Chris Doss wrote:
> This is H's Promethean phase. He means "violence" in
> the sense of wresting disclosure from obscurity (cf.
> the really great Parmenides lectures). Personally I
> think an Introduction to Metaphysics is one of his
> weakest lectures.
How do you make this interpretation of "violence" fit what is said in the passage?
"Beings as a whole, as the sway, are the overwhelming, *deinon* in the first sense."
"The *deinon* [in this sense] is the terrible in the sense of the overwhelming sway, which induces panicked fear, true anxiety, as well as collected, inwardly reverberating, reticent awe. The violent, the overwhelming is the essential character of the sway itself."
This makes "the violent" the "essential character" of "beings as a whole" as "the sway".
This is a "disclosure" about "beings as a whole", isn't it, i.e. it's the outcome of "wresting disclosure" not the act of "wresting disclosure".
"Humanity" is claimed to be "deinon" in two senses:
First, it "belongs to Being" and is therefore "deinon" in the first sense, i.e. it is "the violent".
Secondly, it's "deinon" in the second sense of "violence-doing". In this "It gathers what holds sway and lets it enter into openness". "What holds sway" is "the violent, the overwhelming" since this constitutes "the essential character of the sway itself." So "violence-doing" gathers what holds sway" - "the violent" - and "lets it enter into openness".
Ted