Re: Introduction to Heidegger- Dasein

At 01:21 28-2-00 +0100, Jan Straathof wrote:

>je schreef:
>
>>-Heidegger before the Kehre: The relation to being is opened by Dasein.
>>
>>-Heidegger after the Kehre: The relation of Dasein to Being belongs to
>>Being itself. This is not mysticism, because Being itself, Heidegger says,
>>is finite. But then the finiteness of Dasein, which in BT was its own(most),
>>isn't even Dasein's!
>
>yes, this is interesting, do you have any idea how Heidegger
>futher grounds this claim that "Being is finite" ? [and thus not
>infinite ?]

Dag Jan,

Grounding itself is the problem here.

It's more the noticing of something withdrawing than a positive claim, or
even proof. Who, reading all the big words, expects more, must, I believe,
get disappointed (in Heidegger or himself). 

I think that the finiteness of Being only comes into view, when grounding
feels the ground under its feet moving away, e.g. in BT the "nichtiger
Grund". But in BT this is the result of some authentic decision; it
remains, or rather, it opens the dimension of Dasein (in its totality).
Yesterday I read in BT: P. 60 (German ed.): Subject and object don't
coincide with Dasein and world. Of course, we say, but Heidegger in his
later comment: They are indeed so much different, that already the naming
them together makes the negation [Dasein is not subject etc.] fatal. Also
as a critic, H. is more radical.

So, willing and knowing are not enough.
       
While factical life - the unsayable of metaphysics - was there since the
beginning, Heidegger's dealings with metaphysics (around BT roughly:
Aristoteles-Kant-Nietzsche) lead to a rather "late" insight in the
finiteness of Being itself. What it is, I can't tell, but Heidegger, in
general, gives 2 admonitions:
1. Being is not something, even not the being of beings. One cannot bring
it before one, re-present it, as fundamental    metaphysical answers,
according to Heidegger, somehow did. 
2. Being ought not to be thought without its relation to man.
   
>and there is -of course- "vorgaengig" the question of what the
>phrase "Being is finite" really means to say/teach ? [e.g. that
>not-Being is infinite ?]

Well, firstly, it is directed against Being as thought by metaphysics.
Being, even in Nietzsche, is infinite. Why must the return of the same be
eternal? Our Buddhist friends don't see the Maja that way: they see an
escape: the moment of satori. But Nietzsche seems oversensible as to what
comes from the outside and is not will to power. "Everything is will to
power - und nichts ausserdem!, and with no exception. In Heideggerean
terms: even here everything (das Seiende im Ganzen) is "essentially" will
to power - what "is", that is for N.: is becoming, can't not be "willing".
And the willing itself is "grounded" upon its eternal return, even so that
there is no escape possible. We have to realize that also here what is
thought, the eternal return, IS only in the moment of actual thinking. This
'fact' caused Nietzsche's euphoria. Generations, thousands of years,
leading to this one moment, where the eternal return IS, (is thought.) (All
this is in Heidegger's "Nietzsche": the relation of will to power and
eternal return.) The "onto-theological" aspect in Nietzsche is the best
seen in this aphorism: Dem Werden den Character des Seins aufpraegen:
hoechste Wille zur Macht. Highest will to power: printing the character "of
being" onto the becoming.  Highest forgery (art). 

Here Heidegger is more radical. I saw him once in a documentary, wherein he
was asked, if his philosophical efforts had resulted in some definitive
knowledge. Very seldom, he answered, I have had a moment, that everything
seemed to fall on its place, that you could say: that's how it is, but this
was only for a moment and darkness moved in again. 

One could even ask, whether this clarity could be there, without the
darkness.  (sun & shadow) 

Thanks for the poem. Here are two Rilke lines in return (from
Shostakovich's 14th). They are, as Heidegger's finiteness of being, not, I
would say, particularly profound, but basic. My experience is that most
proles agree. They have the great capacity of "letting-be".

Der Tod is gross               Death is great
Wir sind die Seinen            We are his

groet,

Rene


-----------------------------------
drs. René de Bakker
Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam
Afdeling Catalogisering Faculteiten
tel. 020-5252368              


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