Monday, July 28, 2008
More on the ontological question and Beyng.
The ontological difference was opened up in Aristotle, in beings (ὄντα) and being qua being (ὄν ᾗ ὄν). ('Opened up' here means that Aristotle's thinking took place in the light of the ontological difference. Whether Aristotle thought the difference as difference, i.e., explicitly, is another question entirely and an open question.) What we call a being (Seindes) Greek philosophy called das Answende (ὄν, ἐόν): what presences, emerges, comes forth. Greek philosophy called a being das Anwesende because. as Heidegger wrote in 1965, being spoke to the Greeks as das Anwesenheit - names in Aristotle as οὐσια - which got reduced in the history of metaphysics to 'being,' 'beingness,' and even substance. This reduction is clearly demonstrated in F.E. Peter's Greek philosophical Terms, where he writes, 'Aristotle is further convinced that the problem posed by metaphysics, and indeed by all philosophy, i.e., "what is being [ὄν]?" really comes down to "what is ousia?" since being is, first and foremost substance.'¶ 10:37 PM
The difficulty here is that, when philosophy thinks being, over against beings and what is, it takes its queue from beings. Thus, whereas the difference is indeed thought, it is determined as what it is over against beings. The danger in this way of thinking is that it thinks being as the being of a being from out of and unto a being.
To release the thinking of being from the shape given to it in terms of beings - over against beings (as beingness, as presence) - thinking as enaction needs to 'return' the 'ontological difference' to its 'own' place within the question 'that historically decides metaphysics and decides about metaphysics and its inquiry'. Therefore, the thinking of ontological difference is an unavoidable transitional moment, from within which the inquiry into being takes place. Thinking must pass through the ontological difference, so that the necessity of asking the grounding question of be-ing can be manifest.
Pp. 26-7
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I assume this is Maly, and it is brilliant --his articulation here seems to slow in a manner that befits the matter. The last paragraph is well prepared for and and it above all is particularly slow and brilliant! I have two comments, which are essentially remarks that have guided my reading of the post:
1.) When Maly warns: "The danger in this way of thinking is that it thinks being as the being of a being from out of and unto a being", it is important to realize that the immediate iinstinct and temptation to sheer this danger off from thinking and dispose of it, tossing it, as it were, into the receptacle of the past, is a temptation into thoughtlessness. The danger is not one which can in this way be avoided. It is rather a danger which thinking must be accompanied by each step along the way of its denkweg. In fact thinking must MOVE THROUGH the danger --and this means that it must move BY WAY OF the danger. Ultimately the danger that resides in the ontological difference (which, in keeping with my comment on the last posting, might be appropriately termed the UNTHOUGHT DANGER) is the danger that Heidegger named in the title of his famous lecture "Die Gefahr"; and therefore Holderin's words from the end of that lecture are just as pertinent to this danger of the ontological difference: "Where the danger is, there thrives the saving power". Thus the endangered beginning of the thinking of the ontological difference, namely its ontic point of departure, is dangerous precisely in so far as it is a beginning which has already withdrawn from thought and is thus forgotten right away. What is necessary is to return to this beginning by moving BY WAY OF (fahren) the danger (gefahr) of what is unthought in it. In exactly this sense one might say the ontological difference is the future into which the seynsfrage moves.
2.) Secondly on a closely related note (after all "Die Kehre" was a lecture given right after "Die Gefahr",) I think it is also important to realize that when Maly says "Thinking must pass through the ontological difference, so that the necessity of asking the grounding question of be-ing can be manifest", I think it is important among other things to realize that this is a good introductory account directed toward thinking through the famous Kehre of Heidegger. For anyone with even a preliminary understanding of the trajectory of Being and Time, most accounts of the turning offered by scholarship are woefully inadequate, especially those accounts --which have been refuted directly by Heidegger himself --that suggest Heidegger's Kehre is a "shift in perspective" from human being to Being, or even worse from the anthropological to the anti-anthropological. Overagainst this, Maly's statement offers us an opportunity to consider the turning as movement from the ontological difference into that which, being forgotten in the ontological difference, EVENTUALLY withdraws from the ontological difference, EVENTUALLY differentiating itself as Seyn.
1.) When Maly warns: "The danger in this way of thinking is that it thinks being as the being of a being from out of and unto a being", it is important to realize that the immediate iinstinct and temptation to sheer this danger off from thinking and dispose of it, tossing it, as it were, into the receptacle of the past, is a temptation into thoughtlessness. The danger is not one which can in this way be avoided. It is rather a danger which thinking must be accompanied by each step along the way of its denkweg. In fact thinking must MOVE THROUGH the danger --and this means that it must move BY WAY OF the danger. Ultimately the danger that resides in the ontological difference (which, in keeping with my comment on the last posting, might be appropriately termed the UNTHOUGHT DANGER) is the danger that Heidegger named in the title of his famous lecture "Die Gefahr"; and therefore Holderin's words from the end of that lecture are just as pertinent to this danger of the ontological difference: "Where the danger is, there thrives the saving power". Thus the endangered beginning of the thinking of the ontological difference, namely its ontic point of departure, is dangerous precisely in so far as it is a beginning which has already withdrawn from thought and is thus forgotten right away. What is necessary is to return to this beginning by moving BY WAY OF (fahren) the danger (gefahr) of what is unthought in it. In exactly this sense one might say the ontological difference is the future into which the seynsfrage moves.
2.) Secondly on a closely related note (after all "Die Kehre" was a lecture given right after "Die Gefahr",) I think it is also important to realize that when Maly says "Thinking must pass through the ontological difference, so that the necessity of asking the grounding question of be-ing can be manifest", I think it is important among other things to realize that this is a good introductory account directed toward thinking through the famous Kehre of Heidegger. For anyone with even a preliminary understanding of the trajectory of Being and Time, most accounts of the turning offered by scholarship are woefully inadequate, especially those accounts --which have been refuted directly by Heidegger himself --that suggest Heidegger's Kehre is a "shift in perspective" from human being to Being, or even worse from the anthropological to the anti-anthropological. Overagainst this, Maly's statement offers us an opportunity to consider the turning as movement from the ontological difference into that which, being forgotten in the ontological difference, EVENTUALLY withdraws from the ontological difference, EVENTUALLY differentiating itself as Seyn.
Yes, it's Maly.
I'm considering coming up with a header for all multi-post excerpts to make them easier to identify and navigate. I'd like to add a couple more posts from this chapter of Kenn's book. But I'm a slow typist, and have a deadline at work.
1.) I wonder about this necessity to pass through the ontological difference to think Beyng. If in a hundred years students are simply taught Beyng - much as today students study science without thinking Aristotle or Newton, merely as assertions of fact - wouldn't the ontological difference be just a matter for specialists? Much like the three ecstases of original temporality in B&T Div. II are no longer as critical as they were a couple decades ago.
2.) I'm actually partial to "shift in perspective", albeit not from anthropos to Beyng. My current spin on Die Kehre is that it was unfortunately translated as "reversal" early on, instead of as a turning. So, the executive summary of later Heidegger comes across as a retreat from B&T, instead of the new perspective (into the abyss (abgrund), for one) that it grants.
I'm considering coming up with a header for all multi-post excerpts to make them easier to identify and navigate. I'd like to add a couple more posts from this chapter of Kenn's book. But I'm a slow typist, and have a deadline at work.
1.) I wonder about this necessity to pass through the ontological difference to think Beyng. If in a hundred years students are simply taught Beyng - much as today students study science without thinking Aristotle or Newton, merely as assertions of fact - wouldn't the ontological difference be just a matter for specialists? Much like the three ecstases of original temporality in B&T Div. II are no longer as critical as they were a couple decades ago.
2.) I'm actually partial to "shift in perspective", albeit not from anthropos to Beyng. My current spin on Die Kehre is that it was unfortunately translated as "reversal" early on, instead of as a turning. So, the executive summary of later Heidegger comes across as a retreat from B&T, instead of the new perspective (into the abyss (abgrund), for one) that it grants.
Headers would be nice - especially for those of us who read via rss feeders. Especially on an iPhone.
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