Sunday, February 05, 2006
In-der-Blog-sein
Clark has a post on Heidegger and Plato, with a promise of more to come.
For more on Heidegger and the allegory, besides reading Heidegger's lectures on the subject, you can also read a couple of documents on Gregory Fried's page. ¶ 8:38 AM
Clark has a post on Heidegger and Plato, with a promise of more to come.
To understand Heidegger's "Platonism" one should turn first to his discussion of Plato's allegory of the cave. I'll not repeat the allegory since most of us are at least vaguely familiar with it. It is important to note, however, that for Heidegger, the four stages of the cave must be seen together. Truth, as Heidegger sees it, doesn't consist in forever dwelling in a world of light. Rather it is dwelling in darkness (the cave) while knowing of the world of light. Now where Heidegger parts company with Plato is over the ideas. For Plato this is the light and the ideas become more real than the beings in the cave (the shadows). To Heidegger one must note the function of the light which lets the beings become accessible. Yet it is the beings, not the light, which is real. Plato makes the mistake not only of reifying the light (treating it as a being) but then denying all other beings.Quite important those shadows, as everything cannot be lit all the time. Read the whole thing.
For more on Heidegger and the allegory, besides reading Heidegger's lectures on the subject, you can also read a couple of documents on Gregory Fried's page. ¶ 8:38 AM
Comments:
<< Home
That's very interesting. Thanks for those Fried links. I'd never seen them before but they were actually fairly similar to what I was going to say, only in the context more of the Platonists of late antiquity rather than Plato. (Although I was going to invoke my comments on Socrates)
I enjoyed a great deal Fried's book on polemos that I read a few years ago. I was actually rather surprised and disappointed when he joined in the chorus of condemnations of Derrida on Derrida's death.
I enjoyed a great deal Fried's book on polemos that I read a few years ago. I was actually rather surprised and disappointed when he joined in the chorus of condemnations of Derrida on Derrida's death.
I'm surprised to hear that about Fried. In the book he spends 25 pages or so explaining Derrida perspective and Decontruction's usefulness in understanding the role of Polemos in Heidegger's works.
Yes, I was tremendously surprised as well. I've long wondered what the story is since in what I've read by him he's been quite fair towards Derrida and clearly understands what Derrida's about (as opposed to all to many of both fans and critics)
He wrote responding to this editorial about Derrida's death. Fried wrote:
As an academic who has read and written on Derrida, I just wanted to let you know that your treatment was, to my mind, fully on target. Very well, it might not satisfy the pedantry of Derrida's more obsessive followers (what would?), but as you say: may not journalism treat philosophy seriously?
And you pay Derrida at least that much of a compliment: you do take him seriously.
In particular, what I think you get right is how the "mad axeman of Western philosophy" pulled down the edifices of reason that support our free institutions -- and only too late realized that what he had done was NOT effect a new, deeper form of liberation. In his last decade, he scrambled to build a shadow-edifice, but to no avail.
I plan to use your appraisal when I teach him in the future, at least to get students started.
If you ever do wish to put yourself to sleep with an "academic" deconstruction of the Grand Deconstructor, try my book, 'Heidegger's
Polemos', which treats both Heidegger's politics and the effects of that politics on the postmodernist left.
He wrote responding to this editorial about Derrida's death. Fried wrote:
As an academic who has read and written on Derrida, I just wanted to let you know that your treatment was, to my mind, fully on target. Very well, it might not satisfy the pedantry of Derrida's more obsessive followers (what would?), but as you say: may not journalism treat philosophy seriously?
And you pay Derrida at least that much of a compliment: you do take him seriously.
In particular, what I think you get right is how the "mad axeman of Western philosophy" pulled down the edifices of reason that support our free institutions -- and only too late realized that what he had done was NOT effect a new, deeper form of liberation. In his last decade, he scrambled to build a shadow-edifice, but to no avail.
I plan to use your appraisal when I teach him in the future, at least to get students started.
If you ever do wish to put yourself to sleep with an "academic" deconstruction of the Grand Deconstructor, try my book, 'Heidegger's
Polemos', which treats both Heidegger's politics and the effects of that politics on the postmodernist left.
Having read that, I think it important to distinguish between philosophy and the other, "critical studies", disciplines. It's been my impression that while philosophy is used to, or even encourages, skepticism, questioning everything (from Socrates in the agora, through Descartes and Hume, and on to Derrida) and still requiring reasoned arguments, other departments like literature and history didn't know what they were getting into when they invited some trendy European intellectuals (who had been rigorously trained as philosophers) to set their agendas. Those disciplines were blown away, and haven't figured out how to respond to the axe blows yet.
Post a Comment
<< Home
