Saturday, May 07, 2005
In-der-Blog-sein
Purse Lip Square Jaw calls Heidegger an essentialist:
Purse Lip Square Jaw calls Heidegger an essentialist:
I recall being told once: 'My work shares a lot of common questions with yours, Anne, but my use of Heidegger and phenomenology is more old skool than your use of Deleuze' and wondering if that is really true. I take for granted that being is related to time; that context and embodiment are crucial. But I oppose Heidegger's essentialism, partly because I believe that essentialism shares too much in common with fascism and unforgivably limits who we can be.I read that claim before, but it's hard to square with the record. For example, Sartre believed that Heidegger's key contribution was to privilege existence over essence, and in his essay, Plato’s Doctrine of Truth, Heidegger is against the essentialism in Plato's theory of ideas. ¶ 1:09 PM
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Can't one be an essentialist without being a Platonic essentialist? I thought the reading of Heidegger as an essentialist was rather common. Also, doesn't Heidegger explicitly repudiate that comment of Sartre? (I'll have to find it - I just read the passage a few days ago)
Yup. One of the proposed differences between B&T and later Heidegger is that B&T supports a phenomenological essentialism. It has also been argued that his position his changed again after the war. The Letter on Humanism is basically a repudiation of Sartre's Existentialism is a Humanism lecture, where Sartre makes the "Existence preceeds essence" claim, but I don't beliebe Heidegger is claiming the opposite. The general thrust of his argument in LoH being that Sartre/Humanism is too "Roman", and not in the original Greek sense of "being". It'll be interesting if you can find Heidegger saying he is an essentialist.
I was more thinking of Heidegger explictly saying Sartre was wrong to say existence preceeds essence.
I see a few things going on here, that are worth noting.
In a historical sense, Heidegger comes out of WWII feeling defeated and irrelevant. He's at first grateful to Sartre (at that point a star in philosophy because of existentialism's popularity) for acknowledging existentialism debt to Heidegger, but then he quickly gets his confidence back and begins to attack Sartre, emphasizing their differences.
Sartre is correct that Heidegger said that any human is thrown into an evolving context that is not of her making: one exists, and has to deal with it, before setting about classifying the properties of things and deciding which properties are essential.
Heidegger is correct that Sarte is still thinking in a Cartesian framework. For Sartre it is a Subject that finds itself existing.
Heidegger (in various places in his works) notes essential differenecs between humans (or Dasein) and animals. There's a Aristotlean notion of humans having language, and also the idea that Dasein is the only being that asks why is there something rather than nothing.
I also recall Heidegger criticizing Sartre's "existence precedes essence", but don't remember where. I also recall his criticism of the Platonic/Aristotelean notion that some properties are essential, but too can't remember where.
Usually synchronicity works better for me, and I get into areas that I just read about the week before...
In a historical sense, Heidegger comes out of WWII feeling defeated and irrelevant. He's at first grateful to Sartre (at that point a star in philosophy because of existentialism's popularity) for acknowledging existentialism debt to Heidegger, but then he quickly gets his confidence back and begins to attack Sartre, emphasizing their differences.
Sartre is correct that Heidegger said that any human is thrown into an evolving context that is not of her making: one exists, and has to deal with it, before setting about classifying the properties of things and deciding which properties are essential.
Heidegger is correct that Sarte is still thinking in a Cartesian framework. For Sartre it is a Subject that finds itself existing.
Heidegger (in various places in his works) notes essential differenecs between humans (or Dasein) and animals. There's a Aristotlean notion of humans having language, and also the idea that Dasein is the only being that asks why is there something rather than nothing.
I also recall Heidegger criticizing Sartre's "existence precedes essence", but don't remember where. I also recall his criticism of the Platonic/Aristotelean notion that some properties are essential, but too can't remember where.
Usually synchronicity works better for me, and I get into areas that I just read about the week before...
OK, I found the reference.
[Sartre] takes existentia and essentia in the sense of metaphysics, which since Plato has said that essentia precedes existentia. Sartre reverses this proposition. But the reversal of a metaphysical proposition remains a metaphysical proposition. (Pathmarks, 159)
That's from a footnote in Carman's Heidegger's Analytic which I was reading the other day. (pg.18) I don't have a copy of Pathmarks handy at home. I suspect the page number is to the German and not English edition though.
It's not quite what I remembered Heidegger saying. But it's not quite as far from my thought as it could have been.
As for whether Heidegger is only an essentialist prior to the turning. I don't know. I'll fully confess that I'm not yet that confident on the latter Heidegger enough to debate that point. While he certainly speaks in a very different fashion, it seems that it isn't hugely different in terms of "spirit" than the Heidegger of Being and Time (IMO). That's not to discount the differences. Just that a change in focus need not entails a huge change in meaning.
I'd also wonder about whether Heidegger's use of "essence" in his later works suggests that he still is an essentialist of sorts. I don't know the date off the top of my head, but what period is The Question Concerning Technology generally placed? I thought it was at the beginning of his later period, although I may be wrong. (I'm too lazy to look it up) That, as I recall, discusses essences a great deal. Although of course essences for Heidegger are more "ways of being" rather than how some think of them.
[Sartre] takes existentia and essentia in the sense of metaphysics, which since Plato has said that essentia precedes existentia. Sartre reverses this proposition. But the reversal of a metaphysical proposition remains a metaphysical proposition. (Pathmarks, 159)
That's from a footnote in Carman's Heidegger's Analytic which I was reading the other day. (pg.18) I don't have a copy of Pathmarks handy at home. I suspect the page number is to the German and not English edition though.
It's not quite what I remembered Heidegger saying. But it's not quite as far from my thought as it could have been.
As for whether Heidegger is only an essentialist prior to the turning. I don't know. I'll fully confess that I'm not yet that confident on the latter Heidegger enough to debate that point. While he certainly speaks in a very different fashion, it seems that it isn't hugely different in terms of "spirit" than the Heidegger of Being and Time (IMO). That's not to discount the differences. Just that a change in focus need not entails a huge change in meaning.
I'd also wonder about whether Heidegger's use of "essence" in his later works suggests that he still is an essentialist of sorts. I don't know the date off the top of my head, but what period is The Question Concerning Technology generally placed? I thought it was at the beginning of his later period, although I may be wrong. (I'm too lazy to look it up) That, as I recall, discusses essences a great deal. Although of course essences for Heidegger are more "ways of being" rather than how some think of them.
To be fair, Heidegger also writes at the start of Being and Time that "the whatness (essentia) of this being must be understood in terms of its being (existentia) insofar as one can speak of it at all." (SZ 42) Further clearly Heidegger opposes the normal Aristotilean view of essences, which I suspect Sartre is reacting against. (I'll confess I only read enough Sartre to be turned off by him - so that's just a guess on my part)
I found the passage, from Letter on Humanism, in Basic Writings, and recorded it here: http://webcom.com/paf/hb/hbheid.html#LetteronHumanism
I believe that Heiedgger's moving further away from Plato/Aristotle in the early 30s is partially explained by his need to explain his irrational espousal of Nazism. That criticism abates once Heidegger realizes that was a bad career move.
The QoT is part of his post-war career rehabilitating lectures which he delivered around Germany in the lat 40s-early 50s. Much of that lecture describes the bits of Aristotle's Metaphysics that Heidegger wants to extend into the mdoern age. There are certainly plenty of Essence of This and Essence of That lectures through out his career, although I believe that in many cases the word is used as the "basic issue" or "crux of the matter", rather than in Aristotle's object-oriented and metaphysical sense of required property.
I expect that the quote from S&Z in your post is Sartre's point of departure for his "Existence precedes essence".
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I believe that Heiedgger's moving further away from Plato/Aristotle in the early 30s is partially explained by his need to explain his irrational espousal of Nazism. That criticism abates once Heidegger realizes that was a bad career move.
The QoT is part of his post-war career rehabilitating lectures which he delivered around Germany in the lat 40s-early 50s. Much of that lecture describes the bits of Aristotle's Metaphysics that Heidegger wants to extend into the mdoern age. There are certainly plenty of Essence of This and Essence of That lectures through out his career, although I believe that in many cases the word is used as the "basic issue" or "crux of the matter", rather than in Aristotle's object-oriented and metaphysical sense of required property.
I expect that the quote from S&Z in your post is Sartre's point of departure for his "Existence precedes essence".
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