[lbo-talk] Grappling with Heidegger

joanna 123hop at comcast.net
Thu Jun 8 16:10:59 PDT 2006


ravi wrote:


>Over the last few days I have been racking my memory for impressive and
>significant Heidegger bits that will reveal my man's clairvoyance and
>depth. During bits of free time I pored over Being and Time, and What is
>called Thinking, and Steiner's Martin Heidegger, looking for quotable
>quotes. While I found no pithy one-liner (fortunately), I felt once
>again, a decade later, the sudden clearing of thought and organic
>understanding that I rarely obtain elsewhere.
>
Well, thanks for the hard work, unearthing these tidbits. Reading it over though I have to ask what I always ask: What is the essential difference between what Heidegger asserts about dasein and what any 'enlightened" speaker would say on the same subject, take for example, Krishnamurti. Because when I read Krishnamurti, I basically get exactly the same description as when I read bits of Heidegger. The diff is that Heidegger situates his discourse relative to western philosophy -- so that he can talk about things like Cartesian hyperbole (quite rightly), whereas Krishnamurti speaks more generally. But it seems to me that they both understand the same things about freedom and conditioning, about being and knowing, and about the limitations of tought.

(Paranthetically -- yes I agree with you about Feyerabend).

But, there's more to be said and this is where Marx's particular genius (I refrain from capitalizing) comes in, and it is this: being in the historical (man made) world is different from being in nature and to become enlightened by "being in the world" in any kind of socially useful way means being able to look at that difference, to understand it, to understand how our historic/cultural happenstance textures our conditioning and our perception. This is not a trivial task and it was Marx alone who articulated i, who gave it philosophical weight, and made some intial forays.... Pity he has not had anyone able to take further steps.

Comments? Anyone?

Joanna


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