Cologne, 11-Mar-2000
Jan Straathof schrieb:
Betreff:
Re: Introduction to Heidegger- Dasein
Datum:
Wed, 8 Mar 2000 03:14:03 +0100
Von:
Jan Straathof <janstr@xxxxxxx>
> beste Michael,
>
> thank you -as always- for the time found to respond, you
> wrote:
>
> >> but couldn't we say, that as the "teaching of Beying" is
> >> implicit in the "thinking of Beying", that the thinker has
> >> the moral-ethical obligation to teach ?
> >
> >No, not an obligation. The thinker can do nothing other than 'teach', at
> >least in
> >the sense of communicating what he is called on to 'bring to language'. He
> >cannot
> >help himself. There is an urging need to share the insight, if only by
> >writing down
> >his thoughts in unpublished notes. There is no way around it -- the truth
> >of being
> >is always already shared, Dasein is Mitsein, even when a thinker is totally
> >solitary.
>
> [can we think "obligation" here also in a more original
> sense, viz. of the "ob - ligare" as "vor - bindung" ?]
Jan,
Thank you for your posting.
Yes, thinking of obligation as a prior binding to the issue itself would be a
more phenomenal way of thinking about it.
>
> and what else is the status of "thoughts" in "unpublished
> notes", as of dried seeds in a lost box ?
which can be found again, and the seeds germinated with a little water, even
after millennia have past. In fact, all philosophical texts are this way,
because rarely are they re-read in such a way that they again come to life.
And even apart from that, the fate of philosophical texts shows just how slow
philosophical time is. Aristotle's texts were literally lost for three hundred
years after his death, and were published only shortly before the year 0.
Or another example: Leibniz' "Discour de Metaphysique" from 1686 was first
published only 160 years later in 1846!
Texts are patient.
> and what else is the status of "thinking" in solitary, as a
> chanceless voice on a forgotten path ?
Thinking is always solitary in the sense of a "dialogue of the soul with itself"
(Plato). Dialogues with others are complements.
> so couldn't we read Heidegger's famous caveat not also
> in the sense that:
> ?most thought-provoking in our thought-provoking
> time is that we are still not teaching? ?
That is a dilution. The predicament we are in is that we have not learned to
think what calls for thinking.
> as long there is thinking, there is -and must be- teaching,
> there is no thinking on patient paper, as there is no teaching
> when no one is around [to listen]
No doubt the teaching situation is beneficial for furthering one's thinking,
both teacher's and pupil's, because dialogue with others opens up new lines of
thought.
> some "letting be" here and there is ok, but when the thinker
> is "letting" -the lack of teaching, to continue to- ?be?, isn't
> s/he in fact stepping back from some status quo ?
Factical situations into which the thinker is thrown may preclude any live
teaching role. That is no real impediment, however.
> --- which status quo ? the one called ?the gift of capitalism? ?
>
> but what about the ?theft? of capitalism ? [theft in the sense
> of cheap labour-power, natural resourses etc. etc.]
>
> how can one step back from a ?gift? that is not received ?
> how can one step back from that what is stolen from you ?
Is capitalism a gift that steals? What calls (and cries out) for thinking is
what capitalism is. Too easily it is imagined to be the greedy, exploitative
others, always the other -- but, to vary a famous statement by Joseph Beuys, "Il
capitalismo siamo noi."
What is the giving in capitalism, what is the stealing? What is its essence?
>From H. we can learn that what capitalism is essentially is nothing
capitalistic. How is the totality beings disclosed to humankind under the sway
of capitalism?
With regard to the exploitation of labour power, whether it is "cheap" or not
depends on the outcome of the competitive struggle. Competitive struggle is
essential to capitalism, but the outcome is historically contingent. The
unbelievable unevenness in the distribution of wealth and income is immanent to
the diremption between abstractly sociated and dissociated labour. This does not
mean, however, that the competitive dynamism of capitalism is not also the most
'promising' way for the poor to improve their lot.
And the natural resources exploited by capital? Here too there is a struggle to
restrict to reach and grab of the profit motive, thoroughly consonant with the
democratic state which acts on the basis of a conception of the common weal, das
Gemeinwohl. It is not as is capitalism excludes a striving for the common weal,
which includes care for the environment (maintaining it as a 'sustainable
resource').
So one is forced to think more deeply about the nature of capitalism, something
rarely done amongst the critical left.
The competitive struggle is not all grim death struggle, but a serious game in
which Dasein brings itself into a stand and a stance.
> --- when Dasein is Mitsein, there is bringing and sharing,
> but not only of words and thoughts, but foremost of that
> where words and thoughts are useless
The sharing of the open is not just mediated through the _logos_. This is one of
the great things in Heidegger -- he puts the exclusive access to being through
the _logos_, as experienced in the first beginning, into question. This step is
taken two and a half thousand years after metaphysics is inaugurated by Plato
and Aristotle.
Now there is an opening for a casting of human being as playfully musical, as
resonant with the quivering of propriation.
Yours,
Michael
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