>     So, still an 'umgekehrte Welt', as which Hegel defines philosophy?
>
>     More than ever. And without the dialectical net that always catches
exclusively
>     self-thrown.
>
>
>
>
> and (2), it the common understanding that grk physis, causes & mechanic
> forces, is superseded as the determining ur-structure of western
scientific
> thinking.  the four causes cannot, for example, account for the quantum
> leaps of evolution or the atomic structure, can they? algebra & calculus
are
> essentially different from geometry, math and numerology, no?
>
>       Yes, they've become entirely functional. Non-Euclidean geometry,
non-classical
>       logic all start right after the ending of absolute idealism: it has
guaranteed
>       that all reality is already reasonable, so that counterfactual
strategies now
>       have indefinite possibilities to develop. But the question is: is
this science
>       that still serves life, and if yes , what kind of life? (Nietzsche).
Heisenberg
>       and Heidegger agreed that modern science was ever more characterized
by the
>       tendency to just find a way out of the problematic, to get away with
it, a
>       tendency that is virulent everywhere now.
>
>
>       But this all presupposes an understanding of metaphysics, that must
> >     be not-metaphysical itself.
>
> radical skepticism beginning with descartes and perfected with kant is the
> fundamental mode of all modern thinking, no?
>
>     Yes, up to Nietzsche and Husserl. Nietzsche: we're only beginning to
>     know little.
>
>
> Any of our dust-circle concepts of
> >     metaphysics cannot but turn it into dust, and that means also its
> >     completion. Very weird, now that i see it again.
> >     In order to turn an otherwise, namely metaphysically, conceived
> >     completion towards another asking (the ground-question, which goes
> >     back into the ground of metaphysics, and goes for Being itself),
> >     it is necessary to link this essentially conceived completion with
> >     a corresponding beginning. BUT NOW THIS BEGINNING IS NO LONGER
STHING
> >     HISTORICAL, but must be begun anew here and now, and no Greek can
> >     help. ("One has to be absolutely modern" - Rimbaud. "First one has
to
> >     be Wagnerianer, decadent - Nietzsche. Etc.)
>
> this sure don't cheer me, rene.  it does appear we've cut loose,
destrukted,
> all our roots, ...america don't believe in history, only "progress",
> ..."history is bunk" (henry ford), ...greatest national obsession trying
to
> forget where you came from; and bio-tech everywhere loose in the land; it
> does appear a brave new world aborning sans past, sans tradition,...not
thru
> reflective thinking, but an accident of capitalism. so the end was begun
> with the great war and completed with mcworld.
> hegel's dialectic anyway is not so unheimlich(?)
>
>        So we agree that nihilism is thoroughly rooted right now on this
planet?
>        That its origins reach back to the Greeks, who 'dared' something,
that,
>        via the Romans, led to modern Europe, and now is spread all over
the
>        world, has entered intimately the minds and bodies of all? Would,
without
>        universal thoughtlessness, a state of things, like described above,
be ..
>        thinkable?

i can't help thinking, yes, if most primordially of all dasein's machine
code is darwinian?
or even more generally, it could be a maturation description we're seeing?
and in any case we really can't know the pattern in the weave until it's
finished

   I'm afraid it will be too late then...? 
   That would be more or less Juenger's position in "Across the line".
   Heidegger has always been very critical to statements on past and future.
   Without Aletheia, what is the entire Walter Otto? 
   We -i- 'll have to re-read and re-read the problem of 'across' and
   'about' the line/nihilism. But what we represent when thinking of going back
   to.., is parallell to what we think when we think future. 
   Heidegger (acc. to me): future is all, but future is at bottom Gewesenheit.
   Nothing can come to us, for which we're not prepared, it would just pass
   by unnoticed. That's what i'm doing bob, i don't need the realization of
   a possibility, preparation is enough, the rest is not in my hands. But 
   giving out of one's hands is not so easy, not so passive as might seem.
   In fact it is harder, but more rewarding, so it looks.
   

>  ere, everything is more dead than ever. China with full speed heading to
>  the same crisis. That's of course what drives the neo-cons: the prospect
>  of uncontrolability: better deal with them now, than when they will be a
>  fait accompli. At the moment Bush seems to have changed course: Baker
>  instead of Wolfowitz and Cheney?
>  One way or the other: the planetary organization of the American, Chinese,
>  European masses will maybe be accomplished more or less peacefully, maybe
>  (probably?), however, not. So we remain in the Russian roulette zone, and,
>  without an overwhelming shock by what it is that we're playing with - not
>  merely us - fear will only rise further, granting unlimited elbowroom to
>  terror, the terror by those who still dare to oppose the mainstream  -the
>  last 'men': Saddam, Milosevic- or, more likely, the univocal terror of the
>  democratic mainstream by the democratic mainstream, which can only try to
>  postpone the biggest and inevitable starvation of the biggest masses ever,
>  and put all faith in technological solutions, which CANNOT be solutions -
>  that can already be seen here and now, or could in the time of QCT.
>  And not even that is, acc. to H, the worst, but the worst is that they
>  will just croak (krepieren), not even suspecting an absent god. Like
>  anthropo-dogs.

or fat cats.  yes, could well happen Empire will work and starve the rest of
the world to death in order to suffocate in the surfiet of its own hedonism

   in fact i meant destruction, not spec. starvation. The wild, H writes in
   What is called thinking?, keep on blinking, and rubbing the flints 'peace'
   and 'war'. Ontology is utterly useless, as long as one is fooled by this
   game, and one is only spreading the disease.


anyway, i'm with you,

   thanks, it implies tough resistance too.
   

to holderlin's grks then, ...bread and wine,
bob

    precisely, no Geviert without bread and wine. That's why a WORK (a thing)
    of art is necessary in order for truth/openness to 'work'.
    Openness must be made concrete by means of an opening: the work and the
    worker. But it, das Dichterische, must lead to a Dichter and a Gedicht, not
    the other way around, like now, because Dichters without das Dichterische,
    are not Dichters, but would-be's (glass-bees; Hoelderlin sings the natural
    bees, "sweet it is / to err in the wilderness" (Tinian). Dionysos is also here,
    he seems everywhere: Dionysos Bromos: the roarer)


    
    (Oedipus: Bush's knees, while dealing with the 'murderer' of his father) 
   
     







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