[lbo-talk] Grappling with Heidegger

ravi gadfly at exitleft.org
Sun May 7 17:59:59 PDT 2006


At around 7/5/06 1:44 pm, Jerry Monaco wrote:
> On 5/7/06, *Chris Doss* <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com
> <mailto:lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com>> wrote:
>
> Hell, without Heidegger there wouldn't even BE a
> Zizek. Or a Sartre, Foucault, Derrida, Merleau-Ponty,
> Lacan, Arendt, Marcuse, Adorno and probably a couple
> of dozen other thinkers I'm in too much of a hurry to
> remember right now. What did Arendt call him -- the
> Hidden King?
>
> Does that mean all these people might actually have to learn to write?
> I'll admit an affection for Sartre in his popular mode and Merleau-Ponty
> when writing about the senses.... But the world would have been better
> off without Heidegger. At least trees and graduate classes would have
> been better off.
>

Ha! And here I was almost ready to proclaim you the voice of moderation and reason on LBO! I, of course, believe you are wrong. Hell, I probably wouldn't even care about trees as much if not *for* Heidegger. IMHO, if you are going to read only one non-analytical philosopher of the 20th century, you have not many better choices. But we are just pissing around here, aren't we? After all nobody has really brought up any real critique.

Chris: I was joking about Zizek. I have no clue about this person, haven't read a word of his (I assume this is a guy?) works, but I *have* noticed that his name is highly revered on this here list and appears at a suspiciously non-random frequency.

I mentioned Heidegger in passing in my message. I think there are better threads to rant on, so I will save my quota for those. For those who have read Heidegger and found him lacking, I strongly suggest a second reading. If you still do not find him worthwhile, you always have "The Philosophy of Star Trek" which seems to be downing trees at a faster rate than old H, at the B&N. ;-) For those who have not read Heidegger, I hope these opinions will not discourage you: [not to sound like a Heidegger expert, which I am most definitely not] I think George Steiner has a wonderful introduction to Heidegger that I would recommend.

--ravi

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