Heidegger was just a nutter

[TruXta]

I miss gorski.

Insane in the membrane?!?! He was good for a laugh occasionally, but come on.

 

[Knotted]

WTF? Because one can "derive the real from the unreal"?

Consider that different ontological accounts will have different ideas about what it means for something to be real. Given that how can you proscribe what you can and cannot derive from the "unreal"? What is "unreal". Hegel for instance contrasted the real (the infinte or more properly the unbounded or unlimited) with the ideal (the finite/bounded/limited). There is no problem using theoretical idealisations rather than descriptions of concrete reality for your theories. I really don't think I'm saying anything difficult or profound here.

Indeed Hegel was arguably a methodological individualist at least on occassion (there is no inconsistency in being a part-time methodological individualist because it is just a matter of methodology). Have a look at Philosophy of Right. He starts with individuals and their will and builds up to a philosophy of law, morality, civil society and the state. Yet he considered finite things such as the individual to be only ideal rather than real. It's not a big problem.

If we look at Marx and Engels by contrast, they are close to being the opposite. Here's M&E:

The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus the first fact to be established is the physical organisation of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature.

It's pretty reasonable to call this doctrine "ontological individualism" or even "atomism". But nowhere will you find Marx or Engels deriving any social theory from the actions of individuals.

I should add that all these philosophical terms and positions shouldn't be analysed in the abstract. Imagine an anthropologist who studied the beliefs of a tribe of hunter gatherers without studying the significance of those beliefs, how they were used, what social practices they related to, their emotional significance, their relation to traumas in their society etc. Why do you expect to understand a social theorist/philosopher by examining their formal beliefs or positions? You have to look at their "drama" before you can understand what they're on about.

 

[TruXta]

That helped actually, K. Not sure I agree, but I haven't the time to go into it right now.

 

[Knotted]

Does it strike you as odd that you can't see any phenomenology in his work, and that you disagree with almost everyone's understanding of him?

You know, I don't think I do disagree with the usual understanding of him. Who says that there is any phenomenology in Introduction to Metaphysics? Who says that phenomenology was ever central to Heidegger? Who says he was an existentialist and not an essentialist? Who denies that the central theme of his philosophy is the question of the essence of being? Who claims that Heidegger thought that the essence of being can be accessed through a phenomenological analysis? Who denies that he was fixated on the pre-Socratics and their mode of expression and the implicit grasping of the true essence of being? Who denies that phenomenology can only reveal the character of phenomena not the concept of what it is for the phenemena to Be in the first place? Who thinks that a phenomenological analysis ie. an analysis of experience and the description of the phenomenal can reveal the conceptions of the pre-Socratics? Who thinks that Heidegger's methods remained the same from the late 20's to the 30's? Who thinks that if Heidegger used phenomenological analysis in Being and Time, that he would still be using the same techniques seven years later even if it happens to be invisible?

Heidegger's philosophy in fact undermines phenomenology. It rejects this assumption that the phenomenologist should simply procede using the linguistic/cultural tools of 20th century western life. Not because it won't work but because it won't grasp the really important question. Shall I repeat what the question is? It's question of what the essence of being is. You can't ignore this. It's not cryptic either. Heidegger screams at you from the page. You can't be in any doubt if you read it. Looking at the secondary literature, I don't think there is any disagreement on this and I have no disagreements with anything I read. This is because Heidegger is very clear on what he is about.

Seriously, one thing gorski got right was his slogan of "back to the texts!"

 

[invisibleplanet]

Who says that rhetoric is dead?

 

[Knotted]

For Santino who doesn't believe my account of the lack of phenomenology in Introduction to Metaphysics and believes I contradict the secondary literature:

In conclusion, I should mention the fact that in September 1953 I had a unique opportunity to interview Martin Heidegger personally about his present attitude toward phenomenology. Without quoting his words, I feel entitled to render the sense of his answers as follows: Heidegger frankly admitted and restated his rejection of transcendental phenomenology. But he did not express any intention of dissociating himself from the Phenomenological Movement, as far as its general substance is concerned. Nor did he say or imply that any substantial change in his methods had taken place since the publication of Sein und Zeit, particularly not with regard to such innovations as the phenomenological destruction and phenomenological hermeneutics. As far as the abandonment of Sein und Zeit is concerned, he intimated that the new approach from Being to human being by no means excluded the earlier one from human being to Being. In fact he stated that if he ever should rewrite Sein und Zeit he would try to combine the two approaches. In other words, for Heidegger this is a matter of a both-and, not of an either-or.

I shall not attempt to discuss this self-interpretation in the light of the evidence already presented. In any event, Heidegger did not deny the obvious shift in his approach. He thus confirmed my conjecture that phenomenology, understood as the hermeneutic interpretation of human being, has lost its priority in the pattern of his thinking. How far there can be any such thing as a phenomenology within the framework of the later approach must remain an open question. Heidegger does refer to the "essential aid of phenomenological seeing." However, there are no conspicuous examples of it in his later writings except those strewn in among his interpretations of texts. This is one reason why no illustrations of this later phenomenological thinking will be added here. Heidegger's original phenomenology remains that of Sein und Zeit.

http://vispir.h1.ru/spig.htm

See? I don't just make these things up.

 

[invisibleplanet]

If Diehegger were to have rewritten Sein und Zeit, he would have had to cite his original sources. However, since he hid his sources from the reader, he would most likely not be awarded his doctorate if he submitted his original thesis today. It's plagiarism, pure and simple.

 

[Knotted]

What's so bad about plagiarism?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

What's so bad about plagiarism?

 

[Knotted]

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Plagiarism is bad manners as much as anything else. It is uncouth.

 

[Knotted]

It's not classy. But otherwise - meh.

 

[Knotted]

It's better than writing secondary literature in philosophy. Much better. Better a thief than a beggar. It's a question of dignity.

 

[888]

originality is a bourgeois fiction.

 

[nino_savatte]

Burke?

Aye, a classical liberal... a lot of the current Tory mob describe themselves as "classical liberals".

 

[nino_savatte]

Heidegger was an absolute cunt who wrote some of the cleverest things ever.

Yeah, that about nails it.