Date: Wed, 09 Jun 2004 11:17:21 -0500
From: allen scult <allen.scult-AT-drake.edu>
Subject: Re: The Temporality of Fear


>
>We know  by now that Jud doesn't like Heidegger. It may
>be more profitable,  again,  to discuss the texts.
>
>Heidegger said,
>
>"The  temporality of fear is a forgetting which awaits
>and makes  present."
>
>Sein u. Zeit, H. 342, trans. Macquarrie & Robinson. 
>
>What did Heidegger mean by that?
>
>John Harvey
>
>
>
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Hi John,

I'm just reading a new English translation of Heidegger's 
"Phenomenology of Religious Life," his lectures of 1920-21. 
Heidegger begins this very suggestive work by re-iterating (or 
perhaps this is the first iteration)  the focus of philosophy on 
"factical life experience," a focus the very nature of which 
necessarily distinguishes philosophy from science.  Contrary to Jud's 
uninformed ravings, Heidegger explicates the "rigor" of philosophy 
precisely in terms its "turning around" within the course of factical 
experience itself.  Thus its rigor comes not from some super-imposed 
criteria of "objectivity," but rather from its(that is philosophy's) 
willing insistence on maintaining itself as/in a basic movement of 
factical life.

But the distinctive rigor of philosophizing as Heidegger does it 
doesn't stop there.  He continues to exercise it  by insisting that 
"factical life experience must not be only the point of departure for 
philososphizing but precisely that which essentially hinders 
philosophizing itself."(11)

What he's referring to  here, I think, is the difficulty of finding 
the appropriate "motivation" for the philosophical turn within the 
basic movement of factical life which philosophy itself also is ( 
that is, a basic movement of factical life).  Here we must make the 
distinction between the making-stand-out of ones own experienced 
self-world as a theoretical reflection on inner reflection (these 
phrases are mostly from the translation) which is the way I think 
Heidegger might characterize Freud's view of temporality of angst 
(Rene's question), as well being a more refined version of Jud's 
misconstrual of Heidegger's phenomenology of the temporality of fear.

The first lecture almost reads in part like an attempt on Heidegger's 
to part to already find himself in the midst of philosophizing in 
this way by throwing into question the very doing of philosophy in 
this way.  That is, taking himself through the process of beginning 
to philosophize by showing his students how that very beginning might 
be thrown into question.

I happen to also be reading some short pieces by the medieval 
Kabbalist, Samuel Abulafia, who talks about prophecy readying itself 
to prophesy, that is to speak prophetically, even as he tries to 
ready himself for a similar undertaking in the very text he is 
writing.  In the course of his remarkable sayings which actually do 
achieve a level of what he calls prophecy-wisdom, he says the 
following:

"For there is no god-work in the world outside of the wisdom of the 
work itself, and only then is it accepted before the blessed Name, 
and not like a studied law." (32, The Path of Names).

I know, John, this doesn't answer your question directly, but at 
least it does, as you suggest, get back to the texts.

Best regards,

Allen


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