enowning
Friday, January 07, 2011
 
Nancy J. Holland continues on what is appropriate ethically.
What this means in relation to the ethical use of the concept of the appropriate is that just as our unthematized understanding of how the hammer works is invisible in our ready-to-hand use of it, and just as the truth that underlies our understanding of Being becomes invisible, is hidden as aletheia, so our normal sense of appropriate action is invisible in our everyday acts of moral judgment. On this account, our sense of what is appropriate would become visible or explicit only when our ready-to-hand use of it, its hiddenness, is blocked in some way that makes morality “unready-to-hand,” or problematic. If traditional approaches to unblocking the process fail, the underlying “rule” of appropriate action may become “present-to-hand” as an object of thematic consciousness that we can choose to accept or to reevaluate, but in full knowledge that there can be no grounding for such reevaluation is any transcendental, “objective” reality. We become “authentic” for Heidegger in our choice of action under this condition of indeterminacy, in our conscious appropriation (or rejection) of what we previously accepted uncritically in our immersion in the everyday. On this view, one of the “objects” given shape and meaning in the Open created by the Greek temple, along with “trees and grass, eagle and bull, snake and cricket,” would be the moral structure of the world the temple created, a moral structure we can see being made explicit, and evolving, in the work of the classic Greek tragedians.

This last result is similar to the transformation of ready-to-hand tools such as the lever and the inclined plane into unready-to-hand objects of large-scale engineering problems eventually resolved into present-to-hand formal mathematical and physical principles. In the same way, the explicit thematization of traditional moral values when unusual problems arise places them in relationship to each other and thus always potentially makes obvious the inconsistencies, the contradictions, among them. This critical function is central to my use of the concept of the appropriate. The lesson in The Madwoman of Chaillot, however—and Heidegger’s lesson in his work on technology—is that these two critical processes are similar, but not identical. The thoughtful, reflective comparison of the values implicit in our sense of the appropriate, like the thoughtful, reflective understanding of literature or the thoughtful, reflective understanding of the meaning of Being, is an art, not a science. Instrumental rationality has its (cultural, historical) limits, the limits of the law personified by the Ragpicker/President. Just as Heidegger’s recasting of metaphysics reveals the limits of science and any epistemology of the “merely” present-to-hand on which it may be based, so calling on the concept of the appropriate reveals analogous limits in the moral realm and brings forward the need for authenticity, the need to supplement the law with a deeper sense of human value.

Pp. 8-9
 
Comments:
This attempt to relate different aspects of MH's work from different times is a worthy effort. But I come away wondering if the author submitted it for any sort of critique from acknowledged MH scholars.

I could well be wrong because the issue was not addressed in any of the supervised study I did. But her usage of "appropriation" and "the sense of the appropriate" seem to me to blur very distinctive connotations of the word. I find no evidence for a moral use of "appropriation" in MH--especially since "Ereignis" offers a list of English synonyms.

However, I am willing to be instructed. At issue is how much attention to pay to this particular interpretation.
 
PS. To summarize, the event of appropriation need not be an appropriate event. It might be, but it need not be. It can be an inappropriate event just as well.

The event of appropriation is a different way of saying, "reality." Why say it differently? So that the mutual implication of human will to power that is exercised and the determined contribution of beyng are both acknowledged (the latter likewise an act of will to power? maybe, if "act" and "will" can be non-anthropological, leaving power as a common feature).
 
"One can look up every occurrence of Event-of-appropriation (Er-eignis), which should not to be confused with Appropriating-event (Er-eignung)." --enowning, comment 10-25-2004 re: On the Essence of Language.

The distinction? Noun/verb?
 
Ereignis, as reality, which is always already going on, is always there. Holland is making an ethical move, beyond the appropriative event, to the concept of the appropriate. Made me watch the Hepburn Boyer Chaillot.

Emad says:
ereignis -> enowning
ereignung -> enownment

if that's any help.
 
And then there's this:

"The propriation (Ereignung) of appropriation is the assigning (Zueignung) of Being to being-there and the surrender (Übereignung) of being-there to Being."
 
"The propriation (Ereignung) of appropriation is the assigning (Zueignung) of Being to being-there and the surrender (Übereignung) of being-there to Being."

On first reading, I had to laugh. But the distinction between "assigning" and "surrender" is clear. Thanks.
 
Just as Heidegger’s recasting of metaphysics reveals the limits of science and any epistemology of the “merely” present-to-hand on which it may be based, so calling on the concept of the appropriate reveals analogous limits in the moral realm and brings forward the need for authenticity, the need to supplement the law with a deeper sense of human value.

This is the sort of ontological claim which sounds rather plausible, yet....on inspection many may have trouble accepting.

SZ may reveal, as say Kant attempted to, the givens of science-- But it's ...guru-talk to say Heidegger proved beyond a reasonable doubt the limits of science, IMHE. Besides, SZ is not QCT. Perhaps we are better off seeing ...QCT as part of a whole, of a..philosophical critique of the assumptions of western science, and Techne . Hegel himself was not fond of British empiricism.

Similarly for the "jargon of authenticity." There may have been something to that jargon, psychologically speaking. But...not the final word
 
That's a weak claim from Holland, that H "reveals the limits", rather than "proves" them. But it fits with the rest of H's project to stick to what can be said about how things show up, rather than demonstrating their correctness.
 
Yes that seems to describe much contintental philosophy (theory, psychoanalysis, what have you). How things show up, or seem, at least to...continentalists.

In some ways, the...qualitative if not postmodernist/anti-rationalist tactics may be warranted. Yet...at times, the PoMo tactics backfire, as the Sokal hoax revealed. Proof or shall we say evidentialism is not inherently oppressive, IMHE. Perhaps democratic, and capable of...being misused, or resulting in reductionist/positivistic thinking at times--yet, let's not forget what the german anti-rationalists such as Hegel,Marx, Nietzsche, and Heidegger produced.

Politically speaking, in our post-maoist reality, Im not so sure the anti-rationalist agenda has much legitimacy--see Zizek's rather shallow critiques of Rawls for an example. Much as one wants to sympathizes with the romantic leftist--at least against global capital-- Zizek doesn't really defeat the Rawlsian programme. He merely points out a fairly trivial point re envy, which Rawls had indeed granted. Or something (Ive scrawled more on SZ vs JR, which may be read as of...symptomatic of much pomo-zing. Besides, Zizekian-bolsheviks no longer rule the leftist roost, except perhaps in Paris or Boston or something. It's...Hugo Chavezs, and janitor-maoists )
 
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