File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2003/heidegger.0312, message 34


Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2003 23:29:21 +0800
Subject: Re: Liberal vs. social democracy - Gestell/Gewinnst
From: Malcolm Riddoch <m.riddoch-AT-ecu.edu.au>



On Wednesday, December 3, 2003, at 07:23  PM, Michael Eldred wrote:

> Cologne 02-Dec-2003
>
> Malcolm Riddoch schrieb Wed, 3 Dec 2003 03:24:26 +0800:
>
> That's just wishy-washy "I respect your opinion, even if I don't 
> agree".
> It's totally lacking in any unconcealing power of the engagement of
> Auseinandersetzung (altercation).

Really? My apologies but I do mostly respect your opinion, I just can't 
be bothered engaging with it as I'm not particularly interested in 
approaching Heidegger from the perspective of his Greek interpretation. 
It's not that I disagree with it either, but there is no altercation 
unless you want to contest my interpretation of will to will in terms 
of will and from my own peculiar Husserlian/Heideggerean 
phenomenological perspective. I also have some texts I can point you to 
in order for you to get up to speed about where I'm coming from but I 
expect, just like me, you have no time to analyse other people's 
commentaries and just want to get on with your own. I'm not interested 
in unconcealing anything for you, I don't want to convince you of 
anything as I only write for myself. I have no leadership or 
pedagogical intentions, so what's your problem?

> Even this oft-cited "being is said in many ways" is mindless if one 
> does not
> know the Aristotelean context. Aristotle does not say this "many ways"
> arbitrarily, but always with a specific manifold in view.

No, that's just your doctrinaire Aristoteleanism again. I take it you 
understand this 'many ways' in the context of Heidegger's Aristotle, or 
is that Aristotle's Aristotle? Or specifically Eldred's Aristotle's 
Aristotle? Your own mindlessness is not being able to understand it in 
any other context than the one you have already decided is fundamental, 
and then thinking that no one else could properly understand it 
differently, which is precisely the context of language and saying 
within which 'being' is already said in many ways.

Please don't start telling me I'm not thinking properly like you again 
as that just pisses me off and exposes your own ridiculous 
self-aggrandizement as a purveyor of the one true doctrine, itself a 
particularly pathetic symptom of Heideggereanism. Shall we get back 
into the same argument about what 'opinion' means in relation to 
'truth', leadership and meaninglessness in this age of the will to 
power? I've had this argument with you many times on this list and I 
willfully assert again there can be no leadership role in thinking, 
only a multiplicity of leaders with self-empowering opinions about what 
is the right way to think the truth. My right way is not yours, and I'm 
not interested in converting you or being converted because every way 
is as true and meaningless as any other and you can only decide for 
yourself. This is a 'democratic' approach to truth that is not merely 
about reaching some form of generalised 'wishy-washy' agreement but 
about the essence of democracy as bearing witness to one's own truths. 
And from a phenomenological perspective what else is there?

>> I'm not about to devalue your access since I think it's
>> as legitimate as any other, and even rather interesting.
>
> It is more than "interesting" (which is mere Erlebnis). Heidegger's 
> formula
> "will to will" is his sharpening of Nietzsche's will to power, but 
> Nietzsche
> is not at all sufficient for understanding what Heidegger brings 
> together
> under the title of Gestell.

So again, you're generalising what is essentially your own opinion, 
where this insufficiency is by definition merely your own. Precisely 
what is 'Heidegger's formula "will to will" as a sharpening of 
Nietzsche's will to power' such that it can be insufficient for what 
you consider to be Gestell? Even this proposition begs the question - 
what is Gestell? And while this is the very question that is open here 
you will probably reply that it has something to do with your 
interpretation of Heidegger's Greeks, which is an interpretation that 
is fine by me so long as you don't insist that it's the only one that 
really matters and I have to follow it in order to start thinking 
'properly' in a 'Greek' manner like you.

Again, there is no altercation here, mainly because I'm not disagreeing 
with you over your specific philosophical interpretation but firstly 
over methodology. I can't proceed with an altercation because I don't 
agree that your approach is the fundamental one from which all other 
discussion proceeds. Neither do I contend that my way is the only true 
way, I don't have the hubris for that, but I certainly have the hubris 
to proclaim loud and clear that there is fundamentally no true way, 
there is only one's own interpretation of that which is already being 
said in many ways, an interpretation of that which is always in each 
case one's own existence. These are all our own truths, whether we 
agree on them or not.

> At least we agree here. Truth remains strifeful.
> You may change your view on the central importance of Aristotle after
> reading inter alia the "primal cell" to SuZ (Dilthey Jahrbuch), GA18, 
> GA19,
> GA33, the _physis_-Aufsatz in Wegmarken, and, above all, Aristotle 
> himself.

I think opinion remains strifeful insofar as it functions as truth, but 
I don't think I'll change my view as I decided long ago to follow a 
different interpretive path than Heidegger's Greek interpretation which 
I generally interpret in terms of his phenomenology. Like I said, each 
to their own, and this doesn't preclude my interpreting your 
Aristoteleanism in my own words, but I have so little time and there's 
so much to do.

Regards,

Malcolm



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

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005