mcdonald928 (2004-05-30 16:02:55): Although Spinoza is the philosopher of substance par excellence (a notion which, in it's contemporary scientistic sense is one of Heidegger's targets for destructuring), he and Heidegger seem to share a great affinity (along with Parminides) in their radical emphasis on (constant re-turning to) Being as prior to the thought of beings in particular and the thought of not being. For both of them, body and mind are better understood as embodiment. Where they diverge is in the question of metaphysics.
For Spinoza is a perfectly unabashed thinker of 'first things' and their reason for being (what he calls "adequate ideas" are not representations, but are the unique expressions of the things themselves), indeed this is what he felt was called for in his own time. For Spinoza it is obvious that the disciplined practice of reasoning leads inevitably to the conclusion that the natural universe (the idea of 'being as a whole') finds it's cause 'in and of itself'. And man's only 'freedom' is therefore to overcome his particular natural limits by understanding their necessity within the scheme of differentiating itself (being 'thrown' indifferently by it's own necessity - indeed it should be said that even God is 'thrown' into His Being Necessitated for Spinoza). Now one could point out, as Deleuze does, that Spinoza - because he writes before Heidegger - fails to address the ontological difference and privileges what seems to be a particular formulation of Being. Spinoza speaks of the one substance which underlies the infinity of attributes (different modes of being) making up the natural universe as itself an individual being. But in fact, he does warn of a 'problem' with the thinking of "God or Nature" as 'one thing' - he says numbers are a thing of mankind's reason and not inherent to the thing itself.. but this begs the question. And a question may arise here of whether Heidegger shared a certain way of thinking with Kant and Hegel (philsophers of the subject and negativity) against Spinoza, though he strove to express this way of thinking differently than they.
Doesn't it seem the case then that Heidegger ultimately is himself a systematic metaphysician (if a private one), a thinker of the being which is cause of itself, though one who engages this practice from the late-modern standpoint of the last man, the individual who has lost the capacity to see beyond his limited, particular individualtiy, beyond his own being toward death. From this standpoint Heidegger rages at the negativity, the mere re-semblances of thinking in his age which is so far lost from the power and the glory which is that union of (first) primordial apprehension with pure, solitary reasoning (freed from 'they') which finds it's truth in allowing it's own particularity to die away to disclose Being in and of itself. In this description, it is the specific social constraints formed by the conditions of twentieth century industrial life against which Heidegger must form his philosophy as a philosophy of suggestion. Indeed, the darkening world of modern mob rule has necessitated philosophy to 'respect' it's limited region as one of a suggestive art.
In the end, could we say that Heidegger's mission is to force each thinker who encounters him to 'make the discovery' of 'the ontological argument' out of himself?
Edu (2004-06-19 09:01:45): I would say that it's quite daring to talk about the cause of Being in Heidegger (whether it being itself or otherwise), when he says time and again that the fundament of Being is precisely its (the fundament's) disclosing itself as unknown. His standpoint, wich you seem to dismiss as a mere consequence of the times, is more than a simple "limiting myself to my own experience" kind of thing: it's rather the position in wich Dasein finds itself when first coming upon the Question.
Now, "philosophy of suggestion"is a term that might well be used here if it means that Heidegger's philosophy points out, ultimately, to the unknown, to the overwhelming, but isn't it obvious then (if we understand what "overwhelming", deinon, means in Hei.) that this is the very definition of a true philosopher? That who directs his gaze towards the unknown? How could this be temporary, when it is nothing more than the awareness of temporality?
paul kobisch (2004-06-21 01:21:16):
quote:
Originally posted by mcdonald928:
Although Spinoza is the philosopher of substance par excellence (a notion which, in it's contemporary scientistic sense is one of Heidegger's targets for destructuring), he and Heidegger seem to share a great affinity (along with Parminides) in their radical emphasis on (constant re-turning to) Being as prior to the thought of beings in particular and the thought of not being. For both of them, body and mind are better understood as embodiment. Where they diverge is in the question of metaphysics.
For Spinoza is a perfectly unabashed thinker of 'first things' and their reason for being (what he calls "adequate ideas" are not representations, but are the unique expressions of the things themselves), indeed this is what he felt was called for in his own time. For Spinoza it is obvious that the disciplined practice of reasoning leads inevitably to the conclusion that the natural universe (the idea of 'being as a whole') finds it's cause 'in and of itself'. And man's only 'freedom' is therefore to overcome his particular natural limits by understanding their necessity within the scheme of differentiating itself (being 'thrown' indifferently by it's own necessity - indeed it should be said that even God is 'thrown' into His Being Necessitated for Spinoza). Now one could point out, as Deleuze does, that Spinoza - because he writes before Heidegger - fails to address the ontological difference and privileges what seems to be a particular formulation of Being. Spinoza speaks of the one substance which underlies the infinity of attributes (different modes of being) making up the natural universe as itself an individual being. But in fact, he does warn of a 'problem' with the thinking of "God or Nature" as 'one thing' - he says numbers are a thing of mankind's reason and not inherent to the thing itself.. but this begs the question. And a question may arise here of whether Heidegger shared a certain way of thinking with Kant and Hegel (philsophers of the subject and negativity) against Spinoza, though he strove to express this way of thinking differently than they.
Doesn't it seem the case then that Heidegger ultimately is himself a systematic metaphysician (if a private one), a thinker of the being which is cause of itself, though one who engages this practice from the late-modern standpoint of the last man, the individual who has lost the capacity to see beyond his limited, particular individualtiy, beyond his own being toward death. From this standpoint Heidegger rages at the negativity, the mere re-semblances of thinking in his age which is so far lost from the power and the glory which is that union of (first) primordial apprehension with pure, solitary reasoning (freed from 'they') which finds it's truth in allowing it's own particularity to die away to disclose Being in and of itself. In this description, it is the specific social constraints formed by the conditions of twentieth century industrial life against which Heidegger must form his philosophy as a philosophy of suggestion. Indeed, the darkening world of modern mob rule has necessitated philosophy to 'respect' it's limited region as one of a suggestive art.
In the end, could we say that Heidegger's mission is to force each thinker who encounters him to 'make the discovery' of 'the ontological argument' out of himself?