File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2003/heidegger.0312, message 403


From: "Anthony Crifasi" <crifasi-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: FYI/ bypassing freedom, making the sale
Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2003 06:55:02 +0000


Henry Sholar wrote:

>AC:
>So if Gestell is neither a factical effect nor the sum of all factical
>effects (both of which can be changed) nor any entity at all, but how
>these are all understood as the beings they are in the first place,
>then what could it possibly mean to "change" Gestell through the
>factical means available to us? Isn't this an equivocation of everyday
>thinking (which can be changed by such people through factical means)
>and the understanding which this presupposes in every case already
>(over which Heidegger says we never have power in any case)? 
>======================>
>The questions you raise require some kind of satisfactory relationship
>between 'later' heid's "thinking Being historically" and the Heid of
>SuZ, and a comprehensive gathering of all of that.

Wouldn't the same problem apply to Heidegger's criticism of inauthenticity 
in SuZ itself? There would be a similar lack of power to change the 
possibilities that are already casted for us by the They-self. Yet 
Heidegger's criticism of the inauthenticity obviously suggests that he 
thinks we can choose authenticity.

>We already understand the truth of being as gestell as historical,
>dynamic as ontological understanding, which gains us the possibility
>of thinking about it, as does Heidegger, and we, following his lead in
>his essays on the subject after the mid 30s.
>
>I do not put ontic examples (WalMart, Bush admin., corp capitalism,
>neuro-marketing, and on and on) into a big bag, logical or
>theological, labeled "gestell" which is itself unapproachable to
>thinking. Rather, the things themselves lead to an accessible
>understanding of gestell, as does gestell provide a background, a
>network, a horizon, an opening that has distinctive historical and
>cultural characteristics: mobilizations & the challenging forth of all
>beings as inventory. And there is then a back and forth to thinking
>ont differly on these two levels of description.

I wasn't saying that gestell itself is unapproachable to thinking, but 
rather to our power to choose otherwise. I think the problem becomes clear 
if we get more specific with what exactly is supposed to happen. Let's say I 
become aware (through poetry or by myself or by studying Heidegger etc.) 
that the way I encounter beings is under the sway of what Heidegger calls 
Gestell. But then what? Can I then simply *choose* to understand things 
otherwise? Being aware of how I understand does not imply that I can choose 
how I understand. Even the everyday notion of understanding is not that 
simple (eg., in the science of psychology, a phobia or a neurosis is not 
something that we can simply will away once we are aware of it). Can I, 
then, choose to resist the sway of Gestell by factically separating myself 
from mobilized modern life - for example, by moving into the woods? That 
would separate me from factical mobilizations, but mobilizatioN (i.e., 
Gestell as the pre-understanding of everything as mobilized) is not any 
factical mobilization or even the sum of all factical mobilizations. So 
then, how exactly would I "choose" to change my pre-understanding of things 
as mobilized? When we get specific about what such a change in understanding 
is supposed to be, it seems in principle impossible for us to have power 
over how we understand (ontologically) things, even if we can become aware 
of how we do understand today. Simply referring to the poet, statesman, 
artist, or philosopher does not solve this problem, since at stake is a 
possible equivocation between factical thinking (which those people can 
affect through the factical means available to them) and ontological 
understanding.

>Your questioning comes from the other direction:  how does one
>possibly do this given the hermeneutical structure of meaning... the
>fore-structure, the nature of hermeneutical understanding as circular
>and so on... I would say that a bridging work that may offer some
>suggestions on this approach could be found in "The Origin of the Work
>of Art."

Even in SuZ, Heidegger speaks of "choosing" to have a conscience (in the 
ontological sense). Are you thinking of a specific place in the Origin?

>But it is as if you are suspending your understanding of what we can
>know of Gestell as the ontological truth of our epoch, its history to
>a certain extent, and its implications, to a certain extent.  As if a
>logic of Gestell closes out all possibilities of thinking about the
>Gestell. But one typical venture (as does Michael E in his thinking
>beyond or with gestell) is to collect the anomalies, and think through
>glimmers of possibilities that may already be cast in these anomalies.

When I asked Michael this very same question, his answer was that mood is 
*equipromordial* with understanding, and can therefore allow Dasein to 
transcend the limits of the possibilites by which it understands itself. Not 
sure about that - mood itself may not be reducible to understanding, but I 
didn't get the impression that mood was of anything besides how Dasein 
already understands itself in every case. Further, we don't choose our mood 
either, so since the issue is whether we can choose to transcend our modern 
understanding, it seems to me that bringing in mood wouldn't solve the 
problem.

Anthony Crifasi

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