Once upon a time, in an artificially induced mode of experience while
staring at my hand I imagined I grasped the basis of H's project of delving
into the "holy" ground of being. The mysterious "thing" is precisely the
starting point and perhaps, because we are in or part of Being, the end as
well.  His analyses amount to great deal more than a guttural appreciation
of "why is there something rather or nothing".  The "thing" resides in a
mysterious realm. In a somewhat similar project, a christian might hope that
the echo of "verily, you are gods" (NT) might propel one to a state of
equivalence of man and gods as purported in some eastern views. But H
maintains his human distance from the divine with the caution/hope that only
a god can save us (from ourselves). I find the immediacy of the "thing" and
its relation to the mysterious quite profound. H seems to me at times to be
immersed in a never-ending acid trip unable to express the profundity of the
obvious "thing". Since no language cannot adequately deal with the mystery
of being his convoluted striving  accentuates and brings to the foreground
the precarious the human condition. Yes, H is a never ending adventure.
Regards, Richard

Original Message -----
From: "Joseph Billings" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2003 2:25 PM
Subject: Re: heidegger and language and running naked


> The fascinating thing about Heidegger is that once you
> interpret his opening move in Being and Time as a reversal
> of the traditional way of asking about being, that is,
> instead of asking "from 'what' does being arise?" (or how
> do we explain being (or any phenomenon)in terms of things?)
> we might ask, "what does being mean?" and then put off the
> question of "what things are?" --which otherwise forces us
> to assume and apply a very loaded metaphysics-- then his
> language becomes very transparent. His terms become
> precise, informative, and surgical. And his way of doing
> things also helps to exemplify a view that I have long
> held, but could never quite articulate, that philosophy is
> an art, a practice, as much as an intellectual enterprise.
> (Socrates says as much in the cave allegory when he says to
> the effect that we cannot turn ours eye towards the light
> behind us without turning our bodies.)
>
> Curiously, for me, Heidegger is actually one of the few
> philosphers that I have found difficult for philosophical
> reasons as opposed to language. For example, Kant is hard
> at first, but once you correct his grammar, things unfold
> quite simply. The difficulty with Heidegger, for me, has
> not been his language. The difficulty for me is putting
> aside the enlightenment "ontic" "thing" metaphyics that
> makes us analyze everything in terms of things (always a
> reduction to some "thing") so that I can grasp Heidegger's
> emphasis on the priority of being and fundamental ontology
> to metaphysics.
>
> Its a grand project, and its an open question of whether
> Heidegger ever succeeds. But the time has come for us to
> re-discover this book and to re-invigorate philosophy,
> which is otherwise very much on the ropes in neo-liberal
> times --an intellectual and ontological condition that
> itself helps to make neo-liberalism possible.  In fact, I
> would go so far as to say (even if only for provocative
> reasons) that as Heidegger's language becomes more and more
> transparent to us, so will the "perfection of the market
> thing" agenda of neo-liberalism become more transparent and
> alarming to us in a very horrifying way. And the
> possibilities of exploring this transparency in a cinematic
> way make me want to run naked through the streets of NYC
> with an 8mm black and white loaded camera until I drop!
>
> Joe
>
>
>
>
>
> --- James Lomax <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > On the matter of complex lanaguage in relation to
> > Heidegger and others:
> >
> > Philosophical discourse sometimes requires complex
> > language, because it
> > deals with complex thought.
> >
> > However, it does not follow that complex language is
> > therefore OK.
> > Sometimes it isn't.
> >
> > Sometimes, in my opinion, it demonstrates low level
> > thinking based on the
> > adoption of fashionable jargon as a means of entry into
> > fashionable
> > discourse, and a way of gaining supposed credibility.
> > Which raises the
> > question: what kind of philosophy is that?
> >
> > I read somewhere that Bergson once stated you should be
> > able to present
> > philosophy in natural ie non-convoluted language.
> > Interestingly, Deleuze
> > seemed to ignore this.
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo
> http://search.yahoo.com