enowning
Sunday, January 02, 2005
 
In-der-Blog-sein

Maverick Philosopher feels he's been had by Paul Edwards' last book, Heidegger's Confusions:
Twenty dollars for a thin (129 pp.) paperback is bad enough, especially given the mediocre production values of Prometheus Books; but the clincher was my discovery that there is nothing in this volume that has not appeared elsewhere.
On the other hand, it is useful to have this stuff collected in one place instead of dispersed through obscure journals. Paul Edwards is someone persons who haven't read, and would prefer to continue to ignore, Heidegger point to when they dismiss the need to re-examine the forgotten ontology in western metaphysics. So, having these criticisms collected in an available book, makes it easier to review and deal with them; as Lawrence Hinman does in an obscure journal article.

MP:
In a nutshell, the Edwards strategy is this: Heidegger assumes something that Russell denies; therefore, Heidegger is wrong.
Edwards' formative debt to Russell is possibly his major flaw. An especially precarious position because Russell changed his mind, several times. Read the whole thing.
 
Comments:
I will have to. But what is the big deal? Analytics hate phenomenologists/existentialists and vice versa.

--WMB
 
The thing is that Edwards effectively shows up the shallow pretentious and negative aspects of Heidegger's thought. "Maverick Philosopher" is a sad man. If he thinks that Edwards' arguments depend on merely accepting Russell then he needs to reread the text.

What is depressing is that the sort of bullshit, in Frankfurt's technical sense as reinterpreted by Gerry Cohen, which comes out of the those influenced by Heidegger is not accompanied with any sense of shame.

At a time when serious philosophy is required to combat the forces of irrationalism and sheer malignity, it counts mightily against the humanities that they cannot marshal arguments and that so much of the humanities are under the sway of bullshit artists.

Don't forget Jaspers' criticism of Heidegger, when he said that Heidegger had given up philosophy that he wanted to be an oracle not a philosopher.
 
To folks that have an understanding of Heidegger, Edwards merely demonstrates that understanding has not graced him. There are people who understand Heidegger and disagree with him, but Edwards is clearly clueless about what Heidegger discusses. Heidegger is difficult, and skimming some of the early translations is insufficient to understand what's a stake.

It's Edwards who holds up Russell as the opposite of Heidegger, but to the man on the omnibus, Heidegger is readable, while not understandable, while Russell Principia is completely unreadable. Only disciples that have learned that private language can begin to decipher the symbols in its pages.
 
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