Philosophical Fragments (after Friedrich Schlegel)

_________
May 2000
 
Reflections on Heidegger's Beitraige zur Philosophie (vom Ereignis)

1. The difficulty of first words:  How to begin a text which the writer means to be read as sacred?  Heidegger begins by first identifying "Contributions to Philosophy" as the "Public Title," which by virtue of its bland ordinariness says nothing, and so makes possible the appearance of the text in public.  But by announcing the public appearance of his text as "Contributions to Philosophy," Heidegger simultaneously begins his attempt to say what has not yet been said by grounding it in the nothing of the ordinary public discourse of philosophy.The "public title" does, however, correspond to the "Sache," the matter of the text, which is an attempt to cross over from metaphysics to be-ing-historical-thinking.  Heidegger then identifies "vom Ereignis" as the "Proper Title," which serves to formally indicate the "Versuch" to follow.  This attempt, though of course not yet achieved, and perhaps not to be achieved, is nonetheless claimed to be already underway in this text.  Thus is indicated the meaning of the text to be read as sacred.

2. Heidegger's Beitraege can be read as an "Idea" as defined by Schlegel: " Ideas are infinite, autonomous, continuously moving in themselves, divine thoughts (I, 10)."  So Heidegger, romantic philosopher, finds an outlet for his supreme narcissism as ultimate spirituality.  Not unlike Emerson and Nietzsche:
                    When he confronts God directly, he becomes
                    the original of which God is the copy, loved
                    because only in Him can Emerson see and know 
                    himself (Ellison, Emerson's Romantic Style, 55)

3. So much for the writer. Heidegger then moves to more positively position his readers in their relation to the text.  He names them  "The Few and the Rare."  These are the "genuine believers" who "question-- alone, and without the help of any enchantment."  Heidegger here offers the reader the opportunity to join the new beginning by reading these words as founding a tradition--a tradition which writer and reader constitute as the newly formed "We" of be-ing-historical -thinking:
        The "We" of shared belongingness to Being through the writing-reading-thinking of these words.

4. But what of the most delicate and fragile element of this "We," even now being constituted as we read and write, namely: mood?  Thinking towards understanding requires that reader and writer already share a mood. The words can only be a thinking-with in the direction of a common sense of things if they evoke --are evoked from--a similar mood.  But the mood itself can only be shared through the medium of a given word.  The word Heideggger gives to ground the shared attunement of the "We" of thinking-with here is "das Erschrecken(startled dismay)," which he qualifies by saying that whatever it names "can only be named in a distant way."  "Das Erschrecken" is offered merely as an indication of a suggested direction for a mood in which to think what follows.  Heidegger links the mood suggested here to the mood of the first beginning: das Erstaunen (astonishment).  In the time-space between the two, between the first beginning and the new beginning, the reader is left to consider the possibility that he is estranged from the very ground which he has always felt grounded his thinking.  The new beginning can only be thought once the withdrawal of the first beginning has been felt as abandonment.

5.  Heidegger's gift is a newly invigorated set of practices to which one may belong, and thus join the "We" of shared movement within the sheltering of tradition.
__________
March, 2000

1. Fitz's redemption:  He's 82,  son recently died. Yet he comes to talk philosophy with me, without a trace of ressentiment,making the time that passes between us in our talk  an absorbing,  reviving present.  Better than the  eternity offered by religion. Philosophy can find find permamence in its seeing and saying.  An endless dwelling in Mitsein. More alive.  More fun!

2. But " understanding always has a mood( Heidegger)."  That means that with a very serious passing away of a mood, a particular way of understanding, even a well-worn path of philosophizing or art-making, may be lost.  Even if "one's" being-toward-death is firmly in place, one's loss of sensibility in the deep pain of a difficult dying can throw everything off. Some of us might be lucky all the way through.  Some of us are not.

3.  Meaning is only for the moment. Nothing of what we have, or make, or think lasts through to the end.  When the end comes, we might be left with nothing: Nothing to say. Nothing to think.  Just to die.

4. " And muttered underneath his breath: ' Nothing is revelaed(Dylan).' "  When I dream, the dream reveals nothing beyond the fragmented co-incidences it gathers up from my life as it happens, day by day.

5. But how strangely exhilerating it is to dream a set shot with such force that I find myself jolted out from my sleep as my arms push the shot upwards towards the ceiling over my bed. Perhaps the mind has a life of its own.

__________
1999

1.  Understanding first announces itself as a tautology, as in Heidegger's assertion " Time is temporal." Such a tautology is a formal indication of meaning which develops out of it

2.  In order to communicate its meaning, the formal indication must be heard as Torah, as a "teaching, " to be interpreted as a "perfect text" (Iamblichus) that is spoken in the only words possible.

3. A perfect text reflects the coming-into-being of the world as it is given to a particular dasein to think, speak, and understand.  Such a text is made by and for "the inspired thinker."

4.  Authentic historicity is a way of reading one's own thinking into a perfect text to which one belongs: Iamblichus reading Plato.  Heidegger reading Aristotle.  Gadamer reading Heidegger.

5. What a glorious thing it is to teach! To regenerate such relationships in a seminar room and so inscribe a place to dwell amongst the discourses of philosophy.

6. Teaching is the conceit which drives philosophy. The proper introduction of students into the practice of philosophy constitutes the necessary "for whom" of philosophical discourse, especially its passion.  Notice,especially,  Heidegger's passionate insistence in the lecture courses of the early twenties that the students get Aristotle "right," that they take their stand towards Aristotle in the appropriate "attitude" (Hingabe).  Heidegger is really speaking to and for Philosophy here with a passionate commitment to transmit it faithfully to its children:  " She's come to take her children home." (Grateful Dead)

7.  As the teacher orients the student to the Texts for Thinking, he likewise (likeways) orients himself.  The formale Anzeige as a teaching is itself an embodied orienting toward, experienced by the teacher and the students in its very saying as a showing of the Sache being taught.  Often I think that the orientation itself is the Sache—  a thinking body orienting itself toward. . ., ready to wait.  While one waits, one must act.  So one teaches and learns.

                                                Talmud Torah K'Neged Kulam

8. Nietzsche's Zarathustra insists on performing the deepest paradoxes which inhabit the soul of the teacher:  He is a "convalescent," weakened by the persistent ache of homesickness, not able to clearly see the way back. He needs his children to be the "for whom" he raises his voice to teach the Uebermensch, so he himself may hear in it an indication of the way.  He follows even as he leads.  Without the children to teach there would just be the ache, the loneliness.  But as he raises his voice, he finds himself on the verge of laughter, giving his children a respite from the ache they share, and himself a momentary hope of redemption.  But then, of course, the class ends, the moment passes, the mood changes and it's time to move on:

That's the way time passes,
That's the way the pan flashes,
That's the the way the gravy stains,
That's the way the moon wanes.( Tom Waits)

_________________
 1998
 
 1. . Philosophy in knots:   The task of philosophy is not to confirm what we already know.  We think in order to not figure it out. Wittgenstein called this "practice in dying."

On Madeline Island, Summer 1998:

 2  Looking out through the trees and ferns seeing nothing but lake and sky, hearing nothing but wind and surf:

What is one to do in such a glorious place:

Have a look around.

Paint it.

Think it.

Write it.

Simply note it.

Finally sing it.

3.  Looking more directly at the seemingly time-bound movement of surf against rock giving me boundless, yet time-bound bound pleasure:

What is left to me at such a moment?

Two things:

To be here;

To come back.

Repetition!

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