In-der-Blog-sein

Larval Subjects on Heidegger, the philosopher of Bavarian peasantry.

There was a time in my life in which I was all Heidegger all the time. Indeed, I chose Loyola for grad school so that I might study with Thomas Sheehan (and Andrew Cutrofello). I suppose I reached a point where I felt as if I was ever to think anything of my own– and don’t get me wrong, I doubt I’ve yet to think anything of my own! –I had to get free of that obsession. There’s a strange way in which you can end up drowning in Heidegger, never to escape. As for the subsequent reasons, I absolutely detest all his talk of “woodland paths”, Volk, pious thinking, and so on. In my view, philosophy is a uniquely urban phenomenon, a form of thought that arises in response to the encounters with difference that take place in the city as a result of the absence of shared custom and tradition people can appeal to in interacting with one another. The idea of a “rural philosophy” is an oxymoron (and politically dangerous or, at least, reactionary). Then there’s all that talk of “western metaphysics”, “sendings of being”, the “destining of being”, and his suggestions that maths and science don’t think. What’s up with that?

Read it for the analysis of blindness. Only Tiresias sees.  ¶ 5:55 PM