Btw, my argument is not that Heidegger is hard to read but that behind the monumental difficulty of his ontology lie some obvious truisms, some dangerous right-wing nationalist assertions about "will" and self, some very silly speculations about language and history, and an occasional insight about individual works of art. That is about all there is to it. [For those who care it is mostly Heidegger's "investigations" into language and "deep history" that influenced Derrida. Derrida combined aspects of Heidegger with outdated Saussure to come up with deconstructions peculiar "readings.")
Those Heideggerians who are enthralled by the cult of genius cannot even look clearly at what Heidegger actually wrote and try to descern an argument from his texts. When it comes to the topics mentioned in these posts -- death, technology, the origins of art, -- there are no arguments only attitudes.
When you read Heidegger ask yourself if there is anything, any criteria or empirical counterweight, discovery, change in the world, reconstruction of an ancient text, that might invalidate, or even modify, anything that Heidegger says. The answer is no. And the reason the answer is not is because nothing specific that Heidegger says actually makes a difference to any specific "subject" or "text." What Heidegger is uncovering is not something about "technology" or a discovery about how humans relate to death, but "the secret heart of Being." It is his genius which gives him insight into the secret history of Being.
Basically, read literally, Heidegger is writing an "ontological conspiracy theory." It is a philosophical version of Holy Blood, Holy Grail. A DaVinci code for the ontologically minded.
When I point this out I am not calling upon the ghost of Karl Popper. I am not asking that their be some way to falsify, test, or refute Heidegger. To do so would be to step out of the world of ontology and onto the ground of everyday life, and as we know "everdayness" is to Heidegger what hypocrisy is to Peyton Place.. All that I ask from my "ontology" is that arguments be identifiable and identified, that they don't hinge on poetic metaphor, which, as Heidegger "rightly" points out, are a form of experience, and cannot be reduced to propositions. For the most part Heidegger is not even wrong. There is no criteria to judge whether what Heidegger says is true or false, right or wrong. And treating Heidegger as if there were such criteria is what drives Heideggerians crazy with anger and refusal to engage.
What can be said about Heidegger's views of death can be said about practically all of Heidegger.
Heidegger does not make arguments about the human individuals relation to death. He doesn't discuss moral or ethical quandaries in any way that helps an individual live. Rather he asserts from on-high that we are either "fugitives" from our "Being-toward-death" or we are facing our inner-being of death non-fugitively. The way Heidegger "argues" about "Being-toward-death" he argues about technology.
Jerry Monaco
On 5/11/06, Ted Winslow <egwinslow at rogers.com> wrote:
>
> 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
>
>
> ___________________________________
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>
-- Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/
His fiction, poetry, weblog is Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/
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